A Moonlit Stroll [Sorrow]

The mist called out to him, drawing exquisite shapes in the shy light of the lady moon. She could not see deep under the crowns of trees that grew thick, but she smiled where they brushed thinly against one another. Her reflection showed in the dew drops; and sometimes she stared back at it vainly before they rolled off leaves as words did off tongue. But there were no humanly voices in the night. It shared a silence long forgotten. It was, perhaps, what Sorrow had missed the most.

It had been a while since he had gone out flitting, slipping in and out of the darkness and clinging to the shadows. For once, no one needed him at the manor. No one needed him to attend any meetings. There was little else that Phantom could teach him. There was night and Sorrow, and he could disappear if he so willed it.

Everything blurred as he ran, upsetting the little leaves but otherwise moving soundlessly across the soft ground, the early fallen leaves that pressed gently into the terrain. Everything blurred and only the path directly ahead stayed clear in sight. It felt chaotic, or nearly so. It was the only way in which Sorrow would let himself lose control. Everything else was tight and orderly, sharp and outlined. He acted with elegance and fought against it, willing the one person who could break it back into his life. But he never came. And Sorrow learned to forget him.

He slowed to a walk at some point, calming the thoughts that had preoccupied his mind. Simply to enjoy the sounds, the smells that surrounded him and what were the purest forms of life. He slipped through the forest gracefully, hovering with the shadows. The night whispered to him and he listened, trying to remember the last time he simply marvelled at its wonders. The soft hooting of owls added to the melody of nocturnal creatures and he followed the howls for a while. There was no cold that he could feel, not quite yet. Autumn was gentle with its chill, very unlike the unforgiving winter. Vampire or not, Sorrow would find it bothersome once it came. Was it two years, three, since he last held warmth close to the coldness of his own skin? Sorrow smiled, but it was a regretful smile, one that did not truly show humour or glee.

Miss Valenta was a welcome distraction, though unexpected at best. No one should have been out this late, professor or not. When Sorrow first caught the humanly presence, he first worried that a student might have snuck out of the castle. As he got close, however, he found the red flicker in the moonlight, a second before lady moon turned away, perhaps in jealousy. If it were indeed a student, Sorrow would have made his presence known; but he had no authority over other professors, or reason to reprimand Eleonora for wandering the forest. She was sure to know the dangers and take care of her own if such need arose. For the moment he remained hidden, not wishing to alert her unless she spotted him.

His eyes drew back to her and, instead of closing the shadow around his physical body, Sorrow felt himself step lightly towards the other professor. A thin, pale hand fell to comfort a creature by her side; a hippogriff, Sorrow noted in wonder. How easily Eleonora stood by it and another sent thrill through him. But it was not just the creature who realized the vampire's presence; and as she turned, he knew she knew he was there.

It intrigued him, how her eyes stayed on him in an attempt to draw lines of his figure and detail of his features. She could have looked at anyone standing there at that moment, but somehow she recognized the air around him, and she knew what made him Sorrow. Few humans before her could do that; witches seemingly more often than muggles, still in rare occasions. He thought perhaps Lacetta could have done something of similar sort, but it took Vanity weeks of constant closeness before he could truly perceive Sorrow. Eleonora managed to do it with every bit of grace that had to be earned of hard work; and Sorrow reminded himself that she taught a subject, with often such creatures, that sometimes demanded extraordinary attention. If she felt a shift in the air, one that came with his presence, it was very likely that she would learn to know him better than his closest friends did.

The words that left her lips were a careful whisper, tangled in the soft melody brought by the life that awoke with the night. They brought a small smile to him, simply because they were not uttered loudly, but in care for the world around them. “Professor Valenta,” there was an indicated bow of his head and he dared come closer, his eyes flickering to the fiery hair before setting on Eleonora’s features again. He searched her eyes, found them clear and calm; she did not fear him, and for that he was thankful. “It is a bit late for a walk through these woods, is it not?”

It washed over them, the moonlight, before shying away again. It gave flicker to fire of Eleonora and a strange light to the grey of Sorrow’s eyes. Leaves rustled with the whistling of the find, and the air tasted briefly of the winter that would come. Sorrow moved ahead, extending his greeting to the two young hippogriffs; bowing to the one, as later he would to the other. Though small in comparison to adults of their kind, they demanded the same in form of respect. Sorrow kept eye contact, gently searching the yellow dots that glowed in the dark. His lips barely moved now, yet a whisper carried over to Eleonora, almost as if it were a sound only in her mind. “You did not. In turn I hope my presence has not disturbed yours.”

