I have woven my memories into a rope...
The man with the scales, forever weighing and measuring. That's how I remember our early days. He weighed and measured me, with a fishy look in his eye. He was rich and lived in a high castle on Exmoor: I didn't understand why he chose me. I was never pretty. My sister was pretty, red hair like flames licking out around her head. But he chose me.
of many different colours.
His laboratory was full of little flames of different colours. He kept his nose close to his workbench and his shoulders hunched.
"What are you looking for?" I asked him.
But he tapped the side of his nose and winked.
"I'll tell you when I've found it," he said.
It is very beautiful.
My sister died. She was twenty four. She didn't stay beautiful long. I missed being the plain one. I cut off some of her hair as she lay in her casket, and wove it into a red ribbon to wear around my neck.
I have watched the rise and fall of empires
"I found it!" he said. "I knew I was close!"
"What did you find?" I asked him distractedly, playing with my necklace.
"The Philosopher's Stone! We can live forever!"
"That's nice, dear. Would you like a cup of tea?"
I have watched five hundred summers wither
My parents died, close together. Old age killed them: that was unusual in those days. But they lived in comfort: we had always provided them with money.
"Goodbye, Perenelle," said my father. He stroked my hair, which was still black. He shut his eyes and he was gone. It looked easy. I shut my eyes too.
I opened them and my mother was staring at me reproachfully. I never told her about the Stone but I think she guessed.
She died herself a few days later, as if my parents were Siamese twins. Perhaps they were in a way. Joined at the heart.
I cut off some grey and white wisps from their heads, and threaded them into my necklace.
I have seen five hundred springs
After my parents died, we went travelling. We had all the gold in the world to spend, and we spent it freely.
Here is what I learned on my travels:
Everywhere, people are born.
People die.
In between, they should spend more time having fun.
that I will never see again
"Nicholas," I said to him one day with a blush.
"Mmm-hmm?"
"Do you think– well– do you think that if we weren't going to live forever we'd have a more passionate love life?" I moved towards him suggestively. "Seize the moment..."
He looked at me rather patronizingly. "You've been reading Wytch Weeklie again, haven't you? Really, sometimes I almost think these Puritans have a point!" He laughed. "And anyway, you have a damn good sex life for a woman in her hundred and forties..."
That was one way of looking at it, I supposed.
He returned to his copy of the Journalle of Alchemickal Magickes.
It is the things I've forgotten which haunt me
Everywhere, people die.
People you love. People you hate. People whom you quite possibly could have loved, if you'd just got round to it in time.
My necklace grew, it became cumbersome and unwearable. I could trace the patterns in them: blonde and black and grey, and that bright red streak that began it all.
I stroked the red hair, and repeated to myself something I'd heard somewhere: "Those whom the gods love, die young."
I knew why Nicholas hadn't chosen my sister.
The things that left no mark on me, nor I on them.
Time wore on: it has a way of doing that.
Nicholas had his alchemy: I had my loom. And I made tea. If I had a guinea for every cup of tea I've made– I still wouldn't be as rich as I am now.
Nicholas is caught up in history, in the question of What Happens Next. His science: his religion. The Inexorable March Of Progress.
I am only a woman. My days are much the same as each other.
So I can prove I really existed,
I got my fortune told.
She was obviously consumptive: glittering eyes and skin like paper.
"You'll live a long and happy life," she said.
"Huh," I said. I was three hundred and three and looked thirty-five.
"You're marriage is safe and secure but you're longing for adventure." she said.
"True," I admitted.
She went stiff and her eyes rolled back in her head.
"Beware Harry Potter. They will call him The Boy Who Lived. When Harry Potter is born, it will herald the beginning of the end for you..."
"Really?" I said with a slightly tasteless eagerness.
But she'd forgotten what she said. Her face was blank. She started coughing, that racking consumptive's cough that it hurts to listen to.
I looked at her. I knew I'd never forget her.
"Can I have some of your hair?" I said.
I have woven reality into a rope
My marriage is safe and secure. I am peaceful and discontented. I sit in the tower of my husband's castle, weaving. I am clever with my needle: I made tapestries and samplers as the fashions changed
I have a rope made of hair, now. I wonder how big it will grow.
a memory strong enough to support a man.
I have a dream, of a knight on a white charger, who rides up to this tower, and sees me. I know, somehow, that this is an illicit assignment. I cannot invite this man through my husband's front door.
So I lower him my rope of hair, and he climbs up it, and says to me:
"I have come to take you away from this place."
I ask him his name.
He raises his visor. The face is always different: my sister, my mother, the grinning face of Death or the unfamiliar faces of people yet unborn. But his words are always the same: "My name is Harry Potter," he says.
And I go with him gladly.
* * * * *
a/n. I will not complain in my author's note. I will not complain in my author's note. I... *grits teeth* ... will... NOT... I'm doing it! I'm doing it! Yeah! I'll be able to get all the way to the Review Box without even once telling you how much I hate this fic... D'OH!
Oh well, maybe next time. It's not supposed to be a poem, those titley bits, they're just glue because the story wouldn't hold together by itself. This story was very indirectly inspired by CLS' Black Shadow. It made me think, and when I start thinking, strange stuff happens...
Also I should have put in my a/n to The Other Side but didn't, that it owes a huge debt to Blaise, CLS, Katie Bell, Moon and NS for writing the MWPP stories that inspired me.
I want to say hi and thanks to netshark and Person who are dedicated diligent reviewers, and since you don't post any stuff of your own, my a/n is the only place I can tell you how much I appreciate it. Hope you see it, and I wish I could thank you in a worthier fic-- There, I'm doing it again. Oops. Also, Draca if you read this, one of your reviews a while back completely made my day, thank you! :-) I'm not sure if you'll like this. I may have some virtues as an author, but consistency certainly isn't one of them...