A/N: I've been throwing the idea for this story around for a while and I figured now was the best time to really do it. I'm planning on the story consisting of twenty final chapters, one for each day left until the release of Deathly Hallows, though I'm not promising anything. This chapter is one of my favorite ideas. It's a little abstract and a little vague, but I happen to like it a lot. Reviews and suggestions for future chapters are strongly encouraged. Happy reading, and I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. However, if someone could get me some Polyjuice Potion and one of J.K.Rowling's hairs...then it'd be a different story.

She hadn't been here in a very long time. Or maybe, it just felt like a very long time. She had entered this house just three weeks ago. Just three weeks. Could that really be all? It felt like three lifetimes. So much had changed. Everything had changed.

The last time she had entered, she had entered alone. She did not want to think about what she had found, or more accurately, what she hadn't found that last time. She had wanted to make sure that he really wasn't there, because it had all just seemed like a bad dream. But she had cried when she hadn't found him. For hours it seemed. But maybe it might have just felt like hours. Everything seemed to last longer now.

Today she entered again. Not alone this time. Today, she was accompanied by a brother, and a friend. But today, he wasn't there to be her brother, and she wasn't there to be her friend. They were all there for themselves, not for each other.

ooo

He was the last to enter the house. He stepped over the threshold after the two girls, one with very thick, bushy brown hair that seemed to have deflated slightly from the way he remembered it, and one with long red hair, the same color as his own, though hers seemed to have lost the glow it once radiated. It felt like such a short time ago that her hair was that vivid color; such a short time ago that her smile had lit up her face.

There were no more smiles. Not even that strained kind of smile that occurs when you really have nothing better to do but to laugh, but you don't feel it. You just do it to occupy yourself, to forget yourself for a moment.

Admittedly, he no longer smiled either. Not that there was nothing to laugh about. He had always believed that if you looked hard enough, there was always something to laugh about. It was just…he no longer had someone to laugh with.

ooo

She was enveloped in darkness as she entered. The bright sunlight outside seemed unable to penetrate the dense shadows of the house. Today she had brought her friends with her. They hadn't been here. They needed to be here. They needed to be at peace with all that had happened.

She was at peace with it. Today she hadn't felt the knot in her stomach rise to her throat as it usually did. She took a moment to remember why that usually happened. For that brief moment she had forgotten. She felt ashamed. Maybe she wasn't at peace with it after all. Maybe she was just becoming estranged from her feelings. She wasn't sure how much she liked that.

Everyday she had come to this house. She would try to busy herself with something or other. Their things were everywhere. His things. Everyday she forced her way through the darkness, the darkness that reeked of death. Or at least, it reeked of what she thought the stench of death would smell like. And with an almighty pang of her heart against her chest she realized what it smelled like. It smelled like him. Again, she felt ashamed.

ooo

The three of them stood, together, but still very much alone, in the house where so many memories had occurred. Alone in the darkness, each was experiencing a rush of memories, all of which included someone who was no longer there.

"We should have been four," someone whispered. It didn't really matter who had said it. They were all thinking the same thing.

ooo

She led the way, the girl with the hair that had lost its glow, up the steep and rickety steps. She heard him, her brother, following. His footsteps were heavier than hers. Two sets of feet climbing up the creaking stairs. She heard him stop and continue down the hallway of the first floor. She didn't even pause to watch him. She kept going, the steps becoming steadily less worn and steadily dustier. Up and up she went, it seemed to take forever, to the very top floor, where the stairs ceased and led to a dark hallway. At the very end of the hallway there was a door. She couldn't see it at the moment, but she knew it was there. She proceeded down the hallway, her tears beginning to flow.

ooo

The second girl, the one who had not followed the first up the steps, turned away before she could watch the brother and sister make their way up. She didn't want to watch them. She didn't want to follow them. She didn't quite know what she wanted.

She had been here day after day, either roaming the rooms, opening and closing doors, or sitting in one place for hours, never moving, just thinking. There was one room she hadn't entered.

She opened the door next to the one that led down to the kitchen. The library. Some people might think she was being silly, going into a library at a time like this. But she didn't want to read anything. She knew what she wanted. She wanted to remember him. She wanted to walk in and see him sitting there, fast asleep, his glasses lopsided, on top of the same book they had been looking through the night before. But, she knew she really wouldn't. It was just a wish she knew would never be granted.

The table in the center of the room was still strewn with the same books they had been through so many times, looking for something, anything that might give them some sort of clue. They had looked in vain for such a long time. There were three chairs around the table. Three. They weren't three any longer.

She shifted the books, looking at the titles she was so familiar with. She soon found what she had subconsciously been looking for. The book with no title or author. This was the book that had fueled the quest, the quest that had taken him from them.

He had found it, she reminisced, as she stroked the battered leather of the cover. It had been very late at night, or very early in the morning, she never could tell which. They had been searching for an explanation of how to destroy the darkest of magic. They had been searching for weeks. And he had found it in this very book. Page 93. She remembered it so clearly.

She opened the book. It opened to the page in question, almost knowingly. But there was something there that wasn't supposed to be there.

It was a letter. It was for her. It was from him.

ooo

He had followed his sister up the stairs. He stopped on the first floor landing, she continued. He watched his little sister climb the creaking steps. She didn't seem to be his little sister anymore. He wanted to protect her from this. But he couldn't do that. He couldn't even protect himself from this. So he turned his back on her and walked away. She had to do this by herself. He had to do this by himself.

