Up Against A Concrete Angel

    His world. That was all that she was. And in the few short years they'd been together, all that she had ever been…and all, ultimately, that she wasn't. He'd loved her, he'd once proclaimed. Loved her more than life itself—loved her more than anything. So…why? The question remained. Why was he still alive? Why was he looking down at the smooth wood that formed her casket, watching the dirt trickle from his hand onto the cold wood below? Why did he feel no pain? No anger? Why was there nothing? Why did he feel as though he was completely numb? Like nothing had mattered? He didn't understand it. He didn't understand himself, and in that moment, he set the wheels in motion. The wheels that would most ultimately lead to his own damnation.

    "Harry?" A soft, clear voice came from his left side, and he felt the gentle touch of her hand upon his shoulder. "Harry...It’s over. Everyone's gone now." The words took a while to penetrate his brain, but when they did, he turned to look at the bushy-haired girl next to him.

    "Gone?" he asked, not realizing how lost he looked, how blank he sounded.

    "Yes, Harry…" He watched, from a distance it seemed, as she reach out and took hold of his hand, so long completely empty of all dirt except a few little granules that had worked their way into the miniscule creases that lined his palm and fingers. She pulled it in, placing her other hand around it, trying to cup his large blunt hand in her delicate, ink-stained ones.

    Her lower lip trembled, and chocolate-coloured eyes that were strangely haunted shone glassily.

    "She's gone…and…"

    "I know, Harry..." his friend said softly, and suddenly anger flash boiled through him. /How dare you?!/ Harry thought to himself. /How dare you say that you know? You don't know anything! NOTHING! YOU KNOW NOTHING!!/ Rage glistening in his hard-as-stone green eyes; he jerked his hand back from her, rubbing it with his other, which was calloused and a good bit rougher.

    "NO! You don't know a damned thing! All those useless facts that you've garnered from your reading, all the perfect 10's on your papers! It all amounts to absolutely nothing!" Almost before he'd realized it, his hands had shot out, catching her in the chest and pushing her back against one of the many tall monuments that dominated the area, like somber spectators to life’s doom. It was a concrete angel, wings folded close to it, and hands around its abdomen. Looking as though it were weeping quietly.

    "You don't know a damned thing!..." He paused, and ran his hands hard through his messy black hair. "You don't..." He swallowed hard, gathering his thoughts, and when he spoke, it was with an eloquence she'd never heard out of him before. "I don't think you even know true love. Do you know what it’s like to be with someone that makes your life complete? To wake up in the morning, look at the one laying beside you, and realize that no matter how hard life gets, you can survive it just because that person is there? Because you're part of something so special that it fills your world? Your heart. Your soul? Do you?!"

    He registered that there was no fear in her eyes, just a calm acceptance, and he knew that she would take his anger upon herself without a second thought, that she would do this, and then hold him afterwards. "It’s not as easy as that which is taught in books, Hermione; it’s so much more complex. It’s not all about... It’s not the childish love you and Ron share…Not crushes nor kisses nor adolescent adoration that should have long been washed away…." His hand came up then, acting it seemed almost on its own, and brushed a tear—perhaps of sympathy?—from her cheek. "Know love…" he repeated again, "and as you know the light, know the dark….and you will realize…" He took a step back, his anger almost completely gone, burdens of all and resignation making his shoulders curve inward in the slouch that only one who bears the weight of the nothing on their shoulders can slouch. "That in the end…It's all a dream. That no matter what you say you know, or what you feel you know, everything so good and…" Pain gripped his throat, forcing the words back, and he swallowed hard. "And you will realize that your perfect best friend…your perfect Harry…the Boy-Who-Lived…was fooling himself all along. I live not because I'm special. Not because I'm meant to be the light of the wizarding world. I live because………"

    He let it trail off, leaving so many things unsaid, and placed a kiss to his fingertips, and brushed them achingly sweet across her cheek. Then he turned, his black robes swirling about his legs, and walked off into the gloom of the night. "Because I'm a coward….in the end, I cannot end this. But I will help…" These words drifted back to her as he disappeared into the swiftly-encroaching mists, and as he disappeared from sight, black-tinged fingers lifted into the air, tracing out some unspoken plea for him.

    "I know…Harry. I know." The words were filled with despair, and the eyes that always seemed to know everything, now shone with no knowledge, but instead all light that remained seemed drawn into them and she lifted her hands up to her face to utter dry sobs. And as her robe's sleeves drifted down silkily around her elbows, just the barest impression of a dark serpent could be seen upon her left forearm. A dark, malevolent stain on perfect ivory skin.

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