Prologue
Sometimes she wondered if she was being selfish by having such thoughts more often than she should. She knew that her decision had saved many, but it had cost her everything.
Was it wrong for her to wish she had allowed herself to fail the first time?
Sometimes she caught herself picturing it in her head. What would have been the end. What could have been the end. Sometimes she felt she could almost touch it. That reality she had created for herself.
Ahh, she could even see it right then and there. She would have walked to her death with fear, but not daring to back down, for her fear of not being able to save her loved ones was greater than her fear of making them not being good enough.
She would have met him in the forest, her breath would have been shaky, but she would have been at peace with herself after talking with the ghosts of her parents, godfather, and surrogate uncle. She would have felt ready to face what awaited her.
He would have gloated a little bit. Maybe even mocked and tortured her for a few minutes before he finally grew bored and dived into the main course.
And then, she would have decided to move on. To simply let go of what she thought were her responsibilities.
Granted, maybe she would had failed and instead condemned everyone she cared about, but now...
Now it felt like it would have been better than this fate she was suffering.
She was forced to see her love of her life die not even a few hours after they became engaged, they had known that the odds of surviving the war were very little but they had hoped they could had either survived it together, or died alongside each other.
Years later she was forced to witness as her friends grew old and they had children, and as they children had children of their own, and they too had children. How her adorable godson matured little by little until he became a proud and loving man who married and had a family of his own.
And what about her?
She was merely left watching from the sidelines as everyone she loved little by little disappeared right in front of her eyes, almost as if they simply became dust that was slowly being swept away by the unforgiving wind that was life.
She was frozen in a world that was meant to grow old and move on. She was unchangeable in a world that was meant for change, and when she was finally able to move on, she found herself in yet another world that caged her very existence.
Sometimes she wished she would have simply let him do as he had pleased, at least then she was sure she would be long dead by now.
Sometimes she wished she had boarded that train at the stationed and allowed bygones be bygones, but that would never be. At least not anymore.
For she was forever Henrietta Lilac Potter, the Girl-Who-Lived.
