A Long Way Past Midnight

A Long Way Past Midnight
by
The Remaining Marauder

'Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.'
- Edgar Allen Poe

Its past midnight and I'm lying here in my bed, unable to sleep for yet another night in a row. I know that Ron is downstairs, sitting in front of a dead fire, drinking glass after glass of Fire Whiskey, just as he's done every night since she went away, trying to drink away the memories of her. But they're always going to be there, and I think that just makes him drink more, trying to forget what he's trying to forget.

I miss her. I miss our late night chats in front a dying fire in the Gryffindor common room and the way that she could be impassioned about subjects that no one else gave a glancing though to, most famously, S.P.E.W. I miss the way she was with her studies: demanding, pushy, but always determined to succeed, even when countless others before her had failed. The way that she would always be willing to help another student with their work, willing to impart her knowledge on those who needed it, and sometimes even those who didn't. The fact that she was so strict about breaking rules and going behind teachers back, but when it came to a friend in danger or the need to uncover the truth, she would find a way to break and bend them all, consequences be damned.

I want her to be sitting here, me on this sofa with Ginny curled beside me, and her and Ron cuddling up on the one opposite, the four of us chatting away about what we did that day, what we planned to do this weekend, and the one after that. Basically how the rest of our lives were going to go now that Voldemort was out of the picture. It was going to be picture perfect, according to her. Her life, her job; everything was going to go to plan. Ron was always so sure that she was going to get a job as a Librarian, or somewhere that she could be around books twenty four hours of the day, but I disagree. I think Ron and I, and Ginny to some extent, corrupted her.

Ever since our friendship began by knocking out a Mountain Troll together that Halloween in first year, I think that she was set on a different path. Perhaps if we had never met, had never had to face what most fully grown Wizards never had to face year after year, she would have become the Hermione Ron talked about : boring, studious, trapped in a world of words and pages. But we did meet, and she changed, and my honest opinion is that it was for the better. She learned the value of standing up for what was right, rather than just listening to authority figures. She found out that it was more rewarding to help a friend in need, that to come top of the class all the time - though she did that too. Books were her passion; but I know that adventure was her destiny.

But simply knowing all of that isn't going to make her come back.

**

Its past midnight, and once again I find myself sitting in the living room of the house that Harry and I share, fiercely staring into the bottom of an empty Fire Whiskey glass, praying, no demanding, that it tell me the answer to all my problems. Then I give up and pour myself another glass. It's not going to work. Nothing is going to get her to come back to us.

I miss her. I miss her laugh, and the cute, lopsided smile she gives. I miss the way that she always cared more about her school work than her appearance like most other girls we knew. The way that when she was totally engrossed in a book, she would push her thick, bushy hair out of her face with ink-covered fingers, not realising that she had just left a trail of blue stains across her cheek. I miss the way that whenever Harry and I started up a conversation about Quidditch, she would try so hard to get interested in it, to join in with what we were saying, until it became too much, and she would grab a piece of parchment and a quill out of her bag, and start on whatever essay we had been assigned the previous lesson. God, I even miss her nagging me about the fact that I had a Potions essay due in next period, one I hadn't even started.

I want her to be lying here next to me, watching as her chest rose and fell, and until she fell into a deep, but peaceful sleep. I want to wake up next to her, her face the first thing I see every morning for the rest of my life. I wanted to take her to a fancy restaurant, somewhere in Muggle London, and wait all the way until dessert to get up courage to go down on one knee and offer her all the love in the world if only she would say yes; I wanted to walk her up the aisle, let her make an honest man out of me - although she didn't need to do that, I always knew that she was going to be my first, last and only love. I knew that I could never give her the things that someone as rich as Harry could - even with the post-war endorsements - but I knew that I could love her and all her little obsessive quirks and habits more than any other man in the world could.

