Thanks Pico the Great for your critical comments on the ending!

The End of Everything

Amongst the rubble of an abandoned building lay an unconscious young woman. Well, almost. She woke up to an enormous headache. 'Where am I?' She looked around, searching for any clues to her location or any signs of life, but all she saw was rubble.

'Who am I?'

'Why can't I remember…anything…?'

'"HARRY, NOOOO!"' a voice rung out in her memory.

'Th-that's my voice! I yelled that! But... who is Harry?'

An image of a strange, yet familiar boy entered her mind. He lay in a lifeless heap on the ground. His black hair was a tangled, matted mess of blood and hair. She remembered his eyes the most… emerald green, always shining with life, turned into dull, blank orbs staring up at the gray sky.

'Is that...? Is that Harry? What happened to him! He's dead! Did I…? No… someone…else. But who?'

The twenty-one year old girl clutched her head.

'Why do I keep seeing these images? What does it all mean? What does it all mean!' She slammed her fist down hard enough to regret it. Still, the pain brought her back to reality and she was thankful for it. She looked at her clothes. A tattered, floor length black robe covered a pair of ripped up jeans and what was left of a T-shirt. She had some scratches that looked infected, but otherwise she seemed ok.'I should have died with them.' She froze. 'W-what? Where did that thought come from? I don't want to die!'

She looked up and caught a glimpse her reflection in a dingy, cracked mirror, or what was left of one, hanging on the wall in front of her. A gaunt and pale face stared back at her. Deep circles lay beneath bloodshot eyes. A mass of matted, dark brown hair fell past her shoulders. Her face contorted in disgust. How on earth did she ever put up with such thick, long hair, anyway? Looking around she spotted some broken glass; it was better than nothing, she supposed.

She had to keep her mind off of what she had seen- 'NO! Dreamed…it was only a dream, only a dream.' But she couldn't explain what she was doing there or why her hands were shaking so much that she almost slit her wrist open while trying to cut her hair. She gave up eventually.

An image of another boy appeared in her mind. He had distinct (in her mind) red hair and freckles… and he was so familiar. He also lay in a lifeless heap, not far from the other boy. Her heart clenched with suppressed pain at his memory.

'"Ron… no…"'

'But wait, who is- er, was Ron? Who ar- were all these people! Why do I keep seeing all this death?'

And then suddenly everything came back to her. Voldemort. Harry. The duel to end all duels… and Harry had lost. The-boy-who-lived and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had fought to the bitter end and Lord Voldemort had won. After Harry was defeated there was no one left strong enough to stand in Voldemort's way, not even Dumbledore.

'No… NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! This can't be happening!' She wanted to scream, to do… something. She was the brains of the group! She always knew what to do! 'I failed them… I failed them both!'

She collapsed to her knees, sobbing. 'Harry… Ron… I should have been able to help… I should have died, too, but I didn't… I didn't. Why did I survive?' They were all dead and she was all alone.

The entirety of her being felt ripped in two. She collapsed to her knees and curled into a ball. She wrapped her arms around her legs and rocked back and forth as her cries ripped out of her throat. Tears streamed down her cheeks, forming lines in the dirt on her face. She threw her head back and screamed as hard as she could until her throat felt raw. Sobs tore from her throat, mingling with her screams. She did not think of being quiet, did not think of the danger she could be in, all she could think about was the giant hole in her soul.

Her nose was running and her chest ached, but she did not care. She swallowed gulps of air between her cries but did not stop. Her crying receded every now and then, but then she would see their faces or hear their voices in her head and it would all begin over again until she finally could not scream or cry anymore. She lay on the ground, her vision bleary and her face and hair soaked from her tears, staring at nothing as she thought of nothing.

Then a thought floated in her mind, seeming like a bright light in a dark tunnel. 'End it' it said. It made sense. What did she have to live for? They had lost, there was no hope. No one could comfort her, even if they were alive. The only ones left were the dark ones. All emotion faded from her eyes and she stood up. 'The glass…' The piece of glass she had tried to cut her hair with was easy to find. She stared at it, suddenly realizing that it was flat. That was easily fixed.

She pressed the glass to her wrist and made two sharp, quick cuts across and up. She stared dumbly at the blood that quickly came flowing out. The sharp pain jolted her out of her apathy she was seized with the desire to live. She dropped the glass and clutched her aching, bleeding wrist. 'I don't want to die, I don't want to die!' She staggered around, looking for anything she could to stop the bleeding. The only thing she could use was her robes. She carefully wrapped them around her wrist and applied as much pressure as she could but the blood kept coming.

Panic rose in her chest and she stumbled around, slipping in the puddle her blood had made, looking for help. 'No one's coming to my rescue this time. This is really it… NO! I will not die this way. They did not sacrifice so much just for me to throw it away.'

Her vision was becoming bleary and she felt weak, but she couldn't help butnotice movement out of the corner of her eyes. Fear and hope sprang to life. She turned around and saw a cloaked figurestandingapart from her. A sickly feeling washed over her and the hairs on the back of her neck jumped up. She instinctively reached for her wand but found nothing. The figure approached, wand in hand andstopped a few feet away. Her stomach dropped. She could hear him chanting an all too familiar incantation in a deep, guttural voice. She never even had the chance to scream before the green light enveloped her in pain. 'No! I don't want to-'

The last flame of hope flickered and died.