The Old Lie

"Ah . . . Mr Collier. Please sit down." Professor Dumbledore smiled up at the seventh-year.

"Good afternoon, Sir." The tall young man had light brown hair that was showing the beginning of receding. He was slender but muscular, with sinewy arms. At over six feet tall, the ladies considered him handsome, but he seemed to have little time for them.

"I see that you plan to join up."

Collier's face fell as he said, "And, of course, you are going to talk me out of it. I suppose Dippet made you do this. " He ran his hands though his short hair, obviously this had been plaguing him for a while

"Professor Dippit asked me to talk to you. The theory was that you would consider me to be more understanding, because I am younger. I see that this was wrong, the moment I bring up the topic you assume I will be against you."

"Listen, Sir; I . . . you can't understand. You're like mother ... you wizards, you don't . . .." He took a deep breath.

"Mr Collier, you ought to calm yourself. It is not my intention to stop you from joining up if that is your true desire. I would like to believe that I have enough experience as a teacher to know that it would do little good. However, you must consider carefully some things and not let yourself get carried away. You are under no obligation - I must be absolutely emphatic about this - you are in no way required to join up."

"I know, sir. But duty-"

"Duty means different things to different people. For example, you as a Gryffindor see duty only as a feat of bravery; if you were a Ravenclaw you might see it as using your intelligence to help others." Dumbledore could see this rather academic argument was not getting through to his student, and so tried a more pragmatic root. "The Muggle army is not in so desperate a situation that the issue of duty must be your only consideration. Even if they force the Muggles to join up the Ministry can and will protect you."

Collier sighed. "Sir, this is a personal question but, were your parents . . . ?"

"Both my parents were of magical blood, yes, Mr Collier, and while-."

"So, Sir, that means you can't understand," Collier interrupted. "My mother is a witch, and my father died too soon for me to really . . . to really know him and the Muggle aspects of myself. I have spent the vast majority of my childhood in this world, and it is likely it is where I will spend the rest of my life. I must pay some respect, give some of my time, to my father's heritage."

"You are aware you can't use magic."

"I am aware, yes, Sir."

"You must leave you wand behind. You must leave behind all of your magical skill. You must fight with only Muggle weapons, using only Muggle techniques."

"I know, Sir!" Collier stood up suddenly and began pacing around his Transfiguration teacher's study to exercise his anger. "I want to . . . I want to do something with my life. I want to fight for right. I want to be honourable."

"Please sit down, Mr Collier," said Dumbledore stiffly. Once his pupil had obeyed, he continued, "There are many ways to gain honour, mostly because it is an indefinable quality, often sort after but rarely gained to the satisfaction of the seeker. I do not believe that your life will be in any sense dishonourable if you do not go to war. I do not believe that war is the best path to having a full and happy life-"

"Surely, if one's comrades . . . if one's fellows are in danger and need one's help, then one must put aside the need for happiness, at least for a while."

"I concede; there is merit in that argument. However, what if you don't return to a good and happy life? What if you don't return at all? Are you willing to pay that price?"

"I am, Sir. I am willing to sacrifice my life."

Lieutenant Tobias Alfred Collier, of the Fifth Manchester Regiment, was to be shipped off to the France in three hours. Looking around his bedroom for the last time, he inhaled a deep breath of his childhood mixed with the sweat and energy of youth.

He looked at his bed, made by his mother. Lying on the pillow, his red ribbon freshly tied, was Toby's bear. "Goodbye, Snuggles. Keep the bed warm for me."

"That bear was always your favourite."

"Mother!" He spun round in embarrassment, not expecting his mother to have come up here. Mrs Collier rarely ventured into what had been her husband's study.

Mrs Collier embraced her son. Fiercely, she hugged him, as though he were being dragged away. "Toby, my love," she whispered into his shoulder. "Toby, my love."

Eventually she released him and then took his face in her hands. "You will look after yourself? You will be careful? If something happened to you I couldn't . . ." She reached for her handkerchief. "If you didn't return home it would be frightful, truly frightful." She turned to go, stopping to wave her wand at the vase of flowers; they were brought to life again instantly.

Lieutenant Collier was surrounded by blood. Blood from the gash on his arm was slowly congealing, a record of where his skin had been wrenched apart by the cruel spikes of barbed wire. Blood from Sculthun, who was shaken, huddled in the corner. Collier had tried to comfort him, but the boy (because he was really a boy) was in a terrifying, hellish world of his own, and Collier needed to look after himself. But most of the blood was from Wilson, who was at Collier's feet. Well, part of him. Another part was above him, some to the side, and Collier knew he was leaning on a bit of his old comrade. He was surrounded by the soldier's mutilated body and enclosed in a mixture of blood, flesh, bones and shrapnel.

Just as he was pondering this, another shell impacted the top of their tiny shelter; the screaming noise and juddering shock shifted Sculthun out of his zombie state and into a screaming fit of pure terror.

Then, the endless, endless stream of bangs assaulted them. The dugout stank of blood and piss and shit. It smelt of death.

Above the screaming of the young soldier and the sound of murderous machinery, Collier thought he could hear Professor Beech droning on about the calming properties of Mandical ferns.

He was sitting next to Henderson, and he was making paper birds fly about above their heads, somehow without the teacher noticing. Later that day, he would be having dinner and then doing his prep work. Afterwards, he would go down to the Quidditch pitch for practice. Then, tired out and ready for a night of peaceful sleep, he would read his letters from mother.

An especially loud bang jolted him from his dreaming. "Sculthun, on your feet, man! We've got to get back to our trenches!" With that, he pulled the man out with him into the dark night.

They made it half way through the chaos and destruction. Stumbling over the bodies of the fallen, tripping into craters filled with water and mud, they kept moving. Then, Sculthun, still completely disorientated and half-dragged by Collier, caught a stray bullet. Collier kept on moving, carrying the dead weight for several more yards.

Then a bullet hit him. Collier dropped to the ground, landing on Sculthun's body, keeping him propped up and not protected in the cover of the hellish hole. Collier had barely time to register his approaching death before the bullet, the definite article, impacted with his skull.