Grains Of Moonlit Sand
***I caught you then in your moment of glory
Your last dramatic scene against a night sky stage
With a memory so clear it's as if you're still before me My once in a lifetime star of an age***
Translucent light seeps into the darkness, illuminating a small spot on the stone floor. Outside, the wind blows, flirting through trees and grazing nimble fingers against the hard earth. Blades of glass twine on the empty Quidditch field below, slivers of moonlight bathing it in a sheen of sick green.
You wonder how much it'll hurt to fall so far down, and you wonder morbidly how long it'll take before gravity pulls you down and death whispers its humble magic dust on you.
On the horizon the stars sparkle, distant crystallized tears blinking against black canvass, and you survey the scene before you detachedly, feeling grimly elated with the breeze beckoning you and the night pulling you closer within its reach.
Your shoes touch stable ground, a margin narrowly missing the perimeter of the ledge where sixty stories down the trees look like olive colored pinpricks. But the wind calls to you, drawing you into its spell.
You raise your arms above your shoulders, shut your eyes and feel the wind slip through your fingers like invisible grains of sand, spilling between the cracks before you're able to clutch it firmly. And it feels good for a passing moment, letting your robes ride against the currents of the sweet smelling autumn air and immersing yourself like that, in the sensation where all thought and logic lay so far away.
You hear a swish of cloak behind you, a flurry of movement that disrupts your concentration. And you stagger for balance, breath as you whip around abruptly and narrow your eyes intensively. The gray of your eyes registers surprise as a familiar face emerges from the shadows, the moon toying with the obvious features of his boyish build in a way that makes your fingers burn to touch.
"Hello," The intruder says, voice sweetly telling lies when really it isn't, and he smiles hesitantly, or forcefully but you really aren't sure whether it's both because the despairing light in his blue eyes dissipates, the moment he sees the lackluster in your expression.
You don't respond however, and when he pleads with his eyes alone you pull your resolve around you like a blanket to protect you. "What brings you here?" You ask, and it's like the coldness soaks him to the core because he pierces you with a look that calls for something—anything.
You know why he's there. And it's addictive just the way he's standing a few feet away and you can feel his fingers touching you, breathing you in, drinking you in. You like the pain because somehow it's the only thing you can give each other. You like the way your lives are so twisted, and warped, and different but ultimately complementing the other. You like everything. And you like him maybe even more than you should.
"I'm marrying her."
That's all he says.
Your eyes narrow.
You pull your blanket tighter that it suffocates you enough to be this near and yet so far from him.
A gamut if emotions spread like wildfire over you—pain, betrayal, maybe even love— and you completely miss the despondency in his tone, that twinge of remorse seeking shelter in your little black heart because before you your world crumbles in the shape of a boy.
"Lily?" You ask—no, you whisper. And is it the wind or do you now stutter when you say that name?
You want to wipe away the hurt from his face, kiss the line of his jaw, apologize—you want to beg. But you don't.
You don't.
You don't because that would mean he wins this game, and being the person that you are you cannot lose. You cannot show weakness.
He nods and his hair moves against the breeze. "Well," You spit, even scoff. "I never thought you had it in you."
Discomfort flits across his face like splinters of glass strewn carelessly on the floor, and you vaguely want to pick each piece up to dissemble what he's trying to convey. You want to take the words back but seeing him so jaded like that gives you a sense of comfort, makes it feel less painful for you but more real.
"Why do you do this?" He asks.
"Why do you do this?" You sound angry, and maybe you are and he steps closer and open his mouth to retort, give you a piece of his mind because he couldn't take all this crap from you but the words dry out in the sound of the darkness.
"I thought you still felt for me."
"There's nothing left for me to feel." You answer and he reaches out to touch your arm only you draw back, and you feel yourself drowning in the sorrowful depths of his eyes.
It's unhealthy.
You feel yourself falling.
He looks at you, maybe at your hair and you remember those times when he'd say he loves the color of your hair. He says he loves everything about you. But love—it's fragile and dull. Love is overrated and most times I runs dry and you get bored of it.
Love isn't the word you'd want to describe what you feel.
"I never wanted to be with her." He explains but you smirk and throw your head back, hair cascading down to the tips of your earlobes.
"That I'm sure of." You tell him bitterly and a thousand heartbeats pass before he finally narrows his eyes and gives up.
He turns in one effortless movement, his crimson robes melding like velvet in the dark.
You see him hesitate, clench his fists around himself but maybe it's just the moon looking so exquisite tonight and the tricks it casts on your vision.
You watch him walk away and you realize maybe you're going to regret this for the rest of your life, but you don't follow him or beg or cry—you're so far past that already. You're mourning probabilities.
He's gone after you blink as if he's turned invisible in the snap of a finger. You feel odd, and the silence is discomforting and the air doesn't feel so good anymore even when you know that you've tarnished him and burned a memory of yourself into his mind. It doesn't give you the kind of satisfaction that you seek.
You turn towards the sky again, ignoring the conflicting feelings that seethe in your caged heartbeat. It's funny because you're not supposed to feel anything anymore.
You lift your arms above you and it's like your soaring into the sky and the wind slips between your fingers.
It reminds you of what you can never have. The wind.
It reminds you of him.
fin