Sunday, Bloody Sunday
It was a Sunday. I remember. Muggles sometimes call Sunday the day of rest. I laugh at that. There is no rest. Not ever. Not for me.
They also say that there is no rest for the wicked. That always confused me. Were the decent people just supposed to rest while the wicked did their iniquitous deeds on Sunday? Were we just supposed to sit back and relax while our lives were being destroyed and pulled down around our ears?
There is no rest for the wicked, maybe, but there is no rest for those who fight the wicked, either. No rest for anyone.
Sometimes you needed rest though. I did. I was so tired that Sunday. I knew what was coming, and I wasn't ready for it.
Sure, I had trained and I could've dealt with anything they dished out, but I was so tired. I wasn't ready in my mind, in my heart. I was tired, heart-sore and sad.
So much death. I had seen so much death. Old, young, friends, strangers, men, women, children, animals, Light, Dark. I did not want to see any more. I wished Sunday would never come.
I remember early Sunday morning, sitting at my window watching the sky. I wished fervently that the sun would not rise, that the world would remain in that one moment before the sun came up.
It's always darkest before dawn. Muggles have strange sayings. It wasn't always darkest before dawn. Sometimes the part after dawn can be darker than you ever imagined.
Sunday, Bloody Sunday. Irish massacres didn't have anything on our Sunday.
They came up over the ridge to Hogwarts in droves, waves, throngs, swarms, mobs, hoards. So many of them, not enough of us.
The actual encounter is a blur in my memory now. Colours, sounds, feelings, fear. Above all, there was fear. Heroes shouldn't be afraid. I know that. Only, I never asked to be a hero. I get scared just like everyone else.
Some moments are captured in my memory. Like Muggle photos, no movement, they don't change. They'll never change.
The first death of the conflict. Maybe not the first but the first I saw. It was ours. Seamus was to my right, with Dean at his side, fighting Death Eaters like a man possessed. There was a flash of green light, and I saw my friend fall to the ground. It couldn't have been in slow motion, but it seemed like it was.
Dean yelled and fell beside Seamus. I thought he'd been cursed as well, until I saw the tears and the anger in his eyes. Almost as quickly as he'd fallen, he jumped up and fell upon the Death Eaters with the ferocity of ten wizards. Intense green light pierced the air as Dean screamed his pain, his anguish, his heart out.
A small circle cleared around him, as the Death Eaters were afraid to approach. With no one near to fight, Dean collapsed beside Seamus and hunched over him. I couldn't hear his words, but I could tell what it was.
Please, come back. Don't leave me. Please. Come back. Please. I love you. Please.
I couldn't watch. I knew that pain. At least, I would know it soon. A flash of green light in the corner of my eye and I knew that Dean was dead. He never could bear to do anything without Seamus.
The memories come to me frozen. A series of snapshots in my mind that simulate movement if you flick through them fast enough.
That was only the first. The first of many. I saw blood that day, that Bloody Sunday. Liters, gallons, oceans of it.
There are other series of memories.
Pansy, donning full Death Eater apparel, writhing about on the ground in the grip of the Cruciatus curse while Blaise glared at her through his tears. His wand trained on her steadily, as he stood over Neville's dead body.
Margaret Whiteman, a petite Ravenclaw a year younger than me, casting curse upon curse at a screaming Dennis Creevey, while cradling Gregory Goyle's lolling head in her arms.
The Weasley twins facing reams of Death Eaters together, and dying within moments of each other.
Angelina, braids flying behind her, fighting her way through Death Eaters, only to arrive at Fred's side a moment too late.
Colin freezing, for a moment, at the sight of his lover's face beneath a Death Eater's hood, as she lifted her wand for her final betrayal.
Ron jumping towards Hermione. A blinding green light hit his back as he pushed her down, underneath him and out of its path.
Hermione, trapped beneath Ron's dead weight, ceasing to struggle as Dolohov strode closer. Her lips were on Ron's as the older man delivered her death.
But worse, much worse than all other memories was the one from the end. The final showdown with Voldemort.
