Falling in love with her was one of the hardest things I'd ever done. I'd never felt so emotionally invested in someone before. Sure I loved James, and Remus, and Peter, but they were kind of my friends and I loved them in a different manner than I loved her. And it scared me. It scared the shit out of me to fall in love with someone, to give my heart to them fully. I was terrified when it happened. And even though everything seemed the same, everything had changed.

She was the only person who could really hurt me. She could just walk into a room and if she had wanted to she could've ended me. And knowing that she could hurt me, that she could end me without even a second look was kind of scary, especially when she was angry and I actually thought she might kill me with her glare. That was what scared me the most, that I loved her, I'd let her in and she could hurt me.

It was one of the best yet worst thing I'd ever experienced.

I fell in love with everything about her. I fell for everything from how she scrunched up her nose when she sneezed to how she'd cling to me like life depended on it when she cried. I loved how she'd take really long showers when she was stressed, usually I'd sneak in after her just to try and comfort her. I loved how she let me wash her hair and of course how her shampoo smelled. I loved when we took baths together. We didn't have sex or anything like that, we'd just sit in the bathtub with her back against my chest and that was all we needed to do.

I loved when she braided her long blonde hair and added flowers then ran around like a little kid. I loved how she knew the way I took my tea and would make me some. I loved how we didn't need a lot to happy with one another.

While we were in school she'd sneak up to the boys dorms and sneak into my bed not afraid of getting caught. She'd lace our fingers together while we walked down the halls. She'd rest her chin on my shoulder and lightly kissed me on the cheek when she wanted to shag, she kissed my neck when she was just content. It was weird and I thought it should be the other way around but that was just how she was. I knew all her little quirks and she knew mine.

I knew how much she cared about James and Lily, I knew how badly she wanted them to be together and I knew that she'd talked to Lily begging her to give James a chance. But we never told him that. He didn't like when we meddled, because he thought he could win her over without our help, or maybe he thought we'd mess things up, who knows. She was always so full of fire. She knew what she wanted and she was never afraid to go after it. Or at least she didn't make her fears known. And it took me a while to get her to open up to me, but I didn't blame her because I took forever to open up to her too. But when we finally did open up it was a beautiful thing.

After we left Hogwarts we moved in together. And I loved that she was okay with just living with me. She didn't complain about it, she didn't whine about all the things she wanted or needed or thought we needed. She was fine with what we had and as long as she was with me I was fine too.

We had plenty of money really, well considering she came from a rich pureblood family who hadn't disowned her and she inherited a pretty penny the day she turned 18 of course we had money, the thing was we didn't use it to buy many things. We bought a small flat together right outside of London and we furnished it to the best of our abilities. To tell you the truth though we were shit at furnishing that place but it didn't matter. Most of our time was quickly consumed by The Order and the war we all knew had been brewing while we were in school. And though I didn't want her to join or be a part of this I knew I couldn't ask her not to. She was a great witch. Probably one of the best I'd ever met. Plus asking her not to help would be stupid, it'd be like telling her to abandon everyone she loved and run away, which was something she'd never do.

We didn't often talk about the war when we were home together. Usually we tried to talk about anything other than the war. We liked to talk about what would happen after the war even though we didn't know if we'd make it that far. Of course we wanted to believe that we would and never voiced the thoughts of not making it. I think that was because we were both too afraid to actually voice that we wouldn't make it that far like so many others. So at home we tried to keep things light and casual. We cuddled a lot more finding comfort in just being able to hold onto one another, and we took the days as they came.

James and Lily two of our dearest friends were sent into hiding and had baby Harry, whom we got pictures of and while things weren't great, they were okay.

Everything was okay until it wasn't.

I hadn't really seen it coming, none of us had, though a part of me feels like maybe I should've. Maybe if I would've paid more attention then I would've noticed or maybe I could've done something to change the outcome.

She'd went to see her family one day while I was on patrol. I'd been asked to watch after a couple of people who were supposed to be important in some plan The Order had to infiltrate where they thought Voldermort might be staying. And I went along with it because it's what I was told. It was just another day, I was protecting these two lads I didn't know and she'd went off to meet up with her family for brunch or something. I didn't really know the details of her morning but we'd planned to meet back up at our flat for dinner like we always did. I'd kissed her goodbye, told her I loved her then left not knowing it would be the last time I'd see her alive. If I had there were so many more things I would've told her. And I know it was silly not to consider every time we said goodbye our last since we didn't know what would happen but I'd let myself believe that we would actually make it out of this and then I lost her.

All I remember about finding out is that I'd been standing in this room with these two lads waiting for one of the others to come and pick them up. My job was simple, if anyone came in to attack I fought them off. Only no one came to attack. I remember Remus came in looking all sullen, he looked like he'd been crying and of course I was suddenly more alert than I'd been all day.

"Sirius I'm so sorry."

He just kept repeating that until I grabbed his shoulders and demanded that he tell me what happened. I needed to know if she was okay but I already knew the answer.

"They attacked, it was a surprise attack. They killed her entire family and believe she was the last one they killed as she was found in the bedrooms near her brother while the rest were downstairs."

I lost it after that.

"No." I croaked, I hadn't even realized that I'd been crying. That my eyes were wet, my hands were shaking, I couldn't even see right. "NO!"

I punched a wall and I remember finding out I broke my hand hitting the wall so hard. But I hadn't cared. I leaned against that wall and I hid my face in my hands while I sobbed.

That was the hardest thing I'd ever done.

Losing Marlene, the girl I was so in love with. The girl I wanted to ask to marry me when things were over, losing the girl I was so in love with, the girl that I wanted a family with, I wanted a future with her, I wanted us to grow old together, losing the girl I wanted a life with, that was the hardest thing I ever did.