Forgotten Heroes

Forgotten Heroes

Love entrust it's grief to last
Page of final chapter
Here, my burial shoot is gonna
Yearning the cry of life ...
Let my fall save your soul,
My vault for your life
Let my scream ... spread,
Vanish to exist
Let my lies ... die,
My mask for you face
Forget Me Not - Dark Lunacy

He stared at the tombstone. It blended in amongst all the others; there was nothing special about it. Nothing to set it apart as the tombstone of the Boy Who Lived who wasn't so much alive anymore as he was dead and buried.

He remembered the day so clearly, even though it had been nearly a year ago. The day that was supposed to be the final battle, the day when light would banish darkness, the day when good triumphed over evil. He himself had believed they would win that day. Cynical, sarcastic, jaded Severus Snape had believed that Harry Potter would deliver them from evil. He had been wrong. They had all been wrong.

It had not been the last battle. It had only been the beginning of many battles to come. Battles fought in a war already lost. Harry Potter had died that day. He had died at the hand of the Dark Lord. Died when the world asked nothing more of him than to live.

"You never could do anything right, Potter."

Severus stared at the tomb stone reading the inscription,

Here lies Harry Potter

The Boy Who Lived To Die

The Dark Lord had taken the body after he killed Potter. He had taken the body and buried it in a perfectly normal cemetery and placed a commonplace gravestone on it. Harry Potter, the Dark Lord said, was not someone worthy of remembrance. He was nothing special. He was just another who had died by his hand.

With the Wizarding World's precious savior dead, who would save them all? With no hero to look up to, they had no hope for the future. No hope of winning the war. There were those who fought on, but they had no real hope. They fought believing they would die. And they did.

There was little resistance left, the Dark Lord had taken the Ministry and most of the country. The only place his darkness could not descend upon was Hogwarts and as long as it stood his hold over their country would never be complete. There would always be Hogwarts, people said, as long as Hogwarts stood, they could defy him still. But even Hogwarts could not escape all of the travesties of war. Once full of children and life Hogwarts was now full of those who had lost everything, it was a place for the rebels who would not submit to the Dark Lord. Hogwarts was full of painful memories and embittered wizards.

It was the fault Harry Potter. He was supposed to save them. That had been his only task in life and he had failed and yet Severus was filled with an overpowering emptiness when he thought of Potter. Never again would Potter glare at him over the top of his cauldron. Never again would he walk arrogantly through the halls of Hogwarts. Never again would he win a Quidditch match as his fans cheered adoringly. No one had planned for the possibility of his death. No one had thought it could happen. Not even Severus Snape.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this. It was never supposed to end like this. You were supposed to save us..."

He had died. The world went unsaved and Severus went unsaved as well. Salvation for his sins never came for him. He was supposed to keep Potter alive, protect him, so that he could defeat the Dark Lord and Severus would be absolved. Potter had died. Severus was damned. Unforgiven for his sins.

Severus remembered the first to die after Potter. Lupin. He had stayed alive only to see the defeat of the Dark Lord; otherwise he would have died of his guilt and depression years before. He had gone only days later, murdered by Rodolphus Lestrange, but not before he killed Bellatrix. Severus had never expected the werewolf to have it in him, but without Potter and the promise of an end to the war Remus Lupin had lost his last grips on sanity.

Severus knew all the names, he saw all the faces. Wherever he went he never escaped them. After Lupin the next to go had been George Weasley. His brother was still alive and part of the resistance but every time Severus looked at Fred Weasley he only saw the absence of his twin. Fred was one of the most ruthless men Severus had met. He never laughed anymore, he never smiled, he only killed.

There were only three Weasleys left. Severus had never liked the Weasley's, but Hogwarts was empty with only three red heads running around.

The Golden Trio was no more. Hermione Granger had died shortly before Ron Weasley. Rabastan Lestrange had been the one to kill her, at the same battle that killed Minerva McGonagall. It had taken the Dark Lord himself to bring her down.

The survivors were few a far between. Albus Dumbledore lived on, as did Severus and the last three Weasleys. To Severus' surprised no one had managed to kill Longbottom yet either.

Even if they managed to win the war, which Severus somehow doubted, they would never recover. Nothing could bring the world back to the way it had once been. Things would never be the same.

Severus glared at the tombstone in front of him,

"You killed the Potter. You killed them all. Weasley, Granger, Lupin, Minerva, Filius, Hagrid, all of them. You killed them all!"

The tombstone had not a single flower or plant growing near it; no one had been to visit it or placed flowers on it. Few knew it was here; it was only by chance the Severus could find it. It stared accusingly at him, and he could almost see Potter's face glaring heatedly at him.

"I killed them all..."

The tombstone seemed satisfied with that and he no longer felt the memory of Potter's green eyes burning into his. Potter's eyes that he would never see again. Eyes that were long gone, rotted under the ground in front of him.

Severus's breath came out in a foggy mist and he could feel the small snowflakes beginning to fall. He hated snow the most because it was pure and clean and white in a world where nothing else was. It made the world around him beautiful when he knew it wasn't. Winter was an illusion of light. At winter he could only remember the battles during it. The faces staring lifelessly up at him in the snow.

"What do you want from me? Why can't you leave me alone, Potter? I protected you, I kept you alive! You failed! You failed, not me... me..."

He could see them even now, their faces forming in his own breath. They floated accusingly around him, dancing through the tombstones. He could see their accusing eyes in the snow that fell. He wanted nothing more than to be one of them. One the dead, haunting the consciences of those left alive.

He kneeled, his head resting on the tombstone. He asked only for one thing,

"Forgive me."

He closed his eyes and felt a cool breeze run through him.