Haunted
Disclaimer: Me no own. sobs
Rated: PG13
Warnings: insanity, language, references, and general darkness. Stuff I don't usually write and don't have any experience in. FairyoftheClouds was feeling rather salty when she first wrote it, and it kept nagging her. Blame Canadian French fries, no offense to anyone who lives in Canada. No Flames. You have been warned.
Summary: songfic to song by Evanescence. A hand trailing through her hair, just before he closed his eyes one last time, they hung in the air. The wind had even ceased blowing, magnifying them ten fold. "I...I really do ....... love you."
Haunted
It had once been well kept, with the morning star lined walkways and tinkling fountains. That was how it had been for centuries, a little haven beyond the eyes of civilization. But that was how it had been before the sun set on its time of glory, and it was left to run wild in the forest. Yet still the manor stood, skeletal remainder of what had been.
Within the cold stone walls, she ran her hands over the soft satin sheets, ignoring the cloud of dust that rose, tiny particles floating almost lethargically in the motionless air. The faded stains of tears shed long ago were all that adorned a pale, drawn face. Hair that had gleamed in even the poorest of lights hung limply down her back and framed a face that seemed to have shrunk in on itself. Once fanciful large eyes stared bleakly, not really seeing what surrounded her.
As she mindlessly stroked the smooth material beneath bony fingers, the sun rose in the window behind her. Pale gold rays flowed through crystalline panes, illuminating the neglected room. She flinched as the warmth touched her skin, partly out of habit, partly out of envy, envy of the world going on cheerfully while she wandered the shadows. The house elves had been dismissed long ago, and she had been unable to make herself conjure thick curtains or even stone, to block out the light forever. Envy ate away, envy of the little children in the village a mile down stealing chocolates, envy of people rejoicing, envy even of the house she lived in, which was lucky enough to be dead both inside and out. A haunted mansion, the village children called it, like the common Muggle cliché. It was sport for them to come in the black of night, to throw stones and run away. Or if you dared, to climb over the wrought iron fence and walk all the way up to the double door entrance and rap the silver dragon knocker, then recite the rhyme she too could have recited by now, had it pleased her. The evil witch on the hill, kerosene one day she spilled, while her life did burn, demons long conjured did take her back down to where they dwell, eternally so she can rot in hell. She should have cursed them to pieces from the very beginning, but it was too true. She was rotting in a hell after some fashion, without the fire.
A warm wind waved in the sea of green outside, the rustle of leaves accompanied by its whisper, a whisper from the dead. It echoed those words, etched into her mind, over and over, words she thought she would never have heard until the day she died. However true they were, even unspoken. A hand trailing through her hair, just before he closed his eyes one last time, they hung in the air. The wind had even ceased blowing, magnifying them ten fold.
"I...I really do ....... love you."
Long lost words whisper slowly to me
They had patted her back, given her hugs and handkerchiefs, told her how sorry they were, told her she had to go on, that was what he would have wanted. No, that was what he wanted; he still existed, depending on what you believed in. She had accepted their pats, hugs, and handkerchiefs, had accepted their phrases. But they were meaningless, so meaningless, yet they came still, in floods and torrents. Why, if they were so meaningless? She knew, from the way they never looked quite directly in her face, the way their eyes darted past her into the background and trying to focus on her at the same time. The way their embraces couldn't really be called hugs between blood kin. They too, had to know, if they advertised it so plainly.
They didn't care.
One, a girl she had been friends with since they were crawling around in diapers, had even told her that at least she had a large enough army of servants to live in luxury for the rest of her life without having to lift the hem of her robes to step over a puddle. How lucky she was, to have enough cash to bath in every morning. All of this while the speaker stood there clad from head to toe in silks, silk robes, signature cut of Madame Sophie's Fine Wizardwear, Paris, though exposing far too much skin. Silk blouse, silk cloak, even silk headscarf tying back glimmering hair. She would have thought the knee-high, three-inch stiletto boots were somehow fashioned from silk too, had the sharp odor of leather polish not managed to slice through the synthetic smell of lilies.
