Another Life
Sam Scott
It does not do to dwell on dreams, Harry, and forget to live.
Sarillienne Slade-Browneford, curvaceous half-demon warrior-queen, raised her gun to the setting sun, and looked the Undead Dragon right in his pitchblack, unblinking eyes.
"Sarillienne!" said Harry, "turn back! No one can take on the Undead Dragon and live! I love you too much to live in a world without you!"
Sarilliene just smiled with her perfect white teeth. She aimed Excalibur, the mystic sword of Merlin that she had reforged into Excaluzi, the Mystic Machine Gun That Slew Voldemort. And with one shot to the the unbeating heart behind the Undead Dragon's pale scaly skin, it crashed to the ground, ending its reign of terror once and for all.
Sarillienne smiled, looked up from her keyboard, and once again became just plain Sara Brown. In Hogwarts, she has the beauty that started a hundred wars and broke a thousand hearts, with shimmering, glittering nightblack hair and moonpale skin. She wears the heart of a star as a stud in her lip.
In the other world, she is easily ignorable, overweight and average height, with dull dark hair that is always in her face and lumpy, lackluster skin.
Sarillenne's eyes are bright golden yellow, but they will sometimes turn green when she is happy, or ruby-red when she is angry.
Sara's eyes are dull, greyish brown, no matter how angry she gets at the wall-to-wall rejections that make up her life.
Sarilliene has won freedom for the Wizarding World, her battle with the Seven Armies of Hell, and the Great Multiversal Quidditch Tournament. She can transform into a majestic tiger whenever she pleases.
Sara has never won anything - no spelling bees, no YMCA soccer games, no Spirit Awards, no Homecoming crown, no respect, no admiration, no applause.
Sarillienne is self-conscious about her large breasts and the black stripes on her neck, but her friends all assure her they only make her even more gorgeous.
Sara is self-conscious about nearly everything, and Marla and Brenna try to reassure her, but she wouldn't believe God Himself if He said she was beautiful. She wakes up every morning from her tangle of dirty sheets over her yellow foam mattress and eats a bowl of beige cereal. Her sister Erin drives her to school through the grey snow in a car that smells like old pizza and musty air freshener as they fight over the stereo. She wants to listen to her music - Erin called it whiny and overdramatic, but Sara can't understand why she didn't see how much these cracky-voiced boys are singing just to her, about all her pains and triumphs. Erin just wants to listen to some stupid fucking club bullshit. For someone whose pulse is more in tune with the rhythm than Sara's, that music can be the most joyful sound in the world. For her it's more like someone going at her brain with a jackhammer.
Sara sleepwalks through her classes without ever noticing much of what goes on around her. Or maybe she floats like a ghost since no one seems to notice her either. After lunch, all the students march to chapel. She sits behind some older boys, and when they snicker at the priest saying "the left hand will not know what the right hand is doing," she laughs along as if she understands the joke. And when the service pauses for the Sharing of the Peace, she just stands there, waiting for someone to shake her hand.
But no one does.
She thought her black lipring would make her at least stand out. It might have, but only enough that people started saying things when they thought she wasn't listening like "wow, look at the little emo freshman girl," or, "what, does she think she's punk or something?" or, "you think she's trying to look like Kelly?" Bitches, all of them, Sara thinks. They can't appreciate anything past their stupid blonde rich Midwestern little way of life. And it's Friday so they're all talking about what they'll be doing that night, and they'll all be drinking and smoking and fucking and getting high and chugging pills, and she judges them for it, but if she's jealous she won't admit it to herself. And they're going to the train tracks, seriously, what kind of fun are you going to have by some rusty old train tracks. Still, she survives another day of school, and once more she returns to the Five Kingdoms. But her hardships aren't over yet. She still has to go through the Gate Between Worlds, that leads to the lands of Westeros and Middle-Earth, to misty forests full of vampires and and kingdoms made of candy, to nations of fire and planets of heroes. Or, as everyone else calls it, the old Dell desktop her mom used to use when she worked from home and that leads her to the fan fiction forum. But after all that, she still must pass by the gatekeepers. She knows that they can't hurt her if she just ignores them. Every day she says she will, and every day she decides she will the next time. There are three of them today.
ronmione92: who does this bich think she is? harry would never do aby of this and since wen was ginny such a stupid bimbo alcoholic. harry's supposed to b with HER not this stupid mary sue you jsut pulld out your ass. this fic makes me hurt insdie. hav you even read the books?!
mugglemom: i couldnt even get past the second chapter. why do hagerd and sarilienne just kil her parents like that? what did they even do? and shes supposed to be the good guy now?
