Ruby with Banana Yellow Hair
Dear Ruby,
I'm not really sure why I'm writing this letter, I know you'll never get it. I just want you to know that I remember. I think you must do, we were too close for too long for you to have forgotten, but I hope you remember, too.
I was seven and you were six. I was Nothing But Trouble and you were Nothing But Mud. At least, that was what our parents said. They didn't want us to meet, but my parents hadn't come with me that day, and you'd slipped away, left your parents pushing your little brother on the swing while you sought out dry land to kick your ball around. I'd been skulking about alone on the edges of the play area, avoiding the muggles like my mother had taught me, but you caught my eye.
I don't know if it was your wild, banana yellow hair or your bright turquoise t-shirt, or if it was the easy way you shone with vivid energy as you smiled at your own game. I was curious, and you seemed completely at ease. I asked If I could play with you. You smiled and answered with a quick yes. "It's much more fun kicking a ball when you have someone to kick it back to you," you reasoned.
You asked me my name and laughed when I told you. You said it sounded like the name of a horrible old man. "Well," I countered, "Maybe I'll grow up to be one. What's your name?"
You told me it was Ruby Pearce. I called you a Ruby with Banana Hair. You didn't get annoyed, you just giggled. I wondered if you giggled at everything.
I don't know if we decided out loud that we were going to be friends, but I remember when your mum made you leave and we said goodbye, you told me you'd see me next time. It didn't seem to even cross your mind that you might not.
That was something I learned about you quite quickly, Ruby, just how limitless your confidence was. You'd lived a life in the sunshine, and didn't know how quickly thunder could gather. It was liberating for a boy like me, to stand beside your optimism.
It was only two days later when we met again. You were wearing your school uniform in the early afternoon. It was early July, and the summer heat brought visitors to Thyme Point Park in their droves. Your parents allowed you to go to Wise Pine Thicket, a small gathering of trees not far from the swings, so long as we didn't go past it and came back in half an hour. Half an hour felt like a lifetime at six and seven. We were free.
You taught me how to play Hide and Seek. You thought it was tragic that I'd never played before, and insisted that every child should know how to play. You counted first and I hid, choosing a spot between two tree trunks, hidden behind apple green ferns. I think it took you less than a minute to find me. You said you'd seen the blue of my t-shirt through the leaves. It was my turn to find you next, and we almost ran out of time to get back to your parents.
On the short walk back, you asked me why my parents had given me such a silly name. I told you that it was a name with history in my family, and that it was the name of a star. You liked that. You said you'd ask your dad which star it was so you could look at me at night before you went to sleep.
Ruby, I think that I was more than a star, back then. I think I was a falling star, drifting softly down into your safety net. I remember the sinking sadness I felt as I watched you leave, holding hands with your mum and laughing at your brother, knowing that I, too, had to go home. At the time, I saw myself as nothing more than a boy who didn't want to go home. It's easy to see, with hindsight, how much more than that I was. I was a sailboat adrift in a storm with no anchor to keep me grounded, no compass.
I'm sorry, I'm not making much sense, am I? I told you bits and pieces, I know, but not much. Only as much as a child could understand. I'll try to explain now. You see, I was a tragic child. My mother had no patience for childhood, and my father stayed out of his wife's work. Instead of making collages from construction paper at the kitchen table, she sat my brother and I down to learn the Sacred Twenty-Eight, the Pureblood elite, and taught us what was expected of us as honourable sons. By the time he was nine, my brother was already rebellious, doing things just to get a rise out of our mother. The duties of the beloved son fell to me. In that house, I was forced to be a certain way. I had to say certain things, and not say others. It made me restless. I didn't know the rules, not yet, but I knew if I disobeyed them. I was like a ship setting course for the shore, but the sea was endless.
That's where you came in, Ruby Pearce.
You were the very definition of youth and innocence to my naïve eyes. I was inferior beside you, but not nervous about that. I felt fortunate just to be with you. Always excited and eager, you were liberated by challenges and relaxed amidst chaos. You were everything I was taught not to be, everything I learned to stay away from. You were my rebellion.
