Fine line black tattoo of the Deathly Hallows symbol beside the word always in script on the inner wrist.

Deathly Hallows symbol and script word on wrist

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey photograph of an inner wrist showing a small fine line tattoo. A Deathly Hallows style triangle with a circle and a vertical line sits to the left of the handwritten word always in a joined script. The linework is thin and even, and the plain background keeps focus on the tattoo.

Fine line Lettering Forearm Deathly hallows Triangle Circle Script Always Word

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You take the back stairs at ten past three because the lift on the east wing has been out since Tuesday, and the linen trolley's wonky wheel complains on every landing. On the fourth floor the night sister is waiting by the station with a biro behind one ear. "Bay C," she says. "Mrs Adeyemi asked for you by name, which she doesn't do."

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Bay C is dim, the curtain half drawn, and the old woman lifts her hand from the blanket as if it weighs more than it used to. In her palm lie three things: a brass key on a loop of string, a plain gold band worn thin, and a stub of pencil no longer than a thumb. "Hold these till the morning shift," she says. "Don't give them to my son. He'll lose the ring in a bin."

You close your fist around them. They are warm from her, and you wonder what the key opens, a box, a shed, a door in a house she sold years ago. She watches you put them in the pocket over your heart, then taps the side of the bed twice, the way you'd knock for luck. "You'll come back up and tell me they're safe," she says. "Say it like you mean it."

You write nothing down. At half six, when the sun is a grey smear over the car park, you climb the stairs again and find the bay stripped, the bed made tight as a drum. The sister looks at your fist and nods. You open it, the key, the ring, the pencil, and you say the word she asked for, quietly, to the empty bed: always.