Not Quite Paradise

Dedicated to everyone who’s lost someone.

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Tomorrow's an illusion.
Yesterday's a dream.
Today is absolution.
But you gotta let her breathe.
-Bliss, Not Quite Paradise
 

Epilogue

 
DAILY PROPHET – 3 APRIL 2004 – POSSIBLE MURDER AT PARACELSUS? AN EXCLUSIVE STORY BY RACHEL RATLIFFE
 
Sometimes, it’s the place you feel the safest that is actually the most dangerous. Death was probably the last thing on Anya Parker’s mind bright and early on the morning of April first, but before the sun rose the next day, her life would be over.
 
Although the official Magical Medical Examiner’s report states that Parker died of complications due to the Respori Hex performed on her at 17, suspicious circumstances surround her death.
 
Sources say Parker had been dating Weasley Wizard Wheezes’ entrepreneur George Weasley secretly since their Hogwarts days. Recently, this information became public, as several photos have verified. Was Anya Parker’s death a crime of passion? Did George Weasley indeed take the life of his childhood sweetheart?
 
A doctor at Paracelsus (name withheld) insists that the only visitor to Parker’s room on the night of the murder was George Weasley. Aura security shows him leaving several minutes before the time of death. However, ten minutes are unaccounted for on the security listing. Doctors at Paracelsus have refused to comment on the missing time.
 
Although the official Magical Medical Examiner, Ashlie Kauffman, has confirmed that Anya Parker’s cause of death was lingering effects of the Respori Hex, witnesses had seen Kauffman and Parker “shouting” and “crying” at a murder scene just a month earlier.
 
Rochelle Walters, 26, was found dead by best friend Parker last month. Inside sources report an emotional scene took place between Kauffman and Parker when medimagical officials arrived on the scene to collect the body. Perhaps, then, Parker’s death should not be pinned on the lover. It is also possible that Kauffman, her authority undermined in front of her colleagues, sought to quiet the source of the problem.
 
All that is certain is that Anya Parker, at the age of only 26, has moved on to the next great adventure.
 
--Rachel Ratliffe, Special Correspondent
 

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DAILY PROPHET – 3 APRIL 2004 - OBITUARIES
 
Anya Maria Parker passed away late yesterday night due to lingering effects of a Respori Hex. She is survived by no family, but leaves behind best friends George and Fred Weasley, owners of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. Funeral is being at Circe Cemetery on Tuesday at three o’clock.
 

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DAILY PROPHET – 6 APRIL 2004 – LOST & FOUND
 
Black and white tabby found near corner of Siegel and Sapphire in Hogsmeade. Has ID tag reading “Stevie.” Mews late at night. Looking for owner. Contact Beth Wagner via owl to describe fully and identify.
 

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“Learned one thing the hard way. I can’t get out of this place by myself. I can hang on like lint – I can believe in miracles – but I can’t keep life going by myself. Right? Somebody out there has to keep believing, too, and searching for me.
 
“I can’t help you do that – it’s up to you, like Zack said.
 
“Unless my believing keeps you believing.”
 
--Ouida Sebestyen, The Girl in the Box
 
 
They put a typewriter in here with me. I don’t know why. There’s lots of paper. Maybe they want me to write something for them. I was given no instructions. I’ll go mad. I can’t stand the sound of my own voice, trying to keep me sane, so I’ll type my thoughts.
 
This typewriter is old. It’s a Muggle contraption, but even they use computers now. Daddy used to have a typewriter like this around the house. I miss him and
 
Had a crying spell. Couldn’t finish my sentence. Sorry. Seems as though it’s all I do here. I just want to go home. I just want to be able to have George hold me again. I want to take J’Belle out for ice cream again. I even want Fred to yell at me for something. I would give anything in the world to be the object of Alicia’s taunts.
 
