Starlight
For Basho, may you wander on through the heavens.
"I don't like this place."
She let out a one-syllable laugh.
"Nobody does, except maybe Hagrid."
"That's exactly my point," he said.
She turned around and looked at him.
"Baby is scared of the deep dark woods?"
He blushed and she laughed again. She took a step towards him and put her hand on his cheek. He almost flinched but she kept her hand glued to his cheek. His skin ran warm and hers was cool like the night air around them. Her eyes stared into his.
"S-stop, you know I get nervous when you look at me like that," he protested.
"Oh, I know, trust me," she replied.
Her smile was wide and her eyes steadily bore into his. Suddenly, he jumped into the air and yowled with pain.
"Something's stabbed me, help! Help!"
Her hand clamped down on his mouth and she shushed him quickly. A hint of wetness swam in front of his pupils.
"Shut up jackass, someone will hear you! We're only a little bit past Hagrid's cottage, this is still the entrance of the Forbidden Forest. Besides, that was me pinching you."
She removed her hand from his mouth and she saw his face had again gone red with blush.
"You're the worst sometimes, you really are! I should have never agreed to come out here with you, we're going to get in trouble, or, worse, eaten! And you know I hate it when you pinch me like that, why would you do that out here, right now!? I'm going back, this was a stupid idea," he said and turned towards the castle.
She grabbed his arm before he could take more than a couple steps.
"Hey!, no, I'm sorry. You know that I take teasing too far some times. I'm sorry, I mean it. Come on, please, I really want you to see this. I promise no more jokes or trying to scare you while we're out here.
He hesitated, but only for a moment.
"Fine. Let's do this, but it better be as close to here as you say it is, because I'm not going much deeper into the forest than this."
"We're only five minutes away from the clearing, don't worry. Please come with me, please" she asked him.
He noticed something in her voice that he hadn't heard all year, though he couldn't quite place what it was. He thought, maybe, she was actually worried that he wouldn't go along with what she said.
"Well… if it's really as close as you say it is…"
She smiled and tugged on his arm. They walked deeper into the forest and, true to her word, they stopped only a few minutes later in a clearing.
"Close your eyes," she ordered.
He did as she asked and she led him a few paces further.
"Okay, now look straight up into the air and open your eyes."
He did as she asked and when she opened his eyes he saw the night sky as he had never seen it before. The stars stretched unending and the moon glowed softly in their center. The ink blue of the dark night sky was flecked with more pinpricks of light than he had ever seen before in his life. Surely there were no stars like this in the suburb of London where he had come from.
"It's, it's…" he started.
"Incredible, beautiful, mesmerizing?" she suggested.
"I don't know how to describe it," he answered softly.
His eyes were as wide as could be and in them were reflected the heavens themselves. The stars themselves fells into his eyes as he stood there, awestruck.
She whispered something from behind him, though he couldn't hear a thing, so intent was his fixation on the sky above him. A brilliant, ugly, green flash lit the clearing for a brief second and the boy fell forward onto the forest floor. He landed quietly, died quietly, the same as he had done everything else in his short life.
She walked up to the body and rolled it over so it was on it's back. The eyes still stared upwards and still they held the stars. She bent down and reached her hand towards his face. When she straightened up again there was naught in his head but two empty sockets.
"You should have listened to them, the forest is strictly off limits for a reason, especially for first years."
He had been small in life and now lay even smaller at his terminus. He wore the wide smile that she had only seen a few times: when he saw the present she had given him on Christmas (the only one he received), after she had kissed him in the green house, when the puppy licked his hand and…
WHOOSH
She started and looked back towards the castle. A fiery red glow soared up into the sky, not unlike the flares that the Muggles used in their wars.
So they knew, and so soon, but that was alright, she would be gone long before they found him. She looked straight up and saw that the stars were gone.
Only the moon, yellow and obscene looked back down at her.
Fin