the last verse ; harry potter [2]

thirty ; till the end

Once upon a time, there was a girl.

A girl of fire and venom, too damn smart for her own good. She was dark. Dark hair, dark eyes, a dark mind ready to overflow with the shadows that overstay their welcome. She was a pained girl. An empty girl.

Once upon a time, she was saved. It was by the man with the silver beard and eyes like telescopes, ready to venture into the farthest galaxies this girl held in her mind, ready to mend dying stars and ready to seize the black holes. He was the same man, in fact, that saved the girl's father and mother all those years ago. A mirror of her parents. A parallel of generations.

He saved her, brought her to the new family in which she'd come to love more than her own life, she'd meet the strongest Boy Who Would Never Die, an immortal soul hellbent on staying on earth. She'd find lovely friends and lovely uncles and aunts and she'd find the dark man who loved a girl with a flower name, a man struck as the villain when he's truly to only one who'd been trying to save them all. She'd find the old man with the silver beard to be her only parent. She'd find her true grandfather.

But once upon a time, this girl was destined to martyrdom. She had always known, deep down, that that was what she was born for. To mend the things her family had broken. To die so everyone she loved could live.

So this girl, destined to die before she had ever even lived, made more sacrifices than any soldier. She vowed to die for the Boy Who Would Live, the Boy Who She Loved. She vowed to die just as Dumbledore had: die for the fight which needed her blood, die to protect everyone she had found to love. She had accepted her fate as an inevitable truth. She did not mourn the life she will never live.

So, once upon a time, this impossible girl was to meet her end. It was the four of them: Harry Potter, Vera Beauregard, Tom Riddle, and herself. The four it had always been. The four that it will always be.

The story was to meet an end. The four of them, together.

Tom Riddle watched his wife with his maroon eyes as they saturated more and more with the brown of his Old Eyes. 

No one spoke for quite awhile. The silence of hesitance, of anger, of sadness.

"There's nothing left to save you," said Diana Riddle softly. Once upon a time, she was destined to die. Once upon a time, she might take her father down with her. "There are no more Horcruxes. Only one of the three of us can live, Tom. I promise, it will not be you."

Voldemort raged beneath his browning eyes. "Oh yes? Promise me, who of you will die? Only one can live, after all."

Once upon a time, a girl vowed to die for the man she loved.

"Tom. . ." whispered Vera. Her eyes were so pained, so solemn. "What have you done?"

It was rhetorical, a much bigger question than it sounded. It held every question she could bear to think of.

"I have taken the world for you," he said lowly, take a step toward her. Diana and Harry raised their wands in warning. Vera did not even flinch.

"You have taken the world for power," she said. "I never wanted the world, Tom," she whispered. "I wanted you."

Voldemort looked stricken. He took a step back.

"You have done this for nothing," said Diana. "You have killed countless of innocent people for nothing. Even you will be punished, Tom. I won't let you escape this."

"You won't be killing anyone else tonight," said Harry. "You won't be able to kill any of them, ever again. Don't you get it? I was ready to die to stop you back in the forest---"