hello everyone. no cheery note today--I'm too depressed (as is not so vaguely shown in this chapter). Thank you all for reviewing; you're one of the few things that keep my world bright.
Chapter Eight: The Reality of the Mind
Soft piano music played somewhere in the distance, radiating a heartfelt concerto as the rain fell outside and a fire burned in sweet seduction beneath the mantelpiece. Elsewhere, there were candles floating here and there, wafting their aromatic scents in order to discredit the smell of the recently scorched kitchen. A blanket was wrapped lightly around a sleeping woman, radiant and seductive on her own accord, while a man sat with his arms around his knees only inches away.
She had fallen asleep rather quickly once they were inside his home. All he seemed to have time for was gather a blanket and give it to the beautiful creature. No sooner had she closed her eyes than she was deep within the realms of slumber—Slumberland, he had once been told by his mother, was a world where all goes right and nothing evil may happen; Minerva, it seemed, rarely was lucky enough to enter such a world, even in dreams.
Her sad words of only a few days ago fled through his mind at the thought of her unhappy view upon the good world of love, causing a voltaic strike of pain along his throat: I think that it hurts people more than it helps. You're promised the world from someone and you promise it back. Then it's ripped away from you…whether or not you're the one doing the ripping.
He looked at the woman with her deep locks and pale complexion sleeping silently, and shook his head. How could such a sweet creature be hurt so very badly by love? He'd heard the pain in her voice once or twice, but never so much as he heard earlier in the evening when they were walking along the shore. It was as if her insides were shattered and did not want to take the time to be mended (nor indeed, could be mended).
The man evoked their conversation with a glum recollection.
"It's rather dreary outside, isn't it?" he'd asked, looking up at the cloudy sky, rehearsing its drums for the battle.
"Quite," she whispered. "It's quite dreary."
"You don't suppose it was the thunder that woke you, do you?" he pressed.
Minerva shook her head. "No. I always seem to wake up in the middle of the night, rain or none. It's quite normal for me." Her voice was soft, knowing, and final—painfully short. She knew as well as he discovered in those seconds that there was something undeniably faulty with (for lack of better word or accusation) her.
Albus was stung with some painfully sharp needle as he looked upon the girl. It was not normal to any point to wake in the middle of the night every solitary evening—quite objectionable really. While he did not doubt that she was perfectly well during the day, he knew (from some past experience or another) that waking up in the evening on a regular basis indicated some sort of…shock, if you will; trauma that had never sought the correct therapy. He supposed with some foreknowledge that she saw images in her sleep which woke her, for the mind conjured such images that were real and remembered. Yes, quite objectionable. He wondered in those seconds what sort of dreams she had in the evening—
The man knew after seeing her sleep for but half an hour. It sent a cold, hard, penetrating wave of fright through his skin that caused him to quiver ever so slightly. Her words went well with her body in sleep: "No! No!" she whimpered with a voice that was not her own, but some terribly tormented soul as she tossed and turned upon the floor. Eventually, the cries subsided and were replaced by real tears until she had no more sadness to offer and was left with only heavy breathing.
He took her limp hand, pale as snow, and slid his fingers through hers. An insignificant tear pleaded to flee from his eye, but he could no more let it leave than Minerva could let herself sleep happily.
God, he loved her. He had not known it until she came to his room in the sleepy moonlight with that need upon her face, but he did. He loved her smile when he made her laugh; he loved her cheeks that grew pink; he loved her voice that was sweet yet demanding; he loved her mouth that showed so well her lust; he loved her eyes—but he'd always loved her eyes. He loved, perhaps more than anything, the way that she reminded him of a lost love; a very lost love who shall never return but whose memory would always withstand the waters of time, moving and taking in what was not its own to take.
Albus shook his head as he squeezed Minerva's hand and then finally bowed his head. "Why do you hurt," he whispered very, very gently into the room, sounding of only the tainted notes of a piano and a sad crackle of a fire. "Why," his voice grew high and pained, "wh-yy?"
Minerva woke with a blanket upon her skin in a rather unfamiliar place upon the ground. The air smelled of burned plastic and the wooden floor was as cold as ice. Outside, she could hear rain falling upon the earth, whispering quite slowly pitter-pat, pitter-pat. The woman sat up from where she was and looked beside her.
A man was there, utterly brilliant and wonderful, by the name of Albus. He was in the most awkward position, making what looked like the number four with his legs and both of his arms above his head as if he were doing a jump before hitting lake water. A smile was on his cheery face when she met eyes with him. All the man had to say was simply, "You're awake."
She nodded her head slowly. Indeed, she was awake and alert. "Have you been awake long?"
