poetry & inspiration
From malecrit & narcissam: What poets do you have on your shelves? For the purposes of this list, they should be there by your choice (as opposed to being texts for courses, etc) and be either the collected or selected works of one single poet (anthologies and collections do not count, nor do Selections from Works which include, but do not consist exclusively of,
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There is still an acid-eaten hole in the Muggle diary that used to be Tom Marvolo Riddle’s home, but he is far from gone. Ghosts and memories live forever in their intangibility, existing like myths in the tendrils of the mind. The mythical supercedes the real, always, always, because the real is bound by ideas like truth, verification, observation, skepticism and the mythical pulses with the blood of belief.
Bellatrix starts to explain this to Gilderoy, but he already knows that there is no difference between what is real and what is remembered. He knows better than most. (His fame is unreal because it is unremembered. His deceit is real because it is unforgotten)
She asks only one question before they begin: “You remember him well?” He nods and she places the wand to his temple. He feels a dull push against his skull, and from the corner of his eye he can see her hand recoil like after a gunshot in Muggle movies, but when she pulls the wand from his bruised skin a glittering thread that grows heavier with every tug emerges. She drops her wand and the thread breaks into a cloud of particles, a haze that forms the figure of a man.
A memory: taller, taller than Tom Riddle really was because Gilderoy can still remember looking up at Tom, so tall and beautiful and impervious, the prefect badge heavy and important above his heart, those old-fashioned pockets, the pomade in his hair like a 1940s Hollywood movie-star, just a little more perfect than Tom Riddle really was, just a little softer around the mouth and harsher around the eyes than Tom Riddle really was, and just a little, a tiny little bit, just a little bit more in love with Gilderoy than Tom Riddle really was but there is no difference between what is real and what is remembered any more.
He grows more solid as Gilderoy melts into the grimy floor of the rented room, the rented life which he lived for the last twenty years, a borrowed coat that never suited him well. He smiles when Tom looks down at him, for there is no remembrance in those eyes, or in the touch of his hands.
Bellatrix touches Tom’s shoulder as Gilderoy’s outline begins to vanish, as much to reassure and control as to make sure that he’s really there. “There is a war to be won, my Lord.”
Tom steals Gilderoy’s last breath and makes it his own, cradling him in his arms. “I’m going to make you famous,” he says.
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