Disclaimer: Rowling owns all characters that I use except for Lucy, Anni, Jill, Gabriel, Minister Solomon Grey and various others. No money is being made in the writing of this story. Tom Harris owns The Silence of the Lambs, which I drew from in inspiration of one of the scenes and the title of the chapter. There is a scene, which I took from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. That also belongs to Rowling.
Author's Note: Thanks to those who reviewed this week and those who haven't. Lady Brannon: thanks for your comments. They're always helpful. Oliverwoodsgirl: Isn't NYC the greatest? I'm glad you enjoyed your trip and even more so to have you back. To answer your question about Lucius: it was the guard who was in the morgue and Lucius had taken the guard's post at Lucy's cell.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Way the Window Faces
"Someday we'll all be gone
But lullabies go on and on
They never die
That's how you and I will be…"
Billy Joel's 'Lullaby'
Ginny looked to Harry with frantic eyes. Kneeling in front of Ron she said, "I'll take care of him. Don't let Draco go alone."
Harry nodded and moved from the room into the hall. Already a nurse was coming to see what all of the noise was about. Draco was nowhere to be found.
He called for the doctor who came running and soon overtook the nurse. Stepping back into the room he shook his head as Ginny stared up at him. "He's gone. Do you know where he might have gone?"
Ginny thought for a moment then shook her head sadly. Looking down at her brother, one small tear fell from her cheek to his.
The doctor called for a gurney as he and the nurse crowed her brother and pushed her aside. She felt Harry's shaking hands help her to her feet and pull her to the periphery of the scene. They had both seen the mark on Ron's shoulder. It was a glancing wound, but the scar would be unmistakable…if it ever healed…if it ever came to that.
Ron was moved to another room and Harry walked with Ginny to the waiting area for her family to come.
"I thought this was all over, Harry," Ginny said, looking at the ground with her head in her hands, elbows on her knees, rocking methodically in her chair.
Harry rubbed her back to calm her. He took a deep breath and said, "He's going to be fine, Ginny." He wasn't sure if he believed this himself. But it was better than giving up right away. He would never give Ron up, his Weezey as Dobby had called him. He tried to imagine life without his best friend. The thought scared him and he hoped more fervently that Ron would wake up.
***
Lucy had known who he was the moment he entered the room. Those eyes had haunted her in dream and nightmare her whole life.
Ron seemed to sense it too.
She had tried to get him to leave her. He wouldn't.
Frantically, she begged her father to let him go. It was only her, after all, that he wanted.
His smile widened and he shook his head. "I've wanted to kill at least one Weasley spawn, and so far I have failed. Do you think, Lucilla, that I would give him up now just because you asked me to?"
"Then let her go instead and take me," Ron said, holding his ground resolutely. Lucy's trembling hand at his elbow tightened.
"Ron, don't" she'd said.
She remembered no more.
Coming awake on the floor of a large stone room, Lucy blinked. She did know this place. There were many hours spent here trying hard to become the child that he wanted her to be.
She taught herself how to fence here, how to fight. This room was in her house.
She looked up and rubbed at her neck. She must have been hit with something hard across the back of the head.
Her father emerged ghost-like from the shadows of a corner. He smiled wickedly and said, "Welcome home, Lucilla."
"Lucilla," she said ponderously. "Why would you name me after you if you despise me so much?"
Lucius moved toward her. "Because you are mine. Would you have preferred that I brand you instead?"
Lucy was silent, glaring.
"I haven't always disliked you, child," her father continued. "There was actually a glimmer of an instant when I was actually proud of you. But you, being who and what you are, shot that to hell and now I have to end what I have started."
"I would have been what you wanted me to be, father," Lucy said. It was a painful realization, one that brought tears to her eyes. What she would have done for love and acceptance, like that her father lavished on Draco. She would have sold her soul.
"Would you have?" Lucius asked, intrigued. "You would have always been your mother's child: simple, elegant, kind, and always interfering with things that don't need your interfering."
