The Last Auror

Chapter Two: The Freedom of Choice

Ginny didn't know what time it was. She didn't care about time. To her it was merely some useless measurement devised by idle human beings. Time was irrelevant for her purposes.

She had been by Harry's side for what she surmised to be a few minutes, but it seemed like several hours had passed by. Ginny merely sat there, beholding the aftermath of Voldemort's handiwork in a mixture of astonishment and horror.

Three foot piles of bricks and glass with burning wooden planks rested upon crumbling foundations while twenty foot trees lie toppled over, the branches like coiling skeleton's hands. No more than fifteen feet away, a body, apparently a Muggle's as indicated by its clothes, lie separated from its other half, the entrails leaking out and the body bearing several burns, exposing the charred flesh. Ginny couldn't make out the details from such a distance, but she figured it used to be a woman, since its dress had miraculously remained intact. She speculated if she had had kids, what the opinion of her house had been. Did she used to prefer gardening or something more exotic, like big game hunting? What had been her favorite color?

Ginny longed to turn away, but her contumacious eyes remained transfixed on the corpse not fifteen feet away from her. She felt sick; sick and traumatized and vengeful at the same time.

"Stop looking at it."

But her eyes did not comply with her sense. They continued to stare as she continued to contemplate her existence and marvel at the animal-like vehemence of human beings. How pitifully easy it was for human vices to dominate the fragile being, how the underlying instinct of greed combined with anger could poison and delude moral consciousness until the human being was but a withered form of itself. Or, if not vices, were fellow humans the true culprits?

Ginny felt a pain in her stomach and vomited behind a pile of bricks, the sad remains of a house. Her eyes diverted to a pile of ash, the putrid taste of vomit still in her mouth. She gazed at the ash pile intently, as if she saw the concrete fragments tremble. It occurred to her that the very rubble she was nonchalantly sifting through, trying to find her wand, might have been the ashy remains of Muggles....

Such a nauseating thought prompted more complaints from her stomach but she gulped it down. This couldn't be happening...it couldn't be real. She rose out of her stooping position and inhaled and exhaled, the air releasing her from her oblivious state.

Her knees gave way and she fell, sobbing. The situation was too painful for her to endure. Maybe life was too agonizing in general....

A shard of glass in an adjacent pile reflected the little sunlight there was in the sky. She picked it up and fleetingly glanced at her tearful reflection, tilting the glass at an angle, exposing its iridescent shine. The transparent pinks, purples, greens, yellows, and reds seemed to merge together in the middle, giving her face many different colors. She looked at it closer, turning the glass gingerly in her hands, analyzing the jagged edges. "Stop stalling," Ginny commanded herself. Instead her hand trembled, unsure of the notion yet refusing to let go.

The diabolical glass shard seemed like such an agonizing way to die. That vision contrasted sharply with the vision of falling placidly asleep in the familiarity of home at a ripe old age. And what would happen once she descended into death? Was the afterlife merely a place conceived by wistful human beings?

Ginny held it close to her wrist, her hands trembling and breathing strained. She glanced at the blue, slightly protruding vein, her eyes following its meandering path. The fact that she would be cleaving apart her own flesh terrified her. Before she'd seldom thought about death, but when confronted by it, she realized what a mysterious, irreversible thing it was. Life was the only thing she was acquainted with and in death; she would be deprived of her familiarity.

She looked ambivalently upon the reflective glass in her hands. This was it, this was the ultimate end. The glass shard was a promise of mercy intertwined with regret. "Don't falter," she told herself.

Moaning, she felt the excruciating stinging sensation spread throughout her wrist. Curling up in a ball, she glanced at a drop gliding down her arm and splashing on the ground, realizing that it was her own blood. Ginny grimaced, holding her arms tighter against her folded legs. The pain was that particularly callous kind, the kind that would envelope the wound and would reverberate throughout the entire body. It had this tingling sensation so when she shut her eyes she could feel the frantic blood vessels moving about.

Ginny grimaced again. She could feel the throbbing of it, as if her heart had a fancy that it should relocate to her wrist.

How could she summon the will to follow through with this?

"This is madness...that's what it is. Oh, don't be selfish, Ginny Weasley. Suicide is easy...that's why people do it. What's the benefit of rashly murdering yourself, anyway? What about the cursed dark lord? Are you going to do anything about him?" chided that annoying little conscience in her head.

"Don't be a bloody coward, Ginny. Stop pitying yourself. Put the glass down," ordered her conscience. But the thing that baffled her mind was the question if it was more cowardly to release the glass or keep it in her hand.

