Avoiding Love

Prologue

Hallie Brayton stared at the picture in front of her. A sudden rush of memories came flooding into her mind. She had sworn that she could go on without him, that she didn't need him, yet here he was staring back at her, and she felt the familiar pang of yearning she thought she had overcome. Slowly, Hallie bent her head into her hands.

***

An hour later, after returning to her senses, she took a shower and dressed for work. She tried to prepare herself for the deluge of questions that would meet her there. Hallie glanced into the mirror beside her bed. Her once long, golden hair was now cut and layered to just below her ears, she didn't look as lively as she might have looked on any other day and her light brown eyes didn't have their normal spark.

This is as good as it will get, she thought to herself. She slipped on a pair of high-heeled boots and tip-toed into her daughter's room. She gently kissed her on the cheek and just as she walked out heard her murmur, "I love you...."

"I love you, too."

Hallie took a deep breath and Apparated to her office. There it was again that same sullen picture staring back at her from the Daily Prophet. She brushed it aside and began to sort through her mail. A light tap on her door told her that her boss, Vincent Ilario, was approaching.

"Morning, Hallie."

"Hello...." she said, avoiding is glare. "You don't need to say anything, I know what you're thinking."

"Oh, do you?" he said, leaning over her desk. "Tell me then."

"You think I'm going to get all emotional about this and that I'm going to let my past come back and haunt me but I'm not. I'm over it and whatever relationship I ever had with him."

"It's over," she said to him, more to herself.

She finally glanced up and met his penetrating stare. She remembered the time he had caught them, in this very office, and how he had given her the exact same stare that made her feel as though she had just committed some sort of heinous crime.

"So you're telling me that this is no big deal to you? That you can just push aside any associations with Sirius Black and help us get to the bottom of this monstrosity? That us, after all, your job."

She slightly flinched when he said his name. Sirius Black. The man she had once thought we be her husband, the man she thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with, the man she thought would be the father of her children.

"I'll do it," she mumbled with enough finality for Vincent to stand up and begin to leave.

"You know I've never seen you look more in love with anyone."

He always had to add those kind of comments didn't he? Hallie's vision began to blur as she remembered just how "in love" she had been. And how it all ended so fast. Almost as fast as it had started. She remembered the way he used to look at her and then the way he might look at her now. As a piece of garbage, tossed aside with no meaning. She remembered the way that he used to make her feel, he could make her smile. Oh, how she swore that she would never fall in love, how she had thought that if she just kept it simple that nothing would stand in the way. She told herself over and over that she would be able to resist the voice in the back of her head that kept telling her it was OK to love him back. She was wrong.