It happened in a rush. We were all sitting around the table, together for the first time in weeks, planning how we would protect Hogwarts if they were to direct an attack there. I heard them coming; I screamed out for everyone to take cover, then ran and hid in a broom closet. Seconds later, the doors burst open and hooded figures rushed in from all directions. Dementors and death eaters - I couldn't even tell which was which.
I watched through a crack in the closet doors, too afraid to even breathe. Two people died that night - Tonks and my oldest brother, Bill. He'd married her just 2 months ago, and he died trying to protect her. That's when I knew that it had begun. The biggest battle that had and would ever occur was to start that very minute.
Luckily, most others apparated away before any real danger got to them. The death eaters left within minutes, although a few dementors stayed behind to guard. So it was true...Voldemort had convinced the dementors to switch to his side. With the darkest of all creatures as his allies, he was sure to win. We should have forseen it at that moment, we should have realized. Yet although I try to tell myself that sometimes, I know it would have done nothing. Voldemort killed for the sake of killing, and even if we had surrendered, he would have killed us anyway.
I apparated - something I'd learned while training for the war - away in tears. I ended up in Diagon Alley, which had been one of my favourite places to go as a child. It was no longer the happy, bright, cheerful place I once knew - people screamed in terror, pushing and shoving others to get to safety. Word had reached them of the attack, and all they cared about now was their own safety.
I easily found Harry, Ron, and Hermione. They were alone in Ollivander's, kneeling over Mr Ollivander's dead body. The silence in the small, dusty shop was overpowering. We exchanged no words, just looks of despair. Little did I know, that was the last time the four of us would ever be together by ourselves in the same room.
From then on, the sun didn't even dare to shine. The days passed by in darkness. At night, when I tried to sleep, I lay alone. Everywhere around me, I saw bright flashes of red and green lights. Wherever I went, dead bodies lay - whether they were the bodies of the good or the bad, I never knew. There were too many to even look through. One time, I saw a young man with dirty blonde hair lying on the ground of Hogsmeade. He looked familiar, and when I knelt down and rolled him around, I recognized his handsome features - David Greene, a boy I had dated in my fourth year.
A week into the war, the Order finally had a meeting. Out of the original 160 members, there were only 42 who could attend it - the rest had been slayed. To my relief, my parents, Ron, Hermione, and Harry were among these 42. However, my other brothers were gone. We didn't even have time to weep for them. Dumbledore hurriedly called the meeting to order, but before we could discuss anything, the death eaters attacked. I never knew how they found us. That night, my mother and father died. For the first time since the beginning of the war, I cried.
When I think back to it, I feel those same tears prick at my eyes. The two people who'd cared for me and loved me for 15 years of my life had died in the same room as me, and I didn't even do anything about it. I simply apparated away without even kissing them goodbye. My own cowardice and selfishness still chews away at me.
That night, as I strolled through the forest, thoughts running through my mind, I let my guard down. I walked directly into a clearing filled with death eaters. To them, it was like Christmas had come early. They ripped off my clothes and bound me to a tree - I was so frightened. They were going to rape me. As I close my eyes now, I can still see their gleaming eyes and sneering faces looming closer...closer to me...and then, Draco's voice bellowing "Avada Kedavra" four times in a row. Imagine my surprise when my childhood enemy came to my rescue. But the murders of four death eaters couldn't come without a sacrifice - the remaining death eater performed a spell I'd never heard of on Draco. He slumped to the ground, and the death eater apparated away.
Screaming, I ran to him, thinking he was dead. Leaning down, I checked his pulse, then saw him open his eyes. He smiled at me, but as he opened his mouth to speak, no words came out. I desperately repeated his name, but he heard no words. Because of me, Draco is now a deaf and a mute. He lost two of his senses to save me, and I'll never be able to repay him for that. I wept for him in that clearing, and he comforted me without words. Draco...he was so brave. To switch alliances when his father was the most powerful death eater - there is no greater act than that.
I stayed with him that night; he had saved me and now it was my turn to protect him. How long would a person who couldn't hear nor speak last in a world where you needed two pairs of eyes to stay alert? Surprisingly, he made it through the night, and so did I.
Draco's loss marked the beginning of many deaths that haunt me to this day.
In the morning, I left him to go fight. I arrived at the Hogwarts quidditch pitch, and saw Hermione and Ron surrounded by a circle of death eaters. Ron lay on the ground, as pale as a ghost, and Hermione was standing over him with her wand raised.
"Get away from him!" she yelled.
In response, Bellatrix Lestrange cast the Cruciatus curse on her. I watched Hermione writhe on the ground, in too much pain to even scream. I saw her face contorted in agony as she lay on the ground next to Ron, being tortured to death.
No, that time, I didn't just stand there. It was that very moment that I realized how this would end - the only way to stop it was to learn to want to cause pain, to crave it. I summoned every ounce of hatred I had acquired, and for the first time in my life, I screamed the word, "Crucio!"
