A/N: I got my notebook back tomorrow, so Vivaasa's back in business. I should have another update later today and again on late Sunday.
Disclaimer: It's all JKR's.
VIVAASA
by: carpetfibers
One year, Day 185
The windows tease with flashes of color and streaming music. Reds, greens, and the rare blues; it is Christmas and Yuletide and celebration, and in the evening shadow, he walks the alleys with shoulders stooped. His flat harbors a bare tree, pushed on him by an interfering neighbor. He waters it daily, and despite its increasing decay, he anticipates the pine scent each afternoon when he returns home. He is shopping for a decoration.
He cannot decide upon a bow or a star. An angel feels trite and abused; even the ones that wink and warble familiar carols rest uneasily on his eyes. He remembers past holidays, with trees the height of giants and baubles the breadth of his arms. Enchanted candles that never fail, wicks that never diminish, and peppermint ribbons to tantalize. Presents cascaded from beneath its wide boughs, and it took a full day to break his way through the layers. His father would sit and smoke from a pipe used but once a year, and his mother would play records from a time far past, her tuneless voice humming along.
His tree has one present beneath it, an empty box he re-wrapped; he opened it two weeks early. Its contents drape his throat and when he closes his eyes, he can imagine her fingers resting there, her signature scent of earth and home and warmth enveloping him. She chose green, and unhappily, he tears his gaze away from the window with its cheery display.
The attack is sudden and his feels the tear of his teeth against cheek as the hand strikes him a second time. "I know who you are!"
The woman is small and slight, and her wand is ignored in her purse. Gray streaks her hair, and the wrinkles around her lips pull angrily as she caws. "You're filth, scum- the lowest of the low!"
The crowd, once inanimate and sparse, thickens behind the woman as she counts his sins out loud. "Your family and you- my son died because of you! He was just a boy- just a boy!"
The murmurs grow in volume, the whispers untranslatable, and the force of their hate swallows him. He tastes the metal of blood in his mouth, and he wants only to escape- to explain and excuse away his actions. He was young; he was foolish; he loved his father; he wanted respect and power. He was scared and alone and desperate. He was stupid and reckless and angry, and he wanted someone- anyone- to see him for himself, and not just a reflection of a legacy he had no part in creating or owning.
"Murderer!" The woman yells and her brittle fist breaks his nose cleanly. The thick current of pain and hot liquid spills into his lips, and carelessly, he wipes it clean with his hand. The woman stands back, her early fervor lagging in the face of his passivity. "Filth. . ."
They back away from him as he moves down the sidewalk, the blood seeping down his face. His wand is in his pocket, his fist is tight around it. He does not have to walk; he does not have to spend a second longer in that street with the blinking lights and staring faces. He can leave in a second- disappear into his flat and his anonymous life of meaningless activity. Instead, he opens the nearest door, bells jingling his entrance. The clerk stares first with concern and then recoils from recognition.
"May I use your washroom?" he asks, and then follows the hallway to where the clerk points silently.
Two hours later, he returns to his flat. The tree greets him silently, its meager needles betraying a growing bald patch toward the front. He places his purchases carefully, with a tenderness that leaves him cold and aching, and when he whispers the charm that sets it all aglow, he finds the scene wanting. It is pathetic and cheap; it is beautiful and lovely- it is altogether too much like hers. He stares unseeing and touches the scarf, his thoughts lingering and missing and desiring.
"Happy Christmas," he tells the tree, and distantly, a car alarm sounds.
End Day 185