Disclaimer : Still don't own Harry Potter. *sniff*
Submitted for :
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments) - Transfiguration Assignment #7 - Write about Transformation of Identity.
'Change your thoughts and you change your world.'
- Norman Vincent Peale
Change of Thought
There was a girl. Her.
Delicate as lace, tough as leather.
There was a boy. Me.
A hopeless case if ever there was one.
There was a word which hung in the balance. Blood.
The word that created and destroyed, blinded and revealed, pushed and pulled, branded and defaced.
Clean blood. Dirty blood. Untainted blood. Tainted blood. Pureblood. Mudblood. The cause, the effect. The beginning, the end.
Our world revolved around it; the sectors of the Wizarding race divided and combined, made and unmade because of the dark red lifeline which keeps us alive. And I was happy to go along with it. With the belief that only the most ancient, noblest, lineal Wizarding families had claim to the word 'pure'.
Pureblood. The purest of the pure. Me.
But, then I met her. Her with her usual cartload of books, most of which she lugged everywhere. Her, with her coffee corkscrew curls flying in every other direction. Whose raw intelligence would upstart just about every genius. Whose fiery energy was enough to make a room burst into flames, whose charisma which could win over most anybody. She was a breeze, a storm, a hurricane all at once.
Mudblood. The lowest in the chain. Her.
It happened at the Leaky Cauldron. Fifth year. While my classmates went about preparing for OWL's, I prepared for a much more daunting task – my initiation with the Death Eaters. My parents had argued about it back and forth for months, but in the end, they agreed. I was to join. So, I trained. I spied, I reported, I practiced occlumency and duelling. I chanted the 'Purity Mantra' (as I had nicknamed it), day in, day out. We are the pure, they are the impure. We deserve to live, they do not. But, by December, it had all gotten to be too much and I found myself in Hogsmead in search of temporary relief.
A couple bottles of Firewhiskey, an aching head. Swirling the last bottle around in my hands, I took a good swig before setting it down. The colours were all starting to blur. A voice from a long way away – a girl's voice, I think – came. "Enough!" At least I think that's what it said. Heedless, I took another good swig, the tabletop looming closer with each breath...
But, I never hit the counter. Instead a sharp blow from another direction hit my shoulder and the same voice shouted something. There was a sudden flash of light, and I blinked, startled, my thinking clear though my headache had magnified. Instantaneously, all my worries flew back onto my shoulders.
"Fuck you." I glared holes at the girl in front of me. "Leave me alone."
"This is no way for a prefect to behave Malfoy! Is this the example you're trying to set?"
"Shove off, Granger." I downed the rest of bottle in one go, calling in a slightly hoarse voice. "One more."
"Are you cra-"
There was a flash, a splintering sound, and glass rained down on both of us. I hissed, nursing my cheek where a shallow cut had blossomed. Judging by her cry of pain, and the way she was cradling her arm, she'd been cut too. I felt a twinge of regret, which was immediately masked by annoyance. After all, I'm the pure. It's not like she feels pain the way I do. "Look what you made me do, mudblood. Now fuck off, before I show you how dirty your blood really is."
Anger sprang in her eyes. "Take that back."
"Why should I? It's true."
She's silent. Then, she drew close until she was just inches away from me. "See this?" She inspects her hand curiously, then held it out for me to see. As if I hadn't noticed. "It's blood. Looks a lot like yours doesn't it? How to tell the difference, hmm?"
Then, moving so quickly I didn't have time to react, she smeared her dripping red hand across my face. I leapt back in horror, reflexively firing off curses.
She blocked them seamlessly. Conjuring up a protective wall, she smiled grimly through the invisible barrier. "Blood, Malfoy. It looks the same to me. I can't tell the difference. But, since you're so pure, maybe you can." She stalked out before my brain had time to re-assemble.
It finally registered that there was mudblood blood, dripping down my cheek. I turn, stunned, and catch my reflection in the mirror opposite.
What I see numbed me. My organs seemed to shut down and my face went slack, blank of any expression. It's as if the revelation was too much for my body to handle. I saw scarlet dripping down my cheeks. The gash on the left oozed tiny crimson droplets; the ruby stain on the right showed a hand imprint. My blood. Her blood. The colour was the exact same – splattered blotches of red. The same texture – sticky and oozing. The same warmth. Even the same rustic smell of metal.
My blood. Her blood. Pureblood. Mudblood. There was no difference. At least, physically. Then... then... I closed my eyes, sickened to the core, the taste of bile at the back of my throat. The thought was too horrible to comprehend, but my treacherous mind put it into words anyway.
If there was no difference, was it all... everything... a lie?
[Word Count - 891]
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