For the M&MWP Competition 2012. This is my drabble entry, with the pairing Astoria/Andromeda, for which the credit goes to Mew & Mor.

Thanks to MissingMommy for beta'ing. I don't own Harry Potter, by the way.

you can't run forever

.

You stare down at her grave and it is a lie, it has to be. She cannot be dead. She was so alive, so vibrant to you, and yet you are looking at her grave with her name etched into the silent stone. It hurts; it hurts so much that only the "A" of her first name is marked with a surname, that should never have been hers, taking up the majority of the space.

She is yours. She never belonged to the man she married, never. The wind rustles through the trees that encircle the graveyard, and it breaks your heart that you are the only one standing there. Hundreds of graves are present in the graveyard and you wonder what became of the loved ones of the people who sleep underneath the earth. Maybe they never existed, maybe they can't bring themselves to go to the grave, or maybe they, too, lie underneath the earth, dead and gone.

You cannot bring yourself to think about the possibility that there may be life after death, that, perhaps, she lives on. She does not; she is dead and you are dead, or at least, inside you are.

You remember the times you had.

Lips touched, hands wandered, words whispered and you were in heaven. It was so wrong for you to be with her; everything about it was wrong, and yet, somehow, it was right.

You loved your husband, didn't you? You think you did, or perhaps he was just an escape. He was wonderful and you were beautiful, young. You were arrogant and perhaps a little naïve.

How you wish that you could go back to who you were in your final years at Hogwarts. Despite the war, you were a better person then. Then again, in those final years, you didn't have her. That would be the price you'd have to pay.

"I love you," she had whispered, and every single word was true.

Perhaps you both returned to how you were in your final years at Hogwarts when you were together. Both of you were strong, proud, arrogant and Slytherin; both of you naïve. But one thing had changed—both of you were free.

And then it was gone. The freedom ended because you were afraid. You were a coward, and so was she, scared of the age gap, and it was 'we can't do this', and then you both stopped.

You still had the memory of her, though. Sometimes you'd see her pass you by and it would take everything for you not to change your mind.

But now she is dead and the feeling of freedom is long gone, along with her touch and the sanity that the sight of her brought you.

Her grave is stone cold at a touch and you hate the grave. It seems inadequate for such a wonderful woman as the one you loved.

Wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend.

What about 'lover'? You remind yourself that nobody knows about that. And yet it hurts that she is described as those five things, because she was, but she was so much more than that.

When she was alive, it didn't matter about your age, your shared house or your family. Nothing mattered but the feeling of her skin against yours and the conversations you'd share.

If only she hadn't felt like there was no way out. You tell yourself that it wasn't your fault, time and time again, and yet it's there, in the back of your mind, forever haunting you. What else was there but you? The thought is always there, taunting you, and you begin to shake. Sometimes you wish that it was you who had found her, instead of her sister, but, then again, you don't think that you could have coped.

You know that there is no use standing and thinking about her. She is gone. You return to your house, skipping the graves that you are expected to visit. The only one that matters is hers.

.

The next day, you visit again, allowing your eyes to re-read the gravestone, as if it could have changed since the last time you saw it.

Here lies A. Malfoy

Wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend.

1982 – 2018

Without pausing to check to see if anyone new has entered the graveyard, you allow yourself to cry. You owe that to Astoria, and, most of all, to yourself.

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