Masks

by DrunkyWinky

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 2: You Cut Me Down To Size

You cut me down to size
And opened up my eyes
Made me realize
What I could not see.

She felt a strange emptiness in her soul as she came back to the normal course of her life at school. An emptiness that she could not describe, or even dare to, that had taken siege of a piece of her, running deep under the thick powdery personality she put up in front of others, deeper than any mask she could use, deeper than what she could ever understand. An emptiness that, at some point between wonder and ignorance, had turned into an impossible loneliness.

She still hovered around with her friends, giggling, chatting, admiring their forever-changing school King, kept an strict order with her papers and dormitory, shyly avoided the imposing advances of Dursley, a strong-built boy of her class. She kept the same pose; the pose of what she thought should be of any girl of her age, of her rank, of any acceptable person. She was all-knowledgeable of anything happening within the school's walls, of any novelty, any new relationship or teacher changing, any star's scandal or sudden rising, any meaningless thing any school girl should care about. Nothing had changed, but all was different.

For once, she felt something else. Somehow, the world around her seemed to have changed without warning. They acted the same, looked the same, but weren't the same. She was suddenly aware of their flaws, of their falsity as they talked and walked and lived around her. She was suddenly aware of her own falsity, her own mask that she couldn't get rid of. However, she would never really acknowledge that awareness; she would push it into the very pit of her unconsciousness, turning it into apparently meaningless dreams of nights, slipping masks and comfort found under dark trees. Sometimes, on some rare moments of lucidity, she would wonder whether he felt the same. Whether he too had sensed that strange emptiness, that permanent loneliness that had taken her soul in hostage, whether he felt the world had changed, whether he remembered those winter nights. She could never imagine it, however. The mere thought of him ever caring about her seemed to burn her powdered skin like melting metal, hardening her mask, her disdain for his people, forhim.

She could never imagine it, but he did. An unconscious part of him had felt that emptiness, that strange loneliness taking hold under his skilled mask of coldness, under his apparent evilness and mystery. Being the boy that he was, however, he had associated it to his missing of her sister, of the girl he whispered to love, of the most obvious beloved thing that was missing in his surroundings. He had dreamed like her of some winter nights, but the figure changed and switched, her hair blond, then fire-like red dancing around, and then a black-haired boy would come ruin it all and he would fall into nothingness, into darkness, and wake up for another 6th year day for months and months.

The phone rang.

"I'm going to Ghislaine's"

"Don't be back too late, darling."

"Right, right" she shouted back at her mother as she closed the door behind her. Summer. Finally. She breathed out in her porch, taking in the sweet air. The sun was setting; night was slowly crawling against its red and pink lights in the skyline, giving an almost blue-ish glow to the landscape around it, on the houses' walls and roofs. It all seemed so peaceful, so normal, not expecting anything more, just being there. The wake of a new life after school did not bother it, there was no after for the sun, just thenow and its golden glow.

She started to walk slowly up her street, dragging her feet in the ground, staring mindlessly into the sky, a vinyl under her arm. She slowly reached an old and battered streetlight she knew only too well, not far from her house, already hidden in the night. Had she expected to find him there? Had a part of her wanted him to be there? Wanted to go out at this exact time of the day just to see him? She did not know. She would never know. All she knew was that he was, hidden behind the lamppost, his skinny shadow drawn blurrily on the grey walkway.

"ABBA?" he asked suspiciously, raising his eyebrow at her as he looked disgusted at the vinyl under her arms.

"Yes." She responded, trying to keep from him a slight jerk of surprise when he approached her. So easily, so silently. "Why? Not a fan, are you?"

"It's rubbish" he answered, shrugging his shoulders. He settled himself on his usual spot on the streetlight, tilting his head upwards at the oh-so-well-known window of her house.

"Well, then. What do you like?" She asked, raising her eyebrows defiantly herself, staring straight into his bottomless eyes.

"I don't listen to muggle music." He spat, looking down at her, his mouth slightly twisting. She raised her eyebrows higher almost ironically, marking her disbelief. "But if I did" he continued, tiring his gaze away from hers again and settling it back on the window "ABBA wouldn't be my first choice. I'd listen to Pink Floyd, AC/DC or Led Zeppelin. That's real music." He said, not a shadow of a smirk in his face, but a slight shame seemed to crawl on his eyes as he admitted his liking of anything of her world. It might have felt like a betrayal to him, but she could almost see a transparent Halloween mask sliding off his cheek. She laughed mockingly but softly, not too loud just the right tone, her eyes sparkling.

