To Protect

68

The soothing rumble of pouring rain hadn't drowned out his recurring thoughts inside his head. Repeating itself like a record player, over and over again. It had been his last words he said to Eleanor the night he made the biggest mistake of his life.

"You know," he breathed out, "If you told me from the beginning it would have been different, but the fact that you waited three years into our marriage to acknowledge the fact that you— Eleanor Clarice POTTER— have been lying to me the whole time! You're nothing but a dishonest and selfish woman and trust me when I say this, I'd rather take the chances of this dark wizard killing me than staying here much longer."

Ted now sat alone, the muffled knock hadn't been heard until the voice of his brother appeared.

"You're still sitting there like a stump eh? You plan on getting up, a shower maybe?" Thomas asked as he went into the kitchen to grab himself a beer.

Ted chose to say nothing in response, he turned his head slightly away as he looked outside the foggy window.

Thomas narrowed his eyes at his quiet younger brother, "You want to talk about it? You want to talk about Ellen?"

"It's Eleanor." Ted corrected in whisper

Thomas joined him in Ted's livingroom, he had a small flat on the first floor. Down town london, not far from his work. He lived alone now, the flat used to be acquainted with a woman of the name Katie. If it wasn't obvious enough, she was no longer acquainted with Ted.

"Okay," Thomas sat up from the chair that sat opposite of Ted, "I think I get it, you still like a girl."

The mans blue eyed finally met its brothers, "What I did to her was unspeakable, Tom. I abandoned her because I was a coward and afraid that I was going to be demolished by..."

"Voldemort?" Thomas furrowed his eyebrows. "That's why you left her, because you were scared he was going to hunt her down as kill you as well?" He sat there with an almost shocked expression.

"I regretted it as soon as I walked out that door. It's no excuse, I never went back and when I did she wasn't there." Ted took a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose, "I don't even want to cause any sort of trouble, I just want her to forgive me and that'll be all."

Thomas snorted as he drank from the glass bottle, "Last time she saw your face she smacked you out of your wits, you think she'd want to see your sorry arse around?" Ted glared at him but Thomas only spoke truthfully, "You want to know what the problem is Theo? I'm going to tell you what the problem is, you think waltzing in there and expecting her to except your pleading apology is going to change something— well, it's not.  She has alot on her plate. The last thing she'd want is to add more stress to it."

Ted sat there taking in Thomas's cruel truth. For the most part he didn't want to take the advice given to him, but deep down he knew it was for the best to just leave her be.