Forgiven

Well I would like to think

The world hasn’t seen

That all the best is still to come,

And I know life ain’t easy.

I pass them sleeping on the streets

Their bloodstained hands and dirty feet

And I can’t ignore them

Any more than I already have.

So we laugh, and we smile,

And we play our games of sweet denial

But don’t tell me we’re forgiven

If we hold, all our breath

If we kneel right down and just repent

You can’t tell me we’re forgiven.

~

    Harry was prepared for this day, hour, very moment. He had spent long hours, whole weekends, in the library with Hermione, learning more spells, more curses, more shields, incantations, hexes, enchantments. He had touched, however briefly, on every subject in the school library, he knew. He had bought most of the Defense books in Flourish and Blotts. He had studied with Snape for three years now, taken after-school Charms with Flitwick; the class had been miles above Ordinary Wizarding Level, beyond the Patronous. He had struggled, but he had learned. Sometime over the past years, he had dabbled in the Dark Arts.

    They were intoxicating, addictive; one spell, and you ached for more. He had not meant to fall into them; it had started with some simple background research, necessary to plot strategies against Voldemort. But the Dark Arts whisper ‘power’ into the purest saint’s ear, breathe strength into the most chaste child. He killed spiders for Ron, mice, birds, anything innocent slow enough for his purpose. Like the name suggested, they were an art, a challenge, something to mastered.

    Hermione, his faithful Hermione, sweet, loyal, innocent, virgin Hermione. She had saved him, effortlessly for her, he imagined. It had been simple for her, Head Girl, wonder woman, his Hermione, to banish the creeping silver from his soul, hand-polish it to a brilliant golden finish. As easy as kisses, deliberate, unhurried kisses along his brow. Kisses, but never anything more, to shine Golden Boy’s tarnished essence.

    And Ron. Ron had been glowing coals of optimism through it all; the copper wires of his hair seemed to conduct a platonic intensity of might, despite the odds and Harry’s overwhelming shadow.

    They had been perfect. No, they are perfect, Harry remembered. When Dumbledore had informed him that he would fight alone in the final battle, they had somehow, almost, faded from Harry’s being. Unwillingly, as water sliding between your fingers, they had become mere legends to him. Legends? Yes, that was the word. Modern mythology spoke of a boy with no hope and the world on his shoulders, and the two perfect friends, bearers of hope and innocence, that each held the boy’s hands. They were perfect.

    The summer after sixth year, he had helped the Ministry create more helpful brochures to hand out to the wizarding community. It was stupid, he had reminded himself as he Flooed into the Atrium every Sunday. Brochures, cheap folded paper to save lives? As if. But he had explained the Unforgivable Curses, what to do against them, basic curses, and so on. The Ministry sent out a new pamphlet out every week. It was, in Harry’s mind, a sort of emergency long-distance education.

    It had not helped. Thousands had died in Britain alone, but that did not begin to cover the damage throughout Europe. France had lost nearly ten thousand and Bulgaria, seven thousand, nearly all of their wizarding population. Ireland, Romania, the Netherlands, had all faced dramatic losses and injuries. Late in their last year, Hermione, Head Girl, amazing, brilliant, Hermione, his flawless, virgin, Hermione, had quit school. She had joined up with a squad of witches to help the cause, healing the sick, learning as she went.

    People at Hogwarts had considered it to be a tragedy. Hermione Granger, head of her year, gone. High hopes, one day heroine, mentor to Harry Potter, a survivor, gone. The school had been crushed; Harry had found himself crying one day during Advanced Charms, the empty seat beside him suffocating him, constricting his breathing.

    It had been alright in the end. Perhaps it was better this way, after all, with Ron and Hermione like sheer myths to him. Perhaps it was better to see his life with them as a fairy tale story that one day the reader had stopped reading. Perhaps it was better that though the first to die, the innocents would not be the last.    

    Harry was prepared for this day, hour, very moment.

~

Start with me

I cannot lie

When my heart doesn’t follow my eyes

Turn away, from all the suffering

That surrounds

Our time on this earth

For some their life has been a curse

I say I’m sorry and I should change

You know it just could be me someday.

For some their life has been a curse

I say I’m sorry and I should change.

~

    Wind slashed at Harry’s back, whipping his hair into his eyes, beating stray thoughts back into his head. He was alone, or he wished he was.

    Standing opposite him, cloaked in black, hooded, pale hands fingering a certain yew wand, was the chance of a lifetime.

    The chance of a lifetime, Harry mused to himself. Oh, how his outlook on life must have changed in his time at Hogwarts! His eyes narrowed slightly, not callously, just focusing in on the subject before him, as a pallid set of digits removed the hood.

    “Harry Potter.”

    The now-familiar face before him grinned genuinely. Like Harry, Tom, as he had become to Harry, lived (if you could call what he did living) for the rush of the fight. The adrenaline pumped through his veins like ice water as he surveyed Harry from his spindly height.

    “Tom.” Harry gave a mock bow, smiling equally as wide as his opponent. Or was he even the opponent anymore? Weren’t they in the same boat now?

    Tom snickered slightly at the now routine bowing ritual but did not return the gesture.

    “Ah,” said Harry. “A bit tense, are we, Tom?” He laughed bitterly to himself. “No need to be; it’s only another battle.”

    Tom’s smile faded abruptly as he redrew his wand. “You know as well as I do that this is the last battle.”

    Harry grinned even wider, just to taught Riddle. “What’s the matter with that? Are you going to miss me, Tom?” he asked. He continued on. “Does the infamous Voldemort have a heart after all?”

    “You wish,” snapped Tom, sweeping his wand down.. “Crucio!”

    Harry sighed as a jet of crimson light flashed in his direction, stepping out of the way with the ultimate in reflexes.

    Tom fumed exasperatedly, sending more red and then a blue light in Harry’s direction, all of which the young man dodged expertly. Green mingled with the other colours until it became the primary spell cast in Harry’s direction. And still, Harry had not fired a spell.

    He had opted to analyze the battle before partaking in the situation itself. With Death Curses coming at him every two seconds, the berth would barely be enough to get the words out, let alone to dodge Tom’s own spell.

~

There’s no way out of here

I don’t want to die, and leave it all behind

Each day a part of me disappears

But who am I to judge, what’s been sent from up above.

~

    This is it, he realized. The moment he had trained for. The reason Hermione had saved him. The reason he had endured extra lessons with Snape for nearly three years. The decision that would decide his fate and that of the world’s.

    He opted to save the rest of the world.

    He began the curse a mere moment before Tom. Emerald light blossomed from both wands, but the time difference had been enough.. The spells did not join. His curse hit Tom first, but it was only a nanosecond later that the opposing curse hit him.

    The green light illuminated his skin for a moment, and then it faded. In the brief moments that followed, he saw a fairytale life, all smiles, the damsel in distress saving the Golden prince while the local Earl looked on. The last page was kissing, the kind that makes little children recoil.

    They found him with a smile on his face.

~

We can’t laugh, we can’t smile

When so much just ain’t right

It can’t go on forever…

If we hold, all our breath

If we kneel right down and just repent,

You can’t tell me we’re forgiven, no

You can’t tell me we’re forgiven.

~

    They found him with a smile on his face.