The Other Cupboard

If there is one thing I remember about my youngest years, it's the war. And George. And mum. But mostly that part of my life, my earliest memories, had been dominated by the oppression of the rise of the Dark Arts and it's heinous supporters.

I was hiding under a creaky wooden staircase, in a cupboard, shut up there with my three older brothers and twin; we didn't exactly fit. I was two years old that day in early April, that dark ominous night. Barely two, as my birthday had been four days prior. We were thrown hastily into that tight, unlit space. Where was my mum? She was panic-stricken the last time I'd seen her, frantically stuffing us all in and trying to sound reassuring with the words that meant nothing to my young mind. Dad? I hadn't seen him since we left the Burrow, hurried along to the Floo, and arrived covered in soot at our old Aunt Muriel's house. I was terrified.

I recall Bill, about ten at the time, with his back pressed against the door seated on the ground with his knees up to his chest and George sound asleep (how he managed I still don't know) curled into his side. Percy was huddled by Charlie's feet across from them, crying, Charlie crouching down behind, trying to quiet him. I could assume his eyes flickered around every minute or so; it was a nervous habit of his. I had my hands up over my ears and I could barely tolerate to open my eyes because I knew there was darkness either way; I felt my brothers rather than saw them.

Later, I would learn that that was the day my mum's family died, the Prewitts, Fabian and Gideon. Murdered. Mum and Dad had immediately put in place the plan they'd set up some time ago to get us all to safety, and then Dad had responded to their distress call by apparating over. He was confined to the hospital for the next several weeks with severe burns, Mum a little ways away in the mental health department, being treated with therapy as she had had the unfortunate horror of arriving at the Prewitt house just as the Avadas were cast on her twin brothers.

At the time, of course, I had no understanding of what these events had done to my family. But now, at the very pivotal moment of this recollection, I think I do.

I suppose the war ended, or most folks thought it did at least. Me? Well, I was three maybe four years old when I realized there was to be no more running and crying and hiding and praying for a while, though the day it officially ended was no more special than the one before it in my eyes. Child's eyes are so much easier to look through.

So, I grew up. Sometimes I think I was born grown-up. I was the older twin, yes, the ringleader if you will, but George had always been the more compassionate and responsible, the voice of reason when need be. So what do I mean by that if not that I was literally older? Well, it wasn't that the crushing weight of the world rested on my shoulders, because it certainly didn't, and I was only a leader because I chose to be. I never pondered for long the repercussions of any action I took. So maybe what I'm really trying to convey here is that I wasn't, by any means, a normal child; I was a war baby.

My parents had never sought out to have me, nor my twin, nor Percy nor Charlie nor Bill. They had never sought out to fall in love with each other or get married or buy a house together. Dad had never sought out to become the head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts department in the Ministry. They had eventually even ceased to seek finishing their education at Hogwarts. They had never sought to make so many amazing friends and be so happy and content. What they had intended, the only real thing they sought once the First Wizarding War had begun, was to fight dark wizards and witches, Death Eaters, and Voldemort himself. They had expected to die trying. I was a war baby, this I had always known.

But they hadn't met their end. They held onto life not for themselves, but for us once we were all born, starting with Bill; they wouldn't allow us to lose our parents and for that I was grateful. They also held on, of course, to continue the war effort. I could never understand until I was also in my late teenage years facing a war I wasn't ready for but which I knew I must do my part in.

I think a lot of the witches and wizards born during that time (particularly people form Charlie's to Percy's age) somewhat idolized their parents as children because they were young enough to be capable of that undiluted admiration but old enough to really remember what occurred during the long years of Voldemort's tyranny, to comprehend that most of their parents were, essentially, heroes. I understood this but I never supported the 't think me unappreciative; it's only that I know that they never wanted to be heroes, or martyrs even. They did what they did because they felt compelled to help. They simply could not watch the walls of the world crash around them. They didn't do it with the intent of receiving fame and praise and awe. Everyone could see that well enough, but I'm not sure they actually grasped it. I'm not sure anyone can until they face their moment. This moment. My moment.

The years passed in no more than a happy daze. The world, it seemed to me with the benefit of hindsight, had forgotten the significance of its mistakes.

I could rattle off the names of all the Ministers of Magic from the beginning of the second millennium on going backwards, forwards, or in alphabetical order. I could climb the tallest tree by our Burrow faster than any of my siblings. I could always tell what those around me were thinking by their facial expressions and body language and could complete any of George's sentences flawlessly without the slightest hesitation. All this, in a happy daze. Life passes in a daze.

