Stories about nothing in particular. Themes inspired by the sitcom Seinfeld's episode titled 'The Chinese Restaurant'.
Reviews will be most appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter characters. JKR does...
The Little Moments
Because the big ones are already written!
Life is a series of rooms.
Some are filled with laughter, hurt, anger and all that emotional jazz….
Some are filled with beautiful things that you don't want to forget…
And some are filled with sounds, smells that overpower every other sense…
But then there were rooms like the one in front of her….
It was a Friday night. It was summer vacation and hence the night held little significance unlike the ones at Hogwarts. Just another day of lazing around and sitting around doing nothing!
There are times when one doesn't do anything useful, which is not to be confused with doing nothing. Doing nothing is a state wherein you absentmindedly are gazing at a quill, without the intention of moving it magically. Then came the interruption…
"Lily, come help me with the salad," yelled the 'Women', who me and my incorrigible brothers affectionately referred to as 'Mum'. I groaned in response.
I knew that job was destined for me since the time I saw those damned veggies make their way out of the surprisingly small grocery bag. It seemed to be my designated job these days.
"Mum, why me!? I am trying to concentrate on something. Couldn't you get your darling sons to do it for once," I whined.
Chopping the vegetables into tiny pieces would probably give me sadistic pleasure for sure but my procrastinating arse was resting comfortably on the sofa. Giving that luxury up without putting up a fight would have been just blasphemous and against everything I believed in.
"Lily!," yelled Mum and that was that.
No elaborate explanations, no catchy phrases or idioms, no fuss. My verbose brain lost out to a single word. My name….
Ok, my name yelled in an intimidating tone had a lot to do with it. Resigned to my fate, I trudged along at a pace that reflected my dissatisfaction but avoided the consequences that a rebellion might incur.
"Alright, alright. I am here," I registered my presence in the same whiny tone.
"Here….Slice these carrots and tomatoes. I will finish with the others in the meantime," said Mum.
The salad had become an increasingly regular fixture in our day-to-day meals, making me miss the Hogwarts food even more. The "Oldies" had reached a stage in their life, wherein the food they consumed determinedly clung onto their bodies. Seeing Uncle Ron's huge frame seemed to have had a profound effect on my parents. Unfortunately, the same impact was missing when it came to my favourite uncle's diet.
As I sliced the tomatoes, my mind wandered as it often did during Binn's lectures on Goblin wars. I was there in the room but I was not. My hands worked through the squishy mess in front of me while I humming some tune absentmindedly.
The tell-tale sign of my hair being messed up woke me up from my doldrums. This wordless greeting was the bane of my hair's existence. The rascal, who did it, smirked at me in a superior way of his.
I retorted with my customary scowl. Ignoring my facial contours that were supposed to be frightening, he hugged mum from behind and investigated the spread before him.
"Thank God. I thought that Lils was making dinner tonight," quipped the elder of the two banes of my existence. My tired fingers caught up with my brain and as a result of which an indignant puff of air made its way out of my mouth.
My supposedly impartial mum didn't pay much attention to our verbal sparring as she carried on working, in her annoyingly merry way of hers. Unless there was blood or broken bones, she seldom interfered in our sibling squabbles. So, largely unsupervised, James and I continued.
Had our Dad been there, it would have been an altogether different story!
Unlike our violence-tolerant Mum, Dad seemed to get squeamish whenever we fought. Due to lack of high quality siblings, he didn't understand the difference between warring siblings and downright bullying. There was a thin line that separated them.
Hence, we tempered our fights to some degree in front of the Head Auror extraordinaire.
While this was happening, the younger of the troublesome twosome entered the kitchen. He hugged mum, ruffled my hair and sat down to watch the conclusion of our fight. He wouldn't interfere. There was a cardinal rule that was unwritten but sacrosanct in the eyes of us younger Potters.
'Thou shall not take sides in a fight between two feuding siblings.'
This law was violated only once before and it blew up spectacularly on the third sibling's face. The experience was not one to be repeated.
"James, call your dad. Time for dinner," said Mum, interrupting our duel.
Surprised at the interruption but unfazed by it, he got up and proceeded towards my dad's study. An intriguing room that one!
Meanwhile, I had moved onto the carrots. I promptly deposited half of the load in front of Al, daring him to argue. To my utter disappointment he didn't argue. He didn't seem to be in combative mood. Pity! The work would have finished sooner, relatively speaking, with us arguing. The silence was boring. So, I started a random conversation involving plans for the weekend…
It was met with the best conversation ender ever…Silence…
Then the saviour of the Wizarding-kind entered the kitchen. A kiss for my mum was followed by a hug for me and a slap in the back for Al.
"How was your day?" asked Dad.
"It was…," started Al unsuccessfully but unable to find the right words.
"Relaxingly boring," I stated.
"Huh? What did you do?"
"Nothing! Well, I was doing that before mum gave me this tedious chore," I said, pointing towards the finely chopped vegetables.
"Well, I am so sorry that your day of doing nothing got disturbed," said Mum in an unrepentant tone, while directing James and Al to set the table.
"Well, I have earned it. My brain cells need to regenerate after the exams," I protested as I moved to sit between Dad and Al.
"So, Lils did nothing. What were you two up to?" inquired Dad, while helping himself to some salad under Mum's watchful gaze.
"Cleaned the room" and "Played Quidditch" were the responses. Honestly, my doing nothing had elicited a much bigger responses.
The conversation flowed as we talked about something or the other, with light hearted banter evident throughout.
So essentially, it was nothing but a regular day at the Potter household.
The room decors, the vegetables and other delicacies, the sibling rivalries, our mum making delicious dinner for us foodies and even our conversation were all part of the background.
The memory wouldn't be a part of most people's pensieves' because nothing extraordinary or special really happened in it.
After all, Life is a series of rooms…
Some are filled with laughter, hurt, anger and all that emotional outpourings….
Some are filled with beautiful things that you don't ever want to forget…
And some are filled with sounds, smells that overpower every other sense…
But, it's the people in these rooms that make them special…