Waltz
By: Akiko, Keeper of Sheep
Prompt: Fairy tales
When Alicia was seven years old, her mummy gave her a snowglobe.
Mummy was a half-blood, and even though she loved being a part of the wizarding world, there were some things about her Muggle life that she loved even more. One of these things was snowglobes.
In the days following the Battle of Hogwarts, when the faces of the dead would float to the surface of every cup of tea and dance about in every flicker of the fireplace, Alicia would close her eyes and envision the tall oak cabinet with the glass doors that had stood in her mother's study since before Alicia had been born, shelf after shelf cluttered with snowglobes of all shapes and sizes. As a small child, her favorite had been the one with the gold-painted base and the rose inside that played Waltz of the Flowers. Mummy's favorite had been the one with the white sand and seashells inside. It didn't play music, but Mummy had said it reminded her of home.
When her big sister was playing with her dolls and locked Alicia out of their room, she would sit on Mummy's desk and hold the dust rags while Mummy lovingly polished each piece. She would shake up every one of them, turn their keys and play their songs. Alicia's childhood memories, the ones she loved best, smelled of glass cleaner and furniture polish, and were full of the tinny strains of songs she didn't know the names of.
Her very first snowglobe, presented to her on her seventh birthday, was made of plastic. The base was white and silver, and it had glitter inside shaped like pink hearts. In the middle were two plastic figures. One was a princess, her pink plastic gown frozen in a grand swirl as she twirled in a carefree waltz with her prince. The prince wore white tights and did not have a sword at his hip, but his tiny painted face gazed at his princess lovingly. Alicia knew that even without a sword, he would fight to the death for his beloved.
The snowglobe played the waltz from Swan Lake, which was why Mummy had picked it out. She knew how much Alicia loved fairy tales, and the story Mummy told her about Princess Odette was her favorite.
Alicia kept her Swan Lake snowglobe with her always, tucking it into her bookbag when she went to school and carrying it to the dinner table, which made Mummy and Daddy smile at each other, even though her sister teased her about it. Sometimes, when she was supposed to be sleeping, she'd turn the key on her snowglobe and crawl under the covers, watching the swirl of hearts dance around to the plinking tune of the ballet and imagine herself to be a swan princess.
Eleven years old and seated uncomfortably in an empty compartment on the Hogwarts Express, Alicia took her snowglobe out of her trunk and turned the key, shaking it so that the glitter made a little cyclone. She didn't dream about being a swan princess as much as she did when she was seven, but she still loved the song.
"Hullo," a soft voice spoke from the door, startling Alicia. She fumbled with the snowglobe for a moment, but her small hands could not gain purchase, and it tumbled towards the floor.
"Oh!" For a horrible moment, Alicia feared she had lost her prized possession for good.
But the owner of the voice lunged forward and caught the globe one-handed with ease, though those hands were hardly bigger than Alicia's. As the newcomer straightened to smile at Alicia, she felt her cheeks flush.
It was a boy, about her age, with ruffled brown hair and kind gray eyes. He was very pale, and when he smiled at Alicia, his cheeks dimpled.
She thought that he looked very much like the prince in her snowglobe.
He didn't hand it back right away, instead tilting his head at it curiously and watching the little hearts settle to the bottom. When the music stopped, he held it out to her and smiled again.
"It's pretty," he said quietly. When she only nodded, he shuffled over to sit across from her. "My name's Cedric Diggory."
"Alicia Spinnet," she whispered, ducking her head so that her dark braids slipped over her shoulders.
He chattered to her for a bit about being a first year and his family and Quidditch. He spoke a lot about Quidditch, and when he did, his face lit up brighter than the sun. Alicia didn't know much about Quidditch, but she didn't want to say so, because she really wanted this boy to be her friend.
When she was Sorted into Gryffindor and he into Hufflepuff, Alicia was sad. She had hoped they would have classes together, but she didn't see him very much at all that year. Still, she made a lot of new friends in her own House, and she was having so much fun learning new things that she soon forgot all about Cedric.
During the summer, though, her sister would drag her outside to fly. They would spend hours tossing a Quaffle back and forth, practicing passes. Annie would bet her that she couldn't throw it between two tree branches, or into an empty flowerpot, but Alicia would make nearly every shot. Annie wasn't interested in playing Quidditch, but when she said that Alicia was a natural, she though of Cedric and beamed. When she went back to school, Alicia tried out for the team, and when she found out she had been accepted as a reserve Chaser, she sat up in bed and played with her plastic snowglobe for hours.
As the years passed, though, Alicia didn't think of Cedric much. She also stopped leaving her snowglobe on her bedside table every night, though she still brought it with her every year. She dated boys and had makeover nights with her dorm-mates, and in the summers she went to parties and out shopping. Once in a while, one of her classmates would giggle over Cedric, and Alicia would blush and think about that first meeting on the train, but only ever with embarassment.
Alicia was in her sixth year, just like Cedric, when Hogwarts hosted the Tri-Wizard Tournament. She wasn't quite seventeen yet, but she wasn't so sure she would have entered, even if she was. She, at least, knew the difference between bravery and foolhardiness. And yet, as dangerous as she knew the Tournament could be, no one was supposed to have died.
She had only caught a glimpse of Cedric's body when Harry had brought it back through the Portkey, but that night, curled up in bed with her very first snowglobe clutched in one hand and the tinny sound of Swan Lake in her ears, she could see it clear as day behind her eyelids.
Not long after that, Alicia would be in hiding with Annie. They would curl up in their cave, and Alicia would clutch her sister's wrist in one hand and her snowglobe in the other and would drift into an uneasy sleep to the pulse beneath her fingertips and a waltz she knew by heart. She would dream about Mummy and Daddy, about shattered windows and shattered snowglobes, about glitter and water and blood. And then, just before waking, she would dream about Cedric, eleven years old and cradling her wishes in his small hands.
When Alicia's daughter turned seven, Alicia gave her a snowglobe. It had a blue plastic base, and inside was glittery white sand and seashells, and it played 'By The Sea'. The little girl took it everywhere with her, and sometimes Alicia could hear the song through the wall in the middle of the night, when everyone should have been asleep. She would turn on her side and gaze at her own first snowglobe, scuffed and scratched, and smile.
END