The Longest Night

Chapter Six - Consequences

"O for a voice like thunder, and a tongue to drown the throat of war -

When the senses are shaken, and the soul is driven to madness, who can stand?

When the souls of the oppressed fight in the troubled air that rages, who can stand?

When the whirlwind of fury comes from the throne of God, when the frowns of his countenance drive the nations together, who can stand?

When Sin claps his broad wings over the battle, and sails rejoicing in the flood of Death; When souls are torn to everlasting fire, and fiends of Hell rejoice upon the slain, O who can stand?

O, who hath caused this?

Who can answer at the throne of God?'

- William Blake

It's odd...the way certain things become noticeable only by their absence. And somehow the lack of them, once recognized, hurts all the more deeply for the belated acknowledgement of their importance.

It's odder still that something as inconsequential as a color should, by its sudden removal, gain such a tremendous significance. But this was a color unto itself, a shade defined by its very existence. Conspicuous, bold, vivid...Weasley-red was as much a part of the fabric of daily life at Hogwarts as the ghosts who flitted through the corridors.

And now it was nowhere to be seen.

They were gone, and with them the final vestiges of laughter and joy of life.

Because of me.

It was supposed to be so simple... so clean... so perfect.

How could I have known that it would be otherwise? How could I have known that my letter to Percy signaled the beginning of the end?

Yet my conscience whispered hatefully that I should have known. Surely, it jibed, the cleverest witch at Hogwarts must have had some inkling, regretful though it may have been, of the price to be paid in blood for success?

The others thought I should have known - I saw it in the way their eyes could never quite meet mine even as they strove to reassure me that I was blameless.

They lied to me - all of them - even Dumbledore.

Lies of kindness; lies of convenience; lies of omission...does it really matter what their motives were? Their hollow voices and meaningless words echoed in my head: everything's going to be fine; there was nothing you could do; it wasn't your fault. They convinced themselves and they almost convinced me - until I saw the newspaper.

The Daily Prophet ran the story, or variations of it, for months. Their readership couldn't get enough of the saga and the ink flowed like endless rivers of black tears to feed the public's morbid fascination. They gorged themselves on our misery. They devoured the grisly details like a ravenous wolf pack squabbling over a fresh kill in winter. They consumed the lurid tale with a savage, almost gleeful frenzy. And then they demanded more.

I hated them - the stupid public with their obscene curiosity and their barely concealed delight in the misfortune of their neighbors. Was it relief, I wondered, a secret, shameful thankfulness that tragedy had struck elsewhere that fueled their desire to know every foul detail?

I hated the owners and employees of the Daily Prophet even more - those callous bastards masquerading as the concerned voice of the wizarding community while they lined their pockets with gold gleaned from tragedy. Vulgar sensationalism replaced honest journalism - if such a thing ever existed at the Prophet - and long after the story should have disappeared from the front pages greed fanned the flames of public awareness with headlines like Dismemberfest at Malfoy Manner and I was You-Know-Who's You-Know-What.

But I hated myself most of all - weak when I thought I was strong and foolish when I thought I was wise. For the briefest of moments I had held the heartbeat of the world in the palm of my hand and I had crushed it with all the wanton carelessness of a child in the throes of a tantrum. Wasn't I, with my unpardonable behavior, responsible for this festering feast now spread for public consumption?

No secret lasts forever and with all the coverage in the Daily Prophet there was no longer any point in denying that I wrote the anonymous letter that betrayed Sirius Black to the Ministry of Magic. I sent it to Percy Weasley because I knew he was young and ambitious enough to give serious consideration to the information it contained. And I also knew that, despite his pompous and patronizing behavior, Percy, in his own way, truly cared for Harry and would act swiftly to protect him from any perceived threat posed by Sirius. If his career happened to benefit while he thought he was acting in Harry's best interests, well, he wouldn't be the first bureaucrat to profit from the misfortunes of an innocent. Percy's strength, much like mine, was also his weakness and in both our cases it was far too easy to exploit.

He disappeared shortly after forwarding the letter to his superiors, having served his purpose admirably. During Percy's absence Sirius Black was tracked down by the Ministry and killed, Harry left Hogwarts and his childhood behind without a second glance, I was alternately unconscious or raving like a lunatic in the hospital wing, Peter Pettigrew was conveniently apprehended to act as scapegoat for my actions, and war was formally declared with the delivery of a single, unexpected Christmas gift.

