THE PROMISE

a one shot story

Picture this – blackness. Coldness. And death. Everywhere you see it, and yet you don't. The stench of rotting corpses pollutes the air, making you tear up in disgust. That is, if you haven't started bleeding out water yet. Me, I'm walking through it all. Enduring the hardcore silence, horror, and peril one might experience in a cheap special-effects Halloween film. Except this time, it's real. No cheap special effects. That's right, baby, just me and the night – forget X rated, this is Z.

I walk up to theirs. It's like I'm staring into a mirror – a cold, cruel, horrid reminder of what once was but is no more.

I can't take it.

They promised - I amaze myself with how I can remember this. A chuckle erupts from my mouth, but not a happy one. An insane, angry chuckle that I quickly stifled – I should be crying.

They still promised. Though they promised when I was just an infant, I can still manage to hear their voices, ringing – ringing as an iunder/istatement – in my head, threatening to just end everything altogether. I wish they would. But, then again, being voices… that they cannot do. Looking up into the partially full moon, I can even see their faces, now gone after the war.

I see a beach. A woman, tall and lanky, with vibrant hair is holding me in her arms. I can feel her cool, pale skin under my own tender body; see her kind and affectionate gaze as she rocks me, trying to forget. Her footprints are washed away in the sand, but what she gave to me right then and there is still upon that beach forever.

Now, I see a man. Taller. Older. More ragged than his woman. But still walking to her and myself with a sorrowful expression of love from the far end of the beach. He sighs as he approaches us, wipes his neck, and gives us both a loving kiss on the cheek.

"So you've… heard about your father?" The man said quietly and thoughtfully, looking out to the horizon, then down at his feet.

"Yes, I'm afraid I have," The woman just looked curiously at him, still rocking me.

"You were the first to know, I assume." The man continued, pacing over to the other side of the woman.

"Of course, he was my own father," Pointedly, the woman said this, but still tainted with sadness. "But still," She put an arm around his neck slowly, being sure she still held me with her other. "I haven't heard about iyou/i."

The man pulled away irritably. "Obviously you don't understand that risk."

"What risk?" Replied the woman, confused.

"You know! Letters intercepted, fire overheard," He counted the possibilities off on his fingers.

"What? You couldn't have used a damned cipher or anything? Messengers killed? Send Mundugus! I'm sure we could all do better without him." There was anger in her voice, and tears in her eyes.

"Look, Tonks –"

"What'dya mean, 'look'? I didn't marry you so that you could leave me with a child, as I watch you run valiantly into battle or off with some other woman."

"You know I love you –"

"How am I supposed to take that from a person who I never get to see!"

"TONKS ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?" The man said, turning around, his face dirty with teachers and sweat and blood and sand. "I love you. With all of me, I really do. Trust me on this –"

"I don't know if I can…"

"Just try, darling. I love you. I love the baby. I love you both; I would never want anything to happen to either of you. Really, that would be the bloody end of me." He finished, and looked again thoughtfully into the horizon.

"I'm coming with you." Said the woman, tears in her eyes now, but her voice was determined – and so was she – as she looked on with him.

"Ok, fine," said the man, in a hushed whisper. He gave her a kiss, and then looked down at me in her arms. "But what will we do with the child?" The man pointed out desperately.

"Well, my mother is still alive. She'll be more than happy to take care of him." The woman smiled and played with me. I laughed, obviously not understanding the danger of all of these happenings.

"Wonderful. We'll leave tomorrow." And so he leaned down to me, and kissed my on my forehead. I used my long arms to try to grasp his head, but he backed a way a bit so he could keep it. "Sit tight, boy, alright? Behave with grandma Andromeda, kiddo, we'll be back." He smiled, and took one last look at me.

And then he left.

The woman laid me on the soft sand. She bent down carefully, as to not get any sand on herself, and gave her promise to me. "We love you Teddy. We love you with all of our hearts. I promise, someday we will come back. It might not be tomorrow, or the day after that. It might not even be 'till your older. Just keep waiting. We'll return, because we love you too much not to. I promise. Daddy promises. We all do – especially me, though." She chuckled, a teary, sad kind of chuckle. The woman took me in her arms, hugged and kissed me, and threw me in the air. Then, both of us started to make our way back to the cottage on the beach.

And then the memory fades.

I am aware of my surroundings once more. I see darkness and death – but I've already explained that, haven't I?

I take another furious look at the stone.

They said they loved me.

But they told me to wait.

And guess what, mom and dad…

I'm still waiting.