Scarlet Woman

For the rest of the walk home in vast blots of rain, I instructed my inner voice to silence itself. It seemed to cause nothing but trouble, after all. I wanted to clear my mind of the electrical bolts of chaos swarming through it before I went completely mad. Using my limited powers of meditation, I focussed one sole image in my mind. A cake. It was a small cake, most probably Sponge with layers of sticky raspberry jam and fluffy butter cream. No icing, but a sweet dusting of powdery sugar like a blanket of fresh snow. With a cherry on the top- plump, red, glossy and wholly inviting.

Which was exceedingly good, but there was only so much of a cake you could picture. Before my own eyes, the cake began to waver and distort. Being seventeen, heterosexual and male, the cake became a breast. Which reminded me of women. Which, of course, reminded me of my own scarlet woman, who coincidentally was the mother of Ginny.

Ginny! Oh God. Ginny..

And I wasn't supposed to think about Ginny, was I? No. I wasn't ready to panic yet. I just didn't have the energy to howl for a love lost.

So over the fields of mud I went, forcing myself to imagine the scent of the cake, the taste, the texture. The sound it made when the knife cut into it, scattering crumbs. Who the cherry would go to when it was cut into slices, or whether the cherry itself would be cut into tiny red slivers.

By the time I got home, I was feeling thoroughly sick. I seemed to be seeing cakes everywhere- every bloody thing was related to cake. A nice way to take my mind off the impending chaos had turned into a worrying confectionary obsession that I wasn't sure would shift in time.

"That you, Neville?" Gran called from the sofa. She was holding a glass containing a pinkish liquid which I had not seen her drink before. If I had not been in cake wonderland at the time, I might've been concerned for her. Gran always had a little nightcap before she went to bad, but I hadn't seen any alcohol in the house for a while and was beginning to worry about what exactly she was drinking of late.

Gran nodded towards the coffee table, on which was placed a colourful box, a plate and a knife.

"Slice of cake?"

Cake?

Cake cake cake cake cakey cake-cake. Gran had the same amount of letters as cake. And the same vowel. And come to think of it, her hair was the same colour as meringue.

I pinched my upper arm, trying to remove any thoughts of cake from my mind. Resist the forces of confectionary, Longbottom. Focus.

"No, thanks, Gran."

Mrs. Weasley made cakes, didn't she? My secret lover. Yes, I had told Ginny about that. And possibly ruined my life. But it wouldn't do me any good to think about that now. Pulling myself together, I gritted my teeth and tried to make sensible conversation.

"Gran, what are you drinking?"

Gran shrugged, a very uncharacteristic gesture if you knew Mae Longbottom, and passed me her glass. A strong, vinegar scent hit my nose immediately and caught in the back of my throat. A sip burnt my throat with harsh acidity, and I realised exactly what it was:

The liquid that preserves tinned beetroots.

Choking on the foul liquid, I coughed for over a minute and then spat it out into a pot-plant when she wasn't looking.

"Gran," I asked tentatively, voice raspy with the effects of the beetroot concoction, "do you think you might have a drinking problem?"

The cake was beginning to fade in my mind, and the dusky pinks and yellowed whites of the room came back into view. Gran ignored my question, spreading marmalade on to a scone. It was then that the thoughts I had been trying so hard to avoid came bursting into my head with a vengeance, stronger and more bitter than any quantity of beetroot pickling juice.

What had I done to Ginny? Her mother and I were walking on thin ice before, but now I had slipped through with no sign of rescue. I couldn't swim. I had hurt her son, my friend and now her daughter, my future.

Why had I done it? Any of it- why sleep with Mrs. Weasley, in the first place? I could have said that I'd lost my inhibitions, happens to the best of us sometimes, after all. But it wasn't completely true. Yes, I had been swept up in the passion of the moment and there was no way that I was thinking straight when it happened. But I did know it was wrong before we did it, during the time we were doing it and those painstaking moments after, staring at that crack in the ceiling from under the paisley quilt; wondering.

So what was going to happen to this Neville Longbottom I never imagined I could become?

"Gran?" I asked again, taking her elegant hand in mine. She frowned at the physical contact, but did not break it.

