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The first time I ever asked Adelaide to tell me her story, she replied, "These old tales are half-rotted autumn leaves, fit fodder only for worms and mushrooms. You want stories of life and heroes, for the mortalities I could tell reek of turpentine, forgetfulness and rooms with small doors that do not open."
I said, "I am myself a blight in summer or an early frost. I should be dead. I should be food for shuffling growths, but I'm here. I must continue. Who better to find the eroded sparks of life in the bare bones you lay out for feasting?"
She looked at me long and hard, like she was searching me for brushstrokes that would tell my intention. She said, "It's not what you need. Look elsewhere."
I replied, "It is all that I have."
>>>>>
Of course, we neither of us said anything so poetic. But the first art of dressing futility in words is to drape it in intrigue. Then no one notices the mundanity clinging to the hem like dust.
>>>>
Ron looked in the mirror, wondering how to reconcile his school robes with the face that stared back at him. The robe was just an inch too short in the arms, just like all his robes had been the entire time he'd been wearing them. It didn't matter where he got them from, there was always something too short about them. They were faded unevenly, and a hole had been darned in the front. Boring and utilitarian, they pulled just a little across his shoulders and hung awkwardly. Above the collar, his face looked too old for the youthfulness his school robes implied. Violet circles smudged under his eyes and his mouth was a tighter line than he remembered it being the last time he'd worn these robes.
Turning from the mirror as his Mum poked her head through the open door, Ron forced a smile to his lips and shoved the last few things into his trunk. He let the lid fall with a thunk and latched it neatly, adding a magical locking charm. Molly looked like she wanted to say something, her face creasing into a worried frown that he was getting more familiar with by the day. He couldn't imagine that the things she would say now would sound different to how they had sounded anytime the last week, so he just levitated his trunk down the stairs, brushing past her. Molly followed behind him, and Ron could just see the way her hands would be wound in her apron, the way her concern would have deepened. He let the trunk drop at the bottom of the stairs, next to Ginny's one in the hallway.
"Is it nearly time to go?" he asked. "How are we getting there?"
"We're going by Floo to Hogsmeade and walking up," his mother replied. "You know that's how Professor McGonagall wants those of you repeating Seventh Year to arrive." Ron just shrugged. "Ginny's going to catch the train though," Molly continued. "Bill should be here any moment to take her." Ron just shrugged again. He didn't want his Mum with him, underscoring the fact that he was eleven years old again, unable to be trusted out in public alone. There was nothing he could do about it though; best to just repress it, along with everything else. "Come on," Molly said. "We've time for a cup of tea first." He followed her into the kitchen wordlessly, sitting in his accustomed chair, Ginny sitting two seats down, and he didn't think for an instant of the missing person between them. That went into the pile to be denied too.
"It's still weird to catch the Express by myself," said Ginny. "It doesn't feel right."
"You did it last year," said Molly, filling the kettle with water and tapping the side with her wand. As the steam curled from the spout, she reached for the tea pot and turned it over in the sink to empty it.
"It felt weird then too," said Ginny. "It's not the same if I can't sit with Hermione if I want to, or Ron and Harry." Molly froze as Ron flinched, standing up very calmly and walking out of the kitchen. He walked down the hallway to the downstairs bathroom, shutting the door firmly behind him without slamming it. He didn't want to hear the voices in the kitchen, knowing that his Mum would be furious and Ginny defiant. She still thought she had the monopoly on tragic loss over Harry, but she didn't know anything. She was bright and barely scathed by the events of the past year.
He sat on the edge of the bathtub, cold enamel under his thighs and hands, and stared at the worn pattern on the floor, the floorboards uneven from years of water on them that not even repeated drying charms could deal with. He'd spent hours in here over the years, splashing gleefully in the tub, sending water and suds flying as he played. Ginny had never liked getting water in her eyes.
Ron felt the hot prickle of tears and blinked them back resolutely. He'd not cried at Harry and Hermione's funerals and he wasn't about to start now. It felt pointless anyway, to be sad or heartbroken. He was trapped behind a shut door in a shabby bathroom, and he thought that maybe he'd been dreaming everything anyway. He'd been telling stories to his bath toys again, dragons and peril and intrepid heroes, and no one had ever, ever, ended up back at home living with their Mum and Dad after those adventures. Maybe, thought Ron, looking at his worn robes hanging round his skinny legs, the rules were different for sidekicks. Perhaps they went back to the tiny worn rooms of their earlier existence and shaped themselves again to the pattern of circumscribed days. He missed Harry and Hermione so much he ached, but he just got up and splashed his face with cold water. Surely the yelling would have stopped by now.
