I met her as a child. She was the first one to make me smile, to make me laugh. She was the first one to see me weep for my misfortunes, and the first to hold me and tell me that I was safe- she would never leave me. We would race in the forest behind her house. She and her siblings would be far ahead, while I was always left behind. She was never too far ahead though; on the next ridge she would always stop to look back. A smile would be on her lovely face as she called back to me, “Don’t worry, I’ll wait for you.”

When I turned eleven, my life changed. She was upset the day that I left her for school. In the summer she was miserable, trying to find out why her friend, why I, would not talk to her. Trying to find out what was wrong, what she had done to incur my wrath. My poor friend. How could she understand that the only fault lay in her birth, in her non-magical existence? I had understood that we were not meant for each other, and so, I turned my back on her.

For ten long years I convinced myself that I had done the right thing. I forgot her, forgot her smile and the way she made me laugh. Forgot the one person who truly loved me to follow a darker mistress in the guise of power. And for a while, I convinced myself that I was content. Perhaps I was content, until that fateful night.

I had returned home to confront old demons after the death of my parents. The mark on my arm burned fiercely that night, reminding me that I was no longer free. I was not bound with chains or shackles, but I was a slave nonetheless. I was passing down the street in the middle of the night when I saw her. She was older, taller, more beautiful, but I recognised her instantly, and like a coward, I hid. It had been raining steadily al evening, and as I crept forward, keeping to the shadows, it seemed to me as though the rain hailed from days gone by to wipe sin from the earth. There was a moment when I was sure that she had seen me, but she said nothing, and she never seemed to notice my shadow slinking through the darkness. I reached my old home with mixed feelings of fear and relief for my narrow escape, but when the doorbell rang, my heart plummeted. It was she, of course. Who else could it have been? She stood in the doorway, drenched and shivering. Her dark hair was plastered to her head and her clothes clung to her narrow shoulders. Her eyes held hope, and sorrow, while her lips contained a plea. She begged forgiveness for whatever she had done- pleading with me to tell her why I hated her. Others might have spoken kindly to that pathetic, angelic creature. I ridiculed her. I laughed in her face, told her she could never understand, told her that she was a fool, that she should leave, and then I turned away. I could feel her watching me, tears mingling with the rain. I heard her turn, and scarcely loud enough for me to hear, I heard her murmur a familiar phrase. “I’ll wait for you.” I left the next day.

A few months passed. I was a teacher now, respected and feared. My new master, the dark overlord who controlled me had been destroyed by an infant. I was free.

I had returned to my quarters after a long day of teaching when I noticed a letter on my bedside table. Curiosity overwhelming apprehension, I opened it. The letter was short, only a few sentences, but the content made me feel numb. In a dream state, I left the school and returned to my home.

Her brother was there to greet me, and he did so coldly but courteously. He told me that she had left painlessly- struck down in her sleep. He gave me a box with all of her letters; the ones that I had returned unopened. He told me how he had tried to comfort her over the years by telling her that I was confused. He had hidden the letters from her, and told her that I had surely received the letters, reading them so often that they were little more than fragments. He told me that he despised me. Then he gave me an envelope and left. I could not open it. I returned to my childhood house and hid her final words beneath a mattress before I returned to my life.

The years passed. I no longer remembered the letter. Seasons came and went as did students, and once again I believed myself to be content. Then came my downfall.

My dark master had defied all odds and risen again, only to wage war on the school where I was teaching. One of my favourite pupils had been ensnared in the dark’s cruel web, and after a foolish promise to the boy’s mother, I was forced to rescue him by killing a man who was both friend and mentor to me. We fled the school in the midst of chaos and apparated to a place where I hoped we would be safe. I almost smiled at the irony as I entered my childhood house once again. For better or for worse, I was home.

It wasn’t until a week later that the boy found the letter. He explained that he had been making the bed when it fell from under the mattress. His shifty look told me that he had been peering into my affairs, but I did not reprimand him. Somehow I managed to stay calm, giving him a suitable explanation and sending him on his way. That night, when I was sure that he was asleep, I took the letter and crept out into the forest behind the house. .

I made certain that I was deep in the woods before I took the letter from my robes. With trembling fingers I peeled open the envelope and withdrew the letter. Her letter. Her last words. I unfolded the paper and read. A few words were all that the page contained. A few short words that sent a spasm of agony through my chest and split the night with my cry of anguish. I fell to my knees on the cold forest floor and wept, for the first time in years. I thought I saw someone move towards me- a woman. She stood beside me and offered me her hand. I looked at her. Brown eyes and a haunting smile. A smile stretched across my own lips, and standing, I took her hand. .

They found him the next morning, curled up in the forest in a small clearing. His robes shone with the frost, as did his hair and his sallow skin. One hand lay clutched to his chest, crushing a paper. As they pulled the letter from his fingers, they noticed that he was smiling. The words on the paper shone in the morning light, but they were meaningless to those who read them. The paper was dropped to the ground as they walked away. A few short words on a paper. That was it. As they walked away, a breeze stirred the clearing, and a voice, barely audible on the wind seemed to echo the words. I’ll wait for you.