Chapter 46

In The Graveyard

June 5th 1997,

I lied in my grave, well on it technically. The grass below me was sharp and dry from the hot summer sun and the air was thick and musty. I felt almost content somehow. Content to lie at my grave between my loved ones remains. To the right of me was my father, Tiberius and My mother, Patricia's tombstones gleaming in the rays of the sun and to the left of me is Sidney's tomb and next to hers is a fresh grave that holds the body of Severus Snape. All their graves were decorated with beautiful bouquets of flowers that will last through the heat and stay in bloom for weeks.

I closed my eyes against the light and took deep breaths in of the humid air. My chest warmed as hot air pours into my lungs. Birds chirped cheerfully. There was no one in the cemetery.

I felt a small nudge in my ribs that made me jump. I opened my eyes and placed a hand on my ever expanding belly.

"Well hello," I whispered. "I was wondering when I would hear from you."

There was another little kick.

"Are you doing summersaults in there or something?" I asked my belly.

As if in response the baby kicked again.

I closed my eyes again. "Mom," I whispered, "I am going to have a baby." I paused "Dad you are going to be a grandpa and Sidney you will be an aunt and Severus" I turn my head to the left, "we will just call you the uncle. Uncle Sev." I laughed.

"It will be great," I said passively. "When the baby is born you all can come to the hospital with me. Mom, I will let you be the first to hold the baby, well after me of course and then the rest of you can figure out who gets to hold him or her next. Then Dad, when the time comes you can drive us home from the hospital. I think I can fit a cradle in my room.

"I am thinking we could paint my room yellow, so if the baby is a boy the color theme could be yellow and blue or if the baby is a girl it could be yellow and pink. What do you think Mom?"

I paused, waiting for a response. My eyelids squeezed tighter together.

"Yeah, I think it will look really nice too," I said.

I turned my head to the right, my eyes still tightly shut. "Mom, Dad," I said in a chipper whisper. I turned my head to the left. "Sidney. Aren't you all glad we've meet Severus?" I waited for my family to answer.

"Yeah, me too," I said. "We should have met him sooner. Well at least we all know each other now."

I opened my eyes and gazed upon the canopy of trees above me. I slowly pushed myself up.

"Mom," I muttered staring at the rolling hills in front of me dotted with tombstones. "I am going to have a baby and I don't know what to do." Tears began to pour down my cheeks. "Tell me what to do." Of course there was no answer. "I wish you were here. I wish you were all here."

The baby kicked again.

I squeezed my eyes tight and let the last few tears fall. I wiped away the salty water from my cheeks and eyelashes, and then stood up carefully. I took in a long breath of fresh air and then turned to examine the tombs before I left for a long time.

My eyes moved slowly across the graves, Tiberius, Patricia, Alexandra, Sidney, and Severus Snape. As I moved my eyes along the stones again I noticed that mine was not bare as I had thought. A single red rose lay at its foot. I had not noticed it before; it was wilted and blended in with the dry grass below.

I reached for it and some petals fell, spinning to the ground. Anger rose inside me. Someone still came to my empty grave and laid flowers. I was still here, still alive, but yet I could not go back to my old life. I had been thinking about lies I could tell or explanations I could give. The witness protection program for one, but the idea of living my life in a lie, especially now that I was going to have a child seemed completely horrible. And even if I did choose to go back, I am not the same person that I was. So much has happen; I am so altered it is best to just let my old friends mourn the Alex that they knew. In truth, parts of me did die; four parts in fact and they lie in this cemetery.

I would have to go away from the place where I grew up and start new. I dropped the rose at my feet and kicked it into the ground. Then with more built up frustration I kicked the pearly tombstone that read my name. If felt good so I did it again and again.

"Hey!" shouted a voice in the distance. "What the hell do you think you are doing?"

My heart started beating fast. I was petrified to the spot. I knew that voice at once.

I knew that I was being approached. Without turning around I tried to run on my shaking legs.

"Hey!" yelled the voice angrily. "Where are you going?"

Apparently, I was not going anywhere because I tripped after about five strides. I fell forward catching myself with my hands before I could put weight on the baby.

Two strong hands ceased my arms from behind and pulled me into a standing position.

"Who do you think you are," asked the voice, "kicking that grave like that?" the voice sounded hurt. I was stunned and did not resist what was about to happen.

The hands turned me around so that I was face to face with David Harper.

He drew in a sharp breath ready to yell at the person who had defaced my grave, but then he did not exhale.

"David," I muttered. The word slipped out accidently. I quickly clasped my hand over my mouth as if I could shove his name back in.

His grasp on me loosened so immediately I almost fell backwards. His eyes were wide and his month was moving but no words were coming out. He was hyperventilating as if he were a fish out of water.

He backed away from me. His whole body was shaking. He fell to the ground as his foot caught on a low tombstone, yet he never took his green eyes off me.

I was a ghost.

"I'm sorry," I breathed. Then I sprinted as fast as my pregnant body would allow, and once far enough away, I disapparated, leaving the graveyard and David Harper behind.

David sat shaking in the grass. The back of his head was throbbing; he had hit it against a tombstone. Maybe it was the bump to the head that explained why he was seeing dead girls, but no. It was because of the girl that he fell. Was she a ghost? Had he finally gone insane? In vain hope he tried to make sense of what just happened.

Maybe that girl just looked like Alex, he tried to convince himself, but that couldn't be; she had said his name. "David" she had said. He began to shake harder and tears formed in his eyes.

He knew that it was her. If either ghost or figment of his imagination it was her. He knew that he must be crazy. Nearly two years of hopeless longing had finally driven him mad.

Tears silently fell down his cheeks. He cried not for his loss of sanity or from fear but for once again losing the girl he was in love with.

For two hopeless years he fantasized about seeing Alex Snape again, just once. He had planned out exactly what he would do and say but he blew it. In none of his plans did it say fall backwards and cut your head open.

She disappeared so fast.

If he was insane, why couldn't his hallucinations just stay with him? So that then he could be happy.