Writer's Block 33.1
Banner by renrenren3
Challenge: Missing You
Points: 1st/2nd/3rd/Participation Only: 50/40/30/10 points & 20/15/10/5 knuts, respectively. 2pts for voting.
Deadline: Voting until Sunday, September 20 at 12 noon EDT/ 4 PM UST
Details: Your inspiration for this last Writers Block of the term is simply "Missing You"!
Between work, walking every day, and getting ready for school...wow where did the time go?
Entry 1:
Title: He Used To Complain But Now He Doesn't
Terry knows people think he complains a lot. In a way, it is true, and also not true. He used to complain, but now he doesn't. Things have changed too much for him to complain about mundane things anymore.
It feels stupid to complain about the weather, or the Muggles, or the Ministry, when so many people lost their loved ones at the Battle of Hogwarts. Fred Weasley, Colin Creevey, Lavender Brown, Professor Lupin - all gone.
So Terry settles to his new life after the war as a Potions Master. But there are nights when he misses his old comrades so much it's almost like a physical pain. The Dreamless Sleep Potion becomes his new friend.
Entry 2:
Title: An Empty House
Dear Hermoine,
Your father and I just can't seem to get used to this empty house without you in it. We are so very proud of you and all that you are accomplishing at Hogwarts. We know that you must be earning top marks in all your classes and that you must be working hard every day. We didn't realize just how much we would miss you until you were gone. I keep thinking of things I need to pick up at the store for you and then realizing you aren't home to be needing them. Extra pens, a new bookmark, a fun looking organizer; they all remind me of you.
I know that there is a lot about your new life as a witch that your father and I won't understand, but if you need to talk about anything we are here for you. There are some things that us "Muggles" have in common with "Wizards." So if you need to talk about just normal things: boys, stress, whatever, we are here.
I now have to figure out exactly how to send this using the "Owl Post." Hope to talk to you soon dear.
Love,
Mom
Entry 3
Title: Her Grandson
Andromeda had always wanted another child, but Nymphadora was a handful and by the time she and Ted could breathe again, it was too late. They tried but it didn't take. So Andromeda gave all of her love and affection to her only daughter.
Then she was taken from her, wrenched away in the same year as her husband. Suddenly, Andromeda found herself as a mother again, well, a grandmother with a baby, starting all over. She put everything she had into Teddy. She had to. She had no other choice.
But she saw her husband in Teddy's eyes and the way he cried when he wanted food (not that Ted cried, but he was a grump when he was hungry). And she saw her only daughter in the way Teddy shifted his nose into a pig's snout and his laugh and the dimple on the side of his chin.
Sometimes Andromeda couldn't even look at her grandson because of how much she missed Ted and Nymphadora. Other times, she simply couldn't let him go.
Entry 4:
Title: Wishing Counts for Nothing
Harry wakes up at seven, dresses, and eats. Today is his graduation from the Auror Academy. He feels mostly excited, but that is not all he feels. He also feels quite lonely. He knows Ginny will be there, and Hermione. Ron is graduating with him. All the Weasleys are coming. (But that is a lie. Fred is not coming.) Andromeda is bringing Teddy. A part of him, though, considers how proud his parents would have been. How proud Sirius would have been. It is hard now, after this time, to not think of Sirius as part of "his parents". He had lived most his life without any knowledge that he even had a godfather, and now Sirius was inextricably linked to the family Harry had never had but always wanted. He still misses Sirius. He thinks that if he could have one wish, it would have been for Sirius to see this day. And he has known enough loss to understand that wishing counts for nothing, and missing never ends.
Entry 5:
Title: there's a grief that can't be spoken
The war had wiped out much of their generation, so the church was not as full as it had been at their wedding - that simple church in Godric's Hollow that James and Lily loved so much. Remus Lupin sat at the forefront of the church, alone. The last of their group. There were professors from the school, Aurors from James' work, some of their acquaintances from school. No family - Lily was the only one with any immediate family, and Petunia never responded to their invitation. Not even little Harry was here to say farewell.
Remus stood in front of the plots of land and waved his wand. A wreath of lilies, encircled with stag antlers settled by the headstones, and then flicked his wand, causing the land to seal over. He had said goodbye to his last friends. Now he was alone.
Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me
What your sacrifice was for
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will sing no more
Entry 6
Title: Getting Through
They say that the number of people to show up at your funeral directly correlates to the kind of person you are.
Well, were...
Also a judge of a person was the mood of those in attendance. Obviously, there is always sadness involved, but the joy of knowing the person helped to lighten the air.
In the case of Fred Weasley, the air was electric... and not because of the fireworks Lee Jordan had just set off behind the buffet table.
There was laughter in the air, as one memory of the young man's hijinks prompted another memory, which reminded someone of a thing that needs confirmation from someone else, as if it would be less unbelievable, otherwise.
Molly stood in the corner, watching her son's legacy playing out in front of her, though not seeing any of it. She gave a smile any time her name was mentioned and, whenever she realized that she hadn't heard the words directed her way, made an excuse that a plate of food needed to be refilled, and she disappeared into the kitchen to regroup.
She would get through this day if it killed her.