"I can't do this," she muttered and her unhindered left arm threw the shard across the piles of rubble. Then her eyes erupted with tears and her body wracked with sobs. She couldn't fathom why she was sobbing so violently, or even why she was sobbing at all. Maybe it was how, in spite of her efforts, the fact that she couldn't seem to elude the desolation, the prospect that she was utterly helpless. It was useless trying to decipher her emotions now, she thought, burying her head further into her knees.

Her sobbing subsided slightly and she glanced fleetingly at her hand. Splotches of blood from the glass covered her fingertips, the mixture seeping down into the miniature depressions of the finger print and flowing into the crevice of the nail, making each print more prominent than usual. She studied the minute ridges, the sort of spiral pattern on each fleshy finger, as if the pattern of bloody tree rings had been stamped into each fingertip. Her eyes maneuvered to where the glass lied, blood trickling down its smooth, burnished surface which caught the light and glinted jeeringly back at her. That was her blood trickling down its surface; it was her own blood that covered her hands.



"Ginny...Ginny, it's me... Percy."

The girl tentatively turned her head, unsure if this was some apparition either conjured by herself or the Death Eaters. Afraid of what she would see, she avoided his face. There, behind her, stood her brother with those bookish spectacles and elongated nose, wearing some tweed trousers and a sea green sweater, accompanied by a distraught expression. She contemplated whether or not he was real, if this situation was real. A portion of her longed to thank him but that conflicted with awkwardness and the desire for revenge on this slimy git who had betrayed their family in exchange for a promotion at the Ministry.

"Ginny, are you all right?"

She loathed and loved him, comforted to know she wasn't alone, that someone cared about her enough to inquire how she felt. But what a stupid question it was! Of course she wasn't "all right," not now, since everyone she loved probably died.

Ginny glanced back at him, her eyes wide and glassy. Peering into his blue brown eyes she witnessed an inexpressible sadness muddled with infinite guilt. She saw the reflection of the dreary piles of rubble, the violet circles of restless nights and anxiety, the pink hue of the whites of his eyes, suggesting he'd been crying. Clearly he felt remorse at his actions and yet... her stubborn soul couldn't convince itself to forgive him. She thought he possessed a hardened heart and the only amiable thing to do would be to alleviate his grief by forgiving him, but she couldn't believe that the impenetrable layer of iciness had melted away. She merely stared into his eyes, a single tear gliding down her face.

Horrified at the ghastly sight, he looked fleetingly at the trembling Ginny, her breathing heavy. "We...we have to get to St. Mungo's...quickly," stammered Percy, looking furtively at the piles of debris, then at the vermilion spots dotting the concrete. Gulping with ill-concealed revolution he resumed an air of false authority. "We're....we're going to be Apparating... just hold my arm," offered Percy, extending an arm. Ginny grasped it with a trembling hand. Her eyes narrowed cynically. "Don't worry, we'll be there soon," he said, giving her an anxious smile, his manner a poor reassurance.

He glanced at the destruction quizzically, as if something was missing."Where are Ron and the others?" Ginny looked intently at him, her complexion wan in the sickly green light, not knowing what to say. "Are... are they dead?" he asked, his eyes pleading, his voice a faint murmur. "We have to leave here. They're searching for us, I know it! We'll be killed and tortured and..." his voice faltered. "They killed six Ministry officials today! Who says they won't be pursuing us?" He looked at her perplexed, his eyes glassy. An immense dread gnawed at Ginny, knowing her brother's thin veil of delusion wouldn't last forever "Are they dead?" His voice dropped an octave, the bravado diminished into a helpless murmur. "They c-cant be dead."

"They're dead, Percy! They're dead! I saw a flash of green light and... the wand connection with him and Harry broke and he was dead. His head was cut open, blood was spilling out all over the rubble pile he was lying on..." she said, her voice slightly hoarse and eyes glassy, possessed by fear. "And... and I could hear Ron's screams as You-Know-Who used the Cruciatus Curse. He's buried under a pile of rubble... some feet away from here." She averted her brother's glance, preferring instead to look at the powdery grey dust covering the ground. "But what sticks in my mind is Harry telling me to run. I can still hear their screams."

Percy's expression remained blank.

"Can't you see his body? Can't you see he's dead? He's right beside me, for Merlin's sake!" She sobbed incoherently, burying her head into a now stooping Percy's shoulder.

Percy looked in the direction she was pointing at and he saw the lifeless remains of the Boy-Who-Lived - his skin was sallow, his eyes were wide open; his face was devoid of expression and his body was devoid of movement. "No... this means...."

"That Voldemort won? Yes, indeed he did win, and a bloody victory it was," caustically replied Ginny, uncertain if it was courage or insanity which had impassioned her enough to mention his name.

"We have to go now. I can't stand to have another person I know die. Plus you're... you're bleeding," announced Percy, his voice faint and frantic, and his eyes unable to restrain the outpour of tears.

