Darkness

Darkness

She knew something was wrong. Suddenly jerked to consciousness with an inexplicable panic, she sat up and urged him to leave and make sure everything was safe with the others. She already knew it wasn't. He went readily, seemingly compelled by the same fear that struck at her heart. He wasn't home by morning and she feared the worst, but she was wrong. The truth was far more terrible than her fear.

Remus told her the truth. She saw the rage burn behind his grey eyes and pretended she didn't notice the tear threatening to leak out of his eye. She sensed his pain and his indecision about her. It was plain enough that at least part of him suspected her, his lover and maybe his accomplice. She sat like that - making no sound until Remus left, quietly saying good night.

As if it could possibly be good.

Even after Remus left there were no tears from her. The shock was too fresh to merit a manifestation of grief like tears. Her breath stopped and her eyes shut tight in a vain attempt to block the truth by refusing to see it.

***

A week later she walks in a daze, disconnected from all around her. Co- workers smile and nod and she responds without thinking. Instinctively, her body simulates genuine emotion towards the others. She throws herself into her work in an attempt to dull the pain of what happened on Sunday. None of the others working with her have any reason to grieve. For them, Sunday brought exaltation, not despair, so she cannot explain her feelings to them. Not now, after the fact. From 9 to 5 she is normal, even outwardly rejoicing at the newfound freedom from oppression in her world. Artfully, she masks the growing storm in her heart.

In her mind, she is a traitor. Not by her choice, but by the irony of fate in making her love him. While her hands work solely on editing the endless stream of reports and articles and maintaining her façade of sanity, her heart cannot shake the betrayal. Betrayal is her ultimate thought from which spring the other emotions she experiences. The belief that she may have somehow contributed to the betrayal haunts her, a grim specter of her secret life.

The times called for secrets, without thought as to how they would hurt in the future. Thoughts of the creation, concealment, and ultimately the disclosure of the most sacred secret imaginable control her life. The goal was to protect, but in her case protection backfired, springing itself against her in rebellion. Ironically, he himself was one of her secrets. Very few people knew she loved him, just her friends from Hogwarts. Friends at work knew his importance in her life, but his name was her secret. Times were too dangerous to risk telling people of relationships. Now if she grieved for him, the others would only see him as the traitor and the murderer, the worst supporter of the Dark Lord, not the lover she thought she knew.

The days go by quickly when she is in this state of mind, and the past week is a dull blur to her. The funerals, the Ministry interrogation, the proximity to arrest or death at any given moment, the feelings of disgust from the Ministry, and the confusion from Remus flash vividly in her mind. She will not cry, for fear that if she starts, tears will drown her.

Only moments separate her from freedom from the insincerity of the workplace. Soon she will be back at the flat, the cold darkness of what she used to call her home. It will be empty and dark now that he is gone. She lives alone now, with only her memories of the days when James, Lily, and Peter were alive, when she could speak his name and pronounce its syllables with a deep, passionate love. Now the biting truth of who he was stains even these precious memories. The truth of her love, and the truth of his betrayal. Holding these despairing thoughts, she grabs her bag. Stuffing the parchment and quill into her bag, she disapparates.

***

When she comes home, the lights are off. She enters the house, but doesn't bother to turn the lights on. It hardly matters to her if she can see at this point. Inside, an oppressive silence hangs throughout the halls, unbroken by her soft footsteps and silent breath. She walks slowly into the kitchen, as if she is dreading what she will find in the room. It is deserted. The only light comes from a thin shaft of moonlight falling from the window, bathing part of the floor in an ethereal light. Her coat and purse drop to the floor, and she sits at the table, not moving, not speaking, and barely even thinking.

Eternal moments pass.

In sudden determination, she stands and walks to the counter, her fingers feeling for the drawer in the darkness. It opens and her hands grasp around, finally closing on a handle.

She pulls out a knife, and holds it in the moonlight, and the blade glows under the pale light. She stares at it in rapt fascination, studying the strength of the metal and the subtle, deadly taper of the blade. A finger inches out and traces the blade, pressing a little too hard on the metal. The knife slips in her hand as the point cuts her finger, scraping across her palm and cutting it. She draws her breath in almost inaudibly but chooses to ignore the blood now flowing freely from the newly created wound.

The physical pain is easy to ignore after the past week. Without thinking about the stinging sensation in her hand, she grasps the handle firmly and flips the knife slowly in her hand, pressing it firmly to her wrist. She is aware of the cold metal against her skin and the warmth of her own blood but she feels oddly detached, as though she were watching herself from the outside.

Her hands press the knife down. No sound issues from her mouth, but her eyes are clench shut in a furious but muted prayer, paradoxically begging for the strength to continue and the strength to stop.

And her decision is made.

Blood on her hands loosens her grip on the knife, and it falls, the blade and handle covered in her blood, to the floor. The crash shakes her foundations, awakening her and breaking the tangible silence in the room. A sound escapes her lips for the first time; an inhuman shriek containing every emotion she can possibly feel.

She falls to her knees in a tempest of passionate emotion. Accusations, denouncements, curses, and screams flow from her heart, and she sobs uncontrollably in a whirl of incomprehensible grief. Her tears are the culmination of days of suppressed grief, a week of denial, and years of a lie.

Slowly, her rage subsides into choking sobs as she crumbles, beaten, onto the floor. She mutters his name over and over again, speaking it aloud for the first time in a week, a mantra to some unknown god. Eventually she can think and act no more and sleeps, surrounded by a pool of tears. Dried blood cakes on her hands, the floor, and the knife as the moon sets, leaving her in darkness.