Final chapter! I'm trying very hard not to scream, "FINALLY!" and do a happy dance.
Disclaimer: I am not the ever-wonderful-if-not-fickle JK Rowling, and I do not own Harry Potter.
Students file in as they always have before, and Argus lets out a silent breath of relief at the return to normality.
Well, as normal as a magical school can get.
A brief commotion is caused when a student accidentally spills a potion on another one, and Argus watches incredulously as the poor brunette is reduced to a croaking raven on the cobblestone floor. Thankfully, McGonagall is soon by the students' side, her cloak swishing as she casts a counter-spell before anyone can react.
"Now if you all could please refrain from injuring one another as soon as you step into the castle, I do suggest we get on with the Feast," she remarks drily, and Argus has to stop the corners of his mouth from quirking upwards.
The students mumble apologies, and soon the Feast continues as normal. Argus sweeps up the black feathers on the floors, taking slower than normal due to constricted movement in his left arm, but he manages well enough, observing the Great Hall from the back.
It feels oddly symbolic, watching first-years file in to get Sorted into their Houses, as their seniors watch on with smiles and occasionally scowls.
It is like the start of a new era, Argus muses.
To be sure, it is only a matter of time before another Grindelwald or Voldemort turns up with their upturned noses and wands at the ready, and there is an endless amount of crimes that have happened and are sure to come in the near future, but it feels peaceful for the moment, in a school protected in both the literal and metaphorical sense.
Flitwick nearly topples over the table as he reaches for a jug, and Argus cracks a real smile this time, minuscule but genuine.
There will always be darkness in the world.
But perhaps that was what made the light all the more brighter.
"Filch!" someone shouts, and Argus whirls around to see a green curse headed straight for his chest.
"Move out of the way!" the person screams again, and Argus barely registers the events that are occurring before he is knocked over by the sheer weight of someone else.
"Oof," he says, without much dignity.
"Thank you," he says gratefully, pulling the unknown wizard off himself.
The body is still in his arms, and Argus freezes up as well.
"Can you hear me?" he asks hesitantly, but the wizard has become just another carcass in an increasing pile of the dead.
Vaguely, Argus wonders whether there really is a difference. Pure-blooded or Muggleborn, Squib or a half-giant, Death Eater or Order member. All dead, all still, all silent. Very much different lives, but always the same outcome.
Unseeing eyes and unmoving lips.
"Please," he begs, his voice incoherent as he finally allows himself to cry, a victim in this battlefield just like everyone else, indistinguishable from the debris around him.
But the dead cannot listen to our pleas.
He turns the body over, and the man reveals to be Florean Fortescue.
Argus stomach drops. He had hoped foolishly for a body he would not be able to recognise.
He wonders if perhaps hallucinations are part of the side-effects of a concussion, because for a moment he tastes chocolate mint ice-cream on his lips and hears the sweet sound of children's laughter as a family of four celebrate a twelfth birthday.
The war is over, but nightmares continue to haunt his sleep. He wakes up with bags under his eyes, but is contented nonetheless that he is able to escape his fears in the warm, sweet feeling of the sun shining through the castle windows.
He starts to dread the night just a little, but he deals with it just as he used to, by patrolling the corridors.
His threats may be a little half-hearted, his yawns a little hard to bear, but it solves the problem.
By the time he collapses into his bed he is much to tired to have nightmares, but the comfort of his dreamless nights soon begin to turn against him. In the back of his mind, he muses that his life never really gets to be simple, does it?
In a twisted way, he supposes that he wants to remember.
Some people tried as hard as they could to forget the war and everything involved in it, shut their pasts out of their lives to keep themselves protected. Others held their memories close to their hearts, choosing instead to learn from their fights and emerge as winners.
Argus cuts open his heart and shoves his nightmares into the gruesome remains.
