Marcus

I stood there, gripping the statue I was next to hold me up. I felt so alone as I stood there, wishing I had said something or that I was brave enough to run after them now and tell them what I should have said. Everything could be different if I did, we all wanted it. Percy had wanted it. He could have said something. Oliver had wanted it. He could have said something. And I had wanted it. I should have said something.

I shouldn't have left them. I should have done what Percy suggested all those years ago and switched houses. I should have told the sorting hat I wanted to be in Gryffindor, but you have to brave to there and I'm not brave. If I were brave I could go against Slytherin, and I could go against my parents, and I could go against Voldemort.

But I'm a coward and I'll be coward all my life. I'll be alone all my life, and I'll die alone, and in my death I'll still be alone. I'll never anyone and I'll never be anyone. It's an awful thing to be alone. It's like it takes over and even if you're in a crowd of people it's like you walk in a different dimension than them, like they can't see you. And I find that when you're so alone like this, you notice things others don't. You see how others feel more, but then you also live in a fog. You can't see away out and you live in despair and a constant fear of time. Life is like death and death seems frighteningly close.

I don't see salvation for myself; I see a world of fire. And I deserve that fate, Jesus died on the cross for me and I can't even get up enough courage to not join everyone who agrees with Voldemort. Voldemort would probably kill me if I refused to join, but that's the worst he can ever do to me. When I was a little boy, the priest at my church said that the body was a shell for the soul and it was the soul we should worry about. He was killed by Death Eaters a month ago. They were trying to harass a group of muggle children; they wanted to kill them so they children wouldn't grow up into muggle adults. The priest, Father Clarke, as reported in the Daily Prophet made a barrier around the children and when the Death Eaters asked him to take it down he said he would die before he let them kill those children. The Death Eaters then decided Father Clarke was a blood-traitor and that made him deserve to die. They all decided to try and kill him.

I was right there when they did it. I had been brought along for Death Eater training, but I wasn't supposed to do anything but watch. I don't know what spell hit him, but I saw him collapse to the ground and I ran out from where I was hiding to go and hold him while the other Death Eaters tried to break his barrier. I always thought when someone was dying they'd be telling everyone they were scared and they wanted to live more. That's not what Father Clarke did. He grabbed desperately at my shirt and said, "Save them! Don't let them be killed!"

It broke my heart to know he thought I was on his side. "What about you?" I had asked.

"Leave me." he said. "I'm dying. You need to save those children."

"I don't...." I began, but stopped.

"Please, do it...." he begged.

"Alright," I said without thinking.

He smiled weakly, "God bless you, Marcus."

It was the second time anyone had ever blessed me and really meant it. "God bless you, Father Clarke." I had said back.

He died then, in my arms, and I let go. Time seem to stop. I don't think he had to worry about his soul. He would live in his death.

I heard the Death Eaters cheering and I looked up to see them prepare to kill the cowering children. They only looked to be seven and eight years old.

I ran towards them, screaming, "Aurors! Aurors!" The others looked to me and I said, "There coming!" I pointed in the distance, "I just saw them turn themselves invisible over there!"

Someone decided we would all abandon the mission and apparate back to our homes. He would explain to Voldemort.

I was the last to apparate. I pointed my wand at the children and took away their memory of what just happened. I convinced them they had been playing outside and I had just found them. They believed me and asked that I walk them home. There were eight of them and they all lived on the same street. They said they didn't know how to get home. They didn't remember, but the Death Eaters had chased them here for fun.

I said, "I'll find it." I could still remember where we'd all found them.

They all smiled up at me, like I was some kind of hero. They all walked over to me and I unexplainably bent down. They wrapped their little arms around me and I hugged them back. It should have made me happy, but it made my heart fill with agony. It was dark so they couldn't see Father Clarke's dead body; but I looked over to where it was and realized these children hugging me was not my future, my future was thousands of corpses just like Father Clarke's. Bodies that had been the shells to good souls.

We all got up and the children hung on to me as I walked them home. They were all so happy. They all had such nice souls.

I collapsed on the ground, unable hold myself up anymore.

Even if I had told Percy and Oliver how I felt, what would it have done? They wouldn't want to be my friend after I became a Death Eater and I couldn't be there friend if I was. All we had ever had was that time on the train. I knew then I couldn't be their friend in Slytherin and I still knew that now. As I cried on the statues cold service, I felt like all hope was lost for me. I wouldn't be a good man and I would never have Percy and Oliver as friends again. I would never have what I wanted.

After all these years of trying to deny it, I had to admit it to myself. I had to admit to myself why I made Oliver my personal enemy. I had to admit why I always mocked Percy when I had the chance. It wasn't because I hated them, I never hated them. I just wanted a way to be with them. What'd I'd felt for them on the train had never really left me despite how much I had tried to forget it.

Maybe they were dealing with the same emotions that I was somewhere, maybe they were crying. They were together, they were always together. That comforted me over the years, to know they weren't alone. But I was alone, I was always alone. And, as I had realized, I would always be alone. When I had talked with them, when ever I did, I felt less alone. I felt like I belonged somewhere, like my life actually had meaning. It always hurt me when I had to leave them or they left me, but today my heart ached like it never had before.

Why didn't they tell me how they felt?

Why didn't I tell them:

"I love you, Percy." "I love you, Oliver."