Although we try it seems we just can't find our harmony,
We just don't fit each other’s frequencies
It was fun, at first. We were so young, perhaps too young, to be married, to have a child, but that didn’t matter because we were in love.
Every day, I discovered something new about you. I remember the day I learned you sang in the shower. You were an early riser, and I a late one, so normally, I was still asleep while you washed. Or maybe you only just started to sing that day.
I sing while cooking, while tidying, while doing mundane tasks like that. I’d always hated domestic spells of this kind, so this helped relieve the tedium. And you were no help, having always had a house elf to do it for you. You do try, though. The look on your face the first time you managed to wash the dishes without breaking one still makes me smile.
And so I was singing softly, taking advantage of Harry being asleep in the cot in the corner, to clean. He had his own room, but sometimes it was just easier to have him here to keep an eye on. You were in the shower, and even above the noise of the water, I could hear your voice.
When we first started dating, you said, only half-joking, that if a girl told you that you could sing, it meant she was really into you. Of course, I said your voice was awful, which it truly is. My voice isn’t great, being rather brittle, but at least I can hold a tune. The combined sound of the water, my voice and yours was very discordant, and honestly, it’s a wonder Harry didn’t wake up.
As the water stopped, I collapsed onto the bed, my body racked with waves of laughter that I was trying to keep silent, so as not to wake Harry. You, however, had no such concerns, and were still singing. I never used to laugh like this. In fact, you are the only person who has ever managed to incapacitate me with laughter, and I’m not sure why. Sirius, as you freely admit, is funnier than you, and no-one can crack a sarcastic quip like Peter. I think it might be the thrilled grin on your face once the joke is told, like a child getting something right for the first time. Pranks, yes, you’re excellent at those, and physical comedy--contorting your face into strange shapes--but actual verbal jokes have always been something you’ve found difficult. So why I find you so hilarious I still do not know. Maybe I’ll find out the reason I laugh one day. We’ve been together four years, known each other far longer, and yet there is so much we could still do together. It seems like a long time, but it doesn’t feel that way. On the contrary, it feels like these last four years have been accelerating, getting faster and faster, until, surely, it will come to a sudden end.
You emerged from the bathroom, towel around your waist (I admit, I was disappointed) and said, –Why have you stopped singing? I think our voices are beautiful together.â€
You sat on the bed, touching my face gently with your hand as you drew my chin close, and we kissed. Then you began to sing. I joined in, and our voices collided in a way that would make most people’s ears bleed, but we were not most people, and we were in love.
I wondered why we had not done this before. How did we not know that our voices clashed so horribly? And what other things were there that we’d never done because it simply had not occurred to us to do them? How many would we never have the chance to do?
Why had we not got together sooner? Well, there were lots of reasons for that, good reasons as well. But why do I feel that we should have done so earlier, in spite of the reasons I had not to? Why do I feel that time is running out?
Because it is.
And nobody knows it, we took it away,
And it will be forever mine,
And it will be forever yours
Time never used to bother us. Far from it; we gloried in the sheer quantity of it. We had forever. Now it feels as if time is stolen, though from whom I don’t know. Our future selves, perhaps, because if we are to die soon, then God knows they owe it to us.
We were happy. I didn’t know it was possible to have such happiness. That sounds like I wasn’t happy before, but that’s not true. Yes, I lost my best friend through his own stupidity, and my sister through her narrow mind, and maybe both through my own stubbornness, but nevertheless, I was a happy child and a happy teenager. But when I fell in love with you--I remember the only time we skipped classes together. You asked if I was scared of getting caught, and I said no, of course I wasn’t, so we went walking in the Forbidden Forest. The birds were singing, and the shafts of light through the trees were so beautiful, but once we had begun to kiss, neither of us particularly noticed.
Afterwards, we spent ages picking the twigs and grass out of our hair so that when we returned to the Gryffindor common room, no one knew what we had done. It was our secret, no-one else’s, and somehow, that made me deliriously happy, enough that I wanted to tell your friends to leave the dorm immediately and throw you on the bed there and then.
So happy. It felt as though we were drawing joy from an endless well, and all we had to do was reach out and take it, and we had forever to do so. Our love had no limit, and neither did our time, but I suppose there was always this sense of taking it from something, or perhaps someone, who was trying to withhold it from us.
The first time I snatched joy with you was the day after my father’s funeral. My mother had died of cancer over the summer, and at her funeral, I remember looking at father and thinking How can he both look too young to be a widow and so very, very old? and the realisation that, given the chance to die, he would take it.
So when the car crash happened that November, I was not surprised when the doctors told me that his chances of survival had been slim. He probably greeted death like an old friend, just in that wizard story of the brother who tricked death for a time.
I tried to talk about it with Petunia, but she wouldn’t listen. She made it very clear that now our parents were dead, she saw no reason for us ever to speak to each other again, and I felt, just as I had when I’d broken my friendship with Severus, as if part of me was being taken away.
When I returned to Hogwarts, I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I felt so cold, and didn’t want to be in the castle, with people, so instead went into the grounds, walking fast to keep warm.
