"Save yourself..." He whispers, his voice dry and hoarse, his eyes a dull emerald green, "Live...you have to live for him." He gestures weakly to our son, who is leaning against my side and sleeping fitfully; his thumb in his mouth, his only source of comfort in the hell we currently reside in.
"Harry, please," I say in desperation, "You can't-you can't leave us-me!"
He tries to chuckle, his body wincing in pain as he moves; his body writhing as great, rasping coughs overtake him. His head is currently propped up in my lap and my right hand is encased in his rough hands, both of them resting on his chest, while my other hand is wrapped securely around our son's thin form.
"You know what is going to happen Ginny, we both do," Harry says weakly through his cracked, dry lips, squeezing my hand as his coughing subsides. "I'm not going to make it out of here alive. He's going to kill me soon. He was just toying with me before."
"I-I know," I choke out as my grief overtakes me and tears spill down my face unchecked.
"You have to live for both of us...be strong for James, give him all the love and happiness I couldn't," He whispers softly, looking at our son with love and warmth in his eyes.
"I-I will," I say in a broken voice as I extract my hand from his embrace and try to fruitlessly brush away the tears that stream down my face. "I will make sure he grows up knowing who his father is and w-what he sacrificed for him, for us."
He smiles softly at me and tenderly brushes his hand across my cheek, swiping away a stray tear. There is nothing left to say between us. We both know that this is it. The end is near and there is nothing that we can do about it. There is no more time for declarations of love or meaningless sentiments. I know that he loves me and James with all his heart and he knows that I will never love anyone as much as I love him. We wait in silence as the sun rises, filtering meager bars of light through the thin, wooden slats of the tiny opening at the upper corner of our cell. The whistling is what startles us into wakefulness. I can hear them coming, accompanied by a man with a slight limp, cheerfully whistling a tune that seems to embody happiness and hope, but I know that it is false hope. There is no one coming to save us. There is no one left to save us.
The man limps into view, still cheerfully whistling the damningly happy tune at the top of his lungs. He is followed by a group of escorts, their robes swishing around their ankles noiselessly just as they stop and turn to look inside our cell.
"Well, here they are!" The man who was previously whistling says, gesturing to our pitiful forms inside the cell.
"Open the cell and take them out," A woman steps forward from the group and tells him impassively. "Our Lord wishes to see them."
"Of course," The man says, nodding his head respectfully when she says 'Our Lord'. He takes out his wand from the depths of his voluminous robes and taps the lock on our cell door. With a burst of green light, the cell door opens and the group of Death Eaters come inside the cell. The woman impatiently hauls me off the floor and to my feet, while another man hoists Harry off the floor. Harry, weak from days spent in starvation, staggers dizzily before the man catches his elbow and ushers him out the door. The woman who had hauled me up from the floor tries to drag me through the cell door as well, only to be stopped by the extra weight attached to my leg. I look down and my heart breaks as my beautiful, innocent boy looks up at me mutely, his large brown eyes silently asking 'what is happening?' The woman notices him as well and reaches down and impatiently tugs my leg from his grasp. She takes my arm and tries to shove me through the cell opening, only to be stopped yet again by a childish voice.
"Mommy, where goin?" Jamie says frightenedly from his place on the dirty dungeon floor.
"P-p-please, c-can I-I take him w-with me?" I turn my head and stutter out to the woman who is holding my arm in a vice grip. She just stares at me blankly and looking into her cold, blue eyes, I know that she is going to say no, but then she surprises me. "Come," she gestures to Jamie. He hurriedly scrambles off the dirty floor and runs to me, catching my right hand in his small one.
The woman marches us through the cell opening and out into the bleak corridor of Azkaban. We pass rows and rows of cells, all of them empty. We are, or were, the only rebels left, the rest were killed a long time ago. There is no one left to defy the rule of Lord Voldemort. He is now the ruler of what is left of a war-ravaged kingdom. Everyone who had defied him died a painful death and now I know that we'll share the same fate.
I close my eyes as we walk through the entrance of Azkaban and into the harsh, white sunlight. Harry told me to escape, but I don't know if I'll have the strength to do what he is asking of me when the time comes, but I know that I have to do what he is asked of me, if not for him, for the sake of my beloved son, born from misery but loved nonetheless. I open my eyes and look down at my son's face and strengthen my resolve. I'm the only one left to do this and I'll do my job to perfection.
We walk to the apparation point and our escort abruptly stops there. She holds her wand in her hand and wraps her other hand even more tightly across my upper arm and concentrates on our location. I know what is to come so I quickly squeeze Jamie's hand to reassure him. There is suddenly a vice grip around my lungs and all of the air is roughly being squeezed painfully out until I know that I'm going to pass out-before it suddenly ends. I stumble and cough a bit as we arrive at our location. I worriedly look over to see how Jamie is doing to see him doubled up and dry heaving. I soothingly rub his back until it subsides. I look up to see that our escort has been coolly watching us the whole time, her hand still wrapped around my upper arm. When she sees that we have composed ourselves for the most part, she steps in front of an ornate, wooden door, complete with lavishly adorned door handles.
I take a deep breath and steel myself. This is the end and I'm ready.
A/N: Wow, I'm not really sure where this came from, but here it is so please read and review. If this gets an adequate amount of reviews, I'll consider continuing it and making it novel length.
Disclaimer: I don't own the wonderful world of Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling does.