Forget December
December of that year was awful for all who endured it. As the climax of the worst year they could remember, the remaining members of the Order still murmur about it in solemn whispers, as if afraid they might bring the bad luck of it back if they talked about it too loudly.
Myself, it feels as if it's just a particularly nasty nightmare, as much as I know that's not true, that it couldn't be. No nightmare is that terrifyingly real.
I suppose if I'm going to tell this the correct way, I should start from the beginning. I'm not particularly talented at telling stories, but I'm going to give it a try anyway, since I don't believe I'll be around for much longer. In October of that year, the final year Harry, Hermione and myself were at Hogwarts, the members of the Order of the Phoenix were called into an emergency meeting by none other than our very own Mundungus Fletcher, who, as he said, had something of immense importance he needed to discuss with as many agents as he could immediately. Up until then, the war had been going in our favor, our blows being more potent and harder to recover from then theirs. There were casualties, of course, as with any war, especially one dealt in secrets and shadows as this one was, but things were starting to look as if it would end soon. How foolish we were to believe such hopes. After it, all we could do was thank that no more than a third of our number hadn't been too busy to make the meeting, which, as we found out, wasn't really a meeting after all. No, it was a trap, set up by the turncoat Fletcher. He and the Death Eaters had planted small bombs in the meetinghouse they congregated in, and in a nanosecond, the tides changed and we were suddenly losing the entire proposition. So, with that sitting on our shoulders, we set to work again, trying to make up for lost ground. I didn't see much of Harry that fall, what with studying for the N.E.W.Ts, him being Head Boy and the assignments he was constantly being given by the Order, since he had taken Sirius' place and we weren't yet allowed to be to be members. Dumbledore assured us we were doing much better than we could have been, and Hermione, Neville, Ginny, and all the rest of the very few people we trusted in our precarious web of support continued doing all we could to help the war efforts in our own small ways. Things were not looking up, however, no matter what Dumbledore said. That December, we lost Remus Lupin as well, now considered a POW since he was never found. Charlie, my older brother, also disappeared, and Kingsley Shacklebolt was killed by Narcissa Malfoy when he was found sneaking around Malfoy Manor. Our headquarters, at Grimmauld Place, were taken over by Death Eaters on a day when no one was there, and the Dementors of Azkaban were taken out and dropped into the hands of Voldemort, along with every former supporter of his that still resided there. My father lost his eyesight to a runaway hex fired by who knows, and finally, to add to my mother's always growing list of concerns, Ginny decided to run away. I do know why she did it: she was tired of the war, and decided to accept her Muggle boyfriend's offer to come away with him when he asked. She called, one day in the middle of that horrid moth, a couple of weeks after she left (on the Muggle telephone we had installed in the Burrow for a more discrete way of contacting members of the Order, since the Floo Network was being watched), to tell us she was doing fine and not to worry. She hung up, however, just as I said I was going to fetch Mum for her to talk to. Yeah, right, I had thought at the time. You run away with a Muggle we don't know and don't contact us for weeks, then tell us not to worry when you do. Really great, Ginny.
I haven't spoken to her since then, not in the thirty years that has elapsed, even though I now know where she lives and with whom. She married the Muggle, Robinson's his name, and they had three children, all of whom went to Hogwarts. I'm quite afraid I never forgave my only sister for running out on our family when things became more complicated than needed. Already, our family had suffered. Charlie was gone, Percy was still not admitting he had been wrong, and was still estranged, Dad has lost his eyesight, and then she went and did what she did. No, it was inexcusable, and I refuse to forgive her for it even now.
It did not stop my mother from hovering around the telephone any chance she got for months afterward, though.
The worst turn came in December, however, right after the winter holidays began. We were just sitting down to a Christmas Eve dinner, when a sharp knocking came at the door. Slightly bewildered, but not incautious, Bill sprang from the table to the door, peering through the lens in the door. Furrowing his eyebrows, he quickly opened the door, to find Dedalus Diggle on the front stoop, supporting Dumbledore.
Christmas day came, with nothing but a lot of hazy rain, and inside Charlie's old bedroom, Dumbledore lay with what was quite obviously a case of Bronchitis that was so far along it could not be taken care of by magic. The old headmaster was dying, the biggest panic our side had had since Voldemort made his come back in the first place. No one wanted to admit it, but without him, we were almost certainly doomed.
For a week it went on. The Burrow, once so full of happiness and comfort, was a dark, shadowy, bleak place that held no joy whatsoever. It was quiet, all the time. No one dared speak louder than a whisper, though why, I could not say.
Mum didn't even glance at the telephone once, things were so somber and serious.
The three of us – Harry, Hermione and myself, that is – spent most of that time in the kitchen, drinking the tea my mother forced upon us distractedly when she wasn't at Dumbledore's bedside. We didn't say much – really, the only think I really remember talking about was a brief conversation about Quidditch with Harry, and even it wasn't very attentive on either of our parts.