Albus sighed, "Only about ten minutes. It's nine o'clock in the morning, my dear. Not too bad a sleep for an early riser."
The woman blinked a few times, ceasing to believe it. She rarely slept in past six most days, but perhaps she had no reason at all to be surprised; Albus made her comfortable somehow over the evening, thus, she slept well. And what's more, the man slept beside her because he loved her and for no reason other than that.
She put her elbows upon the floor, rested her head upon her hands, and looked at the man with a teasing demeanor, knowing full well that the skin of her chest was quite visible. "Is it really that late?" she inquired with a flirtatious tone.
He smiled gently, realizing and understanding her mood perfectly. Had Minerva not experienced first hand his need to control their affair, she would have attempted to seduce him in his morning disposition. As it stood, however, she found it far more equitable to smile and allow happiness into her world. She did not doubt for one second that they would in fact make love at some point during the day for she saw quite clearly the manner in which he surveyed her figure—wandering eyes and all.
"It is that late," he whispered gently, "and I suppose it is my own fault for not having anything ready to eat…but I'm afraid my kitchen has been set aflame over the course of the night."
A short giggle escaped her lips. "You had no business at all cooking for me last night. You could have set your whole house on fire. Really, Albus," she shook her head, "I'm not worth burning down an entire home. Nothing ought to be ruined for anything."
She watched the man who had a short smile creep upon his face. Minerva had predicted that he would retort, but he did not. Instead, he assumed the role of professor—of philosophy, not transfiguration. "But nothing can and will be ruined by anything because it is nothing."
The woman blinked. "Excuse me?" she asked, quite baffled at his statement.
"You have just stated that nothing ought to be ruined for anything. I am saying that nothing, as in the noun, may be ruined because it is simply space and anything, as in the noun, is any object which takes space. Thus, anything may in fact take place of nothing. So my statement to you is simply that you've created your own oxymoron."
Minerva blinked idly. She understood, but she did not see the point of his statement. "Albus," she sighed, "has anyone ever told you that you think too much?"
His hands ran gently through her tangled hair (due to walking in the rain the evening before) and a smile continued to reside upon his face. Minerva stared into his deep blue eyes, getting lost as she did only in the moments where she was not completely aware of her attraction to the man. There were circles around one of his more appealing qualities—something that had not been observed by the woman until then. It was only a fleeting thought, but for that second, she very much was perplexed by the sudden dimness of his visage. Though his eyes reflected his desire, the rest of his face seemed to scream with…well, she wasn't really sure what it was. It was hardly noticeable, even, but it simply was not Albus.
"Some more than others," he smiled, completely unaware of Minerva's compelling observations. "I like to find out whether my mind attracts or repels women as my own experiment. Some day, I shall show my results to the world, thereby either making the populace of men more intelligent, or less intelligent—depending on what I find with my results."
An entirely amused smile came over the woman's face, forgetting her own eyes and remembering her ears as well as mouth. "What do you believe the final results would be—and, while we're at it, how many women have you tested in this experiment of yours?"
"Well," he sat up and straightened his previously flexed left leg, "I believe intelligence is wholly more appealing. And I have asked some odd hundred women, I think."
Her eyebrow rose. "Hundred? You've been busy."
He let out a guffaw while shaking his head. "You forget how old I am, my dear. I've been around for quite some time. And I should like to point out to you that I have not once ever been married for no woman is idiotic enough to love my intelligence all of the time."
Minerva, too, let out a small giggle. Albus was quite amusing in the morning—maybe it was from lack of food…he just naturally went on a humor rampage. But a thought did in fact occur to her that she had not considered before. She didn't know how old he was. "Albus?" she asked curiously.
"Yes, my dear?"
"I don't know how old you are," the girl whispered quite meekly.
"Oh?" he blinked. Apparently he did not realize that he had not covered that subject matter. "Well in that case, I think it's better left unsaid."
She frowned towards him; she should have thought that of anything he'd be willing to tell her, age would be one of them—both of them knew that he was a great deal older than her. "Why is that?
"Because," he spoke in a dignified voice, "it shall cause you to leave me and we've been having such a very good time together."
The woman shook her head slowly and moved herself towards the man, resting her head upon his thigh and looking up into his eyes with a devilish smile upon her face. "You fail to realize, Albus, that I am not the one who leaves others. It is others who leave me, so you really have nothing to fear. Tell me, how old are you?"
His hand ran gently over her exposed back, sending excitement to her system, and then to her face. His touch was light, knowing, as if he knew every spot there could possibly be which would bring about any sexual desire she had. She took a long blink as he grazed her soft skin, allowing only a gasp of surprise to leave her mouth. The woman looked up at Albus who had an intelligent grin upon his face. "Do you really want to know?" he whispered.
