Red Wine and Withering Flowers

Red Wine and Withering Flowers

on the back of a cotton coaster in the blue TV screen light

I drew a map of Canada, oh Canada

with your face sketched on it twice

A Case of You, Joni Mitchell (redone by Tori Amos)

The TV was a remnant of a Muggle owner, and James hadn't bothered to get rid of it. Sirius liked piddling with Muggle things, like his motorcycle, and he used to play with the TV. He got it to turn on, keeping James and Remus amused with his antics as he took it apart and put it together and played with it until he got it to work. Then they would all watch it, making fun of all the people on it and their silly Muggle going-ons. All the Marauders, together again. Almost all. Peter didn't come quite as often, now, he was very keen on his job in the Ministry.

The television was on as James opened the door, the light from it reflecting in his living room windows through the open doorway. Glancing at the clock briefly, James grimaced. Little under three a.m., good thing Lily was out of town or she'd kill him. He smiled bitterly at that thought. She'd kill him anyway. Drinking all night.

The television was on--he could hear it in the background, and knew that Sirius was asleep on the couch again, his head plastered to a couch cushion, waiting on James. A half-empty glass of wine--the best James had in the flat--was sitting on the coffee table next to him, sparkling strangely in the pale light, dark red like blood. Little ripples spread across the surface at James's footsteps, quietly crashing against the glass. He bent as if to pick it up, then stopped, looking down into it.

This was what he'd wanted, right? To leave that house, to leave all the memories behind. To get away from the smell, the smell of his parents red wine and dark leather and the smell of death that hung in that house. Nobody else could smell it, he knew, but he could, soiling everything, spoiling the wine and the leather. He stared into the wine, brooding darkly. Red wine. He'd wanted to get away, but you could never completely full yourself.

It was his fault they died, he had been stupid. Going out with Lily to see Sirius in the play instead of staying home like he should have, leaving them by themselves. He had been laughing when he got off Sirius's motorcycle at the front door, pushing it open as Sirius drove off. And then. . . he could smell it. Death. Fouling up the air. Tangy, tangible, metallic and dirty in his nostrils, making him want to gag.

What had been the last thing he said to them? he couldn't even remember. All he could remember was Moody, gruff old Moody who had never been meant for these kind of things, talking about casualties and Aurors and risks and tribute, before the old man had turned away and left James alone at the look in his eye. The deaths were senseless, and James had seen the tear spots, still wet on Moody's report, lines and words dark and bold, angry and wet. Even Mad-Eye Moody had cried for the Potters. . . everyone had. Their tears had wound streams through England. Lily had sobbed, Sirius had broken down at the casket, half-furious with grief, screaming and crying and his whole body wracked so no one had dared to approach him. Remus hadn't said anything, saving it for full moon, when James and Sirius had been with him; crying and snarling and growling and ripping at his bonds, tears running down his face as he howled and howled, only the Silencing Charms on the door keeping him safe. They didn't have a forbidden forest anymore, after all. . . and Sirius's eyes had glistened, watching him, and in the end he had to turn away--but James was silent. Everyone cried when the Potter died. . .except James.

He turned away from the wine, sick to his stomach, and left the room, left Sirius snoring on the couch, left the muted TV reflecting in the blood-red wine. The hallway was dark, streaked with thin horizontal slats of pink light from the streetlight outside, horizontal blinds casting black lines across James's body as he turned away from it, into his bedroom, face shadowed. This was dark, too, and he tugged his shoes off at the door, throwing the old trainers across the room with a deadened anger. He could buy new shoes. All his family's money, just sitting in Gringotts, rotting. For all he cared. Socked feet stepped on and over piles of clothes, pushing heavy books and bottled ink pots off his bed.

In here, too, there were the cheap horizontal blinds, sending the pink light slanting across the bed and wall. One of the ink bottles was uncorked, and James stood and watched, uncaring, as it fell, sending a black spill across the carpet, spreading over the gray cheap fuzz. Ink, quills, books, more and more, he had almost stopped using quill and ink entirely because (his father always kept an eagle-feather quill and the silver inkstand on his desk) it was too old-fashioned. Pencils, you couldn't beat the pencil, or the ball-point pen. Cheap, meaningless words, easy to give and easy to forget. All he had left was cheap, meaningless words.

He was still in jeans and his comfortable sweatshirt when he lay down on the bed, head facing the clock. A digital alarm clock. Yet another Muggle invention, a gift from Sirius--no. That's just what he'd told Lily, to answer her curiosity. He didn't want to tell her that he hated everything about the wizarding world and that he didn't care if he never used magic again, didn't tell her that he didn't want to be an Auror anymore, that it didn't matter anyway. Why bother? It was so much trouble, and she'd just ask more questions, like James what about your parents, because she was always too perceptive when it came to things like that, and he had Auror school and things. Too much time to talk about it, to explain everything, and it isn't like you can just sit down and tell someone that your mother used to tuck you in when you were little and that she put a little wine in your tea when you wanted to be grown up, that your father took you upstairs when it put you to sleep. Too much time, too much energy, there were too many emotions that he didn't have time to feel. Not just for a. . . a digital alarm clock.

