Disclaimer: If it was mine, I'd have a castle, minions and would not be bothering writing this. It's JKR's, sigh.
How do you feel Mr. Potter?
Why?
Why do they always ask that question, that single question, the one that I can't answer?
I don't know what to say, words seem to leave me like sand flowing through an hour glass. Happy. Elated. Great. No, they won't do. I don't feel like that.
How do you feel Mr. Potter?
Cold. So cold. Alone. Always alone. So alone it eats away at me hungering for more, but I can't feed it, there's nothing left.
Afraid. Empty. Dead.
No, not dead. I imagine death would be peaceful. Like an awaited slumber after a grueling quidditch practice. This is not dead. This is life, and my life is hell. Death would be my eternal bliss.
How do you feel Mr. Potter?
It's not how I feel. It's what I feel. That's nothing.
When did I start to feel this... nothing? I don't know when it happened. Maybe I gradually grew numb over the years until... this. Or maybe it happened in an instant, something like a snap of the fingers.
The day Sirius died. The first person I ever knew who loved me completely for what I was, my only living, breathing, father. Gone, disappeared. Dead.
Maybe it was the day I found Ron. We were staying at the Weasley's, mourning.
He was late for breakfast, a rare occurrence in the Weasley home. I walked up to our room. The bathroom door was slightly ajar. I remember the way the morning light lit up the dust in the air. I called his name, no answer. Gently, I pushed the door open.
He was lying in a pool of his own blood. It looked almost picturesque against the white tiles of the bathroom. He was wearing his cannons t-shirt, the one that I got him for his birthday, it was signed by the whole team. In his hand was the dagger that Sirius left him, the brother to mine. The blood shined resembling a metallic coating on the blade. In his other hand I could see their wedding bands.
His and Hermione's.
She had died days before; raped beaten and tortured by the Malfoys. Ron couldn't take it. He and Hermione were meant for a happily ever after not a horror like this.
Maybe it was seeing Remus die, killed by that filthy traitor. The Rat's silver hand gripped around his neck burning the flesh that gave off an acrid smell into the air. I couldn't believe he was gone, the last of the true Marauders.
But Padfoot and Prongs were there to welcome him home. That was a small comfort to me.
Or maybe it was Hagrid. He went down in the flames with his hut, never ceasing, defending the castle, his home, and those he loved till the last.
No.
It was not them.
Though their deaths threatened to break me I always had someone, someone to come back to.
Ginny.
My beautiful Ginny.
He killed her.
The one thing in life that saved me. Helped me to go to sleep every night, even though I had to face him.
I saw her pale form lying broken at his feet. Beautiful even in death. Her skin covered in bruises, and her hair matted and mixing with the blood and grime at his feet. She was like a fallen angle. Killed by the darkness, but never tainted, always pure.
She had died for me.
They all did.
Now as I sit here, I remember her. I remember all of them.
I see Ron's dagger on the shelf, encased in a clear glass box, laying on a purple piece of silk.
Maybe it won't hurt. A few cuts and it'll be gone. All of it.
Yes, i'll do it. For them.
I stand here dripping blood onto the carpet and I wonder if I will see them: Mum and Dad, Padfoot and Moony, Ginny my love, Ron, Hermione, Tonks, Kinglsley, Fillius, Minerva, Cedric, and Albus, my fallen family.
How do you feel M. Potter?
Peaceful, finally.