So Green

A lodestone, she says. The voice is not hers. Harsher. Deeper. It raises goosebumps on your arms and the hair on your neck. He will keep you here when you should let go. Her bottle-thick glasses fog with every exhalation. He will bring you joy. The smoking incense clouds your mind. He is your true love. A deep voice. Beguiling. Cinnamon and cloves. He cannot save you. He can only hold you here. It's a dream. Disturbing. You blink at the sphere she thrusts before you. His eyes are green, sparkling in the crystalline orb. So green. You shiver. Silly ball. Silly bint. You're going to marry Draco. And he has grey eyes.

You will never know what it's like to be a mother.

But you hold him close, cradle him under your skin, in the secret places near your heart. Flashing green eyes and chubby cheeks. A gurgle of laughter and unruly black hair. Sweet baby skin and milky sour breath.

They think you are nothing.

A lump of flesh resembling the witch you used to be. Occupying the fifth bed from the window in the Janus Thickey ward. You are a collection of adjectives and duties to them. Catatonic. Feed twice daily. Immobile. Check for bed sores. Non-responsive. Take blood samples. Insensible. Empty bed pan as needed. Patient. Something you never were before.

He still calls you Pansy.

He brushes your hair one hundred times. He paints your lips with crimson stain. He anoints you with perfume that smells of cinnamon and cloves, reminiscent of the foreign land from your honeymoon. Ten. He brings you the latest Witch Weekly and truffles from Honeydukes. Twenty. He shows you pictures that move. Thirty. First teeth. Forty. First steps. Fifty. First words. Eighty. First broom. One hundred. First school tie. It matches his eyes. So green.

When you were a girl, they called you princess.

Your parents coddled you, and gave you everything you ever wanted. Ponies and ice cream and playmates and dollies and pretty pink fluffy dresses. You were wrapped in adoration, safe in their arms.

It's a dream.

Disturbing. Beguiling. You can't wake up. You pinch yourself. Softly. Sometimes you love the dream. Want to wrap yourself in it, like the blanket your grand-mere knitted to celebrate your birth. Harry. Arms outstretched. Pink and fluffy pain. No! You snuggle down, you burrow deeper in it. Harry. He cannot save you. So green. Baby. He will keep you here when you should let go. The pain clouds your mind. Pink and fluffy. Harry. It races through your veins, under silky skin, freezing your limbs. A lodestone. Baby. He is your true love. He will bring you joy.

You are tethered to this world by the thinnest of moorings.

A balloon on a string. A kite caught by the tail. You float through minutes. You float through hours. You float through days. Your rowboat has no oars. Your rowboat is spun from gossamer thread.

You float through years. So green.

~~***~~***~~

Originally written for round two of pphp_ldws on Live Journal.

Prompt: 500 words, exactly. A chart was provided with three words each for persons, places and things. Minimum requirements were to choose one of each. I chose to do all nine.

Person: a seer, a mother, a professor.

Place: a foreign land, a hospital, a secret place.

Thing: a photograph, a perfume, a rowboat