Whisperings in the Cloud

Whisperings in the Clouds.

Above the forest two shadows crept, lifting the lids of the trees, before dropping them back into the forest canopy, always with a gentle ‘flump’ that seemed little more than a breath of air to those that slept, and woke none but who were already awake.
His first impulse was to reach for broom, flying down, finding out who was there, what they were doing. Before he remembered that that would kill someone, and he would sink into the landscape again, no longer separate from the castle, but so depressed as to merge into the grey walls. They did not imprison - how could they imprison one who was a part of them.
The scar didn’t know what to feel, pressed against cool window, enraged by hot emotion. The rest of his head might explode, but the scar would still be there, a lightning bolt that connected the heavens to the earth, the stars to the rest of the world.
Jagged tears slit his cheeks. He half expected blood to pool on his fingers or the wretched cloth with which he mopped his face. Self-pitying tears that mocked his real feeling of loss, the one that would rise unbidden when he needed to be calm, and would seldom be found when he wanted to be with it alone.
Against the sky the Willow flexed and swept the ground. Like a well-trained cleaner, it swept the debris towards the forest, and he wanted to go with it.
His weakness was around him – friends, school, hopes. His vulnerability, his wanting to be something that others could love, could be proud of. No emotion could convey the wrenching in his heart. His head was devoid of emotion – Dark Lords slept easy tonight.

L'étang reflète,
profond miroir,
la silhouette
du saule noir
où le vent pleure.
Rêvons, c'est l'heure.

Creeping out, he walked past the Gryffindors that were unwilling or unable to sleep in their rooms. Unaware, he took map and compass, setting his course for the forest, where two shapes still lingered, watching over him.
Unaware, not of the shapes, but of the weight of emotion that kept the Dark Lord at bay. Deep love that bent and split his heart had crushed the thief of Death of all inhuman energy that lingered, all capacity for possession of the heart of a human boy.

Below him the castle slept in the waxing light. The lake was dark, mirroring more than the sky, but perhaps his soul, and those of the others that were abroad that night. Away to the mountains, a wind cried plaintively – a child unable to find its mother and howl together. Instead it dreamed, unable to countenance a life of its own. The boy became a man that night, slipping out of his old skin, and into a new one, that bore more blemishes inside and out that a single scar. Unable to remember the words of a friend, and yet stung to meditation on the words of an enemy he flung himself up and away, turning circles and flying higher, listless and useless to all but the ones he couldn’t know.