What would happiness look like, if it had a face?
Someone great, someone with red hair and fire in her emerald eyes, had asked that very question once. Standing in front of a classroom filled with twenty-five wizards and witches back from summer vacation, she ignored the groans of the pupils and plowed on with the rest of her speech. Had the boy in the back row, next to the window to the left been paying attention, he'd heard the answer at the end. Now, perhaps, he will never know.
"James—we have to move. You can't stay here; Evans is fine!"
Three Marauders stood in a circle around their morbid friend, each trying their best to get him out of his reverie. Useless as it was, they were unrelenting. The skies above them darkened significantly and in the end, three Marauders began dragging the eighteen-year-old from his spot in front of the Three Broomsticks. This is where it all started, he thought and in perfect sync, his stomach churned with the realization. As if ghosts of a past that may never be rekindled, he spied on four boys sitting in the booth at the very back. They claimed that area; it'd been claimed since first year. Other students looked with longing, but somehow there was a barrier. Them against the rest of the world. It was ironic; sweet and bitter irony. Because now they couldn't afford to be against all those they shunned. They were needed now more than ever.
"Say—Moony, listen. Just for a minute."
With an exasperated sigh—exasperated because he could never say no—the boy called Moony turned his head, stopping the rest of the chaps who protested—loudly. "Remember Fourth Year-?"
"Oh bloody Goddamn Hell, Prongs! This is no bloody time to sit around the campfire and reminisce!" A bloke with shoulder-length hair swore. He turned to a rather blanche looking fellow and the one dubbed Prongs ignored him, speaking over his profane complaints.
"If happiness had a face—it would look something like…what, exactly?"
Moony stared for the longest time at his best mate. They'd been friends longer than any of the boys, for as long as he could remember keeping the other out of trouble. Sometimes, when that happens, you can't deny that something occurs when you've known someone for a very, very long time. Something beautiful. It is both ridiculous and completely sane to believe that the brain, as mysterious as it may well be, can extend to mind-reading. Yet, the brunette wrapped his arm around Prongs' broad shoulders and did anyway.
"Evans is the writer, mate. She'd tell this story better than I ever could." That was that, and somehow, it left Prongs satisfied until the next time he'd see his doe.
