A/N: This is it. The final chapter. I chose to have it set in somebody else's POV and to show what the world has become. The thought behind this is to create an image experienced by the one person who feels a sense of responsibility for what has happened but has no power to change it. I thank you all for reading this story. It turned into something I never thought it would and I am grateful for an audience like you. ~Cissy.

Chapter 18

"I have loved to the point of madness, that which is called madness,
that which to me is the only sensible way to love."
~Francoise Sagan

1 year later.

The world was a shit hole these days. Every day went shrouded in darkness and thick mist pressed against the windows of empty houses. Many of them had been abandoned upon the dawn of change, even more had been raided as the days had progressed. Houses had crumbled under the impact of magic so dark many did not dare think of it and their ruins were left behind as a reminder for those who wished to oppose the new regime. Most days thick, heavy rain fell from the black skies, drowning the world in and endless sense of sorrow. Trees were stripped from their leaves and bony branches seemed to claw at the invisible forces surrounding them. Fields were left barren. In a land of darkness nothing grew.

It was impossible to tell when one day ended and another began. The darkness was semi-permanent. The raids left street after street abandoned. Much like a ghost town. Long gone were the terrifying screams of families being torn apart. Children separated from their parents; their cries were rumoured to be heard during particularly quiet nights. Azkaban now housed those deemed unworthy to carry wands and those who had once associated with Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. Their lives had been spared, only to be driven into insanity by the horrific events taking place inside the prison walls. Many begged for the Dementors to come and take their souls as life itself had become torture. Those who resisted the salvation of death found themselves incapable of wishing for it. As the months went on, there was barely anybody left to remember those who had once sided with the Boy Who Lived. Their faces had blurred into the darkness.

She woke every day, still questioning why she had been spared. Every day her eyes were drawn to the window, searching the sky for a ray of sunshine. By now she knew she would never see sunlight again. The night the world had changed lay fresh in her memory even though a long, endless year had passed. A year that felt like an eternity. Many could barely remember what it had been like before she changed the world; before the incarnation of evil emerged victorious from the battle and unleashed sheer terror upon them all.

She had seen the cloaked figures in the night, no longer loyal to the Dark Lord but loyal to the Ruler of Shadows instead. Their faces went no longer hidden behind masks and in their eyes lingered a sense of evil unseen by anyone. They were ruthless and spared no one who stood in their way. Their hands were permanently covered in blood. Many times she had expected them to knock on her door. They never came. It left a sense of fear alive inside of her.

Pansy Parkinson did not know why Hermione Black or Eris- as she was known these days- had spared her that night at Hogwarts. Why she had asked her to walk away. But it was that deliberate choice that made she was still alive today, to face the horrendous hell this world had become since Eris had risen to power. No longer did the memory of Lord Voldemort with fear. It was the existence of Eris that made the world crumble. She knew many others to be dead. But every day, as she faced herself in the mirror and heard the rain hammer against the glass, she wondered why she was left to face another day. Eris had known about her blood and yet she had chosen to let her live.

"Some of us will be left to live with shame of what we are and what we had wished to become..."

It was the memory of those words that answered the question 'why' every time. To be left alive with the knowledge the blood in her veins was tainted, was the true punishment. To know that Eris, Ruler of Shadows, had stood before her and allowed her to live, put her in her debt. A debt she knew she would never be able to repay. She was a Mudblood and she had been left to live because Eris had chosen for it to be so. It was a reminder of friendship. A twisted, sickening reminder of how she had once befriended a shy girl on the Hogwarts Express and helped her find her confidence. Every day she was left to live with the knowledge that it was her own gesture of kindness that opened up Hermione and allowed her to become Eris and eventually changed the world into the shithole it had become. Had she walked on that day, ignored what she had seen, things would have been different. And she lived with that burden whenever she heard another cry in the night and found the resistance paper she found in the gutter reporting yet another death. The list of those who had died was now longer than those who had lived. Soon she would be the only one left. She had been responsible for creating the monster that now controlled the world. But most of all the words were a reminder that she would never become what she had once dreamed of being. She had been spared only to become a prisoner inside this world.

The world was an empty place. Eris, with Bellatrix at her side, had taken the final bit of hope the world had held after the fall of the Dark Lord. Those who had not known about the Prophecy had believed their nightmare had ended, only to find it had just begun. And Pansy had watched in terror as that same night, Hogwarts was destroyed to the ground. Not even the highest tower had remained standing. More had died after Lord Voldemort had died than before. Eris had left nobody else alive inside the castle. Those present had screamed and cried in fear as the walls came down. None emerged from the dust alive. Hogwarts had been the one stronghold throughout history that opposed everything Lord Voldemort had been. Now that it was gone, there was nothing standing between Eris and the world. It was hers to take. And she had taken it. And she had destroyed it.

Pansy glanced out of her tiny kitchen window. The rest of her street was quiet. It was early. The few people that still lived here were asleep. They were all purebloods and all were loyal to Eris. They did not even know a Mudblood lived amongst them. She had been tempted to tell them. They would kill her. The thought most days seemed better than being alive. More raindrops trickled down the glass and Pansy sighed. Her eyes were drawn to the sky. She had to look for the sunlight; for that tiny fragment of hope. She knew she would never find it. Eris had taken everything.

But if she didn't hold on to sickening hope, Pansy too would only beg for death.