AN: This came to me after sifting through page after page of Echo Vanity's tumblr. I found a picture of an empty class room... Anyway, I *think* this is where it originated, I hope, cause I don't want to deny someone credit. So, archive of our own works / 2121927 there we go. Take out the spaces, you know. This is what lead to this. Also, this has nothing to do with Molly's brother, I just like the name.
Disclaimer: It all belongs to the wonderful queen Jo!
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You hold your wand aloft, admiring it's smooth wood, the delicate carvings, how wonderfully it has always fit in your hand, even at the awkward ages of elventwelvethirteen.
You think over the charms you excelled at in that first year; turning a porcupine into a pin cushion; the levitation charm; your pineapple danced a most joyous jig across your desk.
And in second year, your favourite professor had been Lupin, teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts. Unlike Lockhart before him, he'd actually taught your class things that didn't include his own trumped up adventures, things that would become useful to you.
You hold your wand aloft and remember that, when you were happy, it sometimes let off a shower of stars. Before you even learned the incantation to do something like that.
Third year brought with it the Triwizard Tournament and the presence of many young witches and wizards from abroad. The snooty Beauxbatons girls and surly Durmstrung boys.
And…
Him.
He was quiet. Reserved. Able to slip in under the radar, when so much more activity was going on. Who would dream of paying attention to a transfer student from Salem, when famous Harry Potter had just entered himself into the Tournament? When superstar Viktor Krum was attending meals in the Great Hall?
Gideon Carran was lovely. At nearly fourteen he was taller than most other third years, but far less outgoing. He was more often than not, found in the library, surrounded by piles of books, with his strawberry blonde hair falling into his onyx eyes, than out on the Quidditch pitch.
It had been a joy to sit across from him, stealing the occasional glance, while working on a Potions essay, or revising notes on Puffapods.
You hold your wand aloft, in front of your face and inspect it critically. There must be something wrong with it, you decide, though it served you well for six years previously.
Memories of Gideon are painful to think of, as are those of your favourite professor, and the life you lead
before.
Fourth year, things had quietened down with the departure of the visiting students, though the threat of He Who Must Not Be Named hung heavy in the air. The teachers did their best to keep everyone in order, and return to the lessons that were planned.
But so many of your classmates wanted to know what was happening outside the castle walls. Where was He? Would they really be safe? What preparations were being made to ward against a possible attack?
And then, amongst all the chaos, the terror (Cedric Diggory had been murdered, it didn't really matter by whom) and the uncertainty, came a moment of contentment, of purity, a moment in which nothing else mattered.
When Gideon leaned across the parchments scattered between you and pressed his lips to yours, you felt, in that moment, weightless.
No worries could touch you. No danger was too much to fight off. Everything, from that moment on, would be fine.
You hold your wand aloft, in the light and think back to the arcs of acid green that had flown from it that night wheneverythingchanged.
It's easy to see now, but at the time, the fact that your education was growing darker and more mature than was right for your age, hadn't really occurred to you. Or to anyone else, it seemed.
As fifth year rolled around and Professor Snape took over the post he had coveted for -if the rumours were to be believed- longer than you, or most of the other students had been alive, Hogwarts began to feel like a frightening place, no longer the sanctuary it had always been.
You hold your wand aloft, and watch the bodies fall in that never-too-distant memory.
The separation from Gideon and Emma –your one true confidant in all things girly- was almost unbearable over the summer before sixth year. As his father was American and his mother Irish, and their marriage had crumbled some years ago, he divided his vacations between the two homes of his parents-not-speaking, meaning you couldn't even pretend you would get to meet up, before the shopping in Diagon Alley began.
Emma at least was able to visit from Wales, but as you turned 'Sweet Sixteen' as the card delivered from Boston declared, you only wanted the boy who held your heart.
Still, now, always, you only want that boy, but that wantdesireneed is useless in these formerly dark times.
You hold your wand aloft, imagining the things you would do with it now, if only you had the courage. You had it once, that determination to fire off any spell necessary to reach your goal, but it's vanished along with so many other things –wishes, dreams, smiles, happiness's.
Never having met Harry Potter, but growing up listening to tails of his daring –he was a one year old, lying in his crib as You-Know-Who destroyed himself, how was that anything spectacular?- you none the less felt his absence when he didn't return for his seventh year.
No matter what they said, even those who didn't like him, didn't believe he was their Chosen One felt it too. Gideon had no feelings on the Boy Wonder whatsoever, but even he was changed that year. Maybe it had to do with Dumbledore's death or the Carow's tutelage; whatever it was, he too was different.
Roused from your beds by Looney Lovegood, you and Emma clung to one another in your bedclothes as it was explained that the fight had been brought to Hogwarts, that a battle was about to begin.
You hold your wand aloft, and think over your options once more, while the letter lies open before you.
The entreaty had been read over and over in the hours since it's delivery.
We are pleased to inform you that Hogwarts will once again open its doors to any and all students wishing to complete their education.
Thanks to the unfailing assistance of many wonderful individuals the castle has been repaired and looks just as you will surely remember it. Please find enclosed a list of required books and equipment.
Term begins September 1st. We await your owl no later than July 31st.
Yours sincerely,
Sigmund Zevon,
Deputy Headmaster.
