#willashllnd

Remus Lupin whole-heartedly believed in love. Just not that he deserved it. Men bound by the moon weren’t there to be loved by the likes of the sun.

Mary Macdonald did too, though she accepted those emotions much better than the lot of them (in fact, she accepted quite a lot better than the rest of her friends).

James Potter knew it was out there. If he were to be honest with himself, he would realize that he had already fallen hard. And he would have hated it.

Lily Evans wouldn’t actively seek it out. While she may not have been in love in that moment, she was certainly getting there.

Marlene McKinnon claimed not to believe in love. The reality was that she spent too much time trying to avoid it. You see, the stars of the sea were never meant to love the stars in the sky. Because when the oceans fall for the heavens, they have a long way to drop.

Sirius Black treated it like a joke. After all, the beauty of the constellations was meant to be loved at a distance; not up close. In truth, he almost needed it more than all of them.

Alice Fortescue was terrified of love. Though she would later stare down a wand into the stormy eyes of a woman who would drive her to madness, praying for the two boys she loved most.

Frank Longbottom, on the other hand, was not. He was quite possibly the most courageous about the concept when it came down to it. He would later sacrifice his sanity for it. For the cause, for his friends, for his son and wife.

Alisa Buckley wouldn’t dare dream of it again. Soon, though, she would see that strange, lingering sense of deja vu would bring her home.

Mathis Underwood found it in the last place he expected. But a war had the ability to flip things upside-down.

Aurora Sinistra was an intelligent woman who did, in fact, believe in the concept of love. She would also soon realize that it depended on circumstance. Two people who should work, sometimes just...can’t.

Jaxon Webb wasn’t a believer. Maybe he softened upon meeting the woman with her head in the stars, but the truth was that he wasn’t the kind of man you loved. Betrayal could be dressed up in charming words, but the scar twining his arm could not.

Narcissa Black dreamed of love.

Lucius Malfoy did not.

Ted Tonks believed in it as much as any young man would.

Andromeda Black knew it was there, ever-present everywhere you turned. She may have been the wisest of them all.

They say all is fair in love and war, but this is all far from fair. Perhaps if they knew what was to come, they would have watched out more. But they didn’t -- so they didn’t see just how much they had to lose when the time came. Because even when they were face to face with Death in the form of a wand, their thoughts would be to protect others first. Maybe that would be their downfall; or maybe, just maybe, it would be their greatest advantage.