a/n for the next round of pole vault (Hogwarts Games 2012), with a limit of 700 words and the prompt 'Let Me Go' by Christian Kane. I haven't used the prompt word for word, it's more a feeling, if you know what I mean :)

Also for the OT3 boot-camp on HPFC, with the prompt 'tears'.

it's not easy to forget you

it's so cold outside your arms
and we both know
that you're not as strong as you think you are

- Let Me Go, Christian Kane

You're teaching Bridget how to count when it all goes wrong again, and you've been doing so well these past few months that you hate yourself for giving into emotion yet again.

"Three!" she declares, and she looks up at you with her big brown eyes and you feel like it's three years ago and the world is ending all over again. It's been a while since you were hit so hard with this, this longing for Colin alive and still forever in love with you, the kind of life you are almost certain you could have had if he had never lost his life to war.

"Mummy!" Bridget calls, clapping her hands and meeting your eyes again, and you run as if you're sixteen again and trying to find your boyfriend before it's too late to say goodbye. The floorboards creak beneath your feet as you dash through the hallway, throwing yourself through your unlocked bedroom door and onto your bed, unable to hold back tears any longer.

She's not Colin, you remind yourself, she's not, but your dead boyfriend's eyes are reflected in her face, and even after three years the feelings of hopelessness and loss threaten to overwhelm you.

The door opens with a creak that you ignore until Romilda sits down on the bed beside you.

"Want to talk about it?" she offers, used to dealing with this - with you - since the war ended, because she was the only person you allowed near you for a long time. You nod. "Was it Colin again?" she asks, never one to meander in conversation if something could be said straight out.

"I love you," you blurt, desperate to get this across, the message that it isn't her or Michael that's the problem. It's you, with your lost loves and dashed hopes and inability to let this go, because you feel so much that it consumes you with every breath, and feelings like those are hard to push away.

"Dem-" she starts, but you cut her off, reaching out to grab her wrist, finding comfort in the touch.

"I love you, and Michael, and our baby - because she's ours now, yours and mine and Michael's and Colin's. I don't, I don't know how," you manage to force out before her arms close around you, her perfume almost overpowering your grief-heightened senses.

"I know, Demy. Michael," her voice fades slightly, as if testing out in her mind what she wants to say. It's a concept that brings you slightly out of your spiralling thoughts, because Romilda is almost never at a loss for words. "Michael doesn't get it sometimes, because he's managed to push his grief aside, and it's hard for him to get that you haven't."

"You're not weak, Dem," Michael's low voice sounds from the doorway as if he is reading your thoughts, and you catch a flicker of darkness in his eyes before he smiles, lighting up his face in contrast to the kind of cynical blankness that it usually conveys. "Just a little touched in the head," he teases, smile transforming into a smirk that sits more naturally on his face.

"Not helping," Romilda throws out, though there's a tiny smile on her face like she's half-annoyed and half-amused, the way the two of them usually are around each other. You still aren't sure how they survived a year and a half without you as a mediator - you've broken up their various arguments more times than you can count.

"It's okay," you say, holding your hand out to Michael, who crosses the room to take both your hand and Romilda's. His fingers curl around yours, and you feel marginally better, having two of the three people you love most in the world beside you, because it doesn't matter that you don't always understand where they're coming from, or vice versa. It doesn't matter that they fight, or you have days where you don't want to get out of bed and face the world, or that you're sometimes scared that caring for Bridget will become too much and they'll leave you.

You love them, and they you, and sometimes that's all that counts.

Please review!