Title: Healing in Rain
Author: bluestargem
First Generation
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything related to it. Just playing around.
Written for Smile Life Away's Kissing in the Rain Challenge at HPFC :) I love that place, I really do. Check it out sometime ;) Enjoy.
Healing in Rain
***
In the silence of night, under the blanket of darkness, she breaks.
It's the thin crumpled paper in her hand, heavy in the news it holds, weighed down by a blaming hand and pain-filled tears. It's the thin crumpled paper that rests so innocently beside her slumped figure, if not for the agonised drops that fall thick and fast from her eyes onto the lake's calm surface.
This is how he finds her; shaking, helpless, hopeless. This is how he finds her and this is how he remembers her in the months to come; crumpled like the piece of paper in her hand, devoid of hope, crushed by the harsh workings of a broken family.
The words quiver in all their devastating glory and in an instant, her trembling form is in his arms. He tries to say something, anything, to comfort her, but there are no words, no words to say between them, and in the night, under the swollen clouds, he breaks with her.
And as the clouds release their tears, and pour down around them in a hollow drum of nothingness, he cries with her.
---
The next morning, it's Lily Evans this and Lily Evans that and the entire school is buzzing with the news that Lily Evans' parents have died and her boyfriend and sister have abandoned her.
He stares at the empty seat opposite him and says nothing.
Two days later, she's a changed girl as she comes down to breakfast. There's no light in her eyes, no colour in her cheeks, no spring in her step and she looks at no-one as she seats herself and picks up her fork.
No-one, except him, sees the one silent tear that falls to her empty plate.
---
They say she doesn't smile anymore. They say she never laughs anymore, never giggles, never runs outside to twirl and dance anymore in that special Lily way whenever the rain patters down in curtains.
They also say she never cries anymore.
In a chilly half-morning months after that rainy night, he sits beside the still lake and stares unseeingly ahead.
She never comes here anymore either.
---
On a soft spring morning, he takes her hand.
She's hunched beside the window in the empty common room, watching the faintest pink light of dawn spread across the sky. He's back from a cold morning stroll near the lake and catches her, as he always does, dashing away tell-tale tears from her cheeks. And for a moment, it's all too much – her silence, her pain, her helpless state.
In a split second decision, he moves towards her and takes her hand from her lap. Wrapping his strong fingers around hers, he gently pulls her up from the chair. She does not resist.
Her fingers are cold, so cold, so fragile and slender in his calloused warm ones. He leads her outside, the cool breeze of dawn lifting their hair, dusting away the drops on her cheeks. Her emerald eyes seek out his hazel ones, more dull than curious – why are we here?
Seeing those flat ovals of green one more time – seeing their once-vibrant green so lifeless and bleak now - is unbearable. Firmly, he leads her to the very edge of the lake, heart thumping fast and hard breaths coming out in short puffs.
He tells her this is where I first loved you and remember fifth year and the Giant Squid? He tells her this is where I looked for you that day to apologise and there's the slightest crinkling around her eyes, as if she's about to smile. He sweeps an arm and gestures widely at the scene: the dewdrops glittering on the grass and the bright, clear sky and the glassy calm of the lake and the soft rays of morning sunrise staining the horizon and he whispers and this is where you cried that night, where I found you, where your world broke into mine and shattered it to pieces.
He tugs her slightly so that she's facing him. Raising their intertwined hands mid-air, level to his chest, he gazes into those green depths, and pours all his passion and feeling and desperation into that one stare, silently willing those emerald swirls to brighten again, to sparkle again, to laugh again.
"I love you, Lily Evans. Don't ever forget that."
At those words, the world seems to spin to a halt; for a breathtaking moment everything is still and hangs suspended in mid-air. The birds hush, the leaves fall still and there's one overwhelming, deafening, spectacular silence as the world waits for an answer.
Then a whooshing sound sweeps through the air and down comes the rain – a crystal shower of the most delicate raindrops that tinkle against the lake and sparkle against the rising sun.
And for the first time in months, she smiles. For the first time in months, she laughs. She lets go of his hand, and spreads her arms out wide, and the raindrops trickle down her hair and stroke her cheeks and wipe away the tears with cool, gentle fingers. She twirls and spins and dances under the rain like a flower bud stretching out its petals for the first time. And then she turns to him, and her eyes are sparkling green once more, like a fresh young spring leaf, sparkling in that beautiful way he loves so much, sparkling with mirth and joy and lovely, lovely hope.
He kisses her.
Under a blue, blue sky, in the soft brightness of dawn, as the rain comes sweeping down, sweeping away all pain and heartbreak and darkness, he feels her mouth on his. The raindrops sprinkle down between them and slip between their lips, cool and refreshing, and they both taste the sweetness of love, and the beauty of a fresh new day.
In the rain, he kisses her.
And as the sun bursts triumphantly over the horizon, gloriously spreading its rays across the sky in a rainbow arc of sparkling raindrops, their hands meet, and their drenched fingertips press against each other in a silent fusion of hope and love.