disclaimer: honestly, I'm not her. I'm not a member of manchester orchestra, either. sorry to disappoint you.
a/n: Ah, it's almost 2009. Can you believe it? Perhaps we'll all be building spaceships at night. If you're not a TPC fan, ignore that reference. Thanks to anyone who reviewed/alerted/favourited (!), you guys are brilliant. Ohkay. Well. I hope you all have a fantastic new year. Chhyeah- review if you read, please! :)
PART THREE.
"...you told me this has always been worth living,"- manchester orchestra.
--
"...the ceremony itself will be at eleven o'clock and friends will follow the family to the graveyard, where there will be twenty white doves to be released-"
"Doves?!" Your own voice sounds strange as you almost shriek the word in disbelief. Beside you, Ron flinches at the sudden noise but otherwise nobody seems to hear you, and the funeral director continues to talk about doves and flowers and shiny brown oak coffins and processions.
'That's my brother,' you want to say, 'Not just some pretty box that we're putting into the ground. Not just something that we can let go of as easy as twenty white doves!'
You want to stand up and bang your fist on the waxed wooden table and scream and shout and spit at the unflappable man in the impeccable dress robes, but you do not.
Instead, you say, "Fred didn't like doves."
Your mother turns to shush you but your father merely looks at you with his eyebrows raised, eyes wide. You shake your head as you feel your fingers clench into fists.
"Fred didn't like doves. He thought they were-"
"Poncey," You look around, half expecting the word to have come from George's mouth, but George isn't at the table, and George isn't speaking. As far as you know, he's upstairs in his room (not his and Fred's room- his room now) with a box of photographs and and empty stomach and eyes that will not cry. Instead, you see Percy; ramrod straight Percy with red rimmed eyes and tousled hair, looking straight at you with his lip in between his teeth.
"She's right," Percy says, "Fred didn't like doves, because he thought they were far too... pretentious. He wouldn't... it doesn't fit to be releasing doves in his honour, because he didn't even like them. Fred would hate that, it's wrong, completely wrong-"
"And what would you know? You haven't been around for the past two years, how would you know if Fred liked doves or not, eh? You wouldn't! You wouldn't effing know because you weren't here, and now that you've come back, look what's happened-" Bill is incensed, yelling like there is no tomorrow and glaring at Percy with the utmost contempt, an ugly look of hatred on his face. And you are confused because Bill never yells, but there he is- towering over Percy and the funeral director, who has the grace to blush and excuse himself.
"Bill."
Your father runs a hand over his face, his tone warning.
Bill acts like he doesn't hear and instead carries on his tirade against Percy.
"And now that you've come back- when we didn't want you back- did it ever occur to you that we didn't want you back anymore, Percival?' Bill's voice is dripping with venom, bouncing off the pots and pans in the kitchen and reverberating in your chest, his words not quite making perfect sense as they spill out of his mouth and crash into each other in the tense air.
"That maybe we were better off without you? Because, I mean, we are- as soon as you come back Fred dies. Fred DIES! And it's your fault, you know? You killed him, you kill-"
"SHUT UP!" You stand up now, hands clenched into the all too familiar position and your throat dry as you yell. Finally, everyone turns to look at you, even Ron, albeit with a strangely contorted expression of bewilderment on his still swollen face.
"SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP! There are bigger things than you two going on, you know? Our brother's died! And what, all you-" you look at Bill, "- can do is talk about how he left? We know that he left, for Merlin's sake! We were here too, you know! But he's back now, and regardless of whether or not he returned, Fred still would've died. The battle didn't start because of Percy, Bill! So stop blaming him because it's only making things worse! There are bigger problems than you two, you know!"
Bill blinks.
"I can't do this," he says, "I can't do this right now with all of you... with him."
He looks pointedly at Percy, and then at you, and makes toward the coat stand to retrieve his coat and hat.
"Oh, don't bother," you say contemptuously, wrenching open the back door, "I'll go."
You apparate with a crack.
---
Green. Everything you see around you is green and bright and vibrant, and you take in air, hoping to smell the clean and fresh tartness that you associate with the colour green, but instead, you smell sweat. And blood and earth and dust and death.