avatarthelastnavi: lol u speld right wrong
What a bunch of idiots, she thinks don't they have anything better to do than criticize someone for actually making something? They're probably all a bunch of nerds who live in their mamas' basements anyway. They think they know who deserves to live and die? They just don't know that Sarillienne's mom is a total evil bitch who never loved her and her dad wouldn't let her leave the house or go do anything fun and that she had to kill them because they were going to kill her to keep her from going to Hogwarts - and they think they know Harry than her, nobody knows Harry better than her, and Harry understands her - he's so much better off with her than with that bitch Ginny, if only Rowling had understood that she would have written such a better book - and seriously, how immature are these people, thinking they own Harry and whining and whining like little babies just because they don't like her story, why can't they just leave her alone - but she pushes all that aside and enters into the Other World. Her big blocky fingers suddenly begin racing and dancing as she weaved the mystic typing spell and once again becomes Sarillienne, the greatest hero of the Wizarding World.
"Sarilliene!" said Professor McGonnagal. "The Lake has been inundated" (she felt very proud for using that word) "by an army of sharkmen!"
Sarilliene sprung into action, calling Harry, Ron, and Hermione to her side. They dove from the highest tower and into the depths of the lake. The sharkmen were creatures of pure evil, with four rows of jagged teeth and eyes that looked into a soulless void. One thousand of them swam in ranks and files, the bloody remains of merpeople still hanging in some of their teeth. Sarilliene let out a fearsome battle cry (without thinking of how she could speak underwater) and charged into the great mass of cold, slimy bodies. Harry and Ron and Hermione may have fought too, but she didn't have much time to write about them. Their main job was to be her cheering squad, to let her know that all her plans were brilliant, that she was beautiful and terrifying. And she defeated the sharkmen because she always won, and just as she was about to take out the king, a horrible screech interrupted her -
"Sara! Are you coming down for dinner?"
Sara walked back into reality. She never turned the lights on in her room when she was writing, and the bright hallway made her dizzy for a second. But she made it downstairs and sat down to eat with her family, who had tragically not been ripped to pieces by Sarillienne the Tiger. They were having spaghetti, with bright bloodred sauce blended into sludge with grey mushrooms.
"There you are, Sara," said her mom, "me and dad were starting to worry you'd gotten glued to your chair up there."
Sara rolled her eyes and a few strands of spaghetti.
"Have you found any nice people on that site?" her mom asked. "I'm sure there's lots of people there who love those books as much as you do."
Sara remembered the gatekeepers and shrugged, never looking up from her spaghetti.
"You're not getting too involved up there, are you?" her dad asked. "People aren't who they say they are online, you know. There was this thing on 60 Minutes last night you really need to see..."
Sara still refused to respond, and just thought of how much Sarillienne had enjoyed the taste of her father's blood in her mouth as she swallowed a mouthful of spaghetti sauce.
"I'm sure Sara can take care of herself," her mom said. "I think this is a great way for her to learn to write. I bet she'll sell more books than JK Rowling when she grows up. When can we read it?"
"It's private," Sara murmured.
"That's because it's all about her screwing magic people," Erin said.
Sara pushed a scream deep down to the bottom of her lungs. Stupid slut, she thought, and besides, she hadn't written a sex chapter in like a week, and it's just being realistic because real couples have sex and -
But you don't need to hear any more of that. What's important is what happened to Sara the next day. She was just standing around in Freshman Hall, leaning up against her tall, narrow dead-rat-colored locker. She didn't have anybody to talk to. Other people had the same problem, but they were all on their phones, texting friends who may not have been present, but who still cared about what they had to say. Sara pulled out her phone too, but since she couldn't think of any friends to text, she just kept reloading and reloading the traffic stats on her story. Brenna bumped into her.
"Oh hey, Sara," she said, and then tried to ask her about classes, and Erin, and the new Fray album, not getting much of a response from any angle. But then Harry - no, not Harry, Brian, from sophomore class - Brian walked up to them. And he didn't look above her bangs, or below her chin, but right in her eyes.
"Hey, Sara," he said, "how're you doing?"
She was silent for a minute, then immediately blurted out "FINE." Brian didn't seem to care though.
"But hey, what's that about The Fray?"
He knows The Fray? Sara thought.
"Oh yeah," Brenna said, "aren't they the best?"
"Fuck yeah, they are," said Brian. "Seriously, most people around here think they're too cool for music like that, but they just don't get that Slade and them don't give a shit about being cool, ya know? They're just, like, totally raw, and they don't give one single flying fuck what anyone else thinks about them."
"Yeah," Sara said, "you are so right. And that's what... writing's all about. That's why I love it."
Brian's eyes looked intrigued from under his dull blond bangs. "You write?"
Just as Sara was about to answer, Brenna said, "Yeah! I do too. Just, you know, poems. Songs. Silly stuff."
