By SenLinYu.

Soundtrack, meaning the only music I’ve heard for the last week while reading: Voilà – André Rieu, Johann Strauss Orchestra, Emma Kok.

As expected, this book masterpiece emotionally destroyed me – so much so that I feel the need to pour it all out – in words, tears, and quietness. It’s a physical need at this point, to debrief all that it made me feel, so I can move on.

Dying is the real tragedy, but there are worse things than death. However as courageous as remaining alive might sound, it can lead to a better ending. Hope is the curse of being alive.

Love cannot always save you, it can also curse you, be the darkest thing you ever felt, the manacles that force you to do the unthinkable. Love that tangles you so much with another person that the chain of cause and consequence is no longer known and at a certain point, it does not even matter anymore. You do what you do for love and it does not mean the others will understand.

I always thought that in love and war, all was allowed and after this book, I understand clearly what that means. The problem is, I did not change my mind, I still think that in love all is allowed, there’s no line, and it never was. However, before I thought all was forgiven if done for love. Now I understand that it is not always the case. Not all is forgiven just because you did it for love. And I still wouldn’t care. So I might not be a Gryffindor after all.

That realization rippped me apart when reading the last sentence of the book. The naivete I still have at the age of 40 is impressive.

People will condemn you. They will not take the time to get to know you; they do not care. They will assume and think they are correct, and if enough people believe the same, that is stamped as the truth even if the truth is so much more profound, layered in grey shades that are impossible to explain linearly.

So, people do not matter. I already knew this conceptually. But to make peace with this ending, I need to feel it. Nobody is a victim. It was a choice every time, and we can not have it all.

And we could discuss the meaning of choice. Is it a choice if death, yours or the person you love, is on the other side? Yes, it is still a choice that, I realize now, not everyone would do.

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you” Friedrich Nietzsche

I always have to choose, and I never get to choose you. I’m so tired of not getting to choose you.

Love isn’t always as pretty or pure as people like to think. There’s a darkness in it sometimes. Draco and I go hand-in-hand. I made him who he is. I knew what his runes meant when I saved him. If he’s a monster, then I’m his creator. What did you think was the source of all his rage?

We don’t get to have all the things we want in this life, Draco. You were the one who told me that. You said, there was a point when I had to realise I wasn’t going to get everything I wanted, and that I had to choose something and let it be enough. I chose you. Always. I always chose you.

How am I going to move on from this book? How?