The Lily Maiden

Lily Maiden

Hermione spends her nights reading by candlelight, listening to the soft sounds of her dormmates as they sleep. Her own bed is warm and her quilts stretch out over her legs like an endless expanse of faded color, a red and gold island in the dark. Some nights it's hard to keep her eyes open as she reads, and it becomes a struggle to finish each sentence. Eventually she knows she'll have to give in, allow her eyes to slip closed and let the dreams come.

She reads everything. In the day she studies, reading textbooks and tomes and all those things that will make her more intelligent, smarter if not wiser. But at night, when the textbooks are left in her bookbag and the tomes forgotten in her trunk, Hermione reads other things; fairy tales and romances, philosophy and fantasy. And oh, how they make her sigh, those tales of lost worlds, of beauty and passion and all the things she dreams of. It's that perfect line that she waits for, that one, perfect word that makes her heart tremble. It's like dying, or falling in love; such a surreal sense of something so human transcending all that is real and mortal.

No one knows about this ritual, because she knows that they would laugh at her if they did. Her secrets are her own, and she keeps them to herself like a jealous lover, or a dragon hording its jewels. Who would understand, if she were to tell them? Honor, courage, high romance--these are things of the past now, buried with the ashes of fallen kings and lost empires.

She thinks at times that she was born too late. She never did belong here, never did quite fit in. How much better it would have been if she had only lived before, when the world was a different place.

Hermione dreams of these things, and lets them become a comfort to her when the world starts to fall apart, and the time for courage has come and gone unnoticed. In the daylight hours she knows how irrational her dreams really are; the world has never changed, and human beings have always been as they are now, cruel, amoral and ambiguous. There is no such thing as good and evil in a world made of greys. She knows this because she is rational and intelligent. But during the night, she cannot help but push these things aside; cold facts and explanations won't keep her sane. Reality leaves no room for optimism, truth never gives birth to hope.

Late one night she is curled up on a couch in the common room, a book in her lap and her hair held back in a tie. The shadows in the room make it difficult to read, and her weariness drags her down, but she never stops. The words keep flowing through her mind like a great river, unstoppable. She takes them in with awe, each one weighted down as though it were made of gold. There are footsteps on the stairs, and someone is approaching, but she cannot bring herself to look away to see who is there. She can feel their eyes on her, and withdraws self-conciously beneath their gaze.

"Hermione?" The voice, she realizes, is Ginny's, calling her name softly from behind her.

"Yes?" Hermione replies. She has turned away from her book now, and there is Ginny, dark red hair hanging in scarlet waves around her face, and wide brown eyes watching Hermione closely. She resembles a nymph, or perhaps a fairy from some classical painting. Her pale, milk-white skin fascinates Hermione, whose own complexion has been made golden in the light, not like the silver of Ginny's.

Ginny smiles and moves to sit beside her. The couch dips beneath her weight, and for a moment Ginny's arm brushes Hermione's. The contact is gone in an instant, but her warmth still lingers on Hermione's skin, oddly electric.

"I guess you couldn't sleep either," Ginny whispers. There is a need for silence, now, in the stillness of the common room. Outside, the wind is whistling as it rushes over the windowpanes, and she can hear the creaking of old trees. The world is restless tonight.

Hermione shakes her head. "I'm always up late."

"I know," Ginny answers, and Hermione thinks that she does know. There is something about Ginny that reminds Hermione of herself, odd because at first they seem so different. But she is beginning to see that perhaps they have more in common than she once thought. The idea is comforting, so she wraps it around herself, lets it become its own reality. The night has always been good for weaving half-truths and spinning dreams.

Ginny leans over her shoulder, in order to see the book in Hermione's lap, and as she does so her hair brushes Hermione's cheek, so soft it's like little more than a gentle breeze against her skin. The scent of something sophisticated (vanilla) mixes with the more common, heady fragrance of berries (strawberries and rasberries and apples), all of it red and vivid. When Ginny speaks, her voice seems to carry this same hue, and Hermione begins to see that everything about Ginny is as passionate as the crimson of her hair.

"What are you reading?"

Hermione pauses for a long moment, perhaps too long, because soon she can feel Ginny's inquisitive gaze traveling away from the book and up to her face. Even though she thinks she'll regret it, even though it's not rational, even though none of this is, Hermione already knows what's going to happen next. What Hermione doesn't know, however, is what it all means, and the uncertainty of that gives birth to a little flurry of excitement, one that she recognizes all too well. In Hermione, these books and dreams and lies are treasures to be hidden; but Ginny, she doesn't hide them to herself as Hermione does. Ginny takes the dreams, and gives them life.

