Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter
The Triwizard Tournament Competiton - Round 1 [Beauxbatons]
Ten Times Ten Challenge - Protego
Place of Safety
She thought he looked like a fallen angel in the way he moved through the castle and the amount of pain his eyes showed, or hid depending on how observant one was. No angel of light would ever be able to have that much hurt and anger within them without slipping and falling into the darkness and despair. He had not fallen yet so she could only assume that he had welcomed that darkness that lay within his mind wholeheartedly and without looking back. There was truly no other way for him to retain his sanity without doing so.
She noticed all those tiny things that he always sought to hide, small things that revealed a lot about his true nature, his true feelings, his true thoughts. He hid them well but not well enough to be hidden from her. She had learned to read people as a survival technique from a young age and had only ever improved since arriving at Hogwarts. She was called 'Loony Lovegood' after all and that often helped her much more than it hindered her. She hid her own darker nature behind the mask of ridiculousness that no one bothered to look past.
She sometimes caught him looking at her as if he had figured out her secret. Those times did not shock her as much as they truly should have. She had observed him for long enough to know that even he was not as stupid as he showed everyone else he was.
He was figuring her out just as she was figuring him out. They both hid within the shadows that hung in the light. It took real courage to do what they were doing, hiding within the light where they were clearly visible. It took a lot of talent too, they had yet to be caught by anyone but each other. They would not rat each other out, they could not afford to because despite their confidence in their acting abilities they knew that at some point they will need some place they could fall back on, someone that would allow them to be themselves with no judgement. They knew that moment would come, they did not know when but they trusted each other to protect the other in times of weakness.
She could only watch in veiled amusement as he twitched in irritation at the jabbering of Ron and Hermione about something or the other and the occasional word from Ginny who was listening in carefully to their conversation. There was a reason that she always kept her mask on while with her fellow housemates and that was exactly it. The likelihood of them annoying her was extremely high and her patience with stupidity and whiny voices had not evolved into the steel tight discipline that came with practice. She honestly could not begin to understand how he managed to do it. She would probably have cursed them silent years ago. Her father had always told her to learn patience and she would … eventually.
Her gaze roved around the room as she took everything in once again, giving the impression to all the outsiders of her being lost in a world they were not privy to or existed only in her imagination but in reality she was sizing each and every one of them up. Looking for people she should avoid and others she should rile up while watching the interactions between friends, new and old, planning the steps she would take to navigate yet another school year filled with the biggest gathering of gossipmongers ever known to the wizarding world.
As usual, she was ignored as the other students caught up on their friends' holidays while they dug into the start of term feast the house elves had prepared for them. Their utter ignorance astounded her but she did not show it, maintaining a slightly vacant expression. No one expected anything from her and she never surprised them by doing anything unexpected. It was almost a mutual agreement; one the other party did not even know that they had agreed to.
It was almost amusing how easily they dismissed her, deeming her as someone that was not useful to them in any way. They were not privy to her secrets and perhaps never would be. There may be a few that could gain her trust, some who had potential within them if they ever managed mature into the responsible adult wizards they were expected to be in a couple of years. Even the Slytherins, who considered themselves to be the most cunning within Hogwarts, were childish in their actions. They had never set foot beyond their manors and had been sheltered for their entire lives. They lived in a bubble of naïveté that they did not even know existed, they had not yet seen the horrors of real life. She could not truly blame them though, they knew no better especially when their Head of House held onto a grudge that was between his dead rival over a teenage hatred that had come with them competing over the same girl. Surely he had managed to string together enough time to get over the fact that he had lost.
She did not pay attention to the students being sorted, she never did. It was far too early to judge any of them and if the past few years had been any indication, she had no reason to raise her hopes with any of the new students. It seemed understanding was something that grew as time passed and you gained enough knowledge. There was a possibility but it was so slim that she could afford to wait. There would be one soon, Lady Magic always made sure there was always some dark to balance out the light within Hogwarts. There were always two guardians. They would be Dark now because the headmaster was Light. The headmasters or headmistresses of Hogwarts were usually more Light-orientated although there had been a few Dark-orientated headmasters in Hogwarts' history.
The next two chosen students would have to figure out who the other was as they had done. The trust would come later, once they learned the control that was necessary for their role. Abuse of their power could and most probably would destroy them, utterly. They were angels, Hogwarts' broken angels. They protected her as much as she protected them.
Their eyes met for a moment and they both inclined their heads in silent greeting from their places around the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables respectively. They had never truly had a conversation nor had they ever officially met each other within Hogwarts but that did not matter. They had gained each other's trust through meaningful silences and actions that spoke much louder that false platitudes and words ever could. They had accepted each other without needing an explanation for it. That safety was enough.