Stones

Ron and Hermione didn´t like it. They complained that my fingers would stain everything in the house, that the stones would be forgotten everywhere, that cherries were a sign of depression, that I´d leave the Ministry job that I diligently allowed a small part of my brain.

They didn´t like the thought of Remus and I together kissing among blossoms; they said that it was just a fleeting love, like Harry; that we had probably lost our minds. Once, Hermione said that such things should not exist in a house such as this. I merely glanced at stared at her, my eyes screaming of Tom, of the Weasley family´s almost-extermination, of Harry´s sacrifice to save the wizardring world. Hadn´t those things existed in this house?

When he comes for his next visit, I sit at the table, hair perfect, my best robes on, and my purple fingers, as usual, in a bowl of cherries. He smiles as he enters, takes one of my fruits, and leads me gently to the room where my brother and his wife sit like judges.

He sits me next to him, his arm around me, but his face is pale and I do not know what he thinks. He is assailed by remarks from Ron about spoiling, destroying my innocence. What innocence is left?

I am like the stone of a cherry; the sweet flesh has left me, and only the bitter skeleton is left behind.

So I throw my arms around my love´s neck and laugh at what he declares to be true. Hermione looks at my pityingly, as if I have gone insane.

He comforts me, whispering tales that are parts true and fantasy, and I quiet. How could this faded blossom of a man control me so, as if I were the violin and he the master?

Where is the girl who would have laughed in his face?

The answer has been there so long that I could recite it like some crazed schoolgirl: Tom created her, and Harry Potter killed her. It is as simple as that, as simple as the sky is blue.

So I sit like an injured bird in my werewolf´s arms, and begin to sob for what could have been. Why did they all have to die?

And why do the ones remaining have to sit in empty houses and work at empty jobs and think remorseful thoughts about the might-have-beens?

My brother begins to fidget; Hermione is stronger than I am and does not cry. The two leave, possibly to comfort eachother and assure themselves that their existence is better than any might-have-been. They will make love in the safe confines of their room, and I will sit here with my love and talk of stones.

Truly, stones are not all as bitter as one might think. The stones in fruits are bitter, but each has the promise for new life, new sweetness, eventually. Are the two of us the stones of our generation, the promise to bring forth new life in our turn?

I stroke his greying hair and laugh, quietly. He undoes the knot that took me hours in the morning, and we sit, stroking eachother´s hair, laughing. The bitter and the sweet, a life, a love, a joy that should not exist but does.

We kiss again and again, and I know for certain that I can taste the sweetness of cherries in his mouth. But his eyes like the stones of our love´s fruit, slightly bitter, but laughing, mocking the world.

Remus´ eyes are the stones of the cherries.