Part II of III.
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It was a perfectly calculated move.
It came at the best possible time. Tactical genius.
It wasn't a matter of whether it was going to happen, but when. I should have seen it coming, and in a way, I had. He was going to die. They were going to kill him while Harry watched. It was coming, and none of us could have stopped it.
He had to die. Professor Dumbledore was on the blacklist from the moment Voldemort had returned. Before. Dumbledore was everything that Voldemort hated. The only one that he had ever feared. He was the one that could stand in Voldemort's way. He knew too much.
Knowledge is power. Too much knowledge is a death sentence.
It's ironic. I spend my life studying. Learning.
But a death sentence isn't the worst thing that could happen to me. I have one looming over me already. I'm not stupid, nor am I disillusioned. I don't have time for naivete. The second I fixed Harry Potter's glasses, I labeled myself for death.
It's only logical.
War isn't kind. It's not romantic or pretty. It's gritty and real. It's war.
You can't be emotional. You can't let it get to you, because the second you let your guard down, it's over. Ron is a fireball. Fury and anger and passion. Too much so. One of these days he'll go on a spree. Take them out. He's not naive, either. He knows he's marked, too. Marked from the moment that he asked to sit with Harry on the Express. As if being a Weasley wasn't enough. He knows he's going out with a bang. A flash of green light if he's lucky, a few tortured screams if he's not. He doesn't care. But as far as he's concerned, he's going to take as many of them with him as he can when they blow him up.
But logically, he won't be able to. They won't blow him away. That would be too humane for them. He's explosive and jealous and temperamental. He can be ruthless in his loyalty. He knows too much.
He's everything they want. They won't kill him immediately. They'll tempt him. He has a dark side. We all do. His lays open, however. Every time his anger boils over, his soul lays bare to them. They'll catch him at an opportune moment and tempt him, try to draw him into the fold of the darkness. He won't go, though. They underestimate him. His loyalty lands squarely on Harry's side. Nothing short of the Imperius would turn him from us.
Not that I don't think they'll try it. It would be a logical move. Sometimes, in moments of weakness, that is what I fear. That they'll put me under the Imperius and use my loyalty to get to Harry. That I'll be the one that kills him. They aren't stupid, either. I'm a prime target. I'm a Muggle-born, not even worth a Knut. I'm disposable. But I'm one of the best weapons that they could use.
Logically, I don't have time or energy for fear. I don't have the time to lay awake at night and worry. My energies are focused on the task at hand. Most girls at seventeen are far younger in spirit than I am. They haven't seen what I have. I'm weathered and hardened. I have a purpose in my short life. To keep Harry alive. It seems parasitic, almost.
I'm weathered and hardened. That's what I tell myself when I lay awake at night and worry. It's what I tell myself when images of torture flash through my head. It's my mantra. Emotion will get me nothing but pain.
We're still training. Researching and practicing and preparing for what we know is inevitable. I've made vials of every healing potion in the book, memorized the entire three-volume set of charms and spells. I've spent two hours each weeknight dueling. Harry spends his days similarly to mine. He duels with professors and Aurors, with the most powerful and experienced fighters on Earth. And he's beginning to win.
He's using the Dark Arts. We all are. He has no choice. If he's going to beat Voldemort at his own game, he needs to be prepared to fight dirty.
He hates to use the brutal, medieval spells. They're terrible to watch, but even more terrible to cast. He can feel the Dark running through his veins now, trying to seduce him. I used to wonder how the Death Eaters could commit the atrocities that they do, but now I know. Each Dark spell takes away a little bit of the soul of the caster. I feel it.
Harry feels it, and I feel it in him. He's fighting it. His eyes, the eyes that were once a beautiful green, the peaceful color of rolling hills, are now scalding emerald. They burn into me when he looks at me. It's almost like he's trying to see deep inside me. Make sure I'm still there.
I am. I'm there every time that the fire of his gaze invades me. He's walking a difficult line. Ron is on the edge of explosion, and I'm forcing myself more and more each day into the walls of logic. Harry has to be both. Emotion drives him, but logic leads him.
It makes sense, what he does. It's all perfectly logical. How he sits, facing the fire in the Common Room for hours each night. How he has built up physically and emotionally. How he looks at Ron and I when he thinks we're not paying attention, just to make sure that they haven't claimed us yet.
But we're paying attention. Constant vigilance.
I pay attention when his long fingers clench around his quill or his broomstick. He still plays Quidditch. It gives him an outlet. He plays more aggressively now, though. He has bursts of aggression sometimes. It makes sense. He's trying to keep himself balanced when the world is falling in around him.
So it's perfectly logical when he pushes his broom to four times the speed he'd ever flown before. It's perfectly logical when the windows blow out of the unused classroom that he uses to practice. It's perfectly logical when he slams me against a wall and kisses me with the intensity and passion of someone who will die tomorrow. It's not a romantic kiss. Not hearts and roses and love. It's war. It's matter-of-fact. We don't question what it means. He presses his long, powerful body against mine. Just to make sure I'm still there.
Just to make sure he's still there, too.
He will die tomorrow. Tomorrow is a relative term.
It's only logical.