The Balloon Tree.
Author: Queen Nightingale
Rating: M
Comment(s): Freeverse. One-shot. A poem-sort-of-thing inspired by JPLE, the author and the pairing.
I don't know if you'll like it or not. It's experimental.
I'm feeling particularly jazzed up, so I'll even dare to say that I don't mind if you hate it.
theirs, was a white tumbleweed
sort of Romance
with the capital letter meant to
(inspire.)
INSPIRE.
She was not particularly bold. (She liked to hide it and keep it for someone special.)
So when she found the
balloon tree
Outside Mundungus' apartment building
She stopped.
Stared.
Gaped.
And then promptly patronus-ed him.
HE, on the
other brilliant side of
logicians,
was phantasmagorical. Death-defying, gravity-inducing, heart-plummeting.
One of the brilliant boys that the school girls
LUSTED over, dreamed of ripping
off his self-assurances, making him bleed
love for
just them.
which was why when he apparated beside her
gaping mouth
he didn't frown
or scowl
or wonder why a brilliantly large
saturated tree of balloons
had suddenly appeared
outside their magical
apartment Complex.
"I know what we'll do!"
He exclaimed the words like a child, and in his mind he could just imagine the frown that he knew was starting to slowly appear on her face, mocking and bored.
"What, James."
"Let's tie them to our wrists!"
She scowls and crosses her arms, a blush like cherries rising
up
up and
away
through her facial features.
"No."
he
R O L L S
his eyes. Glowers at her, really.
"Why the fuck not?"
"Because it's irrational and foolhardy."
"I'm irrational and foolhardy. That's why you married me."
"Well maybe I'm a bit sick of it, have you thought of that."
He's a bit stunned by her Bravado and Bluster, but shakes
it off
like a bit of
gold dust
from an Angel's
wing.
"Well fuck you, I'm doing it."
(She sticks daggers in his back when he turns to approach the tree.)
he takes out his wand and
utters something
under his breath that she
doesn't think she would want to hear anyway, since it's probably one of his
stupid illegal spells
and half the tree
is chopped down and the balloons wrap themselves around his
torso like snakes.
"Can't you let anything stay perfect?"
but he doesn't hear her since he's starting to move up
in the sky
and he's slowly drifting towards the painfully
perfection blue
and she feels tears welling up because
it feels like he's leaving her.
and her voice is catching in her throat.
"Come on, Lils, you know you want to."
"I don't know how," she says hoarsely, looking up and pretending that there are just stars dazzling beneath her eyelids, rather than oceans.
And suddenly the other balloons have been chopped off and they're going
around her body
squeezing and twisting
and to her utmost DISBELIEF
she feels herself rising up towards him
covered in thousands of brilliant
multicoloured balloons.
"What have you done," she squeaks, because she's afraid of heights and for
MERLIN'S SAKE
she's floating in the air wrapped in balloons
and the ground is disappearing a bit too
quickly for her liking.
"Come on, Lils."
and she grits her teeth in dread, but then
his hand reaches out and he's practically upside down in the
sky
so she can't help but wearily laugh
chuckle
grin
giggle
and grab his palm, floating on her stomach, gasping with exhilaration and stark raving mad fear.
and their damn little dingy apartment
complex is fading away, and is that London?
and she feels like she should be a bit more WORRIED and
nervous about muggles
but then she realizes he's
disillusioned them, protected her
and feels him pulling her up to him, wrapping her in his arms.
"What are you - "
but he makes the
'shh' motion with his hand.
and his other hand wraps around her waist, sneaking
past the balloons
and he grabs her arm, and they start to twirl.
"What are we doing?"
"We're waltzing beside the clouds, sweetheart."
and so they
are DANCING
like no mortals ever should,
two hundred feet in the air
above London.
and they've swivelled past the clock tower
and Lily has something a bit like LOVE bubbling in her stomach,
and she's covered in brilliant balloons
and so is he, his touseled hair and boyish grin
and they're DANCING.
she's not wearing a dress. she's in
overalls and plaid, from painting
their dining
room, and he's
wearing his work clothes
ministry official boring.
but it's the most
romantic thing in the world on that day. because they're doing a two-step in the sky, wearing nothing but
plain ordinary reality
cloaked around their shoulders.
and they're brilliant, aren't they?
but, she's crying now.
she loves him too much. and she can't lose him.
but they just keep waltzing around the fucking clouds.
"I can't let you fight, James," she says, sobbing into him, "Please don't go."
and he's kissing her hair, and eyeing up the sunset behind her, and she's starting to cry, really
letting it all go
letting the planets stop revolving around her tiny little universe.
"It's a war, Lils."
"It's not a fucking war!" suddenly she
screams it out
but he doesn't drop her
just pulls her closer away from the clouds,
her fists pounding
her eyes making watery
indents in his nice white shirt.
"You are mine! I don't want you to leave!"
"I won't be gone for long."
and they've stopped dancing
and he's cradling her, and the balloon juice is running out
so they're starting to sink back down
to earth.
and the tears are running down her face, and finally, FINALLY
she lets herself clutch to him, and the balloons around her body are deflating, and then suddenly
her feet touch the ground.
but she doesn't let go.
"Shhh, it's okay."
She looks up at him, glowering, and he smirks down at her, making her want to weep and pull out her hair.
"I want to dance with you. Here."
"Here?" - this time his voice is surprised, he's the nervous
hesitant one
their disillusionment charm is
wearing off, and they're getting weird looks from
people wandering off
of Diagon Alley, two young adults
clutching to each other, deflated balloons
hanging off themselves.
it's no longer beautiful, you see. but he obeys.
and the balloons make it ugly and TOO REAL and painful, and she hates it.
his touch BURNS.
she hides her face in his shirt and starts crying. really crying, in the way that she told herself she wouldn't.
she feels his body wrap around her and her feet match his perfectly.
there's no music, but that doesn't make it romantic.
and they are waltzing, no longer two hundred feet up in the sky, but down on the ground. in the gutter, covered in deflated balloons and dreams.
she is crying, and he is clenching his jaw, and it's a sight to break your heart.
they're turning, and tumbling, and he clutches her to him
and she's weeping
and when it's time for her to spin under his arm
she can't do it.
she just holds onto him.
and the balloon tree in the
front yard of
Mundungus' magical apartment complex
is barren.
and there are no more balloons.
just gray leaves.
he knows it's the beginning of the end.
the start of reality
and truth, and barren pain.
and he can't cry. he can't let her see him weep, can't let her
know that he has planets under his eyelids too.
so he whispers in her hair
in HER hair, in LILY's hair, the one girl who he
loves more than the moon and the sun and the planets, who he would
kill for and will kill for, the one girl
who agonizes him and breaks his heart over
and over again because he knows that she's
mean because she's so scared
that she can barely wake up to see him.
and he hates that he puts her through the heartache, but he has to.
"I love you."
There are no fireworks.
no lantern festivals or
loud music or haunting eyes.
just two scared barely-there-adults,
crying to one another in their own way,
wrapped in deflated balloons outside
Mundungus' magical apartment complex.
"And I'll never stop loving you. I swear."