"Made off
Don't stray
My kind's your kind
I'll stay the same

Pack up
Don't stray..."

Epilogue

- Seventh Year -

I'm sitting here. In the dark. On the couch.

The fire is still fighting strong.

I've been here all night. The sun should rise in minutes now. But I've been saying that for the past half hour.

Loneliness has its limits.

I've spent this entire night. Sitting here. Thinking. Remembering. Recapping. Traveling down a memory lane that has managed to become littered by painful memories of the past.

Things used to feel so right. Him. Me. The strange dynamic we shared. I didn't think things like that just fizzled. But maybe that is what they do. They explode and evaporate. Leaving you with a bunch of sooty remains. And a charred chemistry set.

I'm tired of stepping on pieces of broken glass.

But at the same time...My heart still gets that funny, clamped up feeling. Every time I think of him. He makes me so angry and so frustrated. Bitter. Resentful. Sad. But now. Now I can only seem to think of days. Days when he made me...smile. Laugh. Blush. Act the woman I was born to be.

Somewhere along the way everything became a mess. A train wreck. A bubbling cauldron of gunk threatening to take us over. And we let it.

Sitting here. Sitting here it's all clear. Illuminated by the past and glowing with the present.

The present's not so pretty anymore.

Somewhere along the way it quit being about sex. And became something else entirely. A game of dirty politics, a battle to save one's soul. A conquest to capture the other's.

We made it possible for both of us to lose.

He made me do things and feel things and think things I never should have. He was insensitive. Oblivious. And blind. He was immature. Juvenile. Sophomoric. But he made me laugh. And more often than not made me cry. And need. And want.

And love.

It's beautiful and awful and terrifying to recognize a situation for what it really is. To uncover buried emotions and secret feelings. To say their names, even if in solitude. In a dark room with only thoughts and fears and memories for company.

I've never felt so alone.

Even in those days. Those days I remained silent and he remained pitiful. Those days I shut him down. Turned my back on him. I still knew he was standing there. Watching. Waiting.

Somehow abandonment makes everything a bit too clear...

I'm sitting here. Sitting in a dark room. Still waiting for the sun to rise. Sitting here. Feeling the beginnings of tears pricking at my eyes. I'm trying to think happy thoughts. But I think I'm finally out.

Regret is an ugly emotion.

Love is an ugly emotion.

Love. I managed to learn a lesson about love. And there was no bright enlightenment, no moment when I said, "Oh, that makes perfect sense." Instead I managed to confuse myself and lose myself. In a swirling whirlpool of emotion. Love's not pretty. And when you try to make it just that, when you go around believing that. You're only setting yourself up for disappointment. Love doesn't work the way we grow up believing it's supposed to. He won't rescue you. He won't save you. He may ruin you and destroy you and make you want to die. But in the end...in the end...

You'll still want him. And maybe even still love him.

And I do.

I love him. I love Fred. I love you.

It's easier than it seems to let those words ring out through my head. It's harder than it seems to actually say them. But it took this. A year or more of shagging. Rejection. Refusal. Regret. And eventually redemption. It took it all. To see this. I do love him and need him and I'm sorry and I want you back here with me and I'm sorry and I love you. I love you, too.

I'm sick and sad. I can feel a few tears slipping down my cheeks. I bat them angrily away. I'm not like that anymore.

Impulsively, I grab a piece of parchment off the side table. Along with a random misplaced quill.

"Dear Fred,"

And I pause. Staring at my handwriting until my eyes glaze over. Until the two words merge into one, blurring and shaking and out of focus.

And realize I can't do this. I don't know how to do this. Put into words everything I just realized. Everything it took all shit for me to learn. You can't put that into a letter. You can't write emotions like that.

I twirl the quill between my fingers. And think.

"Dear Fred."

I crumble the parchment into a ball. And toss it into the licking flames before me.

I'm not ready yet.

The year is over. Hogwarts, for me, is over.

And I'm back here. Back at 9 and ¾. Feeling like I was just here. Dragging a trunk the size of me down the sooty walk.

I'm here. Wishing I was eleven again. When things were still in black and white. Somehow my life has become clad in grey.

I gaze across the crowded platform. Attempting to see past the hugs and greetings. The rapid chit-chat to my right. The squeezing cheeks to my left.

And there he is.

Hair red as ever, silly grin bestowing his freckled face. There he is. And wearing what I can only call the ugliest suit I have ever seen. But it's him. Here. My strange little oasis in the desert of my life.

He's here.

And I want to scream and yell and tumble and flip. I'm sure my heart could just burst any second, shooting rainbows and stars across the way. The joy, the relief. It's killing me. And then, I want to cry and let myself fall, collapse on the dirty floor and bawl my eyes out. Cry until I can't see, can't hear. Can't breathe.

It's him.

He's real and we're real and what we had is real.

He doesn't see me. But that's okay.

I take a step towards him. Then another. Watching the distance between us shrink.

He's here.

I catch his eye. I catch his eye and sense the hope. And my feet continue forward.

He's here. He's real.

What we have is real.

I'm ready now...

"Wait, they don't love you like I love you..."

A/N: Song lyrics from Maps – Yeah Yeah Yeahs

It breaks my heart...I'm done. The story is completed. It's all gone full circle. And for once I have a story that has a beginning, middle and end. I'm proud.

I want to thank each and everyone of you that took the time to read this and took even more time to let me know what you thought about it. You guys are so awesome, it's unbelievable. But thank you for sticking with me. And for enjoying what I wrote. I love you all to pieces. And when you are whole.

Eventually, I think I'm going to go back through this story and edit, again, and revise. Add some stuff I wish I had put in. Cut out the stuff I didn't like first time around. But that won't be for a while. For now though...Fear and Loathing in Romania. Yeah. It's my Everest. Come check it out and watch me try to climb it.

Thank you all, and I'm really going to miss writing this story...