Title: Cherries
- Author: azure
Author E-mail: ballena_chica@yahoo.com
Rating: PG-13, for a slightly questionable pairing (Remus/Ginny)
Summary: People say I should be desolate, but I can never bring myself to stay locked in my room like some strange Rapunzel, eating cherries and only barely noticing that the salt of my incessant tears takes some of the celestial sweetness away… Remus/Ginny
~~~
I look at my dark red fingers and know I've become addicted. Who knew it would hurt me so much when he took me to the orchard?
He comes monthly to talk to Ron and Hermione of old times, always leaving with a closed expression on his face. And I know why, I think. It happens to me; Ron and Hermione can't help being so in love, but it hurts me. It hurts him; his amber eyes say clearer than words that he's lost all.
People say I should be desolate, but I can never bring myself to stay locked in my room like some strange Rapunzel, eating cherries and only barely noticing that the salt of my incessant tears takes some of the celestial sweetness away. If nothing else, still living here, where I can see echoes of what once was all around me, is bad enough. Why make it worse?
Tom tries, though. Sometimes, when I forget to read myself to sleep, he haunts me, kisses me, mocks me at my talent for bungling things. But what have I bungled? What impossible task did I choose to accomplish? I can remember none.
But whenever he comes, I try to sit at the table, eating my cherries, trying to get him to remember the time he showed me bliss, began my fruit addiction.
I was sitting at our kitchen table, it's largeness making me seem like a girl again, little Ginny who became a dolt whenever the famous Harry Potter entered the room. But when he entered the room, I became sophisticated, a beautiful woman, always with the right word on her lips.
He looked at me, quietly, saying nothing except with his eyes. And I knew that something was going to happen, could taste it in the air (because, at that time, he hadn't shown me, and my lovely obsession wasn't in full swing); anticipation was like static in my hair, frizzing it into a halo about my head.
For the first time, he'd invited me into his sessions with Ron and Hermione. I sat at his feet, taking in his scent of pines and campfires, of wildness. All in all, I barely heard what my brother and best friend said, but every word he uttered was imprinted on my heart. I don't really know why; I'd seen him before, even after horrible dreams with Tom, and I'd never been enamoured to his eyes before. And that's what I was. Enamoured.
I'd never been enamoured with anyone, set aflame with love. Harry – poor, dead Harry, I loved him… But it was a love of something I knew I could never reach – a celebrity, the best friend of my older brother. And when he kissed me, once, I knew it was wrong. Had I always known that he'd have to die?
Tom was anything but love, he was lust at its worst. Was he the spider, the serpent, and I the fly, the cowering lion turned pussycat? But Tom is with me still, though, to hear anyone talk, he's dead. Didn't they say love crossed all bounds? Is hate the same way?
So I listened to him, ever more enamoured, and, when he left, I followed. It's simple, really. He led me to the orchard, which none of us have visited; Mum used to say it was haunted. But she's not here now, is she?
He helped me up onto one of the branches, full of blossom, sat me there. And, though our robes were nearly rags and my hair was a frizzy mess, though our despair showed plainly on our faces, though I felt like a withered hag at the age of twenty, and though he was twice my age, I kissed him.
Remus tasted of cherries.
~~~
Author's Note: I rather like this as a one-shot, as I am currently writing another Remus/Ginny fic. But, if you'd like me to continue this, please leave a message in your review. And please review; reviews are like Valentines for a girl with no love life.