"...you'll get better soon
'cause you have to"

['soon you'll get better', taylor swift]

xxx

The cool air brushed her cheeks, and she watched as the willow's feeble branches and slender leaves swayed in its liberty, slow dancing above the ground, as he watched the never-ending small ripples develop and disappear in the black lake before them. The sun was still lowering, though enough light remained.

She didn't know whether Madame Pomfrey had come back yet or not, whether it had been a half-hour or just two minutes, and whether or not she'd figured out that the windows of the hospital wing were perfect to climb out of and wander down to the shore of the black lake.

He'd brought her down, of course; her arms around his neck, and him carrying her 'bridal style', but she didn't really feel like a bride at all. It was more like she'd been pulled out of a fire and was being brought to safety, with smoke in her lungs and ashes in her hair in the arms of someone who could save her—or at least, someone who could hold her as the blistering burns and gashes and bruises and heat became all too much for her body. Or maybe like a drowning victim pulled from the water, her skin too pale and limbs too limp and cold and lungs too full of water—helpless; vulnerable; dying; too far gone, though remaining in the arms of her soaked savior just to have that human touch as her eyes became empty and she drifted away.

He knew everything, now. Everything. He knew that she'd been in the herbology greenhouse late after school, a place so crowded with overgrown plants. She'd been working on a detailed diagram due the next day, sitting on the table—but the lamps along the glass walls had extinguished, and suddenly everything was a silhouette, her wand annoyingly on the other side of the room—and that was when she stood on them; two massive thorns, and they went right through the sole of her shoes to her skin.

To this day, she doesn't know what plant it was—no one does. Maybe it was a type of plant that spread its thorns as darkness touched its stems; a self-defense mechanism, maybe; something undiscovered, something mysterious and unknown. But as professors inspected the greenhouse after word from Madame Pomfrey, they found no trace of any loose thorn plant. And so came her diagnosis—which was barely a diagnosis, and basically just a 'hey we don't know what plant did this and the thorns we took out of your feet don't match any records or samples in the world and it's kind of killing your feet and spreading up your body.'

She could almost feel the ache of his bruised, broken heart from where her head rested on his shoulder; their backs against the willow's trunk, his arm around her, holding her—like if he didn't, she'd fall to the ground and smash into pieces before his eyes. She looked up at him, and he refused to meet her eyes; his gaze trained on the horizon—of the sun nearly set; so close to the horizon; the light nearly gone, but not quite gone just yet.

He wished it was midday, when the light was vivid and bright and nowhere near dusk—he'd have more time in its light, in its warmth. He bent his head down; moving a hand beneath his glasses to rub his eyes.

"Harry..." Her voice was soft. So, so soft. And yet it ripped apart his heart—knowing that maybe in a month, or next week, or tomorrow, he wouldn't be able to hear it because she'd be dead and gone, completely, utterly gone, and he'd be without her. Without her smile, her fumbling stutter when she was flustered, her loose hair strands falling from behind her ear, her hand fiddling with the ring on her pinky finger, her head nestling into his chest, her thumb drawing circles over his hand, her light, her warmth, her.

"I—" his voice was coarse; he cleared his throat, failing to conceal the tears streaming down his face. "I don't know what I'm gonna do."

Her voice wobbled—breaking.

"You'll be okay, Harry, I promise." She brought her fingers to his chin, and he turned to face her, sniffing, and of course her eyes started to water. All he could feel was this weight tied to his feet—and he was sinking all over again. What she said next broke her own heart. "You'll get over me."

He looked down at her in disbelief, taking his arm off her so he could face her properly, and she dropped her hand from his face to entwine her fingers with his. He held them back, but his lips were slightly parted for a moment—no words reaching his tongue, just staring at her. She meant that. She meant that.

"It's not that easy, I—" He finally said; stunned. She didn't look convinced—he squeezed her hand. His eyelids were red around the rims. "Mia, I can't let you go."

She failed to hold back a sob, looking down.

"It'll hurt," he said, an understatement—but he failed to think of a greater word in that moment. She knew he meant it like taking a knife to the heart and bleeding out; like suffocating, like this hollowness but simultaneously this weight pulling you down and down and down, and suddenly you're nothing because you've lost everything.

