Hello friends!
This is just a little ffn gift from yours truly. Just as a way to say thanks for being so totally awesome! Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and of course Happy New Year! The following is simple a stream of consciousness thing, totally written on a whim since I'm having trouble sleeping tonight, so I hope you'll enjoy it. (Hope it makes any semblance of sense too lol!)
365
365 days have passed since I saw you last.
365 days since I watched you shyly pour yourself a vodka tonic, idly swirling the ice cubes around the glass in a circle as you looked down at your feet.
365 days since we had all convened at Harry and Ginny's for their annual Christmas party, a hurricane of children running all over the place. Theirs. Mine. Yours. Well partially yours. Partially mine. Nothing makes Christmas quite so enjoyable as joint custody hmm?
365 days since you looked up at me across the vast expanse of the coffee table, your eyes catching mine. I asked you if you wanted a drink. Stray curls fell in front of your face as you shied away. I asked if you were having a happy holiday, and you gave a half-hearted nod. As good as any divorcee could have you quipped with a laugh.
365 days since I agreed with that sentiment and bonded with you over a mug of hot chocolate spiked with Irish cream. You regaled me with stories of your post-marriage life, catching up on all that romance had robbed you of. You were enamored with traveling. I felt slightly enamored too, or so I thought.
365 days since we reminisced over the past. You said you were always grateful that I nursed you back to health after you suffered at the hands of the death eaters. The conversation started to grow dour when you spoke of the war, and how it had changed who you were forever. And then I jokingly asked if you still enjoyed bouillabaisse, and your laugh, well, it sounded like music.
365 days since you watched as your ex-husband and his new wife give expensive gifts to the children you bore. Life's remote control had run out of batteries, and we were stuck in the front row watching this channel. Ministry jobs don't really pay too well you said to me absently as you watched Rose receive a beautiful porcelain doll. Tears threatened to pour from your eyes and you apologized to me left and right. Up and down. You didn't mean to get so emotional. I fought the urge to wipe them away.
365 days since you spoke at length over how it ended. Mutually thankfully, and you tell me you're still on good terms. It's like Hogwarts again, you joked, except that there are children involved. I could only say the same; I loved my ex-husband as too much of a brother. We were sitting close together on the couch. You reached over to take my hand; a reassuring gesture, and you absently grazed the top of my hand with your thumb.
365 days since we bid goodbye and said Merry Christmas to our dear friends departing for the night, and I stood next to you in the doorframe, unsure of what to say. You did the talking for me. You thanked me, and hoped that perhaps in the new year we'd see each other again.
We didn't.
And for most of the 365 days that followed I couldn't get you out of my mind. Your sadness permeated into mine. Yours. Mine. Ours.
Spring. Summer. Fall. Winter. You.
365 days later, it's currently snowing outside and I'm walking through the tinseled front door of Harry and Ginny's again. Right away I'm being engulfed in the arms of my former sister-in-law. She looks radiant as she's welcoming me inside her home. The cliché holiday music is playing, children running around on various severities of sugar highs, the holiday feast is prepared and about to be served, friends are in every nook and cranny of the house, but please help yourself to the bar for now she's telling me. I'm just entering the living room and lo and behold you're reading the delicate lines of the ice cubes in your drink again. Sporadically though, you do still refer to your feet. Just how I remembered you.
Tonight you've decided to keep the Christmas tree company. Casually, you're bringing an ice-cold rocks glass to your lips and no doubt you'll try to wash away the previous 365 with a single swig. I approach you with a glass of my own; my reward for surviving an onslaught of catch-up time with people I have not seen in a while. You're not acknowledging me just yet. And that's fine. You're busy playing with a round crystal ornament on the tree; the refraction it creates is captured like a dance in the irises of your eyes. And I'm thinking to my self, mon dieu…que c'est beau.
Tonight I'm mustering the courage to speak to you, to quell that hunger to hear your voice again, but for now I'm content with watching you and the tree. The expression you're wearing as you round the tree says to me that you feel sorry for it. An otherwise tranquil life until its uprooted to be put on display. I walk nearer and clear my throat.
Tonight you're hugging me tender and introducing me to your children. You remember Fleur don't you? You're saying to dear Rose, her precocious face so familiar to me. The young girl nods, so does little Hugo, though he is looking at the Christmas presents stacked underneath the tree with a fire in his eyes. You release them and they join their friends in the other room to share theories over what is contained in each brightly colored package.
Tonight we're absconding to the den, away from the friends and exes that we love. We're each recounting the last 365 days since we last spoke, and now, under the supervision of pinot noir, you're apologizing for being a stranger for those 365. Its not that you didn't want to talk to me, you're confessing with a deep sigh, you simply couldn't. Too scared that I wouldn't want to talk to you again. I watch you play with your hair again. A single wish for Christmas this year you're admitting to me that you have. I then ask if it has come true yet; it is Christmas day after all. Come closer you say, you don't wish to say it too loud.
Tonight I'm sitting next to you on Harry and Ginny's brand new leather loveseat as you prepare to tell me what you want for Christmas. You're telling me in the form of a kiss. Hands are cupping your cheeks and in those touches are all of my hopes that this will lead to something more. Your velvet tongue probes the barrier of my mouth and I welcome it. You're wrapping your lithe arms across my back, pulling me tight against you. I can feel you trembling.
Tonight we're pulling apart from our first kiss, and there's no mistletoe to be seen. Verbose laments of confusion are coming from your mouth, and you're beginning to babble in that endearing way that makes me smile like an idiot both inside and out. Hush I tell you, we'll take it one step at a time, which is to say if you're in. Because I'm in. I'm leaning in to kiss you once more, and you oblige with a beautiful broad smile.
Tonight we're standing side by side in front of the rear deck sliding glass doors of Harry and Ginny's spartan home. A light snowfall is illuminated in the night sky, and we're watching in silence. Each flake uniquely beautiful. Just like you. Unique. Beautiful. Your right hand is hanging down, as is my left. My fingers seek the embrace of your own, and we lace them together; the touch of our bare ring fingers wonderful. You're asking me what I think the weather is like in heaven.
Tonight, I'm guessing that it's probably snowing.
Dedicated especially to: kikky, LauraFlowi, MysteriousFlower, leo-lehcarth, Gelnimbus, Roxy Huntington, Poetic Misery, Darkshadow-lord, Shadow Cub, Wirenfeldt Jr., gaby2angel, owl. called. raven and Arashi3. You all have helped push me through my novel-length fic Monster, (which will hopefully conclude soon!) and you guys just plain rock. Hope you all have a fantastic holiday!