The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Season 6 / Round 7

Position: Captain

Team: Kenmare Kestrels

Prompt - The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)

In the movie, Lin is unable to bear falling in love with Alex due to her immortality and fear of heartbreak— this part inspired me to write about being scared too fall in love for fear of the pain and hearbreak that might occur.

I would like to thank desertredwolf (Dessie) for the wonderful beta and afewmistakesago (Tassie) for helping me with a suggestion that gave me the information I needed to finish this, and my best friend, mongoose-chan, for always telling me if my writing sucks.

Hannah Abbot gnawed on her bottom lip as she anxiously surveyed the open book that laid on her desk. The bustling sounds of the Leaky Cauldron echoed faintly from under her floorboards, and a candle flickered ominously over her desk.

She leant back on her chair and idly waved her quill.

What to do?

Earlier that evening, a nervous Neville Longbottom approached her, eagerly pushed forward by his loyal friends to the table she had been cleaning. With a stuttering voice and a charming grin, she felt her stomach tense up, and her heart stopped.

"W-would you like to go on a date with me?"

Hannah had promised him an answer later, but she didn't even know the answer herself.

It was just a date—maybe a dinner or something. She didn't even like him. Not like that anyway. He was cute.

With fluffy hair, disarming grin and that soft look about him...

Hannah shook her head.

No, no, no.

Leaning back forward, she scribbled on the parchment with slow dread.

When she was twelve, her mother had given her a journal and told her that it was the place to keep all her secrets. Any secret that she wanted to be locked away in her heart, any problem that caused her panic, could be written down and solved.

Writing was her way of escaping. This was her love.

When she was lonely in the dorms at Hogwarts, she wrote.

When she failed a class that she had studied so hard for, she wrote.

And when her mother had been murdered — she cried. If Hannah flipped through the many pages to the beginning, she would see many blurred lines and written lines that had made sense in her mind at the time, but they were just rubbish written out and stained with teardrops.

Hannah dipped the quill in the ink and continued—

- I wouldn't mind going out with him. He's sweet one -

One night, she had a late shift and a large group from the Ministry had left their tables in disarray and drinks knocked over. That had been a night that she could've easily crumbled to the ground because all she wanted to do was crawl to her warm bed just a few stairways away.

Sweet, sweet Neville helped her clean the tables and pick up the shattered glass. It had been years since they had talked properly. He had become a teacher at Hogwarts. A new professor. Herbology was his class. She had told him that the Herbology class had been her favorite in school. And he told her that it had been his too.

- But I don't want to fall in love -

To feel safe and comforted in the presence of someone else—Having that ripped away was so painful. Feeling lonely every single day. Living everyday like you are someone else and not yourself—

Her quill froze. She hadn't even realized that she had been writing that out. Those lines were frighteningly similar to the ones written deeper in the journal.

Hannah slumped back in her chair again.

It was her want against this fear of being heartbroken.

Neville wasn't like that though. He had always been a lovely person all the way through school, through the battle at Hogwarts, every time he had visited her and told her of the tales of his young students. Lovely people don't break hearts, do they?

Hannah rested her head on her open journal.

- Or maybe they are the ones that hurt the most -

It had taken most of the night and frazzled moments of pacing her room. Millions of excuses piled in her head and every single moment of the night Hannah berated herself for acting this way. She truly was a mess.

In a rash decision, she ripped a page from her journal and poured out everything she felt into that piece of paper and folded it into square. Before her beating heart could convince her otherwise, she slipped it into her hanging apron for tomorrow's shift and tried to sleep.

In that moment, she decided to trust herself and her mother's voice came back to her.

Hannah, sometimes it's good to trust in rash decisions.

But she stared miserably at the turned back of Neville, the source of her conflicting emotions—one hand stuck in her apron pocket, twisting the paper in random intervals—and wondered if that was really the case.

These decisions were leading her down a path that could turn into a place as dark as the Forbidden Forest.

I wouldn't mind dating him.

Hannah took a step back.

But if I did, I don't think I could stop.

She ducked her head down and hurried behind the bar counter before he could notice her, and tossed her note of rash decisions down the garbage bin as she passed.

I really can't do it.

- Dear Mother, -

- I'm sorry that I don't want to experience the heartbreak again of losing someone again. It would be just like losing you all over again -

- But most importantly, I'm sorry to myself -

Hannah flicked the quill in front of her absently. What if she had given her note to Neville? What would've changed? Ten years in the future, would she had married him? Or maybe they would've broken up. Maybe she would've been in tears in a few months from now.

Too many questions and not enough answers.

What if she made the wrong decision?

She sniffed and ran a hand through her hair.

Sweet, sweet Neville.

Hannah took out a wrinkled piece of parchment that she had dug through the trash bin for earlier that day and spread out on the table, pressing out the creases whilst ignoring the stains. With a flick of her wand, she pieced together the ripped paper to the journal once again.

One day.

But she wasn't ready for that heartbreak today.

She closed the journal.