>>>>
The Castle was both bigger and smaller than Ron remembered. After months in a cramped tent with damp and frayed tempers as his constant companions, the high ceilings and huge windows dwarfed him. As he sat at the Gryffindor table and the other students trickled in, he couldn't remember feeling so stifled before. Neville sat next to him, Dean on the other side, and they were all quiet amidst the bustle of younger students and their shouts and laughter. There were other pockets of silence around the room, but Ron scarcely noticed.
Later, he walked the corridors, trying to banish the thought of Harry and Hermione from his mind. He had to get used to the cold and isolation, and it wasn't like he was going to sleep tonight anyway.
>>>>
I came to story-telling by accident. It's not like I was groomed from birth into some ancient bardic tradition.
In fact, by the time things came to me, they were usually worn down and tattered, even my parents' affection. I was not one to tilt at windmills, not least because my lance would shatter under the impact on its cobbled-together materials. Mostly, I was not bitter as I grew up. I'd never known what it was to be first; I can't imagine that I ever will.
>>>>
Adelaide told me how it felt to wake two-dimensional. The caked layers of oil-borne pigments cracked and shivered as the charms ran through each brushstroke. For a moment, blinking her new eyelids, she felt caught in conflicting crosshatching. There was a second of panic for breath, a kind of blind terror or ecstacy, before she realised she had no need to.
It was a lonely feeling, but the next breath-space brought with it freedom. She looked at her double, the other Adelaide, curled on a couch under the skylight in the studio that they both knew. She could remember the other Adelaide: how she filled space, her feelings and thoughts, the revolted fear in the way she looked at the artist. His hand was still on the painting, thumb resting on the corner. Adelaide remembered how the hand felt cracking over her skin, but she couldn't feel it anymore. She'd never feel it again.
She was an animated visage, a collection of bound fragments of colour and line. She felt nothing but liberation.
This was not, she told me, a common reaction.
She was not, I knew, an ordinary portrait.
>>>>
Ron shuffled into the classroom last, slinking down the aisle on a wave of students. He drifted to the front like flotsam and sank into a seat right in front of the desk. When Flitwick beamed at him, it was the beady look of a seagull. Ron blinked and Flitwick beamed at him cheerfully and levitated a box over to sit on his cluttered desk before he jumped up onto his pile of books to address the class.
"We must, sadly, get some minuiate out of the way before we begin our set curricula for the year," Flitwick said. Ron wanted to concentrate, really, but the walls seemed closer than he remembered from his last time in a classroom, and he was uncomfortably aware of the combined mass of breath and blood of his classmates. It weighed on him, heavier every moment, until he wasn't sure what was the rush of his own heartbeat and what was his imagining. All he could hear was the swish and flick of each inhale and exhale, the feeling of being alone in the middle of a crowd. He couldn't even see the door.
Fingers gripping tighter to the edge of the desk, Ron fought to focus on his Professor, but the words sounded eerie and distorted. He swayed on his seat, pushing down the urge to run, the urge to fight and explode into motion. His skin crawled with his fear and tension, breath coming in short pants. To be like this, around other people with no way of escape, made Ron's heart race and reminded him of each and every narrow escape. He hated it, more than he'd ever hated spiders.
Slowly, his pulse slowed and he relaxed. The cold trickle of sweat down his spine was unpleasant, but the clustered heave of his classmates' breathing regained its proper volume and significance. He raised his head to meet Flitwick's kindly gaze and managed a weak smile. Flitwick beamed back at him, but didn't draw attention to Ron in any other way. Ron was grateful. Life was awkward and isolated enough without being labelled a headcase too.
After class, he lingered to talk to his professor. Flitwick cut off his stammered apologies with a smile and a wave of his hand.
"Take a seat," he said. Ron sank back into his seat at the front and watched as Flitwick's own chair marched over from the corner and settled in front of him. Flitwick levitated himself into it and regarded Ron for a long moment. Ron found his hands clenching again, expecting maybe pity, maybe suggestions that he'd be better off at home. Maybe, even, a request for some heroic anecdote. "I served in the War against Grindelwald," Flitwick said instead.
Ron blinked. He hadn't been expecting that. He listened carefully, sifting the details and filling in the background from the spaces in what was unsaid. The story was plain and unvarnished, but Ron could hear the weeks of hunger, the moments of terror that sat incongruously against the aching, grinding monotony of anticipation. He could nearly smell the dirt, feel robes stiffened with blood under his fingers.
"When I came back, I was... not what other people expected," he said, fixing Ron with his kindly smile again. This time, Ron could see the depth of that kindliness. It was hard-won. "There are certain expectations of a hero; you know this. Those expectations are different, but no less onerous, for those of us who were there, common foot soldiers in a war that was too big for our hands and wands."
