The Last Auror

The Last Auror

Her eyes couldn't believe what her reason dictated. He was lying there, in the remains of the local Godric's Hollow graveyard, his limbs gory and mangled, crimson pools of blood spurting out of his neck. His emerald eyes were glassy and wide open, showing no evidence of life his mouth emitting no breath as his limbs lay petrified. His face was covered in unsightly bruises, including a particularly nasty one in the upper left section of his forehead, the blood from the wound streaming down his temple.

She collapsed beside him, unable to tolerate such emotional pain, the pain of seeing him lying there. Tears glided down her cheeks as she clasped his hand in a futile attempt to revive him. His hand felt utterly icy and unnaturally smooth, his fingers coiled and stiff from lack of circulation, giving them a sickly, purple-green hue.

"Harry, wake up! You're not dead! You're just injured... rather severely -but you'll make it! You've survived before. He didn't kill you. He tried... yes, he tried, but he didn't do it this time! He didn't. He couldn't have..." She pressed her fingers against his wrist but felt not even the faintest pulse. Ginny hoped that somehow his hand would miraculously recoil, that his eyes would regain their vibrancy, but hope had failed her before.

She ran her delicate hand against his cheek. "Wake up, love. Oh, please have the strength to wake up! Without you...I don't know. Please don't die. I love you, beyond what you could ever imagine."

Her doleful brown eyes glistened with tears. "What can I say? I'm not one for...soppy goodbye speeches. Never thought I'd have to make one, actually. I thought...I sort of thought that you and pretty much everyone would last forever, stupid as that sounds. I mean...subconsciously, really. But now you're...no you're not... "Her voice faltered. "All we missed out on... that's the irony I guess. You are... the only person I could say anything to without rejecting it or... You love me that much. You're the only person willing to accept me for whatever I set out to do. You're not dead..."

Sobbing, she buried her head in his shoulder, hoping she could somehow wake him from his eternal slumber that so callously deprived her of his company. "I love you. You probably figured it out already but I was never able to say it... until you were... gone. Always wanted to... I wanted to say it a million times. No, an infinite number of times....."

"Oh, this sounds so stupid," she thought.

Life seemed a metaphor for what she was feeling, for what was happening to her. Everything was dead, from the skeletons of dead oak trees to the sickly mustard olive color of the sky, to the grey expanse of rubble that more resembled a concrete heap than a graveyard. No sound but silence accompanied her crying.

Tears rolled down Ginny's cheeks, obliterated as they fell on Harry's face. "Better wipe those off," Ginny laughed mirthlessly. As she tenderly wiped the tears off with her sleeve and kissed his cheek, she realized that he was really gone.

Ginny decided that Harry should be buried along with her brother if by some miracle his body was found. Tearfully, she carried him as well as she could through the mess, observing an occasional severed limb or pool of blood, rendering her horrified yet sympathetic. The carnage and destruction surrounded her yet her mind couldn't believe what her eyes witnessed.

She was continuously reminded of Harry's death as she attempted to carry his limp body across the rubble to some remotely suitable burying place, but she couldn't seem to find even a sliver of dirt between the masses of concrete fragments and building material. She walked a yard or two before she collapsed on her knees and sobbed, pressing his lithe neck into her cheek, propping his head up with her arms.

She glanced to her right, something red diverting her attention from Harry. Mopping up her tears with her sleeve, she tentatively rose to her feet and walked towards the indistinguishable object, stumbling over the debris that obstructed her path.

She saw a corpse, bereft of color except for a slight greenish tint, lying at the base of a charred tree. Blood ebbed in and out of a sizable dent in the body's forehead, gliding down its face and trickling from the corners of the mouth. Livid bruises of mustard yellow merged with purple dotted the remains' face and arms; a pair of glazed unblinking eyes stared blankly at the sky, the pupils reflecting neither light nor movement. It laid there, the corpse's lower body covered in wreckage, its face deceptively calm.

The body belonged to her brother, Ron.

Her legs grew weak and she fell to the ground, her sobbing increasing in intensity as she stared at her brother's contorted corpse. She covered her face in her hands, her grief seemingly endless. It was remarkable how fate could be so callous, almost as if fate was some Muggle director maneuvering actors around to watch its own captivating little dramas play out. "Enough of this pathetic self pity," she thought sardonically. But she couldn't dismiss those profound feelings of sadness at their short lives or how she could function after they had been condemned to such a death.

