𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐃𝐎𝐆, james potter

𝟎𝟎𝟏, and i wake with your memory over me

august 25, 1977

PERSEPHONE WOKE WITH a start. Her head was pounding, and her limbs were aching. Light cascaded down into the room through the window by her bed. Her eyes slowly opened, trying to adjust to the light.

The first thing she saw was an old poster of Fleetwood Mac. For a second, it didn't click that the room she used to share with James did not have any posters on the walls. Just pictures.

And then she saw her old electric guitar that she had broken right after graduating from Durmstrang. That had been almost four years ago. But there it was. Resting against the wall right underneath the band poster. Perfectly in one piece in all of its former glory.

Persephone hand instinctively shot to her stomach the way it always did when she was worried.

Her hand rested against her flat belly.

Eyes widening, she looked down as if she was somehow not feeling the bump. But her belly was flat. As if she had never been pregnant.

For a second, one horrible second, Persephone wondered if the entirety of the past four years had been a dream.

A terrible, beautiful dream.

But she knew that it wasn't. It couldn't have been. Not even she could dream up someone like James Potter.

She glanced around at her surroundings. She was in her old room back in Norway in the house she grew up in after her parents died. This was her aunt's house. Her kind, gentle, beautiful aunt who taught her everything she knew and raised her the best she could as a widow who had just lost her younger brother, sister-in-law, husband, and her unborn child in a miscarriage.

The last time she had seen her aunt was about a month after James's funeral. She had stayed with Persephone for weeks after the death, consoling her the best she could, knowing the exact pain she had been feeling at having lost her lover.

But how had Persephone ended up here? In her aunt's small home, in the bedroom in which she grew up?

She glanced back down at her childless stomach, her chin trembling with withheld sobs.

She was unable to keep them in.

Tears streamed down her cheeks in a warm and constant path, unyielding and steady. Sobs racked her body, the weight of her grief too unbearable in that moment. She had no idea why she was there, how she had gotten there. Her baby was the only thing she had left of James, and now that baby was gone just like his father.

Persephone cried and cried, her voice growing hoarse and her cheeks wet. It was suddenly too much. She wanted James back. She wanted to feel his arms around her. She wanted to feel his lips against her skin. She wanted him to whisper in her ear that things would be alright.

The door to her old room suddenly opened, a tall, older woman walking in.

"Persephone, sweetheart," her aunt's soft voice called out, warm like honey.

Persephone cried even harder. Ophelia sat down on the bed and pulled her niece into her arms, holding her tight the way she always did when she had gotten scared of thunderstorms as a kid.

In her aunt's arms, Persephone turned once again into a child.

Her tears would not stop. Ophelia smoothed her hand over Persephone's hair, providing her the comfort she so terribly needed.

"Mitt barn," she spoke softly. "What is the matter?"

"I m-miss him," Persephone choked out. "I miss him so much, Tante."