A/N: Vignettes, of sorts, showing various characters' reactions/feelings about the war (and other semi-related topics). I'm having HP ficcage issues, so please excuse the lack of flowery prose and whatnot that usually graces my stories.
I'm surprisingly proud of this one.
Disentangled
1. Hermione Granger
The Dark side is wrong, obviously. If Purebloods were really superior, then how did she, a Muggle-born, manage to make Prefect? Not by bribery, which Malfoy probably had to resort to; she was Prefect because she was smart. Simple as that. And even though the Slytherins' insults get to her sometimes and she wonders why they think the way they do, she knows that they're deluded. So, they're wrong.
Obviously.
2. Ronald Weasley
The sidekicks are always killed first, even before the girlfriends and the brothers and sisters (though Harry doesn't really have any of the above; just Ron). They always die heroic deaths, it seems, but they're also horribly painful and unnecessary and all he wants is to be noticed for once. But does he do a thing? No—only sticks behind Harry while he fights; only helps Hermione look up antidotes to poisons and little-known hexes; only fights in Harry's shadow. Always in Harry's shadow.
Because, he knows, sidekicks exist only as sacrifices.
3. Ginevra Weasley
It's still fresh in her mind—chicken blood that might as well have been human covering her hands, the secrets, the lies, nonononono! The only remedy to this disease is to fight back, and so she does; she's stronger than she looks. But Riddle's words still cut through her like acid—I love you, Ginny.
I love you, too.
And that is something she just can't escape, no matter how hard she tries—or no matter how hard she doesn't.
4. Draco Malfoy
He isn't going to say something foolish like the Dark side seduced me, because it wasn't, after all, a seduction by any definition of the word. Certainly not. Really, he was born this way. The Dark side didn't grip the little innocent baby by the hair and shake him 'till he complied; the Dark side ran through his veins like arsenic, slowly poisoning him from birth. Nothing like a seduction; he wasn't-and isn't-a poor, corrupted child. He's convinced.
And, I'm going to win, he says. We're stronger, and we're right.
Sometimes, they wonder if they should start believing him.
5. Albus Dumbledore
It pains him to see the Houses so divided. Slytherin is mostly Dark; Gryffindor is mostly Light. Vicious propaganda is used on both sides—See that boy, that one over there? He's a Death Eater; he'll kill you if you get too close.
Those stupid Mudbloods are just trying to get rid of us; they're prejudiced! And they call themselves 'good'. And all he wants now is some semblance of a truce. All he wants is to be able to rest easy, even if it's all a lie.
Because, after all, he's getting to be too old for this.
6. Harry Potter
It isn't as easy as it seems for him, no matter what the rest of the wizarding world wants to think. It isn't all fun and games; it's death and pain and hate and love and oh-so-much more. And everyone looks so wounded now, but Harry's the only one who really matters. Isn't it ironic how, when they think they're protecting him, they're only hurting him further?
His friends' blood is on his hands, he knows, and it will never wash away.
(the end)