"And you call that music?! That's all noise!" She said to him, acting almost insulted at his remarks. He answered something in the same tone, and their discussion continued, endlessly and blissfully.

And so forth the evening passed, raffled their ears and hairs as they stood there talking to each other in the moonlight, like they had done so many times the winter before. They talked, about nothing and all, music and noise, silence and insults, lonesome and accompanied, Ghislaine's vinyl soon forgotten. Some hours later, she slipped her mask back on its rightful place and moved wordlessly towards her house, darkness taking over her tired and now sore body, expecting her soft bed and a good night sleep. No matter, Ghislaine would get her vinyl the next morning. She supposed he had stayed a few more minutes outside, letting his own mask crawl slowly up his shin and nose, throwing some last few glances at her sister's slightly distinguishable shadow at her window, then leaving, secretly, to his own house a few streets away from hers.

They had met every night that summer. It was not acknowledged, expected, admitted by any of them, wasn't planned or looked for. They went there, at the same hour, almost unconsciously, they would meet as if it was an unfortunate accident, their strongly built masks clashing against each other in insults and provocations. And then, they would fall gradually by their eyes, noses, lips, shins. They would talk or be quiet, just being around each other. The other's presence somehow comforted them in each of their loneliness, the loneliness they embraced and used as a shield in front of others, or simply refuted by melting themselves in other people, disappearing in the swarm. As the masks fell, this presence filled the blank space left by it, they were comforted, accepted, keeping only a slight confrontation as a life-boat between them, as a reminder of how they were to be after they parted later in the dark night.

At one point, as gradually and naturally as it had began, they weren't static anymore. They started to walk slowly around the neighbourhood, unconsciously moving to the darkest, less obvious places, as if they were trying to hide their real faces to each other, to the world. They walked and walked for hours at long, until, their eyes closed by fatigue, they turned their backs sharply to each other only to realise that they were back to their usual lamppost, under the golden-lit window.

As days passed by, they somehow came to sit by a nearby river, not too far away from his house. They just sat there, on the riverbank, and let their beings fly away from their physical bodies. From there, on the dirty floor of the small woods, they could see the flawed skyline from where the moon and the stars seemed to rise, facing east, where the setting sun could not touch them yet. Often, they would fall into a heavy silence, that filled their ears and thoughts, that seemed to talk to them, transporting unspoken words between the two lonesome figures. Sometimes, a small fox would run pass them, stop to get a look at their dark faces, and run agilely to his burrow, carrying a freshly hunted mouse in his foul mouth. Their masks would slip all the way to their necks, and would just hang there as if tied by invisible unbreakable tough strands.

When the clocked neared midnight, she would shift in her seat of earth. He would glance at her almost surprised by the sudden move, by the break of their unreal transmission. Then he would rise, hesitate, awkwardly offer his hand for her to stand up. Not a comment was made, not a word was uttered, and he would walk her back to her house as silently as they had left it, taking care to throw one last glance at the window upon his head, before turning on his heel towards his be-hated household, his false steadily fixed on his nose.

One night, things seemed to come out of their normal stillness, only to fall back into them as the summer continued past their heads. It was not sudden, or unexpected. Neither was it foreseen, anticipated. But it happened the same way they had started to meet each night, to walk around, to sit by the river. It happened as if it was just the natural course of things, as the nature works around the world, gradually, progressively, nothing obvious building its way, but a small feeling leading towards it, whatever it was, a small feeling that none would ever know it had been there.

He did not know and would never what had made him do it. Maybe, had he seen in her the face of her sister, of the unattainable treasure he would never get to? Maybe, through her light eyes and unclouded golden precise curls, he had seen the fierceness, the near wildness so obvious in Lily. When they argued, fired, stood their ground through winds and rains, in so different ways, for so different reasons, he could feel that fierceness emanating strongly from both of them, that fierceness that made them sisters, that fierceness that he knew she would only show to him, that she would use for something else than the utmost importance of the keeping of her though mask only in front of him. Maybe it had been that fierceness, so alike her sister's, that had made him do it? Or maybe, had it been her single presence, her being there, her company that overtook his whole and drew him to it? He did not know, he could not process it, but he felt it. And so, he kissed her.

He felt her respond to it, under that dark tree by the riverbank, in the darkness of a still night. He supposed she was as clueless as him as to why she did, as to why he did in the first place. It might have crossed her mind that he was just the closer she could ever get to that magic she so obviously lacked and so hungrily sought. But they put it behind themselves, let any sort of thought slip away from their minds, from any grip, and fly in the soft summer breeze, wiping their hairs around their strongly bonded faces, flying their masks away like kites, cleansing memories, leaving all that was the real them there, sitting on the floor by a riverbank.

