I'll Remember

I'll Remember

The hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it...You and you alone make me feel that I am alive...Other men it is said have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough.

~George Moore

*~*~*

We got married on a Sunday, right underneath the beech tree by the lake at Hogwarts. (It was where we had shared our first kiss.) I remember being a nervous wreck the entire time. We had decided to marry straight out of Hogwarts. We were both barely eighteen.

She looked absolutely radiant that day. I never saw her smile that wide before. I vaguely remember wearing some blue dress robes ("To match your eyes," she had said fondly), but I do remember exactly how she looked, from how her golden locks glistened in the sunlight right down to the lace bodice design on her wedding gown. I loved her more than anything in the world. I never stopped.

*~*~*

We found out we couldn't have children on a Thursday. She was twenty-two. I remember her crying for months. She later confessed to feeling as if she were a failure, or half of a woman, because she couldn't bear children.

I remember telling her to shush, because I loved her and I didn't care about that. We could adopt if we wanted to. Eventually, it was all right again, but I knew that on the inside, she was hurting. She had loved children, and we never did adopt. She worked in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic and I was offered a teaching position at Hogwarts later on that year...well, there were various reasons, all of which are long forgotten by now.

*~*~*

We found out she had cancer on a Friday.

I remember standing there, my arm around her shoulder, when the Healer told us. Cancer is just as much a problem in the Wizarding world as it is in the Muggle world. There was no cure.

I remember asking how long she had. My wife was shaking in my arms.

"A year, at the most."

So we did what most people do when faced with that situation. We traveled. I took a year off from teaching and we went everywhere.

She had always wanted to go to Egypt and see the Pyramids.

I was even able to drag her to America. She loved it there too, though it was a tad muggy.

After six months of traveling, her condition worsened, so we returned to Britain. We stayed in our home of thirty years and tended to the garden, or just sat around on the porch, enjoying the weather and each other.

After nine months, she could no longer get out of bed. I stayed with her everyday and I waited on her, hand and foot. I applied the Pain Charms so that she wouldn't hurt. But it wasn't enough.

She cried sometimes. She didn't want to die; she was afraid. She grabbed me one day and sobbed on my chest and it took all my willpower not to join her.

My heart began breaking that day.

I told her something I had heard a long time ago: Death is just the next great adventure.

She smiled at me through the tears and the hurt and told me that she loved me.

I knew she couldn't go on. I knew she was in pain, but I couldn't let her go. Not yet. I loved her so much and a little piece of my soul died every day I had to see her in pain.

It was selfish of me, but I didn't want her to leave me.

There were many mornings when she would be lying in bed and I would be on the floor next to her, my head in her lap, her hands running through my red hair, stroking, calming...

She was dying but I was the one who needed comfort.

The last months, she could barely move.

She accepted that she was dying, but I did not. I thought for sure that...that something would occur, that a cure might be found.

It never happened.

I never told her how I felt at these moments of despair, about how I couldn't live without her, at least never while she was awake, but when she slept, I was able to pour my soul out to her, to tell her how I too was dying inside because I didn't think I'd be able to live without her.

"Please don't leave me," I had sobbed many a night. "I'm nothing without you. My whole life, I've loved you and you're going to leave me and I--I don't know what to do!

"My life isn't complete without you," I whispered and I laid my head in her lap, tears rolling down my face.

I felt fingers running through my ginger hair; startled, I looked up and saw her gazing down at me, her beautiful eyes glistening with moisture.

"I'm not afraid," she said, smiling and I remember shaking and sobbing and begging her not to go. I loved her. I needed her in my life...

*~*~*~*

The final month was strangely calm.

Many friends and family came to visit, but I think that only made her sad, so I tried to keep the visits short.

She said good bye to many people, but not once did she say it to me.

"It won't be like I'll never see you again," she had whispered to me one night, smiling, always smiling. She had the most stunning smile. "It'll just be...see you later."

I half sobbed, half laughed into her lap, her fingers a constant presence in my locks.

She was the most beautiful creature in the world, even in those last months. Her hair, so beautiful and curly; her lips, perfect for kissing, a quick retort always on the tip of her tongue; her mind, so intelligent and relentless...She was perfect.

She was my life.

I remember sitting in a chair by the window. I had not left her side in two days. She was in constant pain and I never wanted her to be alone for one minute. I needed to be there for her. She needed me to be there.

She had whimpered my name and I went to her.

Tears were streaming down her face. "It hurts..."

My heart clenches and my soul ached for her.

"You can let go..." I choke in her ear and she smiled, always smiled.

"I love you," she had said, leaning over to give me a kiss, and then murmured something in my ear.

She died on a Tuesday. She was fifty-two.

I never stopped loving her.

*~*~*

I sit here in my usual spot at the table, watching the students of my school, and I am reminded of the woman I loved and lost a hundred years ago.

I see two prefects sitting at a table. They remind me of my time spent with my wife; how we could bicker and fight like there was no tomorrow, but always making up in the end. Watching those two, I am reminded of my wife and I and the loved we shared so long ago...

I suppose that is why I've always encouraged their relationship, or any relationship, because love is the most amazing and terrifying thing in the world, and I want all my students to know what it is like to love someone and to be loved in return.

I just hope they are able to spend the rest of their lives together.

But there's a war going on and I know my time is running out. I know that I'll be joining her soon, but I have to stay here, just a little bit longer.

However, when it is finally time for me to embark on my next great adventure, I'll remember what her last words to me were:

"I'll be waiting for you, Albus."

I can't wait to see her again.

*~*~*