FOUR SEASONS - A Hogwarts "Year"
This is a series of vignettes about four Hogwarts witches, each with her own story, feelings, emotions, etc... They fit together and between them reflect an entire year's worth of seasons. I know this reads slightly different than my other work but I'm trying out a new writing style ala James Joyce, streams of consciousness and my own strange imagination.
Thank you to the people who reviewed the seasons as they got posted. Here, finally, is the whole thing. And congratulations to those who worked out which witch was which! I know Myrtle was an unusual choice, but I just kept wondering what she felt about things. She certainly can't be any less a tragic character than Minerva or a post-Hogwarts Hermione.
'Halt oder ich schieße' – Halt or I'll shoot
'Halt und ich schieße' – Halt and I'll shoot
(Not really much of a choice, is there?)
Oh, yes, 'Mauer' is the German word for wall. I used it because I felt it had more meaning in the context, when you picture die Berliner Mauer: a squat, ugly line of bricks surrounded by barbed wire and soldiers with guns. The imagery is stronger and the possibility of crossing it impossible…though people dream.
People will always dream.
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WINTER – Myrtle
She shelters in the shadows of her prison and tries to keep away a world that wants nothing to do with her even though she's always there - she'll never leave it like the small bright sparks that illuminate the short short days she sees passing from where she hovers above them all, never really knowing any one or being known. Once they knew her but they never really liked her, she can only admit this to herself when everything is gone and cold and lonely like it is so often now.
Once she was a spark but she outgrew this or so she tells herself, left it far behind to become someone better though it's hard to judge when you're all alone and all you really want is some company like you used to have when you were a feeble little spark too and knew no more than your little circle of light just like they do. And now she's lost her own hearth-fire and she tries to warm herself at the fires of her friends but they drift away and brush apart and she's left alone all the time except for those few fragile instances when someone brushes against her, the way people used to and she clutches desperately at their warmth and tries to make them stay, but they evade her easily for they were never really more than hopes and she sees this and it hurts her because they think they know her and they pity her but they'll never taste the sadness or the humiliation that defines her life… they think they know and they sympathise but they will never really understand…
And ah, oh, how she wishes that she could dole out memories in little dollops to the people that she does meet who wander along their own paths into sunshine forgetting all about the shades of winter. Spring comes, and summer, and then they quieten in the gaze of autumn and rug up in the winter but they endure the cold knowing that there's going to be warmth on the other side and this is a reassurance that she'll never have for at the other side of darkness lies a mirror to reflect her hopes and dreams so she can see them lying dying in a puddle of their life's blood so petrified and desolate that she must turn away and endure the loneliness once more.
And the cold of the snow comes and the sleet and the wind and the rattle of hard branches against the windows and the moaning of the gale in the turret and she shivers and she cries and yet the icy fingers of the season hold her firm within their grasp and she cannot leave, will never leave though she may gasp and struggle fight to go and so she gave that up a long time ago and now she just huddles as small as possible and remembers.
And winter cries tears as ice upon her pallid cheeks. Not for her the happy laughter and the sunshine of the summer or the fresh fragrance of the spring in youth and life and beauty or yet the sad vitality and wisdom of the autumn that's lived the days of spring and summer but will never quite slip past despair into utter wretchedness...
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AUTUMN - Minerva
She used to dream of things that had a meaning for her but not any more, that part of her life has gone forever and she wouldn't give a thing to get it back even though sometimes she sits up at night huddled in the cotton robe he gave her and wonders maybe...but then the moment passes and she's back the way everyone else sees her all hard eyes and stiff expression and the regality of the posture that screams get away I don't want to be hurt to the people who know her well but they're all gone now and there's no one left to see the wall of lies she builds as any more than a closed gate with barbed wire across the top and old broken blinking neon lights flashing shut for the winter except they'll never come down if she wants it enough and she thinks she does because it's hard for her to think of anything else.
The bright lights hurt her eyes because they threaten to reveal her and cast away the shelter that she struggles, scampers desperately to build; they're mocking and they try to show her as she is but she doesn't want to be seen that way now and so she flinches when the glare reflects off her glasses taking the gaze away and leaving her in the darkness that she craves and somehow learned to like thought she can't say when of how she got that way but it's all the same to her now, isn't it always?
There's always such a large wall between then and now that she could never bridge, a Mauer of terror and harsh words and gunshots and the pain of a half reflected memory that still threatens to drive her insane but she pushes it away with the strength that she can still faintly find even though it's getting weaker now, it's all getting weaker because that's what life is, just a whirlwind of a river to drag you down and we're all falling to the bottom of it except for some people who dive and she's thinking now how nice it would be to dive and feel the cool brackish water over her head and in her hair, making it swirl out like an overactive spider in a web and like the web itself forever winding without a start or end, and in her ears so she doesn't have to hear any of the cruel things that are said about her when no one thinks she's listening and then they realise she is and turn away with shame burning superficially on their cheeks but with the smirking glow of another victory in their eyes because they know they've made her feel bad and making her feel bad makes them feel good...
Of course she tries to hide this and she's often amazed by how well she's succeeding because no one even notices how she feels about anything even when she's so close to yelling it out in their faces they just look right through her and never really see her and so she always feels rejected because nobody knows her any more and she feels so out of touch with everyone that it's hard for her to smile any more.
