someday

-(megumi hunaki)

If there is one certainty in life, it is that we will all, eventually, die.

It's rather amusing, really, that this is all I can think of as I stand in this playground of corpses, the abandoned bodies of both darkness and light littering the ground at my feet. Ten minutes ago, these people were all alive, all determined and ready to do what they must. They were invincible, ten minutes ago, and now they are drained of everything… nothing more than bodies, lying in horribly impossible postures on the wasteland.

We all, eventually, will come to this.

I lift my feet from the ground and begin walking, never managing to tear my eyes from the faces as I make my way toward my destination. It's not our of horror that I am drawn to this, nor is it from some perverse delight in having lived longer than they, although I do not deny that a half-year ago I would have felt such. It is simply the fact that this is the aftermath of only one battle, only one stepping-stone across the river to the end.

All of these people, lying here, never to move or breathe again. All these dreams, hopes, this invincibility they must have carried, the fire that burned in their eyes – all shattered, doused. Gone. I can only imagine the thoughts that coursed through the heads of these people, both old and young. Crowds have never appealed to me much, for all the activity, but I have never really thought of other people this way – of seeing the world the same as me. I've never much considered that others may have goals as well. To the outside world, I seem to do my best to squash the goals of others.

And yet… standing here, amidst all this death, if there is anything I feel for certain it is a wish to have done more – to have been more. It seems that souls truly are separate from the body, because I can hear their cries. The pain feels so close to my own, but alien to my inexperienced nerves. I have quite a tolerance to pain, due mostly to the number of Crutacius Curses I have gone through.

Even this, however, does not compare to the realization that, even if today it wasn't me, someday I will also be like this. Someday, someone will look at my pale corpse and think "We all, eventually, will die."

It crosses my mind that this is not what one should be thinking only moments after revealing himself to a group of people that would have had no qualms about rendering him lifeless, several times.

Most of the deaths here were caused by me, whether directly or not. It is a horrible burden for one to carry, a ridiculously large cross strapped to my back to know that some of these people were once innocent, and not all of them had joined forces with darkness.

Some, on the other hand, might as well have been married to it.

I stop my walk through hell to look upon the face of an old friend – if 'friend' he still considered me – who fits that description.

His pale blonde hair falls in a sort of wreath on the floor, some of it bloody from what seems to have been a long fall to the ground. His arms are flung about in a position I didn't think was humanly possible, even for a broken bone. Hid robes are tattered and torn, although they still reach to his feet. A pair of small glasses lies not far from his left hand, near his discarded wand.

"Hello, Lucius," I say, not more than whispering, perhaps from fear to wake him up. I don't think friendly – or even cold – conversation would be the first thing on his mind, were his eyes allowed to see me at the moment. I think first he would snap my neck or some such thing, and then we could make proper greetings.

It is, after all, my fault he is dead. Partially – I cannot say it was my fault he chose to join the Death Eaters, nor can I say I never tried to tell him what was right. However, were it not for my own self-righteousness and betrayal, he would probably still be breathing to break this neck of mine. Instead, he is flung here like one who has been washed ashore from some unholy sea, someone that had drowned in his own lust for power. That actually isn't too far off.

I continue walking, not allowing myself to recall the school days when he was all I had, not allowing myself to recall the way I tagged after him like some sort of pet dog. I am no longer a dog, although I've certainly paid a price for it.

The faces sweep by as if an illusion, each one distinct, and my mind seems keen on telling me that I will soon have nightmares about this walk. For now, however, there is nothing to feel, and I can think openly. I tend to have a problem of controlling my thoughts with a vice, and not letting anything that might be even slightly human out. Perhaps I am still afraid, after all, of being shunned.

Not that these people would shun me, now. Not that they have the capability of doing so. It seems more that they might have a grudging acceptance of me, and my odd thoughts, now that I don't see glares behind their eyes, shields in the way they walk.

I know I am not friendly. But, even now, would these corpses deny me the chance to feel?

It seems so, as no sensation courses through me, nothing but a passive indifference. Not what one would expect, wandering through this sea of faces, this mountain of stories that will never be told.

And one story that undoubtedly will.

I find myself at the corpse of one Harry Potter – formerly known as the Boy Who Lived. That title doesn't seem to fit him now, however, as he is just as limp, just as gone as the others that lay around him.

I have never quite known what to think of Harry. Everyone tries to put him in a higher regard – make the boy into something he's not. I've known from the start that was wrong, however, I feel I was wrong as well to make an example of him especially, to show everyone that he was not some perfect Saviour sent to deliver us from evil. I think, now, that people realized that for themselves.

My mind tells me this, but my heart reminds me of James. James, and all he did to make my life miserable. I don't even think he knew all he did, and I'm certain that no one alive knows more than that he 'saved my life'. However, James was not the only one to be held slave to a pair of emerald eyes, although in the end it seemed that he was the prince. James, and all he was… the glory that I have so actively searched for, the confidence I strive to attain.

All of this is reflected, dead, now, in Harry. It was never a secret that I disliked the boy, never a scandal or an outrage. It wasn't the boy himself I couldn't stand, however, as that tint to his eyes whenever he looked at me. It was a glass mirror that said, quite plainly, that the same dislike and distrust was felt toward me. From those eyes that looked so like his mother's came a message that I was worth nothing.

And yet, look at me now, musing about a boy I thought I didn't care for at all. Look at the pain start to seep in, and run through me like a knife, followed closely by the salt of guilt.

One day, we will all end like this. One day, we will all come to an end.

It just seems that some of the souls that now hang in the air around me abandoned their bodies far too soon, that the dreams of some should have lived on, that those eyes may have eventually held something other than hate.

There is nothing worse than the feeling of having killed a child.

That is all he was, bravado and airs thrown aside – a child, one as insecure and unsure as myself. And I find myself wondering, now, what would I say to him, were he to open his eyes?

"Hello, Potter?" "Have you had a nice rest, Potter?" "Five points from Gryffindor for your cheek?"

I'm not sure. It's something I haven't felt in a long time.

For now, however, it is best to think that, if there is a heaven, that he would at least be happy there. I hate being envious. I've been envious all my life, and a small boy is not something high on my list of things to be envious of.

Such hate that I've held for this boy and for his father. Such hate… such envy…

I roll down what is left of the sleeves of my robes and walk away.

Someday, we will all come to this.

'Someday', it seems, has come too soon.

a/n:

Wow, that's a big change from what I've been writing lately. Back to angst for Megumi! I can just hear you rejoicing. It came out of nowhere, I swear.

People tell me that Snape (you all figured out it was him, right?) was horridly out of character and, in short, that I should go to Hell. Being a rather cynical, slightly Snape-ish person myself, I can say that if my own observations are correct, he's not OOC at all. There are lines in here that can't be anything BUT Snape, and I can see him in the wording. Besides, the guy is standing in the middle of a hundred or so bodies, so give him a break.

Anyhow, I don't own Harry Potter, Lucius Malfoy, or Severus Snape. Don't sue me, I have only $2 so it wouldn't be worth it. The characters belong to JK Rowling. The prose itself is mine, no matter what those stupid copyright things say.

Reviews are ALWAYS appreciated, even if you want to flame me for some reason or another.

-megumi