The End

The End

He had spent half an hour with a leather-bound dictionary, flipping from definition to definition, and finding them still too sentimental for him. He'd counted on the dictionary to be cold, clinical, sterile- to remove any lingering humanity from the word that filled his thoughts.

Finally he gave up, slid the heavy tome back into place on the library shelf, exited, walked down the hall as a man in a dream.

In his room was a box, wooden and much smaller than it had once seemed.

He spread his hands on the lid, felt the oak grain, raw and sanded.

His hands were larger than he remembered, and it sickened him in some distant chamber of his mind, made him feel clumsy, grotesque, dirty. The shape of his fingernails made him want to claw at the walls- they were bitten nearly to the quick; he couldn't remember chewing them.

A single red drop rolled down his chin and fell into his shirt sleeve. His top teeth dug into his lower lip- deep, raw, chapped and gnawed.

So this was the result of fear?

He'd been angry first . . . so angry he pulled a knife and threatened murder.

A fool's mistake.

Anger hardened like blown glass cooling and became too fragile, splintering when the first wave of fear crashed against it.

There was no question of morality.

He was willing to surrender that; he always had been. Right and wrong, black and white: Did it ever matter?

One, two, three, four, who knows what they're fighting for?

He just wanted a choice.

He didn't want to be a puppet- a puppet belonging to an even larger puppet. A marionette for a ventriloquist dummy.

It was not for him.

He threw open the lid of the box, looked at the single object shining on the faded velvet lining.

Lifted it out,

put in his pocket, felt its

cold weight against

his leg.

Dead weight.

Dead.

He didn't want to think that word. It sounded sour, bitter, clammy, like seaweed washed onto a cold shore, wrapping itself around his ankles. He thought of slime and moss and bloodshot eyes. He thought of the last year-

-the last year-

He remembered prophecies . . . they hadn't told him what they said. He could only guess, and guess wrong.

Both were dead.

Master and hero.

Both dead.

Both enemies, both leaders, both sides of the same hated coin had been wiped clean.

A new "leader" had been chosen- wrenched out of the shadows somewhere and bolted to a podium. Risen from the ashes, still soot-covered and coughing.

Order.

That was all they wanted to restore.

The new leader, barely a man, was awkward, unsure- his elder brother would have taken the job eagerly, with a power-hunger blazing in his eyes.

This one was pale, thin, with fiery hair and haunted eyes.

The weight in his pocket pressed heavily.

He walked on down the hall, came to a door, and looked inside. Knew he had to.

The man in the armchair turned.

An empty shell of a man,

hollowed out.

A shadow of silver-blond hair,

hanging long,

half-crazed eyes, burning,

The shell.

The memory of a man.

"Father." The word was dead on his lips, poisoned by the apathy of its utterance. He didn't want it to mean anything. It was just a word, a space-filler, a legal definition of what the being in the armchair was to him.

Nothing.

Nothing!

Oh, God, make him mean nothing to me!

The eyes in the armchair flashed. A nearly-smile cracked his lips, splintered the mask. A quiet whisper, cool as salve. "Yes, son?"

"I want to kill you."

The words came flat, so blank, as if they had been born dead.

The shell in the armchair didn't move. "I would not be surprised . ."

"Dad-!" That single syllable escaped before he could stop it.

There was no going back,

and no feeling sorrow.

Weeks of contemplation

had forbidden it.

He pulled his shining, gleaming

metal object

from his pocket, and

Pointed it at his father, trembling, tasting blood on chapped lips. Praying for strength.

Beware the Jabberwock, my son . . .

His father stared calmly into the barrel of the gun. "Where did you get it?"

Each short word was clipped, spoken haltingly, as if he were remembering his language as he spoke. As if each word was a dry twig snapping.

The question brought him up short. He remembered where he had gotten it.

When the wars of our nation did beckon . .

He remembered, although he'd forced himself to forget the name.

Poor man, rich man, beggar man, thief! Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief . . .

He remembered where he'd gotten the gun, who he'd gotten it from. It rose inside him like a bubble on the surface of a bog.

Sandy hair tousled,

crooked grin that

shone like fire

in that dark corner.

Carrying a flask of

whiskey in one pocket,

a pistol in the other.

Brash and foolish and coarse . . .

"Come on, then," he had taunted, lopsided grin flickering across his face. "Show us what a man you are . . . Come on, Malfoy." That smile flashed again. He knew he was cornered. He was pressed to the wall with nowhere to turn and no friends to aid him. Not anymore. Malfoy's cowardice was his only chance at life, and he toyed with it as thought it didn't matter.

It didn't.

Malfoy had never failed to kill anyone- his cowardice wouldn't allow it.

"Come on, come on. Don't just stand there like a bleedin' post, staring at me." He put the silver flask to his lips.

He-- Malfoy-- held a wand tight in his hand, trained on the beaten hero, a futile fighter with nowhere to run and no chance of getting there. "You don't much like me, do you?" Heavy-lidded eyes and a bored expression couldn't mask the tremor in his voice. Buying time to gather courage.

"Like father, like son." His green eyes narrowed slightly.

Those four words injected him with all the courage he needed. Malfoy pressed the tip of his wand to the other's breastbone--

Malfoy could feel the heartbeat. "Avada-"

Something flared up in his eyes and fell back, dead and beaten. He saw the determined set of Malfoy's mouth, the steely look. He clumsily yanked his pistol from his coat, pressed the barrel to his temple. "Maybe I should let you finish this. Maybe I should give you that burden to carry on your conscience. But you're a miserable little thing, Malfoy. The weight of it would crush you. And I would rather leave you as weak and blameless as you ever were." The corners of his mouth twitched, wanting to smile. "I know you've never failed, never had to admit defeat. That's the difference between you and me . . "

And pulled the trigger on himself.

Malfoy kept the pistol.

To point it on his father, months later.

"Father?"

"Yes, Son?"

"I want to kill you."

His father closed his eyes, a shudder of ecstasy racking his body. "Would that you had the courage. But you never will." He ran a hand over his weary brow, a waxen mask worn for lifetimes. "You never will. You're eating yourself from the inside out. In . . . your weakness . . . your indecision . . . you've blamed me. Me. Look at me. What could I have done to you?" He smiled, an expression of candid innocence and joy. "It wasn't me. You know who it was . . . What could you possibly do? What could you do but eat yourself forever . . . gnawing yourself until you die . . "

He lowered the weapon, shaking, put a fist to his mouth, scraped his knuckles red with his teeth. "Have I ever known the courage . . ." He stopped, throat snagged on the thought it had been about to capture.

The empty man on the armchair raised an eyebrow, unfurled his finger in a gesture to continue.

"Have I ever known the courage- of the person who gave me this?" He held the pistol, tuned it in his hand. He raised it to his mouth, let his hot, raw lips embrace the cool, smooth metal of the barrel. He glanced to his father, an empty look of recognition. And shot.

And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!