Tomato Seeds
He was back for the first time in more than twenty years, sitting in the chair his father used to sit in, at the head of the table. The Head of the family. Now, there was no family left to scold him for taking his father’s seat, just an emptiness that would not let him forget he had happily blown out birthday candles in this room, somewhere far down the road of years gone by.
“I hate being back here,” Sirius confessed quietly as his fingers traced a burn mark he could remember leaving upon his parents table. He had been fooling around with his wand as a child. He remembered seeing Cousin Lucius produce flame from his wand and how grudgingly fascinated he had been. He could easily remember his mother’s anger, and he could feel it all over again if he tried, but he couldn’t call back his own. “This place is haunted.”
Remus chuckled his even tumbling laugh as he made his way toward the table. “Everywhere is haunted, Sirius.” He put a plate of hot food in front of his friend, who promptly shoved a forkful into his mouth, and sat down to his own. “I thought you’d be used to that by now.”
“I guess we’ve just said too many goodbyes,” he suggested after he swallowed.
Remus nodded heavily his agreement, pushing his steaming food around on his plate.
“I see you haven’t changed one bit.” Sirius smirked as he watched Remus turn his fork over through his stiff fingers, looking a little more like himself. “You always took forever to start eating.”
“And you, my friend,” Remus taunted back, “always ate enough for the four of us.”
Sirius barked with laughter for a while. “Touché!” He stuffed another forkful in his mouth before saying, “James was always the picky-eater. Remember, he would take the seeds out of the tomatoes, or else he refused to eat them?”
Remus wore the same nostalgic look as his friend and they were silent as the minutes ticked by. The sound of the fire crackling kept company to the noise their forks made, scraping the surface of their plates. Their minds visited places their bodies could no longer reach. When Remus glanced over again, there was nothing left on Sirius’s plate, but three slices of tomatoes.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, frowning. “I thought you liked tomatoes.”
Sirius smiled slightly. “I do. I just won’t eat the seeds anymore.”
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More than a year later, Remus sat in that same chair, exhausted after a full moon. The gloom trapped in the kitchen hung in the air like overpowering dust, choking him. Tonks was at the filthy counters, slicing things and cursing repeatedly as she brought the knife down upon her fingers. Remus was too deeply immersed in his memories to notice. His fingers unconsciously traced the same burn mark a haunted man had done a long time ago.
After a while he unglazed his eyes and reeled himself in at the sound of her throat clearing. She was standing over him with her dull hair and a tentative smile on her face. She extended the plate of food. He took it soundlessly.
“Thanks,” he mumbled without feeling, even though she wasn’t demanding any gratitude. He looked down at the plate, fingering his fork like he always did.
Only after gazing at it for a full minute did he notice something different.
“You took all of the seeds off the tomatoes.” His wavering voice betrayed his surprise, weakness and humanity.
Tonks gave him that sad smile again. “Remus, I know you. I know you like tomatoes, but for some reason you just won’t eat the seeds.”
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Months later Mr. Weasley sat at the living room table, alone, trying to finish a work report that was duller than a crayon’s tip. He told himself to concentrate while praying in secret for an honourable distraction. His shoes went tapping against the wooden floor until his feet grew tired. He picked at stray threads on his jeans, so he could lift them to his face and blow them away. He thought about going to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee, but then he told himself to stop stalling.
He stared at his parchment. He felt the quill his hands held loosely. The words wouldn’t come. His eyes found the clock on the opposite wall, the one that actually served its original purpose. It was half past twelve. He shook his head and forced his mind to come up with a few sentences. They didn’t go much past mediocre. Sighing, he dropped his quill down upon the table and leaned back in his chair.
He would give himself some time to clear his mind. His eyes stared at the chair opposite his, the one with the rickety leg; the empty chair. Why did that seem so wrong? All of the other chairs were empty. His wife was asleep, and his children had their own homes, and school. For a moment he wondered at a slight ache somewhere inside him. He supposed he missed them. But it was almost Christmas, he would see them soon…
Not all of them, he remembered. That was Percy’s chair, and someone else would be sitting in it that Christmas. Percy would most likely sit in a new and expensive chair that could never have been his. He had only ever had one chair.
