Soldier

24^th August

Dearest Harry,

I must write this letter before I really and truly go insane. You may wonder why I am writing to you. I don't know it myself. I just know that we lost touch long ago, and it makes me sad.

There are things that I need to tell you. Things you should know but don't. My life has changed since I last saw you.

The war is almost over. You didn't know that, did you? I fought. I am fighting. As a wizard, as a soldier. As a war-mage. Did you know that is what they used to call fighting wizards in days of old? I feel I am rambling, for I do now know what to tell you, only that I must reach you because time is running out. My time is running out.

Something will give.

You should hear the way they talk about me. They think I am sick in my head. They know I am the only one who can save them but still they are scared of me because they think I will hurt their children. Because I am dangerous. I have power in me they cannot understand and so they fear it. Fools. They come to me in groups and even my oldest friends have trouble looking me in the eye.

Feel the tension, as soon as someone mentions me.

They make my life even more miserable than it is already, than it has been ever since they told me my future, my destiny. There was nothing I could do to change it, the fates have decided, your thread has been cut. Like trying to jump out of a speeding train.

The last damned street-car spun off the track, and I'm on it. It's full speed ahead, in the direction I don't want to go, but jumping out will kill me, and there's no reason to anyway, because it doesn't matter if I die sooner or later. It really doesn't matter at all. To me.

To them, it matters a great deal.

The saviour. I cannot die before my mission is completed because I would take them with me and that's not something I can account for, is it? I wish you were here to help me.

I wish you were here so I could feast on your emotions and get drunk upon your tears. This is the food I lack, the food I need to make my soul strong. But I have not cried in years, and I grew cold after my rage subsided. You remember the last years of school, don't you? My rage. I was a lit fuse, but instead of exploding something inside me just left my life. My heart isn't in this anymore and I don't know where it went to, or how I will ever get it back, but I wish I could because now I am cold. Even righteous anger, eating away at me from the inside was better than this coldness I feel.

But there is nothing I can do. I have become passive.

I am not willing to disturb the slumber of feelings that have died. I don't talk of love, even though I have heard the word before. Maybe if I loved I would cry, but I can't. None of these people that die every day mean anything to me anymore. I touch no-one and no-one touches me.

They are happier that way. When I make them happy, they say nice things about me. The moment I am up. That is the moment it try to seize. Seize the moment to freeze it and hold it, try to own it because these are the golden minutes. These are the stars that I catch to put in my pocket and never let fade away because I need them all. I need them for when I am down again. When they abuse me verbally because I have been drinking again, or even worse, when they ignore me.

Because I am used to them not talking to me, but when they stop talking about me, I myself forget that I exist. Hand me the bottle because my mind is caving in. It's on the brink and my head feels uninhabited. It is empty. Empty without you.

How on earth did I get so jaded?

I am debauched. I have stuffed myself with excitement and indulged upon action. I was willing to stick out my neck for respect, if it meant life or death. But death has not come and now I need adrenaline to give me strength. Not even pure oxygen will keep me on my feet anymore. I am unable to continue at the rate I am going because I am using up my very life's force. I am getting tired, but I won't die. I will be crippled and unable to complete my task, which is much, much worse. I need to slow down and get my feet on solid ground but I can't.

I thought I had it all figured out but I didn't. That should have been reason enough for me to leave, to refuse, but I couldn't see it and nobody could see how I felt, now I'm lying on my hands and knees in the dirt.

I know I must carry on for the sake of good, for the sake of the world, but by now my motives are somewhat less than altruistic. No-one cares.

I bury myself in books because I can't look at this world, it's too much, I've seen all I could. I thought books would keep me safe, and I tried to construct a fortress of paper, thick and mighty, to protect me from the world, but how long will it hold out?

The words on the pages keep swimming in front of my eyes and I forget what I have learned. I am scared. Scared out of my wits. You knew I would have to fight the final battle. Well, the time has come. The end of the war is drawing steadily closer, and there is nothing left for me to do but seek him out and destroy him. Or be destroyed. I have tried to talk to people about it. To anyone and everyone, but they will not listen. They say I needn't worry.

Success is my only option. Failure is not.

And still, I am scared. Do you know what it feels like, to come from being a nobody to standing in the limelight, bearing the weight of the world on your shoulders? I think you know what it feels like. That is why you left me, but I feel weak without you. I feel weak and tired, and I want to collapse but no matter how close I am to falling flat on my face I must not lose my motivation and I must not give up because there are people who depend on me.

But how can I stand against a man who has defied death even while his body travelled to the realms beyond when I keep forgetting? Any hesitation will get me killed; this is not a game. And this isn't about dying, it's about pain. I like the idea of dying, I like the idea of giving up, collapsing into sweet oblivion for then I will finally be happy for the first time since you left me. But I don't like the idea of pain. I have felt too much pain to be able to stand it. My wounds are still sore and he will know it when I step out of my fortress to face him.

What are all these people doing around me?

Really, I am alone. But it doesn't matter because I am a soldier. These shoulders hold up so much, they won't budge, I will never fall or fold up. I am a soldier. Even if my collar bones crush or crumble, I will never slip or stumble.

Listen to me. Listen to me spilling what's left of my heart through this pen. I don't need it anymore. Because you are not coming back to me, and only when we are united can I be at peace.

I am sinking into chaos but you won't be there when I fall. I miss you.

Yours truly,

The Boy Who Lived.

~*~

It was obvious the author had cried while writing it, even though he claimed he hadn't. The ink was smudged in several places.

The boy reading the letter wiped a fresh salty spatter off the crumpled white paper, and brushed his blond hair out of his face.

The Boy Who Lived was dead. He and Voldemort had killed each other in a grotesque sort of double-Knockout and the wizarding world was still in deep dismay.

But cleaning out Harry's rooms in the Order Headquarters, this letter had been found, and it had thrown the people who read it even more into shock. Draco had been one of the privileged few to even know it existed.

Hermione had brought it to him, and remembering the tears streaming down her cheeks as she handed him the plain white envelope, so carefully opened as to destroy whatever it was that was left of Harry as little as possible, he felt a wave of compassion. She hadn't known, of course, what it was that had awaited her. How could she have? The letter addressed to Harry in his own handwriting had possibly seemed a bit unusual, but had by no means given any clue about it's morbid contents.

He could imagine her reaction very well, it probably did not differ very much from his own. She had loved Harry in her own special way, and Draco was not the only one hurting.

Eight days after the fighting ended, eight days after the final battle. Five days after the official end of the war. Three days after Harry's burial.

And finally, after this whole ordeal, after the eighteen years of terror and fear that had been his life, he felt his hope flicker and die like the flame of a candle caught in a breeze it can no longer fight against. He let the wards he had so carefully constructed around his pain drop and breathed a sigh of relief as he was caught up in the torrential flood of everything that had been forcing against those wards for such a long time and drowned in sweet oblivion.