Although, grief is its own thing. Maybe it's okay—not being able to describe it as something other than hurt, because 'not everything feels like something else', and comparing something mental to something physical has its own gravity. It's loss, and one would think that loss would be light. Loss would be a weight lifted from the mind. Loss equates to a lack of something. To nothing. But it's the opposite—it's the exact opposite—because loss is heavy. Loss is carrying the ghost of what you used to have and, at the same time, the knowing that it's never coming back. Loss isn't nothing—it's the weight of everything you can't have again. So maybe that's the weight attached to his foot, dragging him down; making him sink and drown. The weight of all he has lost, and all he is yet to lose.

"It'll hurt," He repeated, and stopped trying to wipe away the tears running down his cheeks because there were too many, too many, and he needed to say what he needed to say. "But it'd hurt more letting you go."

Her heart stuttered.

Maybe it was that line. Maybe it was the heat of the moment; the way he was looking at her, or the way her heart started pounding and her stomach erupted in butterflies. Whatever it was, her hands released themselves from his hold and were suddenly cupping his face as she closed the small gap between them, and her soft lips finally met his.

His eyes widened for a second before melting into the salty kiss, one hand gently finding the top of her neck; fingers nearing her hair, and the other wrapping around her back, pulling her closer until all they knew in that moment was flushed cheeks and the pure warmth of being held by one another, and suddenly he was above the water, and he could breathe again, and she was free, and flying.

And it was the break from reality they'd been needing, because it felt ethereal; electric; like they were floating up, up, up; far from the tree, the lake, the hospital wing, and it was just them, far from the ground, as though they found freedom in one another. They parted, and were brought back to earth, though remained elated and close; laughing—almost out of relief, and he never wanted to leave this moment. Their foreheads touched, and their eyes were closed for a moment—just together in the slow breeze as the light lowered and the wind whistled through the willow's drowsy branches. She pulled away, slowly, and he opened his eyes.

"You'll stay with me?" She whispered, so, so quietly. If they weren't so close, if he wasn't so deep in her eyes, if he couldn't almost hear her heartbeat, he wouldn't have noticed her saying anything. But he did. He did.

"Until the very end."

And they stayed there, leaning against the tree, her head on his chest, his arm around her, for so long, so long, and as the golden sun and horizon dreamt, this left her enough light to sit up slightly and eye the ground beside them for a moment before grabbing a small, sturdy stick, and breaking it in half. At the small, clean snap, he, almost sleepily, tilted his head from where it leaned against the willow to face her, and watch as she sharpened the end of one of the sticks with the other.

Once it had an adequate, though pretty blunt, spike to it, she twisted around to the tree, and beside him, started scratching at its wood, and a small smile developed across his lips at the way she eyed her lettering in such concentration. After a moment, she pulled her hand back, admiring her work with a grin on her face, beckoning him to look at it.

Leaning her way, he read the words she'd carved in neat, capital letters: MIA AND HARRY WERE HERE. It was like in the summer; how, when night falls, the sun's warmth still lingers on the grass, as if to be remembered, as if to say I was here, I was real. Running his finger over the letters, he turned her way, sharing her grin.

"It's perfect!"

"This is our tree now," she said, victorious, scooting closer to him once more, and he wrapped his arm back around her in response.

This moment was like the sun after a storm. The clouds are looming and dark and fatigued and the puddles remain and the drops on your window are still left to dry—but then the sun shines through and makes everything a golden glow and maybe everything's okay. Because maybe in all this damage, this darkness, this cold, the sun is still hopeful and it shines on your face and suddenly you remember what its like to be warm.

And maybe this won't last. Maybe they won't grow old and be the smiling lovers with wrinkled hands and white hair and stories upon stories of their youth together. But maybe there's some beauty in their tragedy, in their time together cut short, because beautiful things are those small things; those quick fleeting moments you tattoo on your soul to remember for the rest of your life. It's the beginning of things that just seems to come too late, it's the middles that should last forever, it's the bitter hope that endings never come—so maybe, this is beautiful; something ending just as it began, where every moment is treated and truly lived in like tomorrow won't rise.

It's the small words you utter, or the thumping of your heart as someone holds you close; the shaking hands that still once entwined, and hold on, and keep holding on, refusing to let go of one another, and reaching even when the other is too far away. It's remembering the other, even when gone: the preservation of their soul through memory, and love. It's the fragility of the body; the painful mortality of skin and bone. But maybe that's okay.

Maybe that's beautiful.

xxx

a/n:

i will be crying for the next 5-7 business days

thank u guys so much for reading! i loved writing this book <3

and if you'd like to support my writing journey, consider buying me a coffee!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/georgialee

-g