But no, Lily wasn't here to ask questions anyway. She was out of town, highly important stuff, of course, another Auror mission. She dedicated her whole heart and soul to that. She didn't have the natural talent that James had--but she had the will to make up for it. And, James thought bitterly, I have no will at all.

James turned over restlessly. His bed wasn't big--Lily didn't like his room, said that he should pick it up sometime, and he always said that he was a bachelor, that Lily couldn't take that away from him. So they always went to her flat. She had a nice flat, it was lovely, it was comfortable and warm and it was his second home. It was pretty, all nice wood floors and mood lighting and a big queen size bed with a sea-blue feather comforter and cotton sheets that were always clean. James lived in Lily's flat. . . he just slept in his own. When Lily was gone.

Gone. She'd been gone all week, and only Dumbledore knew where. James used to think that Dumbledore knew everything. But he was out of school now, right? He didn't believe that anymore. If Lily had been there, she would have said sharply that he didn't believe in anything--he knew it. She's the voice inside his head, he always knows what she's going to say, always knows that she's right. But he doesn't say anything.

His eyes were closing, and it was only then that he realized he still had his glasses on. Yawning, he reached up to take them off, the metal cold on his fingers, and it sent a little cold chill down his arm, up to his shoulder and down to the pit of his stomach. He'd had too much wine already. Why do you always drink wine? Sirius used to complain when James got expensive on Friday nights, but James had just shrugged. My parents always drank wine--no, he would say things like I don't like tequila, beer smells like piss, vodka only works in mixed drinks--that sort of thing. Half-truths, but it didn't really matter because it was Sirius. Sirius knew everything.

James and Sirius, he mused. Sirius and James. Potter and Black, Black and Potter, Blotter Remus had joked once. But they were good at blotting things up, smearing the mistakes around until they weren't really anything, hiding the little messes inside their rogue perfections. It had started out James and Sirius, always stuck together as two year olds, five year olds, eleven year olds on the train together. Then Remus, and Peter. Remus, the quiet one who had sat in the corner of their train compartment because everywhere else was full, and Peter, who had lost his rat, came looking in their compartment. And Sirius had taken them in, just like he had taken James in so long ago they couldn't even remember when. Sirius always took people in, Sirius knew just how to make people feel welcome and loved, feel special. It was why the girls loved him, why Lily had smacked him, why even McGonagall had a soft spot for Sirius Black. Everyone did.

All through school, seven years. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, Prongs, the famous Gryffindor Quartet, the troublemakers, the special boys, the Gryffindor Jesters, Lily had called them once. "You don't know how good you have it," Lily had said, "with friends like that. Most people are lucky to find one good friend. . . you have three. Three of the best. You're the golden boys." Then of course Sirius had added: "The scarlet and gold boys," sending everyone into fits of laughter again. Where had those days gone to? Slipped past, fallen behind, the sand in the hourglass. And now. . . now, Remus was alone again. Couldn't be an Auror, like James and Lily and Sirius, no, he was a Dark Creature, after all. And Peter. . . Peter wasn't as talented as James and Sirius, Peter had always had to rely on them. Peter didn't even want to be an Auror. He was at the Ministry now, pushing paper and working for a promotion, too busy for his old friends.

So. Just James and Sirius, then. Sirius on the couch and James in his bed, staring at the clock at four am.

There were flowers by his bed, next to his alarm clock, he could see them glowing faintly in the dark. Magic roses, he'd gotten them for Lily's birthday and she'd loved them. She'd kept them in her flat for weeks, but before she left she gave them to James because they needed watering every day. Oh. James squinted uncomfortably in the dark. Watering every day. Even without his glasses, he could see where the glow was drooping in the dark, falling into the half-full wineglass next to his alarm clock, where their glow faded, pink petals fading quickly, very quickly. If magic roses fell, their petals crumbled into dust, into nothing. Too much upkeep.

James closed his eyes, not staring at them anymore. If he opened them, what was there to see? Crumbling petals in the red wine. Withering flowers and spilled ink. He drank too much wine, Lily would say, especially when she was gone. Lily kept him sane. Without her, he was just. . . just James. Just bumbling James, who tried to blot out the ink spills in his life, but never quite managed it. James, who secretly hated the wizarding world and secretly hated himself. James, with too many scars, just a has-been Quidditch player failing at being an Auror, who was slowly killing himself and slowly losing his smile.

His eyes were open again, and he was staring at a rose petal, glowing faintly in the blood-red wine, sinking to the bottom, glowing eerily in the blood-red liquid, casting a strange red reflection through the side of the glass. James thought of his father, raising a wine glass in toast at James and Lily's engagement party, dignified and paternal as he hugged his son and his future daughter-in-law. His mother, still beautiful and smiling as she wiped away joyous tears, kissing him on both cheeks, and James remembered that he had to bend down because she was so much shorter than he was. He thought of Lily and his mother, sitting at the kitchen table at his old house, planning the wedding, red head next to gray-streaked black, and her smooth, unwrinkled face as she tucked the covers over him, only five years old.

The flat was quiet, the TV quietly flashing in the next room. Next to James's bed, little ripples in the red wine hit the sides, shaking up the crumbling petals gently, and James's body shuddered with sobs, pillow muffling his hoarse, desperate cries.

Tomorrow, Lily would come home. But tonight, James was alone, and he was just another war-orphaned child.