Disclaimer: Everything from hp books belongs to JK Rowling

Idyllic

The moon is full, bright within the blackness, a light within the dark. She basks in it. An ethereal light that emphasizes her beauty and he can not take his eyes away.

There are no stars in the sky. It is empty as her heart as she stares into his eyes and her blood pumps to her ears. She's dying inside, but the threat of death itself would never make her admit it.

What do you mean you're leaving?

Her voice is as cold as the winter's night air and it makes him shiver just as violently. She has always been able to incite the fire of passion deep with his body. He has ached for her, pined for her, begged to touch her even as his skin crawled at the very thought.

The air is stagnant, and her hair is a dark waterfall flowing down her body. Her eyes are hard, black shards of glass pointed at his throat. Her hands are curled as if ready to battle.

I can't do it anymore.

Unlike hers, his voice is light as an airy breeze. His stare warms her insides and she fights hard not to smile. Succeeds as she sees his bright, lovely eyes become sheathed in ice. Her coldness has seeped into him, and his biggest fear is that he will never want to fight it.

Most people would rage at what he has told her. He is leaving, ending their life together, walking away from everything he has ever known. He is sixteen tonight, and he has never been more afraid.

But her eyes are strong and her head is held high and he knows this is why everyone single one of them need her. She is their strength, their Princess of Darkness as happily as when she laughed under the sun's tickling rays and called herself the princess of his heart.

He reaches for her, touches her face with his hands, and her eyes close and leans into him. When he touches her, she feels alive. Like a person, not… not what she is. It has haunted her recently. Those thoughts in her mind that have none of the inhibitions a conscience is supposed to have. Yesterday, she watched his young brother punch him in the face. Blood streamed down from his nose, his eyes lit with a fierce anger she has only seen in his most anxious of moments, and she felt nothing, nothing. Her cheeks felt warm, her lips tugged at her mouth, and all the while he was spitting out blood onto their emerald green rug.

This isn't something we do. This is life, Sirius. Life! And you can't just walk away.

For a moment, he wants to smile, for it is only through anger that he can recognize her anymore. It is only with fiery eyes, pouting lips, that he can look at her and remember who she is.

Sweet Bella, he once called her and now remembers those few, airy moments quite sardonically.

Who were they only a few months before, and how did they get to this place?

When did she become one of them? Or has she always been, and is it him that has changed so definitively?

I am walking away, Bella. I have a choice. I can't… I can't just follow blindly anymore. It's not who I am.

It is who you are!

God, she looks so childish in that moment. As if she has to hold onto to a dream as much as he. As if she, too, realizes that some things are just too beautiful to hang on to. He watches the fire die, the coldness melt away, and she looks at him with an endearing vulnerability that he has never before seen. Weak moments have never been known to her. She has always stood in a regal stance as she allowed lesser mortals feel what she knows she could not.

It's who you were meant to be.

Her hand touches his face and he shivers, violently, as he backs away.

When she touches him, he can feel bits of his soul dying away as if he is being slowly poisoned as her soft fingers runs along his cheek. His heart has turned cold when her palm has rested against the bare skin of his chest. His mind has frozen when she has lifted her lips to his ear and whispered sugared words he never had the ambition to witness.

No, it isn't. I'm a Gryffindor Bella…

It's just a house…

It's more than a house! They are all more than houses!

Her stare is challenging him, begging him into a quarrel he had wished to avoid because after tonight she will never look at him again. Her blank stare will pass through him as if he was nothing more than a decoration, and he will never again see her eyes alight with uncharacteristic softness nor that rare phantom smile he has longed to see in the past.

It's who I am, Bella.

Now she steps away from him after looking into his eyes and seeing a sincerity that frightens her. She looks at him as if she is seeing him for the first time.

My God, Sirius, what have you done?

She is looking at him with her slytherin eyes. He tries to reach for her, but she backs away until she hits a tree.

I didn't believe it, but it's true. You're deserting us!

No, of course I'm…

You're deserting me!

She yells and there is something else in her stare. Something more sinister than he had seen within her before.

He is repelled by it, yet he cannot look away. He watches as she changes before him, becomes that person he has only witnessed in corridors and at the great hall during meals.

I can't believe I didn't see it before.

He swallows hard at her words, and a sudden shames washes over him although he knows that he is in the right. He is right. He has to be because otherwise why did he give the world up to chase an idyllic dream.

And why else has he given her up?

She's gone before he can answer, and he never sees her alone again.

Warmth washes over him, yet he has a hidden thought that maybe, maybe, the cold wasn't so bad.

End