At Bottom Bridge
Title: At Bottom Bridge
Characters: George/Luna
Word Count: 1,800
Summary: Following the final battle, George finds part of what he’s lost at Bottom Bridge.
For the first few weeks you can’t stand your own silence. You hate the way you’re always waiting for someone to start your sentences for you. Your family are waiting, you know, for you to say the first words, but you can’t: you’re waiting for the voice that is your own and which will not come.
After a while you talk, and then you hate the fact that you can’t finish what you say. It’s as though you can begin an idea but you can’t end it. You wonder if you’re doomed to having half a thought, half an opinion for the rest of your life. Your mother and Ron try to supply the endings to your sentences, but they never get it right. You know that they are not saying what you want to say even if you don’t know what this is.
Soon after this you no longer think why him but think instead why me.
You hate this most of all.
What you don’t hate is walking. At first they all want to go with you, but that’s no good because what you want is silence and no pressure to speak. When they can’t trust you to leave their sight alone Percy is always the one to go with you. Percy talks loudly and at length about Ministry politics and policies, his ambitions, his reports, and what other people at the Ministry think of him. You choose Percy’s company because his talk is the closest to silence that you can get.
Eventually they let you go alone. To begin with it feels like freedom, but soon it feels like running: you find yourself walking further, faster, harder to escape the silence. Your muscles burn as you push yourself over the hills, and the ache in your chest is lack of breath and your own pants are the only sounds that matter in your ears.
You avoid the village, and then avoid the nearby villages and the nearest town as your walks take you further afield. You never choose a route - you let your feet decide, detach your mind from your body and just feel the press press press of the ground. You can walk for hours without stopping, without noticing. You eat what your mother makes you when you get home, but even as your body chews and swallows, your mind is traipsing far away.
“Did you like it, dear? Was it too salty?” she might ask. You forget your answer as you say it. You have already forgotten what you’ve eaten.
One day, after you’ve walked hours and miles, up sets of hills and down the other sides, you come to a stream with a bridge and you stop. You stop because a blonde-haired girl is standing in the middle of the stream with her robes tucked into her knickers. She holds a large upturned straw hat in one hand, and her eyes are on the water. Something shimmers on the river bed, and the girl bends bends, quick as a flash, and pulls something pale-brown and squirming out of the water and drops it with a wet smack into the hat.
It strikes you as the strangest thing you have seen, and you feel that you must not move, but even as you think this she turns around and looks at you with familiar blue-grey eyes.
You’ve Disapparated before you have the chance to remember her name.
Next day, though, you end up at the river by the bridge without thinking of it. She isn’t there, which feels wrong to you so you stop anyway. The place feels expectant and you stare at the river, watching the ripples, wondering what it is that she was catching.
Normally when you stop on your walks you think of Fred and loss and you have to move again until the press press press of the ground against your feet lulls your mind to silence again. Now, though, you are happy to watch the light on the water, waiting without realising that you are waiting until you see her coming down the hill.
One of her Wellington boots is yellow and the other is red.
This does not strike you as odd.
Nor do you think it odd that she does not talk to you, does not - after that first glance - look at you. She gives no sign of knowing that you are there. You watch her roll her robes up her thighs and wade into the water. It must be cold but she does not shudder or falter. She stops when the water is lapping past her knees, and gazes down into the depths, waiting, waiting, then, darting, catches her prey, and drops it into the straw hat.
When you come back the next day it is as though your feet have leaned the path. It is as though you are asleep until you come to the river and wake up and see things that are real, like her dirty-blonde hair and the muddy-brown water and her crumpled, damp robes.
The next day, while you are watching her and she is still acting as though you are not there, you think of Fred.
You don’t mean to, are almost afraid to as this is the first peace you’ve felt and if you think too hard you’ll know that there is something wrong with it.
When you think of Fred, though, it is with an anger fuelled not by the fact you had briefly forgotten, but by the fact that his death has killed the both of you, that you are acting like a ghost even though you’re still alive.
She’s caught another fish, or whatever it is she’s catching, and she twists to look at you now, her hair loose and hanging over one shoulder. The end of it has dipped into the river when she bent down, and you can see drops of water forming on the strands and dripping off onto her robes.
“What are you fishing for?” you ask.
“Freshwater Plimpies,” she says, as though she has been expecting you to speak.
You walk away.
You do not see her watch you go.
“Why are you catching them?” you ask the next day.
She doesn’t answer immediately, because she’s seen one skimming the surface of the river. A quick flick of her hand and there’s another Plimpy in the straw hat.
“To make soup,” she replies.
She says it as though you should have known, and perhaps you should, but you can’t remember ever hearing of Plimpy soup. Perhaps you’ll ask your mother tonight, you think, even as you know you won’t.
“How many does it take to make the soup?” you ask.
She considers. “Enough,” she says at last.
To you this makes sense.
To your surprise and hers, you do ask your mother about the Plimpies that evening. She purses her lips and looks troubled and says that there’s no such thing. When you describe the light-brown creatures at the river Charlie says, “they sound like minnows more than anything else. You and Fr - you used to catch them and keep them in jars. Don’t you remember?”
