I would like to thanks S. for correcting this first chapter.
"Professor Snape... I... I regret to inform you that Miss Lovegood has passed away. She was found this morning by some students..."
What does it tell us? I don't understand.
I don't understand either.
"The... The police are investigating the circumstances of her death, but the suicide thesis seems prevalent... She was found hanging from the old oak tree... The one located in the backyard of the boarding school..." The words, barely out of the director's mouth, mix and melt into each other, until they form a compact whole, a single abject barbarism. The absurdity of the situation leads me to believe that I am in a dream.
Perhaps it is one.
Maybe it is. But everything seems too real to me. I can see the mist coming out of our lips and my throat hurts when I breathe.
It's because of the cold.
It's because of the cold, yes. It's only October but the autumn is too wet and the air is almost irrespirable. I am far too aware of everything that is going on. I am not in a dream. Besides, you don't talk in my dreams.
No, I don't talk in your dreams.
Then it's not one. Yet his speech is still irrational to me. "I regret to inform you that Miss Lovegood has passed away." Does that make sense to you?
No. It makes no sense at all.
Yes, that's what I thought. I'm afraid the old man has suddenly gone senile. Yet, he stands up straight and doesn't stutter. Where's Professor McGonagall now? His lifelong accomplice? Usually she's always there, glued to his side. When he talks, I look at her to see if the old man is telling the truth or whether it is one of those old fantasy tales he has the secret to.
I too am your accomplice.
That's true, but he can't hear you. He doesn't know you're there.
He doesn't know I'm here, I only talk to you.
You only talk to me and no one must know.
"Given the circumstances, today's classes are suspended. And I think it would be advisable to cancel tomorrow's as well, so that the inspectors can carry out their investigation properly... and so that our students can be reunited. They need it. It will take them a long time to grieve..."
The sky is lilac and the absence of clouds reinforces its unreal aspect. Unlike Turner's works, the final painting only resembles an undercoat, a canvas smeared and then immediately abandoned by an indolent painter, a lazy apprentice. Usually the lake that borders the boarding school reflects the sun and the trees that surround it. Today, however, it is dark and bland, like an oxidised lid. Maybe that's all we deserve. A rough decor painted in haste. A pasteboard decoration. Because what's going on can only be an invented tale. A dark fable.
"I regret to inform you that Miss Lovegood has passed away." It doesn't make any sense. She can't be dead. Only yesterday she said, "See you tomorrow," as she left the laboratory. That's what she told us, didn't she? I didn't invent it?
No. That's what she told us. She raised her hand to tell us "see you tomorrow" and then she left.
She raised her hand and, as usual, all the colourful bracelets she wore clicked and squeaked in an incredible orchestra. Those damn bracelets. She always wore dozens of them so that half of her forearms disappear under an avalanche of braided wickerwork, Indian pearls, large mismatched wooden beads and silver pendants. She makes them herself. In winter, she is forced to wear these flared sleeved jumpers to continue wearing them. Of course, the sleeves drag everywhere, and as she likes to stroll in the park, she always ends up covering them with leaves and earth, until she looks like a curious plant. A dig up mandrake. It's the same scenario over and over again: she cleverly breaks all the safety rules of the laboratory and we are forced to stand behind her with our arms folded. She feels our gaze but ignores us until she is ordered to remove her jewellery. Then she scrapes her arms one after the other to remove them all at the same time. And the beads and pearls, the pendants and polished stones come to hit the table in a brief cacophony.
It's not the bell that marks the beginning of the class, it's the sound that the pile of her bracelets makes when she throws them on her laboratory bench. Every day she forgets to take them off and we remind her of this. I know she pretends to forget. Sometimes, at the end of class, she even comes to show us her new creations, as if to taunt us. What did she do last time? A leather bracelet with a turquoise elephant?
A leather bracelet with a turquoise elephant, yes. She carved it herself.
She carved it herself and she is very proud of it... Yesterday she told us "see you tomorrow" when she left the laboratory. Today is "tomorrow", isn't it? If she was never coming back, she wouldn't have said anything. She seemed happy. I even remember seeing her smile. It doesn't make any sense.
