Danse Macabre

She lies beside me, her eyes closed, her fingers cold. I wish she would open her big brown eyes... (closed, cold) but she is sleeping and that gives me time to study her face. As I study her mouth and how it just shows a hint of a smile (like she is dreaming of something wonderful), I start to wonder how I could have once despised just the very sight of her.

But I did - as she was everything I hated and that I still hate.
Gryffindor mudblood, know-it-all, teacher's pet, the reason why I got scolded regularly by father "That mudblood beat you again, I see. Have you no pride? No ambition? You are a disgrace to the family name."

In school I was repeating the same insults my father and grandfather said before me, not because I believed in them - there was nothing to believe in - Is the sky blue? Is the night black? - Being a magical is neither about talent nor about knowledge, about blood, pure and simple - it's who we are. The Muggle-born next to me is nothing but a freak of nature.

I remember hating her so well as I have done it for years, but I can't remember the moment I fell in love with her. One day she suddenly was under my skin. I started to relish insulting her and her insulting me back, because she looked at me (just me) then, nobody else and I felt myself shivering under that brown liquid (syrupy) look full of (cold) passion. She was under my skin and I did everything to get under hers.

(milky white soft)

I stroke her cheek and wonder when she understood this game. Maybe already in Hogwarts, but when I finally killed her husband, she started to play it too in the earnest. She is smart, she must have realized that death took all of her former lovers like a plague - from Muggle neighbour to Death Eater ex-boyfriend. It was all about her, I never liked killing people much, but for her old dates and school crushes I made an exception.

Her husband was the one I liked killing the most though. He was broken after several Crucio curses, which could never hurt like I hurt when I read that she married him.

(Red Hot Fury)

My hand grabs a handful of her glorious hair, I love its unruly waves, I loved her for her fickle attempts to tame it back in school - didn't she know she was beautiful regardless of what she did with her hair? I should know, I studied her like she was a science to be mastered - like the way she gripped her quill when Snape scolded the Gryffindors. I tried it out once - it must have hurt to grip the quill like that. I kiss her cold fingertips trying to warm them - she doesn't grip anything anymore, no quills, no wands and no wedding bands, it doesn't hurt anymore.

"Did it hurt?"

Nothing will hurt her anymore I will see to that.

(I have seen to that.)

You never loved me, did you, Hermione? But you will. You probably already do. We are like Romeo and Juliet, I know you will neither believe me, nor you will listen (never listen to me again), but I am the one you have been waiting all your life. And I was here all the time. Life is pretty ironic, isn't it? You would agree, if you were awake, wouldn't you? It doesn't matter anymore, we are together here in the end and it was surprisingly easy. I always thought this wouldn't work, but now we are lying together in this darkness and all it took was two simple words.

"Goodnight, my love. Where you lead I will follow."