Lammas Night -- Sacrifice

The girl, young woman, really, stood silently on an old, rather battered field, clad in the forest green robes of a Healer-Auror. Dark red stains on the grass bore mute testimonial of the violence that had taken place here scant weeks ago. Her gaze was impassive as she stared at a point beyond the field, remembering...

He turns, to look over his shoulder for a moment, eyes weary but with a grim determination on his face. "Hermione, I will..." She starts to cry out a warning, but he has already turned and levelled his wand calmly at another of the Dark Lord's minions. "Stupefy."

What had he meant to say? I will be back, don't worry? That was terribly inane, especially for him. She laughed, but even as she laughed tears were streaming down her face, and she collapsed to her knees in sobs. She had thought that she had had no more tears to give. Just like she had thought she would feel something when he was gone. She had searched, for hours and hours after the Final Battle, among the survivors, even among the dead, refusing to believe that he was gone, just like that. She had been so sure there had been something special between the two of them....

Still, when someone hesitantly touched her shoulder from behind, she stood and whirled, her wand in her hand before she even realised who it was. As eyes darkened with concern and sympathy met still-teary brown ones, she dropped her masks and her wand and cried on his shoulder as he held her gently and a little awkwardly.

A distance away from the two figures on the hilltop, a young man sighed and brushed a strand of his absurdly long fringe out of his eyes.

He had no choice - the communication pathways had been destroyed during the first few days of the war. He knew he could not leave this place, and by the time another wizard powerful enough to help came by it might but too late. It would be better to end it all now, and not cause any more grief and suffering. To everyone it will just be as if he had died in the war. Somehow, he never thought he would be remembered as a war hero.

He smiled wryly, but his expression turned grim as the flickering candlelight caught the glint of cold metal. He glanced down at the ornate dagger he held. It was a beautiful dagger - sleek, shiny, and imbued with all the hate and malice one of his forefathers could muster. An instrument of death, and vengeance, one that was probably not exactly intended for the use he was going to put it to. The blade sung to him, telling him of the terrible acts it had revelled in being a part of, of the sweet seduction of death, of its lust for blood...he listened, though he never yielded.

Accordingly, the hilt of the dagger was designed to be unremarkable, bearing only the family crest on it. This was to maintain that the dagger was inconspicuous when in the sheath, but that the blade would be the main focus of everyone present when the dagger was drawn.

Today, though, there would be no one to witness his fall until it was too late. From all the research he could have done this was the only way things could be solved. He had to sacrifice himself.