To Everyone: After about a year in self-exile from fanfiction.net, I'm finally back with a mind full of ideas and stories. I hope you enjoy this one. I enjoyed writing it. There are about three or four chapters left. It's very short … and OF COURSE fluffy. I love fluff. I BREATHE fluff.
This IS a D/G story. This is just the epilogue … no D/G action yet … main word is YET, folks. ::whispers:: I love snog scenes as much as any other person. ::hangs head::
To All Those Who Want to Kill Me Mercilessly for not Updating My Other Stories: ::coughs:: uh … yea … about those … they're in the process of being renovated … and no not in the "yea-lets-just-change-some-grammar-and-sentences" way. NO. They are being completely redone 1) because in In the Night, things happened WAY too quickly. And! The suicide thing now annoys me greatly. 2) my writing style has changed.
On the other hand, Fade Away isn't bad. It just needs a little oomph, I think.
So … don't kill me. ::hides:: I'm just an innocent little fanfiction writer. ::makes puppy dog face:: I'll give you cookies if you don't try to murder me with a rusty butter knife or more creative method of ending my existence…
ANYWAYS! Onto the story.
It's short … it's sweet … and it's all fluff. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: You and I both know there is no point in doing these.
Like Sweet, Sweet Feathers
It was an old, grey stone cottage that my grandma now lived in, a place that was so covered in ivy and surrounded by colorful flowers that it always seemed to blend in with the green forest that hovered and protected it, a lonely child in a larger more secluded place.
But the grey cottage never seemed to crumble in the nineteen years that my grandma has since lived in it. Despite the cold, the wind, the storms, rain, snow, hail, it still stood, as if to make a mockery out of all the forces against it – as if its walls were saying "You may want me to fall, but I'm not going to." Later, I would learn that my grandma was like that house, going against everything and, in her case, everyone who wanted her hopes and dreams to fall. Everyone who wanted her to give in to something they saw natural but she did not, just like how nature wanted the cottage to bend to erosion, to bow to it, kiss its feet.
I never knew her well, though I wish otherwise. There was so much I desired to learn about her and so much she always kept a mystery ever since my birth and his death nineteen years ago. Actually, I never had a chance to learn anything. After his death, my mother says, it was like she locked herself up. My grandpa was hardly ever spoken of after that. Many of my remaining family members and those who I would like to say were close enough to be called so (such as Harry and Hermione) refrained from mentioning his name out of fear that grandma would only get worse. Out of fear that his name would strike what was left of her soul and tear it to pieces. That was how much she loved him. She loved him so much that his absence drove her so far from reality that the healers believed she would never come back again.
When he died, she quietly packed her things, taking all of their pictures with her, and moved away from the old mansion into this grey cottage where she succumbed to catatonia for ten long years, only to jerk out of it somewhat to eat and, what I always thought strange, to play a piano. It was an old black wood one with white keys dulled to a pale yellow and some missing in the extreme upper ranges that Hermione levitated there for reasons she refused to tell me. They all hoped that the instrument would some how bring her back. It never did.
To me it was just a stupid, beat up piano with some ridiculous carving on the side that was so unskillfully done that a five year old could have created it.
But despite its appearance, I figured it sort of meant the world to grandma. Ten years of catatonia, of not speaking to people and of not being involved in anything at all, reduced her to senility. Yet, despite her illness, she could still play that instrument like it was the only thing keeping her alive – like pressing the chalky, yellow keys and reading the old pieces of parchment sustained her and gave her life, thriving against the darkness that my mother and I thought would capture her any day now.
Grandma, after those ten years, was left incapable of doing many things. I can still remember the many times that my mother would come there begging her to move into the assisted living area of St. Mungo's, only to receive a reproachful look on grandma's face. Although she lacked the words to speak, her actions, or really how she played the piano, reflected her emotions. The more my mother would ask her to move and get help, the more my grandma would stubbornly shake her head and the angrier she would become, playing the piano louder and louder each time my mothered begged her to the point that sometimes we used to have to cover our ears.
