The Night We Said Goodbye

The moon was high over the Black Forest as I waited impatiently for you to arrive. The message attached to your owl had said nothing but "I need a word, Harry. Meet me in the Black Forest at midnight." Curiosity was sucking my mind dry of any thoughts that didn't pertain to you, to 'us'. It had sounded urgent, but was it? Or was that just my overworking brain combined with a sense of paranoia telling me you had anything but good news for me tonight?

My eyes were indifferent to the world, my concentration turned inward. Three years of us being these strange creatures, "lovers".

Three years of us hiding our tender embraces and desperate kisses from the worlds around us, both of the sets of people called 'friends', mentors, teachers, classmates, even people unfamiliar with either of us or our status in the War between the Light and the Dark.

Years filled with pain, passion, bliss, and the neverending question of forever. A question that I felt in the tiniest threads of my soul was going to be answered tonight.

Just as my mind effectively closed and locked the door to such an unknown, I heard the soft footfalls of your best loafers behind me.

I turned slowly to meet you with smiling eyes, but your eyes were downcast. That was when I felt the first tingle of worry that your answer wouldn't be the one I'd expected.

With eyes of glassy grey and your usual masks put upon each other, you sat on a log opposite me and cleared your throat.

"Harry, I've asked you here tonight because a significant feeling has taken hold of me, and I felt it only fair I shared it with you."

I shifted uneasily, trying to turn my eyes from yours."Alright, then , Drac, out with it."

You closed your eyes and clutched the edge of the log so tightly your knuckles lost the smallest tint of skin coloring to but a bright, gleaming white, as though praying for strength. It was then that I knew what you were about to say, and before your eyes opened to meet mine with resignation and hopeless regret ominously in their depths and you spoke the words I'd always feared I'd hear from your perfect pale lips, my heart had already shattered into shards of loneliness and burnt to naught but a small chasm in my chest.

"I'm ending it, Harry. I can't do this anymore. All we've been doing for months now since Dad was cleared is tiptoeing around each other. I haven't touched you in six weeks, and you haven't tried to either. Our love has vanished to be replaced with cold, clear anxiety when we're around each other."

I stared at the sky, willing it to fall on our heads so I wouldn't have to hear more of the monologue you were ending my life with. But, surprisingly, the world didn't end when you said those words that chilled me to the core of my being. It was more as though the world stood still to witness the parting of two spirits that obviously wished to remain braided into each other.

I had to take the agony inside me and bury it deep to keep myself from letting forth the tears that the wind seemed to want to drag from my eyes when I heard the small ting of a chain being unfastened. "Please, no," I prayed to the gods, but they seemed to be either ignorant or unbelieveably cruel, because next I heard your steps once more as you walked up to me and whispered, "Harry."

I glanced up and had to look away from your perilously bright eyes. It seemed you weren't as unaffected as your pretense made you. You bit your lip and placed a silver chain adorned with one bright emerald in the center into my palm, then, almost kindly, closed my fingers around the gift I'd given you for our third anniversary. "Y-you can have it, Harry. I don't want it anymore."

I nodded solemnly, then bowing a little bitterly to you, I left the forest with an insane urge to take a small detour and hurl myself into the lake. "Goodbye, Draco," I said aloud as I dropped the chain on the grassy banks of the lake.

"Goodbye, Harry, " I heard behind me as I started to walk again. Closing my eyes against the torrential flood of salty misery, I hurried away from you, into the castle, past where Hermione and Ron stood dumbfounded in the Entrance Hall, and I didn't halt in my stride until I was safely inside my room in Gryffindor Tower. Then, I let go of the grip on my emotions.

All of them overwhelmed me at once. Regret, sadness, anger, annoyance, agonizingly heart crushing pain enveloped my entire body and I dropped to my knees, my head in my hands, tears squeezing their way through my clenched eyelids.

I sobbed silently, for I had no wish to answer questions after my well being later.

Hours later, I was numb as I lay in my bed, staring out at the moonlit sky. My tear ducts had dried into nothing, although my hurt hadn't dissipated an inch.

I would leave, I decided. Barely keep in touch with Ron and Hermione as they started a family together in a month when we graduated from Hogwarts because they didn't need me anymore. They had each other.

There wasn't anything left for me in England now you'd left. So, I'd leave, go somewhere where everything I glanced at didn't remind me of something we'd done or were going to do together.

Nothing would stop me leaving, not my friends or the Weasley family, not my teachers or my mentors. I had decided and nothing would sway me.

My eyes started to gain some of their fire again as I thought of where I should go.

'America!'