Oh! "darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,"
As someone somewhere sings about the sky.
- Lord Byron

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The sky is bright blue when they come to tell her he has died. The sky is cloudless and clear and she hates that anything could be so beautiful on the day that she learns he was murdered.

It is two men who arrive on her doorstep, one tall and wiry and the other short and stocky. They would look nothing alike if it weren’t for their eyes. They both have haunted eyes, ones that have seen friends die and Death Eaters run free.

And one look at them is all it takes for Sophia to understand why they have come to her doorstep at 2:27 on a Thursday afternoon.

As she stands there looking at them, silence fills the space between them, and she notices how neither of them will meet her eyes.

It is the tall one who finally tells her what she already knows.

He died bravely, he says. He and Fabian died like heroes.

Inexplicably, his words make her angry, and Sophia wants to tell them it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter whether Gideon and his brother died at the hand of one Death Eater or one hundred. All that matters is that she’ll never see Gideon again. She will never suffer through Quidditch matches for him, or say ‘I love you’ to him again.

Instead of saying this, however, she thanks them for telling her and asks when she can see him, her voice breaking horribly as she does so.

It hurts as she hears them say in a few days, and it hurts worse as she hears the words they doesn’t say – she can see him once they can fix some of the spell damage, once he looks like himself again.

Sophia is about to say goodbye when one of the two speaks up. Ma’am, he says hesitantly, this was found in his pocket. We thought you might like to have it.

It’s a picture, one that’s been folded and creased many times.

She takes it and carefully turns it over. Scrawled across the back are the words Sophia and I, seventh year.

It is from only three years ago, but to Sophia, it seems so far away. She is a completely different person now, and wonders how she ever found time to worry about dates to Hogsmeade or what would happen if she “accidentally� dyed her annoying classmate’s hair blue.

The short man speaks this time. Do you want it? he asks her, his voice soft. We just thought you might since you two were –

I want it, she says forcefully, stopping him before he can continue. It doesn’t help though; she knows what he was about to say.

…since you two were getting married.

Sophia continues to clutch the picture tightly, holding onto the closest reminder of Gideon she has. And then, with a goodbye, she closes the door and collapses to the floor, gasping for air. The tears refuse to fall for the longest time; they stubbornly remain trapped until they begin to burn her eyes.

And then she cries. Sitting on the floor, holding the crumpled picture, she cries great, shuddering sobs, her small body wracking with grief.

It is not until later, after she finally stops crying, that Sophia looks, really looks, at the picture. She and Gideon are laughing at some joke she wishes she could remember now. Watching this, seeing Gideon laugh and smile, makes the tears stab at her eyes once more. She wishes harder than she ever has before that she could be the girl in the picture again. The girl who had someone who she loved completely, someone she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

As they stop laughing, both Gideon and the Sophia in the photograph look up and wave. At the wave, someone inside her snaps – it brings back too many memories and too much pain. She nearly tears the picture in half, but manages to stop herself. She wishes at least it would stop moving, that it would be a Muggle photo. It just hurts too damn much to watch him caught in perpetual motion when she knows he is really lying dead somewhere, battered and unmoving

And in that instant, she abhors being a witch. She hates that she ever received that damn letter when she was eleven. If she had been a Muggle, she wouldn’t know about this war, she wouldn’t know what it felt like to have her heart ripped out and handed back to her in impossibly small pieces, and she wouldn’t have to watch Gideon smile and wave, oblivious to what would happen.

Shoving the picture into her robe pocket, Sophia stands slowly, as though every movement hurt. As she does this, she can see the sky through a nearby window. It is still such a vivid blue, and there is still not a cloud to be seen. And though she still wishes it had been a stormy grey, she realises that the sky is the same color of blue as Gideon’s eyes.

As she thinks of this, Sophia walks to the door and steps outside. She looks up at the endless sky, and though the sunshine makes her eyes turn to slits, she does not stop staring.

She wonders if she can ever stop; staring at the sky feels almost exactly like staring into his eyes. Eyes that would laugh when she told a joke that really wasn’t funny, eyes that would shine with sadness when she was hurt, and eyes that filled with love whenever they saw her.

She suddenly remembers what he told her last night, the last time she saw him. She was worrying about the wedding, about some florist who was incompetent or some guest or other who hadn’t RSVPed. Gideon laughed good-naturedly at her indignation about the flowers being the wrong colour, and then had come over to put an arm around her waist.

Don’t worry about it, he told her. I could care less if the flowers are red or polka-dotted. As long as you’re there, I’ll be there.

It was corny, but Sophia appreciated it all the same. Cracking a smile, she leaned easily against him, and looked up at him. He was smiling, and his blue eyes sparkled. And for a moment, Sophia lost herself in his eyes, lost herself in the dreams and hopes of her future. When she looked at his eyes, she pretended time had stopped and that there was no war; there was only Gideon and her and the wonderful blue.

His arms tightened around her as they stood there, and Sophia had never loved him more than in that moment. Finally, Gideon kissed the top of her head, and said that he was sorry, but he had to go. The Order needed him.

I need you, she thought, but instead she simply told him to be careful, and he said he always is. I love you, she said.

And I love you, Soph, he said, before Apparating away and leaving her alone.

And though it was yesterday, Sophia hears the words as though Gideon were standing next to her now.

And instinctively, she knows it will get better. It will never be okay, it will never be the same, but it will be better.

Sophia takes another glance at the sky, and she realizes she will never be able to walk outside without thinking of him. Any glance at the deep blue, and she will be lost in Gideon’s eyes once more. She will remember when he held her, and how much he loved her.

The sky still fills her sight, and Sophia imagines the beautiful blue is instead Gideon’s eyes staring back at her. She imagines they are full of pride that she has not given up, and that she will not forget how he made her feel.

And she knows they are full of love.