"If... If you ever found out that I.. I did something really, really bad," I paused, tracing the edge of her wedding ring, "would you still-"

If she would still 'love' me was the wrong question. Gran prided herself on being a strong woman, and therefore not showing any weak emotions. Love, in her case was one of these, and she had never shown me love in any affectionate or sentimental way, shape or form. She did love me, and I knew that but she did not like to be reminded that she could feel that way. I didn't dislike her for her 'heart of stone', in fact I admired her. It just made me a little more desperate for affection, which, as I knew full well had proved not be the best of cravings.

Instead, I signalled to her with my eyes what I meant. Surprisingly, she read me well, and instead of asking me where I got that unsightly eye twitch, she gave a silent nod. For the few seconds that she nodded her head, her face seemed to soften a little. If I had blinked I'd have missed it, but the gesture meant more to me than any "Of course I would still love you, darling," would. Because it was so typically Gran, teamed with the way she quickly set her face back to its harsh graveness and released my hand as quickly as I had taken it- but not before giving it the tiniest of squeezes.

"Thanks."

*

That momentary comfort soon faded into dust. Angsty Neville made a sharp comeback, continuously asking "What happens now?"

I didn't know. It wasn't in my nature to know what to do when something went wrong. I much preferred the option of running around like a headless chicken and waiting for the problem to go away. It was far too tempting to go and bury my head in the sand, except for the fact that it would probably irritate my asthma. Finding a cave and becoming a hermit was another option, though I was none too fond of the dark either.

Neville Longbottom, ladies and gents, the boy who is too cowardly to be a coward!

But why should I have to deal with this problem on my own? It was Mrs. Weasley's problem just as much as it was mine. Talking to her would help, of that I was certain. It was just a case of finding the right words and the confidence to use them.

Without giving it any more thought, I grabbed my quill and ink from the window sill and began the search for a piece of parchment. There had to be some somewhere- it wasn't like I wrote copious amounts, after all. But I was wasting time, and eventually ripped the back off an Every Flavour Beans packet in great haste. I dipped my quill, sucked to the spine, into the ink and scrawled a quick note.

Mrs. W

Need to talk

Meet you at Wendy House

Urgent

N

*

The Wendy House had been discarded by the children some time ago. It sat miserably at the edge of the playground, forever surrounded by happy laughs and squeals from the swings and slides. The door was now rusty and creaked eerily when finally opened. You had to be very careful when stepping inside if you did not want to bump your head on the low ceiling. Which is exactly what I did, fool that I am. And rather painfully, too.

The one bonus of the Wendy House was that it had a roof, and therefore a shelter from England's perpetually bad weather. Its biggest disadvantage was the child size furniture. The chairs were not designed to fit my bottom, and strained under my less than waif-like physique.

Whilst I mused over my Goldilocks situation, I began to worry that she wouldn't turn up. For a start, I shouldn't have trusted Oscar to find The Burrow. Oscar, our family owl shared my terrible memory and incompetence in most ordinary things. If he had managed to deliver the note correctly, who was to say that it hadn't fallen into the wrong hands?

I turned my attentions to a red plastic teapot sitting on the low table. It was patterned with six garish, yellow ducks, that had been enchanted some time ago to quack. Today, they gave a lacklustre performance, a definite croak to their quack as I turned the teapot over to see scrawled on the base "VW". Virginia Weasley.

"Blimey. Door's a bit low, isn't it?"

Once again, Mrs. Weasley's spontaneous appearance shocked me to the bone. Which was rather unfortunate, as I took the tiny chair tumbling to the floor with me. Goodbye, dignity. You and I don't really seem to get on, do we?

There I was, a tangle of limbs and split pine, blinking up at the woman who given and taken so much at the same time. She was wearing what looked like the first items off the family laundry basket- Ron's Chudley Canons sweatshirt hung to her knees over what may or may not have been a pair of checked pyjama bottoms. And on her feet she wore Ginny's lovely red wellies, now coated with clumps of mud. All in all, she wasn't pulling off the temptress look too well.

"There goes a relic of my childhood," I flashed a sheepish grin, brushing myself off. She responded with a smile so awkward it wobbled between us for at least a minute.

"You do take me to classy places," she remarked, tracing the splintery initials carved into the wooden wall with her fingers.

"Yes." I laughed- a short, foghorn burst of laughter that was all over the place, much like myself.

