Wedding Tears, Funeral Tears
Chapter Four: Lost
I just couldn’t place them, and thought perhaps it was just my imagination.
Laying the pot down carefully, I approached the mysterious market place in apprehension. Everyone was looking at various pendants and plants in the stalls, none even slightly interested in my arrival. No one stuck out from the crowd, until I caught a glimpse of a little red-head, no more than seven or eight, walking behind one of the smaller cloth stalls, and for a moment was convinced I knew who it was. Then, of course, I thought this was ridiculous, and I was obviously just desperate for a familiar face.
However, despite my doubts, the young boy reappeared on the other side of the tent, very familiar indeed.
“Charlie?” I called cautiously. Through the confusion there was a hint of familiarity, and my spirits rose. I hadn’t seen Charlie since…
Well, for longer than it should have been, anyway.
“Uncle Gideon!” he called excitedly, and ran towards me, I picked him for a hug. Charlie’s heels dug into my tailbone, and he squeezed as hard as he could, oblivious to my sorely wounded shoulder, and I suddenly realised how much I missed him “ all of them. Another sense seemed to kick in too…
“Are you here on your own?” I asked. At the time it didn’t seem like a silly question. Charlie snorted.
“No, stupid,” he told me. “You’re standing right in front of me. And look at all these people!”
Carefully, I placed Charlie back down on the warm sand. He was wearing a relatively loose, long-sleeved cream coloured shirt, and matching pants. I frowned.
“Charlie, what are you doing here?” I asked, much more sensibly. Charlie just shrugged. “And where is here?”
“It’s a complicated kind of place,” answered Charlie vaguely. Now, a little doubt nudged at my thoughts. Something was wrong here… If Voldemort had cast some kind of spell on Charlie, I would kill him myself.
“Is it dangerous?” I asked him simply, protectively scanning what I could see of the crowd. Charlie giggled.
“That’s ridiculous. How could this place be dangerous?” he asked. Apparently, I was meant to understand. Whatever was happening, it was magical, and the magic was very strong. After all, before I had seen Charlie I had not been able to hear my own thoughts, let alone people around me speaking. I half expected something else to be grossly out of the ordinary, impossible.
“How“?”
I didn’t finish, however, as my expectation had then been fulfilled, as if on command, with the entrance of another person. I felt myself freeze, and for a moment everything disappeared from my mind. I knew in my head that I should not trust the situation, but that didn’t stop my heart from almost leaping out of my rib cage.
She fitted in at these markets so naturally, like an angel among the common folk. The top of her dress was a little like Charlie’s shirt, but stretched all the way down to the ground and in a dark blue, and her black hair, almost to the shoulders, framed her face simply. All of her features seemed soft, softer than they ever had, and her dark blue eyes were mellow and calm; in death, she was the epitome of peace.
She spotted me and blessed me with a smile, and I remembered so clearly the ache of having lost her. Then, she swiftly and excitedly made her way towards Charlie and I, bare feet hitting the sand silently.
“Gideon!” she greeted, running up and standing before me, one dainty hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “We’ve been waiting! It feels like so long, doesn’t it?”
“Morticia,” I uttered simply, gratefully, and it must have been a full minute before my mind could see past the bliss and question what was happening. “Am I “ have I died?” I asked, looking around at the happy market place. “Did I pass out in the desert? Am I dreaming?” Charlie and Tisha laughed.
“No,” Morticia told me. “You’re alive. This is a place where life and death collide.”
“What?” I asked, confused. “How is that possible?”
“People narrowly escape death every day, and Voldemort has tampered very much with the gateway, not to mention the various ways to cheat death, taken by few over the years. Surely you can see how there might be a tiny loophole, out here in the middle of no where.” It was amazing; I was amazed. No one had ever done this before, no one had ever seen…
“Wait,” I said, my heart skipping a beat. I glanced at Charlie. He was grinning at me. “Wait, does that mean“?” The both of them looked at me intently. I felt numb, shock eating at my nerves. “Charlie, you “ died?” Charlie rolled his eyes.
“Oh,” he said. “That. Yeah, I did. In the attack, they got me in the heart; here, I’ll show you…” He went to lift up the back of his shirt, but Morticia hastily stopped him.
“Charlie,” she jumped in, “Sweetheart, I don’t think he really needs to see. Not quite yet.”
This new thought swirled in my mind, like bitter poison. Charlie had been killed. Charlie was dead.
