A/N: My tenth fanfic! Crazyness.

This is for shadows and sunshine's Random Characters challenge.

Ok, and before anyone decides to go off on me in a review, this is not necessarily AU. It COULD have happened, though it is presumed that it did not. And I, personally, hope it did not. Because that would make me sad.

Enjoy!

A Hufflepuff, Always

Ernie Macmillan had tried to be brave throughout the course of his life, fighting and rebelling, never running away. Even now, as he looks into the face of this atrocious Death Eater --- Dolohov, he remembers from the Daily Prophet --- he stands his ground with his head held high and shoulders back as they always have been because Ernie is a confident young man, pleased with the person he has become.

But no matter how brave he acts, Ernie is no Gryffindor. He is a Hufflepuff, always, and as he gazes into Dolohov's depthless black eyes, he can not help but be very, very afraid. Afraid for his caring parents who love him more than he deserves, afraid for his amazing friends who he just wants to know are safe, afraid for this lost man who has condemned himself to darkness. So afraid.

The man has Ernie's wand --- almond, 14 ½ inches, dragon heartstring core, he reflects haughtily ---and has him backed into a corner so there is no escape. Yet Ernie won't give up, because how could he honestly call himself a Hufflepuff, member of Dumbledore's army, soldier in the war if he did otherwise?

"You don't want to do this," he breathes, not begging because he is far too proud and pompous to resort to antics like that. "You still have so much life left to live; don't damn it all."

He thinks he sees something flicker in Dolohov's emotionless eyes --- perhaps regret, or guilt, or simply sadness --- but he decides it was imagined for the look is quickly replaced by a signature Sltyherin sneer. Professor Snape would be proud of such a sneer, some part of his mind thinks.

"I'm already damned," Dolohov whispers and raises his wand, murmuring a curse that is lost in the roar of screams and battle cries and fighting.

A neon green light, shining bright against the black sky of an early dawn, zooms toward Ernie and his heart races and his breaths become shallow. This is it, he knows, the moment so many dread and fear. Death, what seemed ungraspable merely hours before, is nearly upon him.

With a pressing heaviness in his chest, Ernie realizes he will never become a husband or have children. He will never learn to fly or pick a marigold from a field or say he lives in the twenty-first century. His mother will never hold him again, his father never pat him on the back again and say, "Atta boy!" Never again will he go to Hogsmeade with Justin or compare Chocolate Frog Cards with Susan. Never again.

Memories roll in his mind, moments he would live differently should he be given another chance, and they are so frighteningly clear, having been stored away for this precise instant in time, it is almost as if he is reliving them.

He remembers, in his second and fourth years, how cruel he was to Harry Potter, an amicable boy who did nothing but be on Fate's bad side.

He wishes he had been kinder to Harry.

He remembers feeling sad for his poor mother as she sobbed at his grandfather's funeral, but not being able to feel anything for the deceased man himself.

He wishes he had gotten to know Grandpa better.

He remembers dancing with Hannah at the Yule Ball, the warmth of her brown eyes, the smooth feel of her skin, the quirk of her tantalizing lips.

He wishes he had kissed her, if only to know what it would be like.

He remembers his divination O.W.L, gazing into the foggy, yet otherwise clear, crystal ball patronizingly, as if he was far above the stupid subject.

He wishes he had tried harder to see something, anything, in the orb's depths.

So many wishes, so many regrets, so many moments and choices he can never take back. But perhaps, he thinks idly, with his last breath, his last thought, he can make at least one mistake right again.

When the green jet of light engulfs him, his final woes go, not to himself, but the man standing so near, wand drawn, dark with anger, mad with hate. He finds himself praying avidly to whatever hierarchy governs this universe that Dolohov saves himself, sees the light, and realizes it is never too late because no human being should be destined to the path he has chosen. Perhaps, if he were normal, in the last instants of his life Ernie would grieve for himself, or the knowledge he never gained, the adventures he never sailed.

But Ernie is no Slytherin, or Ravenclaw, or even Gryffindor. He is a Hufflepuff. Always.

The End

A/N: Reviews are Love!