Prologue
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Author's Note: As always, please read and review. Constructive criticisms are always welcome. I hope you enjoy this, however, a word of warning though - this is not your typical love story. Other than that, happy reading!
Whenever I hear the song "What A Wonderful World", I cannot help but look back into my less than `wonderful past.' The feeling is nostalgically painful - it reminds me of my childhood, of Aunt Petunia humming that haunting song while I sit in bed, staring at the cracks on the floor below me, wondering what exactly a wonderful world is. I may be young but I'm not bloody stupid. Children aren't supposed to live in cupboards nor are they to act as substitute punching bags for a stupid wanker of a cousin, yet I have no choice. So, at an early age, I already knew the opposite of wonderful. And it is for this reason that the song fails to make me realize what exactly is wonderful about the world.
Many years later, I will go back again and again to this question, trying hard to come up with an answer, to no avail. The irony of course is that my world, to unstoppable prying eyes, is perfectly wonderful - from the scar in my forehead, to my name, to the crispness of my tie, to the gleam of my robes, to the shine of my leather patented shoes, to the flock of stellar women that grace my arms. And yet, clichéd as this may sound, despite the fame, the money, the women, and the perfection that is my life, it still isn't wonderful. It sill doesn't feel wonderful. It never is wonderful.
Never because behind that façade is the exact opposite. Behind that façade is a broken man. And while I'm not exactly sure whether the brokenness is the product of just one thing or an amalgamation of everything that's happened to me - I'm the perfect case study, after all - I know for a fact that she's the reason, or at least, one of the reasons for the brokenness, for the emptiness.
But I don't care. I don't care at all. I no longer care for brokenness or for emptiness because for the first time in my life, I now know what a `wonderful world' truly means. It's not about the fame or the money or the power or whatever else you may attach to what the world constitutes as `wonderful.' Wonderful can never be defined into one logical, all encompassing answer. Wonderful is what is wonderful to you.
And, pray, you ask, what does a `wonderful world' mean to me?
Well, tasting her lips and holding her in my arms for eternity is my answer.
Impossible? No. Mad? Yes.
Do I care?
To hell with it, to hell with everything else. We finally have each other, and we will never let go, mad as it may sound, mad as we may be.
Twenty years have passed since that day, and we're finally together, like we're supposed to be right from the very beginning. Twenty years since we first made that pact, twenty years since we first played that game.
Twenty years since we became friends. Twenty years since the promise to always pull each other out of trouble, after that fateful Halloween. Twenty years since I first told her that one simple word, dare.
Twenty odd years of happiness, of sadness, of anger, of passion, of hurt, of confusion, of pleasure, of friendship, of jealousy, of everything in between, and of love, especially. Twenty years of fleeting in and out of each other's lives, strangers one second, best friends the other, and lovers always.
Lovers always, despite the fact that we've spent twenty years denying the palpable truth.
We're bloody mad, we're bloody insane, but that's love. And nothing, nothing will ever tear us apart again.
This time, we promised, this will last for eternity.
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