The nights went by as such for the next few weeks, fallen on the perfect stillness they were. They would meet by the lamppost, as unconsciously as it ever had been, would walk towards the old river, as mindlessly as they ever had, and she would brush her fingers on his cheek, he would look straight at her, and they would kiss until it was too dark for them to feel, and they would leave, as silently and thoughtlessly as they had come, each to their houses.

It was not known that they had something between them. People by the streets had sometimes said to spot them together talking at some dark corner, but were cruelly dismissed by any realistic enough neighbour laughing at their faces for the unbelievable fact they were reporting. It was not plausible, even in the wildest of their dreams that ever such a good girl who hanged around with their owngood sons and good daughters, would ever even get near to that freaky and smug boy from Spinner's End, as they pronounced it spitting disgust from their tongues. By this course of thoughts, they would never admit it even to themselves. He despised her for being a mere muggle. She despised him from being such a freak. And at night, they would kiss under the trees.

She sometimes supposed her sister might have suspected it. She might have suspected there was a boy somewhere as she went out every night at the same hour she had not fixed, she had never planned. Maybe one night she had decided to lay her face on her window, probably to admire the beautiful sun set, and her stare had slid slowly to the ground until it burnt two lonesome figures talking together by a lamppost. Until it followed them up the street, turned a corner and showed up no more until much later at night. Maybe she had once thought she had seen a strand of his hair, thought she knew who that bony boy was, maybe she had even known it was her sister there talking to him. She might even had known it all, might have been aware of their most important secret, but she uttered no word. She might have planned to, once, or she might have respected her sister's heart and mind not to. Or maybe she had just been there, on that fateful night, the last one of that summer, when the traffic jam unlocked itself.

They had been kissing for some time on the riverbank on one of those summer nights, one before the last. It was all silence around them, only their quickened and broken breath shook the air upon the river, only their slow and absent movements disrupted its stillness, only their bare feet on its water scared its animals away. She was sitting on his lap, her arms tied firmly around his neck, her hands rushing through his greasy long raven hair. His were on her waist and back, moving gradually up and down, sweetness unknown of his fingers.

They slid upwards, touching her shoulder oh so lightly, brushing the thin cloth covering it to the side. She broke away from his lips, slowly, and looked into the deepest of his black eyes. Had she known what she saw in there she would have probably felt like she had unravelled the secret of all that is. But she did not and she never would. She felt, but could never describe it. Maybe she had let her mind get so far away from her that she could not even think properly, but the indistinguishable thing she saw in there, that feeling she could not describe but could not but resign in front of it. She could not but forget all that was, all that was to be, all that hid what she was and give in to that feeling, that one which shadow she saw in his eye, that one which had taken over her own pale eyes, that she felt running through her body, that one that she fell to define asMagic. And then, on that night between thousands, he took her.

It was like that first kiss, he had thought at first. Gradual, natural, mute. They had not talked; they had barely dared to make any noise. Their eyes closed, their rough breathing beating the rhythm of the air, the calm almost awkward movements following its unique song. There was no passion, but comforting silence. There was no love, but blissful companionship. There was no couple, but lonesome souls meeting, forming a single awkward but complete one.

When she came back home later that night, she felt different, she was beside herself, not from happiness as the old saying wants it, but just so away from what used to be her that she could not recognize the reflection in the mirror. The old self might have been talking in these terms about her scary hair, picking at odd places, soiled with dirt and leaves, about her dirty clothes and dripping wet shoes that stabbed that perfect her that she had built. But as she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror she knew it was not it. The powder in her cheeks had slipped; the mask she had worked so hard to build had not slid back into its rightful place. It hanged loosely on her neck, balancing with any slight movement she made, threatening to fall at any moment, frailer and thinner than it had ever been. She picked it up and tried to make it fit back on her nose with some difficulty, pushing it against her face, tying it with back-up ties so that it stood in place at least for a while, so people could look at her and only see that picture and not what she had become.

She crossed her sister on the corridor that night, as she made her way back to her room, freshly showered and fixed, her mask hanging dangerously on her nose. Lily looked at her in the eye with her bright green ones, faced her with all their intensity a small smile curling her lips. Her eyes burned into her, seemed to read through her owns as in an open book, and then, her mask tilted and she had to catch it hastily before it threatened to break itself in pieces on the floor. Her sister's smile widened slightly wishing her a goodnight as it closed her room's door. She had thought she saw a shadow of knowing in her teeth, something that was threatening to fall off her mouth, something that had made her sister happy when she had caught her eyes. Maybe, she thought in her newly found clear face, maybe we can still be sisters after all. And she smiled.

