Don't Fall in Love
A/N: Totally based on the song by Mayday Parade called Terrible Things. This just takes on a different perspective. :) I own nothing besides the plot. This would be ridiculously vague of HP facts about Draco and Hermione. I tried very hard not to mention their names so that I could share this with my friends. Hope you enjoy.
Oh and I dedicate this to the most awesome reviewers, sorry I can't greet you all, but you know who you are, I still gush over all your reviews. :" This is unedited. :)
"Don't fall in love."
That was the only advice my father has ever given me. I've proudly accepted it when I was a kid, I've scoffed at it in my teenage years but now…now that I've met the girl I'm sure I would be with for the rest of my life, I totally detest it.
What's wrong with falling in love? I mean, okay, it was quite repulsive, the very idea of it, when I was a kid. The cheesy soap operas on TV, the sloppy kissing, the overused plotlines were enough to make me gag. Dad always hated it, I never questioned it. We would both scowl at the telly when these things pop up and he would say that sentence again:
"Don't fall in love."
My father always had a problem with the talk about love…or God. We're not that religious and we don't have anything against Him but he closes his mind about it. He was a very bitter man.
Don't get me wrong, I'm very much aware of my father's past. He was not a good person, but he's not entirely bad. He had lived in his father's shadow for too long that he believed in everything he says. He believed in prejudice and I guess that's what destroyed him.
But then Mum came along and he changed…well, at least that's what my godfather told me. Dad wasn't the kind of guy who would open up about his feelings. But he never fails to say to me:
"Don't fall in love."
I only know a few things about Mum. I know she's a very good person. She's the angel to my Dad's devil. She's the light to my Dad's dark life. She's the witty comeback to everything Dad says. She likes to read books just like Dad. She also likes a good argument, which I'm sure Dad could keep up. She's the only one who can tame him, the only one who could bring his soft side. She's literally Dad's soul mate.
Dad rarely talks about her. Whenever he would, he would have that faraway look in his eyes and then after a second, it's gone. He would be back to being the cold person he usually is. Then he would turn to me and say,
"Don't fall in love."
I met the girl of my dreams in school. She's the daughter of my Mum's best friend aka my Dad's worst enemy (but he's only saying that). We're not really close at first for I had seemed to have inherited my Dad's arrogant attitude. First year, I had pulled her hair too many times that had me being scolded by my professor. Second year, I gathered all my friends and together, we taunted her for being born in a poor family. Third year up to our last, I started to have feelings for her but I concealed it rather expertly through bringing her down some more.
I was not proud of what I've done but I was proud of her. She never paid heed to my taunts, she would scoff at me for being a silly boy, and then she would proceed to hurt me physically (like stomping me on the foot, kicking me on the shins up to slapping me across the face). I know I've done too many bad things to her but that was just my defense mechanism to my growing affections for her.
She eventually grew up to be a very beautiful and admirable woman. Karma surely bit me in the arse. And it bit me good.
I guess I should have followed my Dad's advice to,
"Don't fall in love."
I decided to tell my father about this predicament I'm having, because honestly, he's the only one I could turn to right now. My godfather may mock me for this confession for the rest of my life but my Dad would just be brutally honest with me. And I need an honest opinion.
I walked up to his room which was quite a rare thing for me to do because he had forbidden me to step foot in his wing unless it's something important. My life is anything but unimportant.
I soundlessly padded across our marble floor and finally reached Dad's huge room at the end of the hallway. I can hear the distinct sound of sobbing.
Now I know it could only be my Dad but to be sure, I cautiously turned the door knob and peeked inside his room. True enough, Dad sat on the edge of his bed, hugging something to his chest and just sobbing.
He may seem like a girl to your ears but I think it would be the manliest thing one could have ever done. I, for one, have never cried so hard before. But Dad did. And I bet he has always done it.
"Dad," I muttered, rushing up to him. His gut-wrenching sobs were stopped forcefully and with his throat clogged, he asked hoarsely, "What are you doing here?"
"I-I came to ask you something…" I seemed reluctant to ask for his advice all of a sudden. I noticed that he refused to confront me. Maybe he's afraid I'd see what he was hugging close to him.
"What is it?" he growls, not as menacing as before.
