Memories

I know some of you may not like this cause you want to believe that evil people are always evil people, but I think that everyone has a soft side no matter how deep it is has burrowed into their heart, and when you read the conversation imagine the dad’s voice as a harsh, cruel, sarcastic voice like, if you have played the game, Jecht’s voice in Final Fantasy 10.

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Hundreds of stones stuck out of the freshly-cut, grassy hills, each one glossy with the ugly finish put upon them after their carving. The sun would usually would have been reflected upon each and every one of them, like a thousand captured stars, but not that day, that day the sky was covered with thick gray clouds, blocking the sun’s gentle embrace upon the earth. Tom was disappointed in that fact, he loved it when he could he could watch the field light up with the sparkling stones, like the person buried beneath each one was trying to show that, even though you couldn’t hear them, even though you couldn’t see them, they were still there and they didn’t want to be forgotten.

Tom walked past all of those stones, though, he wasn’t there to admire the huge graveyard. Tom kept moving towards the far north corner where the tree line threatened to overtake a few of the gravestones and there owners. He finally came to a stop at a regular sized, ordinary headstone, one that you wouldn’t give a second glance to, one that you would forget about a second after you saw it because there was nothing to catch your eye. There were no dead flowers covering this one, no elaborate carvings laid upon it, but it had always caught Tom’s eye despite that fact. Because this grave WAS something special, it was special because it was the closest that Tom could ever come to his mother.

Tom laid his hand upon the dull stone set about twenty feet from every other one. His dad had at least done that, when Tom’s mother died he had used what little money he had to pay for a nice coffin and to have her grave set apart from the others. Tom had always hated that, he had thought it was because his dad didn’t want to “taint” the other’s with her unnaturalness, but he had been wrong. When he had finally talked to his dad for the first time in his life, two years ago, it had been a brief conversation but Tom remembered it perfectly.

Even before Tom started on his path of darkness Dumbledore had never liked him, even so he still arranged Tom to meet his dad during the Christmas holidays at Hogwarts. Tom sat in a straight-backed, wooden chair, fidgeting constantly and shivering with nervousness. He heard steady footsteps outside the Muggle Studies door, ones that belonged to a long-legged confidant person, Tom could only sit and wait as a tall, pale man with a stern face came in. He took the chair opposite Tom and just stared at him as if daring him to even talk to him, Tom couldn’t meet his eyes, he tried but eventually he had to look away. After almost ten minutes of silence his dad spoke.

“So, your one of them huh.” it wasn’t a question.

“On-one of what sir?” Tom barely managed to get out.

“You know, one of ‘em… things like your mum.” he said “things” like it was something you pick off of the bottom of your shoe.

“Yes, I am a wizard sir.”

“Would you stop with all the “sir” shit? I may not like it but I am your dad so call me it.”

“Yes si-dad.” Tom looked down at his shoes, he wanted to be mad at this man but he was so afraid of him he couldn’t get mad.

“So… I hear that you have some questions for me, what are they? And make them quick cause I wanna get the fuck out of here.”

“Oh yes. Well… first of all… er... Oh yeah, why did you leave my mum and me?”

“Well that is an easy one, cause your mum and you are both freaks, next question.”

“Oh,” Tom could barely keep his face from crumbling. He couldn't believe how cold-hearted this man was, and to his own son. He wanted to get his questions out and this would be the only time he could ever get them answered, he continued on around the knot in his throat. “Why is mum’s grave set apart from everyone else’s?”

“Hmmm… Well, you see… I went to my dad’s funeral when I was sixteen, and, looking at that field of headstones I realized something. I didn’t care a thing for any of them, they were just stones, the only one that meant anything to me personally was my dad’s, cause it represented the man I knew in life. But when I looked at any other stone all I saw was a stone, it didn’t mean anything to me, it was just a lifeless rock. It was then that I realized something, in death a person shouldn’t be given a flashy headstone right out front where everyone can see it, death is an intimate thing. A person should be placed where only people that knew that person would go, so that every visitor knew exactly who they were, what they were like. So that every visitor would mean something. Even though I left your mom I had still loved her once and decided to do for her what I originally had planned, I put her away from everyone else so that only people that would mean something to her would be there. It’s hard for me to explain to you but I did the best I could. Now I’m going, it was uh… nice to see ya. Later kid,” it was as Tom watched him walk out the door that he began to understand his father’s words, he himself couldn’t explain the exact meaning of them. Looking back that was the only time Tom felt anything but hatred for his father.

Tom just stood there for a few minutes, remembering, regretting that he couldn’t have gotten to know his mother. He only had one memory of his mom, a hypnotist was able to drag it out of his most locked memories, it was of the very day he was born. He couldn’t see anything but blurry shapes but he remembered a soft tune his mum was singing to him. The tune was a weak one, it was barely traveling through her trembling lips, Tom knew now that she was dying from internal problems that had been caused by his birth while she held him to her chest and sang. It always created this melancholy atmosphere around him when he brought that memory up, but he didn’t care, it was his only memory of his mother and he wouldn’t give it up for the world.

Tom gave one last look at the silent rock and left, he never spoke to his mother when he visit her, he would only stand their and remember, but he knew, even though the words were unsaid, they hung heavy in the air. As Tom reached the edge of the graveyard a strong wind came from the corner that his mother rested in, it might have been a trick of the wind, but he swore he could hear the same soft tune in that breeze that his mother had sung to him on her death bed.