"Ahm," she nodded slowly, fully aware that his hand had decided to rest upon her bony back.
"I am eighty-three years old, Minerva. That is fifty nine years older than you and quite a difference for any pair of people who plan on having a relationship. What do you say to that, my dear?"
She sighed. That was a large difference, but she didn't care. Albus made her happy, even if it were for the time being. After all, she did not love him…if their age were ever to be a problem, she could walk away quite easily. Hence, the woman looked into his eyes and with every fiber of truth that was inside her, she whispered, "that's perfect."
He seemed vaguely surprised by her remark—if not for any other reason than he believed that she loved him (which she did not) and thus he knew that she would take him despite his age.
What he failed to realize was that Minerva indeed would take him, may it be because she supposedly loved him or for the simple reason that he was wonderful. It was quite true, what she said. He was just old enough for her to—inevitably—walk away from, but young enough that she may be amazed by him. And indeed, amaze was the word to be used; Albus was a man to behold in every respect. Why, even the way he looked at her expressed his deep adulation for the girl—his eyes had never seemed so blue.
It was the keeper of those blue eyes who spoke next with a casually inquisitive air, "Did you sleep well?"
Minerva nodded her head slowly. Yes, she slept quite well. But then, she always slept after waking once in the evening…the fact that Albus was near, she would not lie, helped to calm her nerves as well. The woman blinked a fair few times, suddenly aware of her senses. She heard music, beautiful music. Beyond Albus the girl looked towards a grand piano, playing with nothing other than magic. She looked back up at Albus. "Has that been playing all night?"
The man bobbed his head slowly. "I thought it may help you sleep."
The girl smiled, looking a wee bit younger than she already was to the man. "It's beautiful," she whispered, "absolutely beautiful."
"You are beautiful," he whispered almost sadly to her. It was as if he was saying the most precious words to her, and they could break if perhaps she turned them away from her heart. Albus meant it, Minerva realized, not as even a compliment, but as a token; a token of his affection that the woman had no intention of returning.
And she was struck, struck with guilt—more than she had ever known. For Minerva knew that she wanted, honestly, truly, undeniably wanted to love Albus as he wanted her, but all that she had a desire to say to the man who she would never let herself love was, "Please don't call me that." Indeed, she said the words with a struck chord upon her throat.
Albus bowed down his head softly to look into her eyes and ran his hand through her hair which was still partially wet from the morning's rain. "Why not?"
She blinked sadly for the longest time. She had no real reason other than it provided for ability to leave no attachment to whoever she dared attempt to love. And when it was said, there indeed rose resentment for herself that she could never be rid. Why did she have to be beautiful? Could she not be the ugliest of all if she had been so blessed? In all truth, she could have, but Minerva was thus cursed by being a pretty creature and as such, the curse only caused a hate for herself when the word 'beautiful' was uttered.
The woman had but one response for the man after much thought, "Because it is a bitter comfort when other things ought to be said."
He looked at her for many minutes, perhaps uttering his next sentence and perhaps drowning in his own thoughts. Whatever the case was, he then nodded and did not touch on the subject again.
Clink. Clink. Thump. Albus put one charcoaled pot after another into the sink which was being operated by Miss Minerva. She insisted on getting everything situated without magic and then letting the pots scrub themselves after all was organized. It was probably the best thing to do; after all, he was simply not used to working with his hands—that is, without a wand in them.
He was the one placing the pots in the sink for one very remarkable reason: he could reach the top of the cupboard. The flames from the evening before reached to the bottom of the cabinets where some kitchenware stood and thus covered it in ash. The cupboard was near about eye level with him, while it was a good half of a head taller than Minerva. Besides, he held no expertise within the region of cleaning dishes, much like in cooking. Thus, the man was grabbing and bringing down dishes which he gave to the woman who no doubt knew how to clean.
Albus wondered where it was that she learned to use muggle technology so well. After all, he had absolutely no skill with a sink or indeed, oven. There wasn't a need for it. He could pop up his dinner out of thin air if he wanted and make whatever trash was left fly to a garbage bin or, if needed, to wherever the meal came. It was really quite rare in the magical world to find someone who was equally talented with the muggle arts as with the wizarding ones. Minerva was the intriguing exception.
"So," he asked as he passed her a pan, "how is it that you know so much about all of these muggle devices?"
She took the metal object, placed it into the sink, and ran water on it. "It's just something I picked up over the years," she said before starting to pour soap on the black covered pan.
"Come now," he handed her another, "You had to have stayed somewhere or done something with muggles. One does not simply 'pick up' on things like that if they work where you do."
