Autumn's Bright, Winter's Fight: The Traveler's Decision

For those of you reading my crossover story or my Singing Spirit, please know that I am dutifully working on those as you read this note. My computer broke three or four weeks ago, and I only recently got it fixed and up and running again. I meant to write the new chapters and put them up last week, but I hit a writer's block- you know, that one where you really start getting deeper in your storyline and you have to know EVERYTHING before you can do ANYTHING and you just feel SCREWED. However, I've finally sat down and gotten all my stupid berings together, and I'm hoping to post a new crossover chapter sometime tonight/early in the morning/morning of the day after next. This weekend, I assure you.

Anyway, while I was taking a short trip in Ohio a couple of weeks ago (Winterguard International YAY!) I began to write this poem. While I don't write many stories about it, as I'm running four In-Progress stories and attending high school at the same time plus extra curricular activities and all, I'm a big Harmony shipper when it comes to Harry Potter. Friendship, family, or romance, it doesn't matter- I just absolutely adore their deep, emotional love and respect for one another.

Going on, this poem is based of off Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken", and it's plot is the deep, critically emotional look into what I believe was one of Hermione's most heartbreaking, serious, tearing decisions of her early adult life. This poem is Harmony based with underlying Romione, and believe that as soon as you read it, you'll understand exactly what I'm saying, and I hope it strikes a nerve in you that really makes you think and go, just, Wow.

I almost feel like there's something more to say here, but I really, honestly cannot find the full extent of my words right now. So I'll get back to work now and let you read, and hopefully everything unsaid will fall into place when the last word is read.

So, without further ado, read, review, and please enjoy.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the originals.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the overgrowth;