"I'm not leaving him! As stupid as it sounds I can't just leave his body to get picked apart by maggots or Death Eaters on a little victory march! And what about Ron and Hermione? I can't just leave them here!"

"Shh..." Percy commanded, placing a hand on her shoulder. "The Ministry will retrieve and recover their... their... bodies." He turned his head away to conceal emerging tears. "But what we have to worry about is getting you out alive."

"Who cares about your shitty Ministry? They could take the bodies before we arrive! Or they could get lost or forgotten!"

"Ginny, we must be rational. Now I assure you that as soon as you're safe at St. Mungo's I will come here myself and retrieve them." Although his was voice resolute she thought she detected a slight quiver. Ginny glared at him. Too disheartened to continue her fight, she grudgingly nodded at him as she realized her protest was in vain. Disgusted with Percy's logic, she languidly rose to her feet, her body weak and gashed wrist paining her anew.

Steadying herself upon her brother's arm, she saw the sickly green sky merge with the austere grey rubble, the images muddling together to the extent that the sky became indistinguishable from the ground. Then she felt the unwelcome sensation of being pushed through an impossibly tiny hole, her insides contracting so much so that they were obliged to burst. Just as she thought she could constrict herself no longer, she felt an abrupt falling sensation and found herself on the beeswax polished parquet of the St. Mungo's waiting room.

Ginny squinted at the garishly bright light streaming through her eyes. Blinking numerous times, she scanned the unfamiliar room, bewildered yet feeling slightly like a lab rat because of the room's sterile quality. The room contained no windows, just immaculate white tiles covering the walls and canvas curtains separating the room's residents from one another. The metal bed and bed sheets were also unadorned, with grey wool bedspreads matching with white sheets folded precisely three inches over the bedspread. A squat navy chair leaned against the wall beside the bed while a glass of water sat upon a chipboard nightstand disguised in a pine varnish. Most prominent, however, was the acidic smell of vomit mixing with a biting tinge of ammonia. Squinting, Ginny felt quite uncomfortable in the vomit-and-ammonia smelling room, especially coupled with theobnoxiously bright lighting.

Evidently, this was a hospital.

"But how did I get here?" wondered Ginny to herself. Her recollection of the past events wasn't exactly lucid. There was a gap between when she had met Harry in the graveyard to when she'd discovered herself sitting beside Harry's corpse. And the details included within that time span remained elusive to her memory.

She felt a tickling sensation move beneath her forehead. Positioning her hand there to scratch it, her fingertips felt the rough texture of a band aid. Perhaps she'd suffered a concussion and consequently didn't remember. Or perhaps the healers had implemented some kind of memory charm. Speculating about it was just useless, but there wasn't much else to do. So she closed her eyes, listening to the patter of rain outside the hospital, the sound mollifying her thoughts until she was no longer confined to St. Mungo's and she was no longer Ginny Weasley. Instead, she was nothing but an anonymous entity, floating through the indifferent nothingness of sleep.

A low, scraping sound entered her ears, puncturing her oblivious bubble. She turned her head, her vision blurry so that everything seemed like translucent blots of color. Blinking, she adjusted her eyes and observed a healer pushing a chair across the white linoleum. The healer had the same uniform lime green robes as the other healers, with her sleeves rolled up to the highest extent and her brown hair secured rigidly in a bun. The only accentuating feature about her was the square, cobalt blue glasses dangling off the edge of her nose. She appeared to be in her early forties or waning thirties, her demeanor expressing anxiety and a desire to be out of the hospital.

"Blasted custodian. I don't understand why he couldn't just give the flick of a wand and move it to the opposite end of the room. Heck , I almost dropped this bloody potion. But then again, he's probably not the most respectable fellow, being a custodian and all. Probably got something like... five O.W.L.s when he was young. Probably he's just lazy. Probably some huge firewhisky drinker..."

"Oh, you're awake! I didn't really notice. Sorry if my mutterings scared you a bit...it's a nasty habit of mine," explained the healer who extracted some cranberry colored concoction and was rigidly stirring the mix as she sat it on the nightstand.

"How did I get here? I can't exactly seem to remember anything."

"Your brother brought you here. You really damaged your veins, you know, doing a rash thing like that. You lost a whole lot of blood and punctured a good deal of tissue. Fortunately we had some blood replenishing potion left but I warrant it won't last that much longer. But I can't say I blame you though, judging by your circumstances, although I would've chosen a less painful way to go."

Simultaneously, memory flowed into her consciousness, awakening the latent sadness that resided in her heart. Her eyes expanded, becoming wide and glassy until she could hear Harry's cry of "Run, Ginny!" resonate in her ear as if he was directly beside her. Then a blinding green light obstructed her vision, following a high, mirthless cackle.

