Chapter Five: Back to the Harbour

. . .and the wall won't come down
till they're no longer afraid of themselves
and if you don't believe me ask the elves
and then I can come down to the harbour
down to the harbour
and then I will fill the ocean back up with my tears
I still have a couple more years
and then I can come back to the harbour. . .

Waits/Brennan-Tom Waits, Alice(c)

All through winter holiday Frank daydreamed about Alice. While washing the dishes after dinner every night for his mum, he would daydream out the window—little thoughts mostly, Alice thoughts. He had memorized her smile, and of course then there were her eyes, which reminded him most of the cerulean winter sky just before the sun set. He felt like he could get lost in the safety of her meadow-grass hair, a place he'd love to hide, and as he thought of this, he imagined that her hair smelled sweet, like berries. Full of little sighs at all times, this last thought about the berries brought another on, and he leaned against the sink with his hands soaking carelessly in the dishwater.

He couldn't believe that he had agreed to ask Alice to the Valentine ball, but the very thought of Gideon Prewett taking her made his skin crawl. Gideon Prewett. . . didn't he have enough of the girls fawning after him? Why did he need Frank's girl too? Why did he need Alice? Of course, it hadn't occurred to Frank that Alice wasn't really his girl. He thought of her that way with fondness, even though he'd barely shown her that he liked her. Alice. . . Alice. . . Alice. . .

"Frank," the shrill cut of her voice stole into his daydream like a blade. "Are you done with those dishes yet?"

"Yes, Mum," he drained the water from the sink and wiped his hands on the towel. "Only just."

"Good," She said. "I want you to go out and break up the ice on the front walk. Your Uncle Algie and Aunt Enid will be coming in the morning and I don't want either of them to slip and break their neck, except maybe your Aunt Enid, but that's beside the point."

Frank chuckled, "All right, Mum." His mother had never gotten on with his Aunt Enid. In his earliest memories, in the foggy time when his father had still be alive, Frank could still remember Aunt Enid and his mum bickering like old cows through the holiday meal, and over the years very little had changed. The number of family members around the table may have lessened, but Mum and Auntie Enid still went at it every holiday. He was sure that tomorrow morning would be no different than last Christmas, and the familiarity and dependability of it made him smile. "I'll get right on it for you."

"Good," she said once more.

She hmphed at her son several times from the window. He had taken more than an hour to do what most assuredly should have been a twenty minute job. Several times she'd opned up the door only to ask, "Aren't you finished yet, Frank?"

"Almost, Mum," he would reply, but Imogene knew he wasn't working at it very hard. He was daydreaming, and had been doing so often of late.

When he at last came inside, dazed from the cold, he kissed his mother on the cheek and sauntered dreamily up the stairs to his bedroom. Imogene scowled, looking out the door into the night only to find that while he had broken up the ice rather well, he'd failed completely in sweeping it away. "Blasted boy!" She grumbled. A sigh escaped her, but she said nothing to him as she pulled into her overcoat and boots to go out and clear it away herself. "Can't count on him to do anything right," she muttered under her breath. "Always got his head in some cloud or another. Probably thinking about some girl at school, or several girls at school. . ."

The thought clenched her heart like a cruel hand. Her Frank, her boy, in love with some girl? Could it be? All the signs were there: vacant expression, unnecessary dreamy sighs, distant replies he certainly hadn't put much thought into. "Awe damn, Frank," she muttered, looking up at the light in his window.

She was no fool. That boy was in love and he had it bad.

Despite her rather predatory and prudish appearance, Imogene Louise Dillinger Longbottom had once been a young woman, and what was worse was that she had once been a young woman very much in love. The very thought of it spurned a violent reaction from her and her broom swept madly at the chunks of ice. Love… what good was it? Love. . .what a joke! Love. . .and yet, while she pushed the ice angrily around with her broom an affectionate memory of it swept through her, as if the ghost of her long dead husband had come to warm her heart again.