Ron nodded. This was the first time he'd heard anyone speak of their experience. Mostly, they just looked at him, waiting for something he couldn't give.
"Did you hear anything I said in the first part of today's class?" Flitwick asked.
"No," Ron confessed.
"It doesn't matter," said Flitwick. He handed over a sheaf of parchment. "It's a term project. I suggest you choose a topic soon."
Ron looked up at him, a red flush starting along his cheekbones. "I wouldn't know where to start," he said. "I don't even know what we study this year. I've forgotten so much."
"There are two approaches to take," said Flitwick. "A charm that you've used often, something as familiar as breathing. Or something you've never heard of, something that captures you by something unexpected." He tapped the parchment. "Try the second. You never know what you might find."
>>>>
Ron looked at the list of suggested topics, the array of charms. There were charms for levitation; for banishing, summoning, heating, cooling, stirring and everything else that could be thought of. Ron's head spun slightly and he found his lips moving over the words he'd half-forgotten, charms he'd learned when he was younger. Some, he'd never used outside the classroom, but others... he swallowed hard and brushed at his skin like he was getting rid of an infestation of insects when he read over the words for a sticking charm. He still felt the fugitive sizzle of a hex, the first indication of an attack. He'd been sticking down a loose flap of the tent at the time, and the snap of the tarpaulin in the wind was somehow louder in his memory than the screams of the fight. Rubbing reflexively at his arm, Ron tried to block the noise from his memory, fought to stop the itching pain before it began. They'd repelled the attack, fighting dirty and using every scrap of advantage they held. This wasn't the stuff of heroes; it was filthy and blood-slick. Ron could have lived without knowing how arteries spurted when they severed. He would have preferred not to know that he was capable of doing the severing.
Tearing his eyes away from the page, Ron took a moment to breathe and remind himself that he was at Hogwarts. He was sitting on the cold stones in a remote corridor. It was blessedly silent; even the portraits were still and the wind was no more than a gentle moan at the windows.
He returned his eyes to the page. He could see no point in this, but he wasn't dead so he needed something to occupy his time. This seemed better, all things considered, than dwindling to a grey spectre of forgotten glory. His lip twisted for a second. He was a sidekick, and there was little that was heroic about him.
The next charm was unfamiliar, designed to animate images. He looked at the Latin words, something about them itching at his mind. He had seen an incantation like this before, though he couldn't say where. It nagged at his brain. He looked at the list and tapped his finger against the words for that charm. Looking up, he gazed at the portrait across from him and wondered about her life. Her frame was simple dark wood, a rectangular cage for painted canvas, but she looked peaceful in it. He thought of the portraits of the headmasters, solemn and worldly in their own frames. He thought of The Fat Lady, guarding the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. He looked back to the page and continued reading.
The assignment asked for research and analysis, cut-and-dried facts alongside histories and the rambling anecdotes of scholarship. He looked from the guidelines to the charm, thinking about animated images; the countless years of portraits and landscapes that had stirred to life under magic. It seemed a hopeful act, to animate and create from dead pigment.
>>>>
For six years, I walked the corridors in company. My attention was always inwards, to the huddle of communication. It was a beautiful luxury. Though I never gave it away, I was a lonely child. People think it should be impossible in such a large family, but I was never anything special. I think they all knew that too. Bill and Charlie were already away at school, Percy was always reading. The twins were exuberant planets that needed only each other to orbit. Ginny was always something special to everyone. It was easy for me to fade into the background and be an observer. I think that's why I clung so hard to Harry and Hermione. I would cling to them still, if only they were here.
Now, though, I am alone when I walk the corridors. I could have company, I am sure, but my eyes are open to different things now. There are other lives here, ones that people do not think of. Or, if they do, they dismiss them as circumscribed and cramped and not worthy of consideration.
I'm a minor character in a well-worn tale. I'm looking into these corners, now.
>>>>
Ginny waited for him at the foot of the stairs, hands on hips and jaw set stubbornly. Ron barely glanced at her, keeping his eyes down and trying to avoid her obvious intent to stop him. He didn't want to deal with whatever was giving her that argumentative look. She saw herself as the grieving friend, the one who waited at home and chafed at restrictions and irksome duties, but should have been out sharing in glory and heroics. Maybe even the grieving girlfriend; she'd never really given up hope on Harry.
Ron didn't want to tell her what killing was like. It was messy; it smelled like flat blood and fear.
