A/N: This is my piece for the Fanfiction Idol Competition :)
Enjoy, and please don't favourite without reviewing :)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The World On My Shoulders
Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us. ~Rainer Maria Rilke
Perhaps if you live life on a play set you start to forget that the walls are made of paper and your life is simply painted out. That is what it feels like in the Weasley household. We have been pretending for so long, following the script the world hands us, that we don't remember that we are just puppets, controlled by a larger force and never writing our own lines. If anyone of us rebels against that force, starts to create our own life, we're top news, as if they have nothing else better to report. I have made the headlines more often then the rest of my family. I am Dominique Weasley, the 'rebel', Slytherin, just plain me.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Slytherins have a lot of stereotypes by their name. We can be cruel, heartless, sly, even evil. But one thing no one ever realises is that deep down, we are the dreamers of Hogwarts. We are the ones who hope for long enough to make things real, the ones who search for the answers in the most unlikely of places. You may call our dreaming 'ambition' but it is nothing like that. Even Voldemort, who was all those stereotypes, also matched my criteria. He wished for a perfect world, controlled by him and only him, none of those creatures he detested so much. That was a dream, and although it was a bad one, he was perfectly within his right to have it. You may say my way of thinking is warped, that I am one of those Slytherins who wishes Voldemort won. I don't. I sing with my cousin the 'Voldy gone Moldy' song, I celebrate with the family on victory day. Maybe there are some stereotypical Slytherins, but it's not all of us, and it's definitely not me.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Once I tried to create a language out of stars. I mapped out the night sky, naming each one as I went. 'Love', 'Family', 'Hate', 'Jealousy'. I named each emotion inside me with a star, as if putting it inside that hopeful shine would somehow make everything right, everything real again. I was full of hope those days. Now I realise that if you don't try, you're never gonna get what you want. My sister, most of all, taught me that. I should have bent over backwards for my parents, knelt at their feet like she did. But I didn't, because I thought it would be like lying. I know better now.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
My mother and father always wondered why I never had friends around. Maybe they thought I didn't want, or need, friends. That couldn't have been true though, because loneliness is not a choice. Do you think that people would really choose to be alone all their life? No. It's because once they dared to reach out tendrils into society, and it disappointed them so badly that they never tried again.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Some people believe the world is meant to be black&white, but it never is. There are those shades of grey, of course, but there are also the rainbows, the purples&blues&reds&yellows. I heard once that you cannot choose who you love, and it's never the person who was expected of you. I guess that if that's true, then people would expect you to love the unexpected. So I should be the rule, not the exception. If my logic is right, why is everyone so surprised?
When you love someone, you put them first in everything you do. It's not a choice, not some impulse decision. It's just fate.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I used to love looking at ruins. They reminded me of myself, looking to old for their age and forgotten by all those who were expected to remember. Later I would remember that one thing who did remember me, always remembered me, waiting in the entrance when I arrived. But then I realised that 'person' was just the stone gargoyle, holding our door open.
I remember once, when I was younger, and we were assembled at the burrow for our yearly family photo-shoot.
(these have gone out of fashion since then.)
Victoire was thirteen, I was nine and a little out of it. But I did notice something she didn't. I noticed the way Teddy was staring in admiration at little Lily, showing off her ballet routine, when he was meant to love Victoire. I thought she would be grateful, when I told her, so that she knew her boyfriend was a cheater, that word I'd heard in a movie. But instead, she slapped me in the face, and yelled at me, saying that I, nine year old me, was trying to steal her boyfriend. Our mother ushered Victoire away to 'get cleared up' and my father lectured me on other peoples feelings and the importance of self discipline. My cheek was stinging, but my family not trusting me hurt even more. Victoire ignored me for months, only sending icy glares my way and chattering in French to my mother and father, the one language I could never understand.
A few weeks after that I tried to pick up the pieces of my life off the floor and put them together again, and it was then I realised I was not the same anymore. Once you have been broken apart, the pieces never quite fit, and they never will, however hard you push. I might have looked intact, but inside the cracks still shone free.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The crazy thing about lies is that if you tell them for long enough, you actually start to believe them yourself. The woven spider webs tangle themselves up in even your own mind, and the truth hides in those little corners, trying to escape from the onslaught. No one else can see those glimpses anymore, especially not you, and that's a good thing. Because the truth can only hurt, lies are the much safer way to go. And it's easier to just block out the pain of those truths, and feel only numbness... because at least then you're no longer burning inside.
