TITLE: POPPIES

DISCLAIMER: I own them not.

SUMMARY: In the rain and sleet of early November, Hermione Granger pins a paper poppy to her chest.

SERIES: Third in "The Ceremony of Innocence". Sequel to "Speak No Evil".

RATING: All of PG-13. See, I can write children's stories... ducks

PAIRING: Severus Snape/Sirius Black for the series.

ARCHIVE: no.

Revised 19 October 2003.

(YEAR FIVE: NOVEMBER)

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

We are the men and women the world forgot.

We are the boys and girls of generation Y,

forever locked in small safe boxes of delight.

We are being groomed for a fight.

We are the boys on broomsticks and girls with wands;

we are the children smiling vacantly,

eyes filled with glass and heads with straw.

No innocence is left in these young heads,

No safety for the children asleep in their beds.

Their eyes, hard and glassy like marbles of snow,

are those not of children but of soldiers - ready to go,

ready to face what must be faced.

They not know what – the scripts of their hearts have been defaced

with obscene graffiti, vile slogans of hate –

just that it deserves its fate.

My innocence, too, is behind a hundred locks,

forever lost in a small, inviolate box.

Four days have passed since a speeding car killed a child –

four since I, too, stopped being mild.

A child!

As if I can call it that.

As if it was human –

hardly more sentient than a hat.

Yet it looked like one,

talked like one,

bled like one on the ground –

it certainly screamed like one until it was found .

Tonight and only for tonight

I, too, am those hollow men,

poppy pinned to my chest.

I am those hollow men,

walking three abreast.

I am an army of destruction,

walking calmly through the night.

I walk,

eyes open,

straw spilling,

into the fight.

I am those hollow men,

poppy bleeding on my chest.

I am those hollow men,

poppy crushed to my breast.

Walking down the street

I wear a poppy for the dead;

there are buzzards

circling expectantly overhead.

There is a knock at the door,

poppies falling slowly to the floor.

"Buy a poppy for the veterans tomorrow?"

Do not listen. Do not manufacture sorrow.

Buy a poppy for the veterans.

Buy a poppy for our honoured dead.

"I won't buy a poppy to support one Muggle shot dead."

Blink slowly, lazily, eyes almost asleep.

Blink slowly, lazily, half disbelieving at the poppy on my chest.

Watch it weep.

"Buy a poppy for the veterans, Malfoy."

Buy it, you stupid, selfish boy.

Buy it for that dead child.

Buy it, for its shrieks, so wild - !

Buy for the Sunday we must all Remember.

Buy it, on this dreadful evening in November.

"Buy it for the War heroes. For the dead."

Buy it, or I'll feed you to the buzzards overhead.

Do one good thing, Malfoy,

have one last stab at unmitigated joy.

What better joy than to join in mourning?

What else will we do, tomorrow morning?

So many wars the Muggles know nothing of.

So many wars. So many dead.

It is a very small drop of blood

they acknowledge as having been shed.

So much they remain blissfully unaware of –

so many things they would otherwise despair of.

Let them remain innocent, for as long as they can.

Let them slow down one car, one van –

let them save one child –

but not that one, already defiled,

lying shattered on the ground.

Not that one.

It has already been found.

I saw it -

its simulacrum mouth

hanging open in shock,

plate of glass buried deep in its chest.

I saw poppies bleed red over its breast.

I saw dark, wiry hair spilling on the ground.

I saw its parents, screaming when it was found.

I saw magic and illusion cast a dreadful spell

those four dreadful days ago.

I saw it all, and wept behind a closed door.

I am the hollow men.

I am the stuffed men,

headpiece filled with lies.

I am a simulacrum

and it is me,

the mirror of the one that dies

each night.

I am a hollow man,

a hollow mind,

no longer quite right.

I no longer sleep through the night.

It will fade, I am told,

more with each passing moment.

It will fade until it is no more.

I will be myself again.

I will be alive again.

I will laugh and smile and sleep each night.

I will not wake up, shaking with fright.

I will not watch myself die in slow motion: the car did not stop! –

I will not watch my body slowly, slowly drop.

The ground must have felt cold

and hard

and abrasive.

It must have hurt.

I bled.

I watched myself bleed

through unseen, invisible eyes,

hidden beneath a cloak.

I watched in slow motion

as I died by inches,

mouth open and red.

I watched myself until I was dead.

"Buy a poppy, Malfoy."

Buy it, you stupid boy.

"Buy it out of respect."

Be a little more circumspect.

Don't you know that I am one of those dead?

Don't you know you have my death too, on your head?

Don't you know that there was a funeral, quiet and small?