And then, on New Year's Eve, he died, without so much as a last word. It was strange, at the point in time, thinking our beloved Headmaster was dead, never to return. As I think back on it now though, he was so very tired the year before he died, it was probably for the better that he died when he did, at least as far as he was concerned.
It had been the biggest hit to the Order of the Phoenix since the war had started, and it hadn't even been caused by the Death Eaters, proving once again how very cruel irony could be at times. It was not the biggest hit to me personally that year, however.
That same day, Hermione's boyfriend, Seamus Finnegan, showed up, to talk to her for a moment. Seamus had had his hand in our web of support at school, but that didn't stop me from resenting him. The summer before, I had realized I was in love with Hermione, a love that went far beyond the bounds of what a best friend ought to feel, but Seamus had gotten to her before I, and it was only I that paid for it. It wasn't until that day that I realized just how much I had lost.
I noticed, for the very first time, that she was looking at him in that dangerous way I didn't want her to. It was the same way Ginny had looked at Harry for so long, the way my mother looked at my father, the way Fred looked, and still looks, at Angelina...the way I looked at her. It was in that instant I realized I had lost her forever, and it hit my like a blow to the stomach, completely knocking the wind out of me.
We won the war, eventually, and Harry was cast into modern legend as the hero of the age, to put it mildly. Hermione married Finnegan afterwards, when we couldn't have been more than twenty-five years old. I still talk to her often, but maintain my distance because of the pain that old would still causes me. Harry married someone too, a nice girl that went to Durmstrang. I live next door to them, and am godfather to a great portion of his many children. One is even named after me. He tells me now, repeatedly, that she had feelings for me too, up until Finnegan asked her out. I really wish he wouldn't, though.
Myself, I never married. I dated several women when I was younger, but never got beyond a date or two with any of them, because I couldn't stand it.
She still doesn't know, to this day how I feel about her and how she caused me the biggest pain of the entire war. She used to nag me about getting me a wife, but stopped a while back when my health problems became more prominent. She still comes over to my house and cleans up my mess every once in a while, but that's all it is anymore. We've gotten quiet in our old age, all of us. More pensive. Harry and I used to play rousing games of chess, shouting at nothing while doing it, but more often than not these days, we just sit together in silence, each absorbed in our respective thoughts.
So there you are, the sad truth. The strongest blow to my soul during the war was not seeing Neville murdered before my very eyes, or having my sister run away. It was my best friend moving on before I spoke of my feelings to her.
I just wish I could forget that awful month, during that awful year, of that awful war. Everything would be so much easier if I could just forget December.
December of that year was awful for all who endured it. As the climax of the worst year they could remember, the remaining members of the Order still murmur about it in solemn whispers, as if afraid they might bring the bad luck of it back if they talked about it too loudly.
Myself, it feels as if it's just a particularly nasty nightmare, as much as I know that's not true, that it couldn't be. No nightmare is that terrifyingly real.
I suppose if I'm going to tell this the correct way, I should start from the beginning. I'm not particularly talented at telling stories, but I'm going to give it a try anyway, since I don't believe I'll be around for much longer. In October of that year, the final year Harry, Hermione and myself were at Hogwarts, the members of the Order of the Phoenix were called into an emergency meeting by none other than our very own Mundungus Fletcher, who, as he said, had something of immense importance he needed to discuss with as many agents as he could immediately. Up until then, the war had been going in our favor, our blows being more potent and harder to recover from then theirs. There were casualties, of course, as with any war, especially one dealt in secrets and shadows as this one was, but things were starting to look as if it would end soon. How foolish we were to believe such hopes. After it, all we could do was thank that no more than a third of our number hadn't been too busy to make the meeting, which, as we found out, wasn't really a meeting after all. No, it was a trap, set up by the turncoat Fletcher. He and the Death Eaters had planted small bombs in the meetinghouse they congregated in, and in a nanosecond, the tides changed and we were suddenly losing the entire proposition. So, with that sitting on our shoulders, we set to work again, trying to make up for lost ground. I didn't see much of Harry that fall, what with studying for the N.E.W.Ts, him being Head Boy and the assignments he was constantly being given by the Order, since he had taken Sirius' place and we weren't yet allowed to be to be members. Dumbledore assured us we were doing much better than we could have been, and Hermione, Neville, Ginny, and all the rest of the very few people we trusted in our precarious web of support continued doing all we could to help the war efforts in our own small ways. Things were not looking up, however, no matter what Dumbledore said. That December, we lost Remus Lupin as well, now considered a POW since he was never found. Charlie, my older brother, also disappeared, and Kingsley Shacklebolt was killed by Narcissa Malfoy when he was found sneaking around Malfoy Manor. Our headquarters, at Grimmauld Place, were taken over by Death Eaters on a day when no one was there, and the Dementors of Azkaban were taken out and dropped into the hands of Voldemort, along with every former supporter of his that still resided there. My father lost his eyesight to a runaway hex fired by who knows, and finally, to add to my mother's always growing list of concerns, Ginny decided to run away. I do know why she did it: she was tired of the war, and decided to accept her Muggle boyfriend's offer to come away with him when he asked. She called, one day in the middle of that horrid moth, a couple of weeks after she left (on the Muggle telephone we had installed in the Burrow for a more discrete way of contacting members of the Order, since the Floo Network was being watched), to tell us she was doing fine and not to worry. She hung up, however, just as I said I was going to fetch Mum for her to talk to. Yeah, right, I had thought at the time. You run away with a Muggle we don't know and don't contact us for weeks, then tell us not to worry when you do. Really great, Ginny.
