The Weather in Japan

Without moonlight or starlight we forgot about love

As we joined the blind ewe and the unsteady horses.

***

THE WAR GRAVES

***

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

If others won't do it, the secretary must. If others won't do it, the secretary must. So morbid, really. Unsuitable. Not something that should be said now. Not something that should be thought now. Are you mad? Have you any emotions at all? Oh, this won't do at all. Tears must be shed. Aunts must be satisfied. So tragic, tragic, magic.

No tears then. No, she's in shock. In shock! Most likely doesn't understand that this has happened. That this is real. But she's so young. Give her time. It will be painful for her, but she'll make it through this. She will. She will. If she tells herself so enough times, it will become real. Faith can move mountains, you know. Everything will be all right.

So, tell me again, how many people was it that died? Seem to have forgotten. Besides these three, of course. Besides Ron. Besides Hermione. Besides Harry.

***

It should have been raining. Or it should have been a clear, sunny day. Or storming. Or something, anything. It should have seemed to matter. But it didn't. The weather was decidedly uncooperative on this day, of all days. Instead it was just sort of cloudy, not particularly windy, neither hot nor cold. The weather was just weather. No symbolism to be found there. Or at least, not the kind of symbolism that the funeral guests wanted.

It seemed that they couldn't wait to remember. They wanted cenotaphs, not these war graves. Remove the grief and put it on a piece of stone in honour of the heroes. Our heroes. Where would we be now, if they hadn't sacrificed themselves for the cause.

Lest we forget.

Was this scorn? Scorn for who? For the heroes, who had indeed been self-less and brave in the final battle? Or merely for the hypocrites, now wiping their eyes? For herself, another hypocrite, lest we forget?

Oh, she would have bent to his will, of that she was sure. It was one of her greatest weaknesses, as her mother, her father, her 6 - 5 - brothers would surely tell her. She knew when she had lost. And when she knew, she began looking for a way out. She would have just turned. Would it really have made a difference if she hadn't liked it?

But they hadn't known when they'd lost. And they had lost. Of course they had. They could never have done anything else, children that they were. But then bumblebees can't fly. They just don't know that. Neither did the war heroes. They really had no idea that the Dark Lord was invincible, immortal. So they just killed him anyways. Laughable, really.

That is, if wasn't that this was her brother, her friends. And they were dead. Being put in the ground to rot and be eaten by worms. Push away that image. Otherwise the reality of this will hit all too soon. Distance is safety, remember.

Mum is so sad. They're all so sad. Never seen them cry before. Is that weakness? Or merely being human? Or is it just that it's the same thing? Oh, how was she supposed to know? What did she really know? God only knew how bloody ignorant she was. She was hardly even observant. At best, she was a kind, well-meaning girl who didn't always get everything right, but her kind, well-meaning family loved her just the same, even if they didn't get everything right, either. Nothing less, nothing more.

If she could only convince herself that it mattered. It should matter. Everything matters. Especially Ron, who was dead, and had died for her and everyone else. And Harry and Hermione, who had done the same. Mum, who is crying, matters. Dad, Bill, Charlie, stupid Percy, Fred, George. All the poor muggles who were killed by the Dark Lord matter. As do all the wizards who found the courage to oppose him. It mattered that Dumbledore had been such a great man. And that Hagrid had been such a kind giant. All the people here today, who are not hypocrites, matter. Oh look, Sirius Black is crying too.

But she couldn't. The walls, the entire world, was caving in, and all she could do was shrivel up and try to hide. It seemed that this was what always being so strong did to you. In the end, you weren't even able to cry.

***

Caught in the middle. Indeed. To the right, father. To the left, mother. There was no escape. How he loathed this. The hypocrisy of it. The vulture-like women who had no emotion of their own, and were instead prying on that of others, wallowing in grief, seemed to pale in comparison.

Attending the funerals of those they had themselves killed. Pretending to care. Couldn't they just have sent flowers instead? But no, they had to keep a straight face. Can't let them have the evidence they need. Excuse me, while I vomit.

