FicWad

He knelt on the stone beside her tomb, the chill sinking through his robes. It didn't do anything as trite as reaching up through him and numbing his heart, because his heart was only a useless lump of muscle that hadn't figured out that it was supposed to stop beating when she died. Outside, the wind howled with its customary mournfulness, as if he'd given part of the vast family fortune for it to grieve with him. Occasionally, a small draft would work its way into the mausoleum and ghost over the surrounding graves - his wife, his parents, his grandparents - a huge, branching, blond-haired, silver-eyed tree, dead but for one limb.

He stood, one chilled knuckle tracing the edge of the coffin, nerves losing all feeling at the contact. Gently, he laid the flowers, the common purple variety she'd always loved, below the plaque with her name inscribed on it. Too dry eyes sketched the outline of the name carved into the bronze, graceful curves and sweeps shadowed by the flickering torches on the wall.

"I love you."

Behind him, the mausoleum door opened and shut, softly enough to be respectful, but too loudly to designate someone attempting to sneak in and take his life, not that he really would have minded if it were. He was tired. Had half a dozen Aurors appeared right then, he'd have fought from pure instinct, nothing more.

There was a soft hissing sound, the hem of a robe sliding against the cold, smooth surface of the cut stone floor. A presence hovered at his shoulder, once feared, then revered, and now simply accepted as a well-known source of comfort.

"Back again, my friend?"

"I never leave." The words echoed through the vaults, an odd, hollow, almost anti-sound.

"You should at least try to get some rest. If you don't, you're going to start making mistakes."

Silver eyes, tarnished at the edges, slowly drifted shut, the sarcophagus' name placard showing in negative the naked relief against his eyelids. Mistakes meant death, either at the hands of the Aurors or the dark shrouded, ghastly figure behind him. Death meant rest... and he still shrank from it with a natural cowardice known so often as "survival instinct". "I... try, Master. It's difficult to sleep. I've become so I am unaccustomed to sleeping alone."

Skeletal arms encircled him, pulling him back against a velvet wrapped set of ribs. "If you need someone that badly, I can stay with you."

A sign of affection or simply an opportunity for Death to leave behind the tomb that he'd occupied for so long? There was no way to tell, but in the end, it didn't really matter.

"Yes, Master." He turned from his wife's resting place, pulling gently from his Master's arms, walking from the chill of the mausoleum to the biting cold snow-covered grounds. He didn't bother to shut the door. His Master paced behind him, white scales in black velvet against white snow. The only color in the landscape was the flowers, still barely visible on the marble sarcophagus of the woman who shared their name.


~Finished~