There is a obelisk in the grassy fields of the school grounds, a solemn but comforting place with a large white plate dedicated to the fighters that had died in the war. Argus visits the obelisk each Sunday, taking a break from his patrols and duties to pay respects to each grave.
He stops by Mrs Norris' grave each time. He had been shocked at her death, but he supposes that even magical cats are not able to live forever. Her grave is unmarked, because the authorities had not allowed him to bury her in school grounds.
The only grave on Hogwarts grounds is Dumbledore's, they had said. The obelisk was just a dedication. The bodies had been buried elsewhere, designated plots in other graveyards. Argus thinks it is rather unfair that the people who had died fighting for the same cause were to be buried separately, but he supposes it offers their families comfort of some sort.
On Mrs Norris' grave, there is a single wooden block sticking out of the padded-down earth, marked simply with the letter N.
Argus wants Mrs Norris to be remembered, but nobody would bother remembering a cat that had died in the frantic panic of a war when there were more dead to mourn. Also, he kind of likes the idea, of the secret being buried together with him, an illegal grave on the grounds of a castle.
He takes his time at the tombstone, carefully regarding the neatly-carved print and racking his mind for the memories of the fighters' lives.
They deserved to be remembered, he thinks.
And he is the perfect person to remember them. Always lurking in the shadows, always a minor character of someone else's hero's tale, never truly the protagonist of his own story. It also helps that he keeps records of each and every student for the past few decades.
Perhaps it is pointless, trying to remember all the people that have died. There were countless billions that had died long before he was even born. He alone could never be able to remember everyone that had ever lived. Perhaps with the entire world's population and some careful organisation, not to mention non-existent records of lives long gone, it would be possible, but what was the point?
He went to a fellow colleague, and the wizard suggested survivor's guilt.
It is highly probable. Argus did not deserve to live through two wars in the first place, when so many talented wizards and witches had died fighting.
"She's dead, Filch!" someone screams into his ear, and he pressed his hands against them to get them to stop ringing with a familiar dull throb.
"Stop yelling!" he screams. "Stop it stop it stop it!"
"Filch!" the person continues shouting, shaking his shoulders and ignoring his protests. He removes his hands from his ears to clutch at the arms of the fighter shaking him.
"Get a hold of reality, Filch!" she continues, and Argus barely recognises the tear-strewn face of Sybil Trelawney. It is unlike anything Argus has ever seen, and there is a horrific quality to her eyes that makes him pause.
"She's dead!" she repeated. Argus looks dully down at the student in his arms, her face forever etched with an expression of shock and horror. Argus thinks her name might be Tracey Davis. A Slytherin, but the spell had been from a Death Eater's wand. In the commotion of the battlefield, nobody is truly sure who is an ally and who is not.
Trelawney shakes his shoulders again, interrupting his train of thought.
"You can't do anything for her, Filch!" she shouts, but her voice is almost lost in the flurry of white noise around her. "You've got to get up now, or you'll be dead in a few minutes, I can guarantee it!"
Perhaps there is more to Sybil Trelawney than an insane, alcoholic fraud. In her eyes Argus sees the signs of someone who's rose-tinted glasses have long been shattered.
And maybe it is bitter of him, but all he sees is another person who has seen how truly broken the world is, but still managed to survive.
The funeral is open to the public, and plenty of people attend, but the air is subdued, quiet.
They should have a chance to pay their respects, nearly everyone had argued. She has given more to this school than anyone else in this castle.
Argus feels the weight of the world on his heart today.
The funeral is held at Hogwarts, as per requested by the old Headmistress herself. The governors had insisted that Dumbledore's tomb remain the only grave upon Hogwarts grounds (apart from Mrs Norris', Argus muses bitterly), so she is to be buried in an old graveyard in Scotland, where Argus learns she was born.
So she was Scottish. He had never known that. Perhaps that was why she had always been rather fond of that Wood fellow. Then again, Wood probably delivered upon her unachieved Quidditch dreams.
