In its first moment of consciousness, the apple felt nothing. No feelings, no sensations. Around it was darkness. The air felt cool, but not cold. A gentle breeze lapped against its skin.
The apple felt, first of all, alone. It had no one. It was all alone, the only apple ever to be alive. Something held it in the air, a thin twig.
There was silence and darkness.
The apple strained as hard as it could to see something, anything, a sign that it wasn't alone in the darkness, and it saw nothing. The universe was only a big, black hole design to swallow us whole, it thought.
What seemed like hours passed. The apple noticed something – the sky getting lighter. It watched as the sun rose, chasing away the darkness.
The apple was attached to a tree whose branches were filled with other apples. Looking around, it was overcome with joy by the fact that the apple wasn't alone, that other apples felt the same way it did.
It looked at the closest apple to it. "Hey – would you mind showing me around? I'm new here."
"Bugger off." It said, turning away from the apple.
Another apple spoke up. "You'll see how it is soon enough, I suppose."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, whenever you get nice and green, the people come."
"People? What are people?"
"They're big monsters, with only four branches, and they can move."
"What do they do to you?"
"They pick you off the tree, and then no one knows what happens to you after that."
"Oh." The apple said. "But it won't happen to you, right?"
"No, I'm afraid my time is very soon. I'm growing old, you see."
"Oh, don't worry, no one can tell."
"Well, I'm not the young apple I used to be." The other apple trailed off into silence. "That one over there," The apple said, indicating the apple who had been very rude, "He lost his best friend a few days ago."
The apple murmured sympathetically, and wondered what the word he meant. Must learn more on this, it thought.
Slowly, almost so slowly it didn't notice at first, the apple was growing. The dark came back, then the light again, then the dark, and the apple grew. Its color changed into a nice bright lime, and it became shinier.
The apple wasn't happy. The other apples all had friends, and since the First Day, no one had talked to it. It was lonely. It tried to hide the loneliness, and learn the world, but it became so tired of the world. The world seemed so unbearably small to it. Sometimes it even longed to be picked off the tree, and taken somewhere else.
Finally the day came. As the light was coming, the apple heard voices, human voices, coming from below it. They were rough and gravely.
"You got those ones?"
"Yeah. I got 'em."
The apple felt a little prick from its stem, and it was enclosed in a nice warm dirty hand. The hand put it in a basket with another apple.
"Hello." The apple said.
The other apple looked him over. "You know that you have a really dirty spot on your skin, don't you?" The other apple's voice was irritating and bossy.
"Yeah, I've heard that." The apple said.
"Well, it looks kinda disgusting. You should get that cleaned up."
"Yeah. Yeah, I will." The apple said. The other apple was very irritating, it thought.
A third apple landed in the bucket, and then, quickly, a fourth.
"Uhhhh, I'm bruised." The fourth moaned. The first apple murmured words of sympathy to it. The apple looked straight ahead.
It isn't fair. The apple thought. I wish they could just understand. I hate this. I wish – I wish I could just have friends.
More apples landed in the bucket until the apple was completely squished in with all of the apples. Still, though, they wouldn't talk to it.
The apples were set into a big crate and then put on a truck were they all got jumbled around. It was dark and smelly. The apple felt uncomfortable, and wish that it could get out.
After a long time, the crate opened back up, and the apple was in the sunlight again. It wanted to talk to the other apples, and said hello, but they all shushed him, and went back to talking to their friends.
The apple was put on a strange table, where there were artificial lights. It missed the outdoors, with the sunshine and the rain.
Days passed. The apple sat there, as other apples came and went, wishing only to be taken away as well.
Then, one day, He walked into the shop. He was a young man, blonde, and to the apple, the most beautiful human that had ever lived. He picked the apple up, and held it in his warm clean hand. Of all the hands that apple had been in, this one was his favorite.
The blonde boy walked with him and gave a woman some coins. He walked out, still holding the apple in his hand. It was the best day of the apple's life.
"We are going far, you and me, apple. You are going to help me so much."
The apple smiled at him, happy as can be. "I'm happy to help." The apple said.
The boy continued as if he hadn't heard the apple. "I needed an apple all this time. That's what I needed. I should have thought of it earlier.
"Well, if you had thought of it earlier, you wouldn't have been able to choose me." The apple said.
"This apple will work well, though. I just need to finish checking the cabinet." The blonde boy continued, "And then I will show Potter and that Mudblood who's boss. Snooping prat."
The apple listened attentively. Anything the blonde boy said was very important. "Who is this Potter?" The apple asked.
"Then Potter won't have anything to do with it, and Dumbledore will be dead. Hogwarts has changed. Hogwarts will be much better when Dumbledore's dead." The boy sounded like he was trying to convince himself of something.
They had arrived in a small room with a four-poster bed and a few possessions. The blonde boy set the apple down on a small table.
"This place will be better when Dumbledore's dead." He said again, his confidence fading.
