Anonymous

Anonymous:

By Neville

By DarkSorceress226

"Alas, I have been struck a mortal blow."

-Agamemnon

***

I am a Gryffindor.

And there must be a reason the Sorting Hat put me where it did.

You know, call me childish, if you like, but I am afraid of death. I'm wholly aware that one day it is the inevitable outcome for everyone; it's as unavoidable as being the one draped on a chandelier when you're stuck in a room full of malevolent Cornish pixies. That's nothing morbid. It's just... simple, I guess. But death...to me...is like a shadowy breath of cold wind that whistles through the bare trees in a cemetery; I can't even pass a graveyard without feeling my blood chill to ice and a prickly claw of fear taking hold of my heart. I feel frozen from the inside out, like hungry eyes are watching me...waiting ever so patiently for my demise. Just the same, though, I often find to my displeasure that I cannot help but wonder what it will be like. Will it hurt? Will I feel nothing at all? And where will I go, whom will I see on my journey...or will I even be on a journey at all? Maybe...dying is like falling asleep, except you never wake up...or maybe it's like a thousand Cruciatus curses eating at your body from within...except the pain goes on and on, red-hot and unforgiving, all through however long Eternity will last...Maybe it's Paradise once I'm gone...or on to something worse. Though, I know that once my time has arrived, I will have no choice...but I truly fear that moment of indecision on the part of the Big Guy Upstairs. I fear the uncertainty of not knowing what will become of ordinary, forgetful Neville Longbottom. I fear the helplessness and hopelessness and despair that will haunt me till the day...I leave. Is it possible to make mistakes in the afterlife, too?

Our Father

, who art in Heaven

But what I am more afraid of is the furtive Death that slinks about, unbidden and unprepared for, to wrench beautiful lives from fragile bodies when they're nowhere near being ready to leave. I cower at the violence of a sudden, cowardly strike from Death that snatches its victims unmercifully, rending out both the blood and finally broken spirits.

And then...then there are the ones who do not die, the ones who may have been meant to, but survive the fierce blows they've been dealt...only to recover without their minds, their souls far behind. What it must be like. When someone has been tortured until they've lost all sense of time and all sense of life at all...I would much rather have been taken "mercifully", swiftly cut down instead of suffering for years on end, like I know my parents did. But really, mercy is not constituted by the taking of any life, or the distortion of one. This is why I do not believe that the human race knows what mercy really is. Does it no longer exist?

Hallowed be thy name

And no, I do not believe that there is not another world beyond this one, but sometimes death can be more than just the end of a life. It is the end of God's renewed faith in us to live through Him, His will for us to do His work. Because every single human God creates is a work of art that He personally builds to His own perfection - and then all at once, it's gone, whether a shining bullet or a two-word curse destroyed its every purpose.

Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done

On Earth as it is in Heaven

Now I am not a preacher, nor will I ever be; I haven't learned these things, no, I simply regurgitate them in an effort to prove to God, if He is out there, that once I die I think I deserve to at least knock at the Pearly Gates. Because I believe in Him, if He does decide that I'm worthy enough to visit Paradise. When I was very young, you know, my grandmother hauled me to the services every Sunday at the nearby Roman Catholic church, and always, always, the Reverend's sacred announcements would be the very same. God is good. He is very, very GOOD. He ALONE controls our fate. He ALONE is fair and just. He ALONE will be your salvation.

Well, let's hope so.

Give us this day, our daily bread

So, why, now, as I stare Death in its glinting, scarlet, flame-like eye, I wonder, why does anyone die at all? Why does anyone kill? Why does God put so much pride into something that will eventually decay and shrivel beneath the cold, cruel ground? And why, why, does He allow human beings to walk the Earth that only have the sole intention of screwing Him over? Oh, the anger, the torture, the hatred that could drive someone to kill... To take a life that has spent years blossoming and blooming, gradually growing over time like a bright red rose, and all that hard work is vanished in a matter of seconds. The stem bends, the leaves crinkle and darken, the petals slowly droop and brush the ground, and it's done. Done, dead, gone. The wind carries the shattered pieces of life into the thunderclouds Above.

