Dreams of a Sixteen Year Old
By Michelle
In my life there are so many things I want.
I want to be someone. Someone important, who leaves some kind of memorable imprint on the world. I want people in fifty, a hundred, two hundred years time to look back and say "Oh, I'm so glad she lived, otherwise we wouldn't have this". I want people to compare me to the greats of the greats – to Jane Austen, to Mozart, to Martin Luther King, to Dumbledore, to Merlin himself.
But that's just a dream for a sixteen year old.
I want to experience the over-clichéd true love. I want to want someone so much that I need them there constantly. I want to love someone so much that every touch, kiss or moment isn't enough. I want to love so much that people will look at me and say "I wish I had a love like that". I want to love so much that it hurts.
But that's just a dream for a sixteen year old.
I want to wake up everyday feeling as though I have some purpose. I want to find a reason to live and stick to it. I want something substantial, something real to want.
But that's just a dream for a sixteen year old.
I want to be less pedantic. I want to live more like a teenager. I want to be more like the people who just don't care. I don't want to feel a stab of guilt every time something isn't perfect – I want to just shrug it off. I want to be less of a perfectionist. I want to be able to wear my uniform with a crease in it, without it driving me crazy. I want to be able to have my hair messy and not get frustrated.
But that's just a dream for a sixteen year old…
I looked up from the page I was writing on in thought, wondering what I would write next. I stared out my window.
It was a cloudy day at Hogwarts – one of the ones that I found annoying. I love rain, and cloudy weather was just so unsatisfying. The grey clouds seemed to melt into the lake; it was extremely difficult to discern between the two.
No students were out on the grounds today, on the account of it being rather chilly due to lack of sunlight.
In fact, most of Gryffindor was down in the common room. I decided to come up here, to the top of the astronomy tower, because I don't like crowded places, and I particularly felt the need to be alone today. Plus I can deal with the cold.
Which brings me back to my … writing, whatever you want to call it. I don't know why I started, it just felt right. It's rather weird actually, because I didn't think I was the type for deep.
Other people might – after all I'm "Lily Evans: the goody-two-shoes prefect". But they're wrong, I don't normally think about things like this.
Except today… there's just something about it today.
I sighed. I don't know what to write next, because I don't know why I'm writing. I re-read my 'work' in the hope that I might think of what to write next, but nothing came.
Instead, I contemplated the stupidity of what I'd written. Already it's starting to sound bad…
"That's just a dream for a sixteen year old," I said to myself. I don't even know why I said it, perhaps because it makes it sound more real.
I closed my eyes, grasped my quill and wrote:
Dreams are misleading,
They keep you believing,
So goddamn deceiving,
Stealing all my hope.
Stealing all my hope? I'm so stupid – that doesn't fit at all.
Dreams are misleading,
They keep you believing,
So goddamn deceiving,
My hope is receding.
A little better. I pulled my jumper tighter about my shoulders. It was rather cold.
"Evans?"
The last thing I could ever have expected to hear was the voice of James Potter piercing the silence.
I turned around, and indeed, it was he.
His confused expression was rearranged to make one of concern. He hurried over and sat down beside me on the ground.
"Evans? Are you alright?"
His eyes searched mine – I could see them flicking back and forth between my left and right eyes.
"Yeah," I said faintly.
It became apparent that I should have been more convincing than that, because I could see the disbelief even through the lenses of his glasses.
For a moment we just sat there, holding our previous expressions. Then he spoke.
"Come on, Evans. You know I don't believe that."
His voice might have been over-confident once, but at that moment it was soft and gentle and sincere. I'd never heard him speak like that before.
Maybe it was his tone, or perhaps the intensity of the moment, that made the tears swell in my eyes.
I hate crying. It makes you feel terrible and gets you no where. But I could not help it – the tears streamed down my face.
"Hey! Hey, shh."
James put his arm around me, pulling me close. I buried my head in his chest, hiding my face from the world.
He stroked my hair and held me tightly. I felt strangely safe and secure.
I pulled my head up and took a shaky breath.
"I'm sorry."
And I meant it.
"It's okay."
And I knew he meant it too.
There were a couple of moments silence.
"James?"
"Yeah?"
"What do you want to do? In life, I mean. What do you want to achieve?"
He sighed, and I felt slightly scared that I may have opened a topic he didn't like. Or that he hated. Or…
"That's a tough one. Well.. I want to finish school and become a proper wizard, of course. And then I want to join the fight against evil – unoriginal, I know, but it's true. I can't think of any other way I could live – I need to do something instead of just waiting to die. And…" he faltered, staring intently on a particular spot on the wall opposite us, "- and I'd like to have a family to care for."
I listened to the last sentence, and realised how hard it'd been for him to say that.
He looked at me.
"What about you?"
"Oh. Well. I have no idea."
I felt a pang of guilt at the fact that I had nothing to say and that he'd probably just poured his soul out and thought I was shutting him out.
"Ah."
I bit my lip.
"No, really. I have no idea. And it kills me because I want to change the world and be something. I just don't know how or what."
He just nodded. I wondered if he believed me.
"What's that?" He gestured to the book I'd been writing in.
"Just writing."
"You write?"
"No. Well, not normally."
"So why today?"
"I'm not sure – it's cloudy, I'm not feeling great and I decided to come up here and write. Just a random thing, I guess."
"Why aren't you feeling great?"
I paused. He was asking a lot of questions, but I didn't care.
"I don't know how much value is in my life at the moment."
I shocked myself with that confession. I don't know if it was true or not, but I suppose it had to be if I'd said it without having to think.
"I do."
"What?"
"I see value in your life."
I looked at him, hoping to read his expression, but only to find him staring blankly at that spot on the wall again.
"Do you want to read it?"
He looked at me.
"Do you want me to read it?"
I shrugged. Then nodded.
He took the book from me, and read it – once again showing no signs of what he felt or thought.
"Well?" I asked, once he had finished.
"Can I borrow your quill?"
I handed it to him.
He took it and began to write.
Once he'd finished he gave the book and the quill back to me.
It read:
Dreaming, wishing, hoping, needingNothing matters if my heart is beating,
And that it does – I will not lie,
Only for you until I die.
So hold on now and lose your fears,
Wipe your eyes of all those tears,
I promise someone's watching from above,
And taking care of you, my love.
My breath was caught and my heart thumping in my chest.
I was terrified of looking at James, but I did anyway.
"Not all our dreams come true, but there's always hope," he said, his eyes completely serious and locked with mine.
At that moment I realised that I trusted him completely.
I turned my whole body, wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him.
I felt my negativity flow out from me; all the weight on my chest which I'd carried until then disappeared.
When our lips parted, all I could breathe was "thankyou" before he kissed me.
Later that night, before going to sleep I pulled out my notebook and wrote:
All I want is James Potter, from now until I die. And that's the true dream of a sixteen year old.
A/N: Yeah this was a really emo, random one-shot. Sorry if it bored you… it's rather terrible. In fact, I don't know why I posted it. I kind of hate it – sorry if you agree. Hopefully I've pleased someone somewhere out there.
Thankyou so much if you've made it to the end of this!
-- Michelle.