"Man," said Brian, "I never would've thought I'd have found two people like you here who share my love for..." and he began speaking like he was giving a monologue for drama class, "the glooorrious art of the wrrrrriten word. We totally need to chill sometime. Can I call you?"
Sara's brain had turned into an old record player, playing that one beautiful note over and over again, tuning out anything else. When she got home she walked right past her computer and plopped on the bed to see if Brian had texted her. He had, and she forgot all about her Other Life and just talked to him for hour after hour, about music, and about their stupid teachers, and he even wanted to talk about writing.
"Yeah," he typed out on his ratty black flipphone, "Im so jealous of you writing storys like that. i just dont have the patience to sit down with one story that long."
"What do u rite then? :)"
"o just poerty mostly. i got like a stack of old poems in my room. too embarasing to read!"
"thats so werid. :D i tried riting poetry but its just soooooo much mor work. makin everything rhyme and shit :)"
"well it doesnt have to rhyme."
"yeah but i cant write that kind either *blushing*"
"its different for everyone i gues.
"didnt brenna say she liked poetry?"
"oh ya. shes sooooooo good at it! she gave me soooo many feels with that one she did about her dog dying B"
"omg thats great. wat music does she like?"
"omg she loooves coldplay. i think she wants chris martins babys lol"
"awesome. what else? ;)"
They spent a lot of time talking about Brenna, and Sara loved that, she imagined all three of them together, just like Sarillienne and Harry and Hermione. She leapt out of bed the next morning and raided her sister's makeup, laying on thick globs of mascara and eye shadow, and plastering over all the cracks and blank spots on her black fingernails. Erin walked into the bathroom a moment later and saw her jars of goo all open and dribbled over the sink.
"Sara!" she shouted. "Did you get into my makeup?"
She saw her sister's face, hid a laugh, and decided she had.
"Aw, look at my sis. All grown up... Kinda. Here, let me fix you up."
"No!" said Sara, looking like Siouxsie Sue if she had done her makeup with her eyes closed. "You'll fuck it all up."
Erin sighed.
"Look, if you want to look nice, you should look nice."
She dabbed some of Sara's ghostly white foundation off with a wet towel.
"There, see? You're looking better already."
She thought for a minute as she flipped through her prism of eyeshadow colors.
"Hey Sara? I'm sorry about what I said last night."
"Have you been reading my stuff?"
"No. You never leave the computer alone long enough for me to see it. Why? Was I right?"
Sara made the wise decision not to answer that question.
"Are you done yet?" she said. "We're gonna be late."
And they were. When Sara walked back into freshman hall, the bell had already begun clanging.
And she saw, huddled in front of Brenna's locker, Brian with her best friend, locked in the kind of embrace only high schoolers ever lock into.
The kind that only comes from not giving one single flying fuck what anyone else thought about them.
She said nothing, keeping her head buried in her phone, frantically checking over and over again for validation that she mattered, that anyone was listening to what she had to say. But she didn't say a word out loud, not in class, not at lunch, not when she was driving home, until she had to whisper "hello" to remind herself what her voice sounded like. And she ran up the stairs and blew past the gatekeepers and sat down to write the next chapter.
Sarillienne walked into her gorgeous, ornate dormitory room. She called to her lover, but received no answer. Afraid something might be wrong, she tiptoed quietly into his room and softly, slowly opened the door. Sarillienne's strong but beautiful body (Sara had to remind herself that) crumpled to the floor when she saw Hermione, her best friend on top of Harry in the heat of animal passion. She immediately pulled out Excaluzi, the Mystic Machine Gun That Slew Voldemort...
- no, she thought, deleting that sentence, they don't deserve to die so quickly.
No, Sarillienne transformed once more into a majestic tiger, and as those people she THOUGHT were her BEST FRIENDS lay frozen in terror, she began to slowly, carefully, rip them to shreds, making sure they FELT every last BIT of the PAIN they had CAUSED HER. And then Sarillienne turned back into herself, and she cried out in rage and sorrow over what she had done -
No, Sara thought, she did the right thing, of course she did.
- and she began to rampage through the castle. She knocked down the pillars of red marble, and slaughtered teachers, students, elves, anyone in her path. She ran to her closet and began to burn all the dresses that she had spent page after page describing. She shredded the curtains, she shattered the windows, and when there was nothing left to destroy, she kept right on going. She razed every house, every school, every market, she murdered her closest friends and most faithful enemies, she uprooted flowers and trees out of pure spite.
And when the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had finally crumbled to nothing more than a pile of grey dust and rubble, she pulled out the Mystic Machine Gun That Slew Voldemort
and she put it to her mouth
and pulled the trigger
and clicked "submit"
and realized what she had done.