A Sketchbook of Tears

A Sketchbook of Tears

Rain is just water falling from the sky. I loved to sit in my window seat and watch the tiny drops of water tumble from the sky, knowing that combined, the tiny drops would soak me. I lived at number six Privet Drive. Lovely house. Looked just like number four and number eight. Brown and identical. I loved to play in the yard, amidst my mum's petunias. I would sit in the garden and sketch or read.

I would sketch people coming by or if I was lucky, the neighbors. My favorite subjects were the occupants of number four. Nosy Mrs. Dursley would be at her window spying on my family, so I would catch her horse face peering intently, hoping to spot my mum in a sordid affair with the mailman or my father smacking my mum or me and my siblings around.

Purple-faced Mr. Dursley would arrive home in his expensive car, puffing his fat belly and chest out proudly.

Their son, Dudley was a fat, whiny brat who turned into a fat, whiny bully. He pulled my hair as a child and then a couple years later, would flirt with me.

My favorite of their family was the boy who lived with them. Dad said he was their nephew. I would play occasionally with Harry. He was a quiet, neat boy, with messy, ebony black hair and piercing green eyes, so deep I always hoped some fabulous secret would explode from them. We kept each other company occasionally after school, until we were eleven and Harry disappeared during the year. When he reappeared in the summer, I watched him. He would sit and stare into the sky. He seemed to droop as the years went on.

Especially, the summer he was to turn fifteen and me twelve. I was outside watching the lady across the street with a five-month-old baby walk down the sidewalk.

My brothers, Andrew and Kyle, would always tease me for being a busybody. I replied hotly I watched people for the lessons Life offered. After that summer, I wished never to know the lessons Life had taught Harry. I watched him one day come out and sit after dinner. His eyes were still deep, but there was a definite sadness radiating from them, this time instead of a fabulous secret I feared a horrible enigma would flee. He was slouched in a painful way. I lost sight of him as he crawled behind a hydrangea.

Years later, I married a man named Dennis Creevey. He revealed after we were married that he was a wizard. I laughed at him at first and then was shocked to realize he was serious. Three months after the wedding, we moved to the wizarding part of London. I was amazed the first time I was in Diagon Alley on a gray miserable June day. It was nothing of the supernatural I loved to imagine. It was full of people in cloaks and hats, bustling around. That was when I first saw Harry again after many years. He was hunched over, moving towards a store with many brooms in it.

"Harry? Harry Potter!" I called to him. He turned to me. I smiled at him.

"Hi, Harry. You don't remember me, do you?" I asked. He stared at me for a moment.

"Amie Cash?" he said, surprised. Dennis came up behind me. Harry stared.

"Actually, it's Amie Creevey now. Harry, I should introduce my husband-"

"Hey, Harry. How are you?" interrupted Dennis, extending his hand. Harry slowly took it.

"I'm living," he said, simply. Dennis nodded, a light flaring in his eyes.

I looked at Dennis, curiously. "How do you know Harry?"

He just shook his head, telling me not now. I saw shadows dance across Harry's eyes. A clap of thunder heralded the pouring rain. We said goodbye. I turned, but suddenly an urge to hug Harry overcame me. I stepped in front of him and wrapped my arms around his rigid body. We stood there a moment, the raining soaking us. Dennis stood behind me, his eyes unreadable.

I released Harry and whispered, "It was nice to see you again." He said nothing, his eyes blank. I turned away.

"You're a lot like Ginny was," he whispered and briskly turned.

As Dennis beckoned me along to the Leaky Cauldron, I stopped for a moment and stood in the rain watching my childhood friend disappear again into the crowd. The feeling I had somehow allowed that secret or enigma I so desperately wished to know as a child to flee.

Dennis and I went home. Sitting at the kitchen table, the story of the Wizarding War and the Final Battle flowed over me. The pain and suffering of these people, what I had missed in the world I had known nothing about stabbed at me. Tears rolled down my cheeks at Harry's hardships. How he lost his mother, father, and godfather to this monster. How his life had revolved around killing and surviving. How he had lost his wife and his best friends to an evil almost unheard of in the Muggle world, only to finally vanquish him.

Dennis told me of his part. How he had watched his brother die at the hands of an old schoolmate. How he had been cursed, leaving a scar on his cheek, ever a reminder of the horrors he had encountered.

Later, after Dennis was asleep, I crept to the attic and pulled out a box. In it was a sketchbook and a box of charcoal. I opened the book. The date was June 21, 1991. Harry stared at me with his eyes wide, a smile plastered on his face. He ran through the sprinkler, his innocence so evident in comparison to now. His eyes, full of secrets, smiled at me. I had spent the day sketching him. He had been so patient with me. The majority of book was finished. There were three pages left. I flipped to them. I closed my eyes and saw the stressed, pained, sad look on his face. He looked older than his twenty-five years.

The lines creasing his face around his eyes flowed through my fingers onto each page as I drew Harry's hunched figure, his face close up. An hour later, I stared at the last page, tears in my eyes. Staring up at me, were Harry's eyes. No longer was there even a spark of mischievousness in them. Just pain and sadness. I signed the picture and dated it.

I closed the book. I descended to the second floor to join my husband. I looked out the window and saw the rain pouring down. Rain was no longer just water falling from the sky. They are tears from heaven.

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