ᶜᵃᵗʰᵉᵈʳᵃˡ ᵒᶠ ᵇᵒᶰᵉˢ

“You don’t happen to know who she belongs to, do you?” Ted asked, scratching behind the ears of the purring, contented black cat draped over his shoulder. Its claws were digging into his robes and threatening to break skin, but he couldn’t even bring himself to let it out of his sight. “I found her by the woods this morning and I’ve been carrying her around since. If someone doesn’t claim her soon, I might take it upon myself to give her a new home with me.”

“ Stray cats have better use in the ground, Tonks. ” The boy restrained the reeking bitterness in his throat, coating his words in cool steel, but even then the barrier between disgust and apathy was fractured, the former leaking though like a flaming poison. His hate caged him captive, and so he remained, toxic fumes paralyzing his senses as loathing coiled him tight, sharp words a mere echo of his emotions. A stray cat was the kindest synonym Nathaniel had yet to infer the Hufflepuff as. “ You don’t know what sort of diseases they may reek. ”

                 t h e      a n c i e n t     h o u s e     o f     a v e r y.

( 1 / ?? ) : “ aristocratic ⏤⏤ indifferent ⏤⏤ full of caprice ⏤⏤ full of imperfection ⏤⏤ intolerant. ”

Her thoughts get caught, tangled in a distraught mind that’s taught to fear being trapped. Surely, if she had been taught anything, she would flee now, break free from these chains — malefic chains that tighten, crunch her bones and suffocate — but she couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop. She would bleed, break every bone, be torn apart, while still pleading, desperately begging for more out of him. For that man who stands against better judgement, igniting her heart, and touches her to her very core with his words. Words that aren’t meant to play her like a violin. Rather those barely discerned ones spoken in an artless way she could never get enough of. And yet, it should be considered a curse beating her black and blue with how he keeps holding her at the distance he does, is doing right now. No matter what, she isn’t worthy enough to dismantle the barrier she feels still built around him.

          These thoughts were poison. Too near to the danger hurtling forth, too near to believing a pretense of abhorrence wasn’t all she hears. But, she cannot bear to see the face who could challenge her thoughts. Would she like what she saw? Or would it be those cruel hues and gaping maw with words that didn’t belong? She couldn’t bear it. Not tonight. Not now, in front of a hundred prying eyes who would see her swallowed words choking her like strangle-vines. She would surely collapse with such judgements. Not out of humiliation, no. She’d damn herself for all eternity. Again and again. It would devastate her if it brought him discomfort or agony. Already he couldn’t spare her a glance in such public settings, any commotion could attract the wrong attention. Fatal attention that was ruinous to what she has safeguarded in her heart. Him — he who is decaying, rotting, burning and still very much alive, still burning brightly within her.

          & wretched thoughts are further convoluted. Who would stand among him, radiating with pride and tenderness, smiling a pretty smile, if not she. Greta couldn’t not look at him, she couldn’t separate  — irrevocably sever — them by emerald hiding from sapphire. That wasn’t how it worked, that wasn’t how they fit together. Boys with baby blues were the ones who hide in fields of tall grass. Green sheathing and sheltering blue until it was ready to run along to another place.

So she plucks out her pesky thoughts like feathers, one by one, and looks up. At last daring to brave the blustery sea with surety that she’d be met with the safety of shore. However, softened hues fall upon his back, rigidly straight, and lean form walking out, abandoning her in the stifling den of lions. Red. Overwhelming her. Splotches of crimson preserving fears of this night ending in endless rivers of it. It was a color not meant for either of them, or maybe just her. She couldn’t be there without him now, though, even if him being there meant the opposite side of the room of wherever she chose to stand. Sparing one last glance to her friends, spotting them swaying together in rhythm, heedless and beguiling, Greta walks out to follow him. Her aching need the driving force behind each footfall. And she lets go of lingering doubts, splintering the stars to fit the light in her body and not let it escape this night. For once, she just hopes, implores the night, that he might care enough to not torture them with sustained silence.

          It was with his guttural voice that she, tiny being, filled the space around her with pure joy, the personification of Achelois. If there was a line drawn, keeping them apart, this was her now stepping over it, though she didn’t physically diminish the space between them. No, that remained like a bitter reminder. And how it did remind her. Remind, or rather emphasized, that she who is delicate, naked, walked with her heart in her hands in offering to him while he, bestial, held the point of a dagger to her heart. It was only he who could undo her. Undoing, undoing,  u n d o n e.

          “ Oh, no! There was a time, my first time, Alice dared me to go when the moon was ‘at its highest point in the sky’ ” She says, recalling the exact manner in which her friend uttered such ominous words. “ I really didn’t want to go, though. I was a huge mess that night in the kitchen. If you had seen me, you would have thought me a crazy person. But, Amos showed up and went with me. I don’t think I ever would have gone through with it if it weren’t for him. ” Softly spoken, corners of her mouth lift again, a budding flower, the fond memories a sanctuary for her. Looking to him, watching, she wonders if his first trip to the library was peachy, or if all his memories come with a sense of dread. Here she was opaque, concrete. A glass ceiling to any who dared to look. Yet, when she pictured him seeing her, it was a boy crashing through the glass and collecting only the pieces of shards he wanted, nothing more. Only ever parts, never a whole. Seemingly lost in her thoughts, fingers release their tight grip on her sweater just to dig into precious cloth, holding both arms taut against her tummy. “ Not as experienced as you, I imagine. ” She adds, small, curious and nervous to find out all the ways he was experienced.

