Aria

Aria

I'm singing our song tonight. Me in concert, standing on stage for the world to see. Aren't you proud? You would have been. I've finally made it, broken down the barriers of depression and apathy you built when you killed Lily, James, and Peter. It's strange, almost surreal. You always said you'd be in the front row at my big debut, watching me and giving me courage, but you aren't here now, are you. Of course not. You're rotting in some cell in Azkaban, or maybe even...no, I can't even think that, not yet. I look anyway, as if by some wild chance time will suddenly be undone by the music and you'll be sitting front row with Lily and James next to you. As if I could see you in the audience and wake from the nightmare that life has been for the past year

Actually, there's someone else in the seat you would have been in. He's a nice man, quiet and sensitive and your polar opposite. I think that's most likely why I like him - there are no painful similarities to bring back any memories.

Yes, like. I'll never love anyone else. But then you knew that.

It's time for me to go on. The audience outside the stage door is silent and in a second I'll get a cue. I must say I look beautiful tonight. I'm wearing elegant black robes, dramatic lipstick, and heels that allow me to not look ridiculously short standing on stage. It's too bad you aren't here, you'd laugh so hard at my new height. I could easily reach your mouth to kiss you in these shoes, unlike how I used to have to stand on my toes and stretch as high as I could. I've somehow managed to tame my hair and coil it into a French twist. You'd love this look, I think, except for the hair. You always did like my hair wild. I remember you twisting your hands in it and burying your face in it as we kissed. I can almost see the look that you would have given me, the same look with passion and love I thought I saw in your eyes every time I saw you. Apparently I saw something else and simply mistook it for love. You proved that to me in October.

Sirius, they're all clapping for me, smiling and waiting in anticipation of the music. I've waited my whole life for this day. I smile back softly and walk with dignity to the center of the stage. I'm not nervous. I belong just as much on stage as I did lying in your arms.

You know what I'm singing tonight. You know every nuance of the line, the translation and strange sound of the Portuguese words and the flow of the deeply sensual melody. You know that the words speak to me in a way now that they didn't when I first sang you the aria, when you first heard me hum the theme tentatively with note slips and rhythm mistakes. The first time you heard it you loved it and you begged me to sing it again and again. I'd hum the melody softly in your ear as we made love during the days when you were still mine. I must have sung it for you a hundred times but you never tired of listening nor I of singing.

Behind me, the cellos start the opening phrase I know so well, a staccato passage that contrasts with the soaring line beautifully. I am already singing in my mind, opening up my body for the notes to flow through. I begin the first section, singing it with the deepest understanding and love for the music. The aria feels perfect and it fits in my voice as if it were written for me. Rather like the way I felt and still feel about you; that you were created for my love.

The room is amazingly silent as I sing but I don't really notice because I'm so far off in my own world where the audience doesn't even exist. No. I am just singing this for you, sending my voice to the corners of the earth, hoping you'll somehow hear me and know that I still love you despite everything.

The first section ends and I stand for the interlude, feeling the music and mentally singing with the first cello. You used to sing this part in the cello range when you though I wasn't listening. You'd hum it in what would have been a gorgeous, rich tenor if you hadn't been so bizarrely self-conscious about your voice. When you were with me, this song wasn't so much an aria as a duet. Not what the composer intended, but beautiful in a way that transcended musical intention. I start to sing the words. Portuguese, a simple sequence descending by half steps. Suave a luz da lua desperta agora, a cruel saudade que rie e chora. Those were always my favorite words and they remain so, especially now. Softly, the light of the moon awakens cruel memories of laughter and tears - memories of you.

It's so ironic that I finally stand on a stage with the career I've always dreamed of and sing a love song to you. I've tried to hate you, Sirius. I want to and I should; yet, I cannot. I move into the best part of the aria. A shimmering, pensive hum soars up to a b flat. It ends gracefully, a single exposed hum handing on an a. Pianissimo. When it ends, the memory of your body in my arms is so realistic and painfully blissful that it's all I can do to keep my composure. I smile at the audience, wait, and then launch into the second movement.

The man in the seat that should have been yours doesn't understand. He's a musician, so he appreciates the technical aspects of the aria more than you did, but he doesn't feel it and love it like you did. He knows nothing of what it truly means. Only you know that, and you're gone.

I've shared it with the world, but only superficially. For them it is simply a recital piece, but for me and you, it is a passionate love song. The aria remains for you.