Thin White Lines
(A Harry Potter universe story)
Everyone has a best friend as a child; a trusted confidante that they could never imagine losing. There's this memory I have from when I was a child, before Hogwarts, before the new war, and before all the losses. We're running around your massive front yard, the hedges as tall as skyscrapers in our eyes. The snow is glistening, blinding, and cold….but we don't feel a thing. Your cheeks are flushed and your eyes glint with mischief as we play a rousing game of hide and seek. I'm rushing through the yard searching for a place to hide.
"10, 9, 8…", I can hear your voice even from so far away, I'm running out of time. My eyes scan the yard in front of me and quickly land on the intimidating statue in your front yard. I cringe back, this statue has always terrified me, a snake rising as tall as the ledges, it's bottom half scaly and coiled up while its head rises higher and higher. I steel myself and quickly clamber up the coils, they're placed in such a way that my feet can find purchase in the scales, in spite of the ice. I hunker down inside the coils just as you shout, "..here I come!" You know how much I hate this stone serpent so I know you won't look for me here.
Time seems to crawl by and I start to shiver. It's blistering cold out. More than the cold it's fear that starts creeping into my bones. What if you don't find me? What if I can't climb out and I freeze to death in the base of this statue, never to be found?
I'm starting to sniffle, tears trailing an icy path down my cheek when a shadow falls over me, the snake ready to bite. Instead, I see your bright, white teeth, bared in a huge grin. "I found you!".
Panting and out of breath your smile falls, "Lev, what's wrong?" As you climb down into the coils with me and embrace me in an innocent hug I feel myself start to relax.
"I thought the snake was going to get me."
"But the snake isn't real remember? It's just stone, it can't hurt you."
"Don't lie to the girl Draco, serpents are more deadly than they appear."
I gasp as Mr. Malfoy appears over the top of the coils. His cold and icy voice more chilling than any winter weather I'd been in before. Draco and I jump away from each other. Adults aren't supposed to be mean to kids but I've always known that Mr. Malfoy doesn't like me, even though my parents always tell me I'm a good girl. Maybe he senses the darkness I sometimes feel inside myself?
We scramble out of the stone sculpture and stand in front of Mr. Malfoy, Draco's head is hanging, he can sense something from his father.
"You'd better run home quickly Evelyn, snakes bite." Draco looks up sharply as I start backing up, tripping over my own feet and landing on my back in the snow. Mr. Malfoy leans over me, the snake looming over us both, and I feel true fear for the first time because there's a look in his eyes, like he's seeing into my soul, like he could take it if he wanted too. I start crying again and get up as fast as I can, praying my trainers find purchase. When I'm up I glance at Draco who looks like he wants to run too, I turn around and go….and I don't look back.
Rights to J.K Rowling, thank you for allowing us to borrow these characters and keep this magical world going.
-This story will generally follow the same timeline as the HP novels.