I scratched the back of my neck, shying away. I'm not really sure about this, "I-I think…I think I have fallen in love…and with a girl who hates me with all she's got…"
To my surprise, he chuckles albeit a little weakly. He sniffled and then said, "What did I tell you time and time again?"
"Don't fall in love."
I rolled my eyes when I repeated that sentence again. He turned to face me and slowly let go of the thing he's clutching so close to his chest. It was a frame. A picture frame, to be specific. Mum.
In the picture, she's just smiling at me like she's the happiest person on Earth. She may not be the most beautiful woman, but she does have her charm on. Her big brown sparkling eyes, her frumpy uniform and her smile that can light up a dark room filled the four corners of the frame. I couldn't look away. This is the first time I've seen a picture of Mum in her younger years. All I've had was a picture of hers when she married Dad and somehow, I thought that wasn't enough. Now, seeing her picture, her younger self, I think I've known her all along.
"Beautiful, isn't she?" Dad's voice was wistful. The first time I've ever heard him like that. I just nodded because my own throat is clogging up with tears.
After a few minutes of just staring at her picture, Dad finally sighed and said, "When I was a kid, all I wanted was to marry for love. I've seen my parents, they're from an arranged marriage, you see. They were cold and unfeeling and that's the feeling every time I'm around them. The reason why I hate your Mum's best friend is that he has parents, although poor, who loved each other dearly. I want that. I crave for that."
He traced Mum's hair on the picture and continued on, "Your mum and I met in school. Prejudice got in the way and we hated each other. She even hit me once, slapped me across the face. I can feel her hurt radiating from that slap. That's why I didn't plot a revenge on her. I deserved it."
Dad chuckled a bit. "Your mum was a stubborn woman, she really was. We separated ways after school to sort out our lives and I met her again on the train station where I first saw her two years later. She teased me saying, 'Stop staring at me like that or you'll fall in love with me.' I remember answering that with a proud scoff. That was the first time she smiled at me."
I was shocked at how similar my Dad's story was to mine. I let him continue for he seemed like he was on his own world now where Mum still existed. "We became close after that. She invited me to her flat, she forced me to open up while talking under the stars on her rooftop, she invited me to drink although she has a low tolerance on alcohol and that went on for weeks and months. We have been the best of friends till the point where our hormones got the better of us and things happened that led to another. Now you know the story of how you were conceived."
Dad was smiling as he related this story about Mum. I think it's cruel if I interrupt it with so much as breathing.
"You came into our lives like a falling star: unexpectedly beautiful. She was ecstatic because nine months was no joke to her and to both of us."
"With your birth, I gave her the gift I've always reserved for the woman I would truly love. It came in string on a paper. She opened it slowly and she gasped. Right then, I asked her to marry me."
Dad's smile waned a bit and his eyes glossed with tears. He smiled at me and went on, "It was three months after that she confessed to me she was sick with that thing called cancer and she's only got…a few weeks to live."
Dad's tears were freely flowing now. Something wet dropped on my hands as well. Yes, I cried with him. "You can't imagine how it hurt me to see her struggle with that disease. I fell to my knees, I called out to her God, but He didn't answer. She told me it was because this was meant to happen. Life was cruel. He…He took her away from me."
He was now clutching his chest like it physically hurt to tell me this. I guess it really did.
"She told me I was the greatest thing that has ever happened to her. But she's wrong. Because it was she who was the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. She was the most beautiful woman I have ever met, you know, even though I claimed otherwise when we were young. She cared for me when everyone hated my guts. She took me in when nobody ever dared to. She accepted me when majority has shunned me. She loved me and I was the luckiest man in the world."
"Don't fall in love, son, because there's too much to lose. I lost everything when she died because she was it: my everything. She left me with nothing to love for. If I had the choice, I wouldn't let you ever fall in love. I can't bear to see this happen to you. I'm only telling you this, because life can do terrible things…like it has done to mine."
That was the first time I saw Dad break down in front of me. He was crying for Mum, for him and for me.
"Don't fall in love."
Dad said it for the last time on my wedding day. But he cheekily added, "But do love your wife with all you've had."
He patted me on the back and hugged me. He cried his sworn last tears and said, "I wish life treats you better."
And I knew then that Dad may not be the best person in the world, but the way he loved Mum, I salute him for it. I forever will do.
The End.