Is being a hypocrite part of being like we are? Like who are? Us, who killed the people that are now being put in the ground to be eaten by worms? Who did kill them, anyways? How many of us can honestly say that we are not guilty? Circles and circles and circles again. No truth will come out of this.

And yet he wondered - being honest about it - would that make the guilt lesser or greater? Would he regret anything if it was out in the open? Would that make the taste in his mouth any better? No one around here gives a fuck about truth. The vultures don't. He doesn't. Mrs Weasley only knows that her baby is dead. Well, maybe the grief will inspire sudden loss of weight.

Did they even die for truth? Fuck that - they didn't even know what it was. What if Voldy-fucking-morty had been right? Eh? Never thought about the chance of that. But neither did he, so there. Just figured he'd be better off on that team. Self-restoration, and all that. Not a fucking thing to do with truth.

But it's so cute, really. Human life is more important than any great truth, they would have said. Is that so, now? How the fuck do you know if you don't know the truth? What if God exists? What if God exists, but Satan is still right? What if God doesn't exist? And what is the exact value of human life anyways - now that we're at it?

So here he was. Supposedly mourning the loss of the three great heroes. Whom he still referred to as Potty, Weasel, and Mudblood. Sad state of affairs, it was. It seemed that everyone but himself was crying. Not that everyone who cried meant it. His mother most definitely didn't. And his father's solemnly grieving look was just a case of rather bad acting.

But meet Virginia. Sister of one, friend of the other, and hopelessly besotted with the third. And quite remarkably not crying. Why, where have all the flowers gone? And young Miss Weasley's sanity, now we're at it? Quite the unexpected bonus - he never had thought of her as the type that went mad with grief. Well, if that was what it was. Could be shock, too. Or maybe she just didn't give a fuck. Potential bosom friend and soulmate, then.

And voila!, they're in the ground! What an encouraging thought - Potty, eaten by worms. Seemed to run in the family, that. They simply didn't know how to stay alive. And how interesting, Mr. Grief-struck himself, the none too temperate Sirius Black was scowling, scowling, scowling at his very own father. A fight would make this much more fun. But no such luck. They were leaving. He was leaving.

They had buried their dead.

***

The snow leopard that vanishes in a whirlwind of snow

Can be seen stalking on soft paws among the clouds.

***

REMEMBERING THE POETS

***

Such madness, to be following someone this way. And for no reason at all, too. Why do something like this? Wasn't it mad people who did this sort of thing? And then murdered the person they were following? Perhaps not such a bad idea after all. It would grant a certain degree of satisfaction. But to what avail? There was no point in killing anyone, just as there was no point in not killing anyone. There was no point at all. And what to do about that?

Still, it seemed so unlikely, just as it most definitely had been inevitable. It was never meant to happen. But, alas for cause and effect, it had. How could it not have? The circumstances complemented each other so well. Tom Riddle's nearly perverted certainty of his own invincibility. Harry Potter's most definitely foolish sense of himself as bearer of crosses. Albus Dumbledore's life-weary acceptance of the facts. And all those people around them, acting as the ignition for that highly explosive mix.

And yet, to think that it had really happened. What everyone with a bit of sense could have predicted. And it had bloody well taken place! Oh no, it really wasn't meant to happen that way. The good guys won, for sure, but did it have to be so bitter a victory? One that just lingered in your mind, instead of being one that you might celebrate, then move on, before finally forgetting about it.

***

She couldn't forget about it. She never would. And while she was certain that they didn't deserve to be forgotten, the people who had died, she also knew that she would have to if she wanted to be well again. Because she wasn't well, of that she was sure. She was losing herself. Every bit of the guilt that she had ever felt was slowly swallowing her, until she felt nothing but hatred and depression with life. She had no reason to live, yet she lived, merely out of spite.

She sat down, on a bench, in the park.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

She didn't look at the speaker. She knew perfectly well who he was, and what he was, and she didn't give a fuck. She hadn't thought about it when she started following him, nor had she done so when she had the inclination to sit down next to him.

"Sitting."

"I can see that. Why?"

"Because my feet are tired."

"Can't you sit somewhere else?"

"Do you see any other benches?"

Silence, for a while, then -

"Why were you there?"

She had asked the question, certain that he would know what she was referring to.