I miss the fact that I am never going to have red, bushy haired children running around, with jokester's smiles, but scholar's brains. I regret the fact that we are never going to Floo the children over to Mum and Dad's place for the night, and kick Harry out of the house and over to Ginny's, while we indulge ourselves in a night of peace and passion. I miss the fact that I won't get the chance to tell her I love her at least once a day.

But simply missing her isn't going to make her come back.

**

It's past midnight and I am just stepping through the door to my flat, a copy yesterday's Prophet in one hand and a cup of strong coffee in the other to keep me going. For another night in a row I have stayed behind long after everyone else has left, long past the call of duty, just so I didn't have to come back home to an empty bed and an empty heart. In the back of my head I know that if it wasn't for her leaving, my life wouldn't be like this.

I blame her for all that has happened in the past few years, for all that went wrong, or hasn't gone how we planned it to. I blame her for not being there for Harry and Ron after the war. For not having to cope with Ron's constant binge drinking and being the one to give him a vile of Pepper Up potion every time he crawls out of bed the next afternoon with a hangover, only to watch him hit the bottle again straight after. I blame her for Harry's isolation from his 'family', his friends, from me. For not having to be there and watch him sit alone in the corner, as far away from everyone as he can, just so they don't remind him of what she was, of what happened to her.

I blame her for the fact that Harry and I can never be together, as girlfriend and boyfriends, as fiancés, as husband and wife, and for making him into a withdrawn, lonely man. I blame her for leaving Ron without anyone that he can turn to, confide in or love more than life itself. I blame her for leaving me without a best friend to confide in, or to help me with my problems. For leaving me to watch chick flicks on my own and for making me eat a tub of ice cream by myself, instead of using two spoons and sharing it on a girly night in.

It's all her fault that I never got the job I wanted. I didn't want to be some lowly clerk sitting in the dank bowels of the corrupt Ministry of Magic; I wanted to be a writer for the Daily Prophet or for Wizarding Weekly. I had big plans for myself, but between looking after Ron and trying to be there for Harry at all hours of the day, it was the only place that would hire me.

I blame her for that fact that every time one of my family goes out in public, they are stared at, whispered about, looked down upon, simply for knowing her, for ever being her friend. I blame her for the agony everyone has suffered in her absence. I blame her for all of this, yet I blame myself more.

But simply placing the blame isn't going to change anything.

**

It's past midnight; that was one of the first things they taught in Astronomy: how to tell the time by the height of the moon or the sun. I'm sitting here in the darkness as I have done for God knows how many years, thinking about what life could have been like for me, for all of us. About how life doesn't go as planned, and how even good people don't always triumph over evil.

I miss sitting with them in the Great Hall at breakfast, lunch or dinner, watching with disgust and amazement as Ron scoffed down as much food as he the poor house elves could provide, chatting with Harry about the latest development in the Wizarding World, how the Daily Prophet had denied yet another attack by the Dark Side. I miss chatting with Ginny, my only female best friend, about make up, clothes and girly articles in Teen Witch Weekly. Things that I could never talk about with the boys around - they always adopted a confused look and quickly changed the subject to something more 'suitable', which apparently was Quidditch, or dungbombs.

I miss the fact that I had so much knowledge at my fingertips and I knew that I hadn't even made a dent in it all; I had so much more to learn, to take in, and to use and now I am never going to get that chance again. I miss being given back essays that had glowing comments written at the bottom of them, recognizing and praising the fact that I had spent ten hours in the library, researching and investigating the particular topic, but in addition giving me some thing else to think about, to find out and learn. Although I never took part, I miss the boy's continually talking Quidditch strategy, and the way that they would make me sit at every match and watch them, taking notes on how the team could do better, and what did and didn't work. I miss watching them and Ginny come rushing back into the common room after a match or practise, cheeks pink and hair all tousled, but never happier.

