People are like boats.
We were like boats. Floating, sailing, weathering the storm. Anchored to the past, pushed towards the future on gently rolling waves. We could set sail whatever direction we pleased. Not to please anyone, not for anyone to see, just for the pure joy of going. Knowing the whole world is stretched out in front of us, basking in the feeling of ignorant bliss, not knowing what was going to happen until it did. Until it hit you with the force of a sack of bricks, beating you back into harsh reality.
"I never meant to hurt you."
Those were the last words he ever said to me. Now he was lying in the dim courtyard, his dead body quickly loosing heat. My nostrils filled with the stench of blood and sweat with each breath I took, standing in silence, looking down at the one person who ever gave me anything worth living for. A baby boy. My Teddy. Now here I was, staring with eyes unseeing, at the broken man at my feet. But he was just a corpse now, destined to go six feet under. I felt like I was too. Fate had placed all the sadness in the world on my shoulders, and my back was breaking under the weight.
"Crucio!"
Someone had put needles in my spine. Someone was dragging their long, hardened claws down my throat, my skin searing where they scratched. Someone was driving tiny nails into my fingers, hammering them in slowly, all at once. Someone was pushing my eyes out from inside my head, giving me the feeling that they were going to burst. Someone was kicking in my ribs. Someone was peeling off my skin, one layer at a time. Someone was stretching and crushing and twisting and burning my legs. Someone was squeezing my wrists tightly, breaking each little bone one at a time. Someone's name was Bellatrix Lestrange.
With a flick of her wrist, the pain was gone; the searing, the burning, the crushing, all gone. The only thing left was a hollow ache as I looked empty eyed at her wand, my shoulders drooped, head dangling gently to the left, my jaw loose and mouth slightly open. I took slow shallow breaths, hearing my heart echo where my soul used to be. I knew she could hear it too, the way her eyes gleamed with the silver of malice and insanity. I blinked at her once, twice. My face was blank. Her sanguine lips broke into a wide, crooked, dangerous smile, jaws parted in laughter. She cackled, her torments bouncing off the walls and resonating in my skull. Her chin tilted down, eyes narrowing and grin turning wild.
"And now you die."
A flash of green light. My thoughts on Remus, but my scream was Teddy. Everything went black.
People are like boats.
This applies when they're dead or alive. But bricks don't exist when you die; it's just us and the sea, floating off wherever the wind takes us. Wishing Teddy the world and sailing an entirely new one. It's funny how things always end where they begin. And where did it start? We were like boats.