You whip around, hair flying about you. Sunlight filters in through the trees above you (but it is not warm- why isn't it warm?), tinting your skin and clothes a pale green, and in the distance a bird twitters. The forbidden forest, you decide, following the path of rock and ash that has been blasted from the castle and formed a Hansel and Gretel like trail over the thick moss on the ground. You follow the trail without really meaning to, and wonder if, like the children in the muggle fairy tale, there is something sinister waiting for you at the end of it. You are not sure at which point in your walk you begin to run- jumping over stones and sticks and fallen trees- and you are not sure why. All you know is that you run and run and run, despite the aching in your lungs and the stitch in your side, until the trail leads you to what was once the side fence of the castle, now ripped and crumpled into two.
You run your fingers along the fence as you wonder what on earth you are doing, creeping back into your ruined school at three o'clock in the afternoon in your pajamas and with no plans to return home. You step in through the gap in the stone and find yourself in the courtyard, picking through the debris, looking for something- anything- that has remained the same.
But nothing has. Everything that you see is brown and blasted and ripped in two, and you feel your stomach turn and throat constrict as your eyes land on a dark red stain in the middle of the courtyard, disgustingly and horribly bright against the blasted earth. You wrench your eyes away and keep walking- around the fallen stone pillars and up to the fountain, which is still standing in the far east quadrant of the courtyard in all it's bronze glory. You walk closer to the fountain, intrigued that all the perfectly carved figures (Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, Salazar Slytherin and Godric Gryffindor) are still intact, despite the ruin around them.
You draw closer still. Five steps, four steps, three steps-
You gasp.
They are not intact- the faces of the two female founders have been scratched and scorched off by angry wands, parts of shiny ears and eyes sitting in the bottom of the still-flowing fountain. Again you feel knots forming in your gut, for the statues had always looked so real and lifelike that now it feels like you are looking at actual human corpses, ruined and dishonoured. Then your eyes land on Godric Gryffindor.
And your stomach gives in and you throw up against the bell of the fountain.
The bronze body is mangled and torn, the eyes ripped out of the sockets and arms and legs slashed almost beyond recognition. There is a hole where the heart of the real Godric Gryffindor would have beat, and one of the ears is missing. Everything on the statue is horribly disfigured; grotesque, save for one square inch on the statue's forehead, where there is carved a lightning bolt scar.
You collapse against the fountain, silent and shaking, eyes wide and head spinning as you tremble. You sit there as the afternoon sky fades into night and the sounds of creatures in the forest grow louder and more frantic. You wonder if there is anyone looking for you, but decide that if there wasn't, you wouldn't really care. Sitting in the dim courtyard with nothing but the light of your wand and the mangled remains of the founders statue, you find yourself replaying every vivid and violent memory of the battle in your head, the images moving slowly and painstakingly, the sound whirring in your ears. And you see the Great Hall, and you see Fred lying on the floor, frozen. And you see him again and again and again and again and again and you wonder if you are cracked because you are acting like a broken record- rewinding and replaying, rewinding and replaying, rewinding and replaying...
But still, you see Fred, Fred, Fred, Fred, Fred, Fred, Fred... and Harry?
There's a pair of green eyes dancing in the dark before you, and the matching head of messy hair and pale skin. You sit for a second.
"Harry?"
Your eyes rake his hairline and you find what you are looking for- the lightning bolt scar- and the image of Godric Gryffindor flashes in your head and you throw up, again.
"No no no no no no no no...." you moan, clutching your head in your hands, "No no no no no no."
You hear a sharp intake of breath and then feel a pair of arms encircle you, and hear Harry's voice in your ear.
"Come on," he says, slowly, pushing back your hair, "Let's get you home."
And you wonder how he can be so strong when everything, everything, is wrong beyond repair.
And you wish that you could be, too.
'but what's really worth living anymore?'
end a/n: Um, I don't think JK ever actually mentioned there being a fountain at Hogwarts, but I think you guys can cope. :) So yeah. Happy New Year (again)! Reveiws'd be loved. Oh, and did any other Sydney siders see that super awesome simulated thunder storm on the last night (year!)? Pretty mad cool, huh? Oh yes, and beginning and end quotes from Manchester Orchestra's Sleeper 1972. Listen.