She can't remember their last kiss, she thinks frantically, ludicrously, as the man bringing death advances calmly up the stairs.
Was it over breakfast this morning, when he'd surprised her with waffles shaped like jack-o-lanterns?
No, because she had pressed her lips ever so briefly to the back of his neck as she served him his afternoon tea.
And just after supper he had kissed the worried wrinkles on her forehead as she disapprovingly watched his horseplay with their young son.
Or last night, when he had taken her in his arms with the strength of a Quidditch Captain and the confidence of a man in love and pressed his mouth fervently to her own, in a kiss that redefined the word.
There will be no more kisses of any kind, she has the clarity to realize, for the house is suddenly silent apart from her own panicked breathing. It feels like a betrayal, her lapse of memory. The fact that she cannot recall the precise sensation of his lips as they fit so perfectly against her own, a feeling that has fueled hundreds of Patronuses, is inexplicable and bewildering.
A small, curious hand grabs at her chin, brushing the lips that are in such desperate confusion, and jolts her back into the dangerous present.
Instead, the weight of the sleepy baby in her arms gives her the strength she was looking for in the memory of his kiss. She places him gently in his crib before turning, straight-backed, to face the door.
The last things her lips touch is not the smile of her lover, nor the soft head of her innocent.
It is the hard wooden floor as the light leaves her eyes.
Author's Note: Please review! I like writing, but I'm not sure if it's all garbage...