All You Wish For and All You Need

The days passed in a slow stupor, light fading into dark and then the sun rising once more. Marcus watched everything without truly noticing anything. The world continued around him, steady as a river, but he did not. The mundane routine of life floated by, gently caressing his skin with its cool touch, but nothing could draw him into the watery embrace.

He could think of nothing except that night, of what he had nearly done, of what he would have done if it had not been for Anne calling to him through his subconscious. Marcus knew that Anne had been nowhere near him that night, and he had no way of knowing if she had even been thinking of him, but yet she saved him.

Marcus closed his eyes and listened to the creek by which he lay. The never-ending quiet babbling washed over him and carried away the thoughts from his mind. It was not long before he would be returning to school, to Anne. A wave of feelings crushed him as he lay on the grass – hope, happiness, dread. Feelings which were new and yet familiar.

For every ounce of happiness at the thought of seeing Anne was accompanied with a darker thought. The thought of losing control again, but Anne being the one standing infront of him, frightened and unsure, disturbed him at all hours of the day. It had been a long time since he had even thought about Harry Potter. His mind had been filled with nothing but Anne for so long that just the name of the man he had despised above all else startled him. Marcus sat up and stared about him in wonder, the loathing he had always felt when the name Harry Potter had entered his mind was not there. There was no feeling at all, as if there was nothing left.

The grass tickled his face as he lay back down. The sun poked through the clouds but did not bring any warmth to his skin. Marcus thought of the last time he had seen Harry Potter; the powerful feeling of hate had washed through him then, it had consumed nearly every particle of his body. He had felt that way about everyone who had helped Harry to the demise of his parents. But now, nothing.

“Do I hate them still?” Marcus mumbled to the clouds. “Or not now that I no longer have my father?” The words hung in the air around his head, whispering to him over and over, questioning him, and telling him.

Goosebumps decorated his skin as a cool breeze filtered its way through the plants around him. The sun would be setting soon; the air was already beginning to lose what little warmth it possessed. Marcus pushed himself up off the ground and wandered back to the house. Thomas was sitting at the table talking idly as Mary cooked dinner. Mary had not spoken to Marcus since that night and she tried to avoid ever having to look at him. Thomas nodded slightly when he saw Marcus enter. The spoon that had been stirring the food in the saucepan dropped with a loud clatter and Mary raced to pick it up. It floated out of the saucepan and shook itself before resuming the methodical motion.

Marcus smiled to himself and quickly walked up the stairs. His owl perched on the top of the wardrobe, a letter clasped in its beak. Marcus scratched the bird absentmindedly as he opened the envelope.

Marcus,
I would have written sooner, but I’ve been kept so busy helping everyone that there really hasn’t been time and whenever I do have a moment, I’m about to fall asleep.
I hope that you’ve been alright and that the holidays haven’t been too bad for you. But we’ll be back at school soon.
I’ve been thinking about you a lot actually, my parents were becoming quite annoyed with me because I was so “absent-minded”.
I’ll see you at the train station on Wednesday,
Anne.

Marcus stared at the scribble before her name. What had she crossed out? He ran his fingers over the parchment; it was crumpled in a few places, as if she had almost thrown it away. Marcus sat at his desk and pulled a blank sheet of parchment before him. He stared at it, wondering what he would write, if indeed he did.

The clock beside him ticked loudly, the noise reverberating around the room in a way Marcus had never noticed before. He could hear the sounds of dinner being served below and pushed the clean parchment away from him. There was no way he would ever be able to put into words all that he had felt during these holidays, and even if he could, Marcus knew that he would never be able to speak those words aloud, or even write them on a piece of parchment, to Anne.