Don't forget me (Pansmione)

(ii) that theres a tunnel

TW: mention of drug addiction
—
Everyone is scattering out of the train and the nostalgia hits me hard yet the air around me feels miserable.
The usual excited chatter and the laughter, it's all gone, instead a cloud of emptiness lingers around as if something truly is missing and I feel like it might be a part of my soul. Can you unknowingly create a horcrux?

At night sometimes I wonder why he did it, how can one create such chaos and destruction and want to keep living, why is eternity even appealing? I never understood the concept of living forever, especially if you dont have someone to live for, and he was alone.
Sure, he had his followers but that wasn't company, those who admired him only used him for power and the rest stayed out of fear. The only reasonable explanation I could fathom was that eternity was like an addiction. Living forever is like chasing a high, he would have split his soul as many times as he needed to feel the satisfaction of being alive again just like a drug addict seeks to feel that initial euphoric moment. In both cases, they're slowly killing themselves.

If you think about it, the similarities between drug addicts and Voldemort is unreal.
The first time he learnt about horcruxes was his euphoria; the idea that he could cheat death and exploit his power made him feel infinite so he chased that feeling, he did his research; found his choice of drug, he made his first horcrux; got high for the first time, he chased the feeling it gave him and once you get started you cant stop and you need to feel that rush again, that moment of peace where anything is possible, where you're invincible.
However, it never lasts and you come down from your high and you're angry and you want more and so you get violent and you scavenge for that feeling but its not as good as it was last time. You try again and again and again.
Yet it's never as good as it was that first time.
That time when you were still alive.

Ron brushes his hand over my cheek and the roughness of the gesture snaps me out of my trance of thought, "you okay?" he whispers gently and it hurts me how kind he is, how can such a gentle soul be punished so badly, "yeah," I whisper back.
He wraps his arm around my shoulder and guides me towards the carriages that are lined up ahead. I can see Thestrals now. We all can.
Their skeletal bodies await calmly and their white eyes glimmer towards me causing a shiver to run down my spine.

My hands shake beside me as we approach our carriage and just about as i'm about to get on, one of the Thestrals turns its head and looks directly at me, its snowy white eye causes me to freeze and i'm unable to move, I can hardly even breath, its as if it can read my mind and it knows, it knows how I feel.

Ron reaches out his hand and the Thestral looks away, my breath returns but its unstable as I hold onto Ron's hand and climb aboard. I take my seat and Harry sits opposite me with Seamus whilst Ron sits next to me.

The ride is bumpy and Harry and Ron try to make light conversation with Seamus but I drown them out again. Their muffled voices relax me and I close my eyes for a minute and for a second its peaceful and quiet and tranquil but then the carriage drives over something, maybe a tree branch, causing it to make a snap and the sound like a gun shot penetrates my mind and I can see her face again. The feeling inside me is red hot rage, it swirls in my chest aggressively, banging against the walls, trying to get out, but when it hits my heart it calms down and like a chemical reaction it changes that smoky red feeling into blue with guilt.

It was my fault.
There must have been something I could have done.

Ron puts his hand over mine which calms my rapid breathing which I didn't even notice. I open my eyes again and with each stroke of his finger against the back of my palm its as if he's telepathically reassuring me that their trauma had nothing to do with me.

I have no idea what I would have done without Ron. As aggravatingly frustrating he might have been before the war, there is nothing that compares to how generous and understanding he was towards me after it.