Two Hundred Sixteen

People know things about war. Any child could tell you. Any fighter could tell you. Any survivor, any mother, husband, sister, village idiot, king, wanderer, schoolgirl, murderer, or priest. The neighbourhood gossip, she'll tell you. Anything you want to know.

People know things about war. The thrill of the battle, the fear of it, the strategy and the vengeance. The wounds. The weapons. Advance, attack, defend, and retreat. Surprise, strike, and vanish into the darkness once again. It's all about pure good and pure evil, they'll tell you.

But most of all, people die in war. Everybody knows that.

--==[[<>]]==--

16 February, 1974

Suburbs of Greenwich

In the back streets of Blackheath, a man ran for his life. He'd been fighting for years, but now, now he ran. His pyjamas kept threatening to come undone, and the cold pavement hurt his bare feet. He clutched his wand as though it were a prized teddy bear.

So this is what it's like, the man mused. He'd never been forced to run in fear and grief before. In four years, that crazed man whose name he couldn't bring himself to even think anymore had killed so many that it was already hard to keep track.

As the man pushed himself to run faster, he didn't know that it was the daughter he had left minutes before still lying in her bed looking for all the world like she were merely asleep whose death had brought the toll up to two hundred eleven. That his three sons, who had tried to fight, but ultimately failed, had been two hundred twelve through two hundred fourteen. That his beloved wife with whom he had celebrated his eighteenth anniversary that very evening had been two hundred fifteen. He didn't know their numbers. Didn't know, and didn't care.

He wanted to make that bastard Dark Lord next. Another day, he chided himself. Another day.

He turned a corner into an alleyway. Breathing heavily, he stumbled and fell to his hands. Reaching for his wand, he began to push himself up.

A foot came heavily down on his hand, immobilising it and snapping the wand grasped in it.

"Have a good run?"

The man struggled to pull away. He bit his lip as the pressure from the foot increased. His free hand grasped his chest, trying to hold together the place in his soul where the connection with his wand resided. The combined pains gave the masked Death Eater an edge.

"Your wife and your children died quickly. Painlessly, too, far as I can tell. Quick Avada Kedavra and it was over. But you, you have given me too much trouble. Your death will not be so easy."

The man's efforts to free his hand redoubled.

"Petrificus Totalus." The Death Eater waited a few beats to let the reality and the fear set in. He bent over and turned the man over onto his back.

"Just wanted to see your eyes," he explained mockingly. "Is that a tear I see?" He wiped it away gently, drying his hand on the man's pyjamas. "Give my love to the wife and kids."

"Incendio."

The man burned, becoming his own pyre into the night. His executioner Disapparated with a pop that blended in with the crackle of the flames.

--==[[<>]]==--

17 February, 1974

Early the next morning, the Muggles found the man-shaped pile of ash as the sun rose over the buildings. They cordoned off the entire scene, and then brought in medical examiners to investigate the human remains they found.

"Sorry, sir. There's not enough left to say anything concrete. Just a few bones that are charred at best. He's human, sure. Or was until recently. That's about as far as it goes. The little bit that's not bones finally stopped smouldering a little while ago. This guy? Best I can tell you from what's there? He went Human Torch on you some time between two and half two this morning. Like I said, sir. Sorry. Ship him to the lab, maybe they'll find something. My own personal opinion? Best to just forget him and move on. Spontaneous combustion. That's what's going in my report."

--==[[<>]]==--

People know things about war. But it's not really true. No one ever really knows anything. No one remembers who died first. No one knows who will be the last to die. No one knows.

Two Hundred Sixteen was forgotten by all but those closest to him. Those closest to him were numbers Three Hundred Two and Six Hundred Fifty respectively. His deeds were remembered, after a fashion. Someone, after all, had gone on the raids he'd been on. Someone, after all, had gone up in flames on 16 February, 1974.

Two Hundred Sixteen's ghost knows about war. He knows that people get killed. They get counted and tallied. Their lives get absorbed and reduced into the count.

--==[[<>]]==--

16 February, 1984

Suburbs of Glasgow

The day she had dreaded had come.

"Mummy? Sandy has a Mummy and a Daddy. Aria has a Mummy and a Daddy. How come I don't have a Daddy?"

"Dear, come sit." She took a deep breath. "You're too young to remember. There was..." She didn't know how to begin. "There was a war."

Oh, a war. She knew about war. "Were there bad guys? Did Daddy kill the bad guys?"

"Well... yes. Some of them. But... Daddy died while he was killing bad guys. Does that make sense?"

"I... I guess so. Who were the bad guys?"

She found herself having to explain to her daughter what everyone had known.

"....Harry Potter finally defeated him. He was left with a scar on his forehead. I'll tell you more about it tomorrow, OK?" Her face was white and she was shaking. She could tell no more tonight. When her daughter grows up, she'll tell her more. Stories she heard. Men that died. She'd actually heard of one man that had been burnt alive down in Greenwich, but her source told her that it was only a rumour. At least that man hadn't had a family. Not now, she thought. Let her keep her innocence.

"Wow." The girl sat enthralled. The horrors that her mother had just recounted for her of hundreds upon hundreds of people that had died washed right over her. All she knew was that her father was dead, but so were the bad guys that killed him. Lord only knew who they were. But it didn't matter. They were dead now.

She knew about war.

--==[[<>]]==--

People know about war. Ask anyone. You fight, you die, someone rises to fight in your place.

Everybody knows that.