In days long past, before I came to know her, my life was simple. Black and white, no shades of grey. There was wrong and right, honour and duty, death and life. Love and life. And then He fell, and my family was broken. My father, my mother, aunt and uncle sent to Azkaban for their crimes. And my world was shattered.

She came to me one evening at Hogwarts. I had taken to separating myself from the other Slytherin students, few that we were, and her friends hadn’t returned to Hogwarts to repeat their seventh year, as we both had. The first night I threw her concern back in her face, with added insults for good measure. The second night she insulted me back.

After a few months, we had gotten into a sort of a routine. We would meet at a window in the Astronomy tower, and then we would walk down the Room of Requirement. I would bring drinks, and she would bring food. And so we drank, and we ate, and we fought.

I was cruel to her, so cruel in the beginnings, and yet she just took it all in her stride. Eventually we opened up to each other. She showed me the scars that my aunt had given to her, I showed her the scars from my father. She told me about the last year of the war, when she and her friends had been missing. I told her about Hogwarts in that time, and about how I had struggled for the year.

After all, I wasn’t truly on either side, and I was wanted by both. My father and godfather protected me as much as they could from Him, but I was still taken to him and tortured for my failures, or for the failures of others. The things that He did to me will always haunt me.

I remember the night it all changed between us. I had gotten hold of a Muggle drink, smoother than Firewhiskey yet just as potent. We were drunk, both of us more drunk than we had any right to be, and yet there we were. She was sad, crying I think. Her friends hadn’t owled her in a few weeks, she told me. She felt alone, she said. She didn’t want to be alone.

So I did it. I kissed her. And she kissed me back. It was innocent, of course. Chaste, almost. Just a brushing of lips, but it stayed her tears. She tasted salty, but I could taste the sweetness of the liquor on her tongue when she opened her mouth to me.

After that, we didn’t argue so much. Not in private, anyway. We still argued when others were around though, to keep up appearances. She said it had to be a secret, or her friends would argue against it, and she wanted it to be just about us. And I believed her, fool that I was.

She listened to me, when things got hard. She helped me, sometimes. When my mother and father were kissed by the Dementors, she held me more tightly than I’d ever been held before. And then she made my heart soar when she launched a protest against the Dementor’s kiss. She said it was cruel, and unjust for the families of those afflicted.

Of course, the whole world agreed with her. Who wouldn’t? A beautiful, young, intelligent war hero. And so it was abolished. Just in time for my aunt and uncle to be saved. A pity then, that their sentence was altered to death by hanging. My angel wouldn’t have been able to stop that. Not even had she wanted for them to live. They were evil people, she said. And she showed me her scars again, but this time I could kiss them better, and see them in the light of day.

After her campaign, her friends wrote to her again. She was happy, so very happy. I wanted to be happy for her, that she was not alone anymore. I wanted very much not to begrudge her that that I would never have. But I couldn’t help it. I hated her friends. I always had, and I always would.

We  saw each other less then, and when we did see each other she wanted to touch me less, and talk to me more of her friends. She tried to pretend that they had never hurt her, but I could see the pain that still lingered in her eyes.

And I remember the day that it changed again. She was happy that day, as happy as I’d ever seen her. They were coming, she said. Her ever-absent friends were coming to visit her. And she didn’t want me to be there, she said. She said she didn’t know if she’d be able to get away from them to see me that night. I said I would wait. After all, who else did I have to fill my time?

They had been staying at the school for a little over a week, and I had been at our window every night, just hoping for her to come to me. That night was different though. I was through with waiting, and I had a bottle of the Muggle stuff with me. So I took it to the Room of Requirement, but what I saw when I entered made me drop the bottle.

She was there. But so was he. One of her absent friends. And his hands were all over her. She didn’t look at me as he told me to leave. He told me that they were busy, that the room was occupied. He told me to go kill some time somewhere else.

I didn’t kill time, but I did kill him. And I did kill her. She had betrayed me, she had lied to me. In all that time, nobody had ever known that we had talked, that we had been friends, more than friends. She had never let me touch her like he had touched her. He had to die for touching her. She was mine, and if I couldn’t have her, no one could. My precious angel.

It’s ironic really, that her reforms will change what could have been my life. I could have lived. An empty, soulless shell, it’s said, but maybe I would still have had consciousness. Her reforms will kill me, just like I killed her.

Life is back to black and white again though now. Right and wrong, duty and honour, life and love. Life and death. Now I see that there never were shades of grey, just lighter black and darker white. Now I understand that I could never be anything more than I ever was. And it’s all her fault. My angel. But I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I hang tonight, because I loved her.

I hang tonight;

Tonight, I swing.