"Tell me how we first met."
Her voice was soft, hushed. As if she was afraid that she would break if she spoke any louder.
You look down at those beautiful, lost eyes belonging to even more beautiful woman leaning into your side. How many times before have you spent in this position, just cuddling on the couch, oblivious to the rest of the world?
It was a much more common occurrence now.
"How we first met?"
Your voice matches her low tone. Because you feel the same way. You always have to fight the urge to break. You're holding on, just barely holding on, and the only thing keeping you together is these moments now, when it's just you and her and no one else to interfere, no eyes on you full of their pity.
"Yes… I want to know about the moment when I fell in love with you."
You smile in spite of yourself. It's not a real smile, you haven't had one of those in months, but it's her and you can't help but divert back to your old self from several months ago, when it was just you and her and no one else. "Well, that's the wrong story, then. When we first met, you hated me."
She scoffs, and you feel your heart contract in your chest, and it literally hurts because that scoff is just so her and you haven't seen the old her in so long. You can't recall how many times you've argued with her and she scoffed in that way whenever you just wouldn't let her win the argument, even though you knew she was right. Just because you had to get in the last word and you loved how gorgeous she looked when she got mad, when her eyes were bright and livid and there was just that certain something in the air that made you so attracted to her and now
And now there isn't enough in her to fight, and you'll let her win anything just because it's her and you don't want to see her struggle to form a rebuttal, you don't want to break your heart any further.
"How could I have hated you?" Her voice sounds so small. "That doesn't seem possible."
"Well that's how it was. I hated you because you always showed up everyone in class and acting like you knew everything, which you probably do… did."
You pause, guilt-stricken by your correction. She remains quiet. You continue.
"You hated me because I was a Chaser with an ego too big to handle and I got all of the boys. But we had never actually spoken until Brittany set us up on a blind date one Hogsmeade weekend." As the memory fills you, it's hard not to smile at the horrible excuse for a first date. "I could have killed her; that date was a disaster. We spent a good twenty minutes out in the cold arguing about which place to go first, and eventually we ended up at the Three Broomsticks. You pulled out a book and read the entire time."
A faint, disbelieving smile appears on her face. "I ignored you the entire time?"
"Only when you weren't giving me death glares when you thought I wasn't looking. It's okay; I was doing the same."
"Then how'd we ever get a second date?"
You smile a bit wider, a bit more real as the memory comes back to you.
"You remember Ron? Weasley? Yeah, he was trying to ask you to the Christmas ball. Apparently he was asking you 'as a last resort', and you were so mad at him for that, so just to make him mad and get him off your back, you told him that you were already going with me."
"But we hated each other. He would never believe that."
"I think he was so shocked at the fact that you even had a date to begin with, that he didn't even register that it was me you were talking about. Ginny said that she would pay a thousand Galleons just for a picture of his face then.
"You ended up bribing me into going with you. I had just broken up with Sam, my ex, and wasn't planning on going, but you promised to help me with my Potions work that I was complaining about."
Her brow furrows. "Wait… Why would you need help with Potions? You make them all the time."
You lower your head on the top of hers, smelling faint traces of her shampoo; lavender. You also smell a bit of parchment; she must have been in the library earlier. You haven't been able to go in the library in a long while, not when it smells so much like parchment and like her. Because whenever you smell that smell you're brought back to all those memories of doing homework on the library, alone, with her, working on re-doing assignments you purposely failed just so she would help you, just so you could be alone with her, and it was just you and her and no one else.
"I'll tell you a secret…" You whisper close to her ear; feeling the goosebumps rise on her bare arm. "I lied."
"You lied?"
"Can you blame me? The prettiest girl at Hogwarts marches up to me right after Transfiguration, demands that I go to the ball with her because she needs to get back at Ron, and since I was a cold-hearted Slytherin I should be more than eager to help her, and she would even help me with my Potions, because she couldn't help but notice my horrible track record in Potions.
"So of course I agreed, but what I failed to mention was that the only reason I always had that slime-ball of a teacher nagging on me was because I wasn't paying adequate attention to my work, and was spending most of my time trying to capture glances of the bushy-haired Gryffindor one table down from me."
She blushes furiously, and your heart skips a beat because it's just so adorable.
"The ball itself was uneventful. Hagrid got way too tipsy and almost mowed over innocent students, Filch was constantly complaining about how much of a mess us ungrateful little brats were making, and I ended up in a broom closet with my date just so I could avoid my drunken ex finding me.
"Well… the broom closet wasn't that uneventful."
"Oh?"
"We somehow ended up kissing. And then you smacked me and stormed out."
"What happened after that?"
"I asked you out the next day while you were 'helping' me with Potions. You said yes."
She's quiet, her face taking on it's usual expression when she's digesting a large amount of information.
"I wish I could remember," she says finally.
"I know, baby, I know." You pull her in even closer, no longer worrying about the tears you don't want her to see, because after more than a month of the same event happening, it takes a lot more for the tears to show up.
"I can't remember any of this." But now she's crying, and it's that, her breakdown, that brings forth your own tears.
"I hate not remembering any of this. I hate that people come over and I don't know them, but they know me. I hate forgetting where I put something and I hate putting you through this. I hate that I know that I love you but I can't remember why I do, and I hate that you have to remind me when you shouldn't have to."
Sobs rack her chest and she shakes from within your embrace. You feel your shirt grow wet with her hot tears and grow tighter as she clenches the loose fabric with her fists, and words escape you even though you've gone through this so many times before. You can only rub her back in slow circles and murmur reassurances that she doesn't seem to hear.
"I hate that I can't remember anything, but somehow I still know that I love you and I just know that we were so happy together. I hate that I'm stopping you from living your life because I know you deserve so much more."
That's a new one. It catches you off-guard, and you jumble your words together as a million thoughts race around your head at once.
"What? No, baby, that's not true, that's not true at all. I love you, I love you so much and I don't deserve you, I never did. I'm so lucky, so, so lucky that you chose me, and I'm so lucky that I get to-"
You choke on your next words. How could you have forgotten about that? The days have been too long, too hard, you've forgotten about the wedding that will never take place.
How could you? How could you, when it was that night, that night that was so magical and so horrible that can't forget about it. That night when she brought you back to that light pole in Hogsmeade, where five years ago you two spent twenty-minutes arguing about whether to go to Honeyduke's or Rosemerta's.
That night when right after the Apparition, she pulled out the ring that hasn't left your finger since.
That night when she promised to love you forever, even though you were the only person that would never let her win an argument without a stubborn fight.
That night when you returned the promise, even though it was her abrasive know-it-all-syndrome that started the arguments in the first place.
That night when that rogue Death Eater had chosen to try and attack you both and she lashed out faster than you, aiming a jinx at the Death Eater that was never sent because he hit her first, instantly sending her into a coma.
That night when the Aurors arrived just a second to late and the bastard escaped, taking your girlfriend's, no, now your fiancé's, memories with him.
That night when that room in St. Mungo's was all but empty, save for you and her and no one else.
That night when the Healers told you that the curse was powerful Dark Magic, and her memory would never be the same. There was nothing they could do but wait.
That night when you held her hand as she lay in the hospital bed and had no choice but to wait.
And wait.
And wait.
But she wasn't getting better.
And neither were you.
"I'm so sorry," you cry into her shoulder. "I'm so, so sorry."
And the apartment was empty, the streets were quiet, and the only noises were coming from the embraced couple on the couch; just you and her and no one else.
