China Doll
By Reila
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling, am in no way affiliated with J.K. Rowling, did not invent Harry Potter. As a matter of fact, I don't even live in the U.K. Lyrics also very very not mine. Please do not sue, for I am not old enough to act as my own defense. *bows*
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My mother said it first.
"She looks like a china doll, with her skin tone, doesn't she? Little Parvati Patil."
She looks like a china doll, if we're talking physically, but I didn't see it the way my mother did. What I interpreted it as was this: She looks like a china doll, so easily broken, so unmoved.
But she's not.
That was, I think, my mistake.
We've known each other since childhood- real childhood, not pre-adolescence. The age where you're still young enough not to care about anything beyond who gets a turn on the mini-racing broom next. I guess a part of me always knew she'd be in Gryffindor, because she was always so artlessly brave and never timid like Padma or meticulously cautious like me. She was reckless and stupid and I so admired her for it.
She got Sorted, and I got Sorted, and that was the end of that, as we all soon found out. Harry Potter went on to save the world and Draco Malfoy strode around the school like he owned it and we all clapped in the correct places.
It didn't surprise me much when I found, in third year, that her face was in my dreams; not even when I found hers where Draco's should have been. Maybe it should have. But it didn't. I stared when I thought no one was looking and determinedly didn't memorize the freckle patterns on her face.
I think I'd always been a little in love with her.
But she had friends and a social agenda and pretty pink dress robes, and she went to the dance with Harry Potter, and I wanted to hate her for it, but I couldn't. So I tried to love Draco, since I was marrying him anyway.
It was naïve, and it was a lie, and I couldn't help but think, what else is new? and play with my hair while Lavender Brown played with hers.
For five years, I did the equivalent of living without her, because I knew all about pride and reputation and how it was, and I coped, because there was nothing else to do.
But for all my well-placed loyalty and my carefully constructed persona, I wasn't surprised when she kissed me, wasn't surprised she tasted like vanilla and every daydream I'd ever had. Wasn't surprised at how I knew she'd be there, Gryffindor and Slytherin and reputation be damned.
And she's a china doll, but only metaphorically, because you can't break her (even if you drop her), and you can't own her (and I've tried).
So maybe I'm the china doll.
She's broken and claimed me both.
…and you could hurt me
with your bare hands
you could hurt me using the sharp end
of what you say
I am lost to you now
There's no amount of reason
to save me
So break me
Take me
Just let me feel your arms again
Break me
Take me
Just let me feel your love again