AN/ Did I allow Ron of all people to marry Hermione? No? Oh then I don't own the Harry Potter Series... this one shot may seem a bit frazzled but then with a muse bites you at 4 in the morning and demands you pay attention, its kind of hard to make sense of any of the dribble that come out. Not that it'll stop me posting it xp
There are days when all I can do is sit by the window and let my attention drift along the shadows that cross the open courtyards. Nights when my mind slows down to a hazy fog that envelope my senses and tell me all that I have seen are nothing but the dreams of an angst girl. Then there are the times the clouds roll in and the thunder booms and shakes the windows I stare out of and cause my mind a fright a sense of wondered terror fills me even as the rain begins to fall, pattering against the glass and running down the flicking reflection I see within it. I've never felt so much emotion then when I just sit and watch the day shift, the sun fall and pull the moon into the sky. It had never crossed my mind that perhaps my stillness caused others to speak in waspish whispers behind my back, I never thought they'd speak of me as anything other than in context with who I was friends with.
There it is again, that feeling as though a stone where to weigh upon my chest and drive the air from my lungs. Every time I thought of those who spoke of me in connection to them it came, like the heavy weight of the world resting on Atlas's shoulders dooming us to strain under its full meaning. It hurt to know I would never be my own person, to never be known as more than just simply 'Harry's Friend'. It might be fine for Harry to shy away from the lime light but I wanted to, no I needed to show them all I could be more than what they thought and as another sigh left my lips I also knew today would not be that day.
It wouldn't be tomorrow or the next day…hell it probably wouldn't be next week but the thought was always there, dampened by my overriding need for acceptance and friendship (which in hindsight was on odd thing to hold me back). How many times had I tried to drive them towards greatness only to watch them shrug and skate by on pure laziness? It drove me mad how hard I pushed to keep them alive and the thanks I received were their uncaring want to try and better themselves. I just can't understand their need to be average when it was clear from the start Harry would never be. It irked and destroyed my sanity every time they'd come to me, begging at the last minute to help them with an assignment they had assured me had been working on and like a fool I believed them every damn time.
Every day I was losing more and more of my will to find my own place when all I ever accomplished was being 'Harry's Friend, you know the smart one'. While I did enjoy that others could see me as smart I never thought I could be so unhappy just be known through others instead of standing out against a crowd for a good reason besides being a 'buck-toothed, know-it-all'…what young woman would want that? My soul was being strained, stretched and punished for a sin I couldn't see or bear witness to and all I could do was sit here at my bloody window and watch the world go round. It made no sense and as I was slowly losing my mind I felt a decision click deep into my bones.
I had started small, nothing more than top layer things; sitting towards the back row and keeping my hand down. I wouldn't sit near Harry or Ron if I could help it, playing it off at first as bad luck that we couldn't be seated together but quicker than I had anticipated I began to unconsciously avoid them. At first there didn't seem to be much of a change, Harry and Ron would always find me at meal times and sit with me but soon Harry seemed to patch onto the difference before even I did. He had quietly confronted me once, twice then a third time and each time he came away with the same answer. "I just need some space." I never realized how truly alone I was when I started to drift from them.
A new perspective was put in place once I had crossed the barrier of the so-called 'Golden Trio' and out into the school on my own. It had never really presented itself before the truly awful things said about me. At first is stung without my Harry shaped shield but I soon discovered once I heard most of it, I could easily shake the rest off and even laugh at some. There were some truly ridiculous rumors I had been confronted with and with some time and effort I had come to a point where I could swat them aside and take a rumor filled conversation about me and turn it towards the people spreading them. I think my favorite one was what I told Hannah from Hufflepuff about Draco's need to try and please Harry through threats of his evil doing father because behind that brave and cocky façade lay a little boy who grew up infatuated with the boy-who-lived just as so many others had. The sputter and blushing mess she seemed to gain from that outlook sure was worth the nasty words Pansy tried to part unto me. It was really quite comical when I thought over how many ways she could fit 'mudblood' into a sentence… the fact that I started to giggle around number eleven probably didn't earn me any good will.
To be honest lately I've begun feeling tired of this place, magic is slowly losing its wonder and without the wonder for magic what use is learning it? I never thought I could become bored with something that seemed to have indefinite possibilities but the restrictions and regulations out of fear and misunderstanding has dampened any field from really experimenting with it inside Britain. In fact after doing some research it isn't just Britain that feels that way. The whole of Europe, Russia and some portions of Asia have become so set in their ways that it feels no need to move forward.
By intellectual curiosity I looked into the America's to see how much they differed and was shocked at the things I learned. While they have moved forward they'd yet to fully cross the mundane/magic barrier and in fact much like Europe seemed to have found an era and just settled into it. It was weird to say the most when of the America's only Canada felt a need to move and integrate magic with mundane use, but have had several backlashed from North America over its need to advance. It came as a surprise that there seemed to be this compulsory need to completely separate magic and mundane from one another even going so far as to draw unwanted attention from other magical communities that put what projects and those that dared to continue them down like rabid dogs. Such thoughts brought me to a depression I never thought possible, who would have thought that the human condition to curiosity could evoke such an equally violent response from itself.
