1. Walking in Memphis
Walking in Memphis
I moved to Memphis near on five years ago now.
Originally it was just a temporary thing, a few months working in café's taking in a different world from my own. I was going to waitress in a quaint high street coffee shop that over looked the park and on my breaks I'd write poetry, short stories, and if I ever got around to it, a novel.
The people who walked past me, as well as those who I'd serve Cappuccino to every morning would inspire me to create beautifully crafted literature. I've always believed that the best stories are borne of life, and the truest of tales come from reality. You don't have to of lived love to write it, you just have to have seen it, and you can see it everywhere if you know what to look for.
It used to make me sad that I considered myself separate from the rest of the world, only able to observe that of which I dream, never to be the lead in a fairytale of my own, but I've learnt that separation and observation can be a blessing not a curse, discovered when you least expect it.
This story isn't meant to be a great story; it isn't even my story really. It's just meant to be that which it is. A tale of the life that exists all around, consuming everything in its path. Binding us together with unseen connections, connections so strong and yet so light that until they are made visible, you don't even remember they're there.
The morning was just the same as any other really. It was late spring, sunrise was early, and in an almost personified pathetic fallacy, the weather reflected the mood of every person who walked the early streets. I paid a few cents to the newspaper vender outside my apartment block and tucked the printed pages under my arm to read later in the day when I could bother to spoil the isolation I felt walking the streets of Memphis.
My routine carried on as normal, I brought an unhealthy pastry for my breakfast from the bakery on the corner of my street, where I was served by the young lad who every morning asked me out on a date even though I must be five years his senior, and I'm not even in my mid twenties yet. Still, I won't deny that his sandy hair and chocolate eyes haven't inspired some of my more romanticised fiction.
On this particular morning he said I looked like the perfect vision of a Texan Angel, a real compliment coming from this real life ranch boy. With my washed out denim jacket and uniformed red and blue chequered shirt I was wearing a denim skirt which was rather shorter than my usual attire, but it matched so perfectly with my blue suede shoes I couldn't resist. Although it was on my shoes which he commented, I know he was checking out my legs as he blushed when I raised an eyebrow at his lingering glaze.
There might have been a time when I'd have been embarrassed or angry at his behaviour, but I'm older now, and dare I say wiser. I can take an unspoken complement when one is passed my way.
Still nothing out of the ordinary occurred as I headed to Le Café Americana, my comforting routine remained in place until I put the key into the door of the café and turned it in the lock.
I think forever more I will acquaint the sound of that door unlocking with the forgotten yet familiar hand on my shoulder. I know that I shall never forget the sight of those dazzling emerald green eyes, seen as if I had never looked into them before, so full of hope and promise and yet unsure and scared. A man can save the world ten times over, but walking up to the girl who broke your heart takes real courage.
Now, if I'd been writing this story from my usual perspective of the observer I'd of created some great theatrical gasp of surprise, turned the man before me into a chivalrous knight who knew what he was doing, but that is not the case. As tempting as it is for me to alter reality for fiction, I am bound to recount the truth.
I pulled the door open causing the bell inside to ring harshly and snap quiet as I slammed the glass panelled entrance behind me, glad of the beige blind that concealed me from sight.
I collapsed onto the nearest chair to find my hand shaking as I leaned it upon my forehead. It wasn't until the bell sounded again that I realised in all my dramatics, I hadn't actually locked the door behind me.
He walked slowly into the dimly lit café, streaks of morning sunlight the only visual aid through yet unopened shutters. However, even through weak light and blurry tear eyed vision he looked as perfect as I remembered him. His black unruly hair, a nuisance as a child was now cut short at the front and worn long at the back, leaving his perfect face open for inspection, the only barrier a pair of black rimmed spectacles, although even these were more stylish from the circular frames he'd been forced to wear as a boy.
He didn't bother trying to hide the pale scar that blemished his forehead any more I noticed, perhaps because now it wasn't the only scar he had to hide.
