Chapter 433: Loss, Grief and Determination

Loss and grief were inevitable in life and everyone has to experience it to know the true meaning of life.

Chris heard someone say this at her mother's funeral years ago. Even though losing her mother was a mixture of pain, grief, and guilt, losing the people after that was different. Often people face a type of grief and pain that is so consuming that their brain detach themselves from reality for them to survive. Chris was feeling something similar to it. She had no idea how long she was wailing but by the time Harry appeared and sat down beside her, her eyes had no tears left. Her body felt oddly detached from her mind at the dead bodied lined up in the middle of the Great Hall and people crying for them.

A little far from Jason's lifeless body were Remus and Tonks, pale and still and peaceful-looking asleep beneath the enchanted ceiling. Beside their body, sitting quietly was Sirius, injured yet the pain in his eyes was not because of any physical pain. He was in pain from losing the last of his best friends. Everyone left, and only he lived on. Aurelia sat down beside Sirius and he broke down completely, Aurelia hugged him and he hid his face in her golden hair. Chris wondered what it felt like to live on and on and on when everyone around you had died. Your friends, family, everyone. Is it worth surviving? Is it worth anything?

Chris also heard some muffled noises which informed her that Adrian and Shawn's fathers were dead, one caught in the explosion and the other overwhelmed by Malagino's monsters. But Chris couldn't understand who died how because now it was meaningless how these people died, the only thing that mattered was they were dead. Chris saw Shawn's mother weeping holding her son. Someone screamed how Lavender Brown was torn into pieces by Inferis and nobody could look at her horrifying body pieces, so the teachers covered her body or whatever was left with a cloth.

Some of the other wizards from Aurelia's association were dead and injured as well. But the hall filled with death, screams, pain, and tears felt like a distant world to Chris. Like she was there in that room, but her head was underwater. She mumbled something to Harry when Harry said something but she couldn't understand. She was drowning . . . water . . . just water everywhere. . . no air . . . death . . . death . . . death . . . she couldn't breath . . . Death. . . just death . . . everywhere . . .

"CHRIS!"

Chris blinked quite a few times before Harry's face materialized in front of her eyes, he was shaking her looking absolutely terrified.

"Chris, are you listening? Chris?" He repeated.

"Harry, I . . ." Chris took in Harry's torn and burnt clothes, the small several scratches all over his face and hands. He also went through hell tonight but right now the fear in his eyes was not for himself, it was for her.

"Chris? You . . . you looked like you were having a hard time breathing. Are you ok?" Harry held her face close to him.

His worried face so close to her brought fresh tears to Chris's eyes and everything came back to her forcefully knocking the wind out of her lungs.

"Harry . . . Jason, he . . . I couldn't . . . he died because of me . . . Remus and Tonks too . . . and Lavender was where I was but . . . I couldn't save anyone," Chris buried her face on his chest and started bawling her eyes out again.

"We couldn't save everyone. We, Chris," Harry whispered with great strain in his voice.

After that neither of them spoke, they didn't need to. They already knew the pain the other was feeling. Harry let Chris cry her eyes out again, while he wiped away his own tears. It probably had been only a few minutes when Ginny came running with panic on her face.

"Chris! Chris! Colin. He . . ." Ginny halted in her steps and gasped noticing Jason's body. Chris and Harry looked up but Ginny couldn't speak. "He . . . he . . ."

However, as soon as Chris heard Ginny's panicked voice mentioning Colin, she remembered their last conversation through the talisman, and how out of nowhere Colin went silent. Her tears abruptly stopped as terror took over.

"Colin. Ginny, is he ok? Where is he?" Chris stood up, fear and pain gripping her voice.

"He is . . ." Ginny tried talking but judging by the way she looked, Chris realized Ginny was crying. Panic shot through Chris and she started to look around frantically.

"Where is he?" Chris almost took off to look around the entire hall but Harry, who was still holding her arm, pulled her back and spoke to Ginny.

"Ginny, where is Colin?"

Wordlessly, Ginny quickly led them towards the makeshift platform, where Madam Pomfrey and some other students were treating the injured. Seeing Ginny taking them towards the injured, gave Chris hope that Colin was okay, but the hope crashed and burned when she saw Colin's unconscious form lying on the stretcher. They had removed Colin's shirt to treat his injuries as his ribs and sides looked very bad with dark purple and blue bruises and so much blood, Chris had no idea where was it coming from.

"What happened to him?" Chris choked on her words as she turned to Luna, who was helping Madam Pomfrey tend to Colin.

"He got crushed by a heavy pillar while trying to save some students," Luna muttered quietly, her hands shaking a little bit as she patched up one of Colin's wounds and her eyes bloodshot red from crying or holding back tears Chris couldn't guess. "We just found him buried under some rubble. He is . . . barely breathing."

Chris had never seen Luna like this and it was heartbreaking to see her so unsure and scared. Chris blinked back tears as she felt another panic attack blurring her senses, Harry also looked frozen beside her.

"But he will be ok, right?" Harry asked Madam Pomfrey, who just looked at Harry with a grim expression.

"I . . ." Harry seemed lost for words as he looked at Colin. "Not him too. Please. How many more have to die before . . . before . . ."

Harry's voice got thicker as he looked around. A little far from them, Neville and Seamus were sitting close to Danielle and Patil Twins, all of them looked like hell, all bruised and injured and broken. Chris felt the same way. Like it was her fault this was happening, but Harry's words carried more than just guilt, they sounded like determination. He was going to do something.

"If only I had faced Voldemort --" Harry began but another voice cut him off.

"You are not going to see Voldemort by yourself," Hermione approached them with a different kind of fire in her eyes, that Chris had never seen before. Her voice shook a little but she kept going. "Listen to me, both of you, you cannot give up. You can't give them what they want. They want both of you to surrender to prove that they are the great powers, that they are the gods now who have defeated our saviors. You will not give them that. Do you hear me?"

Chris and Harry stared at Hermione, her words made sense but after so much loss and pain it felt less meaningful. Hermione glanced at Colin then stepped forward and held Chris by her shoulders. This close Chris saw tears in Hermione's eyes as well but she looked at Chris with complete faith and hope.

"Listen, Chris, you are the saviors of Hogwarts for a reason, which means you can't stop fighting. Yes, some of us are . . . gone, but there are many alive. You have to keep fighting to protect them, we have to keep fighting to protect them. I may not understand you most of the time and get angry with how you do things but as someone who understands magic and taught herself everything she could about magic, I know you are a brilliant witch. The most powerful one, if I'm being honest. You are the girl, who defeated a basilisk in her first year in Hogwarts, you perfected the most advanced potions and spells before you were even fifteen, you invented a bunch of things, you trained -- I don't know how many -- magical creatures, you control an army of Dementors, you are one of the best healers, you faced Maligno and dodged death how many times now? You are freaking Christina Norton, for heaven's sake, because of your vampire friends they retreated. So now you have two options Chris, either stay here and give up this fight or save the people who need you. Because I believe you can. Don't let their death go in vain. We have to defeat them," Hermione turned to Harry, her eyes blazing. "We are not letting them win, not when we are so close. There is just Nagini left, then it's just him. And now we even have the vampires on our side. We can still do this. We can still win."

[To be continued]