This is for Amber (Cheeky Slytherin Lass) because she's perfect and she deserves so much more than my crappy ramblings. This is not at all what you requested, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless, darling!
until the very end
"Only the dead have seen the end of war."
―Plato
Regulus starts the war as a handsome, ambitious but ultimately foolish boy.
He ends it six feet under.
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Before everything happens, Narcissa Black is young. Narcissa Black is carefree, ambitious, dynamic, hopeful, sly, beautiful, courageous and everything in between. Narcissa Black has a fiancé, an inheritance, a family, a future.
After the first war, Narcissa remains all of these things. She becomes Narcissa Malfoy. Narcissa Malfoy is still young. Narcissa Malfoy is respected, envied, secretive, lucid and everything she once wanted. Narcissa Malfoy has a husband, a fortune, a country estate, a child, a future, still.
It is the second war that ruins Narcissa. She is still Narcissa Malfoy. But Narcissa Malfoy is wearied. Narcissa Malfoy is ruined, broken, damaged and everything she swore she'd never be. Narcissa Malfoy has no husband, no fortune, no family, a broken son, no future. But for the first time in a very long time, Narcissa Malfoy feels something else.
She can't explain it, can't explain why, but sometimes, when she watches birds take flight at dawn or sees a splash of colour in a stormy sky, she is filled with something she hasn't felt since her days of gossamer gowns and golden curls.
She feels hope.
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Before the only war that Blaise and Daphne will ever live through, they are careless and naïve children, who believe their illicit affair is the only thing the goddamned world revolves around.
As they fuck each other into abandoned broom closets, murmuring jaded secrets and childish dreams into each other's years and shushing each other at any hint of footsteps, they whisper into the darkness about the scandal that would occur, if it ever crept out.
Tragically (or perhaps thankfully for them), war creeps in first.
As war ends, they are battered and bloody but they are alive.
They have each other, which is more than so many can say.
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War brings Ron and Hermione together.
Yes, it is destructive and dangerous and deadly and there are still times when her face turns ashen at the sight of a blade or the whisper of a certain name and he still awakes from nightmares screaming about lost brothers and fallen comrades, but at the end of the day, it brings them together. It binds them closer until they are clutching at each other's feeble bodies like a lifeline through the darkest nights; it binds them closer still until they slowly manage to heal each other's scars.
Of course they were always destined to be together: it was carved in stone and spelled out between the stars but it is war, our great foe, that breaks down the final barrier holding them apart.
Before, they are naught but arrogant teenagers, who think they're ready to don their leather boots and face the world, but afterwards, they are children who have had to grow up far too fast. They are world weary and grief wracked and they have seen so much more than they ever should have.
Afterwards, they have each other.
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At the beginning of the war, Sirius Black stares into the Mirror of Erised.
Staring back at him, Sirius sees his own handsome body entwined with that of a certain teenage werewolf.
He never finds the Mirror again after the war, but as soon as he falls back into Remus' arms, he is positive that his reflection would be nearly unchanged from his childhood reflection.
That is when Sirius discovers that war doesn't change everything.
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Before the war, George Weasley is an ordinary boy with an identical brother, who is ever cheerful and eternally optimistic. He knows that it is unlikely, but he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he can somehow make it through the war unscathed.
He is wrong.
War ends and George is a broken shadow of the carefree boy he once was who can't look in a mirror anymore because it reminds him of the brother that could be beside him. That should be beside him.
War ruins George Weasley.
On his deathbed, the final word that George utters is "Fred", and everyone knows that it's not his son he is referring to.
And that is the tragedy of George's war.
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War defines Harry Potter.
Without war, maybe Harry would have been another ordinary boy, like any of his peers.
Maybe his parents and little sister would have waved him off on the 1st September from King's Cross. Maybe he would've lived in a little cottage in Godric's Hollow until he was eighteen. Maybe he would have been a scarless boy with average grades and normal friends, who rode a broomstick, got in trouble countless times and went home for the Christmas holidays. Maybe he would have fallen in love with Ginny in sixth year and stayed with her from then on until death, never having to push her away for noble reasons. Maybe his children would've grown up with two sets of grandparents and with names that didn't hold any significance.
War is the cornerstone of Harry Potter's life: it is his maker and his downfall. Without war, he would never be the saviour of a generation, but he would sacrifice that title a million times over if it meant growing up like every boy should.
Without war, Harry Potter would perhaps just be another name on an old school record list, not some boy that played hero and entered the footnotes of history.
Maybe he would be happier, more alive, more whole, less scarred and less hauntingly broken, but maybe he will never know, because war is what created Harry Potter.
And war is what takes him away.
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Lily and James Potter sit side by side in McGonagall's Transfiguration class for all seven years of school, before the war.
Afterwards, they are buried side by side and Minerva can't help but think about the tragedy of it all.
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For Remus Lupin, war means nothing but loss.
Some nights after the first war he lives through, when he is as chained to his cold flat as Sirius is to his cell in Azkaban, he tries to forget, but it never works. The memories of Lily and her golden smile, James and his carefree laugh, Peter and his nervous grin and Sirius and his crown of silver always manage to creep back in. He remembers them all, all four of them, carefree, young and foolish, just ambitious teenagers who went marching off to battle too young and too soon.
Some nights, James laughs about how they will create mayhem next, Lily scolds them for being so childish, as she giggles and Peter frets about the upcoming full moon. Sirius is always there as well, just smiling that smile that feels like falling in love for the first time all over again and telling Remus that he'll be coming home soon. Every morning, Remus wakes up to a jagged bottle of Firewhiskey and an empty bed.
For Remus, war is losing his best friends, his lover, his salvation. It is waking up every morning and remembering all over again that he has no one left.
Over time, Remus supposes it gets easier. He supposes it has to. His days of lost teenage dreams still plague him but he manages to pull himself up and lead something that resembles an almost ordinary life: he gets a job, falls in love, finds Harry again, reads poetry, dares to dream, lives by the full moon, he lives.
But at night, Padfoot, Prongs and Wormy still run through his dreams, foolish, carefree and eternally seventeen.
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Lily Luna doesn't live through any wars.
But that doesn't make her battles any less significant.