For that matter, everyone had been decked out for a ball; though they had managed to all wear black. Strings of pearls, earrings sparkling with firedrops, necklaces loaded with rubies and diamonds and emeralds the size of a bird's egg. Robes and boots worked lavishly in thread-of-gold and thread-of-silver as often as not. It hadn't been a funeral; it was a political playground, with noble heads of Houses, Ministers from 15 countries, and a hawk-eyed Queen. Enemies exchanged tight smiles and curt nods, allies' smiles and nods only a fraction less tight and curt. Pansy's engagement to Crabbe had even been finalized, though his father had stared at Pansy for nearly an hour. Even more disturbing were those who looked her over, as if she too was only a piece to be used for petty personal wars. In their eyes she was still a twenty year old girl, pretty enough to be remarried within the week. No one mourned for the dead. No one but herself.
Strangely, the worst were those who took one look at her and said that mourning would get her through the rest of her life or break her to pieces. They with their all too knowing eyes that could see straight through to what she had already become and all too knowing tones that proved it. If she was fated to live, she would live, if she was fated to break, she would break. And as she sat in her old bedroom in a haunted palace, she laughed. She had money, she had fancy clothes, she had a castle, a whole paradise that amounted to nothing. And they told her to get over herself and be happy again in this lifetime. She laughed again, a crazed and cold laugh; she had broken the minute he died. They simply didn't realize that she had nothing to look for, nothing to hold on to, nothing to keep her from simply walking off the face of the earth.
Only, she couldn't quite bring herself to do it.
Maybe it was the feeling that he would never have done the same. Maybe it was because the outside world would shun her in sight, and that this was all she really did have left, and that memories however unhelping were at least better than nothing. Maybe it was because for some reason, she simply could not leave, because something might be left to 'save' her and was waiting for her here
And she didn't who or what or where it was.
Still can't find what keeps me here
Too bad she had been right, and never have heard of love until death. Only, she was supposed to die, not the other way around. She was supposed to lay on a fluffy bed with lots and lots of white roses, surrounded by crying friends and family. She was supposed to tell them to remember her forever, and they would cry harder, begging her not to leave them. And he would be there, to whisper through the tears and cries of woe that he loved her. He loved her, and that was all that really mattered in the world. And as the blackness finally consumed her, the last things she would remember would be the warm feel of his body against hers, his arms around her waist, his burning tears sliding down from his face to hers, one last kiss for forever.
As with most fantasies, she had never bothered wondering what would happen to him afterwards. She had left off to dream of an ideal death, of all things. She had just expected that after all the crying bouts, people would be all happy and life would just go on its joyful, fluff filled way. She hadn't thought that her own death would have an impact on anything. She had gone on all her life with all her achievements as footnotes on someone else's page in history. She was used to being invisible enough to walk straight through walls with the Fat Friar and have no one pause to even glance at her. The placing of his last name onto her's had only brought about stares and snide comments of how she was a temptress who had gotten past everyone else's better judgment to what they should have. She had been scorned for using him when he was alive, and was now scorned for not using what he had left her.
Was she simply being punished for being selfish, as many had said she was? She had been, to think that such a thing would ever happen, much less hope that that was the way she kicked the bucket. Was this fate's way of telling her to stop thinking in such a cruel manner? Fate and the world had been cruel to her, but she obviously didn't have a license to be cruel as well. Did the fact that she also possessed emotion amount for nothing? Did she deserve it, because off all that she had done, because really she was what everyone had told her? Was that why she felt like someone had hacked her to bits and left a shell to replace who she was? She shifted to pick up a pillow, still faintly scented of rose petals, and hugged it as if it was the last life vest on the Titanic, as if it could create what was destroyed. She could feel that unreal feeling of something that was watching her again. Would anything help her? Could anything help her? Why did she feel like she could bring him back, when she had felt his life blood splatter across her body?
When all this time I've been so hollow inside I know your still there