He did not really know how they were going to transport the body from the school grounds to Scotland, but he does not particularly want to know. Thinking about it already makes him want to hurl.
He decides not to go to the burial service.
The idea of her being buried in Scotland raises a question mark in his head, and he ponders on it before he recalls visiting the Hogsmeade graveyard once, where some of the fighters in the Second Wizarding War were actually buried, unlike the obelisk in Hogwarts.
Elphinstone Urquart had been carved onto the tombstone, but the next words were what had made Argus stop short and nearly have a heart attack. Husband of M. McGonagall. He had always pondered what exactly the old Professor refused to reveal about her private life.
And here she is today, to be buried in an old graveyard in Scotland. Near to home, perhaps. Argus learns that she is to be buried next to a chap named McGregor, someone who had settled down with his wife a few decades ago and died peacefully in his sleep.
He should leave her personal life how it should be, personal. Why pry into something that can no longer be helped?
He feels hopeless, sitting there in his cramped plastic chair and trying to contemplate why it was exactly that he had never had a proper conversation with the late Headmistress, never took the opportunity for a chat with the kind, if stern lady.
He had always taken her presence for granted, a solemn fighter that would never give in to her opponents, much less a feeble one like old age.
Everyone else in the world would fall before Minerva McGonagall lost in her battles.
But perhaps she hadn't lost, perhaps he is the only one at this funeral right now thinking that Death was something to be conquered, to be defeated.
Argus sincerely regrets not getting to know his fellow colleague better.
It had seemed a normal day.
In fact, it was nearly peaceful, watching the sun slowly dip down under the horizon that day, casting shadows on the cool waters of the Black Lake as students laughed and played in the distance. The Giant Squid lurking in its depths had ventured from the deep end of the lake to watch students playing on the shores calmly.
It is Sunday.
Argus has always enjoyed the hustle and bustle of weekdays very much, busying his mind with chores and tasks that needed to be completed in the castle, but Sundays were rather enjoyable, especially after the war.
The students slowly return to the castle, and the sun completely vanishes from sight, gone for a rest but no doubt returning the next day with just as much shine and passion it normally had. You could always count on the sun.
The Forbidden Forest soon returns to its dark and ominous look, the overgrown and ancient trees warning students away from venturing within its depths. The rising moonlight shines down on the castle grounds, and watching from his window, Argus feels truly calm for a moment.
There is a twinge in his gut, and Argus decides to trust it for once. He only wishes that Mrs Norris is with him today, mewing softly and soothingly like she always had. Perhaps they could have died peacefully together, friends for eternity.
Oh well. Life is not a fairytale.
For a moment, Argus regrets so much in his life.
Regrets his parents dying. Regrets having estranged his brother, his friends, Irma. He briefly wonders when exactly was the last time he had conversed properly with Irma. During the war, everything had been a haze. After the war, old habits had fallen in place.
He could have done so much. Known so many people better. Perhaps he could have been happier in this lifetime.
But for once, Argus recognises how much the word perhaps did for his life - absolutely nothing.
There were so many could have been's, so many if's and maybe's.
Argus knows that not every story has a resolution, but he sorely wishes that he could have had one. Maybe if he had pined and whined less.
There we go with that word again. He almost chuckles at himself, the corners of his lips quirking upwards in that fashion he is so familiar with.
Never a true smile.
He presses his fingers against the window, watching the stars sparkle with just as much beauty as they had possessed that first day he had seen the castle, sailing in on the small boat over the lake and marvelling at the sheer grandeur of the place.
That last image burns into his mind, the moon and stars overhead, the Black Lake shining under the moonlight, the Forbidden Forest standing tall and strong.
This castle that he loves so much.
His hand drops weakly from the window.
The last thread of consciousness slips away.
Epilogue
His service is private, unlike McGonagall's, unlike Dumbledore's.
They planned on burying him in the grave plots next to his parents, one of the few details Dumbledore had provided for Argus' private life.