A large wicker hamper, beautifully and tastefully decorated for the holidays was delivered to Molly Weasley the day after Christmas. Perhaps she thought it was a belated yuletide offering from a friend, or another cleverly disguised trick from Fred and George. Although she scolded them for their practical joking, deep down I think she was more amused by their antics than she cared to admit. But this was no affectionate prank from her fun-loving twins, and it was certainly no thoughtful token of holiday cheer.

She lifted the lid from the basket to find Percy's severed head staring sightlessly back at her, his face a frozen rictus of unimaginable horror. Even in the bitter cold of winter the stink of decay was unmistakable, and swarming maggots and fat black flies had made vast inroads into his putrefied flesh. Through a jagged hole in one cheek Mrs. Weasley could just make out that several of Percy's teeth were missing - six, to be exact; along with a goodly portion of his tongue.

Whoever murdered him placed a spell on his head so that when Molly Weasley began to scream Percy's voice joined hers in an unearthly duet of agonized suffering. She shrieked for hours, until her vocal chords were shredded and she was incapable of sound. The poor woman went utterly and irrevocably mad. Her vibrant red hair turned snowy white within a matter of hours - an unintentional but wonderful tribute to gothic convention. Before the St. Mungo's staff was able to completely subdue her, she managed to claw deep furrows down the entire length of her face in a frenzied attempt to gouge out her own eyes.

I could have told her that that wouldn't help matters much. Whether your eyes are open or closed the horrors you witness are imprinted behind them forever - their power never fades, their clarity never dulls, and they never, ever, go away.

After signing the papers to commit his wife to the permanent care of the St. Mungo's psychiatric staff, Arthur Weasley - that good-hearted, slightly eccentric man with his fondness for Muggles and his ridiculous collections of plugs and batteries - decided to pay the Malfoy family a long overdue visit. No one, not the famous 20^th Century American psychic Edgar Cayce, not Ron and Harry faking their way through Divination homework, not even Professor Trelawney channeling the spirit of Nostradamus himself, could have foreseen the tragedy that played out next.

Mr. Weasley arrived just as the Malfoys were sitting down to their evening meal. But for their unfortunate choice of entrée it's entirely possible that events might have unfolded differently that night, although I doubt it. Even the mildest of people, once pushed beyond the limits of their endurance, oftentimes prove unpredictable and dangerous.

The Malfoys were a lot of things - arrogant, unprincipled, cruel...the list is endless - but I have to draw the line at cannibalism. As despicable and evil as that family was, I don't for a moment believe that they were planning to partake of a repast that included baked tongue in brandied pear sauce ala Percival Weasley.

But Mr. Weasley did.

He summoned the Ministry himself once his task was finished, and by all accounts was waiting docilely for the authorities, covered in blood and surrounded by body parts. He had eviscerated Lucius Malfoy on the Chippendale dining room table with nothing more than a butter knife and some salad tongs. They found Narcissa still seated in her chair at the foot of the table, an expression of haughty surprise on her face and her throat slit open from ear to ear.

Draco, too, was dead. Forced to witness the murder of his parents and no doubt wondering which piece of flatware Mr. Weasley was planning to use on him, he somehow managed, in the extremity of his terror, to swallow his own tongue and choke to death.

I doubt that he appreciated the irony.

There was no trial, other than that held in the court of public opinion which, given the average intelligence level of the Wizarding community as a whole, didn't carry much weight with the Ministry of Magic. It was a terrible shame, really, because for once the public actually got it right.

But it didn't matter.

The Ministry wasn't interested in administering justice. The Ministry wasn't interested in right or wrong. The Ministry was interested in power and how best to keep it - which meant the removal, whenever possible, of anyone who might pose a threat to that power.

Arthur Weasley didn't appear to care one way or the other. He bid a final farewell to his six remaining children and then cheerfully walked into the eager embrace of a very hungry Dementor. Those who were present to witness the moment said it was impossible to tell who kissed whom.

Then, as if Mr. Weasley's demise were some sort of pre-determined signal, the war began in earnest with a ferocity and magnitude that defied comprehension. And I suddenly understood the aloofness of my professors, the wariness of my fellow Gryffindors, and the fearfulness of all the other students.

They thought - no, they believed - that all of this had been a part of my plan.

But it wasn't.

It wasn't - Oh God, I swear it wasn't.