“I’m “ I’m so sorry,” I told him, my heart wrenching. “I can’t believe “ how did this happen?” My eyes prickled. I was scared, I couldn’t bear to think of how Molly was faring. Molly. I covered my mouth with my hands and stepped back half a pace.
“The attack,” said Charlie again. “At our house. It was really scary.” Again, my heart jumped. “Oh, don’t worry,” he added hastily, apparently reading my expression somehow. “It was just me. Mum will be okay, eventually. Both of the twins have come and gone, but it’s never for very long; they’re surviving. I think they liked the sand. Oh,” he went on again, having gotten another thought, “Me and uncle Fabian, that is.”
“Yes,” agreed Morticia, “You and the uncle Fabian you promised to stay with.” Charlie looked slightly ashamed. A thought occurred to me, however, and I frowned, this time not in shock or grief, but doubt.
“Wait,” I said slowly, “Wait, why would Voldemort send me on a suicide mission with no way of getting home?” Tisha looked worried.
“Gideon, do you think you could have heat stroke or something?” she asked. “Voldemort has hundreds of people killed every week. I would know.” Tisha reached forwards to take my temperature, and I stepped back hastily. It would make me so happy to touch her again, to know the feeling of her skin again, her hair, her perfect cheek, her kisses…
“No,” I told her firmly. My judgement could not get clouded. I couldn’t let it. “Stop “ wait. Think about it. Between me and Fabian, there’s information. Voldemort’s got Fabian too. Why would he want both of us dead?” I thought about that for the moment. The only way I could see was if he thought that there might be a common denominator between us, someone who could be driven to telling everything they knew at the threat of our deaths. But there was no one like that in the Order…
“It could be a third party,” suggested Tisha, shrugging, “A common denominator between the two of you, someone who could be driven to telling everything they knew at the threat of your deaths? But there’s really no one like that in the Order…”
I blinked, confused. That was not Morticia’s voice, not her words. There was only one solution.
“You’re not real,” I told her. I had always suspected it, but had wanted so desperately to be talking to Morticia again. She placed her hands on her hips angrily. I wanted so badly to see that expression again, but on Morticia. The real Morticia. I’d seen it every time we’d broken up or she’d thrown a tantrum, and no one else had one like it.
“Just because I’m dead doesn’t mean I’m not here“”
“Stop saying that!” I told her, not wanting to consider the option that this was truly happening. It wasn’t. This wasn’t her. Experimentally, I thought about the fact that my father was dead too, then looked around. Suddenly he was there, lurking beside a jewellery tent, trying on an ornate looking ring.
He spied me, and started to walk over, looking oddly comfortable in purple and green thin muggle desert clothes. My father wouldn’t be caught dead wearing muggle clothes.
“Gideon,” he addressed when I arrived, “What do you think you’re doing here?” None of this was real. It was all in my mind. None of these people “ they were only my perception of them, figments of my own imagination. Wearily, I glanced around again, worried that whatever had done this would be angry, that I would be attacked.
The illusion of the market place read my mind. Everyone, save for Morticia, Charlie and Father had changed. They were all looking at me. They were all scowling. And then, they were all slowly approaching. I began to recognise why they were so familiar “ I had met all the people here, thoughtlessly or just in passing.
“You’ve got to stop this!” Morticia told me. “Stop it, now!”
“But I don’t know how!” I argued back. “I’ve never heard of something that creates solid hallucinations.”
“It’s almost obvious; use your head, Gideon,” Dad told me snappishly. “It’s got to be the jug.” This was so confusing, but I believed him, though he spoke words that had come from my own head. Voldemort’s tall pot was the only thing I could count on to be real. Suddenly, as if just because I had been thinking it, several of the villagers all had copies of that same simple-looking ceramic jug, inside which were various demons and monsters, liquids and powders. Yet, when I looked back to where I had left the real thing, it was normal, unaffected.
Hastily, I pulled off the lid to see what was inside.
Pincers. Brilliant. I jumped back. A giant hallucinogenic crustacean disguised as a jug.
I dropped the lid and staggered further from the beast, drawing my wand. A stunning spell bounced easily off its deceptively ceramic looking shell, in which it was still hidden. How was I supposed to kill this thing?
“You’re not supposed to kill it,” Morticia told me, now standing nearby and replying to thoughts I had not verbalised. “It’s supposed to kill you, on the off chance that the banshee failed.”
