#if he had a sister her name would’ve been romilda

[konstantynowitz]

Does Rolf have any siblings or is he just an only child?

You know I really wanted him to have at least one sibling but I think I’m just gonna stick with him being an only child.

[theheightofdishonor]

A study of War and Death

      It was a war. No matter how short, it was a war and people must’ve died. Yet, you flash forward and there are no traces of those who suffered, those who have not yet stopped their mourning over the dead. No, I will not let them get away so easily. Harry Potter is about redemption and stories that repeat throughout time and here, here is your war. Here is your dead. Love it. Hate it. It does not matter. War has never cared for your love anyway.

Perhaps it would be easier if you read Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness. Reading it was like dying for me, the sweetest death, a death made better by the knowledge that someone understood. It had also been like living, painful living, every breath accompanied by agony. Strange, really for I have never been tortured, I have not lost all who is dear to me to death. Yet, I can relate to their pain more than I ever have to a person. But in the end, this is not Andy's story, shaped though it is by his words and it matters not whether or not you read his words for here you are to read mine. I hope you will understand; my words are not nearly as smooth as Andy's.

      Anyhow, they will die. Lavender, mangled to death by a werewolf. Padma, not by trying to save herself but trying to protect the one that meant most to her sister. Parvati, however lives, head trembling from the effort of being held high, heels, bold and red on her feet and ghosts under her fingertips. She lives yet she never figures out why.

      Colin goes and oh, how they wished he hadn't. Colin, armed with the knowledge of a world crueler than this one, but more than that, he had been armed with hope, brighter, stronger than any spell that the Death Eaters had. That hope had not saved him in the end.

      Dennis follows his brother, the only thing he has left in the world and unlike Colin, he leaves in hate, in vengeance. He had grown to hate this world, this world that had taken everything from him at the mere age of 14, this world and his uncle who had stolen his brother. He dies in revenge, body drooped over that of his brother's killer. An echoed scream of pain, pain that only the young can truly feel.

      Romilda had promised, promised that she would live, live, not for herself but to tell the stories of those who couldn't make it. She clung on to that little hope, that she had a duty to fulfill, a duty that she could only accomplish if she was alive and so she had to live. She had noted them all down, their stories and lives and fears and hopes, accompanied by Colin's pictures, sometimes moving but more often still. She had not lived to tell their tales but hoped that someone would. She was torn down by Sectumsempra, forced to live as her body erupted in pain and she was torn down, piece by bloody piece.  

      Zacharias had quit the DA, not once but twice. Colin had screamed in fury, banishing him forever, desperate to hurt. Yet he fought in the Final Battle. It didn't matter that this wasn't his fight, it didn't matter that they were all children and none of them should have had to do this because in the end, they did or they died. He fought and he lived and sometimes, he hated himself because a 15 year old boy had stayed and fought while he left. It had been logical, he knew, reasonable. And he had been brave in the end. Yet, Colin's roar of anger echoed in his ears, the spiteful words whispering to him at night.

      Terry had died. Terry who had laughed that he would never be a hero, never be one for Gryffindor glory. Like with everything, Michael had done the same. Their deaths had been together, fast and painless as their bodies simultaneously hit the ground. Mandy's mouth had twisted into a wry grin as blood dripped down her arm and she spun out of the way of a green blast. They had died just as they had lived, neither one without the other. Together in life as they were in death. Their arms had touched even, as their bodies laid still, their matching tattoos in display for everyone to see. It was a mercy of sorts, to live without the other would've been a fate worse than death for either.

      Dean too was gone. He, however, left someone to grieve and Seamus lost himself in misery, drowning to wipe away the pain. No one could bear to tell him it was useless; the echoes would never fade and neither would the feeling of Dean's smile against his.

      Ernie sacrificed himself for his wife and his child, the child who had been a symbol of hope for Dumbledore's Army, Hogwarts' last line of defense, her children who stood up tall to protect her. Susan didn't know, not till later, much later how literally her husband had given himself up for her. She couldn't have know a month, a year past that she would be widowed by 18. That when she married again, it was a union of two broken souls who had lost the people they loved most in the world. It was Susan Macmillan (she refused to give up the name, refused to let go of what she had of him) and Seamus Finnigan.

      Cho Chang gives a sorrowful smile and returns to fight in a home that had scorned her for mourning, for not being brave in the way of Gryffindors. She fights and remembers a love taken far too soon and a curse etched across her best friend's face and she fights not for Harry but for justice and peace and hope that the children to come won't suffer as she did.

      Lisa had lived. She took Romilda's half written book, her brother's half lived life and she thrust them as one would a sword, held them as you would a shield. She wanted to hurt, to make them pay for what they had done, the lives given to solve the mess of others. When the Ministry recruits the remaining D.A., she's furious. How dare they? How dare they tell us that we must pay for living? Pay and fix their crimes, their problems, their everything when they had already given everything? How dare they? And she attacks. She fights and saves them, makes the world pay for the cruelty it had shown these frightened children and her heart sinks because she had saved them, yes, but from what? She had acquired justice yet at what price? And for all she had done, it couldn't bring back those who had fallen.  Though she did much, in the end, it all meant nothing.

      Demelza had died, as vivacious as Ginny Weasley herself. She had held off not three, not four yet six Death Eaters at once. It mattered not to her as white blinded her eyes, a scream echoed in her ears and she knew that Colin was dead, that it meant that Dennis too had left. The flash blinded her and her defenses fell for just a moment, the only act of mourning she was allowed, the slip that cost her her life. And if Ritchie Coote had seen her and killed them all in the time it took for one to blink, that was all the better for it was six more that were dead, six more enemies that could no longer fight.

      The famous Trio had lived. Hermione, Ron, Harry. Neville was bitter at times, that they had survived, that they were glorified while his soldiers, his friends had died. Yet, his own trio that had never been a trio but a quartet also lived. Sometimes, he felt guilty that they had survived, that he and Hannah and Luna and Ginny had escaped, not unscathed but alive. Then he wondered whether being alive was any better than being dead. If he'd rather be George Weasley, only half alive or Daphne Greengrass, struck dead by her own mother.

      And in the middle of all of this,  Harry Potter wakes up, heart pounding, curse half-formed on his tongue. Ron watches him. "You alright, mate?" They both know the answer and the falseness of the words in Harry's mouth is a thick blanket covering the room. Ron knows better than to prod and instead nods in a weary understanding. They had both been through too much. They had lived, lived to tell of those who didn't yet it felt not like victory but defeat, these lives stolen from the dead.