I miss our adventures each year, with their confusing, frustrating puzzles, but dramatic climaxes. In a sick and twisted way, I miss visiting Harry in the hospital wing after a particularly violent Quidditch game, or another face off with Voldemort. I miss the relieved look on Ron's face when he realised that his best friend was going to live to fight another day, another brush with death - for they were always to going happen to Harry, and the way Ginny would always hug him, no matter his injury, and then lecture him about being stupid and impulsive, not realising that she would have done the same thing in an instant.

I wish I was there with them; sitting outside of Florence Fortesque's having a strawberry sundae with and discussing all the things we had brought or seen in Diagon Alley that day, revelling in the fact that our lives are finally peaceful, and the dark shadow that always loomed over us - particularly Harry - had finally gone, letting us enjoy the brightness of life. I wish that I was curled in Ron's arm, sipping a glass of wine as he told me how stressful his job was that day, or how there was new broom on the market that was faster than his and that he wanted, even though he had only brought his the previous month. I wish that I could have been bridesmaid at Ginny's wedding, or Maid of Honour if Ron beat Harry to it, spending days and Galleon's picking out dresses and flowers and tux's, watching as the boys got more nervous with every swatch of fabric.

I wish that I could have gotten to chance to become a teacher at Hogwarts, or to write a book about everything I knew. I wish that we could have all grown old together, and then tell our children and grand-children about our adventures, stories that will be meticulously recorded in history books and taught to students for years to come. I wish that I could have been sat back in the Great Hall one last time, watching Harry and Ginny's, Ron and my children graduate from Hogwarts, their shoulders free of the fears that plagued us, or the evils that weighed heavy upon our hearts. I wish that I could have spent the rest of my life with those that I loved as my brother, my sister, my husband.

But when has wishing ever really worked for anyone?

Only one person has ever escaped from Azkaban Prison, and that person isn't me. I don't have the animagus form that he had. I may have the intense belief that I am innocent, just as he had, but I don't have the burning sensation inside that tells me that justice will eventually prevail, and that all wrongs against me and those I love will be set right. I gave up on that a long time ago, right after proving the fact that I was innocent of the crime I was locked up for.

Azkaban can take a person and do either one of two things to them: break them, until there is nothing left but an empty shell, wasting away in the darkness; or turn them into a different person, make them harder, tougher, and shielded against the world by a wall of hatred that they have built up. I will freely admit that it has done both to me. It broke me. It tore me up and spat me back out not even a fraction of the girl - woman - that I was before. It made me doubt my sanity, before pushing me so hard that there was no room in the matter for doubt.

Then it turned me. Turned me into something that I never wanted to be: a person sustained by my own hatred; a person driven by my own burning desire for revenge against those who put me here, who condemned me to hate my friends instead of loving them. I miss them with all of my heart, but I hate them for leaving me here to rot away into nothingness, to become the bad guy written about in the books I once loved so much.

It's like I am a completely different person, a person I hate. I hate myself for being as hypocritical as I am, to blame everyone else but myself for where I am now. I hate myself for allowing my mind to even entertain the thought of revenge, hate the idea of slowly but purposely hunting down all those who played a part in my incarceration, and hurting them enough so that they know that they are only feeling an ounce of the pain that I am feeling. I hate myself for being weak enough to want to die every time I see the sun or crawl away and hide every time I hear the footsteps and taunts of the guards, and let their cruel and spiteful comments get inside of me each and every time. I hate the fact that every minute of the day I am teetering on the fine line that is drawn between being fine, and losing it completely and becoming just another crazy person sitting in the shadows.

I hate the scars on my arms, legs, hands, face, each reminding me that I was once pathetic enough to loss control over my once staunch and definite mind, which I once gave up for a moment of ambiguity, for a second of not having to care about what I would never know. The scars remind me of each day of pain that I have had to face, of each sunrise that I could have been under but was instead forced to watch through a small barred window in my cell, too high for me to get a good enough view for it to be even worth the effort. They remind me of everything that I'll never have, and I hate them for it.

But simply hating isn't going to make it any less real, and by the time I finally realise this, it's already a long way past midnight, and another day in Hell has passed.