Penance

Harry paused for a moment, staring at the large black door in front of him. He knew there wouldn't be anybody else inside; one of the perks of people thinking that he was the Saviour of the world was having most of the Ministry eager to please him. It was dark outside, the fake windows of the Ministry showing a dark sky sprinkled with stars, but Harry knew that outside it was actually cloudy and quite possibly raining. He pushed the door open slowly and stepped in. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the candle-light inside the room. There were no windows in here, fake or real. The walls were made of stone that looked as though it had been there for hundreds of years, not just the brief seven that Harry knew to be the truth. In front of him was a huge slab of black stone. It was completely smooth and looked totally unnatural. The candles that lit up the small room didn't quite reflect off it right, their light seeming almost to be absorbed into the stone. Carefully Harry walked towards it and reached out his hand to touch it. Every time he touched it he was surprised by how cool it was, how the stone felt dead under his hands but the words on it did not. Harry fell to his knees and let his hand slip down in what was almost a caress, his fingers beginning to trace the letters of some of the names.

GINNY WEASLEY

He always found her name first, without even trying. The letters carved into the stone seemed to be of a different substance somehow, reflecting the candle-light and appearing to dance before his eyes. In the flickering light Harry saw Ginny herself dance before him, her hair glistening softly. As his fingers stroked the curls of the letter S she changed before his eyes to how he had last seen her, lying broken before the doors of the castle.

SUSAN BONES

Another early casualty. Harry never forgot how fiercely she had fought; "never underestimate the badgers," that was what she had taught him. He'd never really known her well but he touched her name with the same reverence as all the others.

ROSEMARY BROWN

The first of the children on the monument. Reaching past other friends, he paused, as he always did, on her name. He hadn't known her when she was alive. None of the second years killed in the Hogsmeade attack were familiar to him, but he had seen their bodies. McGonagall hadn't wanted him to, but he had, all the same. Rosemary had been lying at an odd angle, her back obviously broken, a trickle of blood running down from her lips and another on her forehead. She wasn't quite as pretty as Lavender, her sister, but Harry could see the family resemblance. Lavender had never really recovered. her name was further down the slab, along with the names of several others who had been killed in one of the Diagon Alley raids.

VINCENT CRABBE

That had been a surprise. Crabbe's name was surrounded by many of the original Dumbledore's Army. It had been a fierce battle, and they had been close to defeat when Crabbe appeared from the castle leading a small group of Slytherins from various years. The intervention had saved them, although Harry remembered the brief moment of panic before he'd realised which side they were on.

MOLLY WEASLEY

Harry's chest heaved with a dry sob. The closest thing to a mother he had ever known. She hadn't been the first Weasley to die; that had been Ginny, but neither had she lived to see her boggart come true. Her death hurt all the more because it had been so completely senseless. She'd been cooking breakfast for the remaining members of the Order in Grimmauld Place when she'd uncovered an unfriendly poltergeist that had been trapped in a pot at the back of a cupboard. In the middle of a war Molly Weasley had been the victim of an accident that could have happened at any time. It was about then that Harry had lost all faith in the existence of a higher plan for life.

FRED WEASLEY

ANGELINA JOHNSON

KATIE BELL

ALICIA SPINNET

All of them in one go. Harry hadn't been present at that battle. He'd been at Hogwarts tidying up after the second of the great Hogsmeade battles when the Death Eaters had struck Diagon Alley harder than ever before. When he heard the news he had refused to talk to anyone for days. He'd gone to visit George in hospital and found Oliver Wood already there. The three of them had sat and discussed their old practices and for a moment Harry felt the weight drop from his shoulders as he mourned his team mates. It hadn't lasted.

COLIN CREEVY

Harry was sick of it all by this point. He felt responsible for every death he heard about. He had to end it, but he had no idea how. Colin's death hit Harry worse than ever this time; the hero worship of Colin's early years had never fully gone but had deepened until Colin was a loyal soldier aged 16. Dennis had looked at Harry with hatred in his eyes.

