AN: Been raiding the back catalogue as I try and clear some room on my computer so it works faster, and found this. It was written 6 years ago, before the final Harry Potter book was published, and I was in a rather dark place then. This story is tragic, so if you like happy endings don't read it...maybe read Cinderbella (Which is Twilight, but has a Happy ever after).
The war ended three years ago. Not much changed. I don't think anyone truly thought it would. Of course, I don't mean nothing changed. It's only natural for some things to change after what the world has been through. But it wasn't WHAM and suddenly everything was right and good. That will never happen. Humanity isn't good. There's no such thing as peace, only fear.
Life was good for the first year. People smiled again, people forgot the pain of the past. Businesses flourished. The world was happy. I think I might of even learnt how to be human again if it had lasted. But every good thing must come to a end. Exactly a year after the war ended a new minister took power, and with him reality struck. Over night the dystopia, which is life was upon humanity. Smothering the life from it. The era of disillusionment began. It became illegal to pull practical jokes, to cause mischief in the name of fun, and to drink. A curfew was enforced on everyone under 21. Life began to change for the worse. I watched as businesses closed down, innocent people were arrested just because they were having fun, and misery took over. Only us sceptical watchers remained unaffected. I saw this coming the moment the war ended. Life isn't happy. It will never be a happy thing.
~X~X~X~
I guess I should tell you about me.
My life was ideal for many years. I was innocent of life's horrors. I was the youngest child, in a large family, and only girl. My mother and father were rich and kind. They loved us, and would chose spending time with us over everything. I knew how to smile then.
On the 24th September 1991, 3 days before my tenth birthday, my world came crashing down. I learnt the truth about life. These men wearing black cloaks came bursting into our home. Into my perfect life.
Mother was so scared. She carried me to the parlour, locking me into the small china cabinet. The last words she said to me was "Stay silent, it'll be alright". In the background I could hear my brothers and father shouting, and crying out in pain. Mother didn't even make it out of the room. Through the slats in the cabinet, I watched three of the black-cloaked men burst into the parlour. The looks on their faces made me want to scream. But I was a bright girl. I knew to listen to my mum. She shouted at them. I never heard what she said; I could just see the strength in her eyes, as she stood determinedly, protecting me, unbeknown to the strange men.
If there's one thing I remember from that night, it was the courage and bravery my family showed as they died. They never ran. Me, I just sat, locked in the china cabinet, watching my mother die. I sat silently, vowing my revenge on reality. On the part of life which jumped up and stabbed me in the back. Which punished me for enjoying life. I will never make that mistake again.
That day, I died. I saw the most basic instincts of humanity, and killed every inch of humanity within me. Now I'm a shell. Not human, but not yet dead.
Three days after the attack, my birthday, the bodies of the only people I had ever loved, were found. I wasn't. They didn't even question my absence. Not once. I was just another statistic. It's always easier to forget a number.
August 19th, 1992. The day I was found. Some teacher. I got a place at the school, and a permanent home until I graduated.
The years passed quickly. The school was where I perfected the art of watching. I was always in the background, unnoticed. I graduated without anyone knowing my name, even the teachers didn't know me.
A Shadow.
I watched the war being fought. Noticing several people from that fateful night in 1992. I got my revenge on them. No one knew what had killed them, that I had been avenged. But I knew.
I was 20 when the war ended. 2002. Drifting through the shadows, watching everything. Unknown and unseen. That was when they took my interest. They had been in my year and house at school, but for the first time I noticed them.
In 2003, they lost their business. I watched as everything they loved and had worked for was taken from them. The only thing they had left was their family, but I still saw it break. They tried to hide it. Hide that their souls had broken. That they had given up. But I could see it. For the first time, I saw someone with the same expression as I always wore. Someone whose eyes showed their understanding of life. It was nice.
On the 29th April 2004, I finally met them, and they noticed me. They understood me. No one ever understood me. They did. My first friends. It was also the first day they wore black. I mean total, depressive black. Not just a black t-shirt, or black trousers, like are so popular. We very quickly became close friends, and spent a lot of our lives together. Their family was just glad that they seemed to be cheering up, even if they were now in gothic black constantly. They thought it was good that they had a friend. Little did they know, I had other plans. I'm not a cheery person, I'm not human. Not anymore.
That brings us to today. July 17th, 2005. The day this meaningless existence ends for the three of us. The day the world realizes just how evil life is. For the first time in 13 years, I feel like I could smile. Maybe I will in the end.
