What She Knew

What She Knew

She was stretched out on her back, the grass slightly wild underneath her, her arms resting above her head, her knuckles grazing the cold stone. She could smell the freshly broken blades, and tufts of onion grass framed her face, tangling in her ginger curls.

It was vaguely creepy lying sprawled on the grave, even if it was bright and sunny and terribly pretty there, with winding dark green ivy snaking up to cover the aging headstone, and with tiny pinpricks of yellow and white blanketing the ground.

Wild buttercups and alyssum.

She couldn't recall exactly how long she'd been there, but her back felt chilly, the morning dew dampening her robes. Uncurling her hands, she absently lifted them to trace the carved marble with a fingertip, her eyes staring wide up at the cloudless sky overhead. She didn't need to glance at the stone to know what it said; she had memorized the wording when she'd arrived there at dawn.

Grinson Leslie Plotnick
Beloved son of Orselle and Lindy Plotnick
1945 - 1956

She'd spent a good, empty half hour pondering the names, conjuring up false images of their faces. She wondered idly what the boy had died of, and if he'd even made it to his first year at Hogwarts. It seemed a shame to think that he'd never gotten that first glimpse of the castle from the lake, the dying light framing the stone turrets, the torchlight making each and every window glow.

She wasn't mourning Grinson, though, who passed on long before she'd been born.

A low murmur of voices caught on the breeze, bringing her snatches of conversations from over the next hillock.

Such a lovely day; hardly even feels like summer...

It felt like spring, like the unfurling of life. The world wouldn't mourn, she knew. A blackcap warbled, rejoicing.

He looked so fine... Didn't you think he looked fine?

Fitting, she supposed. He'd never had a hair out of place; his face pale and sharp, his lips a wicked pink bow, thin and mobile and... harsh. He had been so harsh. So deliberately cruel. She could picture those lips now, forever curled up at the corners... satisfied. He never had any regrets, she knew.

A bee danced around the sweet smelling alyssum; seducing pollen, and buzzing so close to her cheek she could feel the vibrations in her teeth.

That one had manners, you know. Grown to be a proper gentleman...

Oh, that one knew him well. Polite. Well-mannered. With an undercut of biting hostility. She'd never managed to rate above an off-hand insult, a half-hearted gibe. He'd held his best cuts close to his chest, reserved for those who mattered most in his life; those he defined himself by. Harry. Ron. Hermione. Those three, though, would barely feel a ripple from his death, she knew.

A man barked a short laugh.

It's utterly horrid for a mother to outlive her son. Why, I haven't even a wrinkle yet, do I?

She detected a sob in the woman's voice, the barest tremor. How he would have laughed at that. Not a pleasant, amused laugh, either, but one full of scorn and loathing. Mummy dearest, does losing your son make you feel old? He'd had little use for weakness in his mother, she knew.

A cricket buried in the blades at the base of the headstone, disturbed by her questing fingers, chirruped impatiently.

Never liked the boy myself...

True. Nobody ever liked him. You were either enthralled by him or disgusted, but you never liked him. Like was for puppies and ice cream and smiles. He wouldn't even have acknowledged that simple of an emotion.

She knew, also, that any eulogy said over his grave would be paper thin and meaningless. His intelligence and wit had been underrated. His brutal honesty deemed unfortunate. His vainness construed by most as a deep-seated character flaw. And so they would tatter on about his courageous deeds within the Ministry. About his heroism and his selflessness in the face of evil itself. About the innate goodness that must've lain underneath his skin.

He'd been neither selfless nor good, she knew.

He'd never been anything deeper than a shallow pond. He had never been anything but what he'd presented to the world.

She conceded that perhaps he'd been a hero.

But he was so pretty... the arrogant swine...

She recognized the slur of too much drink and her mouth curved up in a cat-like grin, a laugh at her lips. The sloppy drunk. No funeral was complete without one. She knew he would've been as amused as her that his widow was red-faced and sloshed and telling bawdy jokes to the nearest disapproving matron.

She knew that the woman had been drunk nearly everyday since she'd married him.

She knew that he hadn't cared.

No one knows what happened. Such a tragedy...

Oh, yes. Such a tragedy. So much so that they hadn't even looked… wouldn't think to look. She'd known that from the very beginning.

Snape, perhaps...

He would've known, would've guessed at a glance. Pity he was gone now, too; over three years of rotting to his name. Some part of her had hoped she'd be found out, that retribution would be demanded and revenge dealt harshly. Not for the man, of course, but for the name. Malfoy. There was some small satisfaction to be had in the recognition of one's mastery. She'd thrown them the unexpected, but none of them knew.

It didn't matter, though.

Nothing mattered except that final spark of realization; the startled surprise that blossomed into admiration seconds before his gaze fell vacant and dull. That last smirk had been for her, and her alone. A nod to an equal. Touché. And he had loved every minute of dying, she knew.

Perverse bastard.