Ron stepped sideways, attempting to edge around her, but stopped as she moved too, standing directly in front of him. Still, he did not look up, kept his eyes down and hoped that she'd get her bitterness out quickly, like a clean arterial sever.
"Mum says you haven't written to her," she said. Ron winced at the hard, angry edge to her voice. He could hear the seething impotence under the rage, the sense of missing out and being left behind. He felt it, the idea of not being important enough to risk everything. But those who sat and waited had a different kind of fear to those in the thick of the conflict. Less acute, more dragging and wearing. He remembered the story of Ulysses - we all remember Penelope and her long, skillful wait, but who remembers the least one of those doomed men who took their place on the boat with Ulysses at the helm?
>>>>
Adelaide had been given to Woodward at the height of his fame and fortune as an artist. Half mistress, half servant, she'd watched as brandy had sunk alcoholic tendrils into his brain and slowly choked every skerrick of talent and promise it had found. She was fifteen when they first met, and had followed his decline with fear and repungnance, stuck to him by convention and lack of options.
Towards the end, when he could not afford models, she had sat for him too. That's how the Adelaide I met had found her freedom, leaving his hands casually entitled 'The Fat Lady.'
Despite knowing that she must have outlasted that other Adelaide and that Woodward must have been dead this last two hundred years, she still felt the shiver on her skin when she thought of him. It was like a brush dragged the wrong way through half-dry paint, or the whiff of paint-stripper on a cloth. She hated the way it made her feel, because she was her own self now. She was constrained only the the rules of her two-dimensionality, and they were byzantine enough that nearly anything was possible.
She found it odd to be freer in her frame than she had ever been in her first life.
>>>>
Ron ripped the letter from his mother in half with a frustrated snarl, crushing the parchment in his clenched fists and resisting the urge to reach for his wand and set fire to the pieces. Knowing his luck, he'd set fire to half the wall, and he didn't need the notoriety.
Tipping his head back against the wall, Ron slowly made his fingers relax so the parchment could flutter to the stones and rest innocently in the silence and moonlight. The only noise was his ragged breathing. His mother was worried; his mother meant well. His mother was grieving too, but that just made it worse to Ron. She wanted to pull him close and coddle him gently, like the last chick in her nest. She wanted him to be ten years old again and easy to comfort, because then maybe she would feel more in control.
"You've not been back to Gryffindor Tower for two nights," said a voice. Ron's eyes jerked open and he gazed across the corridor in shock. The Fat Lady blinked down at him from the frame across the corridor.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
"Looking for you," she replied. "Violet's watching the Tower."
Ron looked at her. Just behind her, the other occupant of the frame was still snoring quietly, book over his face.
"How do you do that?" he asked.
"I ask her," she replied.
"No," he said, sitting up straight and leaning forward a little. The curiosity he felt was strange; he'd nearly forgotten what it was like. His brain almost itched as he tried to parse the feeling. "No, I mean, how do you move from frame to frame?"
"I'm animated," said The Fat Lady. "I can't be the first portrait you've seen in a different frame, Ronald."
"No," he said, "not the first. But... I've never thought about it before."
"You ridiculous three-dimensional creatures," she snorted. "I've nearly forgotten what it's like to be one of you, always rushing headlong with your eyes straight forward. Cynthia, one of the old librarians, tells me that sometimes you get ambushed because of this. Never looking up, never looking side to side."
"Will you tell me about it?" Ron asked. His urge to know more was stronger now. He wanted to ask questions and really listen to the answers; he wanted to make knowledge and share it. He remembered the animation spell in the list of Charms topics and focused his gaze on The Fat Lady.
"No, child, I will not. I know you've been off doing other things, but while you're here, you're supposed to sleep under my watchful eye. Back to the Tower with you." She sounded kindly, but her ordering for comfort and safety would ordinarily have made Ron wince and retreat inside his shell. Instead, he stood and gathered his books and bag, already thinking of the reading list he needed to make and wondering how to convince The Fat Lady to change her mind.
>>>>
I can still remember so many things about Harry and Hermione with a clarity that is painful. Sometimes, I wish for the memories to dim, but then I think of how I am the last person who knows those stories. No matter how much the burden weighs, I shall shoulder it.
When I first met Harry, he had a lost look round his eyes that echoed the way he looked lost in those ridiculous clothes. I found out later that they were his cousin's cast offs. That was the first time I wanted to punch what passed for his family. That first time, though, that meeting, all that really stuck was the lost look, and the feral hesitance to take anything that was offered. He looked for barbs and hooks everywhere, but all too often he just wanted to believe the best in people. That, and count himself not worthy of consideration.