You do remember the minnows. You and Fred and mud and river banks and jam jars and sunny days and grass and grinning and Mum groaning at not more fish and letting them loose in the pond beyond the orchard.
How could you have looked at the Plimpies and not known that they were minnows, if they were? Had you really forgotten so much, something so simple and boyish and uncomplicated as minnows?
How could you have been so entranced by a girl fishing for minnows? In that there is none of the thrall and the meaning and the understanding that you have felt during your silent days at the river by the bridge. Suddenly you are itching to go back there and to see if it was real. It’s the first time you can remember wanting to do anything since the battle. Since he died.
When you arrive the next day the air feels different. This is a different day and whatever will happen will happen today, you know. She is there, but not in the river like before. Today she is stretched out upon the grass, her welly boots cast aside and her toes pointing towards the sun. Her robes are damp and rucked up above her knees. Her legs are pale and covered in goosebumps, but her arms are stretched above her head as though she is basking in heat.
You stand nearby and feel awkward, towering over her.
“Aren’t you going to fish today?” you ask.
She opens her eyes and smiles up at you. It’s just one smile and you remember a world when you shared thousands, but this one makes something happen to your heart: a leaping, clenching, releasing feeling.
“I think I have enough Plimpies now,” she says.
You forget that you meant to ask whether they were really minnows. You don’t care about minnows: you want to believe that she has caught Plimpies day after day to make soup - you don’t even care about the soup - and it hits you that what you want is for this not to end. You want to know that she will be here and that you can watch her and for a while you will feel whole, not the useless remainder of something which is broken.
She’s still lying there, looking up at you, and then you are on your knees and you feel fury and frustration with yourself and the need to be alive and act like it and then her hand is touching your cheek. You don’t feel that anyone has touched you and only you for months now, and you lean into the touch. Lean too far until her body is beneath your body and her mouth is beneath your mouth. You feel as though you are taking, pushing down down down and she is giving, falling with you. You kiss her until the plunge swoops upwards again, a soaring feeling, winged and hopeful and complete.
When you break away you rock back on your heels and look down at her. She’s staring back at you but she’s smiling and you want to - you do - grin back at her until your cheeks ache with relief at being happy again.
“Would you like to have soup with us?” she asks.
You grin and say yes and offer your hand to pull her up. You carry the straw hat for her and see that the creatures inside are not quite minnows, and as you climb the hill together you think that you can see a face that is yours and yet not your own smiling just as yours is smiling.
Characters: George/Luna
Word Count: 1,800
Summary: Following the final battle, George finds part of what he’s lost at Bottom Bridge.
For the first few weeks you can’t stand your own silence. You hate the way you’re always waiting for someone to start your sentences for you. Your family are waiting, you know, for you to say the first words, but you can’t: you’re waiting for the voice that is your own and which will not come.
After a while you talk, and then you hate the fact that you can’t finish what you say. It’s as though you can begin an idea but you can’t end it. You wonder if you’re doomed to having half a thought, half an opinion for the rest of your life. Your mother and Ron try to supply the endings to your sentences, but they never get it right. You know that they are not saying what you want to say even if you don’t know what this is.
Soon after this you no longer think why him but think instead why me.
You hate this most of all.
What you don’t hate is walking. At first they all want to go with you, but that’s no good because what you want is silence and no pressure to speak. When they can’t trust you to leave their sight alone Percy is always the one to go with you. Percy talks loudly and at length about Ministry politics and policies, his ambitions, his reports, and what other people at the Ministry think of him. You choose Percy’s company because his talk is the closest to silence that you can get.
Eventually they let you go alone. To begin with it feels like freedom, but soon it feels like running: you find yourself walking further, faster, harder to escape the silence. Your muscles burn as you push yourself over the hills, and the ache in your chest is lack of breath and your own pants are the only sounds that matter in your ears.
You avoid the village, and then avoid the nearby villages and the nearest town as your walks take you further afield. You never choose a route - you let your feet decide, detach your mind from your body and just feel the press press press of the ground. You can walk for hours without stopping, without noticing. You eat what your mother makes you when you get home, but even as your body chews and swallows, your mind is traipsing far away.
“Did you like it, dear? Was it too salty?” she might ask. You forget your answer as you say it. You have already forgotten what you’ve eaten.
One day, after you’ve walked hours and miles, up sets of hills and down the other sides, you come to a stream with a bridge and you stop. You stop because a blonde-haired girl is standing in the middle of the stream with her robes tucked into her knickers. She holds a large upturned straw hat in one hand, and her eyes are on the water. Something shimmers on the river bed, and the girl bends bends, quick as a flash, and pulls something pale-brown and squirming out of the water and drops it with a wet smack into the hat.
It strikes you as the strangest thing you have seen, and you feel that you must not move, but even as you think this she turns around and looks at you with familiar blue-grey eyes.
You’ve Disapparated before you have the chance to remember her name.