"These cursed reporters; they've been banging on your door at the most untimely hours of night. Why, I think I saw one of them sticking one of those extendable ear contraptions in here at four in the morning. What do they expect to hear but snores at that hour? I mean you'd think they'd show some decency since the world's going to end... oh, I'm being tactless again," interposed the nurse, who had been conducting her little rant for at least five minutes.

"My... my family, are they dead? Where's Percy? He's the one who brought me here, isn't he? Can I talk to him?"

"One question at a time. Yes, yes you can talk to him, but you must slow down. It's not good to overexert yourself, as cliché as that sounds."

"But what about my family? Are they alive? Have they been kidnapped? Does anyone even know where they are?" questioned Ginny earnestly, her eyes becoming glassy with emerging tears.

"Listen, dear. I know your brother's coming but I don't know about the others. Now the best advice I can give you is to drink this bezore and phoenix tear vein repairing potion and get some rest. Not that that'll be an easy feat with all those bloody reporters," continued the nurse in her chatty sort of manner.

She nonchalantly handed the acrid smelling stuff to Ginny's quivering hand and warned her to be a bit more careful with the potion. "Now it's not the best tasting stuff but try not to spit it out. Maybe you should try holding your nose with the other hand if you're not too sure you'll be able to handle it."

Ginny diffidently nodded and followed her advice. Holding the cup up to her lips she reluctantly gulped the mixture down. It possessed a lumpy texture, comparable to runny cottage cheese or exceedingly rotten milk. The taste was unique, like overbearingly flavorful cheese combined with dirt. She wanted to inquire further about what the potion consisted of but thought better of it when she was overcome with a gagging sensation as her face assumed a greenish hue.

"Thank Merlin you gulped that down. Most patients would just spit the stuff out, even with their noses plugged. Now I think I'm needed in 30C so I should be going. Here's the Prophet for you to read until you nod off. Your brother should be here shortly."

"Oh, how could I forget? Tergeo!" mumbled the nurse, pointing her wand at Ginny's forehead until the pool of blood that had accumulated there shrank until it vanished into oblivion. Then she scuttled out of the room, her feet taking small, brisk steps upon the white linoleum.

Ginny's eyes scrutinized the ceiling, her mind wistfully wanting to leave this sterile white prison with its lemon and vomit smell and perturbing chatty nurses. For the first time since her departure she took into account the immense physical pain she was in, the stinging sensation panging at her wrist with the continuous headache she was having. She noticed the headline in its prominent black letters that took up a quarter of the page: BOY WHO LIVED TRAGICALLY SLAUGHTERED; WIZARDING WORLD LOSES HOPE. Directly beneath the caption was a picture of a smiling fifth year version of the trio and adjacent to that a caption reading, "Harry Potter and friends Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger during their fifth year. Both Weasley and Granger perished during the conflict, although the whereabouts of Granger's corpse are still unknown. The only known survivor of Harry's acquaintances was found alive but remains in critical condition."

It was eerie to hear them described in past tense, to witness them being swallowed up by the passage of time until they were obscure fragments of history. Harry would undeniably live on to have factual and fantastical tales intertwined into his memory. But Ron's memory would accumulate dust until it was only referred to by a historian who decided to go digging through the obscure files of forgotten history.

Her eyesight became hazy and out of focus as she glanced upon the newspaper sprawled in her lap, for it was obscured by a tear. She closed her eyes and let the tear fall unabated, until it trickled down the length of her face and dropped onto the mass of black and white, a soggy circular imprint the only remain of the obliterated tear which would be forgotten once it dried. Every aspect of life seemed to remind her while each consecutive minute caused others to forget.

She tucked her arms over her upturned knees, staring vacantly at the opposite wall. Ginny wished guilt could evaporate as swiftly as history, for it was another thing plaguing her, scalding her insides until that was the only thought occupying her mind. The words - treacherous, cowardly, and pathetic - kept repeating themselves, torturing her until insults morphed into adjectives. Why did she have to survive? Why was she so selfish that she ran instead of attempting to save Harry or her family? That's what Harry would have done.

Then she heard a faint creak coming from the door. Turning her head towards it, she saw the gaunt frame of Percy, accompanied by her dad, mum, and some uncharacteristically somber twins. They went single file into the room, more resembling a funeral procession than a family. Her brothers plunked down in three chairs leaning against the opposite wall, while her parents sat in two chairs adjacent to her bed.

She regarded them in astounded silence. Ginny had assured herself that they had been murdered, lost among the nameless other casualties. Yet here they were. She longed to say something profound, something they could cherish and remember forever but her mind couldn't seem to formulate the words. She berated herself for her sluggish reaction but one glance into their benevolent eyes and she found words weren't necessary, only the knowledge that they loved her and she loved them. So Ginny leaned over and embraced them, thankful she wasn't alone in the world.