Word count:1370
Lie To Me
It's the war. Your parents told you horror stories about it, but nothing can quite compare with reality. Everything is so dark outside, it seems like everything that used to be beautiful and shining in the world has become muted and shrouded in darkness.
There are no laughs anymore in the corridors of Hogwarts, and no one runs carelessly because they're late for McGonagall's Transfiguration lessons – they get there well before it begins, because when the Carrows catch you, you regret it for a long time.
It's the war. They told you you would be safe at Hogwarts ('The castle is the safest place for you right now Astoria. Staying with us… No, it could be taken as an act of rebellion and I will not have anything endanger my family,' your father keeps saying in your mind, like a memory stuck in a loop), but truth is Hogwarts isn't Hogwarts anymore.
Hogwarts was warmth, smile and laugh. It was friends and small conspiracies to win House points and hushed conversations with your sister about boys.
It isn't cold, gloom and screams. It isn't loneliness, darkness and war. It isn't worrying about who will be missing the next day.
It's the war. It rages between the Light and the Dark and though the Dark appears to be winning you know the war is far from over.
(Potter is still out there, and there's this Order, and there's the families who have escaped, and there's the Muggleborns who are on the run, and… No, there will always be someone fighting, and you know that means the war isn't over.)
It's the war, and you're Grey, and your sister wants to protect you and everyone is dying around you, and your parents haven't sent you a letter in months because they don't know what to seem to make it better.
(Nothing ever will, it seems.)
It's the war, and you're scared. You just want someone to hold you, you just want to have someone you can rely on and confess everything you have on your mind – a real person, because the journal Daphne left you with as they came for her ('rebellion,' they say as they grab her, and Daphne – proud and untouchable Daphne – just disappear from your life, snuffed out like a candle someone blew on) just isn't enough.
Inside, you feel like you're dying. There's this part of you, deep inside, that's burning, and screaming, and kicking, and begging you to do something, anything to change what's happening around you, and it hurts. It hurts so badly sometimes you feel like your cells are being pulled apart and you wonder if you were hit by a Cruciatus without being aware of it.
Your breath leaves you sometimes, and the world turns blank for terrible seconds where you can hear everything that's going on in your mind and none of what is happening outside.
(You wonder if the screams weren't better.)
Maybe you're slowly going mad, dying along with the world, slipping by unnoticed by everyone.
(The Light doesn't care, to them you're just one less Death Eater to get rid of, and to the Dark you're just someone they won't have to worry about anymore. After all, who could you betray if you're dead and gone?)
Or maybe you're not.
It's the war and you're alone and you really, really don't want to be.
Sometimes, when the moon is high in the night sky and the stars shines oh so brightly on the dark canvas you spent so long admiring when you were a child, you think that the whole war idea is but the broken dream of a child who had to grow up too fast, because everyone else knows that Dark could never exists without Light.
Then you forget the stars and you sigh hopelessly, and you wonder how long it has been since the last time you were happy, and how long it will be until the next time you will be. You realize that feels like forever, the answer to the first can be counted in months.
You don't dare try to for the second. It's war, and you can't see yourself happy while it's still going. It should be dishonoring those who are lost. Those you have lost.
(Painfully, Daphne comes to your mind. She's always on your mind. Always there, but not where it matters the most. Next to you.
So you're alone in all the ways that matters and not in the ways you should be. The irony is enough to make you laugh, and choke, and sob.)
It's war and you just wish it would end. That someone would win - really win, so that you could try to go on with your life. So that the pain and the feeling of helplessness you struggle to keep hidden would just disappear.
It's war so of course it doesn't just end. It goes on and on and on (and on, in this twisted game powerful people keep playing, trampling on the lives of those they deem inferior to them).
People disappear, the screams get louder and sometimes you almost can breathe in smoke. Perhaps an end is coming, but you can't see anything about it anymore. The world gets darker and darker yet, when you thought it wasn't possible, and it seems like any kind of light has just drowned.
Then whispers start and hope grows and life seems to grow just that little bit lighter. Maybe you can even breathe again. At least, you don't feel like dying anymore.
Not that it's because of you. You haven't done anything.
(Your House extols self-preservation and no one does it quite like you do. After all, you managed to save yourself from yourself, didn't you?)
You're still Astoria and you're still helpless and the world is still spinning out of any kind of control (hasn't it always been?) but at least you're not alone. He's back and with him comes back the memory of comfort and warmth that you had lost with your sister.
"Will it end one day Draco? Will we finally be free?" Your words are pleading but for once you really don't care that you're begging. His arms are around you and his breath feels hot against your ear and you're not alone anymore. They're so much more than a plea though.
Those words are the truth you can't bring yourself to think about, the one that haunt your dreams every time you dare close your eyes, the one that's too horrible to think about.
When you ask 'Will we be alright one day?' your mind screams 'Will I ever forget this?', and the worst thing is that you don't even know if you want to.
Your eyes are drawn to his the same way you've always been drawn to him, and you know they're begging him to lie.
('Lie to me please. Tell me this nightmare will end and that you and I, we'll through. Lie to me and tell me you love me. Make me believe you and I'll forgive you for everything.')
His eyes shines with truth and conviction but his heart looks broken as he tells you that everything is about to end. One way or another you know that the world is on the edge of the precipice. You're on the edge of the precipice.
('Would you lie if I asked you to?'
'Yes.'
'Then tell me you'll never let me forget. Tell me I'll never forget her, or anyone, or anything that happened this year. Tell me I'll never forget how the selfishness of men and their disillusions are killing the world.'
'You won't. I swear Astoria, you won't.'
'Tell me you love me.'
'I love you Astoria Greengrass.')
And perhaps the screams are still there, but all you can hear is the sound of his heart breaking when he realizes that you can't see the truth anymore.
But as you said, the world is so dark right now all light must have been drowned, and you're a Slytherin.
You can't allow yourself to drown.
(It's a lie of course. You drowned a long time ago.)
"I love you too."
AN/
So this is what happens when I get such a title… Hmm, interesting. My mind is very weird in the middle of the night.
Anyway, this was written for:
-the Title Swap Competition III, Lie To Me – Astoria Greengrass (blue, death, darkness)
-the Popular Song Competition, The Wanted – All Time Low
-the HP Potions Competition, Deflating Draught
-the Colors Competition, White (positive)
-the Hugs and Happiness Challenge
-the Weasley-Potter-Prewett Competition, Hugo Weasley.
This author is poor. This author is nice. You like this author. This is not an attempt at hypnotism (unless it's working, in which case it totally is).
Leave a review?