“I was sent here to die,” I conceded, and then felt a great rush of realisation. “That means…”
“You were right. Fabian’s alive,” concluded the image of Tisha. “He must be.”
“Well, at least Voldemort made the right decision,” commented Father, also suddenly right behind me.
“Alright,” I told myself, and everyone around me, although they were truly only fabrications. “I just have to kill the mad lobster thing, and find my way home.” I prepared to try the strongest severing charm I know, but Morticia grabbed my arm.
“Stop, Gideon. Think about this. How will you find your way home from the middle of the desert, if you can’t apparate?” I scowled.
“I don’t know. I suppose it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“Of course it matters!” Tisha told me pleadingly. “Don’t you want to get back and find Fabian? You’re so close…” I paused.
“But if I don’t get rid of the lobster, the villagers will kill me.” Conveniently, however, none had actually reached me. It was as if they were suspended in animation, a looming threat that I hadn’t been paying attention to. When I considered the options, this imaginary vision of Morticia was right “ I was right.
Concentrating hard, I closed my eyes, imagining a fire place. When I opened them, it stood in front of me, as if it had been there all along.
“I hope this works,” I said pointlessly, and looked back to Morticia “ in fact, my father also. This was the last time I’d ever see them, realistically living, breathing, before me.
“Don’t think about it,” Charlie told me wisely. “It’s not real, anyway.” They had taken the place of the voice in my head, the part of me I had pushed to the side. Nodding, I turned my back from the hallucination of an after-life paradise, and threw the floo powder, conveniently resting in my hand, into the fire, which I was sure had not been there before. I stepped into it, without looking back.
“1,267, Brimley Drive!” I shouted with determination, trying not to let my mind dwell on the hallucination. It was a dream, nothing more.
It wasn’t long at all until the lounge room of Morticia and my house buzzed into view, empty and lifeless. Tracking the Death Eaters “ even becoming one “ had all been a ploy to escape the realisation of what was now truth, that Tisha was gone. I hadn’t been able to see it, to deal with it, it had driven me a significant distance down a path which led to a man I didn’t want to be. On the table lay a large photo of the two of us dancing. She had always been a fantastic dancer, and had always laughed at the fact that I was pretty good at it too.
I picked up the picture, disgusted with my reaction to her death. She was so clearheaded, so carelessly peaceful when it came to it, she would never have wanted this for me. She had loved me.
Tears came at the most unexpected of moments.
Slowly, my comprehension of sound was starting to recover. I could hear my heart racing, my harsh, sporadic breaths. The voice in my head, however, didn’t come back, but in a funny way, that made sense. I didn’t really need it. The voice had only been me “ the side of me that wanted my family, and the side of me that wanted to properly mourn for my lost fiancé. She deserved that.
I had not taken anything seriously enough to be ready for such a tragedy. Then again, there was no preparation for tragedy anyway. Such a simple truth, and yet I had taken so long to fully realise it, and even now I couldn’t face up to the prospect of her death without feeling as if my heart and mind might explode with confusion and hurt.
I once fell in love with an unlikely angel. I once had a bright future, a lovely wedding, to look forward to. I once had a fiancé, and everything about her was beautiful, and maybe, in some way, when I’d been with her I had been beautiful too.
“I’m sorry,” I told the photo of us.
She was gone now. It was terrible and unfair. I would never see her again. Never.
My arm burned. A red, hot poker was jabbing me, mercilessly. I still had a brother, who was still in trouble, I still had the scattered debris of what was left of my life, and I still had a chance to do good with them.
I couldn’t leave this photo on the table. Trembling, I picked up the moving picture, and climbed up onto the table, and then further onto the mantelpiece above the fire, overlooking the room in which I had sat at, cheerfully and without care only weeks beforehand. With a simple charm, I stuck the large photo to the bare, brick wall. That simple moment of happiness was one of the most important memories of this house. Not the crying, not the loss, and not the day I got a letter from the Healer under which Tisha had been working.
I wasn’t running anymore, and if I died, which seemed particularly likely, this was how I wanted Molly, Arthur, all my nephews, my friends, my would-be step-parents and even Mother to remember me.
Resigned, I apparated out.
Prewett’d: Wedding Tears, Funeral Tears by Mind_Over_Matter
Chapter Notes: Here we have the tenth and final prompt, as well as some of my conclusion.
Thanks for reading, by the way!