Win or Loss?
Hermione knelt, sobbing, over Ron's body as he lay on the battlefield, mortally wounded by the many spells that had been cast his way by the defending Death Eaters as he fought to help Harry in their quest to conquer the Riddle Mansion and find the Horcux that was hidden inside, the portion of the Dark Lord's soul that must be destroyed. The heavens, too, were crying: the rain poured down upon the blood-soaked grass. All was silent – there was only the hissing sound of the rain, the heartbroken sound of Hermione's ragged sobs, and of Ron's final moans of pain.
"Hermione!" He struggled for breath, his face an unnatural violet that was a sharp contrast from his normal, pale complexion and that clashed violently with his fiery hair.
"Did we win?"
-br-
At first glance, they had easily won. The Aurors, assisted by the Order of the Phoenix, had crept up on the Death Eaters in the night and attacked. Though Harry was intent only on the destruction of Voldemort's Horcrux, the allied forces had dealt a startling, unexpected blow to Lord Voldemort's forces as well - the Death Eaters, stumbling blindly in the darkness and groping vaguely for their wands, hadn't had a chance.
Hermione had watched it all, stunned with disbelief as she watched almost the entire force of Death Eaters die at her friends' hands. It made her nauseous to remember the bloodbath that had followed their infiltration of the mansion's dark walls.
Death had been everywhere; it hadn't been a fair fight. Five hundred and thirty-seven Death Eaters of the original five hundred and fifty were killed, and only three on her side had died.
Her side.
When had she chosen sides, she wondered. But she knew that it had never been her choice to make. Her birth had decided her side, just as Harry's birth had decided his. They had both had chances to swap sides, but they had been prejudiced.
Were the Death Eaters really that bad? Would they have snuck up and murdered hundreds as they slept? Yes, they would have. And that was why she hated them.
But were her side any better? If the problem was the killing of innocents, than they really weren't - she had seen with her own eyes the Death Eaters' children dying with their parents. She had seen an Auror creep up on and murder the Death Eater's babies as they slept in order to prevent another generation of vengeful Death Eaters. Innocents had died tonight along with the guilty.
All's fair in love and war. The phrase had a grim meaning now. But did the Death Eaters really deserve this?
They killed Harry's parents. And Harry had killed Draco's parents, as well as Draco.
When she thought about it, she realized that they were just as bad as the Death Eaters. The Death Eaters had killed, and the Order had responded by killing. The Death Eaters had tortured, and the Aurors had responded by torturing. The Death Eaters had wanted power, and the Ministry had taken power.
An Eye for an Eye makes the whole world blind. Nothing could be more true - by stopping murder with murder, they had only created more suffering. The 'an eye an eye' had founded the mess that the world now found itself in - if Tom Riddle hadn't responded to the bullying that he received as a child by bullying others himself then the world would not be the way that it now was, where the only way out of bloodshed was with bloodshed.
The only way? There had to be another way – there always was. If the Ministry had combined forces with Aurors from other countries to capture and imprison all the Death Eaters instead of killing them, then their memories could have been modified – their cruel ways forgotten. Lord Voldemort, made mortal by the destruction of his seven Horcruxes, would have joined their numbers, a harmless old man, all memories forgotten. Even before that, if there had been a place where people could go, a place where no magic could be used, where people were safe, then there would have been fewer Death Eaters, and then so much of this carnage could have been avoided. If the world had united in hopes of peace, then, perhaps, peace could have been reached.
But it was too late - Death Eaters and their families had been murdered as they slept. She had made her choice. Blood had been shed, and there was no going back now.
-br-
"Please, Hermione, tell me the truth," Ron gasped, sweating in his effort to speak as he grabbed her hand in a last desperate gesture of agony. "Did we win?"
Had their side, proclaiming peace and an end to all bloodshed, won today? Hermione shook her head sadly as more tears wound their way softly down her already tear-damp cheeks.
"No, Ronald. We lost."