"All I Need"
A/N: It's JKR's, not mine. Voldemort's lines taken from Deathly Hallows US edition pg. 344. Title and poem at the beginning taken from the song "Rest Easy" by Audio Adrenaline ("Don't Censor Me" album, 1995).
I've had this idea bouncing around in my head for a while, and had several false starts, but this is the first try I've been happy with. However, I have a feeling I'm not quite done with this moment, so we'll see.
Please review
--
rest easy
have no fear
i love you perfectly
love drives out fear
i'll take your burden
you take my grace
rest easy
in my embrace
There is something incredibly calming about impending death. It is like being at sea and seeing the horizon circling around you and knowing that you are at that horizon's mercy, but also taking in the beauty of the undulating waves: their colors, their mesmerizing motion motion motion.
I went to sea once, when I was 11. My father took me fishing, although neither of us knew how, and all we caught were two pitiful little things, which we took home anyways and insisted my mother cook for us.
The next day, I got my letter.
I saw the green light glare through the banisters and knew instinctively that this was it: that my one break in the horizon, my lighthouse, had been swallowed up by the waves, and now the unrelenting line was free to constrict its hold. But even as my legs lost their feeling and my arms tightened their hold on the child in them, my mind became blissfully clear. My husband was dead and my son was alive, and I, left in-between the two, with Death marching up the stairs.
James had insisted we buy the house for those stairs. They had a perfect sliding banister, he said, and gave just the right "zing" to the feel of the living room. I never really knew what he was talking about.
Harry gurgled and swatted at my hair. I looked down and saw my own eyes staring back at me, wide and innocent. Innocent. "Bye, bye, Sweetheart. Mummy loves you," I whispered in a hoarse voice and kissed my son on the nose, just as the door behind me banged open.
"Stand aside, you silly girl… stand aside, now."
"Move aside, you miscreant! I want to see my bride!" I had turned to see James pushing my bridesmaid away from the door to catch sight of me in my wedding dress. He looked immediately gob smacked. "James! It's bad luck to see me before the wedding!" He swept across the room to kiss me, chortling, "Ha! I'm marrying you, aren't I? I think that means I have an overabundance of luck…"
Is this luck, James?
"Not Harry!"
"Stand aside! Stand aside, girl."
"Can you stand?" "I think so, but why can't I have the baby right hEEEEEEEEre?! Augh! That was a big one…" And so I had delivered my firstborn on the living room floor, while James jumped around nervously and Sirius goaded him on from the corner. The best moment of my life.
"Avada Kedavra."