Again...
Entry 7
Title: Home
The house seemed strange to her at times. They had bought it together, soon after their wedding, and made it their home, laughing and quarreling over the furnishing like a true married couple. Home. It had begun to feel like home, her true home, so quickly, had so quickly helped Andromeda let go of her past and devour the present, to look into a future that lay so brightly ahead of them. Home. Home could have been anywhere, as long as only they were together, and yet their house had made it special.
But those times were gone, seemed like a dream to her now, a distant memory of a life long past. Her house was no longer home, no longer the place that once made her feel safe, always, even in times of war, that had once been filled with such laughter, such joy and such warmth. Her house was no longer her home. Now... Now the emptiness seemed to overwhelm her, now the laughter had faded and the light given way to darkness, now the warmth had turned into the biting cold of grief.
The house seemed strange to her at times, so strange without Ted's quiet voice calling for her, without the gentility of his touch at night in their bed or Dora's cursing after once more stumbling over an obstacle she had failed to see, without the constant sounds of liveliness within her home. The house seemed so strange to her at times, so empty. So terrifyingly empty.
Andromeda had screamed at first, had screamed and broken down as she had processed at last what had happened, screamed on top of her lungs as though to scream were capable of bringing them back, as though the house were to answer her... But the walls had echoed with nothing but silence. Nothing but despair. She missed them, missed them so beyond belief, felt as though she were drowning, as though she had lost any hold, missed them so... She missed home.
Entry 8
Title: Pieces of paper stole all your smiles and colours
There are not enough photos of Colin Creevy, Dennis realizes, and there’s a hint of an irony, a blasphemous joke in that fact, but Dennis can’t remember how to laugh.
He closes his eyes and he can hear the click of the camera and screams. He closes his eyes and he remembers the days, months, before the second of May. He can recall the Wood’s cellar and the once Gryffindor Quidditch captain telling them that things would be alright with a faltering smile but an honest look. He remember Colin, always so small and tiny but not as tiny as Dennis, instructing him what to do in case they got captured.
“But that won’t happen,” Colin had promised.
And he had kept his promised. They had escaped their house filled with terror and anxiety but they had escaped successfully, celebrating later that little victory as Oliver Wood served them conspicuous amounts of butterbeer.
“You never promised you would come back alive,” Dennis whispers because even if he were speaking in a normal tone his brother wouldn’t hear him.
He sighs and stares at the photos that don’t move, the ones that were taken before magic and Hogwarts meant something to them, back when they were an ordinary but complete family.
He picks some photos without looking at them because it is almost May and the memorial wall awaits for its photographic cemetery of heroes and heroines.
There are not enough photos of Colin Creevy, and the pictures that do exist can’t even depict a glimpse of his bravery and kindness but Dennis knows about them and it is almost a relief that the rest of the world doesn’t. He can keep that to himself, he can gather warm hugs and meals shared, and jokes that made him stop crying. He can give strangers a bunch of photos of a boy who used to take them and he can hoard those littles bits the memorial won’t show and try to fill an endless void that is almost one year old.
Entry 9
Title: One Year Later
It had been one year. One unbelievably long, hard year. One year without his other half, without the one person who knew him almost better than he knew himself.
He was alone today. By choice. Everyone else - family, friends, neighbors, strangers - were on their way to Hogwarts, to take part in the one-year anniversary memorial the Ministry was holding. It was nice of them to do that, George thought, to honor all of those who had given their lives, whether in battle or just because they were in the wrong spot at the wrong time. They all deserved to be remembered, and George had no doubt it was going to be a beautiful, yet heartbreaking, ceremony.
But he didn’t want to be surrounded by hundreds of people, listening to their stories or seeing their tears. He didn’t want to have to see the pity and the grief, and he didn’t want to have to remember that awful day that was forever seared into his memory.
No, he wanted to spend this day by himself, with his brother, remembering the good times they’d had, the amazing moments they’d lived.
He waited until the rest of his family was long gone before he went rummaging through the attic in The Burrow. Box after box after box, filled with trinkets and old toys and items that had been so destroyed they weren’t even recognizable, but their mum had kept them anyway.
Finally, he found what he was looking for. It was just a plain brown box, a little ragged, a lot sagging, but inside …
Inside were all the remnants of every creation he and Fred had ever failed on. Every joke gone wrong, every potion that hadn’t worked, every toy that had accidentally exploded. George pulled them out one by one, each one making the corners of his mouth turn up just the slightest bit more.
The attempt at creating an acid pop that had burned Fred’s finger, the jack-in-the-box that starting hitting people and wouldn’t stop, the very first puking pastille that turned Ginny purple.
It was all in the box, all their hard work, all their long nights. They had come so far, together, but it had started small, just the two of them in their bedroom, giggling under the covers long after they were supposed to be asleep.
George looked out the window. It was getting late. The family would be returning soon. He packed up the box as gently as he had unpacked it, and slipped it back into his hiding spot.
“I will never not miss you,” he told the empty attic before he turned to head downstairs. “But I will make you proud.”
There was no answer to this declaration, but there didn’t need to be. George had a feeling his brother already knew.
~~~~~
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