He closed the door gently behind him, shutting out more light, and so he opened the blind in the glass window next to him, bathing us both in golden beams. I wish I knew what he saw when he looked at me at that moment. Did he notice that my previously frizzy hair was now delicately curled and cut at my shoulders? Did he spot that I'd grown natural blonde highlights amongst my mousy brown colour? If he were really focussing on my features then he must have spotted my darkened skin and freckled face, both caused by too much Tennessee sun.
If I ever write this day into a novel perhaps I'll ask the Texan bakery boy to describe me, so that I at least appear partially worthy of the love this perfect boy has for me. Despite what he says and thinks, he is a king among men and you only have to look in his eyes to know it. The true kings can be recognised for who they are by the jewels in their eyes, not the jewels in their crown.
“What are you doing here Harry?” I asked quietly, my voice almost braking as I spoke the name which hadn't passed between my lips since the day I left him.
“I needed to see you,” he answered in an equally soft tone to my own, but he possessed a resonance of confidence that I didn't feel. He, after all, had had time to prepare for the moment when we would see each other for the first time since I walked away from him all those years ago. I had not. I was not prepared and I never would be, but I didn't have a choice but to listen to him. I owed him that much.
“How did you find me?” I asked, still not meeting his gaze completely, knowing that if I did all the effort I was putting into steadying my voice would be lost in an instant.
“Draco,” he answered calmly.
“Malfoy?” I exclaimed, the absurdity of this fact breaking through my shock.
“He owed me a favour,” Harry said shrugging off what were to his mind, past unimportant events.
In that moment I saw the boy I knew, full of forced self-confidence and feigned good humour. It was his public face, the persona he adopted to deal with the attention he was suddenly given and that he was not even slightly prepared for. The first eleven years of his life were spent being basically ignored and shunted, and then suddenly he was the hero of the millennia.
I'm not angry with him for creating this guise, I can even say that I understand why his unconscious did it, but things started to fall apart the moment his public face became his only face. He shut out everyone whom he once trusted, created a shell for him to hide in. Again, I can understand it, but I'm not sure I can forgive him for it, even now.
“And pray tell me, how in the world did Draco Malfoy, heir to Malfoy Manor and Prince of Slytherin, know where to find me?” I said in what perhaps was an unnecessarily harsh sardonic manner.
“Draco is the International Registry liaison for the Ministry of Magic, he just called in a couple of favours and broke a few minor state laws and got your address. By the time I'd found your flat you'd already left. Your landlady told me where you worked.”
“There's that `Draco' thing again,” I remember muttering under my breath. “So now you've found me Harry, what is it you wanted to say to me?”
I knew even as I said it that I was being callous, but I could feel my stomach churning and my head spinning after mere minutes in his company. It had taken me months to stop thinking of him every day, and even if I never saw his face again, I always knew I'd spend my life remembering his eyes. But I don't regret my decision; I don't want to regret it. I had to play the bitch before, and if I need to, I'll do it again… for his sake as much as mine.
“I don't have anything to say to you, like I said, I just needed to see you.”
“Why? Why would you even want to think of me Harry, let alone look me in the face?”
“Because I love you, I always will love you. I don't expect anything from you Hermione, I'm not here to apologise to you or to force and apology out of you. I just wanted to see you one last time before I…”
He cut himself off. Looking back with the cursed gift of hindsight I wish I'd paid more attention to it, but I accepted his answer to my prompting.
“Before you what?”
“Move on.”
I felt like I was on an emotional roller-coaster, one minute climbing up into the sky at two miles per hour then suddenly plummeting towards the earth, only to be corkscrewed around and thrust back up into the air again. In the space of what could only be five minutes I'd been happy, calm, shocked, upset, angry, scared, and granted some more than others, but the sinking feeling I felt when he spoke those words remains with me, even though I realise now I had translated them in completely the wrong context.
“Well you've seen me now,” I said, holding back tears, forcing myself to look into his eyes, “so please Harry, just go.”
“I know this is a shock for you Hermione, but please. I'm leaving tonight; I have the whole day here and nowhere to go. Maybe, you could show me around? You can say no, I'll understand but please remember, we were friends before, can we just spend the day being friends again? Then I'll go, and you'll never see me again if that's what you want.”
“It's not a case of what I want Harry,” I said sighing, covering my eyes with my palm and pushing my curls out of my face, “it's just how things have to be. I've told you all this before.”