"Is that why you killed her?" Lucy asked, looking up at the dominating presence of her father as he towered over her.
He bent and swiftly exacted a blow across her face, causing her lip to bleed. "Do not speak of things that you do not understand, child."
"That's it, isn't it?" she persisted. "I know that you never loved my mother. She was an object to you, one that you could corrupt and control, and though you could control her, you could never make her sympathetic to your will, your plans, your beliefs. You ruined her life, made her miserable, kept her as a prisoner." Lucy smiled, almost chuckled. It was daring, no one laughed at Lucius Malfoy. "But she got the best of you in the end, didn't she, father?"
"You say too much. I should have killed you right from the off and ended your impertinence before it began," he said, leveling a sword at her throat and glaring with rage.
"So, that's why you can't kill me," Lucy surmised, her bloody lips stretching into a grin. "Are you afraid that the memory of me will haunt you as relentlessly as mother's has?" She threw her head back with a cruel peel of laughter.
Lucius advanced on her, bringing the sword into her throat. Blood trickled down her neck and into her pristine collar. She merely smiled. She didn't even seem to register pain.
She could tell she was frightening him. It gave her more courage. "Hit me, kick me, beat me," she said, making a sweeping gesture toward her immobile legs, "paralyze me, but you are too cowardly to go through with it. All this time I thought that you had sent Elena to kill me because my blood wasn't good enough to soil your hands." She laughed again as her father reddened with anger. "But it's because you can't do it, can you?" She leaned forward, pressing her neck against the sword. She was pleased to feel the tension of the blade backing off as she advanced on it. Her father was giving way.
He kneeled beside her, removing the sword from the lacerated skin of his daughter's neck. He dropped it to the floor beside him.
"We had an argument that night. She wanted to leave me and I wouldn't let her. I didn't push her. She slipped. I reached out for her, but she fell. I was too late to stop it. I would never have killed her. I loved her," Lucius said in a strangled voice.
Lucy placed a gentle hand over her father's that rested on the sword he was to use to kill her. "You loved controlling her. That's not love, father."
He leveled cold eyes on her. "It's more than you'll ever receive from me."
Lucy heaved a sigh and shook her head. "I've given up loving you a long time ago. But we're family and you don't have to love me." She reached up and unbuttoned the two top buttons of her blouse, pulling her bloodstained collar back, exposing her neck and collarbone. "What are you waiting for? Isn't this what you wanted? To be rid of me? Only Draco is beyond your reach now. You have no more sway over him. You've lost him. So go on…end it, father…all of it…right now…with me."
His hand trembled on the hilt of his weapon. He brought it to her neck and placed both hands around it, ready to thrust it through her chest.
She stared at him unblinkingly, blank in expression. He tried not to look into those eyes, so much like her mother's but so much more defiant. There was something in them that mocked him, made him angry, something that held that anger over him in a cruel taunt. All of her life he had convinced himself of her being too different from him to give a damn about. But the truth was that she was so much like him that he was threatened by her and despised her for it.
Now she knew it and she threw it back at him, much like he would have done if the tables had been turned.
***
Not knowing how he knew, he stood in the entrance hall of his home, knowing that they were here. He didn't move directly, hurry to look for her, find what room out of the many that he had taken her to.
He stood for a moment and stared forward into the open doors of the music room.
The drapes of the deepest green fell to the floor and framed a perfectly silver moon. His mother had sat on that very chair many times, patiently teaching Lucy to play her instrument well. He knew that Lucy had hated it, the natural ease and grace that he had. Everything had always come easily to him. He was aware that she resented it, but, like the saint that she always was, she never let her envy ever get the best of her.
He took a breath. He didn't want to ref another match of wits between his father and Lucy. These sorts of conflicts were anything but rare. When his mother was alive, she usually put herself in the middle of them. With her gone, he was the only one to keep his father from hurting Lucy. She was always the instigator, but neither of them ever wanted to relinquish the upper hand. In the end it would come down to one life or another. Two people so completely alike could not exist in the same world.
