Heliophilia; d.m

XXI

But it was time to believe already. Everything was real, more real than anything that had ever happened before in my life, even more real than me.

"And you? Who are you?" My firm voice shattered that hope, leaving only the agony and pain I knew so well.

"Are you okay? He let you go?" He didn't despair, probably thinking that we had a carload of time to explain and a lifetime to catch up, to get things right. But again, I had to destroy everything he had hoped for and believed in, I had to destroy him, just to save him.

"I'll go back to him. But first I want to know everything from the beginning." I put my elbows on my knees, leaning my face closer, looking into his once-so-familiar eyes, which now seemed so lying.

"Violet, don't."

"It's already decided, you can't influence it. Tell me everything, or I'll leave right now."

His gaze faded again as his slightly trembling hands cupped his head in a gesture full of desperation.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't protect you." I saw a single drop of his stingy tear fall to the floor, and gathering my last remaining strength, I took a deep breath, forbidding myself to give in to my feelings, and to support him, to tell him that everything was fine, that everything would be fine. These were false, empty hopes that would not lead to anything good and right.

"I couldn't do the one thing she asked me to do. I couldn't keep my promise."

"Start telling me, I don't have much time."
Even though I already knew my life story, I wanted to hear it from him.

"This is complicated, but I'll try to explain the main thing," He cleared his throat, and nervously ran a hand through his hair as he began to speak again, "Your mother was in such a state because of him. He ruined her life, he ruined it, leaving her without a family or a loved one, and he wanted to kill her as soon as you were born, but she managed to escape. With me."

I'd always thought my life was terrible, but the thought that I could have been around Voldemort from the moment I was born gave me a shudder that went through me from head to toe.

"It would seem that everyone thought he was dead, defeated, and we — you, were safe, but your mother didn't think so. It was not enough for her that we ran away so far, that we changed our names and never showed up in public, she was insanely afraid and it drove her crazy. Fear."

Fear.

Fear ruled everything, it drove people crazy, forced them to commit rash actions that could lead to serious consequences; fear could destroy people's lives, just because they succumbed to it; and fear never spared.

"She believed that one day he would show up on the doorstep again and he would still be able to separate you. And every day I promised her that nothing would happen to you or her. But I couldn't keep that promise, making the biggest mistake of my life, when I let you go to Hogwarts."

What he called his biggest mistake was my biggest salvation.

I thought about all the moments that had pleased me for two years there, in another world that was so far from mine, which was the opposite of light compared to my dark, another world in which I felt that I lived, and not just existed. Maybe it was a mistake, but it was the most beautiful and necessary mistake for me.

"And Violet," He brought my floating consciousness back to him, "Your birthday is in August, the fourth."

I closed my eyes tightly, fighting the urge to laugh at the absurdity, even my birthday wasn't true.