"I never said that it was from working," she said in a lower tone.
"True, but where else would you learn it? I know what ministry schedules are like, Min, and you've no hope at all of being out in the world and 'picking up' on things."
The woman turned off the water without making eye contact with the man and then silently went towards the other part of the room where her dry wand was. She muttered an incantation or other and the rag and water started working on their own to clean the dishes. Albus understood this as his point to stop as well—he had no reason at be forced to manual labor.
Minerva stared at him from the table with a warm smile upon her face. "You really want to know?"
He nodded slowly. He was naturally an inquisitive man…it was only natural that he should want to know why she could accomplish something that he would never be able to do.
"Well," she blinked, "you must understand first off that I am just like my mother, and as such, we both are opinionated and stubborn. Second off," a really quite elated smile took over her face and she even let out a little chuckle, "this was about the most entertaining year of my life." Minerva jumped backwards to sit upon the table; Albus rested his arms around her waist.
"I can tell already, this will be good," he smiled.
She bobbed her head happily. "Anyhow, mum decided for some unfathomable reason that she wanted to find a muggle husband—said that ministry men were too stuck up for her, nothing like what my father had been. So one day we just picked up and moved to a muggle flat in the center of London. This was before I was going to school…I had to have been about ten. Anyhow, we both took a um, do-or-die lesson on muggle living for eleven months or so—that is, until I received my Hogwarts letter. Our list of mishaps includes a flooded flat, about sixty broken dishes, and an incalculable amount of burned dinners, breakfasts, and luncheons."
Albus blinked, amused and baffled at the very same time. "And can you explain what made this year so wonderful if so many bad things happened?"
Minerva smiled and then bounced her head up and down. "Well, among other reasons, I developed a strong relationship with my mum. By the end of the year, we were going on walks in the park every weekend and playing tricks on each other. It was…lovely."
He grinned gently at her. "And your mothers search for a husband?"
The woman shrugged. "I don't remember coming across one at all. Later, mum told me that she decided that all men are—and I quote—'bunk'."
Despite himself, the man couldn't help but chuckle at this statement. Though he had never seen Minerva's mother (nor ever would) he was hit with an image of a woman with a creased face and dark hair saying the words through her line-thin lips while a giddy child sat beside her, not comprehending a word of it. Indeed, he could see Minerva's eyes growing wide, not because of what her mother said, but because of some shiny object off in the distance. "And I suppose this is what you think?"
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him just a little bit closer to her with wide eyes and a lush smile. Then, the woman sighed. "I believe that most men are, indeed, bunk, but there are always exceptions for everything."
He nodded slowly. "And I am exception?" his eyebrows rose.
"Of course," she whispered, "You're absolutely wonderful."
Had there not been something else on his mind, he would have certainly kissed her, but that was not quite the case. So, the man bowed his head down to hers and brought his hands to her soft cheeks, running his thumb over the little bit of pink upon her face. He could hear the rain beat outside, his heart beat inside, and a pulse beat within the woman—"Why do you say that love hurts?" In his knowing mind, there was a correlation between her cries in the night and her fluctuating ideas on love—only she could tell him, however.
She swallowed slowly. "When did I say that?"
"The first day we spent together. You said that love breaks people…that it hurts."
Her eyes were large, scared. "I suppose I did say that," she whispered.
The man bobbed his head slowly in the direction of the ceiling and floor. Of course she did; it had been bothering him for days. "Defend your statement, if you would be so kind. I'll be your opposition and we'll see if we can't come to a conclusion."
A sad stare fell on her face, but she nodded slowly. "Have you ever been so desperately in love that you don't think you'll ever survive without that person? That your whole world will come crashing down if they leave you? That…that you are in existence solely to be company to your lover?"
He nodded.
She ran her fingers gently through his red hair, feeling every groove that was a part of him. In her next words, she did not make eye contact with him, but he saw the dilation occurring nonetheless. "Then you come home and you realize that it's all a lie. That…that you're a pawn for their game of life. And then…then your heart is shattered into a million pieces that won't ever be put back together again. And it hurts...so bad…and you wonder why they couldn't have just finished you off"—she was rambling now with a glaze over her eyes—"and stabbed you with a knife; at least then you wouldn't have to live with the pain of living and seeing everyone else so very happy when you know that happiness is far from reach due to what he did to you. That pain won't ever go away because it's permanent and left a deep mark; should you ever find someone worth loving, things would never be quite right, merely because that first cut was so deep that the concept of being in love isn't even comprehensible. And…and it hurts to think like that, but no matter what others tell you about it all being in your head and that you're nonsense, it's not true because what occurs in your mind is your reality and the reality of being heartbroken is that you have been hit so hard that love is impossible." She blinked and looked at the man who had been struck dumb.
