Heart of Stone

He stepped out into the rain, a frustrated, chilled rain that was the cold tears of bitter angels. He stood there for a while, reluctantly allowing the attempt at cleansing to soak him through. A ferocious, steely wind whipped up, violently pulling at his hair and cloak. He turned to face the wind, and walked, purposefully to the churchyard, the wind cutting his face with sharp blades of fury.

Not that he felt it. He didn't feel anything anymore. The wind and the rain may have chilled his warm blood, but could not penetrate the heart of stone, wintry and callous, which was lodged in his chest.

His pace was rapid; he wanted to get this done with. He didn't like doing this, didn't like loitering in the memories of happiness had once upon a time. But, he knew, in his frosty soul that he owed it to her to go back, owed it to himself to keep her still in his life.

What a thought, to have to try to keep her in his life. She would never leave it; her presence would never be far away in his mind. She had been everything to him, had been his whole entire life. To him, nothing else had mattered except her. Not even Quidditch. A trace of humanity slipped through the stony expression on the faint hint of a smile that played upon his lips at that thought.

She had loved Quidditch even more than he had, and that was saying a lot. He winced as visions of her, with thick black hair flying in the wind as she soared on her broomstick, inhabited his mind. He shook his head to try and jar the memory loose, only to see another picture of her, dark chocolate skin, warm and smooth in his arms. Of all the memories, he treasure and hated that one the most. That was a night to remember, a night that was theirs and theirs alone. The picture faded to black, and was replaced with voices, a mental recording from long before.

-What's with all this? You've been acting so... oddly lately.

-Well, these are odd times...

-I'm not sure I follow...

A long pause.

-What would you say if I told you I loved you?

-I'd probably tell you I loved you back.

-I love you.

-Really?

-Yes.

Another pause.

-I... I love you too.

His pace slowed, almost as if to absorb those words better. He was torn between feeling happy from the flashback and feeling violated that such a momentous night in his life should hurt him so.

Trying to turn his thought elsewhere, he looked forwards, to where he was heading. He saw the small, white chapel that obstructed the path to his destination. It had been freshly painted, and cast everything around it into shadow.

A new memory. A new wash of pain.

She was walking, in a long gown, towards him. He put a ring on her finger, and so bound himself, his entire being, to her.

The gown had been white. Whiter than even the chapel was now, making her already dark skin seem as black as the moments before dawn.

Dawn.

Another stinging wound was opened.

Her breathing was slow, even, and caressed his arm gently as she slept. His chest was tickled with her long, black hair every time she shifted. Her soft, smooth curves melded to become on with his, his warmth becoming hers as well.

His face contorted into a grimace that tried to harness the frustration and anger begging to be let loose.

He looked back up at the church again, and then journeyed on behind it. Every fiber of his possession refused, screamed their reluctance to it. Had he walked any slower, he would have been standing still.

Little by little, the emotionless, pitiless stone reminders of those who were no longer came into his misted view. He walked among the gray sentinels of those who once laughed and loved, until he found the one he had been searching for. He knelt down in from of it, and knew what he was inevitably going to think about before the images struck his thoughts.

He saw himself, sitting down to the writing desk, bathed in the silken light of an anticipated sunrise. He remembered picking up a quill, and forming painful words that would shape his life afterward.

Forgive me that I love you as I do

Friend patient long, to patient to reprove

The inconvenience of superfluous love

You feel it molests you, and 'tis true.

In a light bark you sit, with a full crew.

Your life full orbed, compelled strange love to meet

Becomes, by such addition, incomplete:-

Because I love I leave you, O adieu!

Perhaps when I am gone, the thought of me

May sometimes be your acceptable guest.

Indeed you love: but my company

Old time makes tedious; and to part is best.

Not without Nature's will are nature's wed:-

O gentle Death, how dear thou makest the dead!

He had set the quill down, and left her, sleeping just as he had left her. The note he had set on their bedside table had caused not only his heartache, but the depression and eventually, the death of the one whom he had truly loved.

And here she was, merely a slab of marble in the ground. The need for grievance finally made a crack in the heart of stone he had made to protect his most tender of emotions, and tears welled in his blue eyes, lakes of long pent-up sorrow and self-pity. Rivulets of liquid regret ran down his cheeks, just as the rain fell.

With a trembling hand, he started to trace the letters engraved upon the headstone.

A.

N.

G.

E.

L.

He found then that he could not control his shaking enough to finish the name. The emotions he had hoarded like deadly gems came spilling out in torrents, and he sat on the sodden grass and rocked like a child in the midst of a frightening storm when there is no one else around.

After a while, a man came and found him. The newcomer put a hand on the griever's shoulder.

"It's time to let her go, Oliver," he said to the soaked and decrepit man. "You did what you thought was best for you both. It is not your fault."

Oliver looked up into his eyes. "Harry," he said quietly, "Angelina was the only woman I ever loved. I loved her too much. And it killed her."

Harry shook his head. He helped Oliver up, then, suddenly, Oliver bent down, took something from his pocket, and set it by the headstone. Harry peered down to see what it was.

There was a heart-shaped stone on the grass, shiny from the pouring rain.