"Mm." Mrs. Weasley tilted her head to one side, trying to read me with the laser eyes of a mother.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?"

Where did I start?

"Well.. Quite a lot, really. No, everything. I've made quite a mess of things, Mrs. Weasley."

I was suddenly brought back to that explosive moment in her bedroom, when her hand was just inches from my face. She was angry, I was scared and confused.

"But who do you think they'll believe, you or me? You won't even be able to speak to them. And it all looks a bit suspicious, doesn't it, a happily married family woman on the one hand. What's on the other, Neville? A boy they've been expecting to turn bad for years. They're just waiting for you to turn out like your mum and dad."

Even as I stood there, on that Persian rug, I knew she was right. And now, I knew that once the rumour spread itself like some foul disease, they would all be shaking their heads at how sweet Neville Longbottom turned out.

"Ron knows, Mrs. Weasley. He saw us at Christmas, and I told him everything. I told him it was all my fault- well, you're his mum, I had to. I know it really hurt him- do you know how worried I was, am? What we did wasn't right. It was selfish, wasn't it? It was pleasure and it was comfort. We're not bad people, Mrs. Weasley. You make cakes!" I pointed at her, caught up in my spiel. "You make cakes for people. Everybody always talks about how lovely you are. So why do this to yourself? It's not like we love each other. No, what makes it worse is that I'm in love with someone."

I gestured to the teapot on the table, and her eyes widened with the revelation.

"Ginny." She said, in less than a whisper. I nodded.

"She's all I ever wanted. I could've had her too," I added bitterly, "if I hadn't ruined everything. Tonight, Mrs. Weasley, I told her how I felt. There was a mud fight, and we kissed. I bought her a Gillywater- I didn't think you'd mind. I think.. I think she liked me too. It was perfect- except that I kept thinking of you. Of us. I felt so guilty that I.." I looked straight into her eyes, feeling the little lightning bolts between us flicker and jump, stronger than ever before.

"I told her too, Mrs. Weasley. I said.. 'Ginny, I don't think I can do this. It's not wrong, it's what I've done with your mother that is. I've shagged her'. Can you imagine? I said shag. I don't even say sex!"

For some bizarre, unknown reason, I found myself begin to laugh. And so did she, until our riot filled the Wendy House with unhinged howls. There wasn't even anything particularly funny in what I was saying- quite the opposite. But it had us in stitches. Imagine, a chubby, incompetent boy-next-door and a jovial, cake-making mummy's affair causing so much trouble!

"Mrs. Weasley.." I gasped, clutching my side. She looked up from the pile of cushions on the floor, propping herself up with a dimpled elbow. "This isn't very funny, really."

"No no.. It's a very serious matter. We must mend this mess we've made immediately." I looked at Mrs. Weasley's grave expression, and the laughter started again. I began to wonder if we were fully sane.

"Oh dear.. Neville. I never thought I'd be in a situation like this. I was so happy with Arthur and the children- well, it may have been a bit boring but I wasn't considering taking up a toy-boy, I can tell you that. I'm very sorry it had to be you, you really are such a nice lad. And you're right, I don't really suit being a scarlet woman." She tugged at the Canons sweatshirt for emphasis. "Neither of us are the brightest penny in the jar. Maybe that's what started it- not really knowing what we wanted.."

She trailed off, turning Ginny's teapot over in her hands.

"I suppose now would be a sensible time to stop this, sweetheart. And don't you worry about picking up the pieces, I've got excuses pouring out of my ears. I may not have seemed like it, but I was worrying just as much as you were."

She gave me a weak smile, and the room which had previously rocked with laughter fell awkwardly silent. Neither of us knew what to say or do, but found comfort in each other's presence. Maybe we could pick up the pieces and make everything alright again.

"Ginny'll want this." Mrs. Weasley said, scooping up the teapot and walking to the door. She hunched her shoulders, not wanting to bump her head and gave me a wink.

"Bye, lover."

And the woman who I could no longer call mine or scarlet disappeared into Devonshire's early morning. It was strange how I felt so small without her presence. I was suddenly Neville Longbottom again- alone and leading a life so mundane I was never bored. And somehow, I didn't think I liked it too much. Suddenly, I wanted the laughter and the cinnamon and the tangy excitement.

Suddenly, I wanted her.