I forget how it feels, emotion. Because if you can't remember happiness, and you don't want to remember sadness, what is there left to feel?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sometimes I wish I was a good person, like my father. But then I remember where that got him, marrying a witch like my mother with a terrible scar across his face. After that I settle with letting my other cousins live up to other's expectations, I just live up to mine.
My family always wished I could be like them, but I guess they truly realise I couldn't do that when I turned seven. I was playing in the garden with my younger brother, Louis, a game of hosepipes in which we both tried to avoid the blasts of freezing cold water we were aiming towards each other. He had just hit me, his score going up by five points for a blast in the face, teasing me mercilessly when everything suddenly just exploded. Instead of water, a flash of pure light made it's way out of my house, and careered into Louis. His face turned a bright purple, and although I didn't know it at the time, he was choking, a invisible lasso around his neck.
He was taken to St Mungos, and it took them three days to work out which spell I had used so they could properly cure him. My mother did not look at me for days, and every night I could hear Louis crying from the nightmares.
I think when I didn't react to any of that, was when they realised I was not destined to be like them.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
School is different. There I am almost fully accepted for who I am. I am not a muggle born, or anything of the like, so all my house mates accept me. And green and silver goes fantastically with my eyes. Hogwarts, of course, is a big place, so it's easy to avoid the cousins if needed, and even easier to be alone.
Apart from when he comes along, because then I don't even want to be alone. The way he looks at me is different from the rest, like he's actually interested in what I say.
(And when he looks at me, I just sink, because who else could have that amount of soul in their eyes?)
I used to wish he was right for me, but now I realise- he is. Because feeling something for anyone is right, and who cares if it's your most hated enemy, or your only friend? It'll be right if you make it right, and that's the only thing that matters.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
. I was nearly back into the comfort, or else I thought so. Closer to acceptance then I'd ever been before, and then he had to come along and ruin it all.
((I've lost my place, he's to blame.))
He's like fire for a pyromaniac, something you enjoy, while knowing it's bad for you to stand inside it.
And he's terrible for me, and all this is terrible for me.
But I love it, I love him, and what are details anyway?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Amor vincit omnia.
Latin is the only language I've ever enjoyed. It's so carefully placed, flowing, not harsh and angry like French. It's words drop perfectly off the tip of your tongue, unlike the spitting of German and English.
It's perfect, beautiful. The language of the Gods. It's no wonder-he speaks it.
Love conquers all.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Have you ever felt like you're being sucked into a huge black hole? That churning feeling in the pit of your stomach, the shivers in your fingers and toes. The pricks running through your head and soul, pulling you apart inch by inch. Then, of course, when everything disappears, and you can't feel yourself anymore.
Black holes are the worst days, because you can never come back from them.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sometimes I believe in luck. I believe in pulling myself together, and making something of myself. And I will, an unbreakable vow to myself.
Tomorrow won't be yesterday, I promise.
There's a million questions hanging above our heads, but who gives a damn? It's our life, they can back off and make their own. The world's an oyster, make of it what you want. Don't let those bitches control you, because we're better then that.
I'm breaking down these barriers between me, and myself, they don't know how strong I am. I won't lie content with boundaries, maybe they don't understand. You know life? It's perfect & beautiful and I'm gonna live it.
((So, haters, just go away, we just don't need you anymore.))
I'll be the perfect fairytale girl, and I'll get the guy. And my mother and sister? They can get on with their pretty little livesandlies, and their perfect perfect world, I'm not one of them, and I never was..
I won't ever be that pretty little ((french)) veela girl, so what's the point in trying? Getting disappointed, it just isn't worth it.
I'm me, and you're you. We're all someone in this biglittleworld, however small.
Be yourself, because no one else will ever have the effect in life that you do, my individual.
((We'll make the sun shine, the grass green and the wind a little calmer. We'll create a universe.))