They had all lost something in the war.

And now, there is only one sister left.

It was late when Molly Weasley made her way back to her kitchen, heaving a soft sigh. The battle had just ended, a world had just begun, but he...he was gone. Forever.

For they are words- it is the words that separate them- the difference between them and she and him and what once was and now never can be.

Misery loves company. And certain company requires punishment. That punishment is what I am living.

It was impossible, she decided. It was never going to happen. She was never going to look like her and she should just stop trying before Harry walked in and noticed what she was doing.

He can't remember the reason why he ever bothered to fight. Not anymore. Written for Silverbirch's Christmas challenge

She was extraordinary. Simply extraordinary.

Black, black, black. Black as night, black as cold, black as black.

It sucks being overshadowed you know? Being a child of two-thirds of the Golden Trio...well, it's not easy.

It had changed, you know. Maybe not a lot, maybe just a little, but it had changed. The memories were fading.

He hated him. That boy with her green eyes.

The rain was pounding down, lighting flashing through the inky darkness. "Is...is this it, then?" A girl asks quietly. "Is it finally over?"

Aislinn is a hopeless case. She’s seventeen, unmarried, and has no proposals in the horizon. So when the infamous Sirius Black offers a lesson on how to catch a man, she can’t help but accept. However, this Marriage Contract is more than what it seems..

It was horrible, you know, seeing the same sights for fourteen years. It was horrible, hearing the same sounds. The laughter that meant the end was near, the dead silence of accepted fate. And it was horrible, realizing that soon, it would be him.

He hoped that perhaps they would never endure the hardships that he knew were coming...that his baby girl and this little boy would stay eternally happy, blissful in their first dance together. He hoped for nothing else. Because that was a father's love.

She loved him. It was sick, sick, sick, she knew, not to care about all the people that he hurt. To only care about one person's pain, the one person who caused so much hurt that the entire world hated him. But she didn't care. She loved him.

All he asked for was a kiss. A single kiss. Sirius/Lily.

I owe him a lot. More than I'll probably ever realize. Because I am no longer just a spoiled kid, related to the famous Harry Potter. Now I am me. Now I am me.

He would be brave. Brave for this child, sitting in front of him, recounting the horrors that he had just been through. Brave for the woman that would have been the next to blossom out of Voldemort's wand. He, Sirius Black...would be brave.