We used to be happy, once.
Do you remember?
Back when I was forbidden to love you, but I did anyway. When our kisses were promises and the smell of roses and freshly baked brownies hung in the warm summer air, when we sat in Muggle coffee shops and felt so sophisticated as we sipped our cappuccinos and then couldn’t stop giggling, when the very touch of your fingers on my hand gave me shivers. When we ran away together with delight at the adventure of our secret love. When we promised each other that our families, our societies, our abilities didn’t matter, that all we’d ever need was each other.
Do you remember?
I do. Every moment. I relive those memories with desperation. I cling to them because you have given me nothing else to cling to, even though the brownies went stale and the roses died, and we stopped giggling, when you stopped holding my hand and you broke your promises.
Was it my magic?
But it couldn’t be. You knew about it before, it never bothered you then. It intrigued you, fascinated you. Maybe sometimes my abilities frightened you, but it wouldn’t have ruined us.
Was it Severus?
Did my being weighed down with him ruin the life we had planned?
But you can’t blame me for him. You know I didn’t want him either. It was both our faults, a careless mistake. And even when I ignored him and mistreated him because I thought it would make you happy, you didn’t change.
Or was it me?
Did I change, or had you never even loved me?
That is what I fear the most.
But maybe the reasons don’t matter, maybe they do. I don’t know. I just want to know where you went, because wherever you went you took my heart with you.
Did you know that you’ve always had my heart? That it was yours to keep safe, yours to protect, yours to love, yours to break whenever you desired?
I think you know this. You knew it the day you broke my heart. I think it pierces you with guilt because you never gave me your heart. For such a long time I thought I had it. But you took it away from me when I needed it most. And you never returned mine. So I still remain tied to you, unable to leave you, because I still love you.
Ironic, isn’t it, that although you had two hearts you treated me worse than you did before I gave you mine. Maybe they cancelled each other out. Did my unrequited love make you hate me, for loving you?
Sometimes I hate myself for loving you. Would I have been happier if I had never loved you? Would I be happier if I left you?
It doesn’t matter. Because I can’t stop loving you, even though I hate you and I hate me.
And when I look at Severus, look at what we’ve done to him, see how you never loved him and how I loved you too much to even look at him, I weep the tears I should have cried for him, back when it would have made a difference.
But I can’t face him, or you.
To face you would mean finally stopping loving you. I don’t think I can do it. Loving you was the only part of me that was worth anything. It is the only reason I’m still here. I shouldn’t be, but I chose to stay. I pretended I would haunt you for my own vile pleasure, to make you pay for what you did to me, but somehow I can’t bring myself to hurt you, to hurt my own heart.
But to face him would be worse than that. I can’t face you because I loved you too much, I can’t face him because I never loved him, because I was too caught up in my memories of us to care for him. Because I blamed your hatred of me on him.
If I saw you, you would try to hurt me physically. It would be nothing new. You did it many times. But one time you went too far, and I am a ghost now and impervious to the pain. But seeing him, seeing those empty black eyes look into mine, would cost me too much.
Even as a ghost there are some things that hurt too much.
~
You weren’t expecting her. She had told you that there were ghosts in her world, but you never thought she’d choose that path. You always thought she couldn’t wait to leave, or was that just you satisfying your own guilt?
You hadn’t meant to do it, not really. You had been drunk. You had wanted to escape this marriage you should never have committed yourself to, and you had done what came naturally, but this time, you went too far.
It all started because you had loved her because she had loved you, like no-one else ever had; not like your mother who abandoned you when you were four, not like your father who didn’t care. And you didn’t want to lose that feeling. But you had never really loved her. You had never wanted her. And you had never wanted her child.
–Why did you come back?†You look at her tiredly. You don’t feel angry this time; maybe too much time has passed.
–Don’t you know?â€
Of course you know. She loves you. Despite everything you did to her.
–There’s nothing to resolve, Eileen, no point in coming back. You should have left. You shouldn’t be here anymore. You should be somewhere where you might be happy.â€
–And you care that I’m happy?†Her voice is filled with accusation.
–Yes, goddammit, I do.â€
–You never showed it. Not since Severus was born.†She is calm and composed. She never would have been like this in her life. Perhaps she has been preparing for this for a long time. Years have passed since you ... lost her.
You know she wants you to admit that you never loved her; you know that that is why she has come, but you won’t give her that satisfaction. There is no use moaning about what could have been, because it was not, and she is dead. Isn’t death supposed to be the end?
–Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to happen. I didn’t mean any of it to happen.â€
–None of it? Is that true, then? If you could do it all again, would you marry me?â€
You pause, but you decide that the truth is best. Your guilt will haunt you, whether she remains here or not.
–No.â€
~
No-one comes when they finally put you in the ground. You never had many friends, and Severus left long ago. He was so much better than us; a good person despite us. And now you’ve gone to follow him, and the only two people I’ve ever loved (even though I never showed it to him), are gone.
I wish I had gone on, but it was a quick decision, I was still too tied to life, I was too afraid.
And now I watch them pile the dirt over you, and I realise that Muggles have always been wrong about ghosts. Ghosts don’t haunt the earth, we are haunted by everything that reminds us of those we love, and we will walk here for the rest of time, cold, alone.
Haunted.
And I can still see you, hiding in the bushes outside my house, waiting for me to run down to you, flowers in your hand, a smile on your face.
And you still have
All of me.
Haunted by The_Real_Hermione
Story Notes:
The song lyrics at the end are taken from "My Immortal" by Evanescence, which partially inspired this story. Neither that song nor the Harry Potter universe belong to me, but I certainly enjoyed writing about them.
The Violence warning is only just in case... there is only inferred violence.
Chapter Endnotes: This is the first fanfic I've written in over a year, and I hope you enjoyed it!