          A myriad of thoughts overwhelm him at the instant melody of her voice ⏤⏤ soft yet exuberant, light yet full, beautiful yet damning ⏤⏤ and he near wants to drown in it, even as a desperate urge to inhale, inhale, inhale gasps of air claws at his throat, as if he’s already at the brink of death beneath the heavy water, beneath her tresses, her words, her beauty, her all. It was as if there was an anchor between them, dragging him to her, dragging them both to the bottom. Truly, it is less of a lie than a truth ; more of a twisted reality than a wretched nightmare ( or a saccharine fantasy ). 

         Only one, only she, could whirl his mind at the single hum of a syllable, devour him whole with a small tinge of curiosity ( curious for him, wanting to know him, words of inquiry and desire wasted on him ), blossom a seed within a chest of stone with the simple lilt of her honeyed voice. How he wanted to beg, and kneel, and sob, and whisper prayers of gratitude and mercy, all at once, all for her, all for the spark deep in his bones that blazes lighter & brighter with every fall of blue eyes on green. How much he hated himself for it, and yet ⏤⏤ never could he diminish that light, that beautiful, precious spark, but simply chisel it away into a region he couldn’t reach, a hideaway where the traitorous beat of his heart couldn’t pulse. A sanctuary where the memory of a girl more radiant than the sun could shine, away from the edges of his torn soul ; oh, if only he could escape there with her now. If only he could bless a glance without seemingly beaming and tearing at the seams of his masquerade. If, if, if ⏤⏤ no, no, no.

          Her words sink into him, and he cherishes it so. Too long had it been, far, far, too long had he gone without the cadence of her voice. Midsummer nights where it was synchronously too cold and too hot, paradise looming on all but he, and all that plagued his thoughts was her, most especially in the moments where there was too suddenly an avalanche of silence and all he could imagine was a blonde graced angel, masking the darkness with light, her spirit in company with his, intertwined and coiled, no longer alone but together and whole. Sometimes it was in the moments where there was not even a beat of silence, all chaos and summer heat, and the pang of her distance would still and swiftly pound into him like a symphony of lightning. Perhaps it was also in those spare seconds where time was simply unreal, and he could almost envision her by his side, light spilling into his being and drenching him. Or maybe when he saw a flower in bloom, or death wilting it cruelly with heat, the sun a murderess in the way she could never be. But where he could feel her most intoxicatingly, sleek as poison in his mind, were the nights where blood dripped from flesh and boys he knew as brothers were more monster than human ; the mere seconds where he could almost escape in the illusion of her, hide and cower in her warmth. Yet, the very delusion could strike a fear as penetrating as the devil’s caress, for even the thought of her in such scarlet-tinged memories was enough to cement the distance between them.  How he had longed and yearned then, how very torturous was it to keep away when all he wanted was to run to her and stay, but where he was selfish with all others, in all things, he simply couldn’t risk her for himself.

          Yet now, with her words tracing the skin on his bones with imprints, her, her, her, devouring every syllable and every second, greediness was a beast unshed, and it pierced his resistance to shreds, a waltz with the devil where no angel may trespass. The desire to unleash was great, an opulent disgrace on his being, surely, but the temptation of relief on his heart. It’s an intrusion on his soul, a seduction of his spirit, and, fuck, she was hardly even talking about her own self, rather her loves that were gifted the gem of her friendship. And yet, there is a swell in his chest that with a grand purr nearly coaxes a twitch upward of lips, a softening of a resolve, concealed in countenance and stance, but so cuttingly obvious in the matter of his own heart. It almost seized him in bitterness at his own shattered will, the weakness coating him in sour shame. But with  m o n t h s  past marking the last of her presence ⏤⏤ months of steel and ignorance and ice combatting heat ⏤⏤ weakness in the shadows of midnight was a frailty he could nearly swallow, darkness their cloak and haven from all other souls, protection from the ( his ) deepest fears. Tomorrow ; tomorrow he would salvage the wounds and mutely and stoically mourn the distance that would once again spurt and separate, a chamber of ice to save them both, even if each second further prickled like the graze of death. But ⏤⏤ that was tomorrow.

