Standing in the Light

Remember those walls I built
well baby their tumbling down
&& they didn't even put up a fight
they didn't even make a sound.

Halo - by Beyonce

She's a shooting star and she burns so brightly that people seem drawn to her. Her hair is gorgeous strawberry blonde and her blue eyes are big and sparkly. She enjoys being popular to catch those appreciative looks from the boys and those narrowed, jealous eyes from the girls, even her own friends. Since her first year at Hogwarts she has shot straight to the top becoming Head Girl and it all seems like it was too easy.

She struggles trying to keep her temper but if someone insults her sister then she unleashes it and lets it fly. She can't stand anyone hurting her sister because she's a Gryffindor and a Weasley, loyalty is in her blood. She tries to be a good sister but she is often distracted from Lucy by her own life. She doesn't think Lucy cares all that much. No girl wants their sister constantly inferring in their lives. So she focuses on her own life with the friends that are a little envious of her and then boys who wink as they pass.

She hates it; the admiring girls and their fake laughs and the prettypretty boys who practically fall over themselves just trying to receive one of her glorious smiles. She doesn't want to be adored because she's beautiful and she's sick of people always telling her that. Surely it doesn't matter how beautiful you are? Surely it's all about the person inside.

She constantly thinks of a face from her past and it stings when she thinks of him because she left him in the dust. All these friends that she has mean nothing to her because if she's honest she knows that they don't really like her, they don't really know her. It's like she's been pretending for far too long because she was so scared of being alone, so scared of not having friends that she's kept up a facade to hide her insecurity. She's not that princess girl that everyone expects her to be. She's actually a little bit of a geek at heart.

'Hey Molly.'

A voice distracts her from her thoughts and she tears her eyes away from the window she is staring out to look round at the impossibly tall boy behind her who is surveying her through sapphire eyes and she flashes him one of her glorious smiles.

'Hey Lysander,' she says her eyes raking him up and down taking in the dirty blond hair and dark eyes and he just looks at her with his hands stuck in his pockets. Molly likes the way Lysander looks at her because she's always been just Molly in his eyes. He doesn't care what she looks like or if her hair is just right and she feels just like an average girl in his eyes.

'How are you?' he asks taking a seat on the windowsill next to her extracting his hands from his pockets. 'It's been ages since we last spoke.'

Molly flinches a little at his gentle reminder because before Hogwarts they had been the best of friends. They had done everything together and they had both been so tremendously excited to go to Hogwarts but once they had arrived everything had spiralled out of control and before either of them realised they were living in different worlds. As Molly rocketed to popularity Lysander sank into obscurity becoming the dark, violent guy that was always in a fight or in detention. Their worlds barely brush by each other anymore. Molly likes to blame it on the fact that she's a Gryffindor and he's a Ravenclaw but, in her heart, she's knows that separate houses isn't the real reason for their separation.

'I miss you,' she tells him in a soft whisper looking at her knees and she hears him sigh a little.

'I miss you too,' he replies.

She raises her eyes to him for a moment and she smiles at him and his mouth turns up a little at the corner. Molly knows what the smile means; there is no happiness in the smile, it's sad and she knows that she feels the same.

'We just keep on doing it,' she says solemnly glancing back out the window. 'We just keep breaking that promise.'

'We were young and foolish when that promise was made,' Lysander tells her staring down at his hands. 'We didn't know that this would happen. We didn't know that everyone around us would put you on a pedestal and put me out of their thoughts.'

She knows it's true but it doesn't feel right. Surely a promise is a promise because it simply shouldn't be broken. She had meant it six years ago when they had promised that being in separate houses wouldn't change anything and that would never stop being best friends. She had promised but that promise has been smashed to smithereens and she knows that she can't retrieve it. She wants to though. Just to be Molly again, Molly and Lysander.

'It feels wrong,' she barely whispers as she buries her face in her arms that are resting on her knees. 'It feels strange being this different Molly.'

She can feel him looking at her and she can almost picture the look of confusion of his face but the picture before her eyes is one of an eleven year old Lysander and it's a thud to the chest when she realises that she has no idea what seventeen year old Lysander looks like when he is confused.

'I thought you enjoyed being The Gryffindor Queen,' he says and she can hear the bitterness in his voice and it makes her flinch. She deserves it though because she abandoned him and when she rocketed to the stars she thought nothing of leaving him behind when he should have been standing with her in the stars.

'I don't know what happened,' she tells him with a lump in her throat that threatens to choke her and she can feel a tear spill down her cheek. 'I don't remember how it happened. I never meant ... I'm so sorry Ly.'

She looks up at him then and she sees his face soften when he catches sight of the tear upon her cheek and he leans forward to take her face in his hands. Gently he wipes the tears from her face using his thumb and he smiles at her.

'It's my fault as well,' he declares in a soft voice. 'I went the opposite way and I was so busy protecting Lorcan that I forgot to look after you as well. I didn't even realise how far you had shot away from me before it was too late.'

He holds her face for a moment longer before he lets her go and Molly immediately wipes her face with the sleeve of her shirt to get rid of the dampness on her cheek. He stares back at his hands rubbing them together and Molly watches them too mesmerised by his long fingers. She can't believe just how tall he is and it's like he's been stretched with long arms and legs and fingers. He sits a little hunched over as though to disguise his impossible height and she knows that she would look ridiculous standing next to him even if she isn't particularly small.