I don’t know how long I’ve been here. No human contact. I wake up every morning and find food and water. In a strange sort of way, I‘m grateful. I mean, I could be left to starve here. But I’ve got food, water, a place to sleep, and a bathroom. That’s a lot more than many people have.
 
So I guess I’m grateful.
 
But I still want to go home so I can
 
Went on another crying jag. Had to go to the bathroom and get a tissue and wipe my tears away. Wish George was here to do it for me. Fingers are steady again now. Can’t believe I’ve not yet made a spelling error. Not bad. Never been much of a typist. But I swear if they let me out of here, I’ll type faster than anyone in the world and that’s a promise.
 
The light through the window (too high for me to see through) is fading. It must be late. Left watch back at the hospital so I don’t know what time it is.
 
When I was little, Daddy always told me it would be bedtime when the shadows in the front living room were bigger than me. We had an old statue of a mermaid (Mummy hated it, but Daddy loved it – never knew why until I was older) in front of the window. I would always wish to grow so I could stay up later.
 
If I had Daddy here to tuck me in, I wouldn’t mind going to bed early.
 
Can’t hold myself together much longer. There’s only so much a twenty-six year old can do, right? I’ve realized that I’m not grown up all the way yet. Part of me is still a kid. The part of me that takes for granted that the sun will rise tomorrow and I’ll be able to walk out of my back door and see the Mokes crawling up and down my trees. The naive child inside me believes that.
 
I’m just afraid a tired old woman is taking her place.
 
NO. I won’t let it happen. This place will not break me. I had three weeks alone – away from almost everyone – after my Treatment. I was okay. I can’t have been here more than a few days. Maybe a week. Maybe two. Maybe a year.
 
No, that’s not true either. What kept me alive those weeks is that if things got too hard, I could go to someone. The option was there.
 
Going to sleep now.
 
 
 
Michael did it the coward’s way. Kidnapping me, I mean. How brave of him to wait until I was alone in my room at night and sneak in. What valor it must have taken to Petrify me and replace my body with some poor Polyjuiced victim. How manly it was for him to wait until Hermione came in to check on me and all I could do, draped in his Invisibility Cloak, was try to cry. And I couldn’t even do that.
 
The worst part of all was watching as the doctors shot spells and injected me with potions. They were trying so hard but the person
 
the one who Michael
 
the one lying in my place in the bed was dead before the doctors even came in. But they tried anyway. They tried.
 
No, watching the doctors try wasn’t the worst part. Waiting until the room was empty, watching “my” body get covered with a blanket and watching helplessly as the body was levitated out wasn’t the worst part.
 
Being dragged into the hall by Michael and seeing George sitting in a chair with his head down was the worst part. His head was down between his knees and his fingers were clasped around his neck. He was all by himself. He looked so little in the chair. He wasn’t moving very much, but his shoulders were shaking. I think he was crying.
 
It was in the men’s bathroom. The Portkey, I mean. I think it was the faucet of one of the sinks, but I don’t know. It’s hard to see through tears.
 
 
 
I miss my garden. There are more important things, like people, that I miss more fiercely and more often, but I miss my garden, too. It was a nice place to sit and get away from the world. Flowers don’t fight with you and bushes don’t have meetings and trees can’t be busy. But my garden was so pretty and vivid and this room is very bland. No color. I wish I had blue eyes or blonde hair so I could at least look in the bathroom mirror and remember what color is.
 
I remember watching my mum garden when I was about 5. I could never figure out what was so neat about getting all dirty. I was a lazy child – I just wanted the damn flowers. But as I grew over, I discovered the fun of mud and ended up enjoying gardening.
 
When I got into magical flowers, I thought I’d found a career. They grow quickly and have amazing qualities. I even did better in Potions because I understood what the ingredients did. Severus Snape was not a horrible man. Just a confused one. There were rumors that he was a Death Eater. I knew they were true because his sleeve had accidentally revealed the Dark Mark during class. I pretended to be sick so I could leave the room.
 
