An Artist's Touch

An Artist's Touch

Arcadian.

Idyllic.

Pastoral.

He shakes his head and lets out an impatient huff as he thinks of all the variety of words used by writers in the past and present to describe such a scene, a pure still from nature. Sketching pencil gripped tightly in his left hand, he traces the grandiose contour of the lake and details the small crests of its miniscule lapping waves. He eyes his quick drawing skeptically and then erases a few straight lines. Smiling, he continues. He allows himself to be lost and enraptured once again in the quaint Scottish countryside, a place so different from his native London. Two places. Two homes. Where there were once crowds flocking to store sales are now birds crowding around a nest. Where there were once sleek, ultra-modern skyscrapers are now cathedrals of trees, arched in over their sanctuary. Where there was once a bustling existence is now -

Well, it's still an existence, he reasons. But it is a peaceful one. One that is beyond words.

He places the tip of his pencil back onto to thick sketchpad, watching its gray strokes outline the forest blocking the horizon, the sparse birches lining the lake, the Whomping Willow lying tranquil, the randomly placed stalks of long grass...then he looks to the sky. It is this that drew him outside on a late autumnal weekend. If anything surpasses the English lexicon, it is this. The sky.

He isn't sure what to call it. Languid clouds stretch for endless miles, shielding the brilliant light emanating from "the eye of heaven," or so Shakespeare put it in one of his sonnets, if he remembers properly. Linked arm-in-arm, they meander down that forever-blue avenue, but there is none of that clear azure to be seen. The clouds are united in their vanguard.

But they are not without their chinks and their gaps. The light exploits them skillfully and filters through, its narrow glowing beams pinning the earth down, determined to repel the clouds that hold them back. They break through sporadically, shining pinpricks against the void, twinkling diamonds in a sea of granite.

Light versus dark.

He struggles to put a word to it but realizes he doesn't have to. Biting his lower lip, he finishes his sketch and turns around.

"Hey, Ginny, come here!"

"Well, you prat, I can't very well see, can I?"

He laughs and drops his pencil and sketchbooks on the ground, taking care not to get the latter dirty. "I forgot about that part."

"That isn't funny." Sighing, she holds out her hands, palms facing upward. He reaches out and cradles her beautiful fragile hands in his. He pulls her forward lightly; she complies. "Oh, how much longer do I have to wait?"

"Are all Weasleys this impatient?"

"When it takes this long, yes."

"I won't take much longer, I promise."

As silently as he can, he places the sketchbook in her hands. "Ooh, it's heavy."

"Don't judge it until you see it."

A tsk escapes her mouth as he walks behind her and unties the blindfold. The cloth brushes by his hand; he crumples it up. "You can open your eyes now."

She inhales sharply. "Dean, it's - it's...I can't - there aren't any - "

He smiles to himself, draping his arms across her shoulders and brushing his lips past her hair. "I understand."