He opened the first door on the right. It was a plain room, white walls discolored with age, and a stretch of blank canvas on the wall to the left. Three beds had been squeezed in. It had originally been two, but when they began to use the house as headquarters for their hunt, all had felt more comfortable sleeping in one room. Not that there had been a lot of sleeping. When he looked back on the months they spent in this house, he remembered that they could hardly ever sleep. It was more the need for security, the need to make sure that everyone was still alright.

Well, that need was now nonexistent. Everyone was not alright. Everything would never be alright again.

He stepped in and closed the door. As soon as the last sliver of light from the hallway disappeared behind the door, he felt the overwhelming need to check on his sister and his friend. He dismissed it. It was just the feeling that this room gave him. He used to feel that all the time, the need to check that his friends hadn't left him.

And now that one had left him, he didn't think he would ever be able to shake off the feeling again. He would do anything to prevent that from happening again. He didn't think he could deal with that happening again.

He moved over to the beds and sat on the one in the center, facing his own. This had been his best friend's bed. It wasn't anymore. His best friend wasn't here to use it anymore.

The bed wasn't even made. The sheets were still wrinkled from the last time he, his best friend, had slept in it. He put his head down onto the pillows that were still slightly dented.

It felt as if it couldn't be real. Everything had happened so fast. Everything had collapsed around him so quickly.

He buried his face in the pillows. They still faintly smelled of him. He wanted to vomit. His best friend, he wasn't even eighteen, he was gone. It was sickening.

He shoved his clenched fists under the pillows. They rested on top of something flat and scratchy. He pulled it out.

It was a letter. It was for him. It was from his best friend.

ooo

She opened the door to the bedroom at the very end of the hallway at the very top of the house. She had only been in this room once before, the day when everything was going wrong and then righted itself before her eyes. She slid down to the floor with her head on her knees, the tears flowing freely, and she allowed herself to relive the memory…

That day had not been very long ago, though it felt like it had. It had only been a few days before the last time she entered this house and hadn't found him. That day was the last time she saw him.

It had been just after term ended. She had been at home, in the kitchen, when the three of them, the inseparable trio, had knocked frantically on the door. She didn't even bother with the questions, she had just wrenched open the door to see them all standing there. She had hugged them all so tightly. She hadn't seen them in such a long time.

She remembered being so worried about them that day. When they walked in, she remembered beaming, smiling so hard that her cheeks hurt. She remembered doing it, but she couldn't remember how to smile like that anymore. She hadn't smiled like that in such a long, long time. But then again, maybe it just felt like a long time.

He had kissed her. She had kissed him back. He had loved her. She loved him.

He had wanted to be alone with her. She obliged. They used the Floo Network to get to this house, the one she was in now. He had grabbed her hand and led her up the stairs, the same stairs that she had so determinedly climbed today, alone. Today it had felt like they went on forever. When she had been with him she hadn't even noticed.

Together, they had entered this very room. But today when she entered it, she didn't even feel like the same person that had entered it on that day so long ago. She corrected herself: it only felt like a long time ago.

She kissed him again. They kissed for a long time. She had wanted nothing more than to be with him. They had melted into each other, becoming one. That feeling had not yet left her. They were part of each other. He was gone, and with him went a part of her.

They were together for a long time that day. He had needed her. They talked for a long time after that. He had told her that they had destroyed all the horcruxes, and that he had wanted to see her and to be with her. He told her that he didn't want to die without being with her. She should have been scared then, but she wasn't. She was so happy that day. He had told her that he loved her. He had told her that if he died he didn't want her to cry…

But she didn't know how not to cry. And the tears came down faster when she remembered that this wasn't what he'd wanted.

The clothes he had worn that day so long ago were still lying crumpled on the floor next to her. She reached out and grabbed the leg of his pair of jeans. She played with the frayed bottoms until one of her tears fell onto them. He hadn't wanted her to cry. She took the jeans and smoothed them out in front of her. She missed him. She missed him so very much.

One of the back pockets, the one he used to keep his wand in, was bulging. She reached in and pulled out a folded piece of parchment.

It was a letter. It was for her. It was from him.

ooo

In the library, the girl with the bushy brown hair neatly folded up her letter with trembling fingers. She slipped it into her pocket and exited the room. She was done with this house, she was finished opening and closing doors. She was at peace. She was ready to leave.

She made her way up the staircase, past the elf heads, and down the first floor hallway. She knocked on the first door to the right.

"I'm ready to leave."

ooo

As soon as he heard her knock he folded his own letter and put it in his back pocket with his wand. He opened the door to see his friend. He hugged her tightly. She hugged him back. He wasn't ever letting her get away.

"I'm ready too," he told her. He took hold of her hand and led her up the stairs to the top floor.

He knocked on the door at the end of the hallway.

"We're ready to leave. We'll wait for you right here"

ooo

She heard the knock. She put away her letter. She didn't want them to see it. She slipped it into her own back pocket, and left his pair of jeans on the floor. She opened the door to see her brother and her friend.

"I'm ready."

She took her brother's hand that had been extended to her.

She smiled as she led the way down the stairs.

ooo

The three that should have been four made their way down the steps into the entrance hall. They each knew that they wouldn't be coming back here for a long time. In the letter each secretly held in their pocket, they had all they needed to forever remember someone that was loved by them all, the boy with jet-black hair, emerald eyes and a lightning bolt scar.