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As we all pool out into the courtyard we can see them approaching, the death eaters. Leading their group is the dark lord himself. Even after this battle I cannot even bring myself to think his name. I look around me and I shudder in horror at what I see. All of these people, children no less, have fought in a war. They're bloodied and bruised, with cuts and scrapes and I just want to take all of them away from this madness. I think of the bodies of children laying dead in the great hall and more hot tears slip down my face. Each of them had a mother. And a father. Sisters and brothers who can never see them smile again and I sob. I sob because I hadn't protected my little boy. All my life I've watched over them and kept them safe. But for what? Fred. My little baby Fred. I can still see his wide eyes light up as he watched me do magic in the kitchen when he and George were four. Oh George, he never deserved this. They had always had each other, separating them was just unthinkable. Suddenly I'm remembering that day back at the order's headquarters when the kids had discovered that pesky boggart in the wardrobe. I remember how Fred's bloody body had appeared to me that day and I let out a choked sob. I had really seen it now and it was so much worse than that boggart ever was. Even then my mind couldn't separate the twins in my deepest fears. How would George go on? How would any of us go on? The dark lord is near us now and we can see poor Hagrid in chains, carrying something large in his arms. People are still flowing out of the doors to the castle when I recognize that Hagrid is sobbing and mumbling words to whatever it is that seems so lifeless in his arms. Then Hagrid is close enough that I can see that it's a body. It is our hope. And our hope is dead, with his glasses sliding off the bridge of his nose. As the others realize what I have a terrible scream can be heard. It is filled with anguished pain and terror. It's Minerva. "NO!" I am left speechless. Harry, the boy who lived. He was never supposed to die, he was supposed to be undefeatable and live on, always. I can hear the awful Lestrange woman's laughter. The dark lord looks pleased. He strokes the head of his revolting pet snake as I hear the children begin to scream. "No!" "No!" "HARRY!" I'm woken from my shocked state by the sound of my only daughter's tortured screams. I begin to shout profanities into the mix of our outraged crowd. We are cut off by the dark lord's cry. "SILENCE!" With a loud bang and a flash of bright light, I find I can no longer shout and our rally is silenced. "It is over! Set him down, Hagrid, at my feet, where he belongs!" I Want to cry out that Harry doesn't belong there. As I see Hagrid place the lifeless boy on the ground so carefully you'd think he was glass, I remember that shy and frightened boy who couldn't get onto the platform seven years ago. He was so kind and endearing. And even though I cannot make a sound, the tears fall. "You see?" The pale monster began. "Harry Potter is dead! Do you understand now, deluded ones? He was nothing, ever, but a boy who relied on others to sacrifice themselves for him!" This is a lie. Harry never wanted a single life to end for him or his cause. "He beat you!" My dear Ron shouted. Then, all at once, we were back to screams and shouts and vulgar language. But the charm is placed on us once again, with a bang and a flash. "He was killed while trying to sneak out of the castle grounds," The monster shouted at us. "Killed while trying to save himself-" We all struggle against the charm, to put an end to these lies, to stop disgracing Harry's life with these words. Suddenly a boy breaks free of the charm, rushing forward. He is shot with a curse and ends up on the ground, disarmed. I can't recognize the boy from a distance, but I don't have to. "And who's this?" Hissed you know who. "Who has volunteered to demonstrate what happens to those who continue to fight when the battle is lost?" He continues. The Lestrange woman gives a screeching laugh. "It is Neville Longbottom, my lord!" Oh my, I knew Neville. But more so I knew his parents. They were part of the order before their tragic fate of a life spent in St. Mungo's. "The boy who has been giving the Carrows so much trouble! The son of the Aurors, remember?" Oh this poor boy, what has he done? He was doomed to a fate much like Harry's now and I couldn't do a thing. "Ah, yes, I remember." The dark lord hissed. He took in Neville, who was struggling to his feet in the gap between us survivors and the enemy. "But you're a pure-blood, aren't you, my brave boy?" Only this foul man could consider his blood now. "So what if I am?" Shouts Neville bravely. He was truly brave but I wish he would stop, he would only hurt himself more now. It was over. If I can't protect my own children then I have nothing left.