Elegy

(Or, Five Lies Roger Davies Tells His Sister)

5.) "You're adopted, didn't you know that? When you turn six, your real parents are going to come for you and take you away, and I'll never have to deal with you again."

He knew she believed him the second he told her, but it was too much fun messing with Audrey to tell her the real truth. It was her own fault, anyways…she would follow him around like a puppy, all day, every day, asking question after ridiculous question until he was so fed up that he would tell her the craziest lies he could think of, just to get her out of his hair.

But the adoption one was the best. Audrey had actually believed that one, and was so thoroughly convinced that her "real parents" were going to come for her on her birthday that she hid herself in a closet for most of the morning and armed herself with a frying pan, should she need to "protect herself" from the strangers who would be coming to "take her home."

He got grounded when their parents found out exactly what he'd told her, and he'd gotten in even more trouble when she hit their dad on the head with the frying pan when he tried to take her out of the closet, but Roger still thinks that it was worth it.

4.) "What do you mean, where was I? I was right by the shelves where I'd said I'd be! You must've been looking in the wrong place!"

He had been standing right where he said he'd be…for the most part.

He'd gone into Flourish and Blott's with Audrey to help her pick out her schoolbooks for her first year at Hogwarts, and while she was off hunting for a copy of 1001 Magical Herbs and Fungi with a harried-looking clerk, Roger had been distracted by the flashing signs advertising Gilderoy Lockhart's latest book. So he'd followed the crowd and wandered off towards the big table in the back of the shop, putting his quest for textbooks and his sister behind him in the process.

And when he found who the crowd was gathered around, Roger couldn't believe his eyes. Gilderoy Lockhart sat at the center of a table, looking inhumanly handsome for the camera that flashed brightly and belched bursts of purple smoke and beaming all the while. Lockhart laughed and chatted with the crowd as he signed their books, safe in the warm security blanket of his power, fame, and fortune and for a brief moment, Roger wanted that. He wanted to be famous – to have money, to be loved by everyone and cheered on by a waiting crowd – and he was so caught up in the moment, so entranced by Lockhart's presence, that he completely forgot about heading back to the front to meet up with Audrey.

And although she was furious when he finally found her, he couldn't bring himself to tell her how good Lockhart looked or how he'd felt like a rock star for that one, shining moment. He lied to her face, making up some story about being right where he said he'd be and berating her for "not looking in the right place" until she'd stared at the floor in shame and agreed.

He bought her an ice cream sundae afterwards and never mentioned it again.

3.) "Who needs Arithmancy anyways? Now Quidditch – that's a substantial future, right there!"

He failed his Arithmancy N.E.W.T. and inside, it crushed him.

Not that he'd tell anyone that, of course. He'd grinned when he got the results, slung his arm around Audrey's narrow shoulders and laughed it off after their mother took the parchment out of his hands. He said, quite loudly, that in Quidditch the only skill he needed was hand/eye coordination and the ability to stay on a broom, and who needed Arithmancy anyways? All that it was was making up complicated number charts and writing about the magical properties of the number seven. It wasn't pertinent to his life, to his future, and he was a fool to have taken the subject for so long.

And it didn't hurt that he loved flying. To him, hopping on his broomstick was one of the best things in the world – the wind in your hair, the feel of the broomstick's handle in your hands, the wobbly, weightless feeling you got when you soar too high – and Roger couldn't imagine a life without Quidditch and Quaffles and flying.

But secretly, he wished that he could function in the world outside the Quidditch Pitch, and the failing grade he'd received just solidified the fact that he probably couldn't make it if his Chaseing career never took off.

2.) "You're wrong about Jenny, you know. She's better for me than Cho could ever be."

It was only a lie because he loved her more than he could put into words.

All the other girls – the "Bludger Bunnies", as his baby sister so aptly called them – were pretty and sweet and all, but not a single one of them could measure up to Cho Chang. They'd been friends for ages, and while there wasn't any "real" romance between them, that little what-if stuck always in the back of his head. And even after he graduated, she was still with him; in her letters, in his dreams, in his thoughts. She was always there, one step behind a shadow and right on the tip of his tongue, no matter how many times he tried to drive her away with thoughts of other girls.

He didn't regret falling in love with her. He should, really, but he couldn't. Even though she wasn't his – she loved someone who would never come back to her– he couldn't help it. She belonged to Cedric, and he wasn't even going to try and change that. She was Cedric's, and Roger would simply be keeping her head above water until she could be with him again and he knew he couldn't do that. Roger Davies was no second fiddle, no silver medal or stand-in or substitute for someone he could never be.

But he loved her anyways and he never told a single soul.

1.) "Don't worry about me, Kitten, I'll be fine. I'll see you when this is over."

He honestly thought that he was telling the truth that time.

He'd dragged her by her arm to the room where people were fleeing to the relative safety of Hogsmeade, and when he tried to push her through the portrait hole, Audrey just started screaming at him. She'd pushed him away and shouted loud enough for the whole room to hear, going on about how he couldn't possibly be staying behind and sending her off on her own, and when he told her that he was sending her to the village with or without her permission, she'd flung herself at him and started crying. She broke down in his arms and begged him – begged him! – to come with her, to let other people fight, to stop being all noble and use his bloody head for once.

And he just smiled and held her tight, telling her over and over again that he'd be fine – that everything would be okay, that he was going to laugh at her later for being so worried, that she would never live this down – until he'd convinced her to go with the others to Hogsmeade.

He thought he would live until ten minutes before he died. He thought that he'd see his parents one more time, and tell Cho how he felt, and wave to Audrey in the stands at his first game with Puddlemere, and be one of the first to clap Harry Potter on the back and congratulate him on a job well done. Death was a close call, a "what-if" scenario, something that happened to other people…not him.

His last thought before Bellatrix Lestrange struck him down with a Killing Curse was how sorry he was for lying to Audrey.