Harry's hands roamed all over the monument. He was fairly sure that no-one was allowed to touch it but he had to all the same. He came here every year and touched every letter of every name. Their faces were burnt into his memory if he knew them, and if he didn't then he imagined faces for them. Each name meant something, a friend, a brother, a mother, a lover. Every name was a person who had lived and then had died because Harry wasn't fast enough. High up in the top corner Harry came to the first names. Names of people long dead when he was born: the first Order, Susan's aunt and uncle, whole families that died together. His own family, Lily and James, he traced their names like all the others and tried not to imagine his life if they had lived.

SIRIUS BLACK

Harry still found it hard to believe that Sirius was dead. His death hadn't been anything like the first death Harry had seen, Cedric's. Harry still half expected to see Sirius walk through the door one day, back from beyond the veil, smiling his old smile. His name was cold and hard on the stone. Though it shimmered like the others, to Harry it seemed harsher somehow, as though it was mocking him.

Harry was chilled through. He guessed the time must be past midnight, but he had no way to be sure. His back and knees were stiff and his hands were raw from rubbing against the stone. He had touched every inch of the monument, every letter, every name. The flowers on the floor behind him testified to the people who still remembered the dead but none of them remembered them all as Harry did. Nobody else did this penance to the dead. It was the price he paid for living still. The price he paid for his comfortable life; manager of the Quidditch League, a house close to Ron and Hermione, friends surrounding him, having enough money that he never had to worry about it. Harry had survived whilst so many had died and every year he came to apologise for living. He never forgot them; he could list every name whenever asked to, but this visitation was special. The day itself wasn't an anniversary of anything except the first time Harry had come alone to remember, but he came back every year.

He finished touching the last name, this time that of little Natalie McDonald. It changed each year as he never touched the names in the same order, not wanting it to become to familiar or easy. As he stepped back and looked at the stone before him he took a deep, ragged breath and stepped around the side. He placed his palm against the smooth, black stone and pushed gently on a certain patch. A door sprang open in the monument itself. No-one else came in here. When the memorial had been commissioned Harry had gone to the new Minister of Magic, Madame Bones, and suggested it. She had agreed but other than her, Harry, the stonemasons, and perhaps Dumbledore, no one knew of its existence.

Inside the room a single candle on the back wall cast just enough light to stop Harry from tripping over. The back of the monument was just as forbidding as its front, absorbing the limited light shone onto it. The names here were many, but they did not dance in the candle light. They reflected it back but without the patterns, colder and harder to read. Harry reached forwards again with sore hands and touched the names.

BARTY CROUCH JR

Images of the young man being sentenced in the Pensieve filled Harry's mind. Maybe Barty had been evil, and maybe he had been indirectly the cause of Cedric's death, but the fear in his voice made Harry shiver still. How easily that could have been Percy, how very easily. Thankfully Percy had come back to his family and was now working his way back up the Ministry ladder. Could Barty have been saved too?

LUDO BAGMAN

He hadn't been mistaken after all; Bagman had known what he was doing all along. He had very nearly caused a tragedy by organising an attack on a Cannons/Falcons game. Luckily the Aurors had found the trap, and Bagman had been the only casualty of his own wickedness. Harry thought of his smiling face, thought of the twins' blackmail. It was strange to see Bagman as actually evil - but he had been, and Harry still had no idea why.

EMILY PARKINSON

CHARLOTTE MOON

GREGORY GOYLE

All Slytherins, all fighting for the Death Eaters in the first attack on Hogsmeade, all dead, all killed by friendly fire. In the end, Harry supposed, it was this that had turned Crabbe. The death of his friend had been so pointless, and there had been no recognition from the Death Eaters. The only one who had openly mourned these three had been Harry, much to the disgust of both his friends and enemies. The Death Eaters and their families did not support failures, and so Pansy was never seen to shed a tear for her sister, but Harry had included them in the dead. They had been children, just as the others on the front were. Just children.

BELLATRIX LESTRANGE

A bitter feeling welled up in Harry's heart as he touched this name. He pressed his hand hard against the letters till his fingers almost bled as they scratched against their edges. She had brought nothing but pain to Harry and his friends, and even in death she had stolen Neville from them. Still, she had been a wife, a sister and maybe a friend to someone. Harry wondered if Narcissa had mourned her death. She had been insane, evil, cruel, harsh; she had destroyed everything she touched and Harry would not forget her.

