A/N: This chapter is sort of an interlude, it gives us a better look at Thea's current psyche as well as setting the stage for a small time-skip. For those of you who don't know today is Memorial Day in America, so this chapter is also written as a small tribute to any and all who have suffered loss. Hope you guys enjoy!


"Calm and deep peace in this wide air,

These leaves that redden to the fall;

And in my heart, if calm at all,

If any calm, a calm despair."

~In Memorium XI~

Lord Tennyson


~(+)~


You never know what you have until you've lost it. This is a truth that we all know, whether we understand it or not. I came face to face with this truth at a young age, when I lost my father.

Anyone who has ever lost anyone close to them understands the pain I went through anyone else cannot possibly imagine, and I can't possibly do it justice in explaining it.

But I can try.

First of all, the death is never what hurts. There's too much shock, too much disconnect for the pain to truly set in. You're suddenly left with this image of what life was and this vague knowledge that it won't be like that anymore. And honestly, you can't understand what's to come. No-one can. After all who can envision a life they've yet to live?

No, the death shocks you, jolts you from your complacency, and strikes fear into your innermost being with the knowledgeable that nothing will ever be the same again.

But what hurts you, is your life after the death.

What makes you cry at nights, is how everything is suddenly tainted.

It's no longer 'lets go to the park' but 'they used to take me to the park.' No longer 'Ive accomplished this' but rather 'I wish they were here to see...'

There's no more certainty.

They're not there to say they love you, that they're proud of you, that they can't believe who you've grown up to be, because they aren't there to see who you've become.

And that is why people say that the pain never truly goes away even if days, months, years, pass before it hits you again.

Because it wasn't the death that got to you, it was having to live life one person too short. And every so often, when you least expect it, you'd find yourself in a new situation...maybe you were going off to college, maybe you were starting up a business, or getting married.

Either way, you found yourself in an unknown situation and you can't help but let that little thought-that you've learned to suppress but is always in the back of your mind-slip through; what would they think/say/do?

And then the pain hits you, all over again, when you're forced to realize that you will never know.

And all of this is assuming no regret on your part. That you cherished this person before their death and that they died knowing you loved them. So when someone says "you don't know what you have until you've lost it" you'd do well to not brush them off.

But the strangest thing about being human is that we know all of that and yet we do it anyway.

How many nights had I lain awake crying about my father? Swearing to myself I would never take a person for granted again? How long had that lasted before I allowed myself to yell at my siblings? To disobey my mother? How long before I shamelessly tore down the relationships I had worked so hard to guard immediately after that loss?

Sure, I had allowed it to change me; I became more of a daredevil, I told friends and family alike that I loved them without any prompting, I started apologizing when I knew I was in the wrong.

But I never stopped taking them for granted. I never thought about what life would be like without them, I never realized what I had.

And now, they're all gone.

Perhaps that was why I was so quick to attach myself to Regulus and Sirius. I had just lost everything and everyone I ever knew and I was in shock trying to grasp the concept that-as far as my life was concerned-they were all dead. My mother. My sisters. My brother. My friends. Heck, even my cats.

Everyone I knew was dead. And that thought, knowing what death meant, and equating that to the very people who had been my pillars in my past life. That thought was enough to break me.

So when two innocent little boys introduced themselves as my 'big brothers' I grabbed on to them with a death-like grip. Here were two people I could love and be loved by, two people that could ground me, here were two people that could be my pillars in this new world.

And the fact that they saw themselves as my "older brothers" only helped, I had been the eldest amongst my siblings I'd never had an older brother let alone two, so I never felt as if Reg or Siri were replacing anyone in my heart.

Not like mother or father.

Friends I could deal with, you could always make new friends, but family was irreplaceable family wasmeanttobe forever.

It was just a fact as far as I was concerned and such an attitude had led to me-unconsciously-distancing myself from mother and father. Even the way I addressed them spoke of this chasm, they were never my "mommy and daddy" not how my brothers' were "Siri and Reg."

I never thought about what this dependency would mean for me in the long run. I held felt some strain when Sirius had gone off to Hogwarts but Reg had seemed to double the amount of time we spent together, helping to push the pain to the back of my mind.

But with Reg gone there was suddenly no-one to distract me from my, admittedly, morbid thoughts.

Thus, I came to realize how completely dependent I was on my brothers.

Not only did they ground me, anchor me to this world, to this family. But they spoke to me, cared for me, included me. With Reg now at Hogwarts mother had begun to focus her attentions on "grooming me" into the perfect pure-blood bride.

The time spent together should have allowed me to grow closer to the women, but if anything it only helped to cement her role in my mind as 'care-giver' or 'tutor' but never 'mom.'

About the only good thing that had come from the time spent with the women was the fact that by the time Reg came home for winter break-Sirius decided to stay at Hogwarts again-I was speaking in complete, if simple, sentences.

Unfortunately, Reg was gone all too soon and I was back to my depressing life of lessons and solitude. This static state of mother, father, and I co-existing but not living together became the defining characteristic of the next few years of my life. I had fallen into complacency once again, taken my life and the lives of those around me for granted once more, but I had learned my lesson this time around. And the second I started noticing the signs that things were changing I snapped into action. I had lost too much to just sit back now.

So when father read about a 'new political voice' in the Daily Prophet one day, a wizard going by the name of 'Voldemort' I knew it was time to get my-then 3 year old-butt in gear. I knew pain, I knew suffering, and I knew loss, and I was going to be damned if I didn't learn from those mistakes.

No. I refused to lose anyone ever again.

If not for me, if not for what I've been through, then for them for the friends and family who had lost me, who were mourning for my death. Who wanted nothing more than for me to be happy wherever I was.

I would save Reg and I would save Siri and I would be doing it in their memory.


Hope you guys liked the chapter, it was sort of a filler, but I felt it important in defining Thea's thought process a bit. That and I needed us to jump a bit forward in time but didn't feel like going with the whole 'two years later' thing.

Anywho, thanks to all who read and reviewed!

telmios: Thank you :) and here you go.

Raven's Gaze: Aww, I should have written that! I'll have to find a way for Thea to get back at James in the future, maybe an anonymous gift of a dog-collar or something...I can see it now, James would be absolutely convinced that the gift was meant for Sirius until he points out that the collar has his initials "JP" charmed on XD. Thank you!

Ookamihime Ichimaru: Thank you, and yes that was the beginning of the end I fear (unless Thea has her way that is). Ha ha, as you can see Thea's a little more than 'lonely' but she kind of brought that on herself.

SNicole25: Haha, James has definitely managed to get himself off the invite list. As for Sirius, he's bound to pick up on the bond between Reg and Thea...eventually...you know, when he manages to get his heads out of the clouds and actually take a look at what's going on around him ;)

VivyPotter: Aww, thanks! Well if she manages to change the future enough that James' survives for her sorting then I'll be sure to include a scene about his reaction.