LAST DISCLAIMER FOR THIS STORY: I don't own Harry Potter and this is it folks.
IMPORTANT NOTE: There will be a companion piece coming along sometime for this story. It's a response to a challenge and it just happened to fit along wonderfully with this story so I'll just attach it when I put the finishing touches on it.
Dark Heart
Beta: the ever wonderful MoonyNZ who is the best evil twinsie-winsie I could ever ask for!
Chapter 7
Now that you all know the incredible details of my existence, maybe you would kindly like to flap up your jaws before you start catching flies with your mouth.
As I sit here, I wonder why I even bothered wasting my time explaining this particular instance to you. So trivial was the event that I now realize that it doesn't matter.
What does matter is the place I am currently at in my life.
I do not expect any of you to be able to comprehend with your impeccably small minds the circumstances that ultimately led me to the place I am at today. No, for it is with great reluctance that I admit- though I will deny it if you dare to utter a word- that not even I fully understand.
That day remains in my mind and I still receive a lot of troublesome banter for it. Not only did I allow a former student and a know-it-all stand up to me, but I allowed myself to immerse myself so intently into the argument that I admitted something which I hadn't meant to.
Do I regret it? What sort of question is that, you dim-witted poppy cocker?
New Zealand….
I never made it there despite my insistence at the beginning of that year to go. I never really thought back to that momentary thought until now.
Maybe I will go now…
Yes, that would be good. I need a break now more than ever from the insistent badgering I receive every time I turn around in this place.
Firewhisky…
Ah, the cure of all ailments…even those of the mind.
I find that the potent liquid helps whenever one finds themselves lost in the memories of yesterday. With the alcohol, I can somewhat forget…
No, it wasn't all bad. Actually, what led from the events of that day was, well, remarkable. It has only been in the past few months that I find myself wishing beyond belief to forget.
I assume that you'll want to know all about everyone else as well. Shouldn't surprise me, after all, everyone has been drooling after Saint Potter for years.
Yes, he married that Weasley brat. He married her in the fall of the next year. They ended up producing their own Quidditch team within a manner of six years. Bloody brats they turned out to be.
As for the other Weasley, he ended up leaving Hogwarts to start his own food industry. He married that crazy blonde haired Ravenclaw girl from a while back…the one who wore radishes in her ears.
Who else?
Ah yes, Malfoy.
Well, needless to say he didn't take her rejection quite too well. He was quite smitten with her and left for some crazed adventure soon after. There are rumours floating about, but none can be taken seriously.
I haven't heard from him so I will not judge.
Minerva is still bearing down on the school- though I wager she won't be for much longer if she continues to be as stressed as she has been. That old nutter still remains in his portrait, dictating stuff to her.
I go up every now and then to see them- yes, both of them- and I am constantly amazed by the way in which the school is still ran. It's as if time is simply frozen in their, only the faces of the students and the occasional faculty member changing.
Time…
The essence of all things sinister. It is time that is the evil counterpart, it is time which I wage my own personal vendetta against.
But I know that my battle is fruitless…
I shall never win.
I was once told that, "Things happen for a reason." Screw the person who ever started that little 'helpful' phrase.
Yes, things might happen for a reason, but is that honestly supposed to make someone feel better? Let me inform you, it personally makes me want to blow things up- particularly the ones that find it their responsibility to say it to me.
I wonder back now if things could have- should have- been different.
Would I change things if I could?
…Probably not. At the end of the day I find that I wouldn't trade one single moment, one single flash of that dark chocolate brown to have things end better.
I tell you now- though I am sure that I am merely wasting my breath- that I loved her.
I do not regret a single moment I shared with her, nor do I regret the small time slots we spent apart when we were just too much for each other. The only thing I do regret is the fact that I never really told her how I felt.
Oh I am sure she knew, she would have had to have been daft not to of…but I could have said it, just once, out loud for her to hear with her own two ears.
I skirted around that, afraid to somehow weaken the wall that I had built around my heart sometime before. But if I would have looked harder, inspected the matter in which I so heartedly denied, I would have discovered that she had already scaled the walls…
And was waiting for me patiently on the other side.
She's still waiting, just on the other side.
It is time for me to go and meet her.
Ending
A man of ninety-eight sat upon the cold green grass in the dying days of autumn as the harsh winter wind began to sweep across the land. His hair, snowy white from age, stirred slightly, sweeping across his face.
Time slowed around him as he stared straight ahead, his knowledge-filled eyes staring as he lost himself in deep, musing thought.
A leaf, the last of its kind, blew from a large oak that stood nearby, making a slow and gentle trek to the hard ground below. The wind picked it up once or twice, stirring it this way and that on its journey.
The crisp brown edges of the leaf displayed the evidence of a harsh life. Indeed, it could not be easy being a leaf and be battered by the taunting wind throughout the course of its life.
And yet there was hope. For from the very stem from which the leaf broke off was a tiny bud that would burst forth into new life the next spring after winter served its due. That tiny bloom would transform into something amazing…
Life.
As the wind slowly guided the leaf down to the ground beside of the man, he stirred from his quiet musing, his eyes flickering to the leaf.
The harsh texture nearly crumbled in his calloused hand as he lightly picked it up, turning it over slowly to study it, trying to gain meaning from it.
In the leaf he saw himself, his life. Battered and bruise and yet clinging onto the last shard of hope for a better tomorrow. Forever fighting the opposition, he survived when everything was working against him.
But now, as the wind slowly died down and the temperature dropped a few degrees, he- like the leaf- decided to let go.
As the leaf slowly broke into tiny pieces in his hand, his eyes moved up the marble stone jutting proudly out of the ground before him.
An incredible mind, an incredible wife…
Hermione Granger
1979-2038
He allowed the torn shards of the last leaf of autumn drop onto the stone, spreading out the pieces so that it lightly dusted the cold marble.
"You once told me that life was a never ending journey," he spoke softly, his hand lightly tracing the outline of her name, "that one never truly dies, only steps onto another path."
He lowered his head, amazed that when he opened his eyes back up, bitter tears brimmed his eyes. "I was never ready to let you go, you know. No matter how many times I told you that, I never wanted for you to leave me."
His hand found its way to the picture that graced the corner of the stone, his thumb running over the smoothness of her cheek. "I never said the right things to you, did I? I wish I could turn back time, have you with me just for one more moment, so I could set things right between us."
He smiled slightly as a single crystal tear ran down his wrinkled face. "I love you," he whispered, lying his head upon the hard ground.
And as he closed his eyes, he saw her in the distance beckoning to him. He went to her…
A/N: thanks for reading folks! Every single one of your reviews meant the world to me. You guys are amazing!
MiZZ AmAyA