Most people never see the beauty in death.

I saw it more times than I ever dreamed as a child on the cusp of wartime. My own brothers suffered their fates in such a shatter, it sent me into great fear of the unknown. A strange thing, as I am among those that dabble in all things feared an unknown. I am a witch. I say it with such conviction, but it means nothing in my world. I am one among many. I am nothing.

I am a witch and I am nothing.

Voldemort. Such a powerful name. I have no doubts that it sent a lustful shiver down the boy’s back as his eyes rolled back and the word formed a solid hate in his mouth. His serpent mouth. And that only reminds me of the beauty.

I come from a large, happy family. I recall playing with chickens and mud as a girl, before magic mattered. Before I worried about anything other than my letters. Back when streams were wild, sparkling rivers waiting to carry me away in a basket. When my mother was a force of nature and my father was my midday treat. When my brothers would tease me and I would pull tricks on them of equal measure.

I miss them.

I miss simplicity.

Death is simple.

He rose – the one cloaked in his own darkness – and he rid the world of another brother. Another heart of my own passed with the loudest scream that I still hear in my dreams, after these many years. It was terrible. Blood, ignorance, fear and regret all clouded the scene of chains and unshaved wood. So complicated, but it was nothing to him. He wanted what He wanted and that was as clear as a motive could be.

My world twisted then. My heart broke as I felt the ground tearing from my feet, recoiling from my sweat and tears, ashamed of what I felt. I would do it, I knew. I could do it. Of all my family, I was the first girl among centuries. I was only special in my darkness, though. While trotting and chattering, playing the role of a top notch girl, something brew within me. I felt it during my disastrous times. Once, I broke a vase and it shattered all over me. Flecks of blood appeared in my skin days later, but I mentioned this to no one. What would they have thought of me if they’d seen me smiling and licking it from the tips of my fingers.

But I did not let the darkness consume me.

Perhaps I wasn’t all I appeared to be, but I certainly was not evil. Is it possible to use darkness for good? I’d like to think so. For what is an Auror? What of Muggle policemen? I’ve killed not for my own protection, but for the protection of others who would not stand on their own. For those too weak to try to muster a hex in their own defense. Did these people need to be protected, or was I avoiding the inevitable demise of a race that wouldn’t stand on its own?

I suppose it’s not my place to guess their place in the universe.

I watched my friends and comrades fall, one by one. Some went peacefully, from the deterioration of their own minds and bodies. Some screamed in the way my brother, Percy, did. Most did not know what was coming, and had no opportunity to make deals with their lives, or offer a thank you and a goodbye.

It was when she went that I realized not even the sheltering, coddling castle walls could ever be safe enough. The darkness was everywhere, lurking in every corner, scheming in every stairwell, stirring in every ink pot. Even the lovely things in life that humans adore – birth, marriage . . . the kiss of a first love, they’re all housing the criminal evil that clings tenaciously in places it does not belong.

I felt it didn’t belong in my life, but then I knew it surrounded me. I began to wonder if it was me. Then I knew I was the one spurring it on.

I was the darkness, because the darkness took the last thing that mattered to me in its jealously. Its green eyes struck me as ironic in a way that I couldn’t laugh. I only felt the doom of everything settling into granules of dirt around me.

My Harry was gone.

He was always mine. Fate gave him to me so quickly, so effortlessly. Harry avoided the purpose for some time, then embraced, then forgot. How could he have forgotten fate?

I watched him die. I hated the world and my existence in it. I saw no reason or function for all this – war, drama, death, life, and love.

But then his lids fluttered that last time, and in that tiny movement I realized death is quite beautiful. The world calms to a pace for someone to really relish the last moments. I thought of what he saw there, in that wicked place. His world appeared to me in tints of green. The sun only brought out the richness in those colors. My hair would have been as a halo of fire in that light, and he may have thought me, or saw me for the demon that I was. My own eyes would have appeared tiny black holes. For all this that he must have seen, he didn’t recoil from my cold touch. He didn’t even shudder.

So long of a fight for so little.

So little I thought at the time. But Harry showed me the truth. He didn’t have to fight anymore. In those last moments, he was the purest creature on Earth. No worries crowded his mind, or any regrets. He only felt the love that I had for him in that moment, I’m sure of it. I think he found the simplicity he always craved. He was loved, and I was there until the end in the most literal way.

In his death, we were married.