This is by far one of the best stories I've read on this site. But even more than that, I've never read a story that so perfectly captures what it feels like to lose the greatest, purest love you'll ever have.
"But do you know what I've found doesn't pass? Love. It fades; it changes, flows and ebbs. It knocks you on your arse, rips out your heart, makes you bleed, and compels you to come back for more, but it doesn't pass. Not with time, not with distraction, and certainly not because someone has hurt you more than you can bear. Love, real love, digs in and hangs on long after you wish to be finished with it. And it hurts, God, how it hurts.
But the flip of it is, locked inside my heart lays the memory of something special and precious. I remember what it felt like to be loved. Not fancied, or the object of someone's passing obsession, but loved with someone's whole heart. Maybe it's not a happy ending, but that's the point: It's not an ending at all. Some things are just too great, too much to ever end."
"I'll wonder where he is, and if he's allowed himself to be happy. I'll hope he remembers our secret winter together as clearly as I do, that he treasures it as I do. For a moment, I'll long for him so much that my chest literally aches with it. And then I'll take a breath until the ache passes, as old aches always do, and tuck him back into my heart where he belongs, where he'll fade and change, grow and ebb, but never, never pass away."
I had to stop reading for awhile after these passages to compose myself. It's clear you've lived what you've written, because I cant imagine someone being able to so beautifully convey that mix of gratitude for having felt that rare kind of love, and eternal pain at having lost it, unless they've lived it. Thank you for writing this story, it's beautiful and so painfully relatable.
I have read plenty of fanfics, and this one is most definitely up there in the top three.
Well done, and thanks for sharing it!! You should be very, very proud of this masterpiece!
"Gin," he called out, and she turned to face him, a few feet away. "What exactly did you see in the forest?"
"A glimpse into the future," she answered after a moment's pause. "A glimpse into my heart -- what I hope, and what I fear, and what's inevitable, no matter how hard I fight against it." Another pause, and she debated whether to ask him or not. Before, it had seemed to her that he'd been trying to avoid telling her. Nothing gambled, nothing gained . . . "What about you? What did you see, Draco?"
His face contorted from one inscrutable expression to another, and he seemed to be conducting a silent argument with himself over what, exactly, he was supposed to say. Finally, he smiled a funny, ironic little smile, and said ruefully:
"I saw you."
ooo!!! lovely, eloquent, perfect, wonderful, beautiful... the adjectives keep coming