I haven't spoken to her since then, not in the thirty years that has elapsed, even though I now know where she lives and with whom. She married the Muggle, Robinson's his name, and they had three children, all of whom went to Hogwarts. I'm quite afraid I never forgave my only sister for running out on our family when things became more complicated than needed. Already, our family had suffered. Charlie was gone, Percy was still not admitting he had been wrong, and was still estranged, Dad has lost his eyesight, and then she went and did what she did. No, it was inexcusable, and I refuse to forgive her for it even now.
It did not stop my mother from hovering around the telephone any chance she got for months afterward, though.
The worst turn came in December, however, right after the winter holidays began. We were just sitting down to a Christmas Eve dinner, when a sharp knocking came at the door. Slightly bewildered, but not incautious, Bill sprang from the table to the door, peering through the lens in the door. Furrowing his eyebrows, he quickly opened the door, to find Dedalus Diggle on the front stoop, supporting Dumbledore.
Christmas day came, with nothing but a lot of hazy rain, and inside Charlie's old bedroom, Dumbledore lay with what was quite obviously a case of Bronchitis that was so far along it could not be taken care of by magic. The old headmaster was dying, the biggest panic our side had had since Voldemort made his come back in the first place. No one wanted to admit it, but without him, we were almost certainly doomed.
For a week it went on. The Burrow, once so full of happiness and comfort, was a dark, shadowy, bleak place that held no joy whatsoever. It was quiet, all the time. No one dared speak louder than a whisper, though why, I could not say.
Mum didn't even glance at the telephone once, things were so somber and serious.
The three of us – Harry, Hermione and myself, that is – spent most of that time in the kitchen, drinking the tea my mother forced upon us distractedly when she wasn't at Dumbledore's bedside. We didn't say much – really, the only think I really remember talking about was a brief conversation about Quidditch with Harry, and even it wasn't very attentive on either of our parts.
And then, on New Year's Eve, he died, without so much as a last word. It was strange, at the point in time, thinking our beloved Headmaster was dead, never to return. As I think back on it now though, he was so very tired the year before he died, it was probably for the better that he died when he did, at least as far as he was concerned.
It had been the biggest hit to the Order of the Phoenix since the war had started, and it hadn't even been caused by the Death Eaters, proving once again how very cruel irony could be at times. It was not the biggest hit to me personally that year, however.
That same day, Hermione's boyfriend, Seamus Finnegan, showed up, to talk to her for a moment. Seamus had had his hand in our web of support at school, but that didn't stop me from resenting him. The summer before, I had realized I was in love with Hermione, a love that went far beyond the bounds of what a best friend ought to feel, but Seamus had gotten to her before I, and it was only I that paid for it. It wasn't until that day that I realized just how much I had lost.
I noticed, for the very first time, that she was looking at him in that dangerous way I didn't want her to. It was the same way Ginny had looked at Harry for so long, the way my mother looked at my father, the way Fred looked, and still looks, at Angelina...the way I looked at her. It was in that instant I realized I had lost her forever, and it hit my like a blow to the stomach, completely knocking the wind out of me.
We won the war, eventually, and Harry was cast into modern legend as the hero of the age, to put it mildly. Hermione married Finnegan afterwards, when we couldn't have been more than twenty-five years old. I still talk to her often, but maintain my distance because of the pain that old would still causes me. Harry married someone too, a nice girl that went to Durmstrang. I live next door to them, and am godfather to a great portion of his many children. One is even named after me. He tells me now, repeatedly, that she had feelings for me too, up until Finnegan asked her out. I really wish he wouldn't, though.
Myself, I never married. I dated several women when I was younger, but never got beyond a date or two with any of them, because I couldn't stand it.
She still doesn't know, to this day how I feel about her and how she caused me the biggest pain of the entire war. She used to nag me about getting me a wife, but stopped a while back when my health problems became more prominent. She still comes over to my house and cleans up my mess every once in a while, but that's all it is anymore. We've gotten quiet in our old age, all of us. More pensive. Harry and I used to play rousing games of chess, shouting at nothing while doing it, but more often than not these days, we just sit together in silence, each absorbed in our respective thoughts.
So there you are, the sad truth. The strongest blow to my soul during the war was not seeing Neville murdered before my very eyes, or having my sister run away. It was my best friend moving on before I spoke of my feelings to her.
I just wish I could forget that awful month, during that awful year, of that awful war. Everything would be so much easier if I could just forget December.