Disclaimer: I am not J.K Rowling; therefore I do not rightfully own the whole Harry Potter theme-thing…got that sorted out?
Good.
Chapter 3 – Mel and his ideas
In the little flurry of childish excitement and celebrations, Mel oversaw the only guest who sat at the table while the rest let it go on the halogen dance floor. He was melancholic and the others called him weird. Drinking to "prepare him for the cold night," he saw the doomed and pointless exercise of the hot bodies pushing and pulling their muscles to the phantom DJ.
Premonitions are never subtle, we just choose to ignore them because they are simply too eccentric. Poor things.
Mel had already embarked on his journey, even if he didn't know it. None around him could read his face and words and deduce so either. His sleeping face was upturned, pointing so faithfully to the airs beyond his low ceiling, his thin nose pierced the light that flew so purposefully into the room. The left of his face was caste in shadow due to the peak sitting central without budge on Mel's round-all-round head. Perhaps in the shadows held the tight ropes of tension and stress?
Meanwhile:
the little jay had taken it on himself to perform the best mail delivery ever in jay-postage history. Pumping his wings hard, he found it tricky to navigate to the up-draughts, nether-the-less continued. Little fluffy beads of sweat trickled onto his shiny beak. He found in his thoughts that were his companion, that his personality and context was very similar to that of Mel. He had only been Mel's company a few minutes, but jays have always been presumptuous.
Meanwhile:
Mother had been sleep walking. Her feet didn't find her shoes cowering under the radiator; her shoulders didn't find the gown that had tucked itself away under the tub. It didn't matter. Her body titled westerly then easterly as she proceeded downstairs, through the small hall and out into the backyard; the cool and sweet dark backyard.
The conscience was asleep. So the emergency whistle was asleep.
Otherwise, it would be on hot red alert, blowing that whistle loud enough to call the whales back on land and demand lock down, screeching between shrill blasts "EXPOSURE! EXPOSURE!"
Her body drank in the dew at her feet. Every skin cell was a root inhaling in all the elements that so deprived in the trenches.
Mother's face was carved in two by a row of golden, zipper teeth. Her own thin nose rose so faithfully to the stars standing over her head.
(Like Mother like son… or something like that).
We crave essence, we crave the thing that we know to be wholly true, so that we can do everything in truth and not lie. Mel believes this to be impossible unless we are ignorant.
Mother knew best.
Her backyard, cold, wet, damp and alive was the closest honesty around. If Socrates tapped her shoulder Mother would push him aside and bend down to listen the grass stretching its toes out in their sleep.
Meanwhile:
the sun had gone through counselling. The dwarves of the dark mines said she loved too much and said her father was ignorant of her emotions.
Emotions are important.
You must demand respect.
The sun felt the hydrogen atoms fuse and burst on her skin, radiating acidic burns, which dehydrated anything around. With a new soul and an empty pocket she stepped onto the horizon and threw out her rays and laughed at her petty past with the dusk.
I am here! To start afresh! I am woman! Hear me roar!
Haw-haw-haw!
The earth celebrated their bipolar mother, reaching for her fingers of warmth and held them so softly to their cheek and wept forth all the night's coldness.
Meanwhile:
Peter Pettigrew sat by a dead fire and ran a cold finger through the soot. Observing it, he rubbed it between two fingers and seeing its coal-black filth thought this should be him.
Meanwhile:
Alastor Mad Eye Moody, stood inches away from the great lake spreading itself out under his eye. Hogwarts stood silent, save a few 'you-whooo! I'm over here!' windows with a candlelight shining through.
Dumbledore's tomb lay solidly behind him, a vast expanse of cold aquatic-terrain ahead.
Alastor some how realised there was a metaphor in his position. But thought it too trivial to compare to one thing to make the other thing look more worse than the first thing.
"Merlin," Mad Eye muttered in disbelief.
Easing down to a squat, Mad Eye tugged his honking military style boots off and wriggled his toes in the icy fringes of the lake. A wave of chill bugs buried their teeth in his back and Mad Eye wondered.
What is to become of, Harry and his friends, of the Arthur and Molly? Of Tonks and if Remus gets hurt…what of the school? The students? Minerva, what of Severus Snape?
What of, what of. They weren't such daunting questions, once upon a time. The right and just answer always came from Dumbledore. How is there ever going to be another as great as him? And are we ever going to experience any wisdom quite so close as to the stars-in-his-eyes-Dumbledore? Is the Renaissance of the wizarding world over?
We need a learned man with the right mind to rise from these hexed ashes.
Mad Eye thought.
The lake was so smooth, so table-like and flat, Alastor wished for a spell that could freeze the surface so he may skate away. Rivers from the great lake reach all the way to the ocean.