Bellatrix fell to the ground, and to my disbelief and disgust, I found myself laughing. The more she screamed, the more I laughed, until I was nearly doubled over in laughter. Oh, the glee and power I felt from uttering that single word. Then I realized nearly too late that the ring of death eaters was now advancing towards me. A jet of red light shot at me, but I ducked and ran to my two friends.
"Hermione, what happened to Ron?" I asked in a hushed voice.
"He's still alive," she whispered, her whole body shaking from aftereffects of the unforgiveable curse, "but barely."
Before I could respond, the death eaters were upon us. All I remember is that Hermione cast a shield around me, off of which bounded a killing curse. However, her and Ron were not so fortunate - two jets of green light hit them both squarely in the chest.
I sat there, protected by Hermione's magic, my entire soul numb. No, I thought, no they can't be dead. But it was too late. Two of the kindest people I'd ever known lay at my feet, dead. I collapsed over Ron's limp body. The pain was so overwhelming that tears couldn't even come to my eyes. A shroud of sorrow surrounded me, choked me, suffocated me. I couldn't breathe. They were dead.
I looked around, expecting the world to have stopped turning. But no, the fighting and screaming continued. Cloaked figures still battled each other for survival. Dead bodies lay all around me, some half-submerged in a mixture of blood, mud, and tears. No one mourned them, though. No one knelt over them, crying. The survivors fought on because that was all they could do. Fighting was all they had left.
Looking down, I etched the image of Hermione and Ron lying on the ground into my heart. They lay together side by side, like they always had been in life. Three weeks of war had engraved lines of worry into their young faces, lines which, under any other circumstances, would never have appeared on a sixteen year old's face. Despite their aged outward appearances, they were still the Hermione and Ron I had known a year ago.
Shakily, I got to my feet. "I love you both," I whispered, briefly touching my fingers to my lips before turning away.
Now, the thought of hunting Bellatrix down came to me. I have to kill her, was all my mind would tell me. Grimly, I set off to avenge my brother's death.
Something new had overtaken me. Rage and hatred coursed through me, filling me up. As I calmly strolled across the quidditch pitch, I began firing killing curses right and left. I didn't even care who they were aimed at anymore - I was no longer innocent, pure Ginny Weasley. Nothing set me apart from the others now. I lived to kill, and I killed to live.
At last, I found her. She was standing with her back to me, dueling with one of my old school friends, Susan Bones. Without thinking, I let the image of Hermione and Ron's pale faces overtake my common sense, and choked out, "Avada Kedavra."
As I watched her body arch into the air, the realization of what I had done hit me. Oh yes, I did the most cowardly thing one can do. I attacked and killed someone while they were fighting with another, and even worse, while their back was to me. To this day, it remains one of the things that eats away at me. As I recall it, I hang my head in shame. I'd succeeded in what I had set out to do, but for what? For what, I wondered as I stared down at her lifeless body, is all of this for?
As each day passes, bleaker than the last, I still ask myself that very question.
Before I could dwell on what I had just done, I was off. There were more death eaters to kill. Squaring my shoulders, I began to walk around, looking for Harry. I hadn't seen him since the failed Order meeting. Was he dead? Was he still out there somewhere, fighting against Voldemort for the future of our world? Of course he had to be, if he were dead, the battle would have ceased.
And then I saw him. They stood in the very center of the quidditch pitch, the place Harry had loved so much as a student in Hogwarts, dueling each other. All of those who stood around them, good and evil, were watching with bated breath as they circled each other with their wands raised.
"Harry!" I yelled, pushing through the crowd. When I had struggled to the front, I called out his name again. Without warning, Voldemort moved his wand in my direction. I was lifted into the air like a rag doll. With a careless flick of his wrist, he sent me flying to the ground. The death eaters in the crowd surrounding us laughed coldly as I landed at Harry's feet.
"Harry," I whispered as pain flooded through me, trying to block out their shrieks. "I killed Bellatrix."
He crouched down beside me. I knew how much it meant to him, the fact that I'd avenged his godfather's death for him. I could see it in his eyes. Forcing a smile onto my face, I looked up at him one more time. He always told me that he loved to see me smile.
Oh, I'll never forget that moment as long as I live. It was like time froze. Never will I forget every detail, every emotion that flickered in his green eyes. The eyes that were so much like his mother's. The eyes that, over time, had hardened with hate and hostility toward the world around him. I started to cry as I realized how it was all going to end.
"Don't cry, Ginny. Don't cry for me. A hero never cries."
Those were his last words. Against my will, I began to lose conciousness. It seemed like a thick fog had settled over my vision as I watched, through hooded eyes, Voldemort kill Harry.
In my mind, it was the end of the world. Every one stopped to watch that single beam of light creep toward The Boy Who Lived. Even when he knew it was coming, he did nothing to stop it. He just remained in his crouching position, smiling down at me sadly.
Not once did a tear fall down his cheek.