ERNIE MACMILLAN

"Never underestimate a badger." Susan had taught him that, but at the time he hadn't understood what it meant. Harry would never have picked Ernie to turn against them; but he had, he'd openly joined against Harry in the second battle of Hogsmeade and stood side by side with Draco and Blaise. He had fought as fiercely and as bravely as Susan had. There had been no spell, no blackmail that anyone could find to explain Ernie's change of heart. Harry touched the names of the others who had died in that battle leaving Ernie till last. His pompous nature had annoyed Harry but he'd never known the truth of his allegiance till the battle. Facing a member of the DA across a battlefield had never been part of Harry's plan and seeing Ernie's face as Harry cast the curse that knocked him back onto the sharp piece of metal was a memory that had stayed in Harry's nightmares for a long time. He hadn't meant to kill him. How could he have lost Ernie so completely?

LUCIUS MALFOY

Remus had killed him. Harry hadn't seen it happen. It was so strange imagining Lucius out of his life forever. Arthur Weasley had crumpled at the news; he'd known Lucius for a long time, however much they had been enemies. Arthur had seemed so diminished since Molly's death but Lucius' death still had a visible effect on him. Today Arthur was small and frail but still surviving. Seeing his reaction to Lucius' death had made Harry wonder how he would cope with Draco's death, and then how Draco would learn of his father's death. Draco had heard somehow and had come to find Remus. Harry never heard all the details of that conversation, but Remus did tell him thatthere had been a spell, an Obedience Charm, placed on Draco at his birth, and when Lucius died it had been broken. Draco had found himself able to make his own decisions for the first time, and he had broken from his past. Sadly, though he was now free to make his own decisions, his character didn't change much. The smug prat was now the Director of a multi million-pound Fashion House, with hundreds of assistants to bully, and a beautiful wife to parade. Lucius was in the cold hard ground.

FLEUR DELACOUR

Fleur's death had nearly broken Bill's heart. When he heard how she had been killed during an ambush of a Death Eater meeting he'd locked himself away for days and wouldn't talk to anyone. Fleur's betrayal had hurt badly. What had made her do it Harry didn't know, but he hated her for it. His hand lingered on the sharp corners of the letters and by the time his fingers reached the end of her name blood was seeping out and coating them liberally. Bill had been lost soon after, too reckless after her betrayal. Gabrielle had been the same and she was lost in the great Beauxbatons Ambush, the first battle outside Britain.

The names went on and on. Harry remembered all these names too. The ones he thought he could have saved. The ones he knew were beyond his help. The names of families, just like those on the other side, people who had lived amongst friends. Sometimes he wished that they had lived to be punished, sometimes he wished he could have killed more personally than he had. Mostly Harry just wept at the loss of life, the names that were now forgotten if not erased, the blank faces of evil that had once had families and friends.

TOM RIDDLE

The last name, always the last name. Over and over Harry traced the letters. Blood coated them, mingling with the caked blood of previous years. Tears fell from Harry's eyes, thinking of all the waste this man had caused with Harry's help. Over and over again, until the pain vanished and he was left with numbness, Harry pressed into the stone. Could he have been Tom? Could Tom have been him? Could this all have happened differently? Every name he had felt that evening went through his brain, every battle, every attack, every move he had made from his birth until the Final Battle. It was Harry's burden, Harry's penance, the price he paid for being the one to survive.

Eventually Harry stumbled to his feet. He left the secret chamber, walked out of the monument room, left the Ministry far behind him and walked through Muggle London to his house. Outside, he knew, would be Ron and Hermione. She would bind his hands and complain that he wouldn't let her use magic, and he would try awkwardly to find a topic of conversation that wouldn't mention where Harry had just been. Harry would stare out of dead eyes that still saw the blackness before him and eventually the three of them would curl up on the sofa, Ron and Hermione encircling their friend, and then he would sleep and rest, regaining the strength to go on remembering.