For a sudden and indeterminable second, Draco realized that he knew exactly where his father had taken Lucy: the fencing room. He would not kill her with magic. He was far too eager to see her blood spilled.
With the terror of this realization, he hurried down the hall and to a flight of stairs that would lead him to that solitary part of the cavernous house.
It was all too quiet now for his comfort. He slowed his pace, not wanting his footfalls to announce his presence, though he could not think how his father would not already assume his coming. Perhaps he waited for him.
The door was open and the room was dimly lit, one or two candles, no more.
He saw Lucy there, on the floor, little more than conscious and breathing. His father was nowhere.
She looked up in terror as she saw him down the hall and shook her head, a considerable task for someone who had been beaten badly. There was so much blood Draco was reminded of the time that he had found her there, dead. She cradled her arm as if something was broken and as she couldn't move her head much, he guessed that it must have been her collarbone. One large gash trickled vertically down her neck and she blinked lethargically as if holding on to consciousness took very great resolve. She whispered something so low that Draco could not hear it.
He was immediately by her side and then he knew what it was she had said. Their father was behind him.
Lucius' voice echoed in the cathedral-like room as he spoke the words of a spell that shot magical bonds onto Draco's wrists and ankles. His father secured those bonds to a weapons rack.
"So predictable of you to show up, Draco. This should make things quite a bit easier," he said with a cunning smile.
"Let her go. You can have me instead," Draco said immediately, panicked, never removing his eyes from his sister's, though she had closed hers.
Lucius shook his head slowly. "But I don't want one or the other. I want you both and that is what I have. This is not a bargain, son."
"What do you want with us?" Draco asked, struggling against his bonds, only feeling the least amount of slack as he did this. Not enough, however, to permit an escape.
"A valid question, I will grant you," Lucius said, pacing between the two, relishing in the frustration he caused Draco when his view of his sister was blocked. "I will finish what I should have done the moment she was born. Though I will not be charitable enough to grant her a quick death, she does not deserve one. Then," he said with a theatrical spin on his heel to pace in the opposite direction. "When she is dead and you have watched her die, I will kill you. Because once you had value to me, but now you are worth only the information against me that my enemies would be so eager to have from you."
"And I would give it to them," Draco said adamantly.
Lucius nodded his agreement and continued, "I know you would. So, regrettably, you must die also."
Unexpectedly, he turned on Lucy, who lay prone on the floor and yelled, "Crucio!" He seemed to enjoy watching her writhe in pain.
Draco struggled against his bonds until his wrists began to bleed, even then, he continued.
Lucius circled his prey with a crooked smirk on his lips. He watched Draco out of the corner of his eyes, deriving pleasure from the pain of both of his children.
"Father, please!" Draco begged.
Lucius heard none of this and continued at his gratifying task. Finally, to Draco's horror, Lucy had stopped moving, although his father's curse had not abated in its ferocity. She had stopped responding to the stimulus of pain. She just lay there.
Lucius turned to Draco and smiled.
"She was always such a weak creature." He advanced on his son slowly.
"Is that why it took this long to kill her?" Draco spat sarcastically back.
***
Hours later, Hermione was finally allowed to see him.
He was pale and lay hooked up to a monitor not unlike those found in Muggle hospitals.
The doctors were doing a lot of useless speculating at this point. It was their job to impart hope to those who were desperate for it, those who probably didn't deserve any. She knew that it was all that she had to cling to. She had to fight hard not to place the blame for this on anyone. It was no one's fault that things happen; she told herself this nearly every second since she had been here.
She reached out and held his hand, so icy cold in hers. She smiled. She had accidentally worn her engagement ring. She was so startled to hear that he had been hurt that she had forgotten that she had slipped it on for a moment. She would never take it off now.
