Nevermore

Nevermore

"And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,

And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted- nevermore!"

-Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven

A soft plume of smoke drifts up from the cigarette holder. Rouged lips purse around the gold plated tip and release lazily. Smoke curls up and away, twisting, rising, blending with the haze. Deep set eyes regard the room with feigned interest. Bodies pulse to the music, the mournful cry of the sax blending with the sultry voice of the singer, both wanting both needing something they cannot have. Eyes roll. Legs uncross. Heels click against the parquet. A fur coat is draped around shoulders. A door opens and closes. A muttered word, a soft pop. The alley is deserted.

Bending down to reach for a lost sickle, a soft curse escapes. Painted fingers grasp something silver. Found. Straight back, high heels, short dress and fur coat. Enters a store. Deposits the sickle on the counter. A raspy voice asks for the usual. Short stubby hands grab at the sickle and almost in the same movement put down a loaf of bread and a small flask of something. Elegant hands slide the flask and loaf into a small sequined purse. Blond hair swings farewell, heels clack against tiles. A merry tinkle waves goodbye to someone already gone.

Cats' luminous eyes light up the dark alley. A fumble, the sound of a zipper opening, a click, a lighter's flame glows, a cigarette appears, the end glows in the night. Smoke twists and disappears into the darkness. A silhouette becomes more distinct as it makes its way to the lighted alley. Slim legs cross as the figure leans against the lamppost. Brown eyes look around the street with a false air of disinterest. Crimson lips pull at the cigarette holder, red tipped fingers wrap around a jutted hip. Footsteps are heard. Eyes narrow, lips curl. A cloaked figure steps into the lamplight. Cat-like the figure stretches and detaches itself from the lamppost.

A husky voice asks, "Are you looking for something?"

The other reaches into his cloak and hands over a galleon. White hands take. Eyes look up, lashes bat. The man leads the way. A cat cries, nobody hears.

Dreary stores, blackened walls and dead trees line the square. Far up a face peers out of a window then disappears. A figure alone sits in the square on a rusty bench. Smoking a cigarette. Eyes peer up into the fog blanketing the city. A sigh escapes. Blond hair dances in the breeze. Waiting, always waiting. Waiting for night to fall, waiting for a time to act, to win, to die. Time passes the figure by. Eyes become more haunted and wrinkles appear around them and the mouth. Yet nothing changes. Rouged lips inhale smoke, body welcomes clients and lashes flutter. Life must go on until it can no longer.

Eyes look desperately into the mirror, searching, always searching. They are dull, brown, ordinary. Once they had smiled, that much could be seen in the wrinkles lining them. Now they are pained, drawn, worried. A slim hand applies a layer of mascara, steadily, carefully, easily. Red tipped fingers twist open a tube of lipstick. Applied. Finished. Ready for the night. Curves encased in red vinyl, feet shod in heels, cleavage displayed to her advantage. Ready for clients.

Frantic cries fill the night. They are on the rampage. Some silly Muggleborn had been found infiltrating the System. Her slim hands close the door and lock it manually. Blond locks shake as she shows her disapproval. Silly, optimistic girl. Every so often it happened. She had learned early on what happened to those who disobeyed the Lord and his minions. They died. Painfully. Slowly. She was brave but not stupid. She knew that her life was important, she was the only one left. The last survivor. She knew she couldn't use her wand. She knew. She knew.

Gagged! Screamed the headlines. Or they would have, had they been capable of speech, she reflected. Now it was the newspapers themselves that were gagged. It had been years since the Daily Prophet had sprouted anything except from propaganda about the System. Nowadays it was always about the Lord and his minions. Today they had published an article about how wonderful they were because they had finally killed the last Muggleborn. If only they knew. She snorted. Threw it back to the rubbish bin where it rightfully belonged. Heels clicked on the pavement. A mutter, a pop, she was gone.

Hiding in the shadows a woman presses against the wall. Rough rocks dig into her back. She winces. Eyes misting, mascara running, blood seeping. A burn runs up her leg. Escape is in view, but has not yet happened. Men in white masks rush by. She shivers. Her bodice is ripped in half. Close miss. Fortunately, They did not find out who she was. Otherwise this time she would have been the object of their hunt. Just her luck, the only time in years she ventures into the outskirts of the Wizarding Quarters of London, her client is a Rogue Death Eater. Brilliant. Bloody hand clutching her wand, she disapparates.

Inside the store are thousands of children pulling on their parent's sleeves, whining, demanding. The Christmas spirit of selfless giving filled the air. She stood on the pavement, waiting in the cold, ice-rain falling down from the heavens. Her worn coat wrapped around her, striving to keep out the cold. The wind dancing around her bare legs pushes her towards the store. She pushes the door open; music, warm air and noise assault her. She shakes out her hair. Totters to the bread row. People turn to look at her. Whisper. Laugh. She walks by, untouched. They turn back to whatever they had been doing. Invisible. She takes a loaf of bread. Heels clack against the tiles. The cashier barely looks up. Stuffs the loaf into a plastic bag.

"20 p. Miss." Bored, tired, annoyed, uninterested, just sitting, waiting, doing a job no one else wanted.