In contrast, Hermione had the look of a sleek and imperious cat - except for the hair. I hated her and her bossiness and briskness. It took me years to see the insecurities under that exterior; more to understand it.
We made a trio that was riddled with fractures of self-confidence, held together with bravado and piss-taking on the surface. Really, I think, we just managed to make a single coherent unit out of us all. When we were out in the woods, horcrux hunting and dodging Voldemort's plans, we fit together like one being. If Hermione was the brains and Harry was the heart, I guess I was the guts. Not in the bravery sense, though. I never managed that. But I had the feeling of us all. I have it still, even though the others are gone and will never come back to me.
Sometimes, at night, I lie awake and look up at the hanging over the bed, or at the curtains that hem me in, and I think of how I carry my burdens, and whether I would put them down, even if I could. Then I think of Harry's first smile, so hesitant you'd think you'd broken your heart on it, and I think of Hermione's relieved sigh when she realised we were all friends.
I don't want to forget.
>>>>
Flitwick looked up from his roll book as Ron stood in front of him after class. He felt a little silly, shifting from foot to foot uncomfortably. He didn't really have anything he needed to talk about, but he felt like he should have some contact and conversation. After months of avoiding people, it felt strange to force himself to initiate contact. He made himself stay there anyway, waiting while the others filed out for lunch.
"Pull up a chair," Flitwick invited. He smiled widely when Ron settled in place, book bag at his feet.
"I've decided on a topic," he said. Flitwick nodded encouragingly. "Animation charms," Ron continued.
"Ah, an excellent choice," Flitwick said, approval clear in his voice. "Not the easiest of charms to master, definitely not the most straightforward to unravel, yet there are so many directions in which you may take your research. Have you an idea yet?"
"I was talking with The Fat Lady, and something she said gave me an idea," Ron said. He felt a little better now. Flitwick didn't look at him like he was crazy. He looked pleased to talk with Ron, happy to listen to him. It made Ron feel a little braver, even though it didn't stop the nervous hammer of his heart. He continued, "She said she could barely remember what it was like to be three-dimensional, and I was wondering what she meant."
"Ah," said Flitwick. "That is fascinating. Portraiture is not my area of expertise, but I would indeed by interested in learning more. Tell me what you were thinking of."
"Well," said Ron, gaining confidence as he talked, "I was wondering if all portraits can remember the person on whom they are based, and if it's different for portraits designed to be a memorial compared to those designed to, I dunno, look good, I guess." Flitwick nodded again. "And if the time since the charm affected memories, or if some portraits never remembered anything. Or what if a real person sat for a picture of a mythical person, whose memories would the portrait have?" He stopped, feeling out of breath. This was the most he'd said to anyone in a long time.
"Those all have the potential to be excellent subjects," said Flitwick. Ron, on the alert for mockery or patronage, breathed more easily as Flitwick considered his words seriously. "We know so little about portraits. Even Charms masters rarely consider animation charms to be worthy of serious study."
"So you think it's a good idea?" asked Ron.
"I think it is an excellent idea," he beamed. "You have obviously thought deeper than the surface already, and showed perception and original thought. Admirable."
Ron closed his eyes for an instant and took a deep breath. He twisted his fingers together, hoping that the shaking would remain unnoticed. He made himself keep his breath steady, trying to slow the hammer of his pulse. Relief at being taken seriously mixed with fading anxiety from talking in the first place and he felt hollow and momentarily lost. Opening his eyes again, he had no idea how much time had passed. Flitwick sat unconcerned on the other side of the desk, so he guessed that it had not been long. Or maybe Flitwick was too polite to say.
"Thanks," Ron said.
"It's my pleasure," Flitwick replied. "I'm always happy to talk with you."
The smile on Ron's face was shaky but genuine. He thought he could decipher the hidden offer of support in Flitwick's words, couched in a way that didn't make Ron feel defensive. Most people seemed to think he was a bit touched, offering him help like he was broken and needed to be forcibly knocked back into a social shape.
"Thanks," said Ron again. He levered himself out of his chair and grabbed his bag, beating a retreat to the door that was less than grateful. He waved awkwardly before he ducked out into the corridor, just catching a glimpse of Flitwick's wave in reply. Then he was out, collapsing back against the wall and trying to catch his breath.
"Mum says you still haven't written to her," said Ginny. Ron's eyes shot open and his wand was in his hand and pointed at her heart before he even had time to really register her voice. An instinctive reaction saw his heart racing; irrational panic spiking. She looked from the wand tip to him, backing up a step, even though she moderated not one bit of her belligerent tone or pose. "Well?" she demanded.
