Prompt: "Don't Let Go" by Bryan Adams – Marlene McKinnon/Sirius Black
We both knew it couldn't last, but for the moments we held on, it was the most beautiful thing we could have made of the time we had.
No one would have supposed me capable of such a thing, but I believe that we could have loved each other. If there were more time, if there were not a war, if if if – but what we had was perfect, however long it lasted.
When she looked at me I could almost believe we would make it out of this alive. For a moment, everything would go away, and we could just be there together and lose all the darkness that smothered the world around us. And when we had to go our separate ways, the thought of her would give me hope for the future.
She was a mess of broken pieces and scars, jagged shards of curses and gravestones, and I was not so much better – I had all my own grievances, sores from abandonment and disillusionment, wounds that we all knew would never heal – but together we could be perfection. She was so strong, and so was I, and even though they may have thought it was just a façade we both knew it was the truth.
We made each other better, she and I, and there was something pure in the midst of all that festering darkness that made us fight for the end.
James and Lily's kid, he represented the hope for the future, the fight for the next generation.
But Marlene and I, we fought for the chance for one more look, one more embrace, one more 'I probably won't come back.' We fought for the chance to find the future together, to explore this thing that might be love, to live, to hope.
We knew it couldn't last, whatever it was between us. I just thought, somewhere deep and hidden inside beneath layers of bravado, that it would be me who died first.
(twelve years of Azkaban later, they couldn't possibly understand why he would risk something like this, but here he is before a gravestone and no one will ever know why he is crying)
Look up "Don't Let Go." It's truly a beautiful song.