“I know,” he said quietly, unintentionally adding yet another layer of guilt around my already laden heart.
The silence hung between us for what seemed like an eternity. I've never been a patient person and so I inevitably cracked first.
“I don't know,” I said unhelpfully, “It's just all so… I just… don't know.”
“I can't imagine how this must feel for you,” he said slowly but certainly, “me showing up unannounced like this. I'm not sorry for doing it, this was the only way, but I am sorry for causing you all this pain, dragging up a past which I'm sure you long to forget. It's not fair for me to ask you to decide this now, I'll leave now, but can I come back? When you finish work, you can either tell me to get lost, or you can show me the sites? Is that fair?”
I looked defeated into his hypnotic eyes. He was being so reasonable, like he was the one who had walked away and needed to atone. How could I say no? Honestly, I'm not even sure I wanted to say no even then.
A simple nod of my head sealed my fate.
“I finish at two. Come back here and I'll give you an answer.”
He nodded his head and turned to leave. The bell rung for the third time before opening and he took half a step onto the paved street outside before turning and taking one more look at me sitting in the marbled light, gracing me with his perfect smile.
“You look good Hermione,” he said simply, and then he was gone as quickly as he had come.
I don't know how long I sat there staring after his departed form, and I really don't know how I managed to brew any form of coffee that morning, let alone some of the elaborate blends some of the regulars crave. I do know that by five to two however, I wasn't dreading his return, I was actually smiling.
True, my heart was hammering in my chest, and I must have checked my makeup an unhealthy number of times in the stainless steel spoons, but I was actually looking forward to seeing him. The initial shock had worn off, and my mind was filled with the happy memories we shared, memories that had for too long been overshadowed by one heartbreaking moment.
Maybe it was because I was seeing him on my turf so to speak. I loved this city with its eclectic history of blues, dancing, freedom and danger. The streets themselves seemed to have absorbed the memories of the earth underneath. The air was thick with music and passion and soul and one could loose themselves in fantasies of the past yet still love the exciting modern world that was forever changing and developing.
Stepping out of the door into the now blazing sunshine I saw him standing a couple of doors down, trying not to analyse his reflection in the glass window opposite which he was waiting. I smiled to myself as I approached him. Either he was nervous or he had developed an interest in home furnishings and was studying the new stock in the fixtures and fittings store.
He saw me approach moments before I had reached him and smiled as he looked in my eyes, knowing full well just by my stance that he wouldn't be spending the afternoon alone.
“One afternoon. Just as friends, for old time sake,” I said pointedly, “Then we go our separate ways. Its for the best Harry, you'll just have to trust me on that.”
He nodded and I smiled before leading down the street heading for the tram.
“Where are we going?” he asked as I jumped onto the crowed vehicle. I couldn't help but grin at his puzzled yet excited expression. He always did love exploring new places and seeing new things, and he especially loved the unexpected surprises that could be found anywhere if you believed in them enough and looked hard enough.
“Well you can hardly spend the day in Memphis, home of the blues and birthplace of rock and roll, without taking in a bit of 20th Century culture,” I said, purposely exaggerating my once natural know-it-all tone, causing the desired effect of making him laugh and shake his head.
“I don't know,” he said, “I was kind of hoping we could go to the zoo.”
“Harry James Potter, we are not spending the day looking at a bunch of caged animals, which I'm sure you'll agree are far more fascinating when in their natural habitat, but nevertheless, can be found in a thousand cites across the world for Homosapian amusement, when we are in a beautiful city that embodies the very essence of modern musical culture. Are we clear?”
“Awwww, but I wanted to see the penguins,” he moaned like a little child and I'll admit, as ridiculous as it was, I had to laugh.
We started smiling then and I don't think we stopped all day. We walked down Beale Street and Union Avenue, we even made it over to Graceland, a real tourists day out. We had ice cream and browsed small shops with memorabilia, some tackier than others I must say. For a while we managed to outrun the grey cloud that was hanging over us, but by the evening it had caught up and was ready to rain down on us.
