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writetomyheart2016-11-24 10:28 pm
bluedreaming) wrote in writetomyheart2016-11-24 10:28 pm
Entry tags:
[team four] the way of grace
The title is from a quote from Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life. The continuation of this is all things warm.
Words are such strange things. Made up of letters that string together, sounds like daisy chains forming words that suddenly have meaning. Order out of chaos. Direction out of helplessness. The same sounds that can form the word of a healing charm can also pronounce equal and opposite pain.
Draco lets the letters swim around inside his mouth without letting words take shape. He hasn't felt in control for very long time, and even the slight weight of the length of word in his pocket, hawthorn, unicorn hair, ten inches, makes him feel uneasy, and yet he can't bear to leave it behind.
It's a terrible feeling, to feel vulnerable and yet betrayed by the words that he's relied on so long, but everything he grew up with is tangled and tattered and he's not sure what's true anymore. His father always talked about Muggles like something worse than cattle, dangerous swarming things the bogeymen of his childhood both frightening and yet despicably impotent, and how had he not realized it then? The inconsistency in the tale is glaringly obvious now. Draco closes his eyes for a moment, drowning out the sound of his father’s voice, all those treacherous words, with a mouthful of coffee. It's sweet, the way he's always liked it, and that incontrovertible fact is somehow grounding. When he opens his eyes, he glances around the cafe, the students bent over laptops, cups of espresso stacked up beside them, scattered among groups of women sipping lattes as they wait for their children to emerge from the primary school across the street, a few men tucked amongst their number. As his eyes drift over the scene a bell rings, the door opening to admit a gust of wind and a familiar face.
“Hi!” a voice calls over the sounds of gently clinking porcelain, muffled chatter and the buzz of the espresso machine. Draco waves, gesturing towards the small table in front of him where another cup is waiting, steam drifting idly from the surface.
“Thanks,” Hermione says, brushing the hair out of her eyes. “Were you waiting long?”
Draco quirks an eyebrow, fingers wrapping around the warm porcelain of his cup, mostly full. “Just a few minutes.”
Hermione bustles around a bit, draping her coat over the back of the seat, pulling her laptop out of her bag, before she finally sits down across from him and takes a sip. Her sigh is as exaggerated as it is authentic, and Draco feels just a little warmer.
“How has your day been?” Hermione asks, actually waiting to hear his answer rather than just carrying on with what she's doing.
Draco smiles. “It's too cold, but the snow is pretty.” He gives a small shiver, just for illustrative purposes, and Hermione laughs, reaching across to poke him.
“I know you don't like to—” she waves her hand, eyes avoiding the hidden pocket where she knows he keeps his wand, “—but you could always just do it the Muggle way.” Glancing outside, Draco frowns at the pedestrians trundling by, heads obscured by bulky hoods.
“I suppose,” he says, blithe, and then bites his lip. “I mean, I probably won't,” he corrects himself, voice gone a little quiet. Hermione pretends not to notice, just taking another sip of her coffee and Draco lets himself relax again.
Words are strange things, and he doesn't want to let them slide out of his mouth like they used to. There have been too many lies, too many words spoken to inflict pain.
There's a pause, a breath in the small bubble of space, surrounded by the comfortable sounds of a coffee shop in the university district, before Hermione sets her cup down on the saucer with a delicate clink.
“So, do you want to hear what I unearthed in the library this morning?” Her eyes sparkle, and Draco nods, equally interested.
Words are strange, but they can also be safe, especially among friends. It's not the words, ultimately, that are dangerous, but rather the people who speak them, and slowly but surely Draco is finding his own words, his own order from chaos, surrounded by people who delight in the sounds themselves, and not what the words can do.
Tagging![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
damagea, though now that I look at it, all the other teams are already on their final or penultimate turns of the cycle so, seeing as we're the slow team anyway, I'll leave it up to you whether you'd rather keep going or we should just call this cycle done.
Words are such strange things. Made up of letters that string together, sounds like daisy chains forming words that suddenly have meaning. Order out of chaos. Direction out of helplessness. The same sounds that can form the word of a healing charm can also pronounce equal and opposite pain.
Draco lets the letters swim around inside his mouth without letting words take shape. He hasn't felt in control for very long time, and even the slight weight of the length of word in his pocket, hawthorn, unicorn hair, ten inches, makes him feel uneasy, and yet he can't bear to leave it behind.
It's a terrible feeling, to feel vulnerable and yet betrayed by the words that he's relied on so long, but everything he grew up with is tangled and tattered and he's not sure what's true anymore. His father always talked about Muggles like something worse than cattle, dangerous swarming things the bogeymen of his childhood both frightening and yet despicably impotent, and how had he not realized it then? The inconsistency in the tale is glaringly obvious now. Draco closes his eyes for a moment, drowning out the sound of his father’s voice, all those treacherous words, with a mouthful of coffee. It's sweet, the way he's always liked it, and that incontrovertible fact is somehow grounding. When he opens his eyes, he glances around the cafe, the students bent over laptops, cups of espresso stacked up beside them, scattered among groups of women sipping lattes as they wait for their children to emerge from the primary school across the street, a few men tucked amongst their number. As his eyes drift over the scene a bell rings, the door opening to admit a gust of wind and a familiar face.
“Hi!” a voice calls over the sounds of gently clinking porcelain, muffled chatter and the buzz of the espresso machine. Draco waves, gesturing towards the small table in front of him where another cup is waiting, steam drifting idly from the surface.
“Thanks,” Hermione says, brushing the hair out of her eyes. “Were you waiting long?”
Draco quirks an eyebrow, fingers wrapping around the warm porcelain of his cup, mostly full. “Just a few minutes.”
Hermione bustles around a bit, draping her coat over the back of the seat, pulling her laptop out of her bag, before she finally sits down across from him and takes a sip. Her sigh is as exaggerated as it is authentic, and Draco feels just a little warmer.
“How has your day been?” Hermione asks, actually waiting to hear his answer rather than just carrying on with what she's doing.
Draco smiles. “It's too cold, but the snow is pretty.” He gives a small shiver, just for illustrative purposes, and Hermione laughs, reaching across to poke him.
“I know you don't like to—” she waves her hand, eyes avoiding the hidden pocket where she knows he keeps his wand, “—but you could always just do it the Muggle way.” Glancing outside, Draco frowns at the pedestrians trundling by, heads obscured by bulky hoods.
“I suppose,” he says, blithe, and then bites his lip. “I mean, I probably won't,” he corrects himself, voice gone a little quiet. Hermione pretends not to notice, just taking another sip of her coffee and Draco lets himself relax again.
Words are strange things, and he doesn't want to let them slide out of his mouth like they used to. There have been too many lies, too many words spoken to inflict pain.
There's a pause, a breath in the small bubble of space, surrounded by the comfortable sounds of a coffee shop in the university district, before Hermione sets her cup down on the saucer with a delicate clink.
“So, do you want to hear what I unearthed in the library this morning?” Her eyes sparkle, and Draco nods, equally interested.
Words are strange, but they can also be safe, especially among friends. It's not the words, ultimately, that are dangerous, but rather the people who speak them, and slowly but surely Draco is finding his own words, his own order from chaos, surrounded by people who delight in the sounds themselves, and not what the words can do.
Tagging
damagea, though now that I look at it, all the other teams are already on their final or penultimate turns of the cycle so, seeing as we're the slow team anyway, I'll leave it up to you whether you'd rather keep going or we should just call this cycle done.