Start with gardening and end up with Snape. Odd. My thoughts are so abstract, so strange. Nothing seems organized. It’s like having scattered parchment on my desk and not being able to find the right one. Like when George says he’s trying to find something in the way I organize my files and he
 
It’s painful to talk about George. No, not painful. That’s not the right word. Hard, maybe. But at the same time it’s easy. It keeps me Anya Parker and reminds me that someone out there loves me and will be there when I get out. Because I will get out.
 
Right?
 
 
 
Day Three of the Amazing Adventures of Anya. Ha. Alliteration. Fun. As morbid as it sounds, it’s the most exciting thing that’s happened to me. I’m numb to it now, so I can talk about it objectively. I overheard Angelina telling someone once that she’d like to write a mystery novel some day. I think she was telling Katie. I’m not sure. But Angelina wants to write a mystery novel. But if she ever wants to know what it’s like to be captive somewhere and not know if you’ll see another day or your loved ones ever again, well, Hades, I’ll tell her all about it. Or maybe they’ll find me dead and find these papers. If someone’s reading this, give it to Angelina. She can use it for research or something.
 
Again with the morbidity. Have my thoughts always been this terrible? Maybe they just seem more terrible now because they’re typed out on paper. In my head, it’s just
 
I’m going to type about something happier. Something like… my first kiss. When I was in fifth year, I was dating a boy named Justin Finch-Fletchley. He was a third year at the time. Or maybe a fourth year, but anyway, he was a Hufflepuff: quiet sometimes and loud at others. He told me he spent two weeks working up the courage to talk to me in the library. I was flattered, of course, because no one really gave me that sort of attention.
 
I could tell right off that he was jealous of the friendship between George and me. I could also tell that George was getting buggered at me spending Hogsmeade weekends with Justin. I met Justin in the astronomy tower one night (It was the first and only time I’d ever sneaked out past hours with anyone other than the twins). We kissed under the stars. So I got my first kiss a little late. But it was worth it.
 
George and I had a blazing row over something – I don’t even remember what – the day Justin and I broke up. I cried myself to sleep that night, feeling as though my life couldn’t get any worse. But then Albus Dumbledore showed up at my dormitory door and summoned me down into the common room. When I got down there, he told me
 
Crying jag. Big surprise, right?
 
Professor Dumbledore told me that my mum had been
 
She was
 
She’d passed away because of Death Eaters. Dad had come home from work and she was sitting in the living room chair, eyes closed. Dad thought she was asleep, but then he shook her and she wouldn’t wake up and Dumbledore said it must have been the Killing Curse.
 
I miss my mummy. I remember crying and Dumbledore trying to console me. I remember looking up and seeing George at the top of the boys’ dormitory stairs in his Bludger-adorned pajamas, looking very confused. He came down and held me and I heard the professor explain what happened to my mum to George. My heart never hurt so much. I wanted to be happy, as George held me all that night, my best friend wasn’t mad at me anymore. But I’d lost my mother and any happiness in the next few months was completely and totally vanquished.
 
I went home to Dad the next morning. He looked so old and it seemed as though I’d been away ages. We cried together, the last two in a family of what were once four. Michael, you were off at your damn Auror thing – Merlin, I don’t even remember – but you never came home.
 
That’s your fault, Michael. Your stole yourself and mum away from me. I hope you go to hell.
 
 
 
I woke up this morning with a strange compulsion to let out all of my secrets. I mean, no one is ever going to hear them or read this, so I might as well type it, right? Makes sense to me, but then that’s not saying much.
 
Fred and Angelina’s wedding: I wasn’t really invited, per se, but George didn’t have a date and didn’t want to go alone. So he asked me and I went with him. George had sent me to go make sure that Alicia had Fred’s ring. I’d been so scared of her, from her malicious teasing back in school, that I’d asked very quietly. She (drunk as a woozy house-elf) had told me that everything was just perfect and then I left.
 