"Fuck off and mind your own business," said Ron. He felt dizzy, barely bouncing from one breath to another on adrenaline. He felt poised to strike, his mind narrowing to a pinpoint of awareness, making jerky, panicked assessments of the peril he was facing.
"You could just write to her, you selfish dick," she said, "but you've got to make it all about you and your special fucking problems." Ron felt his wand hand shaking, a hex on his lips. He had to breathe, remember that this was Ginny. For so long, he'd lived with instinctive fight or flight that he found it hard to remember and rationalise. Every nerve was screaming that this was a trap and he had to get out of here, but his rational brain insisted that his sister, struggling with her misplaced grief, was no threat. "Got no answer for me?" Ginny jeered. "That's typical."
Jerking his wand up, Ron muttered a charm to disorientate. He needed to escape, panic choking him. He ran, not thinking, just acting; his legs carrying him automatically as all his attention went into the immediate: safety, obstacles and pursuit. Once he arrived in the quiet of his forgotten corridor, he sank into a shaky huddle. His breathing was rapid, heart beating in a rat-a-tat of terror. In that instant, he was back in camp, back in the fight and the dragging weariness of constant alertness.
It took a long time for him to calm down enough to breathe properly and let himself relax into his surroundings. He tilted his head back and looked up at the ceiling. The thin winter sunset peeked in the windows at the far end and painted the corridor pink. He must have missed his afternoon classes. He had definitely missed lunch. His stomach growled, but it was a distant urge. Looking across the corridor, he saw The Fat Lady back in the portrait. She was reading something, just sitting there.
"What are you doing here?" he asked. She looked up from her book.
"I heard you were having trouble," she replied.
"I don't need a babysitter," Ron said.
"I know," she said. "I'm not that sort of a portrait. But you needed someone here in case you hyperventilated till you passed out."
"You're taking this well," Ron muttered. He could remember his mother's face every time he'd swum up from the depths of a nightmare or surfaced from a panic attack. The first magic he'd done had been to silence his room. She never asked if he was still having nightmares.
"You talk like I've never seen war survivors before," she replied. "It's always different, but never less heartbreaking."
Ron looked up at her, seeing the same kind of empathetic understanding he'd seen on Flitwick's face. There was no judgement, and no expectations.
"Are you going to talk with me about my Charms project now?" he asked.
"No one's interested in portraits, dear," she replied.
"I am," he said. He could feel the stubborn kernel of curiosity growing inside him, giving him something to think of and plan for. It was a tiny pinprick of possibility in a grey lump of survival.
>>>>
Adelaide told me what she could remember of her old life, how the memories had been there as she'd woken, but how she'd added to them and changed. She'd grown beyond being the down-trodden chattel of a drunkard, and she was proud of herself for it.
Slipping from frame to frame wasn't like walking the corridors. It was more like stepping stones, but the spaces between the stones were oblivion. In that fraction of time, you didn't exist. Your pigments and brushstrokes were mere possibility, an indefinite smear of something that would, hopefully, reassemble as you.
She'd been terrified the first time she tried it, in case she collapsed back into something else. The first time she ever saw Cubist art, that's what she thought it was. All the perspectives had jostled and crunched, butting up against each other like uncomfortable block towers instead of smoothing back out into a continuum of animated oils.
Some portraits moved from frame to frame in the hope that the next stone would splinter and not take their weight, that they would find extinction somewhere between canvases. Their memories and perceptions layered thick and crushing on the delicate frame of their brushstrokes, driving them to despair and madness. Some searched for burning, some for the chemical ending of paint stripper. Some longed to disintegrate into dust and nothingness.
I could hardly judge, given my own longings.
>>>>
I was right there next to them, all the way through our long march. I was next to them for each horcrux, for each fight, for each desperate retreat and foolhardy advance. I was them, or, I suppose, we were each other.
No one else knows what it was like for the three of us. They know their own despair - waiting, the hurtling terror of fighting, the ashes of grief - and I can't know that either. We can only listen to each other's stories with patience and humility, and try to find understanding.
I still remember how they died. I remember every second of it, from the moment our wands met and we fused our wills in the spells we'd practiced. We knew each other inside out and back to front, knew things about each other we never would have told. We were each other, remember?
Our magic burrowed into Voldemort, pulling apart the stitches of his cobbled together remnants. We saw everything that made him up; we tore it apart like it was the paper aeroplanes of a boring lesson. We had to move on, keep moving, keep tearing and fighting and pulling. It was the only way. We were the magic, the magic was us, and Voldemort was all around us, half-decayed and wholly rotten. Even his human moments were there, tucked away like mothballed winter coats. We tore them up too, closing our eyes to the small, lost boy. We ripped him apart without mercy, discarding him along with the rest, burning him up to bitter, meaningless ash.
