WYNTER
IS COLD
by
Ydnas Odell aka DA Jones
History will call this a victory and only vaguely mention the dead. Harry will be praised to the gills and they will forget the pain. They will celebrate his sacrifices and forget that it is not only heroes who suffer.
I know many who weren't here will think of this as a night to remember. A time so thrilling that perhaps even ole Professor Binns can keep future students awake with the tale. But not we, for those who fought, including I suppose even Harry, this will be a time of nightmare, a time that the sane will instinctively strive to forget.
But perhaps I'm no longer sane. For I can't forget. I won't. I never will. For it's my Wynter; no hero, and a legend only to my heart whose blood covers my sleeves. Tearfully, I take her too cold palm in mine; but can't help staring at the burnt stump of a pinky that mars her delicate hand. Then I reach and smooth back her black locks, prying a blood-stuck strand away from my beloved's bruised brow.
I won't forget her. Never.
Winter was always my favorite season and Wynter my favorite girl. Full of warmth, she would smile brightly even on the coldest day.
Silvery laughter lit her gold-bright eyes, emblazoned her countenance and served as the cornerstone of her character, the epicenter of her bronzed beauty -- the dragonfire of her soul. But now the silvery shine is gone forever and I, Stillwell Summersby, hold Wynter Wyvern in my arms, her eyes wide and fixed in icy death.
It's not fair. I love Wynter too much for a just God to take her from me, at least not in this horrible and terrible way.
Wynter didn't speak any tender last words, for when I found her although I frantically spoke of love; she could only twist in torment and fix me with a gaze of agony and speak with clouded eyes not terms of endearment but only of pain and fear: "Help me Will! Please, Dear God, don't let me die! Please, help me, Will!"
I tried with all my heart and skill, but it was too late. And so she died in my arms, screaming and terrified, but not alone; although I was no comfort, as neither my hugs nor my magic could stop her shrieking. Only one last contorted convulsion did that; the one that left her forever still. And then I selfishly shook her, as if it were better to have her that way, than not at all.
The others will try to tell me that Wynter died a hero. But I know that is not true. She died a victim, one of the last victims of this awful war.
That thing that writhed, the beaten body that I clutch now is not my Wynter, no my Wynter was vibrant.
I was never cold when wrapped in her arms. She was my joy, my fuel, my always and forever; my passion, my heat and my heart.
But now my Wynter is cold, too cold.
I cradle her pale, blood streaked face to my chest and weep while Hannah Abbot, her loyal friend, wails: "Will, she was always smiling!"
That will be her epitaph, my Wynter, my Wyvern. She who would've been my wyfe: "Always smiling."
I manage a brief smirk at the thought that somehow my Wynter could've managed to smile through it all. We will not have our lives together. There will be no daughter Autumn, no son Cedric, no little romantic cafe in Diagon Alley.
Wynter loved to cook, especially the muggle way, especially stews.
I spent a lot of pleasant summer evenings kissing the chef. I loved her lentil stew. She always served it with hot fresh buttered brown bread. Merlin the smell was grand. She had plans to go to a muggle cooking school to learn their ways.
I will never taste her delicious lips or her cooking again. I will never do anything with her again. No romantic walks, no snogs in the moonlight, no pillow fights, no holding of hands.
God, her hand is cold, so bitterly cold. There is a gold bracelet on her wrist, the one that I gave her. It says: 'Wynter & Wyll forever'
She used to giggle. Merlin her giggle was so cute. She used to giggle and say she was going to be: 'Wynter Summersby' my 'wyfe'. She liked to replace i's with y's.
She loved the letter "Y". She wrote her name: Wynter Wyvern with big loopy Y tails. She carved: 'Wynter & Wyll forever' into our 'kissing tree'. So I gave her the bracelet on our anniversary.
I toy with the bracelet. A huge sob shakes me and Hannah's arms come around me. This shouldn't have happened. In no decent world should this have happened. In no fair world would young lovers be parted. In no world at all should I be holding the body of my Wynter.
I fall to my knees, broken and hysterical, screaming my grief to the entire hall:
"Why?! It's not fair! I hate you God! I hate you! You took her! She was only sixteen and you took her, you took my Wynter and she was my life! She was my everything! Why?"
