AN: Well, I haven't been into fic all that much lately and I just got the sudden urge to write and read some the other day. It's probably not brilliant (since I've been out of practice for a couple of months now), but it was just something I thought I'd share.
The cloudless night revealed a sky full of bright stars twinkling carelessly thousands of miles away. The night was cooler than a normal summer night, but she didn't notice. Her eyes were staring absently up at the moonless sky. The same eyes that had once been warm and full of life had turned cold and empty. They weren't the only things that had changed though; she had lost an unhealthy amount of weight from rarely eating and her once wild and bushy hair was tangled and flattened on her head. In a way she looked as dead as she felt.
She was sitting on the side of the lake under what had been her favorite reading tree in her other life. Now it was just a tree that held too many memories. At first she thought that returning to the tree would be too painful, but she was too numb to feel any more pain. The pain had disappeared at the funeral that she couldn't bring herself to attend. Every day she tortured herself for not attending that funeral. She should've gone and given herself some closure, but instead she turned and ran away. So much for the Gryffindor bravery.
There was no reason for her to return after everything though. Everyone she truly cared for had been lost to the war. The only person she had ever loved had been taken from her and now that he was gone she couldn't think of a reason to go on living. She knew people were looking for her; she was the only one who had survived that held any significance in the ending of the war.
A breeze came from across the lake and wrapped around her body. A chill ran through her, but she didn't care about the cold. She lowered her eyes from the sky and scanned the surface of the water. The last time she was at the lake he had been beside her and he had been holding her. He had promised her that he would always love her and that he would always be there for her. What a silly promise.
And yet she let herself believe him. She should have known better than to believe a promise like that. But no, she had been to naïve and now it was slowly eating away at her. He was gone forever. That bastard of a wizard had taken him down with him. And he gave his life for the good of the wizarding world.
Bloody wizarding world can fuck off, she thought angrily.
For the first time since his death, she felt a tear form in her eye and slide slowly down her cheek. She didn't reach up and brush it off, but just let it run off into her hair. She didn't cry over him when he died because that would have required her admitting that he was truly gone. That was something she couldn't bring herself to do.
Looking across the lake though, the memories of him rushed back to her. The first time he had successfully conjured a patronus had happened right over there during their third year; the second task when he was a heroic git; the study sessions for the OWL's that had occurred beneath her tree; the first time he had kissed her only a few months ago. Then directly across from her was where he fell for the last time.
He was gone. Her heart shattered as she admitted it to herself and the tears began to flow freely down her cheeks. She collapsed finally onto the cold hard ground and cried. Her body shook as she cried harder than she could ever remember crying. Suddenly, she felt the cold that surrounded her and the emptiness she felt suffocated her. For over an hour the tears poured out of her and her breath came in short gasps, but she didn't want to breathe. The pain was too real. She didn't want to feel anything anymore.
With all the strength and concentration she could muster she apparated, since the protective wards no longer prevented her from doing so, to his house. She appeared in her old room and within two minutes she found the bottle she was looking for. Without looking back at the room, she apparated again, but to a new location.
His grave was not what she had expected. It wasn't grand and majestic, as she had figured it would be. Instead, it was modest and settled alongside his parents. She ran her hand over his tombstone and traced the letters engraved in the rock. The tears were still falling from her eyes and staining the earth where they landed.
Unscrewing the cap of the vial she had picked up, she drank the burning poison in two gulps. In stung her throat and she knew she only had moments before it destroyed her body. She staggered on her feet and fell to her knees before his grave. She looked up at it and reread his name multiple times. She reached up weakly and rested her cold shaking hand on the stone.
"I love you, Harry," she whispered.
The last effect of the poison swept over her and at last her world became dark.
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