Author's Note: Yes, I know, I promised Chapter 8 of OTM. However, faced with very difficult writer's block, I decided to just sit down and write whatever came to mind. I've never written stream-of-consciousness, so this is a bit of an experiment of my mind and Hermione's. Please, please review.
This is Part I of II.
I don't own anything, and I'm not making any money from this. Please don't sue.
I am a logical person.
While some people would think that being perfectly logical would be limiting, that logic has boundaries that life shouldn't have, I am quite proud of my logic. I believe that life is far simpler if treated logically. That's not to say that I always act in what others might see as the most logical manner. It's simply generalizing that everything can be treated with logic, and it what I prefer to do.
Logic is not the absence of emotion, nor is it a lack of compassion. I know it seems sometimes that it is a lack of compassion, but that's not how I intend it to be. I don't want to make everyone a number. I don't look at the casualties of war as statistics. Really, I don't. But logically, there is no other way.
I'm a student, supposedly the brightest witch in my year. I'm Head Girl, taking the most challenging courses offered to me. I'm studying to become a Healer, doing work by correspondence and through Madame Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall so that I can take my licensing exams and be a fully fledged Healer upon graduation at Hogwarts. It's a lot to take on, but sometimes sacrifices must be made. It's only logical.
When your world is at war, when every step you take could get you or someone you love killed, when your best friend is both the prime target and the sole threat to the most evil wizard who has ever lived, sacrifices have to be made. When half of your friends and family have gone into hiding, a third have been made into casualties, and the remaining ones are fighting as hard for this cause as you are, logic is the only way to stay afloat.
I used to be far more sensitive. Emotional. When I heard about Cedric... he was the first. I wasn't close to him at all really, but it felt so close. He was dead. Someone I knew and saw each day was dead. My peer, someone with a promising future and a full life was just gone. Not just gone, either. That sounded so peaceful. Everyday. Mundane. No, he wasn't gone. He was murdered. The life was over, taken forcefully, and in cold blood. It hurt so much. I never thought I'd ever hurt so much for someone that I truly didn't even know. Part of it was the growing and developing life that had been snipped cruelly in the midst of adolescence. The other part, the part I found to be the worst later, was the realization that it had begun.
Voldemort had returned.
I had heard of the first reign of terror. I'd read about the bloodshed, the violence, the torture. But it wasn't real. It was black ink on graying pages. It had ended before my memory begun. I wasn't even two years old, and it wouldn't even become my world for another nine years after that. But when Cedric was murdered, it all slammed home in blinding color. Voldemort was back. He'd come for another round of murders and Unforgivables. But there was something different about it this time, something I couldn't see at the time. I wouldn't understand for nearly two more years.
Cedric's death had torn at my heartstrings. I could feel that the wizarding world was on a slippery slope, falling downhill quickly. But the new school year and new classes, friends, and involvements made the impending war and the looming dark clouds easy to ignore. There were problems, of course, but not anything extroardinary. Until, that is, Mr. Weasley was attacked.
I nearly couldn't take it. He was a second father to me. Thankfully, he lived. Voldemort didn't kill him, at least not completely. But it was another forceful blow to me. Emotion filled me and it became harder to concentrate. Harder to do everything I'd been so accustomed to doing. But I pulled out of it. My heart was bruised and vulnerable, but beating strong.
My faithful heart stopped the day Sirius died. No, not died, was murdered. Fell beyond the veil while fighting his own cousin. No, she hadn't thrown him, nor had she pushed him, but she had murdered him in my mind. It was her fault that Sirius, Harry's confidant and godfather, had gone to the otherworld on that day. Bellatrix Lestrange murdered him. I didn't witness it. If I had, my heart might have simply given up on the spot. It didn't. They came later, they told me what had happened and my heart shattered and paused for a split second. But then, faithful as ever, its chambers began to expand and contract rhythmically. Hurting me with each beat. Why should my heart beat when Sirius' cannot? Why does it continue when Cedric's is immobile? Or Bertha Jorkins'? Why did my heart deserve to live more than Lily or James Potter's? So many hearts that were still, while mine insistently drummed on in a carefully timed cadence.
The pain was unbearable. And as they only continued to fall- Dennis Creevey, Susan Bones, Lee Jordan, Terry Boot- it only got worse. With each death, each attack... I knew they were getting closer to us. I'm Muggleborn. My family was in mortal peril. My friends were being murdered, injured, tortured. And the enemy was getting closer to where he wanted most to be.
Finally, Harry told me. He was and always had been the Boy Who Lived. It had never mattered to me. It was just a part of him, just like he was slim or half-blooded. But it mattered now. Harry was, suddenly, the one chance for the wizarding world to survive. Either he would win, or Voldemort would. And the prize for the winner was the fate of the world, and the life of the other. Neither will live while the other survives.
It was that moment, sitting on the floor of my room at home, with Harry beside me on a chair, that I decided that the only way to live through this war was to be logical. Not emotional, logical. This was war. There were bound to be casualties. And if I let those casualties paralyze me, that would only make for more pain and suffering and deaths.
So many lives were cut short that summer. Yes, the lives were human, the suffering was real, the deaths were murders. But I devoted my energies to research and training. Harry was going to be ready to fight, and Ron and I were going to be right by his side. It was only logical. So the lives became simply names to me; the ever increasing stream of black ribbons in the Great Hall were suppressed in my mind to just be more victims the war had taken from us too early. We trained and readied ourselves for the impending battle.
It was the logical thing to do. And I am a logical person.