The wind blew through the window, and the flowered curtains fluttered as the gust changed its strength. They danced gaily as they bathed in the sun, spreading bright, yellow light into the usually dim room. The brightness of the light clashed greatly with the grey atmosphere inside.
A woman limped into the area, and sat down on the couch. It was free of dust, like the other furniture in the room, but it lacked the warmth and love it used to hold. It lacked the warmth of a fireplace, surrounded by children. It lacked the warmth of hot soup, with someone trying to take a sip. It lacked the laughter and giggles that used to echo throughout the house. It lacked love.
The woman stood up and sat back down on the couch, searching for that love, but found it to be gone. Shaking her head, she sighed, and her gaze fell upon the window that was filled with light. She hadn’t opened a pane in ten years, so why was it open?
It must’ve been Sarah, she figured. Sarah was the young, but quiet, lady that came to tend the garden. After his death, the woman didn’t have any desire to go outside, so her sons had hired Sarah. The old woman sighed heavily as her arm moved towards her pocket. Reaching inside, she grasped the wand. She flicked it, muttered a word, but nothing happened. Disappointed and confused, she did it again.
Nothing.
She guided her wand back into her pocket, and she walked over to the window. She reached outside, feeling the sun shine warmly on her pale, white skin-- skin that had been denied light for a very long time. She grabbed onto the window, and pulled it shut. A tug on a cord made the blinds come cascading down, and the room was dim and dark once again. The flowered curtains stood still; they were no longer joyous and merry, but dead and miserable.
The woman strode back to her seat, her face showing no emotion, her hands cold as a stone. Her hair was grey, pulled back into an unkempt bun. Her plump figure was gone, replaced by bones covered with saggy skin. Her warm smile was long gone, and there were just lips left instead.
Making no noise, a man in a black and white photo gestured for her attention. He sat in an old frame, propped up on the table next to the couch. The woman didn’t see him. He waved his arms, and the woman’s eyes continued to wander around the room. His movements eventually caught her attention, and she stared at his smiling face. He seemed so happy, just like he was when he was alive. Memories rushed into her head.
She remembered the first time she met him. How she was horrified by his appearance, but gradually got charmed by his intelligence and humor. She remembered the time they danced under the stars with an antique “gramophone” that he had claimed to have “fixed”, while it had stuttered the whole night, reacting to the magic in the air. She remembered the time when he comforted her for three hours, holding her in his arms, when her two brothers died.
“Everything will be all right, Molly. Everything will be okay, and we’ll always have each other,” he had promised.
But they didn’t. And she needed him the most now.
All her children were gone, each one passing away less than a year apart from one another. Her other “son and daughter”, Harry and Hermione, had died along the same timeframe. Everyone was gone.
He didn’t live to see everyone depart. He had gone with the rest to help Harry win his war. He had promised to stay safe, to stay alive, but he didn’t.
Her children promised the same thing, over and over with her until she believed them. But they broke it, too. It was a cursed promise.
One by one, they fell: war, illness, unexplainable explosion. But those were just excuses. She was the only reason they died. If only she had stopped them, kept them close to home and held them safely, they wouldn’t have been gone. They wouldn’t have been gone, and nobody would have to suffer any pain.
Friends had reached out for her in the beginning, and they had told her that it was going to be fine. She believed them. They said they would always be there for her.
Always.
But there was no such thing as always anymore; they had all died and left-- one by one, until no one was there to save her from her misery. She was just left alone to rot in a world that had nothing for her.
The woman stood up and left the room.
The sunlight bounced off the dew, making the grass around the house seem like a garden of jewels. The weather was beautiful, bright and warm, different from what it had been the week previously. However, inside the cottage the weather stayed the same: cold, grey, and lifeless.
The dust never stayed on anything inside this house. It seemed to refuse to stay on a surface where nobody would care that it’s there. The dust floated around, hoping to be blown out, blown out of the house that did not care. There was always grief floating in the air. It was a grief that would never dissolve into the sunlight. It was a grief that said every color represented a death. Red was the color of blood; orange, the color of despair; yellow, the color of clear sorrow; green, the color of danger; blue, the color of haunting; purple, the color of lies. Only grey was safe; it was the color of mystery, and mystery, to her, was better than death.
The woman limped into the room. Looking over at the window, she saw the blinds were closed; nothing had changed since she had entered yesterday. It was exactly how she liked it.
She walked over to a cabinet in the back corner. Dirty brown and covered with dents, the cabinet had been ignored for years. Like everything else though, it stayed free of dust. The woman placed her frail fingers around the handle and pulled. The drawer opened and she took out a red, leather bound photo album. Holding it tenderly, she sat down on the empty couch and opened it.
The first picture was of seven people waving. The woman recalled each of their names as her eyes scanned the picture.
Ginny… Ron… Percy… Fred… George… Bill… Charlie… Arthur… and… me. A lump in her throat appeared, and she quickly turned the page. A new picture, showing two toddlers, pulling at the same toy, brought a smile to the woman’s face. She flipped through more and more until she reached the last picture, situated in the middle of the album.
It was a black and white photo, displaying a couple, in their wedding attire. She recognized him. She remembered how he persuaded her to elope, and how they should have a “Muggle style” wedding. She had agreed, and happily dressed herself into an elegant, white dress, while he had donned a clean, black tuxedo.
The woman had tears falling from her eyes onto the page. She stood up and walked away.
“So, can you please tell us what happened, again, Miss James?” Henry Turner politely asked. He crouched down to the dead lady lying on the floor as he listened. But he just heard muttering, interrupted frequently with hiccups.
“I’m sorry,” he stated, turning to the young woman. “Could you please repeat that?”
“I-I come here everyday to -hic- tend the garden, and today “hic- I found her “hic- here-- dead!” The petite brunette bit her lip as she looked down at her dead employer.
“Miss James, may I know how long you have worked for and known Ms. Weasley?” asked Martin Lucor, Henry’s colleague.
“About ten years, sir,” she whimpered. Henry reached over to the bottle next to the dead lady’s head. He stirred it with his wand, and took a whiff.
“Smells like poison, Lumor.” He put the bottle down. “Do you have any idea, Miss James, on why this happened?” Sadly, she shook her head no.
“No, sir, but she has been depressed for a couple years.” She bit her lip, and then resumed. “Her loved ones have all died, and she’s been alone for awhile. She hasn’t gone outside for many years, either.”
“Why thank you, Miss James, and I’m sorry about this unfortunate event,” Martin Lumor sympathized. She curtsied, and left the room. “Well, Henry, looks like this woman just hated her life, and took a swig from this bottle.”
Henry examined the woman’s frail hands that were clasped on a red photo album. He delicately pried them off, and opened to the page she was holding. But before seeing anything, Lumor spoke.
“I’m going back to the office to record this, okay? You coming?” he asked.
“No, uh, I’ll be there in a second.” Lumor nodded and Apparated out.
Henry looked down at the page. There was a black and white photo of a wedded couple waving at the top. On the bottom, there were words, written with black ink, and it looked like it had just been written less than an hour ago. He glanced at the woman, and then glimpsed back at the page to begin reading.
And I believed you and loved you with all my heart.
We were together, you in black, and me in white,
In love, until death pried us apart.
The years here were lonely,
And nothing but death and misery.
I was stripped of my happiness and warmth,
My love and my wizardry.
We have been apart for too long,
From year one to year ten.
And with you in black, and me in white,
We will become grey, again.