Do you remember how quickly I came to love Hide and Seek? I grew as proficient as you in a matter of days together, and soon you grew bored of the game quickly when it took too long to find me. It was my favourite game, and I was always determined to win. I think I was so good because I was always playing it with you, really. I was always hiding; you were always seeking.
You noticed very quickly that something wasn't normal about me. It didn't scare you – nothing did. It piqued your curiosity. I would say things sometimes that you didn't understand, make statements and ask questions you didn't have the answers to. I was too young and too sheltered to know all the differences between my world and yours. I didn't know when to hold my tongue. You pleaded with me incessantly to explain, and I couldn't. I knew I wasn't allowed, and I was terrified you'd run screaming if you knew everything. I told you that you wouldn't understand.
You snorted and turned away, your banana yellow hair falling into your face. "That's what the adults say when they don't want to explain something."
I knew I'd hurt you. I didn't realise then that I'd just started the end for us. That was when things started to fall apart.
We were friends for months after that, I know. Best friends, in fact. But things were different. The bright light in your eyes faded a little each time I said something strange to you. You stopped asking what things meant. You knew I wouldn't answer. It made me feel alienated, in a way I'd never felt before. I'd been surrounded by magic all my life, it was part and the parcel. I didn't know what it was like to be on the outside of anything, until you. We both danced around the outside of each other's lives.
The last time I saw you as a child, we'd been drifting apart for a while. I would be going to Hogwarts soon – the school you called 'The Strange Boarding School With No Name', teasing me for the little information I'd given you.
"I'm scared about something," you mumbled as we sat on the low wall, biting your lip. I was intrigued. Ruby Pearce didn't get scared. I was staring at the brick red ribbon holding your hair back in a ponytail, considering how fitting it was given your name.
"What are you scared about?" I asked.
"Well, we're going to big school in a few days," you started. "And it's full of big children. I'm not very grown up yet and I haven't done a lot of things. I'm scared that I'll be teased because I've never kissed a boy."
I smiled. I know I shouldn't have. I know you might have interpreted it as a jibe at your fear, but I promise you it wasn't. You were the girl who never got scared, and the one time you admitted you knew that such a feeling existed, you were scared over such a little, fixable thing. You surprised me.
"Well, do you want to kiss a boy?" I hinted.
You sighed. "I think it might make me less nervous. But I don't want to kiss just any boy. A lot of boys are smelly and not very nice," you pointed out.
"You can kiss me, if you like."
You looked at me with a kind smile and whispered okay, before leaning in. It was just a touch of lips on lips, innocent and sweet, I know, but a calm washed over me instantly as if I'd just let go of a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. I wonder if you still have that effect on boys now.
"I have to go. I guess I'll see you when you get back for Christmas," you muttered, forlorn, making no move to leave.
"Of course you will. We'll always be friends," I commented, telling the easiest lie in the world.
How many years was it until I saw you again? Too many, especially considering how near you always were to my thoughts. My life began to go down a very dark path from that day, Ruby, and every step that took me closer to my family's ideals of pureblood supremacy felt like an insult to my memories of you. I wandered into my inheritance with my eyes wide open, wielding a knife behind your back. Every muggle they killed was another one that could have been you.
By the time I saw you again, our worlds had gotten bigger. As children, our worlds were no bigger than Grimmauld Place and Cathedral Avenue; Thyme Point Park and Wise Pine Thicket. Now, they were bigger than the whole of London itself. We were sixteen, and we ran into each other quite by accident outside of some coffee shop in our neighbourhood.
"Regulus Black?" you called out, and I jumped with a start at hearing my own name in the muggle streets.
I looked back to see what was almost a woman, who no longer had banana blonde hair or a red ribbon. She'd died her hair almost ebony and wore make up now to match her army boots and torn up jeans. There was something of a rebel in you by then, and my first thought was that you'd be sure to turn my brother's head.
"Ruby?" I asked, incredulous that it could possibly be you. You smiled, and that was when I was certain. You still smiled the same. "You look different," I commented.
"It has been five years!" you laughed. "For the record, you haven't changed a bit."
