Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric mov'd:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.

(The Inferno, from "The Divine Comedy" of Dante)

I only left because I had no other choice. Had the circumstances been another, we could have shared a wonderful life. But they weren't other and so I was forced to leave him behind for our safety. For his, as much as ours. Why do I keep saying *ours* over and over again, you ask? Because I was pregnant. I had only found out a week before and had been waiting for the perfect moment to tell him. But the perfect moment never came and so I left, without letting him know. Maybe it was even better this way. He would never have let me go, had he known about our baby. Leaving him - it was the hardest thing I ever had to do. And now, that the danger was over and we could return safely to my homeland, what would be waiting us? Would he still be there for me, or had he found another in these years? Oh, yes, you heard me right, it had been years, since I left England, years, since I heard last from him. I was afraid of going back, of facing him after all these years. What would he say? Would he accuse me of breaking his heart? Would he be angry? What would he say, meeting our child? Would he even be willing to meet him? All these questions in my mind didn't make it any easier.

I had been shocked, finding out about my parents. They had died, leaving me behind as a wealthy young woman. A single mother. They had been outrageous when they first found out about my pregnancy. I had refused to tell them, who the father was. In the end, It told them that it had been their favourite son-in-law-candidate. That had resulted in my being sent away, to France, to get me away from the man who had been 'using me, and then leaving'. I hadn't told them the truth, of course. The father had been another man. The man I loved. But my parents would have killed him, had they known. They would have killed me and my baby too, I think. But now they were gone. They had never come to see their daughter and grandson in exile. Somehow, I was thankful for that. My son had the eyes of his father, my parents would have guessed my lie the moment they'd have seen him. But they couldn't harm him, anymore. They had been killed by Aurors, I had heard. They had been trying to escape through a secret passageway in our manor, after the Aurors had found some secret stock of Dark Arts stuff on a raid. I missed them, even though they had been dark mages. They had been my parents!

And now I was here, on my way back home. But it would never be the same. The manor - home - it would be so full of memories. My parents… They had been killed there. How was I to live in a house where my parents had been killed? How was I to raise my child in such a house? I really didn't know what I would do when I was back home. And one question was crossing my mind over and over again. What would he do when he saw me? When he saw us? When he saw his son? Would he be mad at me for never telling him about his son? And - what, if he didn't believe me? I couldn't, I wouldn't let me think of this! And yet another question came up in my mind. What, if he had got married? Could this be? This thought brought my wandering mind back to the reality. I looked down on the five years old boy, whose head was resting on my knees in his peaceful slumber. I wished, we could stay in this moment forever. Things would never be the way they were, again. And I was terrifies of the future, now more than ever. England had never been a good place to be a single mother. Too old-fashioned. Too traditional. This would be tough, but I'd had to make it. For his son. For our son. For MY son…