THE LONELY ONES

the lost

His name is Harry Potter because that's the name they found on the letter that he was clutching when they found him in the morning. He was just one year old at the time, they would tell him, and they'd found him that one morning, sleeping in a basket on the orphanage stoop. Happens all too often, they'd say mournfully.

That was sixteen years ago. Three years ago, when he was fourteen, Harry's foster father kicked him out and he decided he wasn't going back into the system. Three years ago, Harry joined a gang.

Three years ago, Harry started driving the getaway car.

He's got kids now, and a girl he doesn't love but he knocked her up and damn if he's going to let a chance at a family go. He's sure that his job will kill him one of these days, but maybe he'll turn eighteen first, get a legal job, and he won't die and his girl, Friday, won't have to go out whoring again. His son won't grow up fatherless, if Harry can help it.

He knows there's something missing. He knows something isn't right with all of this, but he has no idea what, and he can't fix it. He can only have hope.

the dead

Ron wonders what life with the Weasleys would have been like. Everyone was always saying that his parents had many children-he would've had brothers to brag about in school, brothers whose names would protect him from bullies. Maybe a baby sister, one he could protect himself. One who would be annoying at times, one he'd annoy, one who would maybe possibly eventually fall in love with Ron's best friend.

But Ron lives with Arabella Figg, and he has since he was born. His mother was in her last stage of pregnancy when Death Eaters came calling, killed his one-year-old twin brothers and all the other ones, too, and his parents were last they said, and lucky too. Any longer and they might not have been able to save the baby boy from his dead mother's womb.

Lucky child, they tell him, that the Aurors arrived in time to save him.

He wishes they'd left him to die with his family.

Ron is seventeen now, in his last year at Hogwarts. He hangs out with Neville Longbottom simply because of how awful it is to walk down the halls alone and see all the others in their clusters, laughing and trading homework to copy. If he didn't have Neville, he might be like that Hermione girl, who knows where every book in the library is and has read them all.

Sometimes, Ron wonders what the point is. Why is he even trying anymore? It's hope, he decides, a hope that never quite leaves him. And a feeling, in his stomach, that things are not supposed to go this way. A feeling that something - or a lot of somethings, yes, that sounds right - is missing. And a hope that it can be put right.

the fallen

Hermione Granger lost her parents when she was sixteen years old.

Maybe that was old enough, maybe that was too young. But she was old enough (to know exactly whose fault it was) (to know how to stop it from happening again) (to know that it wasn't her fault) and she was young enough (to be angry at all the wrong people) (to think she could actually do it) (to blame herself anyway - if I just hadn't been a witch, if I had just refused, was it worth it? is magic worth what I have paid).

Now she spends all her free time in the library, and in the Room of Requirement. Chanting the curses she finds among the shadows and dust, killing those practice dummies, and in her mind's eyes she sees their dead bodies, was it this easy you Death Eaters, was it like this? I'll kill you and I'll take from you like you took from me DEAD THEY'RE DEAD and it's your fault and you will have Hell to pay. I'll kill you and it will be so easy, I'll kill you and then they can sleep. I can sleep.

Hermione used to be at the top of all her classes, but she barely passes now. She spends all her time teaching herself to fight, now, and no time at all is spent on homework. She has long since realized that school is not the most important thing, that knowledge is just a means to an end - and it is an end she will reach by any means necessary.

I'll kill you THEY ARE DEAD.

For her, it will be too easy. As she steps further and further from people, and deeper into her own mind, Hermione gains control over herself and fills with anger for I have been wronged and very quickly there is nothing else to her world but lust for revenge - and a tiny spark of hope, that when it is done she will have everything again.

the broken

Draco Malfoy loves his parents. He just doesn't agree with them.

It takes him a long time to realize the two aren't mutually exclusive. It takes him even longer to screw up the courage to tell his parents that he doesn't want to be a Death Eater, doesn't hate muggleborns, doesn't even like being cruel all the time. And as he stands outside his father's study door, telling himself to just do it already, Draco also realizes that courage is what Gryffindors do, and Slytherins are a bit more sneaky about things.

Draco had been Sorted into the House of Snakes for a reason.

So his parents have no idea about his true feelings, because Draco plans to live through this war. Voldemort is winning, will surely be the victor in the end. The Light has only the Order of the Phoenix, as formidably trained as they are, and Albus Dumbledore.

Dumbledore, the white king in this twisted game of chess.

Voldemort, the black king.

Draco, a black pawn wishing he could be on the other side, if only so his name isn't hated.

He's too much of a coward to be a spy, too weak to be of any use to anybody. He just wants out. He just wants this stupid, pointless war to end, but he's damned either way. For him, he is sure there is no hope.