I hadn’t gotten more than two steps outside the door before the laughter started. I sank against the wall and to the floor, my heart hurting. I never knew what I did wrong to make them hate me so. I heard their voices through the wall and will never forget their words.
 
Alicia said, "How pathetic. Girls, have you ever heard of a witch who’s afraid of her own shadow?"
 
I had never been afraid of my own shadow. Daddy had been proud of me when I gave up my night light in my room. He said I gave it up sooner than Michael did. Darkness, especially when created by my own blocking of the light, had never frightened me.
 
Angelina said, "She is rather pitiful, isn’t she? I’m surprised that George invited her as his date."
 
It’s not as though I asked to be invited to the damn wedding, Angelina. I would have stayed home; I WANTED to stay home, but George wanted me to get out of the house. It was mere weeks earlier, three weeks and two days, that my father had passed away. I wanted to stay home and grieve on my own, rather than watch other people become so happy. It was selfish of me to feel that way, but I had such a dark hole in my heart my father had once filled and could never be filled again that I didn’t think happiness was possible without him.
 
Alicia replied with: "Couldn’t do any better, most likely. After all, she is always hanging around him, mooning over him. Even when Katie was alive, she had no respect for their relationship... she had better be glad it was Katie and not me, for I would have put her in her place."
 
I had never meant to hurt George or Katie or anything. I just wanted my best friend to stay in my life. I tried to counsel him after he and Katie got into rows and have him see the other side. Although it seemed so misguided from Katie and Alicia’s points of view, all I’d really wanted to do was help. But, selfish though it was, I will never deny the fact that I was afraid of losing him to her.
 
But now, at the end, haven’t I lost him? Will he go on without me? What a silly question. Of course he will. But will he still feel as whole? Or will he have that missing hole in his heart?
 
But eavesdropping wasn’t my secret. The secret was that I lied to George. I told him I had fallen down the stairs and felt out of sorts. He had Harry take me home. I’d never lied to George before, not about something big like this. I can’t think of a time he refused to be there for me when I needed someone. His twin was getting married and I was most certainly not going to make him choose between consoling my pathetic feelings and watching his brother tie the knot.
 
I never thought I was worthy of terribly much. I remember reading one of my father’s old, dusty plays, in which a character said, “I counted myself so plain, so poorly-made, that no honest love could ever come to me!” Perhaps that best summed things up. My parents spoiled me with love, but it didn’t make me a brat. For some reason – perhaps it was seeing the little bits of Michael’s jealousy that I had Dad wrapped around my little finger – I always felt I had to work to keep their love. And I always did have that love. The thing is, so did Michael.
 
How did we turn out so different?
 
 
 
He killed Mum. I didn’t remember him telling me until now, but it’s clear as crystal inside my head now. I had to have been blocking it out. He told me every detail, about how he had come home with the pretense that he was returning from Auror training. Mum was home alone, and Michael said it was easy. When Daddy found Mum, it was already too late. I want to kill Michael. I will kill him the first chance I get, or die trying. I didn’t think I would have it in me until I started screaming at the empty room last night. I screamed horrible things at Michael until my throat hurt and then I collapsed and cried myself to sleep on the cold floor. I will kill Michael, and then I will die.
 
 
 
Fell in the bathroom and hit my head really hard this morning. Woke up in my own blood. Was worried I had something really bad happen to me. I tried to sleep, just a short kip, but woke up, calling for Neville.
 
“Neville, make me better,” I’d cried. He hadn’t come.
 
Do you hear me, Michael? This place will not break me. It has no right. I don’t care that you’re my brother. If you’re under the Imperius Curse and what you’re doing is not your choice, than you’re a weak man. Just a weak, sorry excuse that had no right to be born to Mum and Dad. What was it that Mum always said? “It’s easy to find something worth living for, but the tough thing to find is something worth dying for.” Or maybe it’s the other way around.
 
