A/N - This is a new edit of this story, because I don't think I'll ever be truly happy with it. It's about Alicia Spinnet in the summer, and I would really like to know what you think!

Pictures

Sometimes she remembers. She sits in her little bedroom on the cold narrow bed with her flimsy breakable memories whirling around her, and it all makes her just so angry.

Because everyone else is lucky. Everyone else has their pictures and their memorials and their pity, and people who know how their whole world has fallen to pieces… but she has none of that. Bbecause she didn't tell a soul, not one single person knew, and now she has nothing.

Just stupid, intangible, useless memories.

And it isn't enough, it won't ever be enough.

But she can't forget, not one single detail. The way he kissed her under that big tree with other people's initials on it, and said they didn't need to carve theirs because they were forever. The way he taught her to dance, with no music, and she whirled and twirled and whiled away hours in his arms like they had forever. The way when he looked into her eyes she felt like she was melting, falling, and no matter how much of a cliché it was, she felt divinely, wonderfully, dizzyingly beautiful, and she didn't want it to end in forever.

Even the tiny, insignificant feelings. The way her lips tingled for minutes after their first kiss. How he always used to sling an arm around her shoulders when it was cold. That trembling, quaking, glorious feeling she got when he stood just close enough, feeling his warm breath in her ear. The time she was almost caught sneaking out at night and they ran and laughed hysterically, falling to the ground until they caught their breath, and how she lost it all over again when he looked at her. How she never ever told a soul because the secret was just too sweet, and besides, they had forever.

She remembers how she felt. As if they would last forever. How well their two names sounded together, starting with the same letter, as if they were destined to be a pair. How when she was with him she felt as if they were emitting light, as if they could light up the entire world and kill everything dark and wrong together. How when he was close her stomach turned to water and she trembled, and it was both awful and miraculous all at once, and however strange and unfamiliar it was she never wanted it to end, not in forever.

And then she remembers other things. The way he looked the last time she saw him, his head throw back in laughter with water dripping off his hair. How the sun ran over them, gilding their skin so it seemed as if they were made of gold, impossibly valuable and yet terrifyingly vulnerable. How he swore that he'd see her again soon, he was only going for a week. How it would all be okay. How he kissed her goodbye and she watched him leave, the gate swinging behind him as he walked down the road, shining as if the sun burnt just for him. And for a moment, she believed it did.

He never came back.

She waited all day, all night, sitting there alone, cold, distraught. The blackness crept into her heart and took root, like cool stone tendrils winding around it and slowly squeezing, suffocating her.

She never understood what his disease was – wizards never had anything wrong with their blood. So how was she supposed to understand about red and white blood cells? Remission? How could she know that sometimes it seems that everything will be alright and then suddenly it all slides down into the darkness, and never comes back.

The next week his brother comes to their place. He explains as best he can, choking down tears, and leaves her standing there, in shock.

All she can think of at first is how alike they look as he walks away in the August sunset. How the sun turns them both to gold.

But no-one else could be golden like him, have that wonderful life about him.

But he's gone. Forever. Slipped away in the dark night, far far away from her. And in some world it might be a relief. She won't have to explain to her family that she fell in love with a muggle. She won't have to explain to him that she's a witch. Her friends won't laugh and ask awkward questions. Their children won't be teased.

But it isn't, because in this moment it feels as if she has lost everything.

And it feels so much worse than she could ever imagine.

And nobody even knows, knows why she cries at night, knows why she flinches away when someone tries to touch her, why she is silent and wan and pale, like a ghost of the girl they remember.

So she hates the girls who walk around in black, mourning friends and relatives and boyfriends who died in the war. Because at least they knew there was a chance it could happen. And at least people understand why they don't want to go out with anyone, why they can't even begin to think about falling in love again. She hates that they have pictures to carry around.

She would do anything for a picture of him.

She would do anything for another moment with him.

She would do anything for just a chance to say goodbye.

Because there's nothing worse than a story with no ending. Nothing worse than a pain that can never heal but stabs you, jagged and sharp, whenever you move for the first weeks, months, years.

It gets better with time, yes, and she starts to get better.

But still. It hurts. And it always will.

And eventually, she starts to look forward. To dream of a new romance with a handsome brown-haired boy, which will be sweeter and more radiant and more marvellous than the last because she knows how terribly things can go wrong. And she dreams of that in every spare moment, no matter how scary her life gets, inventing wonderful incidents and anecdotes that could one day be true. And she tries, oh so hard, to show other people how wonderful the world is, because she feels as if she has seen it at her lowest ebb, and her highest. And at her highest the world was wonderful, marvellous, miraculous, hyperbolic. And everyone should be able to see it that way.

They smile at her smile, rare enough to be doubly sweet now, her hope and her belief that one day it will all turn out right. They like her laughter when it comes, sweet and seemingly innocent. They smile patronisingly at her and say to let her be, let her be a child while she can, for what does she know of life?

And in a way, they do. The happy, carefree image she has been projecting for so long has at some point become her true self. And she discovers that she likes this person. So she keeps her, and tries to regain some of the happy, starry-eyed and fantastical girl she was beforehand. And, she desperately hopes, it makes her stronger.

But in another way, she doesn't know the real her. Because when someone you love so utterly dies, a little part of you dies too. Some people say it never comes back, but Alicia doesn't believe that. She believes that something else fills that gap, a little older, a little wiser, maybe a little more sweet.

But she resolves not to dwell on it and moves forward, always forward. And she does grow up, and she marries the brown-haired wizard and is desperately happy, she tells herself. But she does make sure to take pictures, always. Just in case.

Please review, I'll be eternally grateful.