Hannah chokes on her sobs and makes a sound of shock. Her hand goes to her mouth, but then she quickly puts it back around me. She holds me and hugs me for all she's worth and rocks me as I shake. She holds me even as other mourners disturbed from their own private grieves turn to stare. Some try to comfort me.
"Hannah, I can't live without her," I say now; my chin on her shoulder, grief making it hard to lift.
Hannah sniffs and wipes away my tears and looks me in the eyes and says in her soft voice:
"Will, you're strong...you'll work through this. You won't forget Wynter and I won't either. We won't forget her...It's a new day now Will and Wynter loved you for your strength. Will, I know it feels like a mountain of grief and horror... but she's….she's in a better place and...the world was better because she was in it...you're going to be alright, Will. We all are."
Hannah's a good mate in grief. She's solid, caring, and devastated too, but I push her off.
She's not Wynter and it is only Wynter's arms I want around me, but I can't have that now and I have to let her go. As painful as it is to say, Wynter is only in my past now and not my future. It's why they say the dead have passed.
Mourning will not get me a family, or the warmth of living love. All Wynter can be is inspiration and motivation. I will achieve everything she wanted me to achieve, that is how I'll honor her love. I will be happy for her. I'll name a daughter for her and there shall be two: Wynter and Autumn, and maybe a third Spring.
I'll bury the bracelet with my love. I'll have to claim her body. I'll have to arrange the funeral. Wynter was a pure-blood orphan. Her parents the Wyverns were Slytherins and supporters of you- know-who in the first war. They were killed by Aurors; leaving Wynter nothing but their house. She had grown up in an orphanage, hated by some because of her surname.
You would think that she would've hated it too. But she didn't. It was something about a letter from her mum that she never showed me. Maybe one day when we're married," she had told me.
Hannah says that Wynter kept the bit of parchment folded in her keepsake box and every now and then she would take it out and sob. It was soaked in tearstains.
I won't read it. Like the bracelet I'll bury it with her.
Maybe it was something from that letter that convinced Wynter that she had to fight; even though she wasn't of age, even though she was no great witch; even though she had to sneak back from Hogsmeade.
She never would have been an Auror. She only wanted to be a cook and a mother.
As I cradle her in my arms I know that I cannot blame Harry. Fantastic heroes have no faults.
But I can blame the dead. It is so much easier to blame the dead. So I blame my old friend Cedric, the hero-like boy with everything but a mission and wits.
Well, that is not fair. Cedric did have a mission, to get Wynter and me together. It took his death to do that. I thank him and mourn him still, but I also loathe him for causing my pain. If Cedric had been quicker, had he been brighter he and Harry would have defeated Pettigrew. I know it.
The Dark Lord wouldn't have risen. The horrors wouldn't have ensued. Wynter and the others would be alive. So it's Cedric's fault that Wynter died.
And it is Cedric's fault that I love Wynter so, for if Cedric hadn't died my mourning wouldn't have roused her beautiful soul. Hugs of compassion and healing wouldn't have turned to passion.
After Cedric's Death I remember that Dumbledore said something about choices; that we could choose between what was right and what was easy. Wynter knew the risks. She made her choice, just as I did by coming here when I heard. I couldn't have stopped her. She was strong willed. It is one of the reasons I love her.
Susan Bones made that choice too and she's my hero, and I suppose now I'm hers.
Susan tried to save Wynter, tried to distract Bellatrix, but failed and got her face flailed to the bone for the act. She was lying alone in the night, semi-conscious in her own growing pool of blood and I suppose it's a small miracle that my newly grief stricken mind was alert enough to hear her moans. It was hard for me to leave Wynter even to save our friend Susan.
Hannah went to see Susan. She said that Susan jokes that she is Susan Skull now. Brave Susan, I should go too. But having left Wynter once I can't do it again and I don't think I have the courage to look Susan in the eye without shuddering; though I have to thank her for trying.
So I saved a life, but after Wynter's death I deliberately killed too. I wanted revenge.
I charged through the halls like a fiery wrath of death and vengeance. I tried to drive away the pain by killing and torturing the enemy. But killing didn't relieve the pain, it was a false panacea. Instead my actions have smothered me with a dense gray scratchy guilt, bore and born in Wynter's name.