I was an inventor, my father had first said to Mum when I was five years old and had constructed a catapult of sorts that would fling tiny snappers at Percy the second he entered the living room. Mum had just shook her head ruefully and muttered about how I should use my powers for good rather than to antagonize my brother. Bill, George, and baby Ginny had found it hysterical.

I did not intend to antagonize anyone specifically, even if there were pranks or jokes made at their expense. I only wanted to bring humor to a world I would forever see as a small, dark cupboard in my Aunt Muriel's rickety, smelly house. Whether anyone saw any of it as personal, well that didn't disturb my outlook on the grand scheme of things.

There was a heat wave the summer after I turned eight years old. I remember George pushing me into the lake. This was both refreshing and hilarious until I remembered I didn't know how to swim; I'd never bothered to learn. Come to think of it, neither did George; we'd never dared test Mum's resolve that we stay away from the lake before. I guess I know why she banned it now: it got real deep real fast.

I could see that dawning in his eyes: the realization of what he'd just done. George started panicking. I remember being perfectly calm however, instructing him to toss me one end of a branch or stick while he gripped the other and hulled me out. I suppose I was so reserved about the whole experience because I intuitively knew I wouldn't drown; that was not the way I'd die. It didn't fit.

We snuck in the back door, my usually verbose twin silent as he helped me dry off and tossed me some fresh clothes from our drawers. We had a mutual understanding with no need to verbally convey it: we would not tell anyone of this. And, of course, we would teach ourselves how to swim properly. We would teach ourselves everything.

So we went back the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, and so on and so forth until we got it. And we did learn eventually; I picked it up quicker than he did.

The experience, for George, did not dim so much in his memory but rather served as a bit of a reminder; I think this is what ended up making him the more cautious of the two of us. For me, it faded completely, waned until it was nothing more than a shadow of a few weeks in an otherwise almost completely ordinary summer. It had faded completely, so I thought, until now, when, for the first time since it's happening, I recalled it. Why? Perhaps a mirage of my finest moments, as my body rapidly shuts down.

There is not a single day of the year I appreciate more than my and George's birthday, April Fool's Day. Uncle Gideon had once tried to convince me (from his portrait that is) that he had invented the day and I should be thankful that he did, otherwise neither I nor George would have been born. I think I half-believed him for a real long while, until George told me no: Uncle Fabian had invented April Fool's Day. Percy proclaimed us both wrong, then proceeded to stuff his nose back inside the thick pages of his textbook. For all his reading and knowledge, we had never considered Percy to be a credible source, so we disregarded his opinion of the matter. Mum said we may as well have been both right for all our Uncles had utilized the day and done to shape it into what it meant for Hogwarts and our family now.

Unfortunately, after my tenth birthday, the first of April sort of lost some of its magic. Bill had announced he was moving to Egypt for his work with Gringotts that day; Death Eater holdouts is the part I wasn't told, but overheard later. Maybe it's that the war was never on going nor over: maybe the war was just life, I thought, as I watched my oldest brother apparate away.

For all the years after I worked twice as hard alongside George, the one person I knew would always stay the same to me, to bring April Fool's appeal back not only for other people now, but for me as well, or us I should say, as George felt everything that I ever did. It was too on my tenth birthday that I understood the day's purpose best and appreciated it all the more.

I never could seem to organize my thoughts or memories properly, which is probably why I only remember my childhood in snapshots, as if the scenes of a past life, as this one is coming to an end.

Most wizards and witches find the idea of past lives and people being connected through eternity plausible. Sometimes I amuse myself with wondering who I was, and who everyone else was in relation to me. Did I have the same experiences to make me, well, me? Had I been important, made a difference in some way? What had I done with that life or those lives and how did I finally end up going?

I occasionally relate this to my earlier years, as I sometimes feel, well, not exactly that I'm not looking through my own eyes on my own life, but that maybe they're a different shape, color, or prescription. George says I'm just scatterbrained; I'm not convinced. However, I don't find it very reasonable to miss what you never knew, so I suppose he might have the slightest point there.

So maybe then as well I should stop trying to pretend I know my future. I don't. Just right now, this very moment, and, of course, the very end.

Now, as the world explodes around me with the force of a reducto, I think with an odd, unsettled feeling as if life has come full circle. I saw the walls of the world crash down on top of me. I could hear the screams, the shouts, the spells, the cries, and the cruel laughter of our enemies. I felt my soul drifting away from my body.

I was born into a world at war. And I suppose the only proper way for me to meet my death would be in the same surroundings. But even so, I'd never imagined this as the way I'd die. And so, it couldn't be possible that I would. In this moment, the impossible very end, I imagine myself as immortal, invincible. I will be, by the very definition of the word: infinite.