It was her eyes I first noticed. I knew those eyes. They matched the ones I saw in the mirror every morning. Her soul was dead. We could both see it. We both knew that it was true, because it was the same for us. If it hadn't been for her eyes, I wouldn't have even noticed her sat in the pub, that fateful day. But once I had noticed her, I couldn't work out why I hadn't been instantly drawn to her. She's an amazingly beautiful girl. Unlike any who had been in my year at school. But now I think about it, I think she was in my year. It's odd how she doesn't register in most peoples sight. Like I said before, she is amazingly beautiful. I think that might be the reason she managed to persuade us so easily. Then again, it might be because there is no point in continuing. Might as well leave with a bang. It is our style after all.
Well I guess I better tell you our story.
Good childhood. Good schooling, although we did cause a lot of trouble. It was all in good humour though. Then when we graduated we put our plans on hold for a few years to help fight the war. We watched friends and loved ones suffer and in a few cases die. You come immune to all the suffering when its all you see. That's probably when we learnt how to lock our emotions away on cue. I think we would of gone mad if we hadn't. After the war it was like heaven. Everyone was so happy. Although I still found myself waking at about 2am each morning, shaking from a nightmare of images I had witnessed during the war, it was still heaven. We opened our shop, and for the first year, business was booming. Everyone wanted a laugh after what we had been through. But then, a year after the end of the war, the power structure changed again. I can't believe things went so wrong. Before we knew it, we no longer had our business. Just one dictator had dashed all our hopes and dreams. Our family tried to help us through it, but none of them knew the pain of losing such a big part of yourself. It was illegal to play tricks, to basically have some fun and laugh. Something broke in us the day we couldn't be ourselves. Something that you can't live without, yet we never died. In my mind, they banned laughter. That day the world lost its smiles.
From that day we spent most of our time in the pub drinking ourselves stupid with what was left of our profits, or lazing around the family home, listening to mum tell us how it isn't the end of the world. She had never understood us.
The day we met her was like any other. We had arrived a little before lunch, in the hope to be unconscious before the main lunch crowd arrived. We had sat at our usual table, and like always I could feel a pair of eyes on us. But for the first time I didn't put it down to the bartender, or a nosy patron. I instead decided to look and meet the watchers gaze full on. That was when I saw those eyes. Deep blue and empty. She was empty on the inside. Completely dead. She shared our pain and we could see it. Her golden blonde hair, fell, framing her delicate face, helping to emphasis the paleness of her skin and deepness, hollowness of those eyes.
That day, for the first time in almost a year, we didn't get drunk. Instead, the bewitching girl kept us company. We talked about anything and everything. She understood so much. After our first meeting with her, we had to wear black. It was the only colour fitting for the joke which is life. I had never seen reality so clearly until she explained it. We had been taking life for granted. Happy in the false security it had given us, if we'd been cleverer we would of realized the pitfall before it hit. But nothing had ever drawn our attention to the truth before. We returned home that night sober, thinking about what we had learnt. I think that's why the family were so quick to approve of her. Anyone who could stop us drinking must be good. Little do they know the plans.
Well, from that day, we returned to the pub everyday, sticking to the same schedule we had since the shop closed. She was always there. In the same spot. Watching and waiting. Her expression always the same. She never moved to us, we always had to move and sit with her. It was her table. Everyone seemed to know that, even if everyone's sight just skimmed over her, like she was a piece of the furniture. No one sat near her. It was the quietist corner of the pub, so of course the only place to find her. She rarely ate or drank, and as the months passed we became the same. Instead we tended to sit in silence, watching and learning. After our first talk, we never held a long conversation again. She sometimes told us her plans, her knowledge of how to end this era of pain. Sometimes we'd tell her about the family, or how we were sick of this joke they called existence. I think that's how she came up with the final plan. Although, she might have had it all along, you can never tell with her.
So today's the day. The day that will end it all. I thought I might be afraid of what I must do, but now its arrived I'm certain I'm doing the right thing. We both are. She's right. She's always right. I know m parents and family will be upset, but they'll understand in the end. I know people say what we're doing is a sin, but God will understand. I have faith that he will know that we're doing the only thing left for us. He'll understand, even if no one else does. I wonder if mum will be angry. She says mum will understand. She says mum will be sad, but proud that we at least tried to help the world with our actions. I hope she's right.
The hours are counting down slowly. I think the boys are scared. From what they've said, I think they are more afraid of how their mother will take it than actually doing the act. I wish I knew what its like to fear your parents. Mine are sitting at the gates of heaven waiting for this evening. Once I finally rejoin them. Us three are the lucky ones. We control our time of death. We know when we will meet our maker, and we intend to show just how evil this society is on the way. Hopefully humanity will heed our call and sort this autocracy out. If this world continues it will only lead to the birth of another me. I can't let that happen. I will happily be the unknown body any day, if it means preventing the mistakes of the past being carried out again.
