The Longest Night

She always loved the winter at night. Something about drinking hot chocolate, breathing in the chilled winter air, and staring at the stars made her absolutely glow. It was, after all, her idea to have our honeymoon during the Solstice, the longest night of the year. After the wedding and reception at Hogwarts, our honeymoon officially began. We Apparated to our cabin in northern Scotland in the middle of the night and quickly fell off into dreamland. When the mild winter sun woke me the next morning, I knew that it would be the happiest day of my life.

Little did I know that it would also be followed by the worst night of my life.

After breakfast in bed, we went out and made snowmen. Not many wizards would understand the hilarity in charming a top hat with a spell to make snowmen animate, but my wife did. She, being such a brilliant witch, charmed her snowman into a reindeer with a glowing red nose. While she was concentrating on the transfiguration spell, my snowman and I started making snowballs, and after she got the hue of the nose just right, we pelted her with snow. When she started laughing, I saw her rosy cheeks and hair mingling with the snowflakes. She looked just like she did the night I fell in love with her.

Later, we went skating on the lake, and I thought hot chocolate would be a good idea. When I went back to the cabin to get some, a storm started up. I knew she would come back before the storm got too bad, so I started up a fire for when she did get back. When the sun had set, the storm became a blizzard. I don't know how long I stared through the ice cold window looking for any sign of her. I finally saw her ghostly figure march through the storm towards the cabin and ran to get her. I swallowed my heart when I touched her bare skin.

She was ice cold.

I quickly got her out of her soaked clothing and wrapped her up in a warm blanket, but she would not stop shaking. Laying with her on the hearth of the fireplace, I stared into her cold, blue face while trying to get her warm. All I could hear was her apologizing to me for not being able to get home sooner or saying how she couldn't concentrate enough to use magic. I just lied there trying to share my body heat with her and listening to her shaking voice. She kept getting colder despite my attempts to give her warmth. When her voice got softer and she started to shake less, I knew what was coming, but could not prepare myself for it. When my wife's mumbling trailed off and she stopped shaking completely, there was dead silence as the howling wind from the blizzard seemed to mock me with it's silence. I knew it was over, and I kissed my wife on her ice cold lips one last time.