Word Count: 1170

For the Dauntless Competition: write a tragedy/angst story

There is nothing more serene than a sanctuary on a Monday morning. There are no parishioners milling about, no one to disturb the quiet, no one to confess their sins for there has not been time to commit any yet.

Emmeline sits in the third pew, letting the sun shining through the stained glass paint her skin cerulean and purple. She sits and she waits with a Bible open on her lap, the spine creaking with every turn of the page. The Psalms are her favorite. They are epic poetry spinning tales of a time when wars were fought with swords and spears and chainmail instead of fear, a time when war was so much more straightforward.

She reads aloud when she hears Fabian come in, leading him to her with a clear voice that bounces off the high ceiling.

"And though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…" She looks up at his smiling face and rolls her eyes. "You know what? Sometimes I think David was full of shit."

She snaps the books closed, sending a swirling cloud of dust into the air.

"So cynical," he observes. He takes a seat beside her and irreverently props his feet up on the pew in front of him. "Missed you at the last Order meeting."

"Dumbledore had a mission for me," she says stiffly. She plays with the long braid that is always worn over her shoulder. She's not really in the mood to talk.

"Still missed you." He leans down and presses his lips to her cheek, and in spite of herself she smiles.

"I missed you too." She lets him pull her against his side and lays her head on his chest, taking comfort in the sound of his voice as it resonates in his ribcage.

"What's wrong, love?" he asks. There is a hint of worry in his tone and she knows she ought to be less cold. None of this is his fault.

"This just…" She bites her lip and buries her face in his neck. "This isn't how it was supposed to go. Nothing's happening."

"I know," he says. "I know. But, you know what, Em? When this is all over, I'm going to take you to Paris."

"Paris?"

"Yeah. We'll have too much wine and cheese and climb the Eiffel Tower and I'll wear a beret."

She wrinkles her nose at the thought. "I'd never kiss you if you wore a beret."

"I'm willing to bet you would."

"We don't know any French," she reminds him. "And all the naughty words you know don't count."

"I know enough." And before she can argue back he captures her mouth in a kiss. But it's more like a promise. "Je t'aime," he says when they break apart. "Je t'aime."

She smiles for the first time in days and kisses him back. "Je t'aime."

He finds her in the same place a week later. She says it's her favorite place to hide from Death Eaters' prying eyes. No one would suspect them here.

She reads her Psalms while he sits at the old piano in the corner. His fingers dance across the yellowing keys, creating music that is slightly out of tune but beautiful just the same. And afterward they tangle their limbs together, whisper promises of when this is all over into each other's mouths and silently pray to whoever might be watching this travesty that things will work out in the end.

The bells strike noon above them, so they prepare to leave and go out into this mess they've found themselves in.

He has a mission tonight, so she tells him to be careful. And when they go their separate ways, she leaves a Bible open to the twenty-third psalm on the altar.

Some days he comes in bruised and battered, his wand-hand shaking with anger and guilt. She doesn't scold and she keeps her negativity to herself, tending to his wounds as best as she can.

He whispers his confessions to her and only her. He talks of the blood on his hands and the flashes of green and red blinding his vision. He talks of duty and instructions, of how he just does what he's told because what other options does he have?

He tells her he's sorry.

"What else can we do?" she asks. She holds him close, humming a half forgotten tune. It might be a hymn but she's not sure. "You're so brave, Fabian."

"I don't want to be brave anymore."

Neither does she.

He sits beside her with hands folded. He stares straight ahead, and she cannot get him to meet her gaze.

"Did you find Benjy?" she asks.

He nods his head slowly. "At least… what was left of him."

"…Oh."

"Je t'aime," he whispers. And that is the only sound to be heard on this cold Monday morning. Repeated declarations of devotion, and her replies muffled by his shoulder.

They are not okay and they both know it, but just for now in the stained glass light, in the sanctuary they've discovered, they will pretend that this is right. He traces the patterns of color the windows make on her bare skin, traveling from her neck to between her shoulder blades and over the curve of her hip. He tells her she is beautiful like this, and she believes him. She believes everything he tells her now. She has to.

"When this is all over…" he says.

And it's Paris and the Eiffel Tower and a house on the coast and maybe, just maybe, forever.

Maybe.

Or maybe not.

The next week she finds herself alone. He doesn't come through the door and her psalms are not so poetic today. They are full of blood and death and victory that is bittersweet. She waits until the clock strikes noon and then despairs and leaves.

The Bible on the altar remains closed.

This isn't how it was supposed to go.

In Godric's Hollow there is a heap of rubble that is all that remains of the Potters' house. Just down the street a melancholy church prepares for a funeral. A dusty Bible creaks open to the twenty third psalm.

There is mourning and there is celebration and shooting stars falling down like rain over Kent. On the East End of London a werewolf howls in fury and a rat that isn't really a rat scurries through the bins. A laughing man is dragged off to Azkaban.

A baby is left on the front porch of Number Four, Privet Drive.

Meanwhile, in Paris, a woman climbs to the top of the Eiffel Tower with a psalm in her heart. She looks out over the city below and wishes things were different. This isn't how it was supposed to go, but she lifts her face to the sky and whispers the only French she knows and lets the wind carry it away, hoping that somehow Fabian can hear it.

"Je t'aime."