Maybe it's the realization of this truth that leads Hermione to do what she has never done before. The night was made for spinning half-truths and dreams, so Hermione does just that, watching anxiously to see them become real in the soft hazel of Ginny's eyes.

"The Lady of Shalott," Hermione answers, her voice little more than a whisper. Ginny smiles, leaning back against the arm of the sofa and curling up there, like a cat. Hermione watches the firelight dancing in her hair for a long moment, before returning her gaze to her book.

"Tell me," Ginny says.

And Hermione does.

"It's about a lady who spends all her life locked at the top of a tower, where she watches the people coming and going on the road to Camelot through a mirror, reflecting the world beyond the window and weaves beautiful tapestries of the sights she sees."

As she speaks, Hermione imagines that she is weaving the red of Ginny's hair into the web that surrounds and connects them, twining the vibrant strands through the spaces between them until there's nothing left but crimson, filling everything.

"There is a curse upon her, that if she looks to Camelot, she will die," Hermione continues. Ginny's eyes shine, soft and wide, and Hermione thinks that if she looks hard enough, she'll find the Lady hidden in the depths there. "One day she sees a knight riding over the road, a man called Lancelot, and watches as he stops to drink at the river beneath her tower. She can hear him singing, and cannot stop herself from staring after him as he rides away. It is then that, inevitably, her eyes fall on the white towers of Camelot."

Ginny sighs wistfully, and to Hermione no song could be more beautiful than that.

"The tapestry splits in half, and the Lady flees her cage, knowing that the curse has come upon her. She finds a boat by the river and writes her name on the prow. Then she loosens the ropes and steps inside, kneeling within the wooden cradle of the boat as it carries her off down the river."

Ginny has shifted again, this time propped up on one elbow against the arm of the couch, and she watches intently as Hermione tells the story. There's something in her face both completely foreign and entirely familiar to Hermione, but she can't seem to understand what it is. It's not until much later that she realizes what that expression means, and it makes her heart ache with the knowledge.

"The day quickly fades to night, and as the stars begin to dot the sky, the Lady lies down within the boat, her strength fading, and begins to sing. She knows only simple hymns, but her voice is as beautiful as any choir. The echoes drift out over the river, but there's no one awake to hear them."

She can tell that Ginny wants to speak, that there is something waiting there on her lips, pushing to be free, but Ginny never says anything, and so Hermione continues on with the tale.

"Cold night air seeps into the Lady's skin, and she can feel her heart begin to slow. Her song dies upon her lips as the light fades away from her eyes. Just as she releases her last breath, the sun rises over the horizon, lighting upon the shining, white towers of Camelot."

Ginny does talk then, but Hermione can tell that this was not what she'd originally wanted to say. "And what happens next?"

"Not much. The nobles of Camelot find her there, and are afraid to go near her. But Lancelot steps forward, and with sadness, offers a prayer to God on her behalf."

"And that's it?" Ginny asks, and Hermione simply nods. Ginny sighs again. "Such a sad story. But, I've never really been one for happy endings myself."

Hermione understands this, but asks anyway, "Why not?"

Ginny shrugs, the movement careless but still strangely graceful. The white of her skin seems to glow against the shadows, as pale as moonlight, but unlike the moon, Ginny absorbs the light of the fire, rather than reflect it. She is cool warmth, and Hermione cannot help but feel fascinated by the paradox in this.

"I guess happy endings never seem complete to me," Ginny replies. "There's always something missing... That probably doesn't make much sense, though, does it?"

"I think it makes perfect sense," Hermione contradicts, and Ginny's eyes meet her own. Something passes between them, strong, like magic, and coming from that same place within her. She knows that Ginny can feel it, too, and that it's drawing them together. Ginny leans forward, her lips parting, and Hermione is aware of herself moving as well, but can't seem to focus on anything beyond the red of Ginny's lips and the soft hazel of her eyes.

When their mouths touch, it seems like it had been planned all along, as though they had both come to this room at this time for this very reason. Hermione can feel the threads woven around them shifting, binding, weaving them together within a dark, red cocoon of heat. Her fingers bury themselves within Ginny's hair, and she can feel Ginny's hand cupping her cheek, their bodies pressing closer together on the couch.

Ginny's mouth parts, her tongue running over Hermione's bottom lip before slipping away. Ginny sighs again, and this time Hermione can feel the whisper of it against her skin, and it sends electric shivers down her spine.

With a quiet flutter of pages, the book slides off Hermione's lap and falls to the floor, closing upon the image of a woman with dark eyes, singing in a boat surrounded by lilies.

Fin!