The next day was a confused blur for her. She knew that she had woken up at some point in the morning, an unusual smile playing its way to her lips, widening them for most of the day. She remembered staying in her room, looking confused at the ceiling, as if strange images and forms were taking place on it, as if it's carefully painted colours were mixing and un-mixing and getting into strands, then circles, and squares, drawing faces forever-changing, swinging in some silent tune. She remembered being nicer to her sister that day, not daring to approach her too close, scared of what she knew, scared of what she was. What she was? She did not know. Awkward, for now was what she was. Like a newborn who does not know the body it's in yet, like an puberty-filled growing teenager than can barely stand on its feet. She found herself into something knew that she could not handle, for what she was not prepared, and her first reaction was to stay still. She tried as hard as she could to keep her mask from falling even though it tilted dangerously at the tip of her nose. She tried to keep her composure, to act as if nothing had happened, like that one time when they kissed, when they came back to that comfortable and silent stillness they had fallen in, and she was determined not to leave it.

That night, the last night of his summer holidays, he waited. He went there, to his usual spot against the streetlight because he wanted to meet her. For the first time, it was planned, it was predicted, foreseen, expected. He had not talked to or even seen her since the previous night, but he knew that she would come out. That she would come to meet him, whether under some false excuse like they usually did, whether honestly because she wanted to meet him. He stood still by the lamppost watching the sun set in the skyline, his eyes twitching towards that particular window he knew so well. He saw two shadows moving around it, talking, maybe even laughing. He could not distinguish them but he wished. He wished he had done something, after all, he wished.

She came out as the sun threw its last ray of light, like a last breath for the day and gave in to the night. He saw her thin form closing the front door, saw her tighten slightly her thin jumper around herself. He stared as she looked around, maybe looking for him, maybe checking whether anyone else was there, putting an act for the neighbours as she always did. Her darkened face finally fixed itself on his and moved her feet towards his lamp, dragging them on the floor, slowly, progressively like they were.

She finally reached him, her mask slid like water down her chin and hung by her neck. She reached up a hand, cupping his cheek in the darkness, awkwardly, slightly touching it, and he turned to face her, looking into her eyes. He knew then that she would never forget those eyes, no matter how hard she tried, she would not forget them. They showed all that he could not utter, all that he did not have the strength to say, to tell her. He saw her penetrating stare at him, her hand lingering by his cheek as he remained still. He saw her eyes searching in his, trying to understand what they were saying. He saw them widen in stubborn disbelief, he saw them water slightly in front of his. A stream passed between them, bringing all that that they could not say like it often did when they were alone, but for the one last time. The emptiness of his filled the change in hers like water fills a dried pool, and she lowered hers to the floor and withdrew her hand, breaking open a frozen waterfall cascading between their two bodies. And the traffic jam unlocked itself.

She broke past him, shoving his shoulder as she went. He knew she was now trying to suppress her tears, that she was searching desperately for her mask around her neck to keep them away from him, he knew that he would never see her again. She stopped then suddenly in her tracks, turning around sharply to face him, her face dry and her eyes only slightly bloodshot, a perfect composure for a perfect girl.

"FREAK!" She shouted at him at the top of her lungs, all the hatred and disgust she had ever felt thrown into that world. He knew then that she had her mask on, strongly glued to her nose, lips and eyebrows, and that it would never come off again.

He supposed, as she turned the corner away from him that night, that she had bumped into that Dursley she would mention sometimes. He supposed she had finally given in to him, he supposed she had decided to keep her decision to go to the same College than him. He supposed it was that night when she figured she would be a housewife, that night that she decided she wanted to be a perfect mother, that night when she became what she was, what she is. He supposed and he knew that the mask she had worn all those years and had taken off only for him would never leave her face again, that that mask was her and she was it until they were buried together in her coffin for eternity.

"Muggle." He spat venomously under his breath, sliding his own mask back into place hanging it firmly on his rather long nose which it should never leave again, as he dragged his feet in the other direction, away from her, from her house, from what he should not be.

A/N: eh. Still crazy. Hope you liked it, still one chapter to go!

Throughoutly inspired by CraigThompson's Blankets.Even though I just noticed it as I looked back at his drawings. They're awesome, by the way.

Song "Swallowed in the Sea" by Coldplay

Please R&R!