Don't you know that I hid and watched it all?

Buy a damned poppy, Malfoy, and atone.

Buy a poppy for your fellow Slyths, ready to die.

Care a little! - at least try.

Try just a little, Malfoy. Try to care.

Maybe you will when you join the bodies rotting out there.

There is a war waging,

and I am now dead.

There is a gravestone above my simulacrum head.

Poppies are not bought in my name,

but wreaths of lilies, white as snow.

Water them with blood and watch them grow.

"Buy a poppy, Malfoy,"

so I can say that I, too, fought.

Buy a poppy so it wasn't all for nought.

If no one wears these poppies,

what is the point?

Not even magi are remembered,

not Muggles,

not those not-children,

not-veterans,

not-special people.

Not those ordinary men and women dead and forgotten.

Kill your speed.

Not a child.

The tears for one could never be mild.

Four days now and counting.

Four days since I watched myself die.

Four days of living a lie.

It was late one night, ten days ago,

That I knocked on a cold iron door.

"Please will you help," I asked,

knowing that he would.

"Please will you help me,"

for he was the only one that could.

"Please help me save them,

let me die instead.

Please let them believe me dead."

"Miss Granger –

Hermione –

Child.

A simulacrum is a dreadful thing to make.

Magic and pain and blood are just some of things it will take.

A simulacrum is not a thing to make lightly.

It will return, angry at death, nightly.

It will haunt you, child.

Forget this foolish plan.

Forget this.

I can't help you.

I can't – what do you think I am?"

Such a look in his eyes as he tried to turn away.

Such a look at the price I was willing to pay.

He, too, has known such sorrow –

and he was the only one who could help me in the morrow.

"Please sir.

I know that we don't get along.

Please sir.

Please help me save them.

Please.

I don't care what might go wrong.

They're all I have, and nobody cares.

They are not special –

not magi, nor werewolves or vampires or ogres

they are not helpless children.

They are not old people we must defend.

They are not special to anyone but me –

and if they are hurt, unlike us, they cannot mend."

His arms were covered well from the evening light

But even there, in the approaching night,

I could see beneath those robes to the carvings in his skin.

He, like me, is lit from within.

"I don't want them in the crossfire;

I don't want them here.

I don't want them in England.

I don't want them near. "

There were bite marks on his neck, reaching his chest.

Not of love –

someone tried to rip out his heart through his breast.

There was fear in his eyes of what I was willing to do,

fear that nothing I said was untrue.

"Please sir. "

He was frightened that night,

Ten whole days ago.

I sometimes wish

I had not gone to his door.

"She smells like vanilla, and he like aftershave.

They don't ever need to tell me to behave.

She cooked curries and pies and everything nice –

he sat by me and gave me advice. "

I can't bear to think of his face

so pale, so gaunt, missing its usual artless grace –

I can't bear to feel the guilt for him

As well as for it, bleeding on that tarmac shelf,

Staring at the former pieces of itself.

"Buy a poppy, Malfoy."

Don't be our Lord's spoiled toy.

"Please sir."

Buy a poppy and ease my guilt.

Buy one to see the house that paranoia built –

full of twigs and fear

and a simulacrum's ear,

arms, legs and heart –

See the house? It's falling apart.

He knew this would happen,

Those ten nights ago.

He tried to close that cold iron door.

"Please sir!"

I wept.

I admit it.

I wept.

"I love them as much as they love me.

I want a shadow me,

almost me,

something like me

to die instead of me –

and I want them to see.

I want them to go, not to stay and wait to bury me.

I want them to leave, be safe;

I don't want to have to visit another grave –"

His eyes were so dark, so hopeless with grief

At yet another death's knell -

"Please sir. Can they be that hard to save?"

Just one small spell.

One small potion.

One small heartbreaking emotion.

Poppies on my chest each day, as I walk door to door,

Not sure if I can do this anymore.

"Buy a poppy for the veterans."

Buy a poppy for me.

Buy a poppy because I, too

- simulacrum, hollow child -

died, torn apart.

They are gone, now. Safe.

We are the hollow men –

We are the stuffed men.

No more poppies.

I can live with that.

A/N:

1. The 'kill your speed. Not a child' phrase is from a 'safe driving' advert shown in the mid-90s, to the best of my knowledge.

2. November 11th – on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, there is a silence in Britain as we mourn those dead in two world wars. People wear red paper poppies pinned to their lapels. The nearest Sunday to the eleventh is called Remembrance Sunday.

3. The poem quoted incessantly is, of course, T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men".

4. A simulacrum is a creature / creation made to look like a human being. If you want more info, do a search on google. :-)