The Potter Twins and the Deathly Hallows {7}

40. The Parting Glass

"Of all the comrades that e'er I had, they are sorry for my going away, and for all the sweethearts that e'er I loved, they would wish me one more day to stay. But since it falls unto my lot that I must rise and you must not, I'll gently rise and I'll softly call, goodnight and joy be with you all." - The Parting Glass, Hozier (cover)

Finally, the truth. Sitting with my nails dug into the dusty carpet of the office where I had once thought we were learning the secrets of our victory, I understand at last that we are not supposed to survive. Our job is to walk calmly into Death's welcoming arms. We've spent all this time disposing of Voldemort's remaining links to life so that when we finally fling ourselves across his path and do not raise a wand to defend ourselves, the end will be clean. The job that ought to have been done in Godric's Hollow will be finished: neither can live, neither can survive.

My heart is still pounding in my chest. How strange that in my dread of death, it pumps all the harder, valiantly keeping me alive. But it will have to stop, and soon. Its beats are numbered. How many more will there be time for, as we rise and walk through the castle for the last time, out into the grounds and into the Forest?

Terror washes over me as I sit, knees to my chest, with a funeral drum pounding inside me. Will it hurt to die? All those times I thought it was about to happen and escaped, I had never really thought of the thing itself: my will to live has always been stronger than my fear of death. There's a part of me which is screaming at me to escape, to outrun Voldemort and never return. But it's over, I know this, and all that is left is the thing itself: dying.

If only I could have died the night we left number four, Privet Drive for the last time, when I took another's life to save my own. If only I could have died like Hedwig, so quickly that I might not have known it had happened. Or, if only Draco had never saved my life at Malfoy Manor, I could have died throwing myself in front of a wand to save Sirius...I envy even Taylor and our Mother's deaths now. The cold-bloodied walk to our own destruction will require a different kind of bravery. My whole body is trembling now, and I make an effort to control it, although no one can see me; the portraits on the walls are empty, and Harry is yet to rouse from his own existential crisis.

Slowly, very slowly, Harry sits up, and as he does, I feel more alive, and more aware of our own living bodies than ever before. Why have I never appreciated what miracles we are, brain and nerve and bounding hearts? My breath comes slow and deep, and my mouth and throat are completely dry, and so are my eyes.

Dumbledore's betrayal hits me like a tidal wave. Of course, there was a bigger plan, Harry and I have just been too foolish to see it: Aberforth was right when he said his brother was adept at secrets and lies. I've never questioned my own assumption that Dumbledore wanted us to survive. Now I see that our lifespan has always been determined by how long it would take us to eliminate all the Horcruxes. Dumbledore passed the job of destroying them to us, and obediently we obeyed, chipping away piece by piece at the bonds tying not only Voldemort but ourselves, to life. How neat and elegant, not to waste any more lives, but to give the dangerous task to the boy and girl who had already been marked for slaughter, whose deaths will not be a calamity, but another blow against Voldemort.

I want to scream and curse his memory with every ounce of strength I have left. If we were always meant to die, why did he ever allow us to live in the first place? Why did he encourage us to love fiercely and fight relentlessly, filling our heads with promises of the memories we would make once Voldemort was gone. It is a pain so excruciating it sends shocks of numbness throughout my body; to have the future I so recently began believing was possible ripped away from me is like a waking nightmare.