Hello!
Let me offer a hasty appology for my long absence. I hope that in my time of parting, I have become a better writer. Any kind of commentary you can provide me with is much appreciated! It was reading your reviews that inspired me to write something new.
My mind looks like the inside of an inkwell; dark, dripping, and corroded.
As I lay on an old couch I can do nothing but replay the same violent scene in my head again and again and again. It's the vivid nightmare I've had every day this week. I'm standing over a dead body. Blood is pooled around my bare feet, hot and sticky. I can not see the bodies face but I know who it is. It is Lily. It is James. It is Sirius. It is Peter. It is anyone I care about.
Every time in the dream, I can see nothing of myself except for my hands, which are not my hands at all. They are claws, hooked and silver, like scythes slicing through stalks. They drip sluggishly with the blood of Lily-James-Sirius-Everyman. Even though I know it is not me, it is still me. I am horrified by the joy that surges in the belly of the wolf.
I lay on my couch with my eyes forced open, lungs heaving as I breathe. I try to blink away the dream. But it's still there. It's still there.
Though the horror of my nightmare refuses to fade, it eventually numbs enough for me to gather my sense. I sit up slowly on the old couch. The couch is just about the only thing in my living room. There's a single picture hanging above the empty fireplace; A poorly done watercolor I did in my sixth year of the lake at Hogwarts. It is faded now, but at one point the lake was bright and warm. Now it is a dull gray-blue.
My house is cold. I direct my wand at the empty fireplace and light the rotting log aflame. A small bit of warmth seeps across the room, but I still pull an olive green blanket over my shoulders. There is a deep chill in the November air.
Never having been a morning person, I get off of the couch with a moan and stumble into my sparse kitchen. I set a tea kettle on the stove, and sit at my kitchen table. I run my hands through my hair, which is a tangled mess. I pretend I dont notice the streaks of gray that are becoming more and more prominent by the day. Lily says it is very becoming, and that I play it off well. But what nineteen year old wants to be becoming? I'd rather be dashing or stunning or basically anything but graying.
In seventh year, when my hair first started to show signs of gray, Sirius darkly said "We'll all come out of this war with a few gray hairs."
I do wonder if he's right about that.
The kettle whistles and I poor myself a nice cup of lavender tea, with a heaping spoonful of orange honey. Tea is good for a weary soul. That's what Madam Pomfrey used to say anyways.
As I take my first sip, a light rapping is heard from my dingy window, directly to my right. I push back the thin cream colored curtain, and see a molted brown owl with a chipped beak. It is Harlequin, my owl. More of a messenger pigeon really. Bloody thing looks like its been run over by the Knight bus at least twice.
I open the window and let Harlequin onto the kitchen table. He pecks at my teacup as I untie a small bundle of papers from his leg. First on the stack is today's edition of the Daily Prophet. A big, bold headline reads, FLOURISH AND BLOTS, UP IN FLAMES. Underneath the headline is a moving picture of the cheery shop burning to the ground, the Dark Mark raging overhead. The bookworm inside of me cringes at the loss of hundreds, if not thousands, of books.
I quickly skim the article, and am relieved to see that no one was killed due to the hasty arrival of Aurors. However, the Ministry is already dealing with the Goblins about insurance or whatever it may be, trying to see what can be done about the loss of all of those books.
I am relieved by this headline. That means the worst thing to have happened in the last day is a destructive shop fire. Nobody has died. Nobody has been tortured. No families have been mass murdered. It's a slightly less awful day than the ones prior. I set the Prophet down and go onto the next paper in my stack.
It is a letter hastily sealed into a coffee-stained envelope, a smudge of dirt in the top left corner.
Dear Remus,
I thought you'd like to know, the singing lilac's have finally sprouted. You shall have your bouquet just in time!
Best wishes,
Sprout
I smile a little bit. This is from professor sprout of course. The day I learned of Lily's pregnancy, I sent an owl to Professor Sprout, requesting her to cultivate a singing lilac plant, so I would have the perfect bouquet of flowers to give to her when the baby was born. It's silly, I know, but there's so little I can do, I figured this was a decent way of expressing my joy.
The third paper in my stack is a letter, and Harlequin has it clamped tightly in his dirt colored beak. "Let go of it." I say dully, tugging on the letter. Harlequin flaps his wings, as I pull. "Come on, you feather-brain!" I growl. He lets go.
"Thank you." I say in a dignified manner, smoothing the crumpled edge of the letter.
I open the paper. There is a very small message.
Two hours before three hours from the last. Same place, different face.
Instantly, I know what this means. This is a coded call to an Order of The Phoenix meeting. Two hours before three hours from the last is a clever way of saying what time the meeting is. I quickly do some math on the edge of the Prophet. Despite my love for academia, I am a truly dreadful math student and I can't do the simplest of problem without a piece of scrap paper.
"Lets see..The last meeting ended at seven o'clock so three hours later would be ten o'clock, and two hours before that would be eight o'clock. So the meetings at eight o'clock.' I say allowed. Harlequin politely hoots, as if he's listening.
This gives me the rest of the day to prepare anything I need for the meeting, since it wont happen until eight tonight. Same place, different face is a term the order has been using a lot. It means same location, but there are new threats surrounding it and we should therefore be prepared. It's also a way of saying come on foot, as the different faces may catch you if you go by Floo or if you apparate. The last meeting was held at Peter's house. It will be held there again tonight.
I give a weary sigh. "Harlequin, I envy your wings." I say, as I drain the last of my tea. "If I had them, I would fly and fly and never think about war or hooked claws or burning book shops."
Harlequin snaps his beak in response. He's really not the bad of an owl.