Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
I feel like I'm dying.
Is this what death feels like?
Like you are being torn into pieces, eaten alive by something?
Or someone.
I never cry.
I'm well known for it. I do not cry.
At least not in front of other people.
Maybe once or twice.
That's not the point.
Lupin…Nobody else…
Not the point.
All my silent, private confessions of fear and pain and self-doubt are hidden from the world.
Except...
This time, it is being displayed to the world whether I would wish it or not.
Silence is broken.
Privacy gone.
Faces. Empty staring faces.
All of them are crying too. They cry because I cry. They cry because they lost her.
I cry because I loved her.
Oh god I loved her, and she never knew until it was too late.
She was gone forever before I said goodbye.
It's too late now that she's dead and gone.
I've lost another.
Why do I lose all I love? Am I condemned to bury everyone until only I am left here?
Will I be the last?
She looks like she's sleeping.
Cliché. Of course, just like her death.
Just like the way I loved her.
The way I didn't tell her until her last breath.
She was cold. I remember her cold skin. Like death already though it hadn't taken her yet.
I held her hand, felt her cold skin and tried to warm it a little as she blinked slowly, breathed in and out, savouring the air.
And as her hand slowly became colder, I finally said it.
I nearly didn't.
Imagine if I hadn't. No, don't. I would be even more full of regret than I am now.
She looked at me, not daring to believe.
'What?'
I told her again.
And somehow, even though she was so close to being gone, she still managed to cry.
'Bit late Harry,' she said faintly, trying to laugh. 'But then, you've always had, awful timing.'
'I know,'
A pale smile flickered and died on her lips as I bent to kiss them.
But as I did, she stopped breathing.
I froze, no more than an inch from her and then a single tear fell down my face and onto her cheek.
I never cry.
But I cried that day.
I cried that day.
That day my Hermione died.