"Harry..." That high-pitched, icy voice resonated in her ears. She glanced behind her shoulder, incensed but terrified, half expecting the pallid form of Voldemort to materialize before her eyes. Almost ruefully, she saw nothing but piles of debris and the limitless expanse of olive green sky.

"You're definitely losing it, Ginny Weasley," she muttered to herself.

"Why Ginny, sad because your insipid little Harry has fallen?" jeered a voice in her head. She felt the sensation of somebody touching the back of her neck

"Ginny, it's not a good time to lose your sanity. It's probably just the trauma in your head. Oh, that's what they always say."

"Ginny..." The fervor of her instincts dictated her to run, conflicting with her reason and desire to die.

"What about the rest of your family...they need you. You're obligated to them. How would they feel if you died? Let's see...that's you, Ron..., Charlie..., Bill missing, and...and I suppose Harry would count. Oh, they're probably all dead. Stop thinking like that!" Ginny chided herself, her eyes once again erupting in tears.

"And tragically their bodies will rot as they're enveloped in maggots..."

"Leave me alone!" she bellowed in an upwelling of sentiment and anger. Rising unsteadily, she grabbed for her wand in the folds of her jacket but found nothing.

"Oh, shut up, Ginny. He's a merciless psychopath and doesn't give a damn. He's content with just watching you on the ground, jeering in your ear. You're just playing his little game..."

"Precisely! You are alone," replied the mirthlessly high voice.

"No need to remind me, that's for sure..."

She pointlessly rummaged about through the course shattered concrete and charred remains of wood. Surely her wand must be there somewhere. She briefly indulged a theory that maybe a Summoning Charm would free it from the ruins. So she looked vacantly up at the sky, expelling all thoughts except for the ones that pertained to her wand. But death kept seeping back into the crevices of her brain, like water seeping through a coffin. Images of Harry and anyone she ever loved flashed through her wistful brain, compelling her to drift into some happy memory. Love and anger and sentimentality converged, creating a murky puddle of feelings.

So when she whispered, "Accio wand!" nothing happened. Silence taunted her. It was then that logic was swallowed up by despair and frustration.

She thrashed the rubble about, carelessly throwing fragments this way and that. Ginny's aggravation was mounting... her wand didn't seem to be anywhere. She fought to ignore the pain in her back from excessive stooping. Where was that miserable wand? Had it been confiscated by the Death Eaters?

"Where is it?!" she shrieked, kicking a fragment of concrete that blocked the tunnel she had excavated. "No, it can't be stolen by the Death Eaters... why the bloody hell would they want it?"

Then her eyes swelled up with tears. Trivial things like sayings were reminiscent of people...Ron, in this instance. "Pull yourself together, Ginny," she told herself, "crying isn't accomplishing anything."

"Who are you kidding? Who are you kidding?" she mumbled incoherently, kicking concrete fragments this way and that with the altruistic nature of death seemingly providing the only escape. Unintentionally, the tears kept pouring down her cheeks. She kept repeating her obligation to live while hoping her mind would see how wrong it was to contradict nature's will.

Oh, but the notion of suicide did seem tempting! A mere murmur of "Avada Kedavra!" and all the scars wrought on her soul would be washed away; then her body, devoid of life, would fall to the rubble covered ground. After she met with sallow Persephone, she would be able to enjoy the perpetual pleasures of Heaven. Fickle love had forsaken her and she was simply following its trail...

At that moment she thought she saw a battered oak stick protruding out of a narrow space between a concrete block and what remained of a window frame. The diluted happiness of hope overcame her, bringing about a reinvigorated sense of optimism. Ginny sifted through the debris, her hands feeling the roughness of the objects, the remains of entire foundations reduced to powder. Yes, it was definitely her wand, with its scratched wood and peeling mahogany colored finish. Hope overwhelmed her as she neared the bottom, and thus far her wand seemed intact.

As she extracted it, her hopes fell as she saw a singal wood splinter dangling precariously from its other half, the wood scratched and the smooth texture irregular with the peeling finish. She held the shards, her hands trembling.

Ginny uttered a cry of despair and threw the fragments across the rubble of the Graveyard. She tried to repress a sob, slowly inhaling and exhaling, pressing her fingers against her temples to restrain her restive tears. "This...c-can't be real."

Ginny stumbled clumsily through the debris, uncertain of what to do next. The most convenient and painless method of suicide was no longer an option, and she was doubtful that she would follow through with the remaining Muggle-style alternatives. She sat down on a rubble pile adjacent to Harry's corpse. Running her hand against his icy cheek she whispered, "I'll be joining you soon, Harry. You and everyone I ever cared about."