Imogene had been sixteen when she first met Neville Henry Longbottom III, who was known by all who loved him as "Hank". Hank was four years older than she was and already employed as a clerk in the Muggle Affairs office at the Ministry of Magic. Before their first month of courting had waned, Imogene was head-over-heels, and Hank was already on his knees asking her to marry him. Of course she'd have to finish school, even if she was only to become a house-witch and mother, and Hank agreed. His wife would be well educated, capable of joining any workforce, any time she pleased.

All through her remaining year and a half of school, he continued to court her, and the July following her graduation they were married.

Both Imogene and Hank had come from very small families in which they were only children, and in the beginning they agreed that having a large family was the only way to quell that strange loneliness an only child experienced all his life. Within two months of their nuptials, Imogene was pregnant with their first child, a boy who would be born almost six weeks early. At first he was frail and weak, and both worried that Algerard wouldn't live to see his first birthday, but the months passed slowly, and Algie grew strong. It was more than two years before Imogene felt the quickening of life in her womb again, and nine months later there was Frank.

Frank had been everything his brother was not. While Algie had been small and frail, and from time to time sickly, the boy was both adventurous and headstrong. Frank, on the other hand, had weighed more than ten pounds at birth, and grew as fast as a patch of Dragon's Breath in spring. Healthy and strong, where his older brother was not, Frank seemed to lack the sense of adventure his brother showed, and as the two boys grew together, Imogene and Hank were happy to see how well the two boys balanced one another.

Imogene and Hank were happy. . . those were the key words, and as she thought them it caused her heart to ache with sadness. She had never expected her life to go so well. She was a realist before she met Hank, never a dreamer, but something about their happiness had dulled down her pessimistic nature and Imogene often found herself feeling foolishly secure. Happy, so happy that a false sense of security wrapped itself around her like a blanket and when she lost Hank she nearly died herself from devastation and disbelief. It wasn't supposed to go that way. She wasn't supposed to be alone.

She'd slumped into a miserable rut after that, refusing to love her sons the way she had before their father died, because if she loved them too much she might lose them. . .and then Algie. . . She couldn't even say the words in her mind without it making her feel weak.

Imogene could feel the cold of her tears swelling at the corners of her eyes, and for a moment the wall she'd built around herself felt soft and vulnerable. She reached with gloved hands and dabbed the tears away before they could fall.

After Algie had died, she'd promised herself that she would love Frank from a distance. She would take care of him and see to his needs. He would have the best education, the best life she could give him, but she had to keep herself from loving him out loud because then she wouldn't lose him. . . but sometimes it hurt to watch him growing so far away from her. It hurt that he didn't talk to her, didn't tell her his joys, fears and secrets. She had no idea what plans he had for the future, other than he'd do whatever she wanted. But more than any of those things it hurt to see her son in love when the greatest part of her wanted to run into the house and warn him away from feeling it. Could she deny him happiness? Even if it was fleeting and painful, could she deny him the joy she'd once known with his father?

No. She could not.

She swept the ice into the garden and perched on the end of her broom. She gazed up at the light in the window of her only living child's room once more and wondered about the girl who'd caught his fancy. Was she lovely? Was she sweet? Had he even spoken to her yet? Would they marry one day and have a family of their own, and when they did, would they invite her to be a part of it, even though she'd been so cold and distant? She swallowed the aching lump that had formed in her throat and blinked furiously at her tears.

For a moment, she felt warm once again, and the familiarity of her husband's spirit seemed to soar through her from beyond the veil. It was a subtle reminder that he was always with her. . . that he was waiting for her on the opposite shore, and one day she too would cross the River Styx into the other world to be with him forever. Until that day, however, she had Frank to take care of, and even though she'd never show it anywhere else, a twitch of gladness for that fact danced at the corner of her mouth. She had Frank to take care of, and one day he would take care of her.