That which was searched was autumn-ripe,

Alight with the season's colorful flame

The path was a long, orangey stripe

Intermixed with temperous red and yellow strife

And somehow, just yet, appealing all the same

The trees stood like Kings

Each one grown tall and domestic

Yet, they were proud, arrogant things

Adorned with jewels and tainted with sting

Profoundly majestic

Only one step I endeavored down the path

And of it came to me so much confusion

There on this path reigned bother and wrath

But such love and caress this trail had hath

Both in the same, inclusion in seclusion

This road was safe, I felt in my bones

Easily safe, no danger to fear

But that was just it, I felt from the unwandered unknowns

Of this land, from the happiness and cheer would fall to bemoans

And soon, I realized with dread, the excitement would disappear

For if I took this begotten road

The road of flame and ginger skies

My heart should never again be truly free to abode

In the realm of exhilaration and thrill bestowed

And to the real adventure of love I should lose my ties

Safe, yes, but overly so

Over-protected with no key to my lock

Away in this trap, from it all, oh

Farther and longer from my real want's crow

From this own and possession, I could never far walk

Happiness, I could achieve, but in a tower of stone

Fastened away with silver and gold

The rest of the world, to who I would be shown

Belonging to one, to one who owned

With fake smiles and love, I knew, I could not forever uphold

And so, from the first road, I looked to its match

Cold of winter, but not of ill-intent

A pristine wonderland with golden gate and loosened latch

As intriguing as the first, quite the catch

To it, my eyes had unwillingly went

T'was rich in violet and white and blue

Snow lay lightly in a frozen cover

The most bewildering sight I had ever such viewed

Just a look gave myself shivers through

Like the touch of a lover

The cobblestoned pathway was the most wonderous of all

Odd as it sounds, my eyes to it were pulled

The stones were of green: deep jade and sparkling emerald sprawled

Creating the pathway, past the trees tall

Polished and inviting and beautiful

Opposed to the autumn path, the skies were of night

Filled and scattered with stars and moon

Winking and flashing, the balls of light

Dancing in delight, and I realized the path's everlasting night

Was not of darkness, but of happiness' tune

And as the other I had done one moments prior

I took a small step down the jade-paved lane

And of this one came something so different than the fire

Of it's match, and I was stunned by it's enquire

And the opportunities it contained

For in these raven-colored skies above

I saw the depth of love alight and abright

I felt the feeling of myself beloved

Stronger and more powerful than the other path's shove

This one was better, this one was right

And suddenly past the snow and the stars

Revelation came to me as I had never seen before

A vision unseen, a strike unparred

From my mind I could not bar

And the truth was splayed to me that I could not ignore

For in my shock and wonder and emotions swelled

For I saw what I had seen, but now I saw something new beheld

And suddenly the trees and the shrubs spelled

Shook and shuddered where they were held

And I suddenly, utterly, finally, felt the cold

And I watched the trees begin to cry and the flowers begin to beg

My heart wrenched because I knew, I knew, I knew

My body quivered and shivered on shaking legs

And I trembled and cried out upon the edge

Hand pressed to my mouth, because I knew, I knew, I knew

And I felt their calls deep in my soul

Their cries for warmth and hearth and love

Tender flames kindled on heated coals

To warm the frosty nooks and knolls

Someone of passion and loyalty and strength thereof

I felt in myself how they called out for me

Called out for the warmth and passion and heart to attain

Called out for me on bended knee

And I finally understood why, in their heartbreaking pleas

Because while the path had it's beauty, it underlined in pain

Pain, pain, utter belying pain

I witnessed in the frosty road

Long ago had poured such angry, lost, anguished rain

And frozen upon the road, and since then kept it drained

Of the love, love, love it needed needed to hold

It had waited so long, years and years and years

To find someone, I found myself as, with their own fire and finesse

Someone it could find that it could hold dear

Someone whose caring heart and nurturing soul could spear

Right through the darkness, right through the lostness

And as I looked and shook and teared

I saw into the future of this long lonely road

And I saw what I hadn't seen in the other path near

I saw and knew, everything was so clear-

Everything I wanted this road beheld

Adventure and danger and thrill and risk

Running and chasing and escaping and freedom

No one to chide us, no one to tisk

At our frisk

Disregard for comforts, eyes only for fate's song

There held no anger like that of the other

Wanted no spite or hurt or agression

Touches were light, caressing, a lover

One that would not cage me, would not smother

Me in overwhelming, pressing possession

And looking into this path, I know I would not

Have to fake anything, never, nothing at all

The love built would never rot

The trust and beauty never to blot

I could be true with the world for lifetime's long

But there in that moment, as my next step was readied

In the midst of my happiness, in the midst of my hope

I was suddenly, suddenly heavied

As doubt, cruel mistress, fell in my head unsteadied

And then there were whispers, doubts teethered to me with rope

And suddenly my heart fell and shattered and cracked

My hand fell to it, feeling it's break

And wept in earnest, my body wracked

With sobs and more pain than had ever me attacked

Those two words that had killed me echoed in the ache

Not you, not you, the voice whispered to me

Not you, not you, you are wrong, wrong, wrong

Not enough fire, you will not be

The one he needs, you he does not need

Not you, not you, not you all along

And as I stared through misty eyes to the path ahead

I saw a little flower, just one, thriving in the snow

Red

Red

Fire starting to grow

And as I sobbed out, heart trembling with cries

I looked to future, and saw through it the truth

Found in it a myth, a could be in disguise

Something possible to attain, but reaching it a lie

False hope, real pain in naive youth

And as I looked at that flower, thriving and grown

Blazing with autumn the path hadn't yet found

I saw it blazing, saw it glow

With light and love thrown

To the trees and the flora, still calling me abound

And I knew now that I could not stay

Because I wasn't enough, not even a little, not even at all

And while I could still go and make my way

That little piece of red would grow out one day

And to it the path would soon fall

Because our fires shown different, and hers was already reserved

To burn away the pain and to let the heal come

And while the path still called to me to ease its hurts

To keep its remaining love well preserved

I was not the one, and my heart fell numb

And with broken wings and a numbness inside

With a last sob and a tear to my heart

With one last look at the flower stretching with pride

I turned back to the autumn road as my heart finally, utterly died

And left the remains at my journey's start

And the forest cried out, screamed out and reached

Still for me as I turned away

Called and cried and shrieked and screeched

And while my heart was left behind, beseeched

My eyes still cried, as I would inside now for every day

It did not know of this festering fire

Sprouting in it's inner depths

Waiting for the road to feel it afire

Admire

At its innocent, unknowing, hurting confusion, I ultimately weep

One day, I knew, it would find that heat

And it would forget me, I knew in time

And wrap itself around the warmth to feel the beat

Of the little flower's heart, and forever keep

Her close, and its need for me would fall only in dream

And so as I stepped down the autumn road

And left my love behind

I heard the golden gates slow

Clink shut with quiet woe

And silence was all I could find

I stumbled down the autumn lane, but I could not withstand

Myself, and fell to my knees in the crackling leaves

And buried my face in my hands

As I had buried my love in faraway lands

Forever abandoned, lost in my grieves

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one wrongfully, brokenly, heartlessly traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Hours to perfect, seconds to review :) Thank you for reading.