She hands over the money. "Next, please."

She leaves the cheery, unwelcoming store. Enters a windy, deserted alley. Pops out of existence.

Just as the sun sets an alarm clock rings. The infernal tone wakes the woman lying in the bed. Cheap satin sheets are thrown off. Another night crawler awakes. Gets ready for the night, for the clients. Mascara, eyeliner and eye shadow painted on and around her eyes. Lips rouged whorishly, fitting the job description. Black net stockings coat thin legs disappearing into a red leather mini skirt. Cleavage put on display, pushed up, exposed. Dyed blond locks curled around her face, framing it in an innocently debauched fashion. There would be no doubt for passers-by exactly what this woman did for a living. Everything about her screamed 'slut'. She was for sale.

Killing, she reflects, is terribly messy. He had asked for it, she reasoned with herself. Blood dripped from her fingers, clutching a gun. He had wanted to report her to them. She had been right to do it. It was his life or hers. She grimaces, puts down the gun, wipes her hands on his black jumper. Destroying all evidence of his slaughter by her calm actions, save, of course, for the dead body and the gun. But what is done is done, and there isn't really anything to be done about it except try to escape from the vicinity of the man. Otherwise, she might as well have let him bring her to them. Hair flounces as she turns, she runs away. Away from the body, away from persecution. The dark fog swallows her whole.

Living is terribly underrated. At least that was what they had told her. She would beg to disagree. Since the end of the war she gains no pleasure from life. She cannot even afford to live in the most humble of hovels. She is reduced to this. Whoring herself, living in an attic and eating little. Of course, she remembers, there are the cigarettes. And the drugs. The only things that can alleviate her pain are the only things her parents had always told her to avoid. But her parents are no more. As are her morals, her ideals. All have gone, all vanished when the Dark won the war. Submitting everyone, Muggles and Wizards alike, to their rule. Leaving her with nothing. No friends, no family. Nothing except for the breath of life in a body that she wishes daily was no more. Her life is dull, so terribly dull, with nothing but pain and drugs to brighten her days.

Most days she doesn't see the sun. She wakes as it sets. However, she has to replenish her stock of bread and, of course, cigarettes. Some days she wakes, puts on her most conservative clothes and goes to the store, taking her meagre winnings. Prostitution does not pay well. She knows this from experience. Today is the day for shopping. She brushes out blond locks. Smacks together crimson lips. Straps on stiletto heels. Pulls on a wool cloak. Picks up her purse. Locks the door behind herself. Stumbles down the rickety stairs. Heels tapping on the wood, resonating in the stairwell. Pushes open the rotting wooden door. Steps out into the cold fog of a London December afternoon. Shivers. Long fingers wrap around her wand. A murmur, a pop, nothing.

No one ever really understood her. No one ever took the time to. Not even her long gone friends. Not even they had gone to the lengths that she had to fit in, to understand. Now, she could no longer fit in, even if she tried. There was no more place for her in Society. She was alone. Always alone. She knows now that her place in Society will always be the bottom. There was a time when she was disgusted, irritated by hierarchy. But now, she is jaded, hardened by reality. She knows the ways of the world. She is no longer surprised when things are not ideal. She remains imperturbable, passive. She is accepting.

Once she had been one of the influential. But that time was no more. She now had to rely upon her clientele and the shadows for survival. She was part of the shadows. She faded into them with ease. Only eyes glowed in the dark. The alley was deserted to any casual observer. But they were there. She could feel it. She knew it. They were not looking for her. Another Muggleborn had tried to rebel. Another hopeful soul lost. She sighed mentally. When would they ever learn? But then again she thinks self-deprecatingly, she had been like that in her youth. She too had once had hopes of reform, of change. But she has grown to know that the world really isn't fair. Cloaked in shadow she creeps away and back home. Using back alleys, stepping over rubbish, gliding around puddles. She fades into the night.

People strain, push, and press themselves ever closer, ever tighter. She feels herself being compressed by the crowd. Stench invades her senses, sweat rolls off her body pooling in the small of her back. The crowd is swelling, yelling, she can no longer breathe. Then all is quiet. All gazes turn up towards the balcony. The doors have opened. A man steps out. His silver eyes survey the crowd, assessing. He nods, retreats. The noise resumes. Yells, shouts, ovations and damnations fill the air. Slowly the crowd thins out. Leaves. Hour's later, nothing but the stench of sweating bodies remains and a woman standing in the shadows. Eventually, she too leaves.

Questioning the wisdom of her escapade into their world so soon after the new Lord's nomination, she walks quickly along the deserted streets. Hurrying, rushing, cloaked in darkness. Her heels tap on the frozen cobblestones. A wizened man sweeps the street. His back strains with the effort, his broom scraps painfully against the ground. She walks past him and he doesn't look up. He doesn't notice her. She pushes the grubby store door open. A bell tinkles a welcome. She walks gingerly up to the counter.

The old woman behind it peers at her through thick glasses. 'What would you like, deary?'

She asks for a loaf of bread. Hands over the requested 2 sickles. Tucks away the bread. Leaves to a tinkle. She slips by the sweeper, unnoticed. She is safe again. Nothing has changed for the better or for the worse. All is as it has been, if not as it should be.

