December Rain
By X-wing Day
Slowly, and with a grace I was assured I'd inherited from my father, I slung out of the house and onto the rain soaked streets of London. There was really no reason for my stealth, as I now lived alone in my one bedroom flat. Still, it was one of those odd nights when I felt as if I was pulled by some greater power. The night was cold and the air felt heavy in my airways even as I took my first steps down the darken alleys near my home. A heavy cloak and hood protected me from the slowly increasing rain, it's pounding rhythm eating away at the uneasy in my mind. It was fall, and for some reason I attached this time of year to them.
Images of a couple I almost felt I'd never met rose to mind. Somehow, though I was so young when they died, I could still remember my father's laugh. I could feel in some odd way my mother's arm around me. And it was on these dark rainy nights, when no one could see me, that I felt their loss the most. A single tear escaped and I tore off my hood, allowing the rain to pour down through my hair and across my face. The water felt cool as it hit my head, yet so warm as it gently slid across my face and finally dripped off my chin. These moments, walking alone in the rain, they were my peace. They were something I could not truly explain.
On a whim I pulled off my heavy cloak, tossing it onto the ground and not looking at it twice. I took off running as fast I could, cutting around a corner and onto a deserted street. I managed it well until I reached a park, finally losing my footing and falling to slide across the grass flat on my back. I couldn't hold in the laugh as I lay there and shut my eyes against the falling rain. I felt as if it was cleansing me, washing away any of the stress I hid from those I loved and leaving nothing but a peaceful calm in it's wake. I knew, in some strange and indirect way, that moments like this were what my parents had died for. That they would have wished my life to be peaceful and happy, and not filled with the same struggles they had faced.
I felt as if I were burning from the inside and the logical part of my mind told me to get out of the rain. Told me that I was not a child and could not stay in this state for hours just to bugger off some classes the next day from the resulting cold. No, I was of age and should be a responsible young wizard they could be proud of. However, as the smirk crawled across my face, I could imagine them. Somehow, imaginary or not, the image of Remus and Nymphadora Lupin dancing in a park under the rain drenched sky just felt like it would have fit.
Slowly, I sat up and took one last deep breath of the damp night air. The smell of wet grass and soaked concrete always had an oddly comforting feel. On a impulse I tugged a picture from my pocket, a rare one that I always kept with me. My parents images smiled up at me and waved from the snap shot.
"Thank you." I whispered to them before slowly making my way back to my flat.