He Says

He Says

He says a lot of things, really, before he dies.

He says that he wishes he'd loved her more, wishes he could watch as the color of her hair fades, or see the way she looks after getting into his hidden trove of Chocolate Frogs one more time. He always did love those things, more than he should have. And she smiles at the memory.

He says that he regrets the children, how now there will never be time to have any, and how much he wishes that their yard could be populated by them. Overrun with freckled boys and green-eyed girls.

He talks about how she looked the night of the celebrations, how everyone else must have been floating ten feet from the ground, breathless from the kiss of victory. How she alone had stood still, framed by moonlight and grieving for those gone as she blinked back tears. How he had known then that she could heal him. Only her.

She'd never told him that those had been tears of joy, of vicious happiness at the brutality of his end. Strangely enough, she cared little for the demise of he whose shadow had been her first lover. Who still creeps up from under creaking floorboards on bare, cool nights to whisper in her ear.

He says that he knows her secrets, like how she has kept his glasses, held safe within a small wooden box there, and he points, in the bottom drawer of her dresser. She smiles again, laughing painfully this time, and says that she knew. She's always known, and that is alright. Because she knows about his secrets, too. But she doesn't say that, nor speak of him, because there are some names left unspoken in this house. So he will never know of her knowledge, and she is determined to keep it that way. This may not have been the end she might have wished for him- and here she bites her lip- but she at least will make sure that it remains untainted.

So she does not speak of the letters he'd carelessly hidden in his old Hogwarts trunk. Nor of the way she'd sat upon their discovery, teeth hurting as she clenched them together and eyes blurring from the betrayal. Even now she still isn't sure of exactly who was betrayed, though selfishly she wants to claim the honor as hers.

She wants to claim everything as hers.

And then he begins to speak of the war, and what it was like. So she listens, remembering the way he would wake in the night, especially in those early days, and cling to her, breath wheezing as he struggled against the tears he was not supposed to have. And how he would then push onto her, into her; the very act of lovemaking an affirmation of sorts. It was only a small time ago that he became able to speak of the war and its travesties- of the way that people dropped under the weight of that inescapable green death. Of the way it had felt (had not felt) to spell it onto others, to see how, if only for a moment, their eyes matched his own. To kill because it was no longer a matter of principle, but survival. And revenge. Of how the anger grew day by day, until the enemy was nothing more than rotted bones holding soulless bits of flesh together; easy enough targets for a culture's rage. Of how easy that made it all then, and how hard it made it all now. Even now.

And he clutches at her hand, smiling sadly; seeking forgiveness for something that she feels needs nothing of the sort. But then, he does not know how vengeful she can be. How much she misses those gone. And even more than that, how much she hates the one who killed them. Even now she hates him. Hates how his beauty, his ugliness has been immortalized in her husband's heart; hates how she lost her brother, her father to him (he stole them from her) on the same day, and how the pain of it all made Harry cry. It was the last time Harry cried. And she knows why.

She knows everything.

She knows about him.

She knows about their little liaison.

She knows about the midnight meetings in the dungeons and hothouses.

She knows about the unsuccessful attempts by both of them to make the other change sides.

She knows about how he used to pretend, in the beginning, when he kissed her.

And she knows about the poison, how it's been killing him. That it has been since his graduation.

She knows that there is no antidote, no, he planned too well for that.

She knows that, even so, Harry killed him.

She knows everything and still loves Harry. Loves Harry, and hates him, blaming him for everything.

But there is nothing she can do now, now that her love is well and truly dying. Nothing but listen to the hollow movements of his lungs as he speaks out in shallow whispers, telling her everything. Everything unimportant and important and almost forgotten in the spaces between breaths: everything and nothing at all.

So she listens as he rambles on, now talking about his childhood and the cupboard and the way his aunt would force feed him celery- leftovers from his cousin's meals. She listens and nods as he talks about school, about how it was the first home he'd ever had. She listens as his voice trails off, becoming weaker and weaker as he struggles to tell her everything he's ever wanted to tell anyone. For she is his last chance: his safe haven.

So she listens and waits, knowing that the last sound off of his lips will be her name, a dying hymn to send him on his way.

And finally, he does say a name.

But it is not hers.

He has stolen even that from her.

**finis**