Sentimentality

It has been ten years since he was killed.

Our life together was hard. Lying and acting and pretending that he was just another man at the dinner table was extremely difficult... as if he was just another member of the Order, and I just another inconsequential Weasley.

It was lucky everyone else was preoccupied with more important things, for I realize now our meaningful glances and deep eye contact could not have otherwise gone unnoticed. But no one ever suspected, and though the days were hard the dark and wild nights were well worth it... yes, the years between us were many, but it had been years since I had been innocent and years since he had been loved. Two drifters alone and lonely, I see now the inevitability of our love and terrible vulnerability of us each...

Yes, the trials of the summer had taught me well, for when I went back to Hogwarts I was able to hide my loneliness fully. I was able to fake relationships and veil my unhappiness and force back the tears until I was alone at night...

The love and passion that consumed us over the summer still lingered around me, still devoured me, still addicted me. Sometimes I was surrounded by vague swirls of doubt but these indistinct uncertainties were always overcome by the intensity of my memories, by the metallic chill of his chain hidden underneath my robes, by the very occasional and much-treasured letter concealed deep in the bottom of my trunk...

We lived too fast then to plan our future but we knew somehow we'd be together, and everything I did that year I felt I did it for him. All the meetings and coursework and endless lying and faking I felt had a purpose, an end, a reward.

But whatever I was looking for was brutally taken away, and I see now I was merely hurtling through hell to an even worse dimension...

And I learned that it could get harder and it could get worse, that faking my love for he still alive was so much easier than hiding my grief at he now dead... and to see die with him all our unspoken dreams, hopes, plans for the future.

My first thought I still recall with disturbing clarity, and that was to send myself where my lover had been taken. There was only one thing stopping me and the only thing stopping me since, that with me gone everything we had was killed as well... and would die, alone, unnoticed, a silent secret forever untold.

And as blinded by sorrow I was, I could see enough to know I could not allow something that beautiful to be murdered by my own hand. Sirius would want me alive, and Sirius would want me happy...

But although I tried I have not been happy since. Moving on is impossible when my whole existence is concentrated on hiding my past... and yet keeping it alive. I could not throw away our letters and now-faded rose petals he had enclosed, I could not forget the summer nights of perfection. I still dream of him and it was only when I saw the faintest tinge of rust on this chain that I fully realized I have been living a futile life of anguished memory...

I knew the day he was killed and I know still now I can not move on. What we had was too good, too perfect, to ever recover from... and to do so would be an insult to its perfection. Somehow unspoken promises in tears and kisses mean so much more than mere words... yet it is only sheer words I have to express this love. Words that will live and will die, that will only exist for a short and tragic life, as did our love....

For it has been ten years, and somehow I am still alive. Fate or chance or whatever may exist is cruel, but have blessed us with some powers- and this hand detailing my life will then mercifully end it...

For what is the point of my continued existence? Sentimental I may be, but I can not dwell on anything else. The only purpose of life I have found is happiness and emotion... and my emotions are forever shadowed by grief and despair. I have known anguish and desolation in their full horrors, and my life is a tormented shadow I must brighten by flame...

I must say these things, for I could not suffer to let them remain unsaid--and yet I can not bear the cruelty of leaving this mar, this imperfection, on the memories of Sirius, of the memories of myself. It is better the tales of our nights of burning passion, of wild, unearthly desire, are left to smolder in this glorious cacophony of flames, and rise in ethereal smoke to the sky...

And maybe the ashes will rise anew and become something more, something beautiful again, and maybe this time it will end differently...

And the words are written and the fire lit, it is not long now. I wonder if this is what she felt when she killed him, if her hands shook like mine are. It is useless speculation, and I have no desire to waste time... for my task is done. The tale is told, and now it may die. I have written my life and every story must have an ending...