A/N: Yeah... I had meant to write a HAPPY birthday fic for Lyta,
webmistress of the coolest Ravenclaw site around, but this turned out
angsty as hell. Hopefully she will forgive me :P
Disclaimer: I don't own them. I suppose, in light of this piece, you should be grateful. "Sing like you think no one's listening" is a line from that wonderful song, "Existentialism on Prom Night" by Straylight Run. I own pitifully little.
She smiled every morning when she woke up, an ingenuous smile like that of a little girl. She was all sunny features and graceful movements, and she cuddled close to him late at night, in the narrow bed they shared.
She had no idea who he was.
The war had broken out five years ago, and at that time, she was just eighteen. A fresh-faced, strong-willed young girl just out of school for Auror training. They had been the best of friends, and time and again he would wonder when exactly he should tell her how he felt. The timing was never quite right, and she had never shown any obvious interest.
It was in the same battle that Dumbledore died-- the same one where the inner circle of Death Eaters, led by a fanatical Bellatrix Lestrange, had stormed Hogwarts and painted the name of the Dark Lord on its walls with the blood of innocents-- that was her first and last mission. The battles had raged on for three months, as blood-red leaves fell from the trees and the nights grew longer and darker, and the Death Eaters never returned their prisoners.
She had been given as a present to Antonin Dolohov, accompanied by a troop of icy Dementors, her thin wrists in chains and her wand snapped in two. Like the other prisoners taken, she was brought out of the eye of the wizarding world, and no one exactly knew what happened to them afterwards.
It was a year after the desolation of Hogwarts that the resistance-- a most surprising group of new supporters for Harry Potter that consisted of several old enemies, managed to push the Dark Side back again.
Roger had been on the raid to Antonin Dolohov's unplottable residence in Siberia along with Marcus Flint after the stunning betrayal of a Death Eater's son had gotten them the necessary information, and when he found her, battered and clothed only with the tangled silk of her hair, there was no light of recognition in her eyes. Dolohov had been killed that night in the fray, but his death was a poor retribution. Flint had looked away afterwards, curtly handing Roger a cloak to wrap the tattered prisoner in, and gone away, muttering something about checking for traps about the house, and Roger had held the dead-eyed girl in his arms and cried painful tears that he didn't realize he was still able to shed.
It had been the hardest spell to say, his wand held in a shaking hand and pointed at her temple, where her once-glossy raven hair was starting to gray way too soon. Obliviate, and then the lines of her face had smoothed away, her mind empty of the choking darkness.
The Dark Side had been routed for good a year ago, and now she lived with him, her body recovered and none of the scars visible when she was clothed, and her voice was harmonious and sweet and innocent like before. Her eyes shone with joy at all beautiful things, and she liked to sit outside, cheeks warmed by the sun, and sing to herself.
"Sing like you think no one's listening," he'd whisper to her, and she would smile and sing for him, and hold his hand with total trust. Now, she loved him and only him, because she knew no other, and she would never question anything he said. Her eyes shone, empty and bright as firefly lights, whenever she gazed at him.
And nothing could be more painful than this irony.
Disclaimer: I don't own them. I suppose, in light of this piece, you should be grateful. "Sing like you think no one's listening" is a line from that wonderful song, "Existentialism on Prom Night" by Straylight Run. I own pitifully little.
She smiled every morning when she woke up, an ingenuous smile like that of a little girl. She was all sunny features and graceful movements, and she cuddled close to him late at night, in the narrow bed they shared.
She had no idea who he was.
The war had broken out five years ago, and at that time, she was just eighteen. A fresh-faced, strong-willed young girl just out of school for Auror training. They had been the best of friends, and time and again he would wonder when exactly he should tell her how he felt. The timing was never quite right, and she had never shown any obvious interest.
It was in the same battle that Dumbledore died-- the same one where the inner circle of Death Eaters, led by a fanatical Bellatrix Lestrange, had stormed Hogwarts and painted the name of the Dark Lord on its walls with the blood of innocents-- that was her first and last mission. The battles had raged on for three months, as blood-red leaves fell from the trees and the nights grew longer and darker, and the Death Eaters never returned their prisoners.
She had been given as a present to Antonin Dolohov, accompanied by a troop of icy Dementors, her thin wrists in chains and her wand snapped in two. Like the other prisoners taken, she was brought out of the eye of the wizarding world, and no one exactly knew what happened to them afterwards.
It was a year after the desolation of Hogwarts that the resistance-- a most surprising group of new supporters for Harry Potter that consisted of several old enemies, managed to push the Dark Side back again.
Roger had been on the raid to Antonin Dolohov's unplottable residence in Siberia along with Marcus Flint after the stunning betrayal of a Death Eater's son had gotten them the necessary information, and when he found her, battered and clothed only with the tangled silk of her hair, there was no light of recognition in her eyes. Dolohov had been killed that night in the fray, but his death was a poor retribution. Flint had looked away afterwards, curtly handing Roger a cloak to wrap the tattered prisoner in, and gone away, muttering something about checking for traps about the house, and Roger had held the dead-eyed girl in his arms and cried painful tears that he didn't realize he was still able to shed.
It had been the hardest spell to say, his wand held in a shaking hand and pointed at her temple, where her once-glossy raven hair was starting to gray way too soon. Obliviate, and then the lines of her face had smoothed away, her mind empty of the choking darkness.
The Dark Side had been routed for good a year ago, and now she lived with him, her body recovered and none of the scars visible when she was clothed, and her voice was harmonious and sweet and innocent like before. Her eyes shone with joy at all beautiful things, and she liked to sit outside, cheeks warmed by the sun, and sing to herself.
"Sing like you think no one's listening," he'd whisper to her, and she would smile and sing for him, and hold his hand with total trust. Now, she loved him and only him, because she knew no other, and she would never question anything he said. Her eyes shone, empty and bright as firefly lights, whenever she gazed at him.
And nothing could be more painful than this irony.