Arthur glared for a while, before his glare wore itself out and then he was regretful and curious. He hesitated. Then he stood, pushed his papers forward and made his way around the table to sit in the chair with the rickety leg.
As it protested beneath him a brief little happiness made itself out of him in the form of a light breathe. But then he was sighing and his face was in his hand.
Memories have a price: the memory of the sadness, and regret, which comes with them.
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A year later a girl with bright red hair sat on a red couch in her common room. She had faultless features, but they seemed to droop as she thought. The fire flickered in her eyes a little too brightly; her whole being was aflame.
“It was a jolly holiday,” muttered one of her friends from beside her, darkly. The growing amount of scars on his face was beginning to disfigure him. “Just me, me Mam, and cousin Fergus; six presents under the tree. I told you, right, that they got his parents?” Seamus added, looking over at Ginny, Neville, Colin, Lavender and Parvati. Parvati gave him that sad fierce-eyed look, nodding her head.
“My mom didn’t let me leave her side at all.” Lavender glared at the floor. “She’s angry I’ve been standing against them. I just got a letter from her.”
“My ‘Gran is overjoyed.” The shadows across Neville’s face shifted as he adjusted himself upon the floor, like the vines that creep over an abandoned cottage, obscuring its former sweetness. “I can tell. She’s finally beginning to feel proud of me.”
“My mom thinks I’m the only one she can still be sure is safe,” Ginny said quietly, eyes not leaving the flames. Her fire seemed to swell. “She’s driving herself mad, what with all of my brothers in the Order and Ron, Hermione and Harry off God-knows-where. You should have seen her after the thing at the Ministry; ranting on about how they were running straight into You-Know-Who’s hands. I don’t know what she’ll do if she hears about Luna.”
“Wish I were out with them, running straight into his hands,” Colin murmured wistfully. The others glared at him for his lack of tact and watched Ginny with concern.
The embers in her eyes burned even more brightly. “So do I,” she said. She sighed, leaning her head back against the couch. She pictured their faces. She pictured Harry’s face. She pictured the feel of his hand on hers and her fingers ached. She pictured him kissing her and her lips hurt. She was all aches. She was the storm without the rain, the needle without thread, lyrics without a melody. A fire without heat.
They watched her as she closed her eyes. She pulled her sleeves down over a bruise on her elbow. Instinctively, she reached up and arranged her hair over a gash on her cheek.
She had gotten into the habit of hiding her scars. They couldn’t imagine why.
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George was filling out paper work in the living room. It was two years after the war and Alicia wore a ring upon her finger and his promise in her heart. George wore mismatched socks and an earring in the only ear he had left. He did not particularly like the earring, but it annoyed his mother and since Bill had taken to being a good boy and cutting his hair, that job had fallen to him. He fulfilled it as if for two. He hadn’t learned how to live as a single unit.
“Honey,” Alicia called from somewhere in their bedroom, “honey, have you seen my blue sandals?”
“No…” George began. He sighed before finishing. “What’s the occasion, doll?”
He heard her scoff at the use of the nickname she deplored. He smirked a little, as he replied, “We’re going out.”
“Oh? Well, that’s just dandy…were you planning on telling me?”
She marched into the doorway of the living room, dress not yet buttoned at the back, hands on her hips, shoeless. “George, you are going, whether you like it or not.” She marched back into their room, calling over her shoulder, “It’ll do you good to get out of that stuffy room…”
“Well, as long as we’re going somewhere alone. I don’t want to meet any of your friends; I hate your friends, especially that Gigi. She should work in a circus, with a moustache like hers.” He glanced over at the door to their room smugly, waiting for her offended head to appear.
Instead, he heard groaning from inside. “Oh, for God’s sake, what the hell is the matter with your sock drawer?”
