We Were Soldiers

    There are two sides to every war : good and evil; winning and losing. In this case, I was on both the losing side and - what most people would consider - the evil side. Being locked away for so long has given me time to consider both, although only one has left me with a definite answer. We were on the evil side of the war because we fought for the wrong cause, although to us it seemed they fought for the wrong cause; the members of the light side I mean.

    What makes me truly think is whether or not we really lost. We still killed nearly half of Britain’s muggle population, which is sure to show in the future. And I personally accomplished many of the goals that I had when I first joined my father and his cause. I watched many of my school-mates - including the traitors who turned their backs on us - die. I even had the pleasure of killing some of them.

    Potter probably thinks he won this war. He was as big-headed and noble as ever when I last saw him, on the final day of the battle beside Weasley’s dying body. He, of course, has no idea I saw him then. All he knows is that he caught the Death Eater who lurked near his friends body, and that later I was among those sent to Azkaban. He doesn’t - and cannot ever - know that I killed Ron Weasley.

    When I had originally planned it, I had wanted Potter to know that it had indeed been me who had done it, and that I had finally paid him back for all the misery he caused me during our seven years at Hogwarts. I would have liked him to tell Granger all about what happened to her precious husband. But now I think I like it better this way. Knowing Potter, he would have wanted closer on what happened to his best friend; he would have wanted to know that the person who killed Ron rests in the grave too. And as long as I stay quiet, he’ll never get that closer.

    These thought have been all that’s kept me sane over the years. They bring me pleasure, and yet they aren’t the happy thoughts Dementors feed upon. Unfortunately, not all in the fortress are so lucky as I. My mother, arrested for treason after the war ended, died screaming for my father just a month after she came. My father of course wasn’t even there, he was killed in the war itself by Arthur Weasley, which only made me more determined than ever to kill Ron.

    There were others like my mother as well : Crabbe and Goyle, both year-mates of mine, the were the first to die in Azkaban; Macnair, although he faired longer than the others, still dead within the first year of coming; Nott, Avery, Pettigrew... The list goes on and on.

    I am one of the only ones left, and I know I too will one day meet my end here. If not from insanity, from lack of clean air or water, or I may have to take my own life from this Earth. I only hope that the members of the Light Side, for their own sakes, do not get too cocky. They may have taken out one group of us, but if history has taught us anything, it’s that it repeats. There will be others like us, fighting for the same cause and the same rights. But we were first.

    We were soldiers.