Next day, though, you end up at the river by the bridge without thinking of it. She isn’t there, which feels wrong to you so you stop anyway. The place feels expectant and you stare at the river, watching the ripples, wondering what it is that she was catching.
Normally when you stop on your walks you think of Fred and loss and you have to move again until the press press press of the ground against your feet lulls your mind to silence again. Now, though, you are happy to watch the light on the water, waiting without realising that you are waiting until you see her coming down the hill.
One of her Wellington boots is yellow and the other is red.
This does not strike you as odd.
Nor do you think it odd that she does not talk to you, does not - after that first glance - look at you. She gives no sign of knowing that you are there. You watch her roll her robes up her thighs and wade into the water. It must be cold but she does not shudder or falter. She stops when the water is lapping past her knees, and gazes down into the depths, waiting, waiting, then, darting, catches her prey, and drops it into the straw hat.
When you come back the next day it is as though your feet have leaned the path. It is as though you are asleep until you come to the river and wake up and see things that are real, like her dirty-blonde hair and the muddy-brown water and her crumpled, damp robes.
The next day, while you are watching her and she is still acting as though you are not there, you think of Fred.
You don’t mean to, are almost afraid to as this is the first peace you’ve felt and if you think too hard you’ll know that there is something wrong with it.
When you think of Fred, though, it is with an anger fuelled not by the fact you had briefly forgotten, but by the fact that his death has killed the both of you, that you are acting like a ghost even though you’re still alive.
She’s caught another fish, or whatever it is she’s catching, and she twists to look at you now, her hair loose and hanging over one shoulder. The end of it has dipped into the river when she bent down, and you can see drops of water forming on the strands and dripping off onto her robes.
“What are you fishing for?” you ask.
“Freshwater Plimpies,” she says, as though she has been expecting you to speak.
You walk away.
You do not see her watch you go.
“Why are you catching them?” you ask the next day.
She doesn’t answer immediately, because she’s seen one skimming the surface of the river. A quick flick of her hand and there’s another Plimpy in the straw hat.
“To make soup,” she replies.
She says it as though you should have known, and perhaps you should, but you can’t remember ever hearing of Plimpy soup. Perhaps you’ll ask your mother tonight, you think, even as you know you won’t.
“How many does it take to make the soup?” you ask.
She considers. “Enough,” she says at last.
To you this makes sense.
To your surprise and hers, you do ask your mother about the Plimpies that evening. She purses her lips and looks troubled and says that there’s no such thing. When you describe the light-brown creatures at the river Charlie says, “they sound like minnows more than anything else. You and Fr - you used to catch them and keep them in jars. Don’t you remember?”
You do remember the minnows. You and Fred and mud and river banks and jam jars and sunny days and grass and grinning and Mum groaning at not more fish and letting them loose in the pond beyond the orchard.
How could you have looked at the Plimpies and not known that they were minnows, if they were? Had you really forgotten so much, something so simple and boyish and uncomplicated as minnows?
How could you have been so entranced by a girl fishing for minnows? In that there is none of the thrall and the meaning and the understanding that you have felt during your silent days at the river by the bridge. Suddenly you are itching to go back there and to see if it was real. It’s the first time you can remember wanting to do anything since the battle. Since he died.
When you arrive the next day the air feels different. This is a different day and whatever will happen will happen today, you know. She is there, but not in the river like before. Today she is stretched out upon the grass, her welly boots cast aside and her toes pointing towards the sun. Her robes are damp and rucked up above her knees. Her legs are pale and covered in goosebumps, but her arms are stretched above her head as though she is basking in heat.
You stand nearby and feel awkward, towering over her.
“Aren’t you going to fish today?” you ask.
She opens her eyes and smiles up at you. It’s just one smile and you remember a world when you shared thousands, but this one makes something happen to your heart: a leaping, clenching, releasing feeling.
“I think I have enough Plimpies now,” she says.
You forget that you meant to ask whether they were really minnows. You don’t care about minnows: you want to believe that she has caught Plimpies day after day to make soup - you don’t even care about the soup - and it hits you that what you want is for this not to end. You want to know that she will be here and that you can watch her and for a while you will feel whole, not the useless remainder of something which is broken.
She’s still lying there, looking up at you, and then you are on your knees and you feel fury and frustration with yourself and the need to be alive and act like it and then her hand is touching your cheek. You don’t feel that anyone has touched you and only you for months now, and you lean into the touch. Lean too far until her body is beneath your body and her mouth is beneath your mouth. You feel as though you are taking, pushing down down down and she is giving, falling with you. You kiss her until the plunge swoops upwards again, a soaring feeling, winged and hopeful and complete.
When you break away you rock back on your heels and look down at her. She’s staring back at you but she’s smiling and you want to - you do - grin back at her until your cheeks ache with relief at being happy again.
“Would you like to have soup with us?” she asks.
You grin and say yes and offer your hand to pull her up. You carry the straw hat for her and see that the creatures inside are not quite minnows, and as you climb the hill together you think that you can see a face that is yours and yet not your own smiling just as yours is smiling.