Rain had been falling since early morning. It hadn't stopped all day. The weather reflected her mood. Her chin rests in the palm of her hand. Her eyes stare out at the raindrops. They fall, splash and blend in with the others. A long forgotten memory of her mother's voice haunts her mind. Her name is said. She remembers her childhood in small snap-shots. Her father's smile, her mother's eyes remain in her mind's eye. All other details have faded with time. It has been so long, she can no longer remember their faces. A small tear leaks out of her eye, so similar to her mother's. She blinks as the rain stops and the sun glares out from a break in the clouds.

Time flew by under the new Lord's regime. He had work made for every one, no one was left jobless. That was one good thing she could say about him. However, he believed as much if not more than he predecessor about the 'baseness' of Muggleborns. The jobs he distributed to them were therefore as low as the Wizarding World could dig up. They did the jobs no one else wanted. She kept her original employment, with the additional advantage that she could look for customers in the Wizarding World as well. She was better off than she had been in a while. But others were continually more discontent with the Regime's ruling of their World. The people's discontent had been growing and they were showing it more and more often by revolting in the streets, manifesting and going on frequent strikes. They were slowly dismantling the carefully built foundations, pulling up the base of the government, making it impossible to continue as they always had. She didn't care. She had given up hope of a new regime a long time before. So she went along on her business, letting others be shot down by the Killing Curse if they were too rowdy. She whored herself out to any man wealthy enough to pay for her services.

Until that fateful November day, she did her work easily, calmly, imperturbable. Until the day of 'A Thousand Wands', as it was to be known by the generations after her. As usual, the workers had been striking against the Lord. This time, he had had enough. Under orders from the Lord, they Apparated and killed anyone on their path. That day, they killed more than a third of the British Wizarding population. She never saw them coming. She had been on her way out of her apartment building when she was shot in the back. The last words her brain registered were those of the Death Curse. Then she blacked out. She was gone.

"Verification terminated." The mechanical voice echoed in the concrete lab. The doctor looked towards the nurse beside her. She nodded. The nurse pulled a wad of papers from the machine.

"Ma'am, even the slightest brainwaves seem to have disappeared."

"It is then as I have suspected since the beginning."

"How is that Doctor?"

"Patient Number 12894-G-H-56 has been living another life in her mind and she has died at last."

"But how is that possible Doctor?"

"It is amazing how complex the human mind is, my dear."

"So, what will happen to her now?"

"That will be determined by the Council."

Women and men filed out of the courtroom. Most shaking their heads, whispering.

"What a shame..." One of them was heard to say. Another agreed. Other gossipers muttered among themselves.

"Poor girl... I heard she was only eleven years old at the time of the accident... Terrible matter... I suppose she'll be terminated."

Slowly the courtroom emptied itself, leaving only an efficient looking woman and an elderly gentleman behind. The woman helping the gentleman down from the podium.

"My dear Dumbledore, would you like to see to Patient Number 12894-G-H-56? Or should I?"

"Doctor, I would be honoured to visit the child once more, but I could not terminate her myself. It would break my heart."

"Very well. Follow me please."

She led the gentleman out of the darkened courtroom, through sterile corridors. Disappearing into the bowels of the hospital.

"XPRT," the clear voice called. The doors slid open, revealing the concrete lab and the wasted woman lying on the examination table. The Doctor and the man entered the room. The man walked towards the patient, his long white beard blowing in an unseen, unfelt wind. An old wrinkled hand was brought to rest upon the girl's forehead. Eyes wrinkle, tears leak out from the corners.

"Why? Why child? Why do you not fight to live? Why must you refuse to come back to us? Was it really that awful? Have you been in a place that was happier, or was it sadder? For your sake I hope it was the former."

The gentleman glances up towards the monitor. The same information remains, unchanged, despite the checks made every second. The brainwaves are those of someone dead. The body in front of him is that of someone who believes themselves dead, someone who believes so much that they made their brain die.

"I suppose, my dear Doctor McGonagall, that this is the end. She has really left us now."

"Yes, I'm afraid so, Albus. She is gone forever."

The woman's finger presses a red button. The slight raise and fall of the girl's breast stops. She is dead for all intents and purposes.

Years had ravaged Albus Dumbledore's face, but this new trial had lined the venerable gentleman's face yet again. The woman next to him was silently weeping as the body of a girl; a mere child was deposited silently into the ground. Albus could not understand why his godson's daughter had fallen into such a deep coma. Even he, one of Britain's most respected doctors, could not wake her after the accident her parents had died in. The lily he dropped on the white casket blended into the cover, soon it was joined by a blood rose dropped by the doctor who had cared for the unresponsive body for all the years that she had remained in Albus' care. Albus remained standing under the downpour, waiting for the last of the dirt to be replaces and the tombstone placed on top of the grave. The plaque read the following:

Zethiel protects those who believe

May he protect a strong believer

May he lead her to eternal peace

Requiem In Pace

Hermione Granger

Born 19^th September 1980 Dec. 13^th February 2002