A/N: So here's the next part. Enjoy, and review, please!

Disclaimer: I solemnly swear I am up to no good. I hereby disclaim.

Les Fleurs du Mal

Part Four – Innocence
Without the innocence, the cross is only iron, hope is only an illusion… (Nightwish)

He remembered his childhood. Good old times. The wizarding world had been calm and happy then. He had been a lonely child, true, but he'd been happy.

War had made people lose innocence so easily. Most Hogwarts students had been forced to choose a side, to fight. Only a rare few willingly lost their innocence, most simply followed their leaders, and some even tried to fight the inevitable. However pure one's soul might have been, war had corrupted them all.

Once, they had been children, carefree. They hadn't known what waited for them out in the real world. Pure souls went out to fight for the light side. But, scarcely skilled in combat, they had seen what human nature truly was without being ready for it. Nobody could have been prepared for that.

Blood. Torture. Rape. Death. Corpses. Battlefields. Mourning. These children hadn't known human cruelty until then. During the uncounted battles, many had paid a high price. Those were now dead. Even those who came back had died in a way. Everything they'd believed in had been shattered to a million minuscule pieces, tainted by blood, sweat and dirt.

Boys had seen their fiancées raped; wives had watched their husbands being tortured; fathers had seen their children bleeding; best friends had watched their friends being killed. The survivors were mourning. He did not know how they still found the strength to continue fighting. But they did. And so the bleeding, the raping, the torturing and the killing continued.

All children had lost their innocence during this war. Even he, though most people assumed he hadn't been innocent to begin with. Once, they all had been innocent. But they weren't anymore, and nobody would ever be truly innocent again.

A/N: Please review! I've planned the whole fic, but I need inspiration for only one chapter. Any ideas? Thanks.

Anna Scathach