His head straightened a little and he pursed his lips. “Are you looking for your sandals in there? Because I assure you, they’re not.”
He heard thumping, and then Alicia appeared holding the drawer in her arms. “Look at this mess! Merlin, you haven’t got a single pair. Why do you have all of these; there’s enough here for two people!”
George knew that. Those were the socks of two people. Years before, he had come into that house alone for the first time, heaving, missing Fred, outraged, lost, confused. He had gone into their room, and he’d thought about how he’d have to endure the sight of an empty bed across from his and a dresser full of his brother’s things. With a tight throat he yanked the drawers open, yanked the covers off the mattress, flung everything out into the hall, but he left Fred’s sock drawer. Then, not knowing why, he had stuffed all of Fred’s socks in his drawer, and taken out two singles at random. One was blue and one was orange. One was his and one was not.
“Well, I guess we…” he let his sentence hang in the air like he often did, as if its other half would come along to complete it. And when it didn’t, he sighed. “We never do anything as expected.”
Oh, how he hated finishing his own sentences.
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Andromeda watched him from where she stood at the counter, charming knives to chop vegetables. Six-year-old Teddy was sitting there at the table in the lonely house. He was holding and jiggling the jug of milk and the pitcher of juice, making little chattering voices, as if the jug and the pitcher were conversing with each other. She smiled to herself and her pretty face wrinkled around the eyes and lips. She pushed back her greying hair.
“Teddy, dear, could you set us the table please?” she asked, watching as his wide blue eyes darted away from his toys. She watched as he smiled and got up. She listened to her heart aching.
Teddy opened one of the bottom cabinets and took out two plates, lifting them over his head to show that he was strong. When he glanced her way she was looking impressed for him. Pleased, he put them on the table, then took knives and forks from another drawer, humming no tune in particular, and put them around the plates in any which way. He tilted his head and looked at the utensils, before screwing up his face. When he opened his eyes again they were fork-coloured grey. Andromeda laughed.
“You’re a character, kid,” she told him, taking the bowl of salad and placing it in the centre of the table. She then summoned the pie and put it there too. “Well, let’s eat now!”
“Hey, Gran?” Teddy asked as he climbed up onto his chair across from her. He pulled the salad toward himself and began to serve.
“Yes, Teddy?” she smiled again, thinking how sad and beautiful it was that she could say those words to another soul, and not just herself.
“Is violet a girl colour?” he asked, tilting his head in that familiar way. His fork-grey eyes looked at her questioningly as his salad waited on his plate.
Andromeda threw her head back and laughed. “Of course not! There is no such thing as girl colours and boy colours. Just colours. Why do you ask?”
Teddy screwed up his face in response. Soon his hair was not brown, but a vivid violet. Andromeda breathed in sadly. “Ginny told me it was my Mom’s favourite colour.” Teddy grinned up at her with his purple hair and his fork-grey eyes.
She smiled at him, if only so she wouldn’t cry. “Yes, it was her favourite colour. You look just like her, you know, with that hair.”
The little boy swelled with pride and lowered his eyes to his food. He took the fork and knife carefully into his hands and began to cut. Andromeda watched him, thinking what a treasure she had. She watched his little, practiced hands, and his violet locks. She remembered another colourful child that had held those same things, somewhere in all of that black and white forgetfulness, distinct against a million other forgotten faces.
She looked at the tomatoes he was cutting. He had taken out all of the seeds.
It was all about the little things, she thought. Like the seeds of a tomato, hidden inside it until someone came around to cut it open. It was about the people you knew better than they knew themselves. It was about how much they were missed when they left; taking with them those little things you loved so much. The ones you miss the most, because they’re the things that just can’t be replaced.
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This story is dedicated to those of us who miss and are missed. Especially my dad and to my neighbours who just lost a father and husband due to suicide.
I really appreciate reviews, even if you hate this...Thanks again to Amber!
Tomato Seeds by Gin_Drinka
Chapter Notes: Thank you to Ambero_O for beta-ing for me and being fantastic. Anything you recognize in here is not mine.