"Listen.
To live is to be marked.
To live is to change, to acquire the
words of a story,
and that is the only celebration we mortals
really know. "
-
Barbara Kingsolver
The
Poisonwood Bible
After The End
Sometimes, on nights when I can't sleep, I get up and look out the window into the moonlit night. On quiet, still nights it is easy to let my mind wander. These nights, when there is no one to witness, I allow myself to remember.
On some occasions I almost fancy I can look at the dark ground and see two figures there. Severus and Harry. Harry and Severus. It is a ridiculous fancy. It is a ridiculous story. Even I realize this.
But does the ridiculous beginning make the ending less serious?
Where does it end?
Where does the story of the school Professor and his student, a greasy Death-Eater and the Boy Who Lived, begin and end?
There is so much history between the two, an author writing about them could go back generations and find ties between their families. When did the present become the past, the future the present, and the past un-important?
I can think about these things as I stand, looking out the large window onto the moonlit grounds when I can't sleep.