December felt plastic. Thousands of little beads of sprinkles and wisps of
white showering down the grounds of Hogwarts, around it and inside and
outside within. But when Ginny leaned over and touched the snow with the
tips of her fingers, crushed it, she felt no cold at all, as if snow was a
part of her blood, as if it was familiar, something to breathe, see, and
love. And it didn't sting her eyes.
December was fake.
Fake, fake, always fake. It was her birthday.
And that, as well, seemed fake. It felt ignored, shunted aside, washed off a blackboard with a dripping, dripping sponge to make in nonexsistant.
She spent most of her birthday outside, recalling the presents she had gotten, all fake, all fake, all fake, and she might as well have splattered them right in the snow and crushed with her feet to see if they could die.
Frosted windows gleamed from the widowed, shadowed roots of the bare naked trees nearby, and Hagrid's Hut was melting of it's snow from the heat radiating from it, and she could almost feel the ember fires depriving of it's every being.
Footsteps. A shiver. Calculation of nothing, touching nothing, snow was nothing, nothing was nothing. The trees looked drowned, like an arm of an innocent infant child pulled off to see if it could breathe.
The scarf tightened at the crane of her neck and she soon, slipped it off. The coat she wore was ragged and hanging and she pulled it off until she was showing the oldest clothes she had ever owned---her Christmas sweater from last year and a skirt that hung to her knees, from the age of nine, her favorite skirt, fitting so snug she was still in faint disbelief that she had worn it so comfortably--sunk into it like her second flapping off in the distance of her bone...
She gazed around--the fixtures of the world needn't care of what she would do next.
Nobody would ever, ever, have to care. She searched into the only pocket of her skirt--the back pocket, rinsed with a stain of gray, and took out the candle.
She lighted it the only thing she could---her own mouth.
Her mouth felt dry, deprived like ash. She knew she could only do it once a year---she had learned it so everlastingly by heart that it felt like sneezing at the first pace---black sorrow shapes like leaves withering, then inflaming onto the candle, burning, then a timid, soft, smooth flow of fire pouring right from her lips as she mouthed wordlessly, her throat as dry as her tongue.
One second, two, three, a million.
Once, once, more.
Blow.
Blow out the candle.
And then the flame explodes.
She closed her eyes and wished evermore.
She opened her eyes, the candle had burned right down to it's end, dripping it's wax. She let it fall to the ground and crushed it in the snow with her foot.
She didn't bother to pick up her belongings---the wind was forcing them down and she only looked up the sky and spat, "That's for you December--you cold-hearted, fake, plastic bare naked dead bitch."
The words were strange, but relaxed into her now rolling tongue, which was almost black. She almost wanted to laugh as she shivered all the way to the castle.
He stepped out behind the tree, the snowflakes blending with his hair, like his soulmate.
December was fake.
Fake, fake, always fake. It was her birthday.
And that, as well, seemed fake. It felt ignored, shunted aside, washed off a blackboard with a dripping, dripping sponge to make in nonexsistant.
She spent most of her birthday outside, recalling the presents she had gotten, all fake, all fake, all fake, and she might as well have splattered them right in the snow and crushed with her feet to see if they could die.
Frosted windows gleamed from the widowed, shadowed roots of the bare naked trees nearby, and Hagrid's Hut was melting of it's snow from the heat radiating from it, and she could almost feel the ember fires depriving of it's every being.
Footsteps. A shiver. Calculation of nothing, touching nothing, snow was nothing, nothing was nothing. The trees looked drowned, like an arm of an innocent infant child pulled off to see if it could breathe.
The scarf tightened at the crane of her neck and she soon, slipped it off. The coat she wore was ragged and hanging and she pulled it off until she was showing the oldest clothes she had ever owned---her Christmas sweater from last year and a skirt that hung to her knees, from the age of nine, her favorite skirt, fitting so snug she was still in faint disbelief that she had worn it so comfortably--sunk into it like her second flapping off in the distance of her bone...
She gazed around--the fixtures of the world needn't care of what she would do next.
Nobody would ever, ever, have to care. She searched into the only pocket of her skirt--the back pocket, rinsed with a stain of gray, and took out the candle.
She lighted it the only thing she could---her own mouth.
Her mouth felt dry, deprived like ash. She knew she could only do it once a year---she had learned it so everlastingly by heart that it felt like sneezing at the first pace---black sorrow shapes like leaves withering, then inflaming onto the candle, burning, then a timid, soft, smooth flow of fire pouring right from her lips as she mouthed wordlessly, her throat as dry as her tongue.
One second, two, three, a million.
Once, once, more.
Blow.
Blow out the candle.
And then the flame explodes.
She closed her eyes and wished evermore.
She opened her eyes, the candle had burned right down to it's end, dripping it's wax. She let it fall to the ground and crushed it in the snow with her foot.
She didn't bother to pick up her belongings---the wind was forcing them down and she only looked up the sky and spat, "That's for you December--you cold-hearted, fake, plastic bare naked dead bitch."
The words were strange, but relaxed into her now rolling tongue, which was almost black. She almost wanted to laugh as she shivered all the way to the castle.
He stepped out behind the tree, the snowflakes blending with his hair, like his soulmate.