The Impatient Man and His Suit

A World So Fine

Entering my long-awaited cottage, I was greeted by Christmas tunes and a hurricane of noises emitting from the kitchen. Treading carefully across the living room, I slowly unraveled my scarves and slipped out of my jacket. What I had intruded upon in the kitchen was as such: I first saw a sifter floating as it filtered powdered sugar onto an army of jam cookies spread out upon the table, then a broom sweeping up the discarded sugar on the floor, and finally a giant pot doing the noble act of seasoning and stirring itself. The sight was a surprise indeed. So much magic concentrated into one central spot!

"Hi," sounded Wensley from the stairs, her voice short and displeased.

Step-by-step, she climbed down the stairs with her hands firmly clasping onto the railing. The moment she hopped off the curtail she speedily crossed the kitchen and snapped her fingers at a cast iron pot, enchanting it to follow her.

"Have you been cooking all this time?" I questioned to which there was no reply. Only then did I realize the great offense I had committed by my unintentional twenty-four-hour absence.

"Wensley, I know you're upset with me, so let me explain."

"Quite the contraried!" she cried. I felt disappointed by her reply and saw that her anger was on a much higher degree than expected. Knowing that I had offended a friend I so dearly cared for only made me feel worse about my damper of a day.

"Mr. Malfoy sent me a note last night. He said you were sick," she added to which I took pause. Her curiously formal way of referring to this apparently honorable "Mr." Malfoy was the first surprise.

"A note?" I repeated.

Swinging around on her step stool, her face trembled into the most pitiful contortions I had ever seen, and her gigantic eyes swam with sparkling tears.

"I was worried ta' death!" she cried, her bottom lip quivering as fat tears fell, "in the kitchens of 'Ogwarts, the moment ma' sisters n' bruthers got sick, you'd start mournin' the moment they'd showed signs! I thought ya' were goin' ta' die! An' I couldn't get to ya' because'f the storm!" she nearly shouted. Her yelling was no result of anger however, it was simply a product of true and honest devastation. Her poor frail voice shook and cracked with each rise in tone.

"Oh Wensley!" I cried with an empathetic smile.

Still holding fast to her wooden spoon, she hopped down from the step stool and scurried to embrace my legs, all the while she gave out pitiful moans of sad relief. Matching her emotional turmoil, I stooped down to my knees and returned the contact. Wensley was a difficult creature to befriend. Her temper was taut and her boundaries varied and easily over-crossed. Yet her emotions were the strongest and most endearing of all, much like Draco Malfoy's shadow; a version of himself always present but rarely examined. Out of all the ordinary people I had met in my former muggle world, these two magical persons were the most peculiarly genuine. Due to their circumstances as rejects in a world that refused to understand them, they had applied their pain and grew from it with the softest intentions. Malfoy and little Wensley were raw and sweet.

Pulling gently from my hug and wiping her giant eyes, she gazed up at me and struggled to compose herself, "We've got to clean out the pig's head," she finally spoke.

For the rest of the evening, Wensley and I set to work. Despite knowing that there would only be three people dining together the next night, we endeavored to assemble the most delightfully bountiful Christmas dinner the two of us had ever seen. There was a strange new-found encouragement that came with our tear-filled bonding and it verily made us full of ambitious energy. The house was glowing with red taper candles fuming with scents of cinnamon, the Christmas tree in the living room was glittering with seasonal glee, and the holiday music emitting from Wensley's old battery-operated radio poured into the kitchen. I was not a witch and I had no blessing to pursue my love, but that isolated countryside had become my home and Christmas was upon us.