He didn't even receive the privilege of a funeral in Hogwarts grounds. Irma had arranged for a Portkey to bring her to the funeral home ten miles away from Hampshire, where he had been born. It had taken an entire stack of paperwork and countless applications to work through, but that is the price she pays for being rather bad at Apparition.
He is to be buried in a quiet, shady area under an old oak tree, next to the graves engraved Jean and Celia Filch. She wonders what kind of people his parents had been like. He had talked so little of his personal life.
At the burial, Irma nearly cries. Besides her and the tiny man speaking quietly of a man he had barely known, there is only one other person there, and old man with grating hair.
She assumes that he is here to pay his respects to someone else, before he places a hand on the small grey tombstone carved with Argus Filch and his shoulders sag in a gesture Irma recognises all too well. Tears roll down his cheeks silently.
He looks familiar, Irma realises with a jolt, this balding old man.
"Aren't you... that Head of Health and Welfare that retired several years ago?" she struggles to think of his name. "Nathan Finley?"
He looks up at her, seemingly uncomprehending in this moment of grief.
"Yes," he answers. "Finley... formerly Filch."
Irma stares.
"Took the surname of my foster mother," he explains. "Leanne... she was something else. Took the news of my magic like no other person would've. Just smiled with this bittersweet look and said 'Well, that explains the floating football, I suppose'."
She wonders if Argus' death had triggered something in this old man's brain that just made him spew his life-story onto innocent bystanders.
"Sounds like a wonderful person," she replies drily. "But I'm still bloody confused."
"Argus' brother," he says.
This did not serve to cease Irma's confusion.
"He never mentioned you," she balks.
"Really, now did he?" he asks, quirking an eyebrow. "And who are you, exactly? His wife? They said he didn't have one."
Irma flushes.
"Just a friend," she says hastily, and there was a brief silence as the two of them sigh simultaneously.
"Doesn't really matter who you are," he says quietly. "You're here, isn't that enough?" he asks, gesturing vaguely towards the empty, grassy cemetery. "I suppose my brother wasn't a very popular guy around the school."
"I suppose Professor McGonagall would have been here, if she was still alive today," Irma muses aloud, in an attempt to defend her former sort-of-friend.
"The late Headmistress?" Nathan asks, more to himself than to her. Irma does not bother answering, it is very much obvious that Nathan knows the answer to his own question.
"I'm not very sure why I'm so awfully sad about this," she says suddenly. "He wasn't very pleasant."
"No," Nathan agrees. "It was fine, when we were kids, but when we found out he was a Squib everything just went downhill. Everyone treated us like mud, so I blamed him for it. After our parents' death, I found out that someone had set the fire off because they were angry about us sheltering a Squib."
"Sheltering a Squib," he echoes himself, as though in deep thought. His face suddenly scrunches up in anger. "Sheltering my brother. For Merlin's sake, what is bloody wrong with the wizarding world?"
"Everything," Irma answers simply.
"And then when we were at the orphanage," Nathan continues. "He was always so bloody in control of his feelings. I felt like he had never even felt any semblance of love for our parents, like he didn't even need to grieve or anything. He always just seemed perfectly fine with everything! It was so sickening. Merlin, I was so angry with him and the entire situation that when I reached Hogwarts I actually told Dumbledore to keep all my information away from him!"
"He can be quite a douchebag about showing his actual emotions instead of shutting himself up," she agrees.
"So useless at dealing with his situation as a Squib," he says, nodding as the two of them stared at the tombstone.
"Always wallowing in self-pity," she returns.
"Never letting anyone help him," he says.
"Socially inept."
"Pathetic."
It is then that Irma starts crying.
It might be an abrupt ending for all of you, but I like ending it that way. As usual, tell me if there's any spelling or grammatical mistakes. Reviews are loved, criticism appreciated and flames will not be tolerated.
It's been a long journey, guys.
Adieu.