"Hey, have you got time to grab a coffee?" I gestured to the sign hanging above Busy Beans Coffee Shop. You nodded and we headed inside.
I remember you frowning a little as you saw me struggle with the muggle money, and I could have kicked myself. It was a reminder, to you, all too soon for my liking, of why we'd fallen out of touch in the first place.
After pleasantries were exchanged, and enquiries about each other's lives, the conversation drifted to heavier matters.
"I know I haven't been in touch, but I've thought about you a lot, you know," I admitted, looking into my latte instead of at you.
"I still live in the same house. You could have come and called for me whenever you wanted. I tried to look for you, once or twice, but are you aware the address you once gave me doesn't actually exist?" You sounded pissed. I was vulnerable. I wanted you to understand.
"It does, you just… can't see it," I admitted.
"What the hell does that mean?" you asked.
I don't know why, but I felt I owed it to you to explain. We were nearly adults, and if you didn't understand it now, then you never would. I told you all about magic, about the politics of my world, about my parents and their beliefs. You sat there and listened, drinking it all in with eyes wide with suspicion and fear.
There was silence after I'd finished, during which I realised my coffee had gone completely cold.
"I think I'd have accepted all that a lot better as a child," you eventually concluded, and I couldn't help but laugh. It was probably true. "Why are you telling me all this now?" you asked, and it was a good question.
"Because I think I owe you an apology. I made a mistake when I let you go," I told you, looking you straight in the eye. You looked away.
"I think I was in love with you, you know," you muttered, so quietly I barely heard you.
"I think I still am."
I think you panicked. You made a hasty retreat, certainly, and you promised to meet me the next day in the park, by the thicket. I waited for you for three hours, and you never showed.
I understand.
A year's gone by since then, and whenever I'm out and about on those familiar streets, I still find myself looking for you. I've been making some big decisions, you see, and I'm a lost boy again, a man overboard. I'm looking for a life jacket, Ruby, but there isn't one, and all I can think about is you. You could have been my life jacket, if I'd been brave enough to knock on your door once or twice.
You won't ever see me again, I know that. There's no need for you to look for me anywhere but in your memory. I'm a better person there, anyway, than I am out here. Thinking about you, though – sitting here, writing this letter – I can feel your warmth. It feels like home.
Just so you know, I still am, and I always will be.
Regulus
AN: Is there an award for the most prompts used in one story? Haha. I know 89 prompts is a lot, but I promise they were all chosen specifically on their ability to work together to tell the story I wanted to tell anyway. Most of them just happened to be used anyway, so I might as well have made them count for something.
Written for:
Hopscotch: kicking a ball (action), hurt (word), kiss (action), London (location), love,
Valentine Making Station: Conversation Hearts – Hold Hands – Write about young love.
If You Dare Challenge: 320. Hide-And-Seek
Chocolate Frog Cards Challenge: Adalbert Waffling – Your story must be in either a letter or diary format.
February Event at Hogwarts: (object) ribbon and (lyric) "And I feel your warmth, and it feels like home." – Depeche Mode,
200 Characters in 200 Days: Regulus Black
Gringotts Prompt Bank:
Words instead of said – reasoned, giggled, called, asked, answered, pleaded, mumbled, hinted, pointed out, started, commented, whispered, laughed, muttered,
Prepositions – around, beside, before, behind, between, by, down, outside, during
Family and Friend Vocabulary Prompts: mother, history, home, parents, child, childhood, brother, youth, best friends, inheritance, love
Colours – apple green, banana yellow, turquoise, brick red
Celestial, Weather and Nautical Prompts – falling star, star, adrift, anchor, compass, safety net, dry, heat, storm, coast, course, man overboard, life jacket
Street/City/Town Name Prompts - Cathedral Avenue
Communal Locations Prompts – Thyme Point Park, Wise Pine Thicket, Busy Bean Coffee Shop,
Emotions and Feelings Prompts – curious, easy, free, liberated, optimistic, at ease, confident, forced, restless, inferior, tragic, fortunate, excited, eager, relaxed, determined, alienated, intrigued, scared, surprised, kind, calm,
OC Names – Ruby Pearce
Words: 2458