The Voices Dying
Title: The Voices Dying
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Sturgis Podmore (avec Irving, whoo)
Rating: PG
Other: Written for the December 5th challenge (haunted) for 30_hath. God DAMN, am I ever set against finishing homework. >.< Instead, I write shitty ficlets. Lines of poetry from T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
“I know the voices dying with a dying fall…”
That was the sound of his own voice, but it wasn’t his voice that he found disturbing. He closed the book, but the images of those lines burned on.
Sturgis should have known better, he scolded himself, than to read poetry. He certainly had no business with it, not in light of recent events. There was a danger in connection in sentimentality. Hadn’t he discovered that during the first war? Hadn’t he seen it again even after the war?
Perhaps that was the problem, though. He couldn’t seem to learn his lesson. No matter how disorienting the grief, he would return for more. Now he seemed to feel all of it on some level, to recall old faces and recent ones, to see the eyes of those whom he had known. Most of all, he heard them speaking, and he found the echoes of their voices frighteningly enchanting.
Unsettled, he scratched Irving absently behind the ears. The cat nuzzled back in appreciation, nudging at his hand plaintively. Sturgis, smiling despite himself, caressed the cat’s head and found himself somewhat comforted by the soft-smooth fur. It was nice to have someone. Even someone who spoke no English and traipsed about on four legs was better than no one, and Sturgis felt sharply that he needed this company.
Too many had been lost. There were those who had gone with the first war, those of the long-faded voices. Dorcas. Benjy. Caradoc. James and Lily. Far too many others. They spoke with less clarity now, and he was glad of this. There were those who had lost their voices differently. Frank and Alice in the hospital, their sense of speech gone, though while alone he has heard their whispers in the darkness from time to time.
And now there was a new war. Now there were new casualties and tragedies. There had been Sirius several months before, a hard blow to take. And wasn’t that hideously fitting for him, that line? Dying with… No, that was a little too painful to digest. Now there was the loss of Emmeline, a loss that had happened only yesterday and that had hardly yet hit him. He heard her commands, her remarks, but even now began to understand that these were somehow unconnected with her body. Voices fading… Voices dying, rather.
“The voices dying with a dying fall,” he drew Irving to his chest, nuzzling him half-heartedly in an attempt to clarify the mess, “beneath the music from a farther room….”
But what was it, what was the music? He could not plainly discern whether it was of good or ill. A death song only? He preferred to think not. Perhaps it was something better, a song of resistance. A song that they had all caught onto, perhaps, that all were drawn toward. It may have been that song that drove them on, resisting as they did. If so, was there not life in the song? Did not voices all rise and fall under life’s strains?
It was comforting in one sense, perhaps. Comforting to think that there was life as well as death. Yet the fact that the voices should die unnerved him, and he continued to sit quietly, appealing to Irving’s eyes for aid of some sort. The cat, unable to speak, only nuzzled him once more, offering what small comfort he could.
Sturgis smiled. For now, it was enough.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Sturgis Podmore (avec Irving, whoo)
Rating: PG
Other: Written for the December 5th challenge (haunted) for 30_hath. God DAMN, am I ever set against finishing homework. >.< Instead, I write shitty ficlets. Lines of poetry from T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
“I know the voices dying with a dying fall…”
That was the sound of his own voice, but it wasn’t his voice that he found disturbing. He closed the book, but the images of those lines burned on.
Sturgis should have known better, he scolded himself, than to read poetry. He certainly had no business with it, not in light of recent events. There was a danger in connection in sentimentality. Hadn’t he discovered that during the first war? Hadn’t he seen it again even after the war?
Perhaps that was the problem, though. He couldn’t seem to learn his lesson. No matter how disorienting the grief, he would return for more. Now he seemed to feel all of it on some level, to recall old faces and recent ones, to see the eyes of those whom he had known. Most of all, he heard them speaking, and he found the echoes of their voices frighteningly enchanting.
Unsettled, he scratched Irving absently behind the ears. The cat nuzzled back in appreciation, nudging at his hand plaintively. Sturgis, smiling despite himself, caressed the cat’s head and found himself somewhat comforted by the soft-smooth fur. It was nice to have someone. Even someone who spoke no English and traipsed about on four legs was better than no one, and Sturgis felt sharply that he needed this company.
Too many had been lost. There were those who had gone with the first war, those of the long-faded voices. Dorcas. Benjy. Caradoc. James and Lily. Far too many others. They spoke with less clarity now, and he was glad of this. There were those who had lost their voices differently. Frank and Alice in the hospital, their sense of speech gone, though while alone he has heard their whispers in the darkness from time to time.
And now there was a new war. Now there were new casualties and tragedies. There had been Sirius several months before, a hard blow to take. And wasn’t that hideously fitting for him, that line? Dying with… No, that was a little too painful to digest. Now there was the loss of Emmeline, a loss that had happened only yesterday and that had hardly yet hit him. He heard her commands, her remarks, but even now began to understand that these were somehow unconnected with her body. Voices fading… Voices dying, rather.
“The voices dying with a dying fall,” he drew Irving to his chest, nuzzling him half-heartedly in an attempt to clarify the mess, “beneath the music from a farther room….”
But what was it, what was the music? He could not plainly discern whether it was of good or ill. A death song only? He preferred to think not. Perhaps it was something better, a song of resistance. A song that they had all caught onto, perhaps, that all were drawn toward. It may have been that song that drove them on, resisting as they did. If so, was there not life in the song? Did not voices all rise and fall under life’s strains?
It was comforting in one sense, perhaps. Comforting to think that there was life as well as death. Yet the fact that the voices should die unnerved him, and he continued to sit quietly, appealing to Irving’s eyes for aid of some sort. The cat, unable to speak, only nuzzled him once more, offering what small comfort he could.
Sturgis smiled. For now, it was enough.