"I should go," was her simple reply to the awestricken expression of the man. She unwrapped her arms and slid herself from the table. Albus watched her as she approached the door, but he didn't dare let her leave.
His hand grabbed hers and pulled the woman back into his arms. "Please don't go," he cried with utter sincerity.
Minerva tried to push herself away from him, though he would let no such thing happen. She tried for a fair few minutes to be set free, pushing, pulling, elbowing, crying out, but quickly gave in to his strength and ceased to fight. Instead, she looked up at him with the saddest, most bewildered eyes he had ever seen—not unlike those which he had seen on the beach years ago—and then wrapped her arms tightly around him, digging her nails into the robes on his back, burying her face into his chest.
He ran his fingers along her back, puzzled at her hysteria, heartbreaking on its own accord. And he was very much reminded of what he saw the evening before while she slept. She'd cried out in the way that she cried out, pushed him as she pushed the covers, and come to a halt the same way that she did by burying herself within him. Albus, being the man he was, could not associate it all with coincidence.
In an attempt to lighten the mood, Albus gathered the woman in his arms so that her feet hung off the edge of his left arm, and then levitated the both of them to the second floor. He carried her to his room where he sat her upon the bed. She fell onto the covers, quiet as the trees, and blinked up at him.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, "I don't know what came over me."
Albus nodded and drew a hand over her cheeks. "You just got caught up in the moment, that's all. And," he blinked before finishing his thought, "you were right, Min, about feeling like there isn't a reason to love after being let down. I want to show you something."
Thus, he got up and pulled an old, old picture out of his drawer and handed it to Minerva. It was of a woman with long, light hair, and a smile that could light an entire room; it was Ellie.
She looked at the picture and then at Albus. "She's beautiful."
"I know," he nodded, "She was about your age in that photograph. Her name was Eleanor—Ellie to me. She was going to be my wife."
There, he struck a chord. Minerva looked up at him with a sad face, but not for her own sake, but for his. "What happened? Did she leave you?"
"In a manner of speaking," he replied softly. "She died about sixty years ago. She lived in a little town off the Atlantic. Her father actually ran a lighthouse, if you'll believe that. We met while I was on some sort of misadventure with the ministry…" Albus looked at Minerva who had large eyes and full lips, "within a year we were engaged. I still wonder some days what would have happened if I stayed with her during the daytime. You see, the ministry controlled my life then—I was forced to leave her often. She um…well, one day she was apparently walking on the more dangerous side of the beach. High tide crept in on her and she was taken. After learning that she hadn't come in after her afternoon walk, I rushed back there, but I…I found her dead on the beach the next morning. I was too late."
"Oh Albus," Minerva put a hand on his shoulder, "I'm so sorry."
He shook his head gently. "I'm all right now; that was decades ago. But the point is that I…I never really felt inclined to fall in love again. True, I courted some few women, but it never really felt right. And then I saw you here," he grasped her hand. His eyes met hers and he stared so very deep into them, "Minerva, I will not lie because I'm not the sort of man who does that; you reminded me so very much of her. You have the same eyes and sometimes I even think the same smile. It's unbearable for me to think that I could never have your love because I…I've seen love in the eyes which you possess and it would be a sad thing for the both of us if it never appeared again."
Minerva sat up from where she was laying and moved her fingers across his unshaven chin, just staring into his eyes. The woman made no lunge for him, nor him to her, but they more met somewhere in the middle. He leaned one way, she leaned another, and then their lips met as thunder rolled from outside.
It was a sweet, simple kiss, lacking any movements that would otherwise indicate an affair and it lasted only a few seconds. Minerva stared at him with a smile upon her face afterwards. "It's amazing how vulnerable we are now."
The man nodded. "I know," he traced his fingers across her lips, "very vulnerable. Maybe it's best that…that—"
"Shhh," she put a finger to his lips. "I'll go now," she nodded, "Maybe you could come over for luncheon? I'll fix something that you could never dream of cooking and we can talk without this insane oscillation of emotions."
Albus nodded. "That sounds like a democratic resolution, my dear."
She grinned gently. "I'll be seeing you around twelve, then?"
He bobbed his head once more.
"Very well then," she kissed him gently on the forehead and was gone.
well then, interesting, eh? We'll see. I changed the sub-category to drama...merely because it's turning out that way. We are slowly slowly slooowly coming to a short interruption of this mood so that it may be replaced by ROMANCE! woo-hoo. It'll come at the appropriate time though, my friends. Do not fear.
