So Now What?

It's sort of funny, really. Here I am, with the man who killed my parents held defenseless at wandpoint, and all I can think of is how it could have been different. How the whole bloody mess could have been avoided if Tom Riddle had made different choices, or if he had died with his mother in childbed, or if he simply hadn't been insane. And I think of myself, what's going to happen now that the person who's more or less shaped my entire existence is - will be - dead. It's ironic, really. I have so many people who I look up to, who've guided me ever since I got my Hogwarts letter - Sirius, Dumbledore, Hagrid, Remus, and even Snape, in a perverse sort of way - but the one who has, in the end, shaped my life the most is one of the cruelest bastards who ever lived. I mean, if he hadn't murdered my parents and then tried to kill me, I wouldn't be the "Boy Who Lived," the savior of the wizarding world. For that matter, I wouldn't be able to do half the things I'm able to do, since he put his power in me that night. And everything I've suffered because of him has changed me; for better or for worse, I couldn't really say. That's the funny thing about hatred. You carry it in you, let it stew, let it burn you out, and then when you exact your revenge you find that the person you despise so much is only the other side of your coin. A mirror image gone bad. And you find that what you hate about your enemy is really only what you hate about yourself.

I know that I'm not like him. I know that I'm not Voldemort's heir, not some Dark Lord in the making. I know that I'll never stoop to become what he is, no matter what we may have in common. But at the same time, I know that after tonight my life will never be the same again. And the thought scares me. As though I want this. Do I want this? I don't know.

There. I'm raising the wand now as he watches me through those red, slitted eyes of his. Eyes that used to be green, like mine. I wonder when his eyes changed, and why, or if they were always red and his descent into the Dark simply brought out their true color. I wonder, then, if the whole thing, the whole stupid drama, was fate, and we're only the players on a game board beyond our comprehension. I wonder if this scene, too, was scripted: him, standing there doing nothing as I, raising the wand, contemplate life and fate and red eyes.

If all this was fate, then was it really his fault? Or did fate only shape the circumstance, putting him on a path that he could have chosen to stay away from? Maybe he thought that he could make his own fate, and avoid the fate that was chosen for him, but the fate he tried to make was really only the fate he was intended for in the first place.

Sometimes I think in circles so much I make myself sick.

But the thing about fate - whether it's the petty variety that decides whether or not you've won a dice game, or the grand kind, Fate with a capital F, that decides the outcomes of wars and the weather - is that it doesn't always have to be this way. The Dark and the Light don't always have to squabble like bad-tempered siblings. But they do it anyway. I've always found it strange - yes, even stranger than Hogwarts - just how childish destiny is. Would the world have come to an end if I had never been the Boy Who Lived, if Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin had never had heirs in the first place?

That's the childish part. The world probably would have come to an end if neither of these things had happened.

And as I say the words of the spell that will finally destroy my mortal enemy once and for all, I can't help but think what a colossal waste this is. How a wizard who was powerful and intelligent could have been simply tossed onto the slagheap by entities who don't give a damn about human hopes and dreams and aspirations.

Only, I'm not sure if I mean him or me.

He's falling backward now. I can't see his face but I know that he's dead. All my problems - over and done with. And it's stupid. It's all so stupid.

As I walk away, leaving my enemy's dead body to decompose on its own, I find that I'm crying, and I don't know why. Yes, I do. I don't grieve for Voldemort, that powerful, decaying husk of a wizard who haunted my dreams for the past seven years. I'm crying for my parents, murdered so long ago, and for Sirius, locked in Azkaban for twelve wasted years, and for Remus, losing two of his best friends in one stroke, and even for Pettigrew, stupid, blundering, scheming Peter Pettigrew, who cost us everything and yet lost the most. I'm crying for Barty Crouch, both of them, for their stubborn pride, and for Mrs. Crouch, who sacrificed everything for a son who turned out to be the traitor after all. I'm crying for Snape, and for Malfoy, and for all the Slytherins who were desperate enough or greedy enough to become Death Eaters. I'm crying for Fudge, pompous, shortsighted Fudge, who never showed his worth until it was too late. I'm crying for Quirrell, who made one blunder and destroyed his life thereby. I'm crying for Cedric, killed for no other reason than because he was inconvenient, and for Cho, killed for no other reason than because of her association with me. I'm crying for Ron and Hermione, forced to watch their best friend be hurled about by forces beyond his control; I'm crying for Dumbledore, who worked so hard to save everyone and everything; I'm crying for Hagrid, framed by Tom Riddle all those years ago; I'm crying for Neville, who was condemned to have his parents suffer a fate worse than death. And I'm crying for myself, fate's victim, who didn't ask for any of this, nothing at all, but was forced to shoulder the whole damn load.

I walk away from the site of a battle that was less a battle than an execution, and I wonder yet again how it could have been different. What would have been changed if someone could have saved Tom Riddle, evil and brilliant and flawed though he was, if someone could have stopped him from becoming Voldemort. And I know that I'll never know the answer.

So yes, to be honest, I'm crying for him too. For the orphaned boy who grew up to be a murderer, I'm crying for him too.

Goodbye, Tom Riddle. I forgive you.