“I feel like I should ask you where you're going tonight,” I said as we stood on Memphis Bridge watching the sun go down, a perfect Hollywood scene, “but then I think it'll be easier if I don't know.”
He took my hand in his and squeezed it gently without averting his eyes from the horizon. We stood there in silence, just watching the sun drift behind the buildings, neither saying it but both knowing that as soon as the golden globe vanished our time would be up.
“You always were the smart one Hermione, and I don't just mean when it came to school. You saw things differently from the rest of us, clearer I suppose. If I didn't know that you despised Divination I'd think you could see into the future, the way you always make the right choices when the rest of us are still unaware that a choice needs to be made.”
I looked at his profile as it gradually became silhouetted against the lights of the bridge. He spoke with such clarity and certainty, such… wisdom. The words that rolled of his tongue were unrehearsed but were perfectly formed, something that only comes when a person truly and completely understands what it is they want to say. It's far easier to write such a speech in fiction than to speak the words yourself. I admired him at the time for his eloquence, now I love him for it.
“It breaks my heart to have to leave you,” I whispered, echoing the words I spoke to him all these years ago.
“Anything that is broken can be fixed,” he said finally turning away from the view as the sun disappeared, “and sometimes, when it's put back together it's better than ever.”
His hand gently brushed my cheek, not a gesture of romance or intention, but of forgiveness and of peace.
“I have to go,” he said quietly.
I nodded, my eyes filling with tears caused by some indistinguishable emotion.
“Don't watch me walk away,” he said, “I watched you leave and only today have I managed to get that image out of my mind.”
I dropped my head as the silent tears fell from the pools of my eyes. He hushed me and kissed me once on the forehead before walking past me and away, my back facing the direction in which he headed.
I won't turn around. I won't turn around. I repeated it over and over in my head, all sense of time lost.
“What the hell, one for the road?” the emotion strained voice said from behind me and I spun around to be captured in perfect lips delivering a perfect kiss.
I know that I left part of my very soul in that moment, preserved forever in time and perfection for all eternity.
But only that fraction of myself could remain, the rest of me had to face the reality of life. The kiss ended and we had to say goodbye for a third time now, but this time we'd do it properly. There would be no walking away, no words left unsaid. No promise that we'd never see each other again, but knowing that this time that really was true.
“I'll be seeing you Hermione,” he said softly.
“I'm glad you came,” I admitted.
And then he was gone, moving past me as swiftly as a breeze and vanishing unseen into the night, after all I promised. I wouldn't watch him go.
Normally I'd end a story there, but unfortunately I'm not in control of this one.
I don't really remember the walk home; my feet took me while my mind relaxed in a perfect blank. I'm pretty sure that any analytical thought at that time would have caused my mind to destroy itself.
I turned the key in the lock of the building door and walked two flights of stairs to my apartment door. On the floor outside my door was a folded newspaper and a post-it attached reading simply, `you left this at work, I did the crossword for you , Sara'. I smiled and shook my head as I was brought comfortably back to my reality.
Back home, I had a shower, pulled on some more comfortable clothes and curled up in a chair, swiftly accompanied by Crookshanks, my now fairly elderly ginger cat, and read the paper I'd brought that morning and never had a chance to even glance at.
It was nearly ten when the phone rang its echoing old school chime. I lifted the receiver with a click, completely unaware that the call would be anything other than a girlfriend for a chat or someone selling cable. But it was male voice that spoke back at me, stuttering and unsure, and so recognisable that my breath caught in my chest.
“Hermione? Hermione is that you?”
“Ron? Ron, how did you get this number?! You know what, scrap that, I should have suspected that…”
“Hermione,” he interrupted, and I knew that something was wrong as he choked up speaking my name.
“Ron, what's wrong?” I asked carefully, trying to keep the fear I was feeling from infecting my voice.
“I'm not sure how to tell you this `Mione…”
I let him have a minute to gather his thoughts, trying to control the impatience that was creeping through my veins like a permanent disease.
“Hermione, Harry died yesterday… well, its still today where you are I guess…”
“What? That's impossible, he was just…”
“He had cancer,” Ron interrupted, “He took a poison last night. I found him early this morning in his apartment. He… he left a note… It was addressed to you.”
