Memories of Times Forgotten

Memories of Times Forgotten

By Eowyn Slytherin

Reminiscing on times forgotten is becoming my habit now. Never was I to stay in a dark room, in a dark house, waiting impatiently for the next wave of torture, simply to forget what I'd lost. Here I am, rotting without purpose, without dreams or thoughts, my mind blank and disconnected from the rest of the world.

The world... What has become of it? Harry Potter is dead. Albus Dumbledore is dead. The members of the Order of the Phoenix are all dead or enslaved at some Death Eater's house... Except me. The Boy Who Lived has been defeated. We have been condemned to a life of misery. All the Death Eaters now call Harry The Boy Who Lived To Die. His soul rests in a box, six feet under the ground. He could scarcely imagine the horrors to come. I guess he never took Voldemort seriously. How could he? A teenager bound to a life of pain. A mission, whose purpose was to kill the most powerful wizard of all times. Because he is that powerful. He's showed it. Many times. And he demonstrated it by killing Harry. It was the first time I've ever seen Albus Dumbledore's eyes on the edge of tears. He knew it. I knew it. We were doomed.

Needles to say the Muggles found out about the Wizarding World. It was... It is chaos. They had tried to defeat Voldemort with every weapon they had. But magic is beyond Muggle inventions. They were defeated. Some of the world's greatest Muggle rulers were treated worse than dogs. And some of the greatest wizards of my time committed suicide. Albus Dumbledore did. Cornelius Fudge and Amelia Bones did. Alastor Moody did. The list could continue, but my mind only rests upon one person's fate now. Nymphadora Tonks. Haven't seen her for three months, and the last time I did, she was nothing more than a slave in the Avery manor. Every woman, every girl that looked good and decent enough, they would rape. Witch or Muggle... It didn't matter.

But they took her. Roland Avery captured her. Filthy disgusting slime... He touched my love. The only person willing to love me. People like me are considered scum, let alone the fact that they are more dangerous and uncontrollable than any other wizards. But she accepted me for what I was. For what I still am, for that matter. She was willing to die for me, if I asked that of her. And she did so much more than that. She sacrificed herself for me. I was a coward, and she is paying for it. It hurts so much to remember...

We were at the Avery Manor. We were told some major Death Eater attack was being planned. But everything went wrong. Terribly wrong.

They saw us in the manor, because somehow we managed to get in, and they went after us. They cast Stupefy, but they only hit her. I knew it, but I kept running and casting Expelliarmus over my shoulder. I escaped, they barely touched me. But then I remembered I left someone inside. Someone who was going to suffer because I was a fool; a coward. I was supposed to protect her. Not only because she was my partner, but because she was my lover. I failed her. And I felt ashamed.

Of course, I thought that if I returned, I could've rescued her. But it was hopeless. There were too many Death Eaters, and I was only one. When I returned to Headquarters I told Dumbledore we had to gather twenty members or so and go there and rescue her.

"Battles are lost, people are captured. We are few already, and I don't want us to be fewer. It was your task to protect her" he said. Then he left. I went mad. How dare he say that? How dare he blame me? He sounded like I was trusted with her life, which I wasn't. How dare he say that? Again!... He said the exact same thing when Sirius died. I was so mad I burned the room in which Dumbledore rarely spent his nights. I burned it! Seeing it all turning to ashes made it better. I actually started to blame Dumbledore for Sirius' death, just to block out that feeling of guilt that he installed in my sick heart. I stopped the fire before it spread in the whole house, and when the Order members saw what happened, I blamed it on Dumbledore. I said it was because he left a candle burning on his bed. I told them that when I realised something was burning it was already too late. The whole room turned to ashes.

I don't know if they believed me, but I know Dumbledore didn't. Damn him! He is a very well trained Legilimens and I am sure he read my mind just to find out that I hated him. And I know that because he never spoke to me ever since.

Nine days had passed without Tonks, and I decided to go to the Avery manor alone. Nobody knew where I was headed. They asked me where I was going, but I just exited the house without answering.

I walked with fear, because there was no peace in London anymore. I went on foot; there was no point in riding a broom. The sky was monitored by Voldemort's followers. And if you weren't a Death Eater you would've got killed. I weared a white mask, similar to those the Death Eaters always wear. I wanted to get out of this alive in case I was to meet a Death Eater. My journey was uneventful though, and in thirty minutes I found myself in front of the Avery Manor. And then I saw her. At the window of a room at the first floor. I stared at her. I came all the way here to rescue her, and now I found no motivation whatsoever. I was going to get killed anyway. Why drag her to her death? If I took her, they would've killed us both. There was no possible way they wouldn't have catched us.

Then her eyes caught mine. We just stared at each other for the longest seconds in my life, until I saw that she was crying. Her hair now brown and dirty pointed out the strawberry lips she was always proud of. Then I did the best thing I could do. I walked away.

I walked away without looking back. When I reached headquarters only Mundungus Fletcher, Emmeline Vance and Hestia Jones were there. The later two had bloodshot eyes, and Dung was looking down, his face expressionless. I asked them what happened, and they told me Albus Dumbledore committed suicide. Malfoy and some other very dangerous Death Eaters had discovered where he was, and there was nothing Dumbledore could do, but bow down to death. He obviously decided it would be better to die before he was captured, because once he was in the hands of Voldemort, he could give him some very important information, unwillingly of course, seeing the fact that Voldemort is a very powerful Legilimens. They told me Severus Snape had found him, he had seen him. His face bone-white and eyes missing that once-thought eternal sparkle.

"We are dead" were the first and last things I said, for since then I have locked myself in the attic. Every month I would wait for the full moon. Starving. With an empty body and an empty soul. But a mind full of memories. Memories of times forgotten.

A new Era has begun. The Era of the Dark Lord.