For Jean.
Disclaimer: J.K Rowling is still the creator. I'm just messing her stuff up for funsies.
Surely the stars should have been shining brighter or the moon look bigger or something. Instead everything looked exactly the same as it had the night before and the night before that. There was the wind whistling through the trees, the creaks of the old house and – nothing else.
Arthur should have been able to hear her breathing. Even when they were still at Hogwarts, she breathed loudly in her sleep. Not snoring - never snoring - just… loud breathing.
But now she was silent and he didn't know what to do.
Twenty five minutes ago he had arrived in their bedroom to join her, sleep next to her like he had for the past eight decades so that he could wake up with her and live his tomorrow with her. Just like they always had. The moment he had come into the room he knew something wasn't right. No matter how long before him she went to bed, she would always wait up for him. On the rare occasion that she did fall asleep before he arrived, she would wake up. She was such a light sleeper.
She looked like she was sleeping now, on her back with her eyes closed and a serene look about her face. For all Arthur knew, she could be. He hadn't taken a step closer to her after all.
He knew what he would find when he did though and he wasn't ready, so he stood, enjoying not knowing for all it was worth.
Ignorance wasn't bliss but it was closer to it that certainty.
This moment was so small to be so momentous. It was nothing but an average autumn day, where they had read the paper and eaten dinner and talked together for hours. Well, strictly speaking they hadn't said any words, but they were beyond that infantile form of communication. A small smile told him everything he needed to know. There were no secrets or stories, just a history so rich it would take a thousand scholars to properly document.
Theirs wasn't a life you could summarise in a few paragraphs after all. Words nor pictures could describe their love, their friendship and the life they had built from nothing in a world that was falling apart around them.
But still, Arthur thought as he observed the room, with all its photographs of their children, grandchildren and the odd great-grandchild, surely something should happen to commemorate this moment. Surely the world should stop and watch as he slowly approached the bed. Surely there should be some sombre music in the background, a sole cello playing a mournful melody or anything other than the silence and stillness.
He was at her side now. There was only so long he could put this off but still he lingered. Now she was only sleeping. Then would be something else entirely.
Then he would have to make calls and arrangements. Various relatives would arrive and say words he wouldn't really listen to. He'd hold them and tell them he was okay as someone else would tell him that they were okay. They would both be lying but the kettle would start to screech and they would have something to do other than dwell on it. The strangers would arrive and patronise him, possibly ask to speak to one of the younger folk. There would be more hugs and more tea and more sorrys and more people hiding their tears from him, until eventually they would take her away.
And then he would be without her.
After that he didn't know what he would do and that scared him more than anything in his long life ever had.
How would he fill his days? She was like a vital organ to him, as much a part of him as his heart or his lungs. This wouldn't matter to the strangers though who would take her anyway. For a moment he considered going with her but there were so many people that depended on him. He still had children, friends, a life… He just didn't know what it looked like without her there, nagging him, shouting at someone and looking just as beautiful as the day they had met.
The woman was his rock, his inspiration and his everything and now she was lying in their bed, unnaturally still and not breathing.
Arthur's bad knee finally protested loud enough over the white noise of his thoughts for him to heed its request and he slowly lowered himself to sit on the bed next to still form of his wife. Her once vibrant hair, now battleship grey, was splayed across the pillow. Her hands were folded neatly on her stomach. Her lined face, a testament to ever memory they had ever shared, looked peaceful in the silver light that was coming from the crack in the curtains.
It was this, the fact that she looked so calm and contented, that finally made him reach out his hand and place on top of hers. If he had made her half as happy as she had made him, then he had successfully done what he had set out to do all those years ago and that knowledge would keep him going through the next few hours, days and weeks.
But every so often the stars would shine brighter to his eyes and his world would stop for a moment because she wasn't there and something would have to try and fill her place.
He squeezed her hand and, for the first time, she didn't squeeze it back.
"Molly?"