We are survivors.

Life has broken us so many times; there is not much you can say to deny it. There is no great love between us, no soul mates and no fate. I am glad for that, because fate has stabbed me in the back often enough.

We are simply two people who have lost everything else and then some. I watch her as she moves through the courtyard to the small, wooden bench standing there, caught between tall lancing roses and beautiful bushes. She reaches inside the bright purple bag she carries with her, which is a violent contrast to the red of the flowers, and pulls out the thin book she has taken here with her.

She fascinates me, in a strange way. Odd, just like she is. But then, after all this time, who isn't? She flips the cover open and starts to read, her eyes moving along the lines, word for word. She will read every one of them carefully and think about it. She told me that once. We have too few of these moments, where we can just talk about everything and she begins speaking of random things.

I can not decipher the title of the book, but I guess that it is an old story. She enjoys literature much more than I ever did and will spend hours devouring The Canterbury Tales and A Midsummer Night's Dream. It is an interest I do not share, as we are not similar at all.

We are not a perfect match. My perfect match, my soul mate, had red hair, played Quidditch like no other girl, was funny and charming. She is dead, one of the first we lost to a terrible tragedy. I try not to think of it, because remembering just makes it all even worse. I fought for her, day after day in her memory. Now, we have won and there is nothing left to live for except for the young blonde reading in the garden. Luna.

In the courtyard, she looks up from the book and as she holds it the right way I see that it is a work of poetry. She doesn't see me as I move away, out of the shadows and into other ones.

And I will not mention it that night, at dinner, when she tells me an amusing story I'll never remember. Silence is awkward and her voice will break it. I will watch her lips move, her hands gesticulating wildly as she talks. I will not speak a word of it when I kiss her that night and I will remain silent as I make love to her on the of bed of the cottage. All of that because though we are lovers, most of all we are friends, and we keep each other sane. She knows that I will never love her the way I loved Ginny, and I know that she'll never smile at me the way she smiled at Dean. She has a beautiful smile.

I hate her sometimes, because she shows me all my weaknesses, and yet, without her, I would have been lost a long time ago.

The next day, she leaves the house early in the morning and goes back outside. I follow her out through the kissing gate and into the courtyard. I stand behind the roses once again, bright red in these early months of summer. There is a soft drizzle of rain today, and I watch as she chooses the bench under the small arbour instead of the one from yesterday. She always picks one of these two, depending on the weather.

She takes out the book again, the same one as yesterday. She didn't finish it yesterday. She reads through books quickly most of the time, but sometimes she will stop after the first page and read a different one. Then, the original one might be left lying around for weeks or months before she touches it again.

She leaves the book in the garden that night, and when she ahs left, I move forwards to pick it up. It is still open, revealing the yellowish parchment of the page. There is a single rose lying on it, blocking a part of it. Roses are red-…- and I love you.

I reach for the rose and tuck it away. She must have been thinking of Dean.