Years after, I would wonder, how the horrors of war do make us less than the dried dust on our skin, less than the ground we tread on, less than life itself, imbued with beauty and death. We are beyond dying, beyond living.

The clear-headed nights were rare and few between. I was bound to a room as small as a cupboard, in complete silence. I couldn't hear anything, but I could hear the shouts. The deafening sounds of falling bodies and spells. Like rockets shooting in the air and then killing everything in sight.

The terror that sprung up in my throat was covered by my lack of air. I could barely move my fingers.

Each night, I was given water in a small bowl and a small piece of cake. There was cake almost every three days. I asked one of the Death Eaters wanly why I was being given so much cake.

'There is so much to celebrate every night. The cooks are always busy. We are throwing victory parties. Our Lord thought you'd like it.'

He had thought well. There was barely room inside of me to eat and now I had even fewer reasons left to keep myself alive. But I ate and I slept and I survived, because somewhere out there, my family and my beloved friends were still fighting and waiting for me.

At the end of the week, they'd take me out of 'my room' and take me to see their prisoners. I was made to watch them cry or bleed to death as they were submitted to awful curses. Sometimes, they'd take me on a walk for some 'fresh air.' I'd see the bodies from afar, the fallen bodies from the battles. There had been about four battles in the vicinity of his manor. He had won them all. And the bodies had been left on the blue fields for everyone to see. Their stench was overwhelming.

I never looked closer to see their faces, afraid I would recognize someone.

This horrific ritual I was submitted to was the way I kept track of time. I knew they'd take me out at the end of the week. Otherwise, I had no way of knowing.

I missed the air and the sun when I was locked in my cupboard. I'd miss my darkness and solitude when I was taken outside. Because when I was outside, I was really inside the dead bodies.

He had made sure I would not find any solace, not inside, nor outside. All my paths were blocked.

I started thinking I would grow old and weary and I'd never see the end of this war.

I hadn't seen Harry in four months. I wondered, sometimes in desperation, sometimes in indifferent stupor, whether he was alive. I felt he was alive, but I never knew for sure. I wondered if I was still alive.

My mother. I'd imagine her at the window right now, waving at me from the kitchen. I'd be in the garden, picking mushrooms.

She'd point at one of the garden gnomes.

'Ginny, take care! He's trying to escape again!'

And indeed, a garden gnome would be trying to escalate the fence. I'd have to put him back down.

Now I think it was selfish of me not to let him run away, be free.

My mother would smile whenever she saw me chasing after them. It was the smile of a woman whose heart was too big for her body.

I kept thinking they'd destroy the Burrow. If they could find it, they'd tear it to pieces. And I would not be there to see it fall. Some small comfort.

I had left those places without saying goodbye. Last time I had seen George, he'd given me a new set of robes. I remember thinking it was ridiculous to be given new school robes. I wasn't going to school. I was going to a prison.

But Hogwarts is much better than this. Much better.

One day, I was taken out of the cupboard, but not taken outside.

I was washed and cleaned, I was dressed in some old, deathly scented clothes and I was taken to see him.

He was having lunch in his private dining room. I couldn't describe the room if I tried. I was sleep-deprived and I lacked the ability to observe much around me. Although I remember the blinking light coming through the windows. A light so furious with me and everything that breathed.

He bid me approach him and eat with him.

I was bound in a chair, across from his and a plate appeared on the table. I began eating mechanically. It was the first time I was not eating cake or bread.

My eyes were lowered. I was crying in my food. Not tears of sadness, but anger that I was made to be civil and do something so ordinary in front of him.

He was so close and I could have killed him. You always feel regret when something slips away. I felt the deep regret of not having my wand, because I knew he would slip away, I knew I wouldn't be able to kill him. And it hurt that I could have. I didn't care if it was Harry's destiny. At this point, even a toothpick was good enough to kill him.

I thought he was going to kill me. I had been dressed, washed, I was having my last meal, just like in those stories you hear and you think will never happen to you.

Well, I was probably going to die very soon.

When I heard him speak I was awaiting some last words, perhaps a sentence.

'Tell me, Ginny Weasley, why do you love?'

This question took me by surprise. I had not expected this kind of conversation.

It took me a while to be made to speak. My food was stuck between my teeth, my jaws were full. I was slowly becoming immovable.

'Why...?' I asked hoarsely.

'Answer me. Why do you love?'

My eyes fell to the floor.

'Do you care to know?' I asked hollowly. 'Or do you wish to know if it is possible?'

He leant forward and his red eyes scanned mine.

'Just tell me. Why do you love?'

I stared back defiantly.

'Because there's nothing else left to do.'

He frowned. Then he cracked a smile.

'Thank you. I have always wanted to hear that.'

'Hear my sorrow?'

'I have always wanted to hear people say love is a last resort. If it weren't for war and death and sufferance, people would forget about it.'

'No, they wouldn't.'

'Either way, I am only enforcing love. I am reminding people of it. Every day, they cling to love. The last hope. And I am happy. I never understood love. But I am surrounding myself with it. Can't you see, Ginny Weasley?'

And in that moment I wished I couldn't and had not seen. My eyes would never forget and my lips would never speak.

'I am gifted with love. I always have been,' he repeated. 'It had no room inside of me, but I found room for it in the depths of your throats, which are crying endlessly. Oh, there is enough of it there. It will last me a long time.'

I cursed the Gods. How evil men are driven in their insanity by that which we all think good.

How dangerous; the inability to love. How necessary and alluring for one like him, the power of love.

How love is the source of all beauty and all evil.

'We are going to Hogwarts, soon,' he told me suddenly. 'You will have reason to love again.'

Years after, I would grind those words, with the cruelty of heavy stones.

I would obsess over them. I would speak them, when no one heard me.

And I would never forget the day love became a sin.