Voldemort had him. Had him, tied, beaten, bruised, broken. Had him shattered, bleeding, torn.
Sometimes, at night, I hear Voldemort's words come back to me.
You should've taught this one Occlumency, Harry. Did you know he is in love with you?
No. I hadn't known. He'd never said. Just like I'd never said it.
I could see him breathing. His chest, once beautiful and flat, now scarred and deformed. It rose and fell in a rhythm. An irregular rhythm, but it was a rhythm nonetheless.
Voldemort thought seeing him like that would break me. Make me cave, like Ginny had caved at seeing Robert Duval's body at the Hogwarts gates. Like she broke from the nightmares of being possessed and dying. Like she broke when he entered her mind once more.
But it didn't break me. Seeing my beautiful, incredible man like that, defeated and controlled, just made me angry. Angry like nothing else I'd ever felt before.
He'd taken sometime precious and priceless, and he'd destroyed it. He'd ruined the plane of his chest, the structure of his face, the smoothness of his back, the strength of his limbs. Nobody destroys what is mine without punishment.
And he was mine.
He was mine, and I was his, and we were ours. Voldemort could not have him, not without a fight. So I gave him one.
Against all odds, I won too.
Dumbledore told me once that I had a power that Voldemort could never have. I had that power in spades, and it had saved me time and time again. Looking back, he was talking about love. I had love and Voldemort didn't. Love was my greatest strength. Love helped me beat Voldemort and save the wizarding world.
But it didn't help me save him. Love didn't help me save the one thing I wanted to save more than anything else in the world.
That was what broke me. Not seeing him all disfigured and damaged, but seeing that rise and fall, that irregular rhythm of his chest stop and fall still. That broke me into pieces so small that I cannot find them and put them back together. My eyesight is not good enough. Nobody's is. Only he could see clearly enough to find the pieces of me and to fit them back together.
But he can't see anything now.
So, here I sit. In my little white room, with the padded walls, padded corners, and the spot I call the Rocking Corner. Because I sit there and rock for hours on end. Thinking about him, sometimes talking to him, or crying to him, or praying to him. He has become a sort of god to me. Well, I always knew he was too good, too beautiful, too everything for me.
It's not so bad in here really. Sometimes people come in to visit, and sometimes I can hear Ginny from the room across the hall. She screams. Sometimes I scream too, to fill the silence.
It's nice in here because there are no distractions, no reminders. Out there, there would be things that remind me of him. Not just of the things I want to remember. I'd see slugs, or a dragon, or any number of things, and I'd remember the bad parts. The times before he loved me. Or at least, before he showed he loved me.
In here, in this little room that is bare of anything superfluous, I can pick and choose the memories I want to think about.
Sometimes the people who visit make me remember those bad parts, but that doesn't happen often. When Percy and Oliver visit - Oliver supporting Percy's arm as he's not used to the cane yet - I sometimes think of Quidditch and flying, or getting caught in the dungeons as someone else.
Snape never comes. The last time he was here, I tried to strangle him. He reminds me of too much, of all the bad things I don't want to remember anymore.
Other times, visitors don't make me think of him at all. Like Remus, or Luna.
I like Luna's visits best. I think the irony appeals to me. Everyone thought she was crazy in school. I look up at her when she sits with me, and say, "Who's loony now, Loopy Luna Lovegood?"
She always smiles when I say that. Except it looks like a sad smile. It doesn't quite fit her face and I'm not sure I like it all that much, but she's the only one that smiles. So I keep saying it.
I still miss him. All the time, every day, every hour, every minute, every second. Sometimes, I think I see him, or hear him, or sense him. When he doesn't answer, I lash out. The walls and corners are padded for a reason. I'd hurt myself, and anyone visiting, if there was something sharp in here. That's why I can't leave. I don't want to leave, and they wouldn't let me even if I did.
My Rocking Corner is where I spend most of my time. Rocking and mumbling. Crying or screaming. There is only one sentiment that I express. The one I want him to hear, to understand no matter where he is.
I do love nothing in the world so well as you, Draco. Nothing.