Mad Eye had never wanted to abandon ship. Never. He'd always been the man who went back for the cabin, plunged a scimitar through a pirate and then run but for the cabin boy and then lunge at the pirate's parrot and then run back for the booze, and if the ship went down and there was still a rat to strangle, he would be the one to go down wrenching that rat's neck.
Mad Eye bit his tongue and wished he weren't so well tuned to depression and angst galore FM.
He needed out.
Whether there was a divine force that coordinated the current events is debatable. The timing was perfect, A+, platinum, gold, first, second AND third.
A little jay caught the mad, swivelling eye of Alastor Mad Eye Moody.
The little jay knew a cousin who was bests of buds with the pigeon who lived on Mad Eye's window. He just finished interrogating him and disappeared with a little pop to the ranges surrounding Hogwarts. He was a clever jay and knew that birds apparating into Hogwarts experienced a feral blazing feeling and all their feathers turned to mush.
A light of relief burned on his tiny eye when he saw the rough and tough figure of Mad Eye Moody.
His red wings stained blue clipped the grey surface of the lake, changing gears he angled his body vertical and soared to a colossal height, spinning and yahooing the whole time.
Mad Eye was amused.
After a few shrills of self-congratulations the jay nose-dived for the heavily built rhino of a man. Dropping the letter on the Moody's head, the jay collided into swamp grasses and sighed happily.
Mad Eye fumbled with the letter. He was impressed it hadn't already been torn open and abused by a nosey do-gooder who volunteered to monitor mail activity. Upon recognising the familiar scrawl, Alastor chuckled.
However the upturned face was worked on by gravity, who tied ropes to each whisker and then lunged, pulling the scarred face into a downright sag.
Mel always had to have a different point of view.
That's what had made him so attractive though, Mad Eye mused. Mel was 15 years inferior to Mad Eye, but his fresh, young and challenging ideas was a beacon for the jaded insects. Jaded insects like him.
The letter, requesting, but really demanding, a response felt like an unnecessary weight. In a burst of anger, Alastor tore the letter into 3 equal pieces and dropped them in the shallows of one of the deepest lakes in the world.
"Hah!" Moody laughed, the short, dusty sound bounced off the stony walls that grew from the water.
The jay looked up and saw his tattered letter and cooed softly in defeat. Picking himself up slowly he trudged to Mad Eye's naked foot.
Mad Eye looked down to see the tiny fluff pecking his ankle pathetically.
"You'll be wanting a response of some sort?"
Yep, and quickly too if you don't mind.
Mad Eye's magical eye swivelled to take in the pathetic remnants of Mel's letter. Looking slightly abashed, he half turned to face the jay.
"He should come and see me." Mad Eye said softly.
That all? The jay queried.
"Hmm," Mad Eye said remarking at the intelligence of the animals. Must be something in the air. Suddenly Mad Eye's mad brain formulated a leap of a deduction.
Whirring round, Mad Eye stretched his purple hands out and collected the tiny jay who was just about to launch off. Bringing the tiny bird inches from his nose, "You're a SPY!" He roared, emitting pungent odours.
The jay cringed and then sighed, again, dejectedly.
No. He objected (meekly).
Tremors and twitches shook Mad Eye's pockmark face. Without any further questioning or just argument, he plunged the bird into his jacket pocket and lurched towards the castle.
Mel woke slowly, a little part waking at a time. His fingers found the crevasses made in his cheeks by mother's soft sheets.
"Aah." He murmured happily, stretching out.
He made his way down to the kitchen and pulled out the tea mother had hidden behind the plumbing works under the sink. Shaking his head, he wondered if the nursing home will come sooner than later.
He gathered his thoughts at the table, wondering when he was going to get some sort of response, wondering whether he should take action regardless of Moody's suggestions.
So immersed in the shallow waters of his mind, Mel hardly took in the bedraggled state of his mother as she lumbered into the tiny kitchen. Dirt hung on her hanging cheeks, grass curled asleep in her rollers, dew under her nails and webs from all the spiders in the garden netted around her neck.
With a tiny 'oh?' of alarm, mother took in her state and made for the bathroom.
Mel had reached a decision.
(Rejoice).
He will become a master in all the facts, articles, accounts and theories of the present day. He decided he would have to know before he set out to find its pockmarks. A week of solid study.
Mel inscribed the promise on behind his eyes.
After a week. The organization and preparation would occur.
Mel inscribed that under his first promise.
And then he would set off, to find whatever he needed to find.
(Again, he inscribed the promise on his list.)
On the lesser side of things, he would wait for his little jay and ring up some old folks' homes.
Mel congratulated himself and took a long slurp of his tea. Hardly flinching as the boiling water peeled away his oesophagus.