Sorrow wondered at the else of her words however. To get away could be easy or difficult, depending on what one wanted to get away from. It was not always as simple as leaving the confinement of the stone walls; and a walk was not always enough to give way to every thought. But even if such means were necessary, to get lost inside the Forbidden Forest was perhaps less harmful than getting lost in one’s mind.

Part of it, Sorrow thought, might have been adjusting to Hogwarts again, this time growing as a professor. Adults so often seemed to carry a new number of responsibilities, and most never even knew where they had picked them up. Part of it, perhaps, Eleanie Carr; as Sorrow himself witnessed, there had been an event quite unpleasant. And if there were more things troubling Eleonora, would he brave himself to ask? In the past he did, ever so bluntly, for to ask was the simplest thing if he wanted to fix something. And always people told him of their troubles, and easy it was from there to grow as friends. This one more time, Sorrow would ask.

“What is it that you must run from, Miss Valenta?”

Sorrow was glad to have earned approval of the creatures; and again he dared glide a little closer, extending his arm and drawing his fingers along the feathery head of one. “And I am very pleased to meet Polaris and Vega.” He had crouched down to their level, and had to look up to search Eleonora’s features. He watched her from the side as she stared at the dirt before her; and he felt it, in the moment when the brightness of her smile faded to be replaced by a ghost of its former intensity. There was the little sorrow that showed in her eyes and painted itself in her words.

“At Hogwarts, there is a place for all of us,” his pale lips caught a smile as she looked back to him. “It may be hidden from us behind flesh and noise, but it is there. We need only find it.” Very carefully, Sorrow rose to his full height again, his eyes keeping contact with hers. The air around Eleonora, her aura, pulsated with colours of emotions that mixed in her voice. “Then, I hope, you will not feel so lonely in a castle that is full of life.”

The Forest offered a different noise and never as loud as that of human body and mind. Sorrow remembered his time here as a student, with only Misery, when the Forest could be alive and cherished. And when life was completely still, there had been only the flickering and cracking of fire. It danced and danced in the common room hearth of the Hufflepuff basement, and there were silences shared, and smiles that comforted the heart.

But sometimes there needed be a moment to stand alone and breathe. Breathe in the noise of voice and touch the soft flesh that stretched over the hard bone. There had to be a bit of everything in one’s body, to properly touch the soul. There had to be the noise, as well as the silence. Sometimes.

“Should it be so,” Sorrow’s gaze turned aside, but what he was seeing then was somewhere far away. He breathed it the night air, found it scented with the damp earth and decaying leaves. “Should it be easier not to run?” He may have chuckled, but it carried away with the wind. “That is what I thought.”

He felt it tickling his skin, the wind. He was suddenly nervous, as if he were a boy and yet far too much was expected of him. Eleonora may have been older than him, and he had not forgotten, but years never seemed to be of much importance before. Had they? Among humans, he was their equal. Among vampires, he could love them all the same. What were years but a projection of mind? Such nonsense in the end; such shackling borders and shimmering barriers.

“Miss Valenta,” in the close space between them, his arm extended towards her, perhaps unconsciously. “Might you walk with me?” They had both stopped and words carried them away, but it was first that they had come out there to escape the noise, had they not? The very reason for them being there was to listen to the night, and no longer to trouble themselves over hurting their throats with creation of voice.

“Perhaps you would,” Sorrow swallowed, for never had he found it so hard to wait for permission. “If you would, share a silence with me?” Her smile had captured his attention; and he wondered, worried, if it would disappear at his blunt proposal. Eleonora still held authority over him, if only in age. He thought he could feel an uncertainty about her, questions bubbling behind her lips and, was it, a trace of fear? Was his a solid form or had he faded away without noticing? There may have been panic in his eyes as well. Such that he felt in traces, when he worried over Misery, or when he loved- when he loved them. It was not like so, never under the lady moon who laughed, taunted, saw his weakness and exposed it.

Sorrow very nearly stepped away; in the last moment he found his breath and closed his eyes, and calmed in the silence that awaited Eleonora’s reply. He searched her when he looked again, and hoped she would take him by the arm, to feel the solid flesh that wrapped so tightly, so possessively around his soul. He could no more escape the prison of his bones than she, even though the shadow allowed him passage to other places. And there was no place he wanted to be then, other than in the forest, in the moment with someone dangerous as Eleonora suddenly seemed to him. She was fire that was sure to consume him; a flame that he would fear and embrace.