I'm in too deep.

It's not the first time this thought has crossed my mind. It's been running around my entire being for decades.

But now, as I watch the students marching through the courtyard on this grim September morning I realise, fully realise, how desperately suffocated I am by my situation.

I fell in love so fully and so deeply that my life was destroyed by it.

I've blood on my hands, grief in my heart and fear inside my every cell. I'm scared, all the time, constantly terrified. Not only for my life, but for my judgement- for where will I go when the time comes? My sins will flash before my eyes one by one, laid out and picked apart, evaluated. And I don't know which one will bring me the most heartache.

Letting her die. Allowing her beautiful life to end so impossibly short.

I close my eyes but the rhythmic marching of feet on cobbles pounds inside my head. It's such a sombre sound, like a funeral march.

And unwillingly I feel like I've been punched in the gut, the wind is knocked from me and I double over in pain. Her funeral, I didn't go, I couldn't. Couldn't see all the white lilies they'd put on her coffin, couldn't hear her favourite song played. And the stares, the looks from her family- if they even bothered to show- and friends.

In the shadows I catch my breath, sucking in the cool autumnal air, hoping it will soothe my misery.

The pupils have entered Hogwarts for their first year of terror in these walls. War is upon us, people are dead, and I'm fighting on the wrong side. I turn around, my cloak swishing behind me and enter the castle.

These halls remind me of her, the walls soaked in our memories, our first days, months and years of being Hogwarts students. Before it all went wrong, before I let her slip through my fingers and put pride before love.

But I am now stone, on constant edge, unable to function until I know her child is safe once again.

I must speak, in his place, stand where he stood when I was the one who ended his life, the knowledge that I am to blame for his death weighs heavy on me, and I'm just about able to carry it. But any more will pull me under.

No one is to be trusted, not even the most seemingly kind hearted. He promised to keep her alive, and then to keep him alive. And his sentiment was all for show, for the 'greater good', Lily's son to be sent to the slaughter. I can't bear it, I don't think I can cope and the only comfort I have is that I too will soon be taken from this world. When the last remnants of Lily Evans has been destroyed and wiped from the earth, I will also die.

The image that haunts me flashes in my mind. Her lifeless body, slumped on the floor of a nursery. A woman so full of life and love murdered in front of her child, her life snuffed out so quickly.

I went to her, my own body ice cold with fear. Held her, looked into her green eyes one last time, they were no longer alight with passion. My heart broke.

My heart still breaks.