She'd understand, I know she would, but I should've died with her or better in her place.
How could my love for Wynter have wrought such pain, such rage, such darkness? Our love brought none of these, I know it didn't. What I feel now, this intense anger, this urge to blast walls and throw things, this squeezing fury is wrong...but everything is wrong …frightfully wrong; with Wynter gone I feel like a frozen planet in orbit of a dead star. I can still feel the titanic tug of her love, but there is no light.
If Cedric had lived it none of his would've happened. They are Cedric's fault; Wynter's death and this terrible wrath of grief. But Wynter made her choice and so did I, as did Cedric in but a moment make his. Oh God, please forgive me. Forgive me my love.
Suddenly Neville Longbottom grips my shoulder and squeezes it hard. "I'm so sorry Will," is all he says, thankfully leaving out the empty platitudes about heroes. Neville is making rounds, thanking and mourning with everyone.
He turns to Hannah now and gives her a long hug while whispering something comforting. She sniffs and gives him a thankful admiring look and he presses on. There are others to see. A vague and detached part of me is aware that Wynter is not the only friend I've lost tonight. There are more.
Hannah whispers the death count to me and I'm horrified; I wish she hadn't. I didn't want to know that there are fifty-five dead. Damn it, Wynter was enough!
I wonder where Harry Potter is. Shouldn't he be doing Neville's job? But then all this year according to Hannah the DA hasn't really been Harry's. It has been Neville's and those that died were his soldiers.
I saw it in Neville's moist eyes. His grief for Wynter was genuine even though he couldn't have known her well. Maybe it's because it was Bellatrix who tortured and killed her.
I look up and see the flowing tears of Mrs. Weasley. Her son was a hero, but Wynter was not.
Wynter did nothing special and will not be a hero, she is only a casualty, an unknown name on a soon-to-be garish memorial wall, only remarked upon for being last and next to that of a Weasley.
Which is worse the grief of a mother or the grief of a lover? Perhaps I'm selfish but I cannot see her grief as being worse than mine.
Hannah takes my hand and tries to pull me gently away from Wynter's body, telling me that I have to let Wynter go, that I have to eat something.
I will. Somehow I have an appetite. I just wish it wasn't breakfast I was having but more of Wynter's delicious stew.
With one last caress I release Wynter's hand for the final time and Hannah and I sit at the Gryffindor table where Neville has started to sullenly hold court.
Wynter is a memory now, one that I must hold onto with all the strength of my heart. I must believe that the world will be better. I must believe her loss has meaning.
The memory of her gold-bright eyes is my beacon of hope. I believe in her love.
I believe that someday in some far off place I will hear her silvery laughter again.
I look around, my tears have run dry; no one is sitting by house anymore. I wonder if this is new; if it's a historic change or if it means anything?
I believe it does.
And I believe that Wynter would've liked it.
--
A/n Summersby is an incredibly minor Hufflepuff canon character; less a character really then a name. I made up his first name. Wynter is my creation though and all the rest belongs to JKR. This was written for a Hufflepuff collaboration project that was never completed. And Wynter & Wyll are both Hufflepuffs of course.
A/n I'm looking for good constructive reviews on this. What parts of this worked and what parts didn't? Did you bawl? Did you like it at all and if so why or why not?
I'm looking for the sort of criticism that might help me improve my writing and I like to give the same sort of honest criticism back. So don't be shy. Leave a review.
Thanks for reading!
Ydnas Odell. DA Jones on the forums.
A/n --08/25/2007 This all belongs to JKR. A/N --9/2/2007 Thank you to Jessi Rose for the banner and the recent critique at SAYS which greatly improved this. And also SlytherinGinny and her review which made a good point about the ending. It has much more impact now I think.
A/n 9/16/2007 This story has been rewritten again and it is even better now and this is mostly thanks to my fabulous Beta: Slytherinprincess. She says that this is her first beta job, but I've never had a better one.
I also want to thank White Dragon who made some very interesting points in his review, most of which were also raised by the beta, but it is because of his comments that I reworked the beginning.10/30/2007 Last and final revision. I've learned to cut the unimportant stuff as this story originally had many more characters, please let me know if you enjoy it although this isn't really the type of story you should enjoy.