My parents were gone and I had no-one. Yes, I had friends, but I’d never been one to have a close friend who I could giggle with and spill all my secrets to. In our sixth year we, suddenly, became friends. I still suspected you wanted to be more, but you managed to put that desire aside because you knew it made me uncomfortable.
I know you wanted to be more, but felt as though you’d put that aside, because you knew it frustrated me, and you also had Sirius to look after. He had left home that summer and was not coping well, presenting everyone else with a hard sort of defiance, but most knew he was upset. I don’t know what he would have done without you. Peter and Remus as well, but especially you. Have I ever told you that? I think if Sirius hadn’t left home, if he hadn’t needed you to grow up, then maybe you would still be an egotistical idiot, and we would never have been friends, let alone husband and wife.
I went for a walk down by the Forbidden Forest. I remember the birds singing so beautifully, so unlike our clanging voices, and I hated them. I wanted to shout and rage, but I didn’t know what at. I wanted my parents to hold me tight, and promise they would never leave me, and most of all, I wanted to be a child again, a child who didn’t have to grow up in a world that was beginning to stink of death. I had my whole life in front of me, and yet it felt like my very foundations--my sister, my parents, Severus--were slowly collapsing beneath my feet. Sometimes, it was due to the war, but just as often, it was because of fate. In a way, I wish it had been entirely due to this malevolent man who seemed to thrive on cruelty and pain, because then I’d have something to react against; then my parents’ death would spur me on to fight.
But as it was, it just left an ache inside me. I felt abandoned, and somehow, I blamed my parents, though neither had chosen the cancer or the car crash.
You were sitting by the lake. I don’t know why I strayed from the edge of the woods, and sat beside you on that old log. Neither do I know why, after only a few minutes of banal conversation, I demanded that you went away. You looked at me in surprise, and then said, –No.†I tried to hit you. I’ve never raised a hand to anyone, but I raised my hand to you, even if you caught it before I could redden your skin. Then I began to cry and you just held onto me. I needed something and you were there, for the first time in your life, where I was concerned, in the right place at the right time. After a few minutes, and once my sobs had stopped, I kissed you.
I know you wish our first kiss had been more romantic. That the sun hadn’t suddenly disappeared, and that the wind hadn’t leapt up, and the rain had not begun to drizzle as we tentatively began to explore one another’s mouths. Maybe you just wish my eyes hadn’t been bloodshot, and my skin wasn’t raw from the tears that had, moments before, been streaking across it. But I rather liked it this way. Yes, I was vulnerable, but you were too. After all, your parents had died only a few months before my mother, so you knew what this felt like. And I did want to kiss you. It would have happened sooner or later, but in that moment when I needed you, I was willing to chuck away my pride, and I hadn’t before. There was something so childish about that day. We had both had partners before, and both of us had had sex before, but somehow, all we wanted to do was kiss. Maybe because we thought we had all the time in the world, and therefore there was no need to rush.
We ignored the rain. When it stopped, and when the sunlight blazed so bright that it blinded us both, we drew apart. You said, awkwardly but with that cheeky smile that made my stomach do such strange things, –There’s a Hogsmeade weekend coming soon. Do you want to--?â€
I just nodded, not able to speak, as suddenly the sadness within me, just like that, was replaced by happiness. At first, it bothered me, how quickly that happened, but soon, I accepted it. I was so used to being strong, to being always right, that it was nice to be with you, you who had fancied me for so long (I still refuse to call what you felt for me before we actually dated love and you will not convince me otherwise), when you had seen at my weakest.
Several months later, when talking about that day, you said I looked like I needed someone, and that you were worried you were taking advantage of me. I argued with you on this point immediately, although I did acknowledge that I had needed something to hold onto.
–I felt like I was falling,†I said, stroking your arm, as we were curled up next to each other on a sofa in the common room. –And you held onto me.â€
–I’ll always hold onto you,†you said, kissing my forehead.
Once I’d realised, many months after that, that I was in love with you, I tried to think back to when that moment had happened, when this had gone from being nice to being something far greater than anything I’d ever experienced with another person. I think that might have been it.
But there are so many moments like that. Moments when you said the right thing, or said the wrong thing and laughed about it, moments when I felt my heart suddenly weigh so heavy that I expected it to break, and took joy from the fact that each day it didn’t. Joy from the fact that when I woke up, no matter how worried I was that this had to end soon, that this couldn’t last, you rendered my doubts void with a single smile. And soon, I shared your confidence that we had all the time we wanted to take, to be together and to be happy.
Mortality didn’t scare us. Every day, I read of people dying, and my parents’ death had made me aware of the possibility, but somehow, it didn’t apply to us, and therefore we could not be frightened.
And then Dumbledore told us we had to hide. And in spite of the danger, we had fun, just being young and in love, and having a son to adore.
