There is nothing in the world quite so lonely as preparing one cup of tea.
Nothing quite so forlorn as putting half a kettle of water to boil and pinching out just enough leaves for one.
She likes her tea strong. It helps her to not feel so weak.
They all talked about surviving the war with a kind of hushed reverence, like to be granted such a gift was all they could hope for. Everything was going to be different, after the war. They were going to settle down, after the war. They would get married, have kids, be happy - after the war.
It was that reverence that revived them, time and time again. Nothing worth having was easy, and life had never been harder. Their numbers were dropping, almost by day. Even the most distant deaths - the soldiers from abroad whom they'd never met - had an alarming impact, carried a weighted message. It was that same message that was screaming with every attack, forced in their faces as they tried to blink back the tears. "You're next." Death was coming, and they were running, but they could still hear it calling to them, even with their backs turned and their ears filled with the sound of their world crumbling around them.
They were hunted - picked off slowly, mercilessly - but still, they were devout. They were believers in a faith with no deity, but they prayed all the same. They prayed, and they waited, fighting for an ending in hopes of finding a beginning.
Now the war is over and Mary's left standing in the center of the blast zone, nothing around for miles and no one to hear her scream.
She sometimes thinks surviving isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Steeping's an odd word. She thinks this as she pours the water into the teapot.
The loose leaves flow in circles as the water mixes with them; upending them, agitating them, separating them.
She puts on the top and lets it steep.
Her flat used to be full of people. They'd come and go constantly, in between missions or just for some of her tea. They said they grew tired of bags, and nobody could handle leaves like her. It was how she contributed, by offering them a break from reality.
There was still a water ring on her table from when Dorcas came over to talk about Remus, and how she thought she might be in love. They giggled like she hadn't had to use the back entrance for fear of being spotted, and paid no attention to the havoc the coaster-less drink was wreaking on the wood. There was a scratch on the molding near the front door from when Sirius tried to fit her sofa into her flat without disassembling it first. She'd yelled at him, of course, but he laughed carelessly and told her to lighten up. She'd smacked him on the arm, but smiled anyway. She could never be mad for long, not in her place. There was something about her flat that made it unique, made it impervious to negative thoughts or worries. The war didn't exist there.
That's what her place used to be, a break. It was where you went when you wanted to smile without feeling guilty about it. It was a haven where you forgot the war.
Now it's filled with ghosts, and all it does is remind her of it.
She grabs her strainer from the cupboard. She used to think she felt strained, when she was studying for her NEWTs, or was falling behind in potions.
She was wrong. She was more carefree than she realized. Real strain came from watching your world being taken away from you, death by death.
Strain is being the tea while your entire life is the leaves.
After the first death, she thought she felt broken. She spent days in bed, not knowing what to do with herself. She'd venture as far as the kitchen, but couldn't find it in herself to do anything. For the first time, she felt lost.
She didn't find herself in time for the funeral. She stared at Dorcas - lying still in her coffin with flowers all around her and her hands clasped gracefully – and froze. She didn't cry, but she couldn't move, couldn't think. She'd never been to a funeral before, but she imagined it would be her chance to say goodbye. It was the reason she dragged herself out of bed, the reason she wrote the letter she was clutching far too tightly in her right hand. She hadn't realized how much she'd been counting on that final parting, that final chance at closure, until that moment.
She froze because of what she hadn't been expecting. She hadn't been expecting someone else to be lying in there, with her hair neatly plaited and her skin dewy, rose petal splotches on her cheeks and a sensible dress reaching below her knees. That wasn't Dorcas, and she'd been counting on seeing her one last time. But she was already gone, no longer there to read Mary's letter, so she let it drop and blow away in the wind.
The next two deaths came at the same time, and maybe it was the shock, but suddenly she managed her grief with routine - going through the motions.
It was how she coped, but now it's how she lives.
She pours the tea into that single cup; it's part of a set but she only ever uses one.
She drinks it before it's cooled and it scalds her throat. That's how she always drinks it. It helps her to feel substantial. It helps her to feel real.
Sometimes she wonders if she could drink enough to turn to tea herself; if she could drip down her chair and out the door, never stopping until she evaporates. Instead, she washes that single cup and moves on.