My grandma could move, yes, but only minimally: from the kitchen, to the piano, and then to the bedroom all in shuffling steps while continually rubbing her fingers, crooked from severe arthritis. But I guess my grandma never cared for pain. She kept playing – recently it's only been three or four songs. I figure she's forgotten all the rest. Yet, the songs have become her life. Every second of every day that I bring fresh food from the market to her grey cottage, smoke billowing from the chimney, I can hear her playing. I can hear her music, clear and crisp through the forest leading me, as if in a dream, to her little house.
When she would play, it always seemed as though the notes were trying to speak to me, like every hit of major C, minor D, every chord would tell of a little detail of my grandma's life. But, obviously, I could never understand. They spoke of words, of meanings, much too enigmatic and much too personal for me to ever comprehend. My grandma played her story for me everyday, and everyday I grew more frustrated, wondering what every note meant, wondering why she would never speak but always play, night and day through sunshine and storms that scared off even the bravest of animals. I'd listen to her songs and watch as she furrowed her light red eyebrows delicately over brown eyes in a face partially covered by wrinkles and on a body still as slim as the one from her youth.
It was as if her music was magic on its own. It was simply too beautiful to be said otherwise. And as her music played, it was as if everything around her became alive. In pictures, she would play more gracefully. She and grandpa would be all the more in love. Her and her friends would be happier and would smile more around each other, even if they were only pictures. But it was simply the fact that her music made everything … well, better.
Yet, despite it all, I always seemed to be the only one without any knowledge whatsoever of the supposed indescribable love that my grandparents had for each other. I never found out how they met, who they were, anything. Nothing was mentioned by anyone. Secrets became the norm.
I remember it was a cold, fall night that I found myself at her house, watching her play a song that I heard a million times but yet again never before. Every time seemed different. Each motion she made with hands, eyes, brows, was different. Her nightgown, shimmering in the moonlight, moved with her upper body, swaying and hovering gently above the aged keys.
I smiled warmly at her, and ignoring the pain in my heart that said that she could not see it, I walked to the backroom whose door was always slightly ajar and whose inner was always covered in dust, lining every brown box that almost filled it. It was here that I spent most of my time, rummaging through crate after crate and picture after picture, hoping to find something, something that I hoped would let me know even a little about her … or in that case, grandpa. My mother thought me crazy. She said pictures don't tell stories. I knew the wisest said differently. But, in a way, my mother was right. A picture can only tell so much. It may show you small moments on certain days … but it can never describe why something happened or the conversations, the words, the dialogue that occurred.
And that's where the stories lie - in the words.
I remember that day well. My clumsy tendencies were at an all time high. I was known in my family as being a complete and utter klutz. I'd bump into priceless heirlooms, breaking them, run into doors, stutter and slur all of my words in front of cute guys … and, of course, trip over things. That day, I tripped over a carpet and found something I never saw before.
As I landed on the floor unceremoniously with a loud thump, kicking up clouds of dust that swirled around my red-brown haired head, my toe caught the edge of the carpet in the middle of the room, flipping over half of it and revealing what seemed to be an iron latch. My curiosity got the best of me as my pale hand grabbed onto it and lifted to reveal a hole in the floor that was about a foot wide, a foot long, and half a foot deep. It was the only thing in the room without dust covering it, as if it hadn't been opened or touched in a long time.
And there, lying in the center, was a faded, red leather diary. On the cover, in gold lettering, was the name Ginevra A. Weasley.
My hands trembled as they carefully grabbed the diary out from its compartment. I slowly ran my fingers over the soft fabric. It was in here … here! … where everything was held. In a diary all of the secrets, all of the stories, and all of my answers to all of my questions about my grandparents would lie. It was as if I had solved what I previously believed was an unsolvable puzzle.
I couldn't wait any longer. I quickly opened my grandma's diary without feeling any guilt for reading what many believe is wrong to.
There, on the first page, was my grandmother's neat, cursive writing that created the words to the stories that I longed to know. In the background, I could still hear my grandmother play the piano, softly and methodically tying notes together as beautifully as the blue letters morphed into sentences. In my head swirled both the words and the notes, finally together and finally able to tell me every secret I've never been able to decipher as if they were bringing me back, pulling me through space, to a time so, so long ago….