Waiting

 

 

 

 

 

He sat in the old, worn out armchair, idling spinning the glass in his hand, arm hanging over the armrest, staring at the door.

        Waiting.

        Always waiting.

        For her.

        He knew she wouldn’t come. She wasn’t going to walk through the door at any moment. He was well aware of the fact.

        But some part of him denied the truth. It waited for her, aching.

        He would picture how she used to come flying through the door, reckless smile spread wide across her lovely face, long hair trailing wildly behind her. He would sit and picture it for so long, it was almost as though a ghost was before him, reenacting her every movement.

But there was nothing there. Only his own memories, haunting him. Replenishing the old ache that never disappeared. Happiness he had had in abundance then, but he’d been too foolish. He’d taken it for granted. Squandered every moment. He hadn’t loved her enough.

And now, he couldn’t.

She was absent.

Undeniably, impossibly… she was not there, and she was never coming back.

It was his own fault, he knew. His own reckless youth had destroyed her. Stolen his happiness from him forever.

Irrevocably, she was gone.

Yet, he sat here, in this same chair, facing the same door, every night.

Waiting.

Always waiting.

For her.

His mind toyed with him, taunted him. Showing him visions of her. Dancing wildly in the rain. Casting charms and spells everywhere she went, not really even needing the wand. Her charm was so simple, so pure, that everyone fell under her power the moment they saw her. You couldn’t help yourself. She was too much. She made you feel the greatest, sweetest ache. Just to be near her was all you could want.

And she had loved him. As wildly as she had danced, she had loved him with the same passion. She’d chosen him, forsaken any other lover. It had been amazing, impossible, but it had been true.

And he hadn’t deserved her. He had been a fool, and she had been… lost. Killed by his own rash, irresponsible, thoughtless stupidity.

It hadn’t made sense.

Why her? Why then?

She was pure. She wasn’t involved.

But she had been killed. “Useless, a worthless distraction,” the condemning words echoed hollowly, dully in his mind.

She’d been extinguished in an instant.

And even to the last, she had looked at him, no accusations in her eyes. Only pure, uncontrollable love.

Her eyes told him, even in that instant, that she forgave him. Everything. That she loved him as she always had, that she would miss him. That she was sorry to go, but that she had to. That she was still his, though he would never see her again.

He had cried out; reached towards her.

He’d paid dearly for that mistake.

A furious word was uttered, and he was swallowed in a world of pain. Racking his body, filling every crack in his defense, every space in him was lost, drowning in the suffering of it. His heart, untouched by the curse, contained the worst torment of all.

He didn’t see her die. He didn’t know what they did with her afterwards. When he returned to himself from the agony of that curse, she had been gone, and he had been forever changed.

 

Here he sat.

Waiting.

Hoping she would come back. Wanting to believe she was just on the other side of the door.

He remembered when he’d first known she wasn’t coming. He’d held her traveling cloak close, breathed in her scent. It had struck him then, just as the Cruciatus had. Instantly. Mercilessly.

She was no more. This was beyond pain.

She wasn’t coming. She was forever gone.

But he kept waiting.

 

He was waiting still. He would wait forever, he knew.

But what more could he do? Waiting was all he had. So he kept on.

Sitting in that same chair. Swirling the same glass absentmindedly. Staring, unseeing, at the same door.

Waiting.