And forgive us our trespasses

And then...And then there are those who take their own lives. The ones who don't know or care if there is a God, and also don't care that if there is, then after the life in them vanishes, their soul will go straight to Hell. Or, at least that's what Father Bill constantly reminded us: It's the ultimate sin, God will give up on you, God will no longer love you.

The hooded figures move ever closer to me. Vivid green flashes are occasionally visible from beneath the rain of bodies. This must be evil, I think. Hermione Granger lies in the cold, hard dirt thirty yards to my left, a look of urgency still upon her smooth, unmarred face, as if to warn me, as if to save just one more life before she disappeared. Well, thank you, but I wish you hadn't come to tell me, it wasn't worth it. Look where it's gotten you. You were beautiful and talented; after all, no one else would have been able to stop those bloody pixies. You had such potential and a chance to live. Why did you bother to save me?

Dumbledore's been dead since the start of the attack. Someone so wise and caring is probably watching from his seat in Heaven as his school and students continue to crumble. And I watched Ron Weasley fall as he leapt in front of Harry before I ran and ran to spread the word, and reached my current spot. I figure Harry must be dead, too, as the circle of cloaked figures that surrounded him did not look at all like they would leave any survivors. Neither of them deserved their fates. Also, many were crushed in the falling debris as Hogwarts finally fell about ten minutes ago; I saw Ginny Weasley pinned under a table in the Great Hall, her hand outstretched, her face contorted in pain and terror. I remember having thanked her silently for accompanying me to the Yule Ball in fourth year. And I've seen some students, and even teachers, fling themselves into the lake in desperation, perhaps wishing to drown, or maybe hoping that they'll survive that way. I'll never know. But here I am now, at the edge of a yawning precipice, its sheer walls below me shining and steep. The soft dirt loosens and shifts beneath my feet.

I refuse to back down.

As we forgive those who trespass against us

The Death Eaters are right in front of me. (Oh, how aptly named they are!) The one in front raises his wand, and he does so, I glimpse a pair of molten-silver eyes and a fringe of white-blond hair beneath the hood. I hear several stones from the cliff face clattering down to the jagged rocks below even above the roar of destruction that's pounding in my eardrums. But perhaps that's the sound of my heart, I don't know.

I do know I am trying to not be afraid - as I've said, it's inevitable.

And lead us not into temptation

The soil beneath me crumbles. I move forward in defiance, staring into the eyes of every single one of Voldemort's minions that surround me. None of them will be allowed the pleasure of killing me. Nor will they be given the chance to use my precarious location as an opportunity to "sin" (wait...does that mean I learned something in Sunday school?) and they will not take me the same way they took my parents from me, snatched them swiftly from my grip, bent the tender stems and bowed the buds before I even had the chance to know them. The man in front begins to speak.

"Know any prayers, Longbottom?"

But deliver us from evil.

His family took away one generation of my family...and now he will not have the chance to continue on in that tradition. Lucius will be sorely disappointed.

I slowly, carefully, purposefully remove my wand from my sleeve. The Death Eaters do not notice; I assume they are gleefully picturing my murder and salivating, just thinking about the death they're about to cause.

At this simple realisation, rage explodes in my mind in a tidal wave of fury and sadness. I feel myself breaking.

And two voices are heard to echo the same fatal curse at the same time, only I am not aiming when I lift my wand and pour out seventeen years' worth of grief and desperation and anger and utter helplessness into the only two words that come to my lips. For you, Mum, I think silently, and for you, Dad. I won't go until I've tried to make it right.

"Avada Ked - "

Hell, here I come.

The ground finally decides it wants to give way. It feels wonderful to be falling away from the death-drenched world above; I ponder vaguely, Is this suicide? I don't know who I've hit, but as though everything is moving in slow motion, I hear a cry and the vague sound of more bodies meeting the ground.

I'm soaring now, praying to a God that may or may not exist, asking if I've sinned or if I've just performed a miracle. After all, I think what I did either disobeyed the rules of life or rearranged them. In either case, I never knew I could do that. Professor Snape would be proud that I finally followed directions.

I shout to anyone that will listen,

"Watch me fly!"

I think perhaps that I never a damn thing right in my life; for this, I must now plead, forgive me.

Maybe the old Hat was right. Amen to that.

~FIN~