When I met them this morning, the sun was shining. Feels weird. Like the world finally supports us. Is finally there for me. I don't know what it is about this, but I feel relieved. It's not like I asked for life's permission to do what I shall do, but it feels better now life agrees.
We're sat beside the bank at the moment. Watching the world go by. People are so oblivious to some things. I think I could walk down the street with a severed head and no one would bat an eyelid. But then again, no one ever notices me, I'm a shadow of a un-dead creature. But they will notice me. In an hour's time, the world will finally see me, and they will take notice. An hour. That's all we have left. My plan will take shape perfectly; I've done to much planning for it not to work. Even these two have faith in it. If we're going to end it, then we're going to end it in the most noticeable way. A way that humanity will see, and find fault in those who helped us reach it. We will be heroes in our deaths.
Her eyes seem more alive now. I can see her counting down the minutes on the big clock, as we wait for our death to arrive. We have set everything up ready, now all that's left is to wait. Sat here, for the first time I watch humanity. All through my childhood, I never took the time to step back and just watch. It's amazing how much you can learn by just watching from the background. I now understand how she knows so much. I've been watching everyone around me for just over a hour, and I now can see how obvious it is to see the difference between good and bad, innocent people and liars. It makes me sick to see how bad the majority of humanity is. Ok, they might not be followers of Voldermort, but so many rely on lies to live. Fool the people they love the most. Its disgusting.
We have ten minutes until the end, and I couldn't come quick enough. She says this will help show humanity how wrong the currant era is, and help push them towards a new beginning. But a part of me believes humanity deserves this period of hardship, it has no right to be happy. She disagrees. I wonder what happened to her to make her so dead inside, yet still allow her to keep her belief that humanity doesn't deserve pain. From what we've found out, it sounds worse than what happened to us, yet she's the one who hasn't lost all her humanity. No matter what she says, she will never be totally dead on the inside. If she was dead on the inside, she wouldn't care about what happens to the world. She wouldn't take so much interest in everything around her. But maybe she's just hurt and doesn't want life to hurt her again, so is hiding behind a mask of being dead. Only she knows.
Ten minutes. Ten minutes, till everything will change. I once read a book about a boy who never grew up, and there's a line in it which I think would fit my chosen fate perfectly. "To die would be a awfully big adventure". My life on this plain is over, there's no more adventure in this autocracy. The only thing left is to find another adventure somewhere else. Deaths the only option.
They're coming. Right on schedule. I think the boys are surprised that I know so much about the movements of these individuals. But they were never with me in those weeks I watched, making up this plan. I think that they believe I thought of it on the spot when they told me about no longer wanting to live. They were wrong. We have to move quickly when it begins. The world has to be able to see our sacrifice, see how wrong this way of life is. They must see why they need to fight for freedom once more. I can feel the boys stiffen next to me, alert and knowing what is about to happen. I won't blame them if they duck out. This is my plan. I was the only one it was meant to take down. As long as they fight for freedom in the end, I don't mind. They have their lives to live, unlike me.
They won't leave. They have already set their minds to what is before them, and they are ready. I can't even see any fear in their eyes. I underestimated them, I thought they would at least fear death a little. Its cruel to steal them from their family like this, after all the trust they put in me, but in the end its their own decision, and I did give them a chance to back out without being cowards. I respect their choice. They know there's no turning back now, yet they do not fear. It's now. The end is upon us. Goodbye!
On the 17th July, 2005, a tragedy occurred on the steps of Gringott's bank. Three, young, intelligent, adults were killed by ministry officials. It is not yet clear why this occurred, but eye witnesses claim it was a unprovoked attack.
Fred Weasley, George Weasley, and Aurora Noir were all 23. It appears the three had been friends during school, when they were all Gryffindors, and became closer when the 'Anti-practical joke' law was passed, causing the two Weasley boys to lose their shop, Weasley Wizard Wheezes. Friends and relatives claim that their friendship with each other helped them through the dark period, and helped them to once again be responsible members of the community. Although very little is known of Miss Noir, many will sorely miss her. These three are heroes. Although they died a senseless death, it has helped bring into question the ministry's use of power. Many are now calling for a general election of a new leader, allowing everyone to have a say in who runs society, instead of allowing only the rich, pure blood family's to decide.
A monument shall be built in Diagon Ally, close to where these three fell, as a permanent reminder of these lost youngsters who had so much promise.
"They have helped show society the wrongs existing in the ministry" Dumbledore, these victims old head teacher, "I just hope their death won't have been in vain. There is much we need to learn from what happened". Many others, who had known one or more of this trio, mimicked these words. It is something we need to think about, and this reporter for one must agree. No one deserves to lose their life so suddenly and unexpectedly. Questions must be asked and a change must occur, otherwise, this may not be the last article about such event you will read in the near future. How many of societies youth must be sacrificed before we take notice?
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