Depression of the Phoenix
He stares at me; it is a hollowed look, one of something immense but I can't pinpoint what. Longing, sorrow, both mixed until he cannot tell between them. He longs for me, a me that is not present anymore. He mourns my passing, although he knows not where I've run. I've disappeared, vanished behind a curtain of ash. A cycle, broken phoenix that I am; that is my perpetual curse.
His look hurts my heart because I cannot fulfill his desires, his appetites. I am not that which he looks for when those guilt-inducing spears of brown aim at my eyes; trying not to meet his gaze but I cannot look away for fear of admitting weakness. I am not weak, merely flawed. There is perfection in imperfection, completeness in the incomplete.
Or so I hope.
Hers was a very distinct depression. It was that of nagging sadness, nothing immediate or that coming from a source; no, nothing that teenage and simple. Hermione had nursed this nugget of depression since she was born. A well thought out piece of emotion; even in her illogic, she strove to be logical. She had doubted at first its authenticity. As a child, she would practice smiles to find the one that looked real. Something poisoned the smile no matter how many times her parents peered into her mouth. It simply refused to be ignored. It thrived in her mind, feeding off the silence the most brilliant part of her was reduced to. The indignity of it all, the more maudlin part of her thought often.
She could not decide which disease came first, the depression or the repression. She drove herself mad attempting to analyze herself. Some part of Hermione was too smart for even the other side of her brain. She sometimes wondered what was hidden there. But when she caught glimpses, she shivered for days. She knew not whether to fear or revel in herself, and every day that passed she felt more sympathetic towards the Hitler who was so frightened of some part of himself that he just relinquished all control.
In her masochism, she decided to have a lapse of judgment and agree to go out with Ron.
Damnit.
She did not mean to say yes. It seemed—oh how the locked up part of her mind cringed at this colloquial phrase—like a good idea at the time. Within a week she realized her mistake. Ron simply could not grasp the extent to which her depression reached. She could seem perfectly happy, and yet deep down that fiery part of her recognized it was a mere act. And so she drove him away by the only means she knew how: the ice of hatred distilled to a droplet of lethal indifference. With a whip of cold mockery she broke his back, and yet he persisted. Like a puppy, he came back; he was too grateful for the hand to even both to check whether it was feeding him or hitting him. He needed sanctuary, no matter how hot the flames of that phoenix-fire seared.
How she ridicules, how she mocks. Her laughter is a barb. She cannot imagine how they are attracted to something they know will eat them alive. She is a man-eater, and it is a marvel. She sets her mental traps, unknown even to herself. She denies it to the day they all fall down at her feet, worshipping at the bottom of her grand marble pedestal. When she is proved wrong she merely states "Hmm, interesting" like she knew it was going to happen, therefore even in her wrongness she is right. It is astounding to watch her wheels turn, this man-devouring machine.
Everything builds upon one cornerstone. It has to start somewhere, but it never has to stop. The foundation does not limit, it only encourages. His flaw was that he chose her to be his cornerstone; his mistake was building his foundation too small. He always thought it was clever to build his life around her; he did not foresee that she would crumble as she did. In his infinite blindness, he could not realize that she was not the unchanging entity he had envisioned.
When the time came, Ron found that he could not support them both.
"Hermione? Hermione. Hermione!"
"Must you persist in annoying a hard-working person, Ronald? Or can you not recognize that when you see it?"
"Do you know who you are? You live in fantasy, in a dream, and your actions don't match up with your words. You have to look in the mirror and be honest; who are you? What are you thinking? What is inside!"
"If you had one logical thought in your head, you might be able to begin to comprehend the answers to those questions. Here's your answer, and try to follow along. Somehow over the course of your otherwise usually dull life you have been blinded into believing that you are or you posses something that makes you more special than the other poor souls you pass in the halls and on the streets. Somehow better. There is an instantaneous judgment you make that keeps you from going mad with the chaos. And in your own little world, that judgment—based on little to nothing—is enough to sustain your little bubble of comfort. In your own world, you can be better, and you are better. It's just the matter of staying isolated for the rest of your life. I decided not to be, and was revoked."
"Hermione. I don't know where I would be if I hadn't climbed up the pedestal I placed you on. I thank you for that. I thank you for giving me a chance. But I've been burned long enough. You win. I hope you find your winnings pleasing, though I couldn't begin to fathom what they are. Good-bye for now, dear heart. If you find the rest of yourself one day, don't forget to say hello to your old friend."
I do not wish for perfection, completeness, or anything otherworldly. I look for the one who promised herself but burned away before she could fulfill that promise, made in the dark of the night and their hearts. And now I stare every time we meet, searching in vain for a sign of the one promised me but finding only ashes in her place.