Disclaimer:
Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling.Author's Note:
This is a companion piece to the amazing, amazing, amazing (as in, there really are no words to describe it) fic For The Weary by drama-princess. I'd suggest that you read that first, 'cause otherwise this won't make much sense. And...well, it's just much better. Which is always nice.So...I decided to do something from Auriga's perspective.
Yay.
This is for Milla, by the way, just....because. She wrote For The Weary, she's a genius, etc, etc. Do I really need reasons for everything? ;-)
And I listened to 'Bad' by U2 about 20 times throughout the course of writing this. You all just needed to know that, ya see.
I tried to stay with you.
I clung to things, little things that were beautiful because they were pieces of memories. I taught myself to be lost in them, fully lost so I could temporarily lose the fact that I'll never feel your kiss again, or be able to talk to you in anything more than a worthless whisper that you'll never hear.
It always comes back.
I didn't want to realize it, I still don't, but it's inevitable, and no amount of worthless wishing and childish protests are going to change it.
I'll never live again.
Why the hell are you doing this to me? I asked no one in particular. Clearly they didn't understand that I couldn't die; I had to live, goddammit! Did the powers that be not understand that you'd proposed? It was like the impossible had become reality! You do not propose to people. You just...don't.
Well, it wasn't exactly a proper proposal, but you got the point across.
And I thought there would be time for all that later.
Ha. What time?
I wanted a wedding. I wanted to dress in white and pretend that it didn't look awful on me and roll my eyes at you as you sneered the entire time (but just for show). I wanted to get teary-eyed, a little, but still manage to call you a snarky bastard when you started mocking me for it.
I wanted to kiss you with the knowledge that that embrace would always be ours, only ours.
Or at least, I wanted to throw another coffee mug at you.
Because that was really beautiful.
There I go again, feeling light for a moment, like it will be okay and this is all just temporary and I will be with you again, someday. It's not real yet to me, not truly real. Except sometimes. Sometimes I feel it, so passionately, and it aches so badly and I want to cry, but I can't anymore.
I watched you sleeping, the night after it happened, and wished I could be next to you. I always hated the way those awful sheets felt: horribly scratchy, but you'd never get rid of them. You'd just give me that haughty smirk. 'Well, by all means, Auriga, no one's forcing you to stay.'
I always stayed.
Yes, I pretended to hate you for five minutes or so, but only because that was how we worked, you know? There was always so much pretending, but you never fooled me. Not for a second.
And I know you always saw through me as well.
What can I say? I'm an awful actress.
I really hated you, once, I think. Maybe. A little. Or not.
I remember the first time I saw you - you'd just been talking to Dumbledore; about the Dark Lord, I think. And your eyes were so dark and you looked so haunted, and you scared me: this tragic shadow of a man. You didn't know I was there. Or maybe you did. Maybe you were just humoring me.
You did that, sometimes.
And then, of course, you were rude and sarcastic and infuriatingly articulate, and I tried to be the same way right back. Hating you, I decided, was utterly necessary, but I never could, not fully. I always remembered that time, and your eyes, and I wondered what pains had possessed you and if they'd ever let you go.
So there was bickering. Lots of it. And coffee mugs, and embarrassing encounters, and many a scribbled journal entry proclaiming just how much I was, in fact, not in love with you.
And then darkness rose, and I realized that maybe I didn't hate you so much.
It was raining when I first realized I loved you. A raging battle against the Dark Lord had just ended: all around me, there was screaming and tears and blood and pain, and I just stared up at the sky - it was so gray, so endlessly gray - and somehow I knew.
And then you came up behind me, smirking like always, ready with that sardonic remark. 'Searching for stars, Auriga? My, don't we have a one-track mind.'
And the rain seemed everywhere, these tiny drops of liquid glass, perfect in their strange clarity, and I turned and I kissed you, without saying anything, because I was so tired of words. You didn't pull away, and we stood there, no doubt making fools of ourselves, lost in an embrace as the rain seemed to pierce every part of me with shivering cold, but I didn't care, not really, because this was so wonderful in all its unexpected beauty.
It rained this morning.
I watched you as you had tea with breakfast - you always liked coffee better - and absently flipped through the copy of Much Ado About Nothing. You know, the one where I circled all the parts I liked, and would whisper them sometimes, because somehow it seemed like it had been written for us.
You didn't cry. Of course you didn't, and I'll be damned if you ever will.
But I knew you thought of me, then, and you looked up with deadened eyes, right at me.
Through me.
I whispered, not feeling my lips trace the words, not hearing my voice, but somehow whispering nonetheless.
'I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.'
And once, I thought that was so perfect. So wonderfully fitting. Flawless. Written for us, maybe.
But I do want to love you.
I still love you, and I'll never stop, and I only hope that you'll know, somehow.
Missing you and life and everything all at once, I looked up again at the endless gray sky, feeling so acutely as it seemed to pierce my heart.
The rain fell.
But I couldn't feel it.
I felt nothing. Like the rest of me had gone away to somewhere that I couldn't even begin to imagine, and all that remained was my heart.
I'm so scared.
I don't want to leave you.
I don't want to continue on to wherever it is I'm supposed to go.
I simply want to stay here, to watch you, even if I'll never feel anything again, even if you can't see me or sense me or know that I'm with you.
Maybe if I stay long enough, God will pity me and give me life again so I can be with you. I never imagined loving someone this much. Especially not you, not the one man that seems so wrong for me, just because seeing the flaws is so much easier than accepting the perfection.
But I know that I will never feel you again.
Or anything.
It terrifies me.
But I have to let go of you.
. . . A little bit, anyway. Just so I won't always see you. You've become so much of me that it seems like I don't need to watch you anymore, not really. You're always there.
I know that I will never have my wedding, or my white dress, or my reluctant groom, or the life that I hoped to share with you.
But maybe what we had was enough.
Or maybe we'll be together again.
I don't know.
I won't pretend to.
But I know I love you. And I know I will carry that with me, everywhere, always, no matter where this strange numbness takes me.
I look at you, once: for the last time, maybe.
The book is still in your hands, yellowed pages handled gently by long, cold fingers. You smile a little to yourself, a bittersweet sort of smile, and whisper.
"'And I pray thee now tell me, for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?'"
And I know my reply.
'For them all together, which maintained so politic a state of evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them.'
You look up, just a bit, narrowing your eyes a little. There is a refined iciness about you that I know will never leave, but it doesn't reach your gaze. Your eyes are searching, silently; perhaps for a musical laugh, or a flash of frizzy auburn hair.
And then, in an instant, the cold returns.
You know that you can't see these things.
Maybe you don't need to.
Maybe I'll always be there anyway.
Or maybe you've just gone wretchedly sentimental. Who knows? Maybe you're so overcome with grief that you're going completely mad.
These things, you suppose, are bound to happen when you, despite all better judgment, lose your heart to a ridiculous woman with her soul in your hands and her head in the stars.
You don't mind, so much.
You glance out the window, tiredly; watch the rain as it falls.
Softly, you smile.