His eyes fluttered open for a brief second and then closed again. She squeezed his hand in hers and leaned forward, pushing his hair away from his forehead, placing a kiss there. Lying gently next to him on the small bed, she rested her head against his chest hearing the faint but reassuring beat of his heart.
She held his hand to her mouth and kissed it lightly. "Don't you leave me, Ron Weasley," she said in a sob, "Don't you even think about it."
***
"Harry," Sirius said, handing Harry some tea and taking a seat beside him.
Harry looked up distractedly and smiled slightly in thanks and he took the cup with both hands and used it to warm them instead if drinking it.
"What are you thinking about?" Sirius asked.
Harry swallowed and looked into his tea. "I'm wondering if Lucy and Draco are going to be okay. Wondering if things would change if—," he stopped, not daring to finish his sentence. He choked on the words and left them there, unsaid.
"I want all of this to end as much as you do, Harry. We could all use a rest," Sirius said. "And it will end."
Harry shook his head. "He never deserved this. All he's ever been was faithful and good and… and braver than I ever was. He didn't do anything. It should be me in there."
"Why do you say that?" Sirius said, an element of shock in his voice. "You don't think you deserve that? Harry, you are good and brave and faithful too. If you were none of those things, do you think Ron would waste his time being your friend?"
"But this never had anything to do with him," Harry said adamantly. "He's never killed anyone, stolen anything…"
"Harry," Sirius said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Things happen to good people. That's life and you can't change that. Do you think your parents deserved to die? Do you think Lucy's mother did? Remus? No one can predict these things. Fate has her way of showing up at times when she is the most unwelcome."
Harry looked away from Sirius. "I'll always be alone. Forever. My friends will leave me, you will leave me and I won't be able to stop it."
"No one's going anywhere, Harry. Ron will get better," Sirius said in an effort to convince him.
"Will Lucy?" Harry asked, his calm voice showing the slightest hint of anxiety. "You can't sit there and tell me they'll all be fine, Sirius. Because they won't be, not around me anyway."
"I wish I could bring her back to you myself, Harry. I wish I could heal Ron. I wish I could do a lot of things. We're all just human, Harry. We can't work miracles. Trust Draco. Trust the people that are out there looking for her. They'll find her," Sirius said, wanting for this to be true in the worst way.
Harry shook his head in disagreement. He looked up and saw Ginny disappear down the hall, followed by Bill. A crashing sound, like that of a chair hitting the wall accompanied them. The nurses at the reception desk stopped and looked. Bill came back around the corner and sat again. It looked to Harry like Ginny wanted to be left alone to sulk as much as he did. But he hadn't the guts to throw chairs at the well-meaning.
Another movement caught his distracted attention. But this sight startled him to his feet.
Sirius stood immediately beside him and cursed as Draco came through the double doors with Lucy in his arms. Both were covered in blood and soaked by a torrential rain. Unable to stand any longer, Draco was driven to his knees with the weight of Lucy. He dropped her and she didn't move.
Sirius was at his side in a moment and was speaking to him urgently. Draco responded only in the command, "Help her."
Sirius called for a doctor and it was an agonizing minute later before one was on the scene to help Sirius get Lucy into a room.
Molly, who had been quietly worrying about her own child in a corner emerged with a blanket and gently folded it around Draco's shivering shoulders. She took comfort in caring for those who needed her. Forgotten, dripping and shaking, Draco looked up at her with a far off expression and said, "She's stopped breathing. I don't know if she's alive."
"Nonsense, dear. Of course she is alive." She rubbed his shoulders to get him warm and helped him to his feet. "Is this blood from her?" she asked like a nurse, pointing at the red that stained the entire front of his shirt. "Are you hurt?"
He looked down at his front and then into her motherly eyes and shook his head. "I don't know. There was a lot of blood. It might be his."
"Whose, dear?" Molly asked slowly, kindly.
"My father's," Draco answered faintly. "He's still there. He killed her and I…I think I killed him."
