The Epitaph

The Epitaph

By: Adda Faith

~

Beloved husband and father.

If you killed your wife,

Does that make you a beloved husband?

I remember her just as I remember you. She was as sweet as you were deceiving. She loved you more than life itself. Did you love her? Never did you tell her so.

Did you mean to say I do at the alter? Did you mean it like the pledge you made to the Dark Lord? I remember her pain just as I remember your lies.

Your family portrait is deceiving. Happy, joy filled, and loving. I see you smiling, holding your little girl on your lap - your wife and your son next to you.

She looks so happy. She enjoyed the life that you took from her - she was so young and cheerful. Did your baleful heart see that?

No. Your heart of ice overtook your being - I saw it happen - I watched as you beat her. She bled and you never stopped - she told you no and you worsened. I had to do something and once I got involved, you threw me out of the house. If she had not been too loyal to you would she be alive now?

She stayed with you even after the night that you beat her up. Was it your craving for blood that urged you to make her bleed again?

The only answer for that is yes. If she were smarter she would have listened to her family when they told her not to marry you. She would still be alive.

She screamed out loud in pain as you killed her. Did you hear her scream? Did you see her blood upon your fingertips?

You were never a beloved husband.

If your children grow up in fear,

Does that make you a beloved father?

I remember the trauma that you put your children through. I remember the violent threats that you gave them. I remember the cruelty you put them through. They grew up in fear. At least you spared their lives unlike your wife's.

You abused them. They lived in a life of black and blue. Did you ever hear their screams as you made them bleed?

I see their smiles preserved in the portrait. What did you threaten them to act happy? For I know for a fact that they were never happy normally.

You were never a beloved father.

If your life is based on lies,

Will it be carved on stone?

Beloved husband and father.

Spoken not it words,

Spoken not in truth.

You tell lies. You said lies. You lived a life in lies. You lied to your wife and her family. You joined their side and said that you changed.

Never did you mean that you changed. I watched as you pledged yourself to the Dark Lord. I watched as the Dark Mark was burned into your skin. I watched as you tortured and killed innocent people.

You never changed. It may have taken a lot of lies and deception to blind her and her family into believing that you had, but you never changed.

You were a loyal member to the Dark Lord. If you had changed, why were you afraid to where your shirtsleeves too short when you saw her and her family. What were you trying to hide?

The Dark Mark proved your disloyalty to them and you hid it. You lived in your lies and lived your deception. You killed your wife. You abused your children. You heard their scream and saw their blood.

The epitaph lies: beloved husband and father.

Permanent on stone is deception,

Your lies are carved:

Beloved husband and father.

~

Ginny Weasley never wept as Draco's casket was lowered into the ground. His mother and father in law Launce and Nymphadora Lovegood watched with lowered heads in sorrow with their grandchildren.

Lucius and Narcissa, who were both imprisoned in Azkaban, would never see their son again.

Ginny hid a secret smile when the casket plunged six feet underneath the earth. Luna's children could live in peace without another word of threat in their lives. She would make sure of that.

She looked down at Luna's children with a grin. Draco was gone - they were free from his abuse, never will they ever have to live in torment again. And she made sure of that, for her secret smile hid more than just happiness from Draco's death.

She was glad that she murdered him, although no one knew it was her. She kept it secret but she didn't do it for herself. She did it for the love that she held for her Godchildren and her love for them will never falter.

The epitaph may lie as did the person buried beneath the untruthful stone, but for him to be gone, never to abuse again was a blessing.