The stars in the cloudless night sky were reflected in the still waters of the lake as Daphne gazed at her reflection. Ice blue eyes staring back at her. Her eyes. Harry had once described them as beautiful, as gateways to a strange world. And strange was indeed how Daphne felt.
Her dark hair blew softly in the wind. Harry had always loved to play with its strands. Daphne remembered that too. She remembered so much.
She remembered their laughter together, their touches, their kisses. Long nights in the library. Long walks by this very lake. She remembered the love between them. The love he had felt for her. And the love she had felt for him. She remembered it. But she no longer felt it.
Daphne sighed. Once again her mind and her heart were fighting. Her mind knew that she had loved Harry once. All the memories, they were still there. She remembered every detail, knew that she had been truly happy despite all the adversity they had faced. But her heart remembered nothing. She knew she had been happy, but she couldn't remember what it had felt like.
It had been like that for over a year. From one day to the next, something had changed in her. She had looked into Harry's eyes and ... felt nothing. She didn't even feel that she was missing anything. It was just... nothing.
She had probably been cursed, they had been told. But who had cursed her and how, they had never been able to find out. There had been more than enough possibilities. Old acquaintances, friends, enemies. Their love had been met with hatred, rejection and envy from the start. A relationship between a lion and a serpent, between darkness and light, fire and ice? Too beautiful to live and too cruel to dream...
Harry still loved her. She heard it in his words, saw it in his looks and felt it in his searing pain. Daphne's mind wanted to love him as before, but her heart just couldn't. Harry was going down with it. It was obvious, and not only to her. Soon there would be nothing left of him...
Seeing that despair, that sadness and helplessness in Harry hurt Daphne too... somehow. The fact that she still felt something like compassion and empathy for him, wasn't that perhaps a sign that a part of her still cared for her former companion? That a part of her still somehow loved him? But what was love? The idea of love seemed so strange to Daphne, although she knew very well that she had felt love once. But her heart was no longer capable of love.
Daphne could no longer. She could no longer bear the conflict between heart and mind. She could no longer bear to know that she had lost something infinitely precious, but not be able to feel it. She could no longer bear to see the pain in Harry's eyes, knowing that he had once been more important to her than her own life. They had been through so much together...
She would end it. Today. Now.
Her chest grew ice-cold. Trembling, she raised her hands, the tip of a long dagger pointed at her heart. All she had to do was stab it and it would all be over. All this suffering...
Daphne hesitated. Was she really going to do this? Just give up?
But she felt too weak, much too weak. Soon there would be nothing left of her, and her frozen heart would evaporate with the morning mist.
But would death free her?
It was her only chance!
No more hesitation. Now!
Daphne took a deep breath and thrust herself into the dagger. Suddenly, cold spread through her body.
Her legs gave out on her. She sank to her knees. The handle of the dagger protruded from her chest, right where her heart was. Dark red blood poured from her wound, soaking her clothes with the colour of life as death reached for her.
Daphne's eyes went black. Earth and sky were calling to her, simultaneously. Soon it would all be over...
Suddenly she felt arms around her. With great difficulty, Daphne opened her eyes and looked into the shimmering green eyes she had once loved so much. She had not wanted Harry to find her like this. He spoke to her, but she could no longer hear him. His tears wet her face. She tried to raise her right hand. But she lacked the strength even for that.
She opened her mouth.
"I'll be waiting for you on the other side, my Harry..."
Daphne didn't know if she had actually said the words. Everything around her was fading and she felt tired. So tired.
Her eyes closed again. She could still feel Harry's desperate grip on her.
Her heart warmed.
If only she could have seen him smile once more, Daphne thought as eternal darkness settled over her.