“What does it say?” I asked quietly, the absurdity and enormity of what on was saying beginning to sink in.
“I don't know,” he replied, “I didn't want to read it. He meant for you to have it.”
“Open it, read it to me,” I said quietly but certainly.
I'm not sure if I actually heard him carefully peel open the envelope of if I imagined it. I can even hear the sound of him folding open the paper inside. It doesn't matter if I really heard these things or not, I know that the words he spoke were real.
“I just needed to see you… one last time.”
The truth sunk in with those words and tears of grief and joy, a strange mixture, ran down my cheeks.
“Thank you for calling me,” I said almost mechanically, “I need… a little time Ron. I'll call you back later. What's your number?”
He gave it to me without asking questions or insisting answers and let me hang up the phone to be alone with my thoughts. But I couldn't stay cooped up inside, so I grabbed a coat and headed out into the night streets. Once again I let my feet walk me, and even though I didn't have a destination in mind, they led me to exactly where I needed to be.
I pushed open the door of my local church and stepped inside. The evening service had finished an hour ago but there were still a few people around, helping out, tidying up.
Reverend Green spotted me and walked over. He was a tall man, his black hair greying at the edges, as was his beard. His dark skin made his warm eyes stand out and as always I knew I could speak to him, I always could. It didn't matter that I wasn't a devoted Christian, a regular part of his flock. He was a good man and was the first friend I made when I moved here.
“You look sad child, would you like to tell me what's troubling you?”
“It's been a strange day,” I said quietly, smiling slightly at the understatement I had made.
“Come with me,” he said with a light chuckle, “ I'll make you a nice cup of British tea and you can tell me all about it.”
And so I did. Everything.
As unlikely as it might seem Reverend Green was aware of the Wizarding component of the population, and while not being magical himself, was accepting and unafraid of it. It had been purely by accident he had recognised me as a witch, all because of the Hogwarts Head Girl's badge still pinned on my bag when I walked into church for the first time.
As the Reverend often says, God works in mysterious ways, and for that I'm thankful. I couldn't bear to have no one to confide in, and to be able to confide in a minister after years of hiding who I was from my community church, that was an unexpected gift.
How Harry came to me that day I still don't know. A spell, a potion, a charm, or an Angel, it doesn't matter. I could find out if I wanted to no doubt. Hey, I'm Hermione Granger after all, right?
But it doesn't matter how he came, just that he did. For that I'll be eternally grateful.
And that is the story. Not mine per se, just a story of a day that I lived, part of a life.
So tomorrow morning I'll wake up and grab a paper before heading to work. I'll stop by the bakery and shamelessly flirt with the boy behind the counter because we both know that the date he asks for in gesture will never happen. I'll pour coffee, clean tables, bathe in the sun and write another story of a life that isn't my own because this story is the most literate worthy event I've experienced, and it isn't even mine as I've said. It's his, and always will be, because my sweet prince, you will always be the star of my show.
Now, where are my blue suede shoes?
_____________________________________________________________________
Walking in Memphis
Put on my blue suede shoes
And I boarded the plane
Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues
In the middle of the pouring rain
W.C. Handy -
Won't you look down over me?
Yeah
I got a first class ticket
But I'm as blue as a girl can be
Then I'm walking in Memphis
I was walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel
Saw the ghost of Elvis
On Union Avenue
Followed him up to the gates of Graceland
Then I watched him walk right through
Now security they did not see him
They just hovered around his tomb
But there's a pretty little thing
Waiting for the King
Down in the Jungle Room
When I was walking in Memphis
I was walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel
Walking in Memphis
I was walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel
They got catfish on the table
They got gospel in the air
And Reverend Green be glad to see you
When you haven't got a prayer
But boy you're got a prayer in Memphis
Now Gabriel plays piano
Every Friday at the Hollywood
And they brought me down to see him
And they asked me if I would -
Do a little number
And I sang with all my might
And he said -
Tell me are you a Christian child?
And I said
Man I am tonight
Walking in Memphis
I was walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel
Walking in Memphis
I was walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel
Put on my blue suede shoes
Document created with wvWare/wvWare version 1.0.0-->