The apple noticed that his eyes had dark circles around them. He put his head in his hands and rubbed his hair.
"I just wish – I wish-" He said.
There was a knock on the door. "Malfoy? You in there? I need my potions book!"
The blonde boy – Malfoy – got up and opened the door. "Crabbe – sure – it's in your trunk."
"I know where my potions book is, you don't have to tell me Malfoy." The large boy, Crabbe, muttered under his breath.
Malfoy didn't notice. The apple looked at Malfoy. "I don't think the large boy likes you." It said. Malfoy didn't look up, or even seem to notice the apple was talking.
"Can you hear me?" The apple asked, desperate for some reaction from the boy who had shown it everything.
There was nothing – no flinch or answer. Crabbe got up and walked out of the room, muttering under his breath. The door clicked shut behind him.
Malfoy picked up the apple and slipped it in his pocket. He followed the large boy out the door.
The apple couldn't see much from Malfoy's pocket. It was a little dirty but warm. The apple could feel Malfoy's leg moving as he walked. His leg bumped into it every step or so.
The apple heard voices from somewhere outside. A low, deep grunt and Malfoy's voice, whispering to each other. It couldn't make out the words.
Then, suddenly, the walking stopped. The apple heard a strange clicking noise, and Malfoy walked forward again.
The apple could feel his leg against its skin, warm and close. It was comforting, reassuring. The apple was happy.
Malfoy reached into his pocket, and took the apple out.
"Just you and me, apple." He said. The apple looked around, and saw they were alone in a huge room, filled with junk.
"Why can't you hear me?" The apple asked, desperate to know if Malfoy could hear it.
"This will work." Malfoy said. "I know it. It will work." His voice cracked, and he set the apple down on an old chair. "He's going to kill me. I'm going to die." His voice became raspy, and he broke down into sobs.
"It's going to be all right, don't worry." The apple said. It knew Malfoy couldn't hear it, but it wanted to say it anyway.
Malfoy breathed slowly. The apple watched him, wishing that Malfoy could only know how much it cared.
Malfoy had been the one to pick that apple out of darkness, the one who had shown it so much more than anyone else.
The apple loved him.
The apple hadn't noticed it before, but looking at everything, the apple realized it was in love.
It had never known what being in love meant, what it felt like, but it knew that it was there.
There was nothing the apple cared for more than him.
In that moment, as Malfoy wiped his eyes, the apple gazed upon him with so much love.
Suddenly, Malfoy picked the apple up, and began to run. He knocked over a bookshelf, and it crashed onto the floor, sending up miles of dust.
Finally, he arrived at an old, worn out cabinet.
"This is it." Malfoy said. "It better work this time."
Malfoy opened the cabinet like he was opening a secret vault. He placed the apple gently inside.
"I love you." The apple said. "I've never loved anyone but you. You will always be in my heart, forever." The apple knew its love would never hear it, but it needed to say something, to hear it out loud.
The door of the cabinet clicked shut.
The apple heard Malfoy praying. "Please, God, if you are there, please, let this work. Please." His voice was thin and raspy, breaking, falling.
Malfoy uttered a small incantation, and the apple was falling and spinning, and then, it was still.
It could tell it was in a different cabinet. It smelled different, strange, and it was colder. It heard the voice of a man, speaking.
"Thank you for shopping –"
The spinning started again. The apple was back in the first cabinet.
The apple could feel something had happened to it. Its side ached with pain. It heard the whispered pleading of Malfoy, and the door of the cabinet swung open again.
The face of its love loomed above the apple. Malfoy reached down, and caressed the apple's skin, and the big wound it had. The apple was in heaven.
Suddenly, Malfoy's face contorted with fury. He grabbed the apple and threw it across the room. The apple hit a shelf and things cascaded off of it.
The apple watched from a crack in the fallen chair in front of it as Malfoy threw himself out of the room and everything became dark.
Hours, days, weeks, months, passed. The apple had no sense of time, of where it was. It could feel a cold hard surface underneath it, but that was all.
Everything seemed to be slower – or maybe faster – the apple couldn't tell.
The apple felt like it was slowly being sucked away, picked apart, piece-by-piece. The apple thought of its love for long spaces of time, his voice, his warm leg. The apple couldn't forget him, no matter how hard it tried. Malfoy. His voice was the only thing the apple wanted to hear.
The apple could feel itself aging, being turned into dust. On day, the apple heard a click, and the room was light again.
Only, this time, it was different.
The piles of things stored had changed into a practice room. A group of people stood at one end of the room, marveling at the hugeness of it. The apple scanned the faces of the people, but its love wasn't among them.
The people left, then came again, then left. Malfoy came once, with a small bird, but by this time, the apple was too tired to even care.
The apple could feel its life slipping away from it, slowly dissolving into nothing.
The apple's last thought was Why am I always alone?
Finally, one day, when the apple was shrouded in darkness, it became nothing, simply a pile of dust, sitting on the floor. There was nothing left.