Set in Stone

Set in stone

I. Flitter

It's a little too bright and sunny for autumn; the heat feels unnatural and uncomfortable, yet if you remove a single piece of the protective layer of clothing you feel the tinge of cold winter edging the hot days.

The stairs were moving. A too bright ray of sunlight through an open window blinded him for a second. The boy had no idea where they were going, or were he was heading. It was still a little hard to find the way to different classrooms in the large building. He felt lonely and a little homesick.

"Give it a little time," his mother said the last time he talked to her. But he wasn't so sure. Time is a relative concept after all, and when every day is filled with an eternity of hours ends and changes seems ungraspable, like a ray of sun, flashing for a brief moment in dusty old portrait frames, taking with it the last reminiscence of summer.

The stairs moved towards another set. On top of it he saw two boys, dressed in black robes. He couldn't make out what house they were in, but they looked old enough to be in the upper classes, they might be able to show him the way.

He waved, but they didn't look in his direction. He could see that they were standing really close. Suddenly one of them grabbed the other's hands. It looked like they were going to fight. But none of them moved. Then the hand-grabber brought the other boy's hands up to his lips and kissed them gently. The other one put his head on his shoulder. The boy watching blushed, feeling hot and cold, embarrassment twirling in the pit of his stomach. Like the time he walked in on his parents, kissing in the kitchen.

When the two sets of stairs connected he ran up to the top, but the boys had disappeared. It didn't matter since he had landed by the Charms corridor anyway and his classmates were just tumbling noisily into the classroom.

II. Shooting Stars

The nights leave the early morning gardens covered in a layer of frost. Like tiny splinters of broken glass had been glued to everything that once was living outside. The nights are crisp and cold, cloudless as if all the water spends all its power covering the grounds.

Sometimes it is hard to stay awake during the midnight lessons in the Astronomy tower, but not this time. An interesting and rare conjunction between two stars during a moonless winter night made the usually sinister Astronomy professor so blushingly enthusiastic that everyone got caught up in her cheery mood. "No one will see this happen for another 400 years," she said. Somehow that made them feel important, like history would be written that night, right in front of their eyes, even if it just consisted of two specks of light, briefly becoming one against a black backdrop.

Just before they started the long trek up the stairs a chilly gust of wind tore right trough his cloak and made him remember the jumper he left in the Common room. He excused himself to his friends and ran back to get it.

On his way up the stairs he saw them again. They were standing in one of the niches, like he heard couples were prone to do on Saturday nights. But this was an ordinary Wednesday, with teachers and students running around the tower. He hoped they were aware that people was using the tower for its ordinary purpose that night. Not that the Astronomy teacher would have seen them, since she probably had been up there for hours, positioning the brass telescopes and preparing for the evening event.

He could hear soft whispers, muted laughter and the rustle of woollen robes when he came closer to the couple. The two boys were embracing. When he passed them, as quickly as he could, not to disturb them, one of them looked up, saw him and smiled. He smiled back, grateful that they hadn't said anything. He continued walking, thinking about how happy they seemed to be, glad that he brought his jumper, since a chilly draught seemed to seep down the stairs.

III. Snowdown

It has been snowing during the night. Outside the air is fresh and clean, like crispy clean cotton sheets. Inside the smell of wet wool and cooked cabbage penetrates the halls, corridors and dorms, cloying and clammy against skin that never seems to get warm enough or dry enough under the grey stonewalls during the drab and colourless days of winter.

It was just after lunch, and the first-years were walking slowly to Herbology class in one of the greenhouses. He saw two people dressed in black making their way to the Quidditch Pitch, and realized it was the two boys he had seen before. They were kissing, this time. Really kissing. It looked like they were trying to devour each other, passionately and wholeheartedly. The boys might have felt his eyes since they looked up, turned and waved. He waved back.

When something cold and wet smacked into his neck, he screamed, turned, forgot the boys completely and started throwing snowballs with the others until the teacher emerged from the Greenhouse and told them that she would start class with or without them.

IV. Sparkling

Christmas comes with candles, roaring fires and more food than you can imagine. Not to mention relatives. Their booming voices penetrating every nook and cranny of the old house. Laughter, arguments, old stories, old grievances and old jokes surfacing and blowing over just as quickly. The children indulged, yet ignored.

The next day everything was wonderfully silent.

He walked up to his mother, who was sitting in a big leather chair in the study, reading. He peeked over her shoulder. The book in her lap was an old photo album. She sneaked an arm up around his neck and he hid his face in her hair, like he had done when he was little. She looked so sad, and he wanted to cheer her up.

He crawled up onto her knee, hugging her. Playing with her hair. She hugs him back. When you're eleven you're surely not too old to sit in your mother's lap? At this time it was hard to tell who needed it more.

V. Springs eternal

In a couple of months the term will be over. If you could judge by the shrill voices and amounts of laughter surrounding the grounds, the winter garments, now shed, had confined the voices as well as the warmth inside the bodies.

And then comes the day when the parents are swarming all over the grounds, poking into wardrobes and closets, telling stories of their own school days, remembering, reflecting, scrutinizing, intruding - even if you're happy too see them. He walks past the castle, past the Quidditch Pitch with his mother. She tells him stories, points at things, asks questions, small smiles and sometimes sadness flowing over her features like summer clouds.

They walk alongside the forest's edge, until they come to a low stonewall and a wrought iron gate that creaks on rusty hinges when they open it. He follows her inside, holding her hand.

Under the straight and smooth trunks of the linden trees rows upon rows of grey stones adorn the green grass. Some have flowers in front of them; others have small trees. Some are very old and covered with moss, half fallen, lettering almost gone with age.

His mother holds his hand in a firm grip. They stop in front of a small stone. Two names. She bows down, letting her fingers linger over the letters, moving her lips, almost reading them out loud. The flowers she brought with her are placed in a vase. She's murmuring words, pointing her wand at the glass that fills with water. She ruffles his hair, sighs, hugs him and kisses the top of his head.

He hugs his mother back. Her sorrow still seems to ache in every part of her body, even after fifteen years. But some day he will tell her, not to be sad, not to be afraid, not to cry anymore. He knows. He had known ever since the boy turned his head at him and smiled in the Astronomy tower. You cannot be brought up surrounded by stories and pictures and mementos without recognizing the one that that starred in almost everyone. Not that green eyes and dark hair is so uncommon, but in combination with glasses and a distinctive scar there could be no mistaking. He figured out who the other boy, the pretty, almost girlish one, with straight silvery hair, grey eyes and pointy features was after a while. His parents barely mention him and he is seldom a part of their stories.

The wind rustling the leaves might almost be forming words. He could almost hear murmuring soft whispers, silent laughter and the rustle of woollen robes followed by the muted music made by skin on skin.

Fin