"Where, dear? Where is he now?" Molly asked, a look in her husband's direction, calling him over.
"At our house in Derbyshire," Draco answered, leaning heavily on Molly. .
Arthur nodded and went to call Moody.
"Come with me, dear. We'll get you warm and dry and get someone to look at those cuts," she said pointing to his wrists. "And then you can see your sister."
"How is Ron?" Draco asked as an afterthought.
"Fine, love. No need to worry about anyone else but yourself right now."
***
Sirius insisted on going with Moody and with Arthur.
He wanted answers and Lucius Malfoy would be the likely person to have them, though Sirius doubted how willing the man would be to cooperate.
Finding him was easy enough. The high ceiling, marble room, weapons of all kinds lining the walls and Lucius there, bound as he had bound his son. The frayed and bloody ropes that had held Draco still dangled from the broken weapons wrack. Sirius noted this and made notes mentally like a detective. The room was in disarray, a table had been smashed and glass strewn across the mosaic serpent on the floor, mingling with blood—there was a lot of blood.
Lucius glared the glare of a cornered animal, a threatening look from a creature who was no more threatening while he was bound than a kitten.
Moody went through the rights, reciting them in a bored monotone of a man who dealt with the vilest of beasts day in and out. Lucius Malfoy was nothing new or special. There were plenty of power-hungry and base men willing to take his place. There would never be an end to those like him as long as there were people to manipulate and control and cheat and hurt and kill. He was a constant, like the sun, or the promise that tomorrow would always come.
But tonight, justice would finally have a victory. There may still be villains around, but one would be disabled now, out of commission, unable to prey on the innocent.
Lucius knew this. Blinking as blood from a ghastly contusion streamed into his eye, he knew he had been defeated finally, and not by these clowns, but by his own son.
Sirius watched as Lucius Malfoy was cuffed and brought to the Detainment Center for questioning. Moody was playing the bad cop; a routine he forgot was supposed to include a good cop as well. Somehow, he always got his answers.
Arthur was beside Sirius, staring at the scene on the other side of a two-sided mirror.
"Is she dead?" Lucius asked Moody, dabbing at his forehead with a towel. There was a large cut there, made with what? Draco would be the only one with the answer to that question.
"Your daughter?" Moody spat back at him.
Lucius nodded, unconcerned.
"I believe that you have forfeited the right to that answer, wouldn't you agree, Mr. Malfoy?" Moody grumbled.
Lucius shrugged.
Sirius' stomach turned. Lucy was alive, but he somehow doubted that that was the answer Lucius Malfoy was hoping for.
"Your accomplices, the Minister, Mr. and Ms. Lestrange, have been remanded to our custody. Mr. Lestrange has cut a deal for information on you. Minister Grey is likely to do the same," Moody continued.
Lucius sat quietly with a superior look on his face, one eyebrow raised.
"Ms. Lestrange will be brought to trial for the murder of Cora Stevens, a four year old Muggle and the kidnapping of four year old Gabriel Parry. You, I am not unpleased to inform you, Mr. Malfoy, will stand charged with one thousand and twenty four counts of murder in the first degree, the attempted murder of Lucilla Malfoy, conspiracy against the wizarding government of Great Britain, fraud, illegal charms on a Time-Turner," Moody flipped through the rest of the sheets he held in his gnarled hands and looked up with a smile. "Pretty much enough shit to land you in prison for the rest of your natural life. May it be long," he added with a wide smile.
"Its too bad for you, Mr. Moody, that the Dementors are a thing of the past. I'm sure you would have loved to witness a feasting of my soul."
Moody threw the papers on the table and leaned closer, inches from Lucius. "There's not a soul to be found in you, you sick son of a bitch. And don't you think you can mess with me, laddie. I'm sure that I would have no trouble scaring up a Dementor especially for you."
Lucius smiled and snapped at Moody, laughing when the wizened Auror backed away reflexively.
"I can't watch anymore. I'm going back to the hospital," Sirius said.