And yet she's learnt from all that's passed and she would never give it up though she may long sometimes for the energy and lightness of her past because she can never go back only look through shattered fragments of visionary's red glass - her window into a parallel reality which could have been the one she came from for it's so close and yet the subtle differences are enough to remind her that the leaves are falling the nights are getting longer and the young are growing up.
She dreamt once of the future but now her dreams are of the past and this doesn't bother her like once it would have because at least she's had the moments that she prayed once would occur and it's always better to look back than regret the roads not taken which she must admit sometimes she does because there's been so many paths she's turned away to follow the one that she always thought was best for her. That's just the way she is and always has been, so damn stubborn and headstrong that nothing dared to get in her way even if it knew she was wrong because she'd never admit it until she'd run into the brick wall that refused to budge under her obstinate glare. Mauer! Halt oder ich schieße! Halt und ich schieße!
But the road she took was well suited to her, everyone even those who dislike her must admit and it serves them right she thinks because they scorned me once and now they can't, and she can look back along the winding road and forward and see spring and summer before her either way and she can only walk along and watch the world that she used to be part of move along without her even though she never really left, it just seems that way...
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SUMMER - Lily
The day she got the letter was the warmest day in a succession of warm days that filled her life until the cold took it away but that never really mattered because that was just one hitch in the scheme of things and it only happened because she wanted it to happen. She had a choice and that was the one she made and she was happy with it...
Laughter never really stopped sparkling in the eyes that won her many friends if only at first because they couldn't stop staring at them and then later because they got to know her and then they got to like her and they knew they'd never find someone as loyal or as loving as her again and they all took notice, even the people who didn't really speak to her or felt that they should because they noticed her and that meant they felt she'd noticed them and that made everything all right.
Of course she had more of an impression on some than on others and that was the way it should be. Some people sparkle more in the summer than in shadows and that's only to be expected too. She was like that and drew the fickle little moths to her candle even in the depths of coldness because she gave off a kind of heat that made them want to warm themselves, some said maybe it was her hair and others disagreed said no it was the crushed grass of her eyes and the mama's apple pie with ice cream and glistening cider look about her cheeks the way they glowed when she grinned...and she would grin and they'd stop their arguing because really there was nothing to argue about, was there? because she was there and it didn't matter what she meant to other people only what she meant to them.
She had her failings too because you can't enjoy summer without worrying about the sunburn you'll get if you stay out too long and that's just what some people did and the wax flowed off their arms and Icarus had new friends and feathers fluttered down forlornly to mark their passing. And one again didn't like the sun and scurried away but didn't dare go too far because the shadows that he used for light were drawn to her and existed cheerfully in her radiance because after all they were creatures of the summer too. He knew he wasn't but that wasn't really his fault now was it? he justified and let them think just what they wanted knowing that they'd get it wrong but he couldn't help just who he was now could he?
How easy it is to make excuses when you're bathing in the sun and the summer laughter breezes holidays music magic overwhelms you and you think it would be very nice to stay here for a while and you do and soon you're swept up in the glow and never notice where you're stepping until summer's drifted on and you're entering the still of winter and it is too late...
But then again this didn't ever have much meaning for her because she'd only observe it in others not being that kind of person but the whirlwind of the summer that would move on without realising who and what she left behind. It was all the same to her and still is now because sometimes summer can't fade peacefully into the afterglow of autumn but must go out with a bang! a final burst of laughter and of sunshine to see someone somewhere safely through the encroaching still of cooler days and frosty morns because just like the flames of a roaring, cheery marshmallow roasting fire, the voices of friends and the taste of rich, lovely soup when the snow is thick outside, the memory of summer will bring you home.
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SPRING - Hermione
She's new here and doesn't have the kind of past that the others have but then that doesn't really matter because one day she'll grow up and make a past of her own… already she's a young woman, and some people have to take a second look before they realise and it's hard for them to see and yet others know and it's painful but they help her on her way.
Sometimes you can see a little autumn in her and she's grown out of the sadness of winter and into the happiness of summer because that's what Spring always does, it's hope for the future and an echo of the past. There's a lot of hope in her because she's still somewhat overwhelmed by it all and she hides it behind a grin but the innocence and joy that flickers in her eyes are clear to all who see the very newness of the dawn in her fresh eagerness and willingness and sparkle that hover round her restlessly.
But there's such a wide tomorrow before her that the thought of it can bring a new edge to her life because she sees the endless possibilities before her and she thinks infinite diversity, infinite combinations I can have anything I wanted here and anything I want to do because it's all possible...
And she wanders, and she wonders, soaring effortlessly on the wings of the idle dreams that stretch off along the horizon, because this is only really the dawn and the possibilities are endless, though she thinks secretly she knows which path she would like to tread and those who know her can see her drifting slowly towards it even when she may not really notice it herself just in the little things she does and the reactions she possesses for her qualities her nature would be well suited and she wouldn't experience the pull of unavoidable yearnings that would drag her away and so she dreams and hopes and plans and rests content because she's only at the beginning and it will be a long time before she overcomes the inner overwhelmed feeling and her inhibitions to melt from spring into summer and continue the cycle of those before…
Perhaps it will take time but the cycle will turn, once more.