Disclaimer: The Gryffindor common room belongs to J.K. Rowling, as do the furniture, spell, fireplace, bed, draperies, window, characters, red hair, sheets, coverlet, lake, stairway, and forest. The poem, which is, incidentally, called The Dole of the King's Daughter, belongs to Oscar Wilde and is reprinted with his permission, gotten through the intermediary of the Ouija board (really!); the shadows, darkness, moonlight, moon, air, atmosphere, fire, etc. all are jointly owned by the God and Goddess (must I list all their names?), and the tear, phantom cobwebs, silent footfalls, equally silent scream, and storyline are all MY property (MWAH HA HA HA HAH!!!!!!!). The author is not responsible for any accidental combustion caused by reading this story.
A/N: No, I actually did NOT write this and then add the words "Gryffindor common room," etc. to make it a Harry Potter fanfic. It was actually WRITTEN as a Harry Potter fanfic. So nope, you're not setting your lawyers on me for that, either! *cackles* Nah nah nah nah na-nah!
***
Darkness muffled the Gryffindor common room. There was a brooding, silent, watchful atmosphere in the room... The walls seemed to keep a soundless vigil over the dark, indecipherable shapes of furniture lit only by the last glowing embers in the fireplace. There was nobody there. Nobody visible, that is. Only one lone spirit prowled the halls that night....
His silent footfalls echoed in the vast, empty room. He did not stumble- not that he could, without a body. But he knew his way well, body or no, having traveled it every night these past two years...
Phantom cobwebs brushed his face. Absently, he raised one long-fingered, nearly skeletal hand, a hand which was semi-translucent in daylight, and swept it away. On this plane, he should not have existed, he thought... He was trapped forever by his longing, between this world and the next, of neither one nor the other. Less than even a ghost...
Pale, icy moonlight from a far-off window touched his hand. Passed his hand. Cut a harsh sliver of light into the black. Velvet, scarlet velvet... He stepped through the draperies, whispered. Lumos... Faint blue light cast shadows over his face and the velvet behind him, and a sleeping form in the bed over which he was standing. Her pale skin was ice-blue in the half-light, her red-gold hair furrowed with shadows.
Seven stars in the still water,
And seven in the sky;
Seven sins on the King's daughter,
Deep in her soul to lie.
Red roses are at her feet,
(Roses are red in her red-gold hair)...
He whispered the words to her, smiling faintly at himself... His eyes, deeper green than ever in this half-life, were pits of sadness and haunted longing that one could be lost in... She stirred in the crisp white linen of the sheets, a thin arm coming to rest on the coverlet. Involuntarily, he reached out to touch it, to feel life and warmth again, but he could not. Trapped... caged... It would almost be better to be lifeless...
But for this...
A wisp of hair escaped from the tangled mane that now lay against the silent whiteness of the sheets. He stroked it, tried to, at least, and felt nothing, just as he had so many times before.And O where her bosom and girdle meet
Red roses are hidden there.
Fair is the knight who lieth slain
Amid the rush and reed,
See the lean fishes that are fain
Upon dead men to feed.
Mourning for what was not yet gone, but forever out of his reach, he spoke the words. Mourning for life, for love... for everything he would not touch again. For the sins on his soul, so many more than seven, more than he could count...
Sweet is the page that lieth there,
(Cloth of gold is goodly prey,)
See the black ravens in the air,
Black, O black as the night are they.
What do they there so stark and dead?
(There is blood upon her hand)
Why are the lilies flecked with red?
(There is blood on the river sand.)
For the love he would never have...
Wearily, he sat next to her on the bed which he could not feel, could not touch, on the heaviness of fabric he'd never again hold, rub between his fingers, sleep beneath... his face, ghostly, was lined with weariness. Pain. Despair...
There are two that ride from the south and east,
And two from the north and west,
For the black raven a goodly feast,
For the King's daughter rest.
There is one man who loves her true,
(Red, O red, is the stain of gore!)
He hath duggen a grave by the darksome yew,
(One grave will do for four.)
A draft from the open window swirled the scarlet velvet through his shadowy form. Brushing her hand with his insubstantial fingers, he turned and stole over to the window, looking down, down, down on the moon-silver waters of the lake and the darkness of the forest... Once again, he flung himself from the window, screaming a deathlike silence...
All in vain.
No moon in the still heaven,
In the black water none,
The sins on her soul are seven,
The sin upon his is one.
Upon her hand, one tear glistened, and slowly vanished into the shadows.