With a Whimper, So We Go

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

Or Rats' feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar

When it first started, all of us were determined to fight until the bitter end. I remember looking at the deadness in my mother's eyes when she received news of the Rise, and wondering why she was so unwilling to join in the battle; we would win, I knew. Everybody knew. We had the Boy Who Lived, and we had the great Dumbledore. So why did the fire of victory not burn in her blood as it did in mine?

I understand now. I have seen what she saw. I have experienced the death and destruction and utter hopelessness that came with the rise of the Dark Lord. And I wonder at my naivety then, at all of our naivety.

Watching Harry, from the moment he returned with news of Cedric's death and Voldemort's return until the moment he departed for what we thought would be the final battle, gave me strength. He always had dangerous glint in his eyes, one that I read as hope and fury and determination. I read wrong, and I realize it only now.

It was fear.

We believed in him with all of our hearts. If he could defeat the Dark Lord at one year, then would it not be so much easier at 18? But he did not believe in himself. And in the end, perhaps it was that very self-doubt that lost that battle that ended the war.

He did not go to fight Voldemort because he burnt with revenge or anger or hope, he went because there was nothing left to do. He had watched, alongside the warriors who relied so heavily upon him as a symbol of strength, as his mentors, teachers, friends and brothers were cut down, one by one, in their final blaze of glory, their martyrdom.

Dumbledore's death was a blow to us all, but we could remain strong as long as Harry stood. None of us gave a thought to Harry's source of strength. I should have known, with the deadening of his eyes, what was coming. But I was blind, just as the others were.

When he finally faced Voldemort, we sat together in anticipation of the freedom that would soon come, awaiting his triumphant return. Instead, we received his decapitated head in a basket, his scar vivid and red against the pallor of his skin.

The cries of grief that echoed the halls that night were heart wrenching and pain-filled, but above all, they were hopeless. Harry's death meant much more then the loss of a friend and brother-in-arms, it meant the death of our cause. We had placed so much faith in him, and he had become a symbol of all we stood for. And suddenly he was ripped away, and we were lost.

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom

Remember us--if at all--not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men.

I can no longer remember the days directly following Harry's loss. Ron and Hermione, who he had not permitted to stand with him at the end, became shells of their former selves. They disappeared a week later, no doubt to exact revenge on the creature that hunted us. News came back later; they had managed to kill Lucius Malfoy and Peter Pettigrew before being cut down themselves.

They were the last of our generation to die with anything resembling honor.

We were suddenly leaderless, without a symbol to stand for and without a will to fight. People planned, of course. They planned attack after attack, but I cannot remember one that was implemented. The plans they formed were simply a way to grieve the victory of the darkness, a way to feel as if they were accomplishing something.

Because at that point, the darkness had already won.

They could destroy our families, and it only fueled our will to fight. They could destroy our friends, and that too pushed us onward. But destroying Harry touched something much deeper; it destroyed our souls. Any fire left burning in our eyes was put out; any strength remaining in our limbs was sapped. Our souls, once full of hope and dreams of glory, were empty and hollow.

The eyes are not here

There are no eyes here

In this valley of dying stars

In this hollow valley

This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places

We grope together

And avoid speech

Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Here we are now. Hiding. Waiting for what we know will come.

Beneath the broken shell of Hogwarts, we have drawn together, not in a final attempt to destroy Voldemort, but in a final attempt to find comfort before we die.

Slowly, day-by-day, those who spoke of plans and attacks and a final try for victory became silent. Their eyes spoke of hopelessness long before their minds came to admit it, but it was there all the same. We rarely speak anymore, for there is nothing left to say. We have lost.

For all of the hatred we had for the beast that destroyed our families and lives, for all of the hope that we felt in the beginning, we have lost.

And there is nothing left to do but face the death that is descending upon us.

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the worlds ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.