Disclaimer: Characters, setting etc belongs to JK Rowling. Lyrics are by Taking Back Sunday - My Blue Heaven.
Prologue
Sometimes it just feels better to give in.
Twisting and curling into the midnight blue skies of late summer, the smoke seems to trace a path into the heavens. The girl, small and tired, released a soft breath, humming along to an invisible tune, lost as she was in everything. Looking up and around her, as though suddenly realising she is not where her mind has taken her, she takes a long, languid drag off her cigarette. Another slow exhale and she's lost once more in her thoughts. The cigarette in itself is a symbol of all that has changed for her – the concept itself a cruel joke considering how she used to be so pure. The smouldering end is her passion, her light, for she burns just like her beloved cigarettes – from the inside out; the fallen ash that fades into the still night is every piece of her that slips away, each part of her soul that has been distinguished in the last six years. She stays there, the smoke curling round her forming eddying swirls in the cold air. Gradually the cigarette burns away – burning out like she imagines she must be - shrinking with every inhale, measuring the time she has before she has to turn around and return – return to her life, to their expectations, to everything she wanted to avoid. The girl takes one last drag, savouring it, before staring regretfully at her burnt down cigarette and stubbing it out in a broken plant pot. Wearily she climbs to her feet, stretching her back and shaking her head, as if to clear it of any traces of her mournful thoughts, and heads towards the glowing windows and faint sounds of laughter in the distance. Her silhouette is clear against the faded back drop.