Only You

Frank Longbottom's chair faced the window. A holly bough wound itself languidly along the periphery of his vision. It would be Christmas soon. Somewhere an old scratchy love song was playing. The kind Frank's parents had liked. The rubber sole of his laceless shoe slid jerkily across the fresh waxed floor. He closed his eyes. He would try his memory exercises again. Frank was an Auror, and Aurors needed excellent memories.

He was lying on the bed - reading. The mattress jounced as she landed like a cat on its edge.
'No more work,' she pouted.
He peered over the book into her face - pale, dark-eyed.
'One more page,' he lied and touched her soft black hair.
'Oh! You're no fun.' Bellatrix sank lazily into her usual spot beside him.
Frank closed the book, noting the page.
'That's not true. I'm great fun.'
'Really?'
'Certainly. I know several amusing anecdotes.'
Bellatrix sucked her lip.
'Any of them dirty?'
He rolled atop her.
'Only the good ones.'

'All done, Mr. Longbottom?'
'Yes, thank you.'
Humming, the Healer took the cup from him. As she put it on the tray she turned to her friend.
'Such good manners, that one.'
'Not like some I could mention,' replied the friend, a thickset matronly woman. She glared accusingly at the jackal-headed man at the table in the corner.
'And so good-looking, too.' The wheels of the cart began to turn slowly away from Frank. 'Shame.'
'It is that. Shameful.'
Further and further away 'til all Frank heard was a whisper - 'Minister of Magic, hisself.'

'Anyone home?'
'In here!'
Frank pushed into the library. She was at the desk perusing some files. He waited for her to look up at him. Slowly the heavy-lidded eyes rose.
'I got the assignment!' he burst out.
'Oh, Frank! I knew it!'
Bellatrix ran to him, and catching her up he lifted her in a slow twirl.
'I start immediately...' He saw the pain his words caused, behind the joy.
'So soon?' She looked down and flattened the front of her dress. He put out his hand and she took it, guiding him to the arch of her abdomen.
'What will we call him?'
'How do you know it'll be a boy?'
'Auror's intuition.' He looked into her face but she was fading. Changing.
There was something familiar about her. Something not the same, but right.
He heard voices...

A ridiculous German accent.
'Ah, Frank! And how are we today? And we have a visitor, yes!' The doctor takes a few notes with his gold quill.
Frank notices a man sitting across the table. He has a large strange eye and a piece missing from his nose.
'Hello, Frank.' To the doctor, 'Does he talk?'
The doctor gets ink on his chin as he scratches his beard.
'Occasionally. But it is not unusual in these cases.'
'How are you feeling, Frank?'
Frank ignores the man with the incomplete nose. He tries to focus instead on the task at hand - his house of cards. The second tier is almost up, but he gets distracted looking at the Queen of Spades. Something in her eye...
'Frank, can you hear me?'
'He hears you, we believe.'
'Is he in pain?'
'Ach, no! He is merely dreaming. He dreams.' The doctor swings his arms, a gesture encompassing the entire world. 'This is nothing. It is in the head that matters. He lives in his dreams.' The doctor smiles to himself at his diagnosis.
The man leans forward. His proximity forces Frank further back into his mind.
'Frank, if you hear me...if you ever need anything...'
A chair scrapes as Frank's visitor stands to leave.
'Is he happy?'
'Are men not happiest in the own dreams?'
The look on the man's scarred face said he didn't think so.

'Daydreaming again?' teased Bellatrix.
'No. Just thinking.'
'About what?'
'About us.' He kissed her head. 'About how lucky I am.'
Bellatrix giggled as he kissed her neck.
'Why are you lucky?'
'Because the most beautiful girl in the world loves me. You do still love me, don't you?'
She laughed and turned to him, her full round face lit by the sun.
'Yes. I still love you.' Her hair seemed slightly more brown in the light. Curlier, shorter. Had it always been like this? Yes...
'Will you always love me?' he asked.
'Yes.' Her eyes were wide and innocent and so happy. Something seemed different...
'Just me?' he joked.
'Just you.'
Frank sat in the soft armchair. The room was cool but sweat was running down his skin. His muscles tensed uncontrollably.
'Do you really love me, Frank?'
'Only you...'

His hands gripped the chair. One of the orderlies nodded to his partner.
'Harold, looks like Frank's about to happen.'
'Only me?'
Her face was losing its roundness.
'Get the doctor.'
The features he spent so many hours, days memorizing began to dissolve. The face - he only recognized it as it disappeared. A darker, more angular ghost replaced it.
'Only me!' she hissed. 'Focus on me! Forget everything else!' She grabbed his hair and pulled his face to hers. 'Pay attention to me! I'm your whole world.'
The pain was staggering. He could only yell and cry and howl. She rose and fell above him, sweat running down her flush skin. There was something else too - he knew it - someone else...
'Look at me!' She struck him backhanded across the face. 'Forget her! I'm all that matters now!'
Someone was screaming. Someone else. Someone nearby.
'Frank? All right, mate?'
'Look into my eyes, Longbottom. There's nothing else. Only me!'
A woman's voice in another room...pleading.

Frank stood up faster than Harold the orderly would have thought possible. He cried out as a lightning-quick kick landed on his knee at an angle, fracturing it.
'Frank!' cried the doctor and fired off a stunning spell.
The other orderly stumbled backwards clutching a broken nose.
'Fuck!'
They had his wife. She was being hurt.
'Frank!'
She was calling his name.

A spell knocked Frank off balance before he could kill Harold. Three sets of burly arms wrapped around his flailing limbs.
'Let her go!' he begged them. 'Let her go!'
Bellatrix's laughter rang out high above the screaming.
'Fucking nutter broke my fucking nose!'
Tears ran down Frank's cheeks as he thrashed about on the floor. He pleaded with them, offered them anything.
'Let go, you bastards!'
She was only in the next room. Couldn't they please save her?
'I'm the last thing you'll ever see, Longbottom,' she sneered, 'last thing you'll ever feel. Only me.'
'Let her go...'
'Who, Frank? No one is hurting anyone!' soothed the doctor.
'Please, oh God...'

Frank tried to tell them to save his wife. He tried but he couldn't remember her name.