Out of Time and Memory

Chapter Two - Death


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/Click./ The soft shut of the nursery door closing as Lily turns out the lights on the mobile of stars above Harry’s cradle. She turns her green eyes to me. She smiles her gentle smile and raises her finger to her lips, warning me needlessly that our son is sleeping in the room beyond the door. I beckon her into a hug, stroking her soft red hair in a moment of absolute comfort and feelings of safety. As my hands traced her delicate chin the sky outside seems to irrupt in a clash of thunder, rumbling though the ground, and through our hearts. For though no muggle would be able to tell the difference in the sound of the thunderstorm, we hear it for what it is; it is wizards being hunted. It is the sound of a powerful wizard apparating and breaking a powerful spell. I look into my wife’s green eyes and at the horror that comes into them. Suddenly my moves seem involuntary as I turn, and, in what seems like slow motion, I walk to the stairs, my thoughts turned to the night, and what lies in the darkness.


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/And here in the night

As I feel the inferno

I stare in the dark

Thinking what is eternal/


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“Lily, take Harry, take him and run!” I shout


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/The man or the moment

The act or the reason

These thoughts fill my head

As I contemplate treason/


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/I’m walking to my death,/ I think to myself, knowing that these are my last thoughts. . .


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/Of dreams I have had

And dreams I have pondered

When late in the night

My mind it would wander/


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/Flying, a family, teaching, a family, a future. . ./


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/To things I have done

And then quickly regretted

While denying vices

My life had selected/


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The memories come flooding in as I reach the bottom stair


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/And think what I’ve done

Or have yet to begin

And the man I’ve become

And the man that I’ve been/


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My son, my family, my friends. . .


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/Now caught in a waltz

With the eternal dancer

I’m courted by death

But death isn’t the answer

I say/


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“No”, I mutter as I walk though the back parlor


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/All I was

Meant to be

Could I

Suddenly

Just decide

Not a thought

Would survive

Could it be

My life’s worth

Ended there

With my birth/


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/Oh god I’m scared, I may never see them again, I’m scared, but I, I’m suppose to be brave. . ./


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/If I could see someone

Who’s been there before me

And traded his soul

For a moment of glory/

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/God, I’m scared./ I pray. /Brave? How can I be brave facing death, God?/

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/His penance or mercy

By spirits debated

While judged on a scale

That’s been heavily weighted/


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/Why Us? Why us, God?/


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/And what have I done

Could there be such a sin

In this man I’ve become

In this man that I’ve been/

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/What did we do to deserve this? What did I do, what can I do to save them?/


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/Now calling to God

From the pit’s very bottom

I pray he forgives

Every sin I’ve forgotten

This day

And who would have thought

That my fate it would conjure

This twist in the road

On which I have wondered/


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The hallway, I’m almost to the front door….


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/Each vision and dream now

Completely dismembered

To give one’s whole life

And find nothing’s remembered/


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/My son, my wife. . .Lily, run,. . .am I ready?/


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/And what good is a life

That leaves nothing behind

Not a thought or a dream

That might echo in time/


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/My son, remember me. . ./


“The door.” I whisper. “Voldemort and my. . .friend. . .Wormtail. . .”


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/The years and the hours

The seconds and minutes

And everything that

My life has placed in it

Betrayed

Betrayed

Betrayed/


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“Our life’s dreams, gone. Because of him,” I cast my spell as the thoughts of what he had done sunk in.


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/The things I have done

The places I’ve been

The cost of my dreams

The weight of my sins


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I see green over powering my red, the green speeding towards me. ..Green like her. . .like his, like their eyes. . .


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/And everything that

I’ve gathered in life

Could it be lost

Could it be lost in this

Could it be lost in this

Night/


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My family, my last thought amid that green in the night and I hear the laughter of the past as it moves forward into the future, leaving me in my last memory.

~fin~