Shooting Stars and Exotic Flowers
You look like an exotic flower, all fragile and beautiful in a way that's so different, that it is exquisite. Strange, ever since I found out that I was skilled at Herbology, I've started thinking in plant metaphors. Herbology is my only strength; while you have too many to be counted … amongst them the art of making me feel bad. Every caustic remark from you hurts, but not as much as you ignoring me would. I wonder that no one has noticed how I go out of my way to be in your path, so that you can insult me.
If you are an exotic hothouse flower, like an orchid, then I am a homely, comfortable but clumsy plant, like a dandelion.
If you are a falcon, soaring wild and free, caught by invisible chains, then I am an ostrich, big and ungainly with wings that can't fly but honest about it, burying my head in the sand when danger comes, while you rush into it head-along.
If you are a shark, gliding through the ocean with lethal grace, then I am a mud-fish, ugly to look at but rarely eaten by anything.
If you are something, I will also be something else, far below you in status, but close to you in physical terms, for that is the only closeness that I can offer you, the only closeness that you will accept from me.
And yet…
The more exotic the flower, the less likely that it will survive a frost.
The freer the falcon, the more it rages against being captivity.
The more lethal the shark, the more likely that it will be killed.
Maybe I can offer you endurance for while you will wither away, like you weren't made for this world and indeed you weren't, I will endure, standing proud and strong but without you I will have nothing to stand proudly for.
The exotic flower needs a native to shelter it.
The falcon needs someone who'll understand it's yearning for freedom.
The shark needs a friend, as you will someday, for you can not last forever, such triumphant pride and resplendence will have to burn out…
And when you are dull and drab, and the flame of your beauty flickers no longer, when others leave you, I will remain…
And you will finally see me, the boy who had always stood in your shadow, but now that your light has been removed, both of us will be standing in the same darkness, and you will realize that we aren't that different after all.
It's just that one of was like a shooting star, bright and brilliant but crashing and burning, while the other was like a planet that steadily plodded on, but was there to catch the star.
The only difference between an exotic flower and a weed is that weeds don't wilt … but they will protect the flowers from the blazing sun.
Author's Notes: This was meant to be Neville/Draco, but I realized that it could just as easily be Ron/Harry or more likely, Blaise /Draco. Either way, it's slash and a side-kick in love with their leader. What do you think it sounds like? Please tell me because I'm thinking of writing a sequel and turning it into a series since I quite like it.
Many thanks to a, Rose Tangle, Landry Anne, and Kathy, the first three for being so appreciative of stories which even I don't like anymore, and the last one for convincing me to start writing again – or at least post the stories that lurked unfinished on my hard drive.
