Death

{Can you hear me? Can you feel me in your arms?}

Darling, you're slipping away. She can only stare at him in desperation, wanting to rewind time.

Her slender arms are wrapped about his scarecrow thin body, light as a feather, his head rests against her chest. He is so light, she thinks as her hands run over his raven hair. His breaths are slow but shallow, and his throat is raspy as he tries to talk to her.

His voice is too soft though, for she makes no acknowledgement of it. She looks away at the barren trees, etched against a bleak landscape of a hell. She wonders when this Curse will end, wonders when his pain will be finished.

"He'll be dead then," she says it out loud and quickly covers her mouth. Can he hear her? Does the Curse affect the senses as much as it does the mind?

He grimaces, not wanting to hear her awful words. He wishes this Curse would kill him swiftly, but that is the whole intent of it. For him to die in a slow, torturous pain that makes him want to cry out - but his voice is nearly silent and when he feels as if he screaming at the top of his lungs, it is only a quiet whisper that the wind quickly carries away.

His killer is dead, and of that, he is glad. He has done what God or the Powers That Be have intended him to do, but he can't believe that they somehow aimed for him to die in a burning pain that is slowing eating away his insides...

{I know you hear me....J can taste it in your tears...}

He turns over so that his emerald eyes catch her mahogany ones, sparkling with tears that have not yet fallen over. Summoning his remaining strength, his hand strokes her lightly bronzed face gently, thin fingers running over high cheekbones.

She closes her almond shaped eyes, ravished by the feel of his skin against hers. She leans down to kiss him.

Their lips touch, holding on to one another for a few seconds, but he is too weak to kiss her back. She pulls up wistfully, longing for the time when they couldn't stop kissing.

She stares into the heavens.

The sun is setting slowly, the sky an amalgam of violets, pinks, reds, and blues combining to create beautiful scenery.

She blinks slowly, and very gently, a tear falls out of her sienna eye and drips down her tan skin. It hangs off of her chin until it drops into his opened mouth.

Bitter. Salty. Sorrow.

He tastes the precious tear and vaguely wonders if that will be the last thing his taste-buds ever touch. He looks into the sky, and braces himself for death.

The sun is setting.

It will not be long now.

Silence grips onto both of them, metal and hard not relinquishing until she finds the will to clear her throat. "Don't worry," she whispers to him. "I'm sure heaven's beautiful."

Quickly she chastises herself. How dare she say something like that, as if she is so certain that he is going to meet his doom in less than a quarter of an hour?

The spell is meant for Death, she reminds herself, and, not discovering the priceless words to say to her beloved before his untimely death, she closes her mouth, her crimson lips pressing into a thin line.

I'm going to die soon, he thinks. In a few minutes my body will lay cold and she will start to sob and I will be somewhere else, perhaps heaven or hell, I don't know. What will she do with my corpse? Morbid thoughts such as these had never swam through his head before but now, minutes before his premature passing, he will transform into an unknown creature only concerned with his love, his future and his death.

For that's what his future is.

His death.

{Holding my last breath

safe inside myself

Are all my thoughts of you}

The one person that he loves holds him tenderly in her arms. She longs to be able run with him, fly on their broomsticks, take long strolls in the evening. She wants to marry him in an outdoor wedding in the rain forest where moisture glistens on leaves and the sky sweats, and she wants to bear his children, all three of them as they planned. She wants to continue on with her Quiddtch career but watch his, and she wants to be able to watch their children grow into adults, and see herself fall back into a lovely retirement before a sleepy, peaceful death.

They don't have children. They aren't married. They don't have Quidditch careers.

They are seventeen and eighteen years old and nearly emotionally dead. She has just graduated from school and he is Head Boy, not called a man. Yet he will die a man.

He grabs her hand suddenly, startling her. "What's wrong?" she whispers. What's wrong - such simple words yet so complex. What did she think was wrong? Whole fucking world's wrong, she thinks and glances down at him.

He mouths to her, I love you.

Her heart casually breaks, shatters into a million sharp pieces that can never be glued together again, like a stained glass window.

Oh god, I love you too.

She doesn't say it though. The words form in her mouth but she chokes on them. She can't bear this, oh god, all she wants is for him to be alive forever.

Alive is not in his vocabulary anymore.

But forever is.

{You pray your dreams will leave you here}

Maybe there's a God, she thinks desperately.

Maybe if I lift my palms upward in offering to Him or Her or whatever God happens to be, I can save my darling, if I just pray hard enough, if I pray for forgiveness, if I...

She presses her thin palms together and looks at the sky which is a stained painting of pink, blue, and now, purple. Please God, please let him live, oh I'll do anything...

No one's there and she knows it. But she keeps spilling out her wish, the only thing that she wants, will want ever, is to have him breathe as long as she does.

If he dies, then I must die, she thinks. Do you want two people to die, God?

There's no reply.

It's just him and me in this whole fucking universe. Just us.

Soon it'll be just me.

He stares at her. What's she doing? He wonders. She's praying for my soul.

This angers him quickly. I don't need anyone praying for my soul, he thinks. I just killed the Dark Lord, of course I'll be in heaven.

But suddenly he realizes what he just thought. I killed him, and at least ten Death Eaters.

I am a murderer.

I'm not going to heaven, he acknowledges sadly. I am going to hell.

I am going to burn forever in the orange licking flames of hell.

She coughs back words.

"Don't worry, darling, you'll be with God soon."
She knows there's no God and he knows it too, but he just slowly nods like a little child learning addition.

{Calling me as you fade into black...}

I wish an angel was here, he thinks suddenly. Maybe it'd be easier.

No, an angel would save me.

I've got no one to save me.

Just her.

Suddenly he clutches her arm so tightly that he breaks into her soft, lotioned skin, releasing small drops of crimson blood.

The pain is too much for him.

He starts to convulse violently, and he can't stop. Her eyes widen in fear, she doesn't know what to do, and she can only stare in horror at him as he dies.

His green eyes roll back to show the bloodshot whites, and he opens his mouth to scream but no sound comes out. His skin is so pale now she can see the violet and sapphire veins and arteries running inside his body.

A bright light flashes and the last thing he sees is her face...so angelic and perfect....

His body stops shaking, and his eyes lay open, vast with pain and fear. "Oh God, please wake up." She timidly touches his body and gasps.

It's as if he's sleeping. It's so warm she could almost curl up next to it.

There is no thumping of his heart beating furiously.

There is a loud hissing noise and she jumps back in surprise just before his body explodes into a roaring fire that is, within a second, gone. Black ashes swirl in the wind.

"So that's it then," she says, and one last tears drips onto the remainder of his body.

She drifted into her fate of eternity: oblivion.