Symbiosis

It's so beautiful, isn't it? There's the superficial, bright, vibrant, alive greens, moving in the warm, gentle breeze, columns of light shining through the shifting holes in the leaves, making dancing patches on the otherwise dark green grass. When the leaves meet, they rustle, soft noise as background to the music of the birds as they greet the day, high in the trees, as though their flight keeps them from base human sorrow so they can sing their happy song. They take flight in a flurry of movement and vibrant colour, the fierce beating of the wings to lift skyward until only the occasional beat of wings reaches the keenest ear as they glide on the wind. The wind bends the grass softly so the points don't stick up, making it soft against my bare feet as it crunches, moist with dew, just enough to slide in droplets across the underside of the foot before falling to the ground. The wind carries parts of the forest with it, telling tales from where it came. There's patch of wildflowers not far off--sweet scents carry from there to me: the simplest of scents combining into a complex, yet elegant fragrance.

But it's so much more than superficial.

It's something you don't notice unless you look closely. But when you do, it becomes so much more beautiful.

A lone tree would die, you know. Oh yes, it would die. Even if it had all the things we usually think it needs--water, soil, sunshine--it would still die. It can't exist in isolation.

It drops acorns that are picked up by the squirrels, who take it with them to eat when they're safe from predators. The squirrels spread the seeds of the tree, allowing it to grow in new places. The food of one animal feeds the expansion of a plant. But the symbiosis doesn't end there.

The squirrel breathes in the oxygen that the tree produces, and breathes out carbon dioxide, which the tree can take back in to produce oxygen again. Without one, the other can't survive. Without the tree, the squirrel won't get oxygen. Without the squirrel, the tree won't get carbon dioxide.

And so, what you first see as a superficial beauty of randomly arranged mechanistic objects becomes something much deeper, more intertwined, spiritual, so delicately balanced that it seems the slightest touch could upset the balance, and destroy the natural world.

Except that would never happen, would it? The balance would be restored in a new way. It's happened so many times. When oxygen was first released into the atmosphere, most of the life on Earth died. And now it depends upon oxygen. Another mass extinction happened with the death of the dinosaurs.

Sure, something could upset the balance here. But a new one would be created. A new one of symbiosis. Mutual dependence. It's necessary for all things in life. Everything has something that depends on it. And everything depends upon something else.

My parents depended upon Frank. They loved him so deeply. Their first-born child, who was so perfect. He could accomplish anything he set his mind to. Anything. Nothing could stand in his way, in academics or in sports or in combat. He rose to the top of the ranks of the Aurors before my parents died, happy knowing that their son had accomplished so much, that nothing would ever stop him. They had raised the perfect son who had saved so many lives in the war against Voldemort.

I'm glad they never saw him and his wife driven insane by the pain of the Crucio curse. It would have broken their hearts.

My parents never depended upon me. Anything that I did had already been done by Frank. He was perfect. How could I ever compete with that?

I don't mean to cast my parents in a bad light--really. They loved me. They really did. They just didn't need me.

And mutual dependence is so necessary for all things living.

My husband doesn't need me. He made his place in the world long before he met me. He doesn't need me for anything physical either. He has plenty of women to do that for him.

No, I don't want your sympathy for that. Honestly. I'm not some naive teenage girl dreaming of true love. It never even hurt me the first time I found out. He never needed me for anything, so why should I have been special to him? Please, I would have to be stupid to think that he would stay loyal to me out of some inane childhood fantasy.

But Neville...

Neville needs me. He depends upon me. If I wasn't there, he would never know what to do. He would forget things, wouldn't have anyone to help him up after a fall, and would never know how to act, or what to do, or cook, or clean...

Maybe I create that in him. Maybe I'm hard on all his faults so that he feels as though he can't do anything right because I need him to need me. Is that so wrong?

Maybe if I always hugged him, told him I loved him, praised him for everything he did well, maybe...

Maybe he'd be a great wizard, have lots of friends and do wonderfully in school, be sure of himself and help so many people.

He'd be just like Frank. Just like Frank. So great until he got on someone's bad side and he ended up in St. Mungo's. What's greatness ever done? Nothing but cause misery. Voldemort was great. Evil... but great.

And you blame me for making him timid, uncertain, insecure, friendless, loveless, helpless...

No, he is not worthless. Never say that.

Mutual dependence is necessary for all living things, remember?

And he needs me, yes. He needs me to be the competent, decisive guardian. Telling him what to do and where to be and how to dress and who to see. He needs me.

But I need him. I need someone to need me. If it werent for him, where would I be? Who would need me? My life would be an empty void. If I told him I loved him, and hugged him, and praised him... would he invite his friends over for the Christmas break and tell them "Oh, don't worry about her; she's my gran. You know how they are." Would he roll his eyes behind my back and resent my trying to help until he ages and moves away, glad to finally be away from this paranoid parent? Would he be so self-sufficient that he wouldn't need me at all?

I... I couldn't live like that. I need him to need me.

So never call Neville worthless.

Because he's not worthless to me.