No. It doesn't make sense.
What did we say to her when she said goodbye? I can't remember. We didn't say anything to her?
We didn't say anything to her.
We didn't say anything to her...
"Professor Snape? Can you hear me?"
I hate the way he looks at me. He scares me. He stares at me with that serious look that he normally only keeps for great calamities - the collapse of part of the west tower of the castle ten years ago and the landslides last summer are good examples of this - and I am beginning to think that perhaps this is not a ridiculous joke. But I don't know how to react. My temples are starting to buzz.
"Professor Snape?"
"With all due respect, Headmaster, I think you're lying."
The headmaster is silent. His piercing blue eyes come to meet mine and I support his gaze. Then I see him blink, incredulous, before opening and closing his mouth in ridiculous little "o's", like a fish out of water. I take the opportunity to slip away. I don't trust him. I need to find Luna's friends. I need to go and talk to them. Who is she friends with again? Miss Granger, right? And Miss Weasley?
Yes. Sometimes we run into them all together in the halls. But most of the time, Luna's alone.
Most of the time Luna is alone...
About ten metres away, the pupils gathered in front of the castle, like a big black knot that I am struggling to untangle. My eyes search the scene, looking for Miss Weasley's unmistakable red hair.
The closer I get, the heavier the atmosphere becomes. I hear complaints. To my left, a group of young girls, who have not yet put on their uniforms, are crying. Their moans mingle with the wind and support it like a choir. We are in Scotland but their pale clothes and the low vegetation along the rough paved road gives me an antiquated breath that makes me wobble. They are as sad as they are beautiful. A cohort of Niobe.
My heart tightens and I hasten the pace. My saliva is sour. In spite of the cold I begin to sweat. My God, I think it's real. It's happening.
In the middle of the crowd, redheads. The wind sweeps them away and swells them up like flames. On a rock, Miss Weasley cries, surrounded by her brothers. I meet the gaze of the youngest and I don't know which of us is more uncomfortable. Then the girl starts to scream and we all startle.
It's real.
It's real, yes.
It's happening.
"Professor Snape."
That's Miss Granger's voice. She went behind my back. She, who's usually so neat, put on her uniform in a hurry. Her uncombed hair engulfs her and thickens her bust. She looks like she is suffocating. Red patches cover her cheeks and with tears in her eyes she hiccups, "Professor Snape, it's awful."
"Is she really..."
I don't have time to finish my sentence, she nods her head vigorously. And without stopping to shake her chin she answers in a strangled voice. "Yes, she is. We're the ones who found her."
The sky is lilac and its uniform light reinforces its unreal aspect. Unlike Constable's paintings, it does not uplift our spirits. On the contrary, it crushes us, pushing us into the ground until we feel the grass rubbing against our jaws. Then, unable to speak, we remain there, silent, feverish, trembling.
With a single movement of the head, she crushed all my hopes.
"Professor! Professor!"
I see her crazy hair bending over me. I'm on the ground.
You fell, yes.
Others come and I feel pressure on my body. I am being grabbed. I am being uprooted. I don't have the strength to fight but I would like to be left where I am.
"Professor Snape, get up. Come on."
That's the voice of the headmaster. His icy hand grabs my forearm and he pulls me up. I'm being dragged everywhere. I find myself joined to other bodies and I hate it.
"Release him, it's okay. I'll take care of him."
I don't know who was holding me, but suddenly I'm free. The director drags me along and I move forward by reflex, like a vulgar beast. I don't look around and just follow him. His long beard shakes with each step, from left to right, like a pendulum. The icy light of October gives it silvery reflections.
These reflections, similar to those on Luna Lovegood's wrists, when she raises her hand and the sun's rays reflect on them... Next to the bench where he takes me pass policemen whose boots' buckles in contact with the bumpy path create a cacophony of steel rattling. A dissonant melody. It sounds like her own. Luna had a melody.
Yes. Luna had a melody.
She had a melody and we will never hear it again.