As a child, I used to have dreams of walking through the desert and watching the sand run through my fingers, endless expanses of it. And I knew, suddenly, that the amount we had was confined, and therefore, every day had to be of great importance. We couldn’t waste a single grain of time. I think I became rather precious about it, desperate to make you realise how important this was. And then, slowly, I realised that even the days that I would define as wasted, were not. How could time be wasted when it was time spent together, creating memories? Even if all the memory consisted of, was a day spent in our pyjamas.
You became impatient.
You know there's nothing you could say that would embarrass me,
I heard a song tell me that talk is cheap,
But it's all you do with me,
And I am finally accepting that,
It's just our routine,
We try and dream,
Indecency. Over a year ago, when Harry was nearly six months old and playing with Sirius at an Order meeting, I overheard Marlene gossiping with Gideon Prewett. She’d said, –It’s indecent, how in love they are.â€
She was talking about us. Maybe it is indecent that I automatically assumed she was talking about us, but who else, really, could she have been discussing? Everyone said we were a beautiful couple. We were in love in a way that made people’s hearts warm, or turn green with jealousy, and I didn’t care.
And now, they’re both dead, Marlene and Gideon. I’d only known them a few years and never well, but when I heard about the McKinnons, I cried all evening. I think it upset me more than the Prewetts’ deaths because the McKinnons’ daughter had died as well. No child deserves to die, and I certainly will not let Harry die. I’m sure they tried to save her, but there’s a spy in the Order. The first time the Death Eaters came for them, we were warned. The second time, only Order members knew where they were, and still they died.
And so that’s why so few people know where we are. I can count them on two hands. I think it scares you, that we can trust so few, but it doesn’t matter. We have each other, and our son.
Their daughter didn’t deserve to die, but then, neither did they. Neither did Gideon Prewett, or his brother Fabian. How many dreams did they have, dreams they never had the chance to fulfil?
They were in their thirties. They thought they had years left. At Gideon’s funeral, Titus Rookwood, his boyfriend--I can’t even begin to describe how he looked. Hollow, that’s the word. As if his heart and been torn from his body and was being buried with Gideon. I’d never even met Titus, although I knew of him, mainly because Fabian kept on bringing him up at Order meetings, much to Gideon’s anger. What dreams did they have?
You and I had so many dreams, dreams we shared together, and with our son, but suddenly, for a brief time that summer, those weren’t enough for you. You wanted to be doing something more than caring for me and your son, and so did I, but compared to raising and protecting our son, what else mattered?
Somehow, us lying around, talking, laughing and dreaming of our future together, which was always infused with a golden summer light, was not good enough for you. Instead, you were dreaming of what you could be doing, without a son outside these walls.
You didn’t understand that what choice we had was taken from us the moment we decided to have Harry. Suddenly, what we wanted to do with our own lives was of no importance. All we had now was each other, and Harry. Some days you would say you were going out with Sirius, before Dumbledore borrowed the cloak, even though Harry needed bathing, the house was a tip, and I was exhausted, having only had two hours sleep. You’d say you didn’t want to, but that was the point, you do things you don’t want to do. You have to, and have to make the most of the little we have, because by doing that, we can make the small thing we share, great.
I remember a book I had as a child. Illustrated versions of Shakespeare stories, with the occasional quotation given a single page and surrounded by pictures. The pictures have now faded in my memory, but the quote: –We are such stuff as dreams are made on, rounded with a little sleep,*†stuck with me. We have our lot, and it is all that we have, or rather, all that we make it to be. The only thing that is certain is that it will end.
I won’t let you let you waste a moment of the time we have to live, to love, to dream, on thinking of things that are now impossible for us.
You are mine, forever; you promised me, and I will not let you go. That sounds clingy, but I know, for all your frustrations, you would rather die than let the grip we have on each other’s hearts loosen.
As the summer drew to a close, you seemed to realise that. You hated the secrets and the fear that was stretching your friendship with Peter, Remus and Sirius, and therefore, you took shelter in the one thing which you knew would never change. Us.
It would never work between us,
Never work between us,
And I'm glad we got that straight
This will be forever yours
Now we own the night, and it can't be undone
We'll never forget how it feels to be young
Outside, the leaves are falling from the trees, and all I know is that even if we don’t survive, it doesn’t matter. We don’t have much time. It’s not that I have no faith in your friends; I have all the faith in the world, but faith alone is not enough. I do not like the idea of them dying for us, although all the world should die before our son is harmed. I am prepared for the worst. You are too; I can see it in your eyes. Whenever we talk about the future, and we talk often, there is a sadness in both our tones and faces that knows this time is all we have.
But it can’t be taken away. The moments we’ve shared, the moments we’ve laughed, made love, cried, talked until the morning, they can’t go away. All we have is each other, and a little bit of time, but every second is precious and has a use. That can’t be undone.
And if our lives are taken from us, then know this, James. I love you, and I do not have any regrets. We don’t have time to regret. We do have time to be in love, and to make as many memories as possible, with which to write the story of our life together. Memories like the day my parents died, memories of us sitting on a bed and singing very, very badly, memories of Harry’s first word and that broom which we can’t take away from him. They are important and we will never forget them. And even if the time we have to never forget them is short, it doesn’t matter, because you are forever mine, and I am forever yours.