Don’t know. Can’t think right anymore. Head hurts too much.
 
You’re not my brother, Michael. We may have had the same parents, but the Weasleys made themselves my brothers after you left me and Daddy. Daddy always thought it was because you couldn’t stand to live without Mum. When you killed Mum, you killed Dad, too. You hardly saw him after her death. He was a mere shadow of the man he once was. Sure, he held himself together for me, but he’d all but lost the will to live. And without anything to hold onto, it killed me.
 
Don’t you remember the times we went into the forest behind our house and built the fort? I remember Daddy helping us and Mummy being so proud. Remember when I fell out of the tree and broke my leg? You carried me all the way home and Mum healed me with her wand. It’s the first time I can remember our mum using magic in the house.
 
But I guess you’ve forgotten all of that, Michael. You don’t love me and you never did. I’m your SISTER, God damn it. And you tore me from my life and put me in this hellhole.
 
I didn’t mean what I said earlier. About being under Imperius. If you’re under Imperius, it makes you more of a victim than me. I like to think you are, as sadistic as it sounds, because it means you still love me. But it also means you have to do these horrible things to me against your will. You have to watch helplessly. Michael, I wish I could help you.
 
The thing is that everyone on the outside thinks I’m dead. They’re not looking for me. They think they have my body right there. They’ve all given up on me. Someone has to be out there, believing.
 
I know George. If there hadn’t been a body, he wouldn’t rest until he’d found me.
 
He thinks I’m dead like the rest of them, though.
 
George is hurting and it’s my fault. I know I couldn’t possibly know what was going to happen, but I’ve got to blame someone. Not Michael. Blaming Death Eaters and the Cabalistica would be too impersonal. Not specific enough.
 
So I’m funneling all of my blame into myself. Not healthy, I know. I’ll schedule an appointment with Dr. Macmillian as soon as I get out of this place.
 
I miss George like a constant stomachache. I miss his touch. It always made me calmer. Things weren’t as scary when he was holding my hand. He was the perfect mix of caring for me and needing to be cared for. I miss his voice.
 
This isn’t fucking FAIR! Now I’m rambling so I think I’ll go take a nap. My head hurts a lot, but at least it stopped bleeding. “A plus in anyone’s book,” like George says. I miss him.
 
But maybe this is it. Maybe I won’t wake up tomorrow. That can’t be so bad. It won’t hurt anyone more. It’ll stop whatever the Cabalistica wants to use me for. My death will help people.
 
I’m such a martyr.
 
I’m going to go to bed and dream of George’s touch and Shelly’s meddling and Fred’s shouts and Alicia’s taunts and everything else that makes me feel like Anya Parker. I’m afraid I’m going to lose myself, just as everyone else has lost me.
 
But maybe I will wake up and George’s face will be there, telling me I’m so silly for sleeping so late and then he’d take me into his arms and hold me because I’d probably be crying because I was so grateful it was only a dream and he’d kiss my tears away and ask what’s wrong, but I wouldn’t be able to speak because I would be crying too hard and then I’d kiss him until we were both breathless and then we’d do other things, but I won’t type them because I’m a good girl.
 
Maybe.
 
 
 
Took my nap. Vision’s getting pretty blurry. I’m not sure I’m hitting the right keys. I’m seeing two of everything. My head still hurts, but so does the rest of me. My heart, too. Not a physical thing, though. Or maybe it is. Hard to tell.
 
Had a good dream. No pain in dreams. George was in it. Very soft. Love his touch. So stupid of us to wait so long. Can almost hear his voice now. Room’s getting kind of dim. Think the door’s opening. They’re going to take my typewriter away. Need to stay here. Won’t let them. Moving my cot. Saying something about me. About blood and my head. Tell them to leave me alone, George. Want George here to take care of me. Won’t let them etl, they gonna fwr nw no qibr kwr rgwn he is comin vsmy bye
 
The end.