Your faithful owl, Griffon sits ready and waiting in his cage, the skeleton of a mouse at his feet.
They were expecting an owl. They were expecting your return. Many who had seen the things you'd seen would be there, surely. But if Zevon thought that any of the returning students would remember Hogwarts as it had been, as it was now, rebuilt and cleaned of blood and horror, he was sure to be mistaken.
There are times, even with your eyes open, that you can't banish the images. The bloody stumps of missing limbs. The smoke billowing from all sides. The vacant, unseeing eyes. The flashflashflash of green from everywhere and nowhere.
How can they expect you to come back?
Returning to that school, that battleground isn't an option.
Returning to that life, of charms and potions, centaurs and pigmy puffs, it isn't possible. Not for you.
You hold your wand aloft, and think over the things you did that night, the laws you broke and the lives you snuffed out with a flick of your wrist and an ancient Aramaic incantation. It had been necessary, you told yourself at the time. You needed to do it, to stay alive, to reach Emma, Gideon, to avenge the death of your favourite professor.
I should have listened to Gideon, you think to yourself as you watch a photograph of the two of you. In it, he holds you to him, as you dance, a little goofily, by the fountain in the Hogwarts grounds.
He wanted to return to the States. He wanted you to go with him. But you couldn't leave your parents, your life, your best friend, your home…
"It's not safe here," he insisted. "We should go, my father will help. It'll all come to America eventually, but we can at least get a head start. We need to go, now."
"I can't," you told him weakly, before rattling off your list of reasons to stay.
The beautiful, caring, wonderful young man that he was, he assented to your desire not to run, to stay and fight, when the fight came to you, as you knew it most assuredly would.
I should have listened to Gideon.
The thought repeats in your mind, as a thudding bass line to the screams and cries, the curses, the crumbling stone that also runs through you on a continuous loop.
I should have listened to Gideon.
I should have listened to Gideon
IshouldhavelistenedtoGideon!
ISHOULDHAVELISTENEDTOGIDEON!
Without even being aware of it, you snatch up the letter, the one inviting you back to that place that created all the nightmares, and then it's gone, replaced by roaring blue flames, contained to that one item by magic.
Magic.
What good is magic if it can't bring back the ones you love? The one you need in order to breathe. What use is magic if it couldn't stop the terrible events of four months previously?
What is the point of magic?
You hold you wand aloft, and look it over critically.
You were so excited to receive your original letter, the one inviting you there in the first place. It's framed, kept in a box of mementoes that your mother deemed valuable enough to hold on to in a safe place.
You were so excited to walk into Olivander's and try out the six wands he handed you, before that seventh one, ivy, 11 inches, with a unicorn tail hair, showed itself to be yours.
That wand, this wand, it served you well through your years at Hogwarts, it served you well in that bloody battle.
But it didn't serve you well enough and
It doesn't serve you well now.
There is no way to banish the Bogart in the cupboard under the sink, -as it lies on the floor, taking on Trudy's bleeding, no longer breathing form, the girl who sat behind you in History of Magic; and then Michael, the first boy you'd had a crush on when you first entered Hogwarts, with a sword in his hand, and nothing in his eyes; and then Gideon…- so you've retreated to your room. There is no possibility of producing a Patronus. Protego didn't work, maybe never worked, maybe was just pretend the entire time. There are so many spells you can no longer perform because of the things that you've seen, done, felt.
On your desk, untouched by the bluebell flames, is another letter. This one written in your own hand, addressed to your parents.
It speaks of how you love them, how you wish there was another way, but that this is what you have to do, that you're sorry. They will find it later, once you're gone. But they won't find you. No one will ever find you.
How can they, when you aren't you anymore?
Reaching over to the latch on Griffon's cage, (you think idly of how similar your pet's name is to that of Harry Potter's former house, when you yourself were a Ravenclaw, of wit and measure) you release the catch and watch him hop sleepily out onto the desk, lifting his leg, ready for the letter he assumes you want him to deliver.
"No, Griff. Not today. Not anymore. Go on, you're free now. Go. Be the bird you were meant to be. Go." You nudge him towards the open window and watch as he flies out, to the willow in the yard. He won't go further than that, not for a while. He doesn't understand what this means. What you're doing.
With one more look around the room, you walk towards the door, preparing to leave. For good. For bad. For ever.
Just before you reach the threshold, you take your wand in both hands, hold it up to eye level, as if waiting for it to say something, to offer some explanation as to why it refused to do as you needed it to, to protect your love from that final, fatal curse.
But it's just a piece of wood. It can't speak any more than it will be able to perform magic.
You snap the useless wand in half drop the two pieces -still held together by that string of unicorn hair- to the ground and turn away.
There is no such thing as magic school. Potions and charms are just make-believe. Love does not conquer all. And ghosts aren't visible to the living, if they even exist at all.
You fade from the world as you walk out the door of your happy family home.
Life as you knew it is over, the ones who loved you, the ones who are left, will eventually forget your features, your voice, that you were even real.
Your name will slip from their memories as surely as it will slip from your own. Because if no one uses it, how can it stay?
You walk with purpose, though you have none left to speak of.
You cease to exist.
o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o
Um... Yeah. I don't know what this is. It's kind of horrible, isn't it? Or is it? Let me know, cheers!