It worked. He died. We all know that.
And Harry and Hermione are still with me, even though I held onto their dead bodies until my fingers were prised free of their chilling skin. How can I say that without being crazy?
So I don't say it.
Maybe one day I will find the words to shape it sensibly.
>>>>
Ron waited in front of The Fat Lady's portrait, fingers clutching the strap of his bag. He waited until the corridor was empty and The Fat Lady looked up at him.
"I want you to tell me your story," he said. "It's for my Charms project. But it's more than that."
"Go on," she said. He dredged up the words he'd rehearsed.
"I want to know," he said. "How it works, how you remember, what you remember. I want to record it before it's forgotten and lost." She started to shake her head again, and he hurried on with his speech. "I know what it's like to exist in the margins. I want to save your stories. I'm not a hero."
"That's good," she said. "Heroes are overrated when it comes to actual life."
"You'll do it?" he asked. He was shaking slightly, fingers twisted in the strap of his bag.
"I won't say no this time," she said. "But no one really wants to hear about our lives."
"I do," said Ron. His determination felt solid, for once. This was something he could do; dig into margins and pull out the forgotten treasures that they harboured. He could learn, and for the first time in forever, he felt excited by the prospect. He knew Hermione would be proud of him. Something inside his magic hummed for a moment, bright and warm. He smiled at The Fat Lady. "I want to hear about it. Some things are important to remember, and to share."
"And you? Will you share?" she asked.
"Share what?" he asked.
"Your story," she said. "And not with me, foolish boy. With your family."
"They wouldn't understand," he muttered.
"You might not understand me," she replied. "But you're going to try."
"Yes," he said.
"Well?" she asked.
"They'll think I'm crazy," he said.
"Maybe," she said. "But you're sticking yourself back together, and you can't get all the pieces right. Some just won't go back properly."
Ron paused, looking up at her. He thought about all the tints and brushstrokes that made her visage. She probably knew a few things about putting pieces together to make a coherent whole. "So, can I interview you?" he asked.
"Put together some questions," she said. "Are you going to interview others?"
Ron thought of the grave importance of past headmasters and headmistresses. Then he thought of the countless other portraits he'd seen every day and wondered about them. The memory of Sir Cadogan came to him and he nearly laughed.
"Yeah," he said. "I think I will. Will you mind?"
"Not at all," she said. "What about on Sunday afternoon, in that corridor you like so much? And my real name is Adelaide."
>>>>
I lived.
I don't know how, and that itches at me with the phantom pain of an amputated limb.
>>>>
Ron could scarcely remember enthusiasm, but he supposed that was what he was feeling. It was warm and unfamiliar, flickering away excitedly in the scrawl of his notes and the tenor of his questions. He felt exhilarated and challenged. For once, it was opening his mind, not shutting it down to instinctive terror reactions.
Chewing on the end of his quill, he stared at his parchment and thought about where he wanted to go with this. So many ideas were swirling in his head. There was identity and ownership, free will and memory, mechanics and ethics. He hadn't even known he was capable of having so many thoughts.
"Mind if I sit down?" asked a voice. Ron looked up to see Flitwick next to the table, a stack of books hovering behind him.
"Not at all," said Ron, pleased to hear his voice stay steady. Flitwick beamed and set the books down gently before transfiguring his chair to make it the right height for him. Ron watched him levitate himself onto the chair.
"The wizarding world is not always the most convenient of places," said Flitwick ruefully.
"I can't even imagine," said Ron. He felt like his whole worldview had twisted slightly and clicked down in a new configuration, just from watching what a production it was for Flitwick to get around.
"No," said Flitwick, "but you're thinking, and that's good. Tell me about your project and how it's going."
"Good," said Ron. "It's... it's huge. I don't even know where to start. I have ideas and they're all good, all fascinating. They're all things we don't think about because they're not normal."
"The wizarding world has a bizarre and uncomfortable relationship with whatever normal is," said Flitwick. "Don't let that worry you."
"It's uncomfortable," said Ron. "And... can I tell you what I really want to write about?"
"Of course," replied Flitwick, folding his hands together on the desk and tipping his head slightly. He didn't look mocking or disbelieving, or like he thought Ron was an idiot.
"I just want to write what it's like to be a portrait," he said. "What it feels like. It's nothing to do with the charm."
Flitwick tapped his finger on the tabletop and thought for a second. "One of the possible areas on which you may focus involves the social implications and consequences of you charm. How portraits themselves experience the charm is a legitimate investigation of that."
