Disclaimer – Harry Potter and his wonderful world belongs to J.K Rowling, I'm just borrowing it to play around for a bit. No money or profit is being made from this!
Author Notes – A big thank you to Rosie for all her wonderful help! This wouldn't have been half as good if it hadn't been for you!
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Losing What Is Left Of You
Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of life amount not to wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus.
Wallace Stegner
They are talking again. Everyone gathered around the table, talking, discussing, yelling. It is what they always do and, just like always, all I hear is a faint mumble, hollow words with no meaning that fade away just as quickly as they are made. Sentences without importance, without consequence, that leave no lasting impact on the world. I do not see the point.
They act as if their normal lives have some meaning, as if their petty little arguments are important in any sense of the word. They do not understand. They do not realise that they and everything that they do are completely insignificant. They do not see that it all stopped making sense when you left me.
And that is what it all comes back to, really: you.
I do not care that time is passing, that my life is running away from me, because you are no longer here and I might just as well have disappeared with you. Because what is the point of it all if I can no longer feel you beside me, hear your voice whisper softly in my ear? Why care, now that I am alone?
But they do not understand this; they do not see how it all changed when you were taken away. And how could they? They never knew. I never wanted them to know. I kept us a secret out of fear of what might happen if people found out, and I kept you to myself because, for once, I had found something to call my own and I did not want to share you with the rest of the world.
And so it is my own fault that they look at me with those pitying eyes, those uncomprehending looks that bore into me but do not even begin to scratch the surface of all that is wrong. Their eyes can never see the depths of my despair, cannot pierce the shell that I am hiding behind and find the emptiness that lies beneath, because they cannot understand what they do not know.
And it hurts, oh God, how it hurts!
I want to scream at them. I want to yell at them to stop talking, stop making all that noise and to realise that nothing matters in the end anyway. I want them to see how empty everything is now that you are gone and I want them to understand why it hurts. Why I hurt so much that everything just fades into darkness and all the edges become blurred, why my soul shrieks in despair and begs for any kind of release and why it cries, knowing that there is none to be had. I want to scream just so that everyone will look at me, really look at me, and maybe then start to see the depths of the pain that is haunting me.
But I never scream. I just shrink back further into the hole that I am digging and I think of you. I think of your beautiful eyes, all the tender smiles you gave me and how you held me close against your strong chest. I remember the way you had to bend down to kiss me, how you always just smelled like you and how you made me feel special every time that you looked at me. I think of the way your hair played with the wind as you flew, of all the love you brought into my world and how it all could end with two devastating words. And I cry for you without a single tear leaving my eyes because I cannot muster the strength to show the world my sorrow.
Sometimes, late at night, when I am lying alone in my bed, I think I can feel your hot breath ghosting across my neck, tickling my skin, and I hear you whisper in my ear. And in those moments I smile. I know that it is not real, I know that I was not strong enough to keep you safe and here with me; I succumbed to the pain and was too weak to protect you, even though I knew what would happen, but in those moments I can pretend that everything is alright and just smile. I can lie there and pretend that it all turned out differently, that I was the hero people claim me to be and because of that you never left me, you were never taken so abruptly out of my life, and the world is still a beautiful place worth being a part of. And I relish the warmth of your arms, the sound of your voice and the scent of your skin, and I dream of the future we could have had.
But I always wake up in the morning, alone and cold, and I am forced to realise the truth of it all and I die a little more every time that I see your empty seat in the Great Hall.
And then I cry because every day, I forget you a little more. The memory of your smile is slowly fading from my mind, the scent of you has long since been washed out of my clothes and my lips are starting to forget the way you made them tingle.
And then my soul breaks a little more, crumbling with the knowledge that one day you might slip away completely; that one day, no matter how hard I try to remember, I might be unable to picture you before me. I live in constant fear of the day when I can no longer remember your smile, your laugh or the way you felt under my fingers and I fear the loss of the only thing that is left of you: your memory. And I hurt all the more because what sense is there to the world if I cannot have you, if I cannot even remember the joy that you brought me?
I wish that I could make everyone see. I wish that I could scream and rage and tear down everything in my path just to make them all understand what it is to hurt. What it is to hurt with all your body and soul and to be unable to escape it.
But there is no more meaning in life now that you are gone, there is no more sense in anything, and I cannot even bother to cry anymore because I just feel empty. I am hollow inside and this façade is cracking at the edges, but I do not care.
I never wanted anyone to know about us; I feared their opinions and their hatred – but now all I wish is that they would understand that I am falling and why there is no one left to catch me.