Today was another day spent by my window, watching the rain fall against it and down my reflection showing a truth as the urge to cry built up within me. I had spent the night before reading a book I had taken from my primary school, a book that would probably never see the inside of that library again; not that I cared. It had become well-loved in the last few years I have had it, its pages weathered and slightly dog-eared from repetitive use. When I first picked it up it had been on a whim, no actual drive to read it but at the same time an urge to at least take it. It spoke to me in a way none of my other books could which in ways was funny seeing how thin it was in regards to my others.
This wasn't what I would call light reading even if it only contained a few hundred pages because the material penned in its pages was much heavier than one would think a fourteen year old would be interested in. It gripped me every time I read it, the moment my hand would touch it I knew I would read it again that night no matter what little time I had to give. Once I started I knew I could never put it down and that in itself was a magic more powerful than anything I had seen in this world and to know it came from one where the thought of magic was ludicrous and mental, just made it ironic.
The tale was lush with adventure, love, heartache, betrayal, death, blood and the destiny of two people so intertwined, that even with Fate and Time against, them they fought to the very end of each of their lifetimes to find and be with one another. It thrilled, dazzled and bewildered me how two people as different as night and day and with so many problems would easily lay down their life for the other with a whisper of 'next time…we'll get it right' only to repeat the cycle again and again.
Annoyance crept up in my shoulders drawing them taunt while I thought on the perplexity of love. For someone as young as I, the thought should bring forth ideas of prince's in shining armor sweeping me off my feet and into a world full of magic and wonder…but I already had magic. I had magic even if the wonder had faded, I was no princess in need of saving in fact I generally did a lot of saving all my own with no help other than healing in the after math. Straying on that thought I saw my reflections lips twist into a bowed frown of distaste; I didn't want to be saved and I didn't want to save someone. Love was a curious code even my brilliant mind couldn't crack and that thought gnawed at my stomach like a hungry dog.
Fingers tapping repetitively on the leather cover of the book that evoked so many distasteful thoughts must have cause my mind to slip into a noisy array of chaos for me not be able to feel the air move distinctively. Next I knew a soft French accented voice caught me by surprise and caused me to jump in alarm, spilling my well-loved book to the floor. A flush soon blooming across my cheeks as a pale hand as quick as a snitch caught the book before it had chance to find the floor and damage itself more and turned it so that my new companion of sorts could read the title.
I knew even before I could foolishly ask the French witch if she had read the mundane volume, that she indeed had seen and possibly read the book, as her own blush rose to her cheeks. It was with warmth in both of our cheeks when she spoke in a quieter tone asking if I had read the others and as it was meant to be I nodded my answer in silence. A quirky half smile seemed to break over her lips as she took in my silence, perhaps thinking how odd I was to be reading such a book or perhaps remembering a particularly funny bit form it, before she spoke another question in a searching way. How long had I had the book? Considering the material placed inside would she think me weird to know I had from primary school all because of a library mix up? With a pause to gather my courage (Gryffindor forward!) I answered and was surprised by the calming smile she directed my way.
I felt lost as she looked to me in a way that I had only heard of described in books, with genuine interest in what I had to say as we spoke back and forth. Asking questions on which book of the series we like, why we liked that particular reincarnation, what we thought the next one might be on and the odd roles that the characters seemed to find themselves in with each new life. Obsessions that stayed the same, desires for certain people, the weapons they found themselves most comfortable with and how magic was both a blessing and a curse both in the book and in real life. As hours passed without my knowledge of even my care a question spilled from my lips before I dared to stop it.
"Who's your favorite character?" A sly smile and mischievous twinkle seemed to enter those sapphire blue eyes as my new found companion(friend?) seemed to take quite a lot of enjoyment in making me wait for her answer.
"I prefer our dear pirate queen. She is cocky, overambitious and a general idiot because she leads her life by her passion and her sole devotion to the one who holds her heart." Wrinkling my nose at her choice and why I couldn't help but cut her off.
"Why would you like her for being a passionate idiot? Her wild unpredictable devotion generally is the cause of their misery. She jumps to conclusions without taking in full facts and she has a rather skewed view of the world." Babbling slightly in frustrations with the character I couldn't help but notice the smile widening on my companions face and verbalized my confusion with an elegant. "What?" Rather than continue on with why she enjoyed one of the main characters she turned the question to me and I answered without pause. "The assassin of course; unlike the pirate she has a calm head and has proven herself over and over again to be the reliable one. She lives by logic but can also love just as passionately as her lover without the need to withdraw right afterward." A dam seemed to have broken between us I let the word 'lover' fall so easily from my tongue, it had never really occurred to me before that we had dance around the main topic until now but now that I had said it out loud I felt no need to take it back and from the look I was receiving I could tell she felt the same.
We had danced around the fact that these two lives drawn together by destiny and twisted by fate and time were not your ordinary couple, but two women bound together much as I felt in that moment. Words hung between us, unsaid and quiet as the bell for curfew rang throughout the halls and wrenched us from this small private place. In that moment she looked into my eyes and I found myself captivated by the sheer possibility to share in the wonder I found there and as she stood and held her hand out to me, I felt something… a string connecting us in the form of a spark that promised more even as she smiled and bid me, "Bonne journée."