'I hate it you know,' she announces quietly still staring at his hands. 'I hate being this girl, this shallow princess that only cares about boys and her looks. I know it's my own fault. I created this Molly. I really just want to be me again though. I want to have fun again; to run around like a complete loony, to do something wild and unexpected, like I used to; like we used to.'

She knows he is staring at her but she doesn't look up at him and continues to stare at his hands which have long since stopped moving. She's never admitted that to anyone not even Lucy and she feels better having got it off her chest.

'Then be Molly,' he encourages her and she feels his hand on her chin raising her head so her eyes look into his. 'Be the old Molly who ran around and climbed trees and laughed until she began hiccupping. When was the last time you did that?'

She shrugs because she can't remember the last time she laughed until tears poured from her eyes and it felt like her sides were going to hurt. She's pretty sure that none of her Gryffindor friends know that if she laughs too much she gets the hiccups. Trust Lysander to remember. He probably also remembers that she's only ticklish in one spot, her hips and that sometimes when she laughs she makes noises like a guinea pig and she loves to sing. Her new friends, people she has been friends with for nearly seven years now have no idea about these things that she does. She never really allowed herself to be that Molly with them.

'I'll give everyone a heart attack if I do that,' she says in a whisper. 'My friends will be completely shocked and my parents would go crazy if my grades dropped.'

Lysander sighs in frustration and she looks at him as he glares at his hands.

'You need to stop worrying about all of these people and what they think,' he tells her and she can hear the steely edge in his tone. 'You don't need to let your grades drop. Just be you, the way you used to be. We used have so much fun together.'

Molly can't think of a response. She doesn't know what to say. She knows Lysander is right. If she started acting like the real Molly maybe she wouldn't feel so dead inside and maybe she could be the girl she wants to be rather than the girl everyone else wants her to be. She's played it so safe for the last sixteen years and she really wants to shock everyone. She hates being predictable and she envies her cousin Dominique because Dom never does what people expect of her and she wishes so much to be like that for people to never know what she is going to do next.

'I miss the old you,' he says softly breaking the silence. 'I don't know this new Molly.'

'The new Molly,' she begins but feels at a loss of how to explain her for a moment. 'The new Molly is pretty and intelligent and witty. The new Molly is boring.'

He stares at her for a moment and she meets his gaze a little reluctantly but feels that if she looks away he will think less of her. She's never wanted Lysander to think less of her because he's always been there and he's always been her friend no matter what.

'The old Molly was intelligent and witty and fun,' he declares gently. 'The old Molly was pretty.'

Molly glances away from him for a moment slightly hurt because she just isn't used to being compared to her old self and she has never thought that she could get prettier than she is right now. She feels jealous of her old self because Lysander thinks she was beautiful before all this and she realises that the only person whose approval she has ever wanted is his approval.

'You don't think I'm pretty now?' she asks barely audible and she's scared slightly about the answer he is going to give her.

'No,' he answers looking back down at his hands. 'I don't think your pretty now.'

It feels like something has slammed into her chest and for a moment she feels like she can't breathe due to the pain. She looks away from him determined to keep the tears from her eyes. She really doesn't want him to see her cry not over something so silly. He doesn't know that she has really depended on him to tell her all the things other people tell her because she believes him over everyone else. He's the one that's always told her the truth. He would never lie to her.

'Molly.'

She looks up as he says her name with a tenderness that she has never heard in his voice before and he's looking at her with the same emotion in his eyes. She swallows trying to force the lump in her throat away but it just seems to double as she looks at him. She can't stand it.

'Molly, you're not pretty, you're beautiful,' he says, 'and only a fool would say that you were merely pretty but I don't care how beautiful you are because I know you, the real you. I know everything silly little thing about you and they all make you beautiful. It's not just what's on the outside that counts to me.'

She stares at him because she can't quite believe the words coming out of his mouth and then before she even registers the thought in her head she throws her arms around him and buries her face in his neck inhaling the sweet scent of his cologne. She can feel his arms around her back and it feels like a little spark where his fingertips touch her.

'Where did you learn to speak like that?' she asks him with a laugh as she draws back a little.

'Hanging around with Lorcan too long,' he tells her with a smile and then his face gets all serious again as he brushes a stray piece of hair out of her eyes. 'I know you, Molly Weasley and I've always loved you no matter what you did or didn't do. If you want to do something wild then I have a suggestion.'

'What is it?' she asks breathlessly her heart thudding her chest because he is so close to her and she is well aware that her eyes keep flickering down to his lips. She's pretty sure that he's aware of it as well and that makes her blush a little.

'Kiss me.'

She isn't shocked but she feels a little thrill go through her as her eyes flicker down to his lips once more and the gap between them is barely any distance at all. She closes it slowly closing her eyes as she does so and lightning shoots through her as their lips meet. He tastes like peppermint and he kisses like no one she has ever kissed before and she's never felt more alive than she does right now sitting on the windowsill wrapped in Lysander's arms. She breaks away from him and looks up into his dark eyes and he's smiling like he used to. It's the smile of sunshine that breaks through the clouds, glorious.

'Molly,' he breathes her name resting his forehead against hers and she loves the way her name drops from his lips. 'I've waited so long for you.'

And the lightning surges in her veins once again as he seizes her mouth with his and it feels as though his kiss has the power to set the world aflame. She knows that she wouldn't have noticed.

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Kerr X.