Written for Being A Wallflower's NEW Ultimate Taylor Swift Competition! and inspired by the song Forever & Always.
Once upon a time there was a little girl with red hair and a little boy who knew what she was from the moment he saw her. He told her that she was a witch and promised that they would go to Hogwarts together someday.
And they did go to Hogwarts. They went and the little girl was sorted into Gryffindor while the boy was sorted into the house that hated the Gryffindors, Slytherin.
But they wouldn't let that change anything. They wouldn't let that ruin their friendship. On the stairs before they went to their separate common rooms they made a promise to be friends forever and always.
The years went by and things changed as they always do. The boy had his own friends and the girl had hers. But they were still best friends with each other, or at least that was what the boy said. But when the girl watched him with his friends, the friends she couldn't stand, she couldn't help remembering when they had said forever and always and wondering if that meant anything to him anymore.
Everyone had told her that the friendship wouldn't last. "He's a Slytherin," they said. "You'll think you have him, but the moment you aren't looking he'll slip away."
The girl had thought they were lying. He had promised her forever and always. Nothing could change that. He wouldn't forget that promise just because he had other friends.
But they would arrange to meet somewhere and he wouldn't come and all the excitement she used to feel about him was gone, replaced with dread of the moment when he would be out of her life for good.
Even in the brief moments when they were together he was distant. Most of the time they wouldn't even talk. They had nothing to talk about anymore.
It didn't matter if they were together now. The girl knew their friendship was failing, everything about the two of them was wrong. She felt the hurt of losing him when she was with him and when she wasn't.
Had it really only been a few years ago that she thought they had a perfect friendship? Had she really ever felt that she could tell him anything?
Sometimes she blamed herself. Maybe it was because she had her own friends. Maybe he thought that she liked them better. Maybe she had done something to change the way he felt.
Not too long ago the girl had thought she knew him but she didn't anymore. He wasn't the same boy she had promised forever and always to all those years ago.
Everything they had, all the time they'd spent together, all the memories they'd shared, they all seemed to be gone. They meant nothing now.
Maybe he hadn't meant it when he said forever and always. Or maybe he had and he had just forgotten that promise. Forgotten how much they both wanted it to be true all those years ago.
Or maybe, as the girl was beginning to think, there was really no such thing as forever and always.