"My parents wanted me to come with them."

"Why were they there?"

"To keep up appearances."

"Who do they think they're fooling?"

"No one. They just want to look extra-nice for everybody, so no one goes looking for proof."

"If there were any proof, they'd be in Azkaban by now. Why bother with appearances?"

"They probably wanted to gloat, as well."

"They can gloat all they like, you still lost the war."

"Did we, Weasley? I didn't see any happy winning faces."

"It was a funeral, Malfoy. You wouldn't find a lot of those faces there."

"Hardly the point. You didn't win. You lost even more than we did."

"Well, we're not in Azkaban, are we? And you have more dead than we do."

"Still not the point. You lost, because you don't believe anymore. We still do. Of course, our belief is relatively simple next to yours. We believe that mudbloods are filth. You believed in the idea of essential goodness in man. But you don't anymore."

"Some of us do. My mum does. Some of my brothers do. Some of us do."

"But you don't."

"No. I don't."

She still wasn't looking at him. She knew that he was smirking. Bloody bastard that he was, he could turn his defeat to a victory in seemingly no time at all, by simply being an obnoxious git who knew which buttons to push to make her feel really bad about everything. Not that she didn't already.

"Do you know what your problem is?"

For the first time, she looked at him. He was smirking.

"Yes, I do. But somehow I doubt that you do."

"Oh, but I do. Your problem is that because you have lost your belief in goodness, you can't do anything. You can do neither good nor evil, because you can find no justification for either of the two."

So he did know what her problem was. Rather surprising, it would seem. But then again, he would know, wouldn't he?

"If God does not exist -"

She began the sentence, trying to make a point, but seemed to lose her meaning along the way. He finished for her.

"- Then everything is permitted."

"Who said that, anyways?"

"Dostoevsky did."

"Oh."

Strange feeling of - was it having something in common?

"It sums it up nicely, doesn't it though? He was a great poet, Dostoevsky was."

"He wrote prose."

"He was still a poet."

"And why is that?"

She didn't really expect him to have a strong positive opinion about a muggle writer, but since he did - well, why not?

"Poetry is not about form, it's about content. And what Dostoevsky wrote was poetry. To put it bluntly."

"Very bluntly, I'd say. That doesn't really make it relevant, though."

"It's always relevant. He was the one who said that if there was no absolute good, then there was no absolute evil, and there was no reason to make a distinction in one's actions."

"Didn't the Marquis say that before him?"

"The Marquis de Sade? He might have, but he didn't recognise the fact that it renders one paralysed."

Oh, how bloody interesting. Malfoy, a source to be reckoned with when it came to Muggle literature. For the first time, she looked at him to actually see him.

"So that's how you know so much about my problem."

He looked at her, seemingly puzzled.

"What do you mean?"

"You know so much about how I feel, because you feel exactly the same. You don't believe in mudbloods being filth. You believe in fuck-all, just like me."

"When did you get so perceptive, Weasley?"

"I always were. It comes from being ignored so much."

He laughed. She seemed to have a hard time finding anything to laugh about, so she merely stared him down with one raised eyebrow. It didn't take very long for him to stop laughing. After that, they simply sat next to each other, looking rather morose. She cleared her throat.

"But what do you do about it? How do you get well?"

He stared at her.

***

Makes bead curtains of the rain,

Of the mist a paper screen.

***

THE WEATHER IN JAPAN

***

Surrealism. He rather liked that. Not so much Dalí as Magritte. He loved Magritte. Especially, he loved that particular piece by him - a pipe, and the words 'Ceci n'est pas un pipe.' It had taken him forever to figure that one out. But of course it wasn't a pipe - it was a bloody picture of pipe. And if that wasn't a pipe, perhaps this wasn't what it seemed to be either. Maybe this was a picture of him talking to Ginny Weasley. That would explain the surrealism of the situation. For surrealist it was, there was no denying it.

He'd been right about her. And she'd been right about him. They were really rather similar. Except for one thing. She had lost her faith. He never had any. No small wonder that it seemed more painful to her. So of course she wanted it back. That, he didn't understand. For what purpose? To be a good girl, once again? Or was she simply desperate? Was she refusing the fact that she had already killed God? Well, she would do that sort of thing. She hadn't been brought up to kill God.