Arthur placed a hand on his shoulder. "Moody will get something out of him. He always does," he assured him.
An armed guard came through the door looking nervous. "Mr. Weasley?"
"That's me," Arthur said with a furrowed brow.
"You're wanted at the hospital. You too, Mr. Black."
Sirius looked at Arthur and Arthur looked at Sirius.
"Jesus," Sirius said in a whisper, crossing himself. Both raced from the interrogation hole.
***
Draco left Lucy when he was assured that she was asleep. In fact, the nurse nearly resorted to dragging him out, rather than him leaving of his own accord.
He glanced back again and saw through the window that she remained peacefully at rest, broken bones set, wounds healed. She was amazingly resilient. Draco admired her more than he would ever admit to anyone.
He wandered the halls slowly, hurting from the fierce struggle that he'd had with his father. Maybe he had bruised a rib, he didn't know. He hadn't sat still long enough to let the doctor check him out fully.
His father was in the custody of the Aurors. He was legally without parents now. But that didn't much matter. He'd been eighteen for a month and a half now. This realization reminded him of a promise that he'd made to himself the first time his father had laid a hand on his sister. He would speak to Sirius tomorrow about filing for custody of her.
He stopped in front of a dark room with an altar at the front. It was the hospital chapel. He entered slowly, every step was painful, but he couldn't be still for some unnamed reason.
He made no effort to light the room, but sat in the dark. God didn't need luminescent candlelight to hear a prayer. Draco sat in the pew at the back of the small room. The cheap crucifix was further up but Draco wouldn't look at it. It was impersonal. It wasn't the Christ he knew, the one who had looked after him, kept him safe when he was so far from home and the ones that he loved. His thoughts were in that chapel in the woods and he felt that he was there, as he had been everyday when it served as his only comfort in that medieval wasteland.
"Father," he said, crossing himself and bowing his head as he sat. "Thank you for watching over my sister. She still has a long road ahead of her, her trial, the trial of her father. But all the same, I am thankful that You gave her the strength to endure. I take my strength from her and so I thank You for that as well."
He hesitated and then continued. "Please look after Ron now as You have looked after me and my sister many times before. He has never been anything but good and honest. He is loved by so many. Don't take him away from the people that love him, Lord. I have never given him the chance to be anything but an enemy to me. In the past, I had thought that he was nothing. But he is everything to his sister, whom I love, and so many things to many other people. He stood between my father and my sister and didn't give her up for anything. For that alone I owe him my life. But I owe him much more." He swallowed hard and clasped his hands tighter.
"An apology for one thing. I never took him for anything more than I saw at face value. But what I learned from him was that people are many things, but never what they seem to be at first glance. I would have never guessed when I first laid eyes on him that he would one day give himself up for my family. But he has.
"I don't pretend to know that his injuries aren't serious. I know that they are. He was hit with a curse that should have ended his life. To have allowed him to be with his family for even a short time longer, Lord, is a blessing that I thank You humbly for. But, Lord, if he is not strong enough to make it through, then I ask You to make the rest of us strong enough to bear the loss." He paused again and wiped a hand across his cheek. "It will be hard for me if he cannot make it. I cannot imagine the pain it would cause the fortunate people who really knew him, his family, his fiancé, his best friend. I ask for Your intervention, Lord. Be with his family and his friends and keep a place for him in Your kingdom if You should decide that he is not for this world."
He wiped his cheek again and adjusted the bandage on his wrist. He stood and said, "Amen."
***
"Are you really Harry Potter?" Ron blurted out.
Harry nodded.
"Oh—well, I thought it might be one of Fred and George's jokes," said Ron. "And have you really got—you know…"
He pointed at Harry's forehead.
Harry pulled back his bangs to show the lightening scar. Ron stared.
"So that's where You-Know-Who—?"
"Yes," Harry said, "but I can't remember it."
"Nothing?" said Ron eagerly.