         “ No, I imagine not. ” A silence lapped like waves around his words, an island within a sea, for the four words had a fair trek up the slope of his throat and into the cavern the shadows encompassing the whole of the corridor ( dimly, he took note of the fact that somehow, despite being near stone and blazing fire both in a storm of his thoughts, he lead them down into the very hall that treasured the entrance to the library ) and as the words escaped, clipped yet a sure sign of the unraveling threads knotted within him, a different silence ravaged them, leaving him just as breathless as he would have been had he spoken full speeches. There was a stillness to his movements, a slow halt that allowed mere feet of distance between great double doors and his own body, and he was too, too, too much of a coward to even dare a glance back to see if she was just as tethered to him. ( Yet he knew she was ; knew that if she had gone, had left him to the darkness and lone company of midnight, he would feel it in the very depth of his bones, resounding and cruel in the loss of her light. )

          A cavernous temptation uncoiled within him, curious and indulgent, greedy and oh-so desperate, to prod further at her words, her stories, all the sounds and beats and hymns and melodies she could create with just the lilt of her voice. He wanted to inquire, and guess, and simply speak. But most especially, he wanted to know if the tale of tonight would touch, soothe ( or scare ), anyone else’s ears, if she would be most daunting to share them ( he & her, she & him ) with another soul. Yet, just as she was still there, still a girl anchored to a boy, still willing to step behind him and follow, he knew the answer to what a silly question, just as he would answer her, would she ever ask : no, my darling, only for you.

          The soft whisper of a ‘ lumos ’ springs from his lips, and suddenly a sliver of light severs the dark. One, two, three ; more words drop from his mouth as if superfluous tears, heavy in the air and resolute, despite the near sting of desperation cutting them. “ Shall we, then ? ”

Date: 10 September 1976 Time: 11:30pm approx.  Location: Gryffindor Common Room @crimsvns

     The smell of Firewhiskey–sipped, spilled, and stagnant–seared Selene’s sinuses as she circled the room from the edges. Idle chatter, inebriated classmates, and blood red banners hanging overhead all served as reminders that she didn’t belong there. Selene never thought she’d find herself longing for the class any company of her mother’s parties and yet, as another fuddled peer unable to hold their liquor barreled past her, suddenly Celestina Avery’s parties grew in preference.

     Though the list of reasons she would prefer to be anywhere else grew by the second, her eyes never left the exact reason she still remained. This may not be one of their mother’s parties, but Selene’s game remained the same: she counted drinks passing her brother’s lips, surveyed the company the occupied him, and waited for the moment she was meant to intervene–a moment that always came, no matter where they found themselves. 

     Her company of choice long lost to the crowds, Selene found herself drawn to the boisterous laughter she so detested, if only to forgo the niceties she would otherwise have to feign toward those who coveted her attention. She guessed her brother didn’t see her coming–though it was inevitable–as she sidled in with the snakes that surrounded him, appearing as if from thin air. 

     “Nathaniel,” her grin was ingenue,as it often was toward him, ebony eyes falling to the bottle that rested near the group. The sooner she could impede upon whatever high he rode that night, the sooner she could get the hell out of there. “Tell me you haven’t lowered yourself to sharing the drinks of the common folk?” 

       There was a certain grandeur that both dictated a yell and a whisper within the throng of liquified veins, traveling as though a swift arrow through all of the alcohol stained souls that lost themselves to the current of the night and let whimsical and drunken notions force the tide farther from shore and deeper into blacker waters. Nathaniel is as he is every other occasion such as so, a seemingly tuned in victim to the deceptive lulls of chaos and artificial highs, yet in the same beating melody, the crown prince who ( arrogantly, haughtily, callously ) reigns above the rest ⏤⏤ acting, drinking, seeming to play the same role as those who surround him, but distinctly on a higher plane.

       It would be as facile, as easy, as effortless as a discarded afterthought to ignore the heavy scarlet that paints the walls, the floor, the everything within the den of lions, if it weren’t for the cutting churn of heat deep within his stomach, his chest, his bones, the natural trepidation that lingered at being in the center of enemy lines, his own crimson heart within a serpent’s skeleton and soul an obvious fracture in the face of those whose beings bled gold and roared a lion’s symphony. His vision was blinded with the knowledge, and it was for this that blue eyes were trapped beneath a red film, the settling firewhiskey in his gut only spurring on the sensation of bleeding illusions.

       The smirk that reeks superiority ⏤⏤ edges almost softened to those seeking any differences to devour from his typical countenance, the liquor strumming in his blood making it so ⏤⏤ rests delicately on his face, sharp in the way a unsheathed dagger may be. There is a recklessness itching beneath the delusion of control, and as twilight draws nearer and nearer, there is an almost terror in fear of it shedding. And as the silhouette of his sister, ( perfect, bitter, nerve-stinging, goddess of the moon and all its nightly beasts ) fucking stalker that she is, dips into the very corner of his eye, the red film that shadowed his vision at once bled deep into crimson, then black, then into shatters as it cracked and everything was once again clear. The tantalizing need to outperform her more than anyone once again encompassing all else ; rather, the need to see her choke on her own words. Where firewhiskey dulled the senses for all others, it sharpened his into a ( double-edged ) sword.

       The concerned deceit that coated her words, the distaste so alive in her ebony orbs, was almost tangible. He nearly had to bite down the urge of laughter at the sight of it. “ Well, dear sister, tell me you haven’t just coined the very students of Hogwarts common folk. Not quite so diplomatic for Head Girl, dare I say. ” There lies a teasing, mocking, lilt to his voice, familiar and sculptured in the presence of his sister, as it always was. The acid dripping from his words was solely for her ears, as was the wink synchronized in action with the swing of another drink to his lips, deliberate and biting more than his words.