She hadn't said that she wanted her faith back, he reminded himself. She had said that she wanted to get well. Quite the difference. She wanted out of her paralysis. He wasn't really sure that he was the right person to ask. He had, after all, been paralysed all his life, never acting unless it was on the instigation of someone else. And he'd thought Potty was pathetic.

***

"I really have no idea. How would I know?"

"I don't know how you would know. But aren't you the one who's reading Dostoevsky?"

"In Dostoevsky, they either start believing in God or they die. Whichever you prefer."

"Well, that's no great help."

"Don't have the nerve to kill yourself?"

"Whether I have the nerve or not is irrelevant. It's stupid."

"Why?"

"Because you prove nothing by it. You don't get any closer to anything. You just wipe all the pieces off the board, like a chess player who thinks the game is getting boring."

"And you don't think the game is boring yet?"

"I don't think it is a game."

"I suppose you're right. It still gets boring, though."

"Spoken like a true aesthetic. You're both paralysed by your lack of ethics and depressed because nothing, nothing, nothing makes you feel like you really exist, and nothing, nothing, nothing really matters. Bugger to that, eh?"

So he was not the only one present who knew his existentialist philosophy. She was just full of surprises, wasn't she? Also, she was most likely quite right. He was a bloody aesthetic.

"Know your Kierkegaard, do you?"

"I suppose I do. I'd say you were on the verge of turning into Macbeth."

He actually laughed then. For a moment, she laughed with him.

"Nah, that was Voldemort."

"If you tried hard enough, I bet you could be the next Voldemort."

He turned to look at her -

"Perhaps I could. But I don't really want to."

"Well, that's one thing less to worry about, then."

He nodded, not really knowing what to answer. Her mirthless, yet humorous remarks spoke volumes of her state of mind. The girl don't give a fuck. He doubted she ever would, the way things were going. He looked at her face. The expression was closed and sombre. But it was changing. She was curious, as if something had suddenly sparked her interest. She was even starting to look as if something was amusing her. He followed her line of sight. She was watching a bird.

"A bird?"

She looked from the bird to him, and back again.

"It's good."

"What?"

"The bird is good."

"What do you mean?"

"What I said. That the bird doesn't have an ounce of evil within it. It's good."

"Just because it isn't evil, that doesn't mean it's good. It's just indifferent to such things. It follows its instinct."

"It's not indifferent. It's unpretentious."

"Not following you."

"It's unpretentious. It takes the world for exactly what it is. It doesn't expect anything. That's good."

"Like haiku?"

She looked at him.

"Yes. Like haiku."

"Have you become a buddhist all of a sudden?"

"I didn't say that."

"You're talking like one."

"No, I'm not. I'm just saying that being unpretentious of the world is original goodness. It can't be measured in comparison with evil, because there is no evil. But there is still good."

"The Garden of Eden prior to original sin?"

"Something of the sort, I suppose. All I'm saying is -"

"No need. I think I know what you're talking about. It is good. Like haiku."

"You like haiku?"

"Of course I like haiku. Most people like haiku. It's nearly a law of nature, that of course one likes haiku."

"I like haiku as well. I used to not understand it, but I think I do now. But I always did think that the weather was rather irrelevant."

"Nothing is really irrelevant, I suppose. The weather definitely isn't."

They were actually smiling by now. Both of them were alternating between looking at each other and their surroundings. They seemed to be taking in the existence of the world, for the very first time, and not really noticing it because it had something to do with them - but because it was.

"No, the weather's not irrelevant. Do you think it's better in Japan? Or worse?"

"Don't know. I've never been there. I'd like to go there sometime, though."

"Yeah, that would be nice."

"Would you like to go? To Japan."

He had centred all his attention on her, staring straight into her eyes. She blinked. Once. Twice.

"What exactly do you mean? Go to Japan with you?"

"Yes. Do you want to?"

He stood up, but still looking down at her, holding out his hand to hers. She looked at him in vague surprise.

"Ok."

And she stood up, clasped his hand in hers, and they began walking.

***

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