"Well, I remember a lot of green light, but nothing else."
Harry walked quietly beside Anni in the wet grass behind the entrance to the casualty ward. He reflected on the first time he had ever spoken to Ron. Did he know then that he would become best friends with him, that he would be willing to lie, cheat, steal and even die for him and the other way around as well?
His head lowered and he watched his feet solemnly. Green light. It was the color of his most vivid and most vague nightmares. There was green when his parents died, green in the Chamber of Secrets, green the night that Cedric was murdered. Would the color now shroud the last memories of his best friend too?
"Stop it!" Anni said, elbowing her cousin lightly in the arm as they walked in the damp, late evening. Their breath clouded in front of them and Harry saw that Anni's nose was red with the cold.
"Sorry," Harry offered half-heartedly.
"I know," she said with a sympathetic smile. She wrapped an arm around his shoulder as they walked side-by-side, turning to go back inside. Neither of them was dressed all that warmly.
"I just can't help thinking that things have changed and I don't know how they could ever be the same again." Harry shoved his hands forlornly into his pockets. "Sorry you had to cut your trip short for me. How was the Bahamas?"
"Warm," Anni admitted grudgingly. "Of course I would come back if you needed me, Harry. I can't go to the—," Anni didn't get to finish as George appeared on the third floor balcony and called out to the both of them. They couldn't see his face in the dark of the early morning, but his tone was unmistakable.
Harry's heart fell.
***
Shortly before two in the morning Hermione, dozing next to Ron with her head on his chest, came awake.
There was a slight patter and then she heard his heart beat as normally as it had for the past twenty-eight hours. She couldn't have been sure, but she had thought she heard it stop once.
Terrified, she held her breath to get quiet enough to hear for certain.
She lifted her head when she heard nothing but a strange void. He took a deep, calm breath and then let it out. She waited for him to take another. She waited and waited.
The monitor made a soft monotone noise.
She sat up and took his hand.
"Ron?" she asked, squeezing it gently.
His eyes were closed and shaded a deep shadow color behind his lids.
"Ron?" she asked, her voice shaking now as she leaned inches from his face.
A tear rolled down her cheek as she raised his hand to her lips and she kissed it. Leaning over him, she placed her trembling hands on either side of his face and rested her forehead on his. "Ron, I love you. Ron?"
She reached for his hand again and held it tight.
Kissing his lips she felt their cold touch against hers. Already the warmth of life was ebbing from him. She shook her head in disbelief. She was paralyzed with fear. But she wasn't alone, not yet, not as long as she held his hand. She clung to him, protectively, holding his hand to her heart.
She wanted to get someone, call for help. But she was a realist and she knew that he was gone. The love of her life had died. But she had been fortunate enough to be with him to the last. That was all anyone could ask for, really.
She sat in the same place, never taking her eyes off of him. He looked just like he always looked in sleep, serene, peaceful. He looked so much like a child as he slept.
Her eyes ran over his hair, his face. She had come to love that face so much. He had a goofy crooked smile that had endeared him to her forever.
It hurt so much to remember these things and hurt so much more to push them away that she was trapped in an excruciating limbo where she thought she would die right alongside of him.
She moved to lie next to him again, placing her head right next to his. She pecked his cheek and blinked back tears that fell freely to the pillow that they shared.
It was around five in the morning when light broke into the room.
Involuntary tears seemed to roll from her cheek and splash the floor where she stood by the window. They had taken him away about an hour ago.
She tried leaving the room but could not bear to. A part of him felt like it was still here. A part of her was still here too. They were here together as long as she didn't go. She couldn't. Not just yet, anyway.
Her hands, now empty and tingling from the cold touch of Ron's that she had held for hours and hours hung motionless at her sides. She stood at the window looking into the glaring and harsh morning sun. It was empty and lifeless in her eyes. She would never see another dawn that held any life for her. But she wasn't looking for the dawn at all; that was just the way that the window faced.