"Really?" blurted Ron. He couldn't stop the smile from blooming over his face. This felt good, and he hugged the moment of happiness tightly to himself. "Thank you."
"Nothing to thank me for," said Flitwick.
"No, for listening." He didn't add anything else, hoping that Flitwick would grasp his meaning like he seemed to all the time.
>>>>
Adelaide still remembered things. Portraits weren't quite bound by the same laws as the living, but things that happened in their three-dimensional lives still shaped them. That's why she paled, skin pigments leaching almost to lead white, when Sir Cadogan hopped into the frame with her.
As for him, it was the stillest I think I'd ever seen him. Layers of mannerisms fell from him and he pulled off his helmet. The face underneath was younger than the fumbling, ridiculous facade would have led me to believe. His whole posture shifted and changed; grandstanding failing to hold like poorly wrought scaffolding.
"Adelaide?" he asked. Even his voice was young, tentative and questioning.
"James?" she said. "James, is it really you? I thought...."
"I don't know what happened to the other, but this is me," he said. "June 12, 1802."
"He... Woodward sent him away, on June 18. I, I mean, other Adelaide, never saw him again. I never saw you." She sounded young, scared and hopeful.
Like they couldn't quite believe it, their hands stretched out across the canvas. James's gauntlets had gone the way of his helmet, and his fingers were shaking. When they touched, smiles broke across their faces with relief and that unexpected joy that comes with meeting after a long absence. The whole frame was alight with happiness, glowing from each line until they captured a luminosity their original artist could only have dreamed of.
>>>>
Ron stood still and silent and watched as the two portrait figures in front of him reached out and touched. He could barely breathe, watching them reach out and reconnect. He had no idea what had happened, just that this meeting was unexpected, a welcome joy that they'd never thought to wish for. He looked at their faces and the emotion etched there and smiled to himself. Stepping back, he put his shoulders against the wall and slid down to sit, book bag beside him. Sun filtered in the windows, winter-pale but vital anyway. He had no where else to be, and he was sure they'd remember him eventually.
Glancing up occasionally, always to the sight of two heads together, fingers clutched tight and hushed conversation, Ron read reference books and took notes, the scratch of his quill a soft counterpoint to softer voices. After a long time, he pushed aside his books and took a blank parchment. He stared at it for a while before writing the first line, Dear Mum and Dad.
The pair on the wall didn't notice his looks or his actions; they were absorbed in each other. Ron didn't mind. He wrote. He couldn't quite place the feeling inside his chest for a while, but it came to him eventually. He was happy.
Eventually, the low murmur of voices died and Ron looked up to see Adelaide and James looking down at him.
"We didn't get through your questions," Adelaide said.
"I'm sorry," said James. His bombast and posture were still discarded with his gloves, and Ron felt that nagging itch of curiosity. He smiled.
"Another time," he said. "It looked like you were busy."
"Yes," said Adelaide. "But you must not neglect your schoolwork." She looked so stern, for a moment, so utterly unlike the joyous girl Ron had seen inside her, that he nearly laughed.
"I've been doing something more important," he said.
"Nothing is more important than your education," she huffed.
"I've been writing to my family," he replied. He saw her face flicker from admonishing to pleased to stern again. James's fingers around hers tightened and she smiled, the stern look fading completely.
"That is more important," said James. Ron watched Adelaide look at him, and knew she agreed.
>>>>
I don't remember much about the days after Harry and Hermione's deaths. After Voldemort's destruction. Liberation Day, I heard some people call it. I spent some of those days unconscious, the rest in some white gauze daze. They were gone and my ears rang with the silence that used to be their laughter and lectures and the scared huff of their breath. My skin ached with the absence of their touch, used to direct my attention, draw me along, or share my warmth.
But my magic crawled with the pair of them as it recharged, heaving through my body in uneven waves and leaving me nauseous and shaky. I would have given up my magic in an instant; I would have given anything to have them again by my side. I still would. I have had to settle for them under my skin, twisted tight into the ropes of my magic.
When I have my wand in my hand, I can feel them, alive and vital. It burns, to feel Hermione's precision, Harry's determination, twisted up with mine. After the incantation, it aches and I have to force myself to let go of the wand.
It hurts, still, all these months later. I don't think it will ever fade.
But I have words. They can form fanciful arches and ruinous fortresses from simple rearrangement, building up into the sky in staircases of similies more twisted than any Escher print. They shape up our surroundings, ourselves, making nested shapes of crossing truths and half-truths; regulations from this angle and challenges from that.
The stories I tell and the framing I make, the words I choose and those I discard, the ears and minds I plant them in; these stories aren't mine. They are yours now too.