A/N: I do not own Magical Diary.
Hieronymous Grabiner sat in his room pondering the same fact Neela Peya was. He was divorced. There were a lot of things he'd been. A lot of things he'd lost, too. Many of them were so long ago he had let them be. And some of them had cut so deep he would never be able to let them be. But this was very peculiar a situation. His young wife had only become his wife out of necessity. If she hadn't, she would be dead, and he would have lost his magic. And then a year after they wed, she had come to him and asked him something he had not expected.
'Please allow me to continue being your wife!'
The conversation had lasted hours. Rightfully so, she had convinced him to stay married to her. She had even brought out enough self deprecation to make him admit he enjoyed her company. More than he had even before the summer of the previous year, he now found himself mistaking her for his wife in a way he felt he shouldn't. He even found himself appreciating her small gestures of kindness he would have once shrugged off as insignificant or foolish. Now it was just what it was, a small gesture of kindness from his wife. Or that's who she had been. For more than two years she'd been his wife, his comfortable companion growing up in front of him. Growing up with him. Not learning the hard lessons he had, though, taking her toughest lessons with stride. Her toughest was him. She embraced him so thoroughly it was no longer a lesson.
And now it was gone. The memory of her tears was fresh in his mind. He'd seen her cry, and he'd see her cry because of him. But that memory was the most important one. To him, the thought of his marriage being gone was not like it was to her. He did not cry, he did not even come close. He did argue, he'd done that for months, hoping to be able to protect his little wife from words and not expecting they would become actions they must both perform. No, to him, it was he was the same man he'd always been. But a little less fuller, perhaps even a little less happy. And that puzzled him, more than frustrated him, because he had never expected to grow to deeply care for his little wife.
But from the moment he had kissed her on, he had grown to love her. Not the way he had loved Violet, which had shaken his world and changed his whole life when it left. Not the way he had remembered love to be at all. It was not a passionate throw of feelings nor was it incredibly intoxicating. It was instead pleasant, enjoyable, and even a happy time for him. So now that he was divorced, he wasn't quite sure what to feel. What would be right. It was most certainly not right to rob Neela Peya of anything more, he had already robbed her of two years of her life. Two years he had abruptly erased. And when he had, she protested even more than she had in the beginning of it all.
No, he wasn't sad to the point of tears. He was merely sad to the point of reflection. Reflection to Violet, and then to the years after, and then to his crying ex-wife as she ran out the door with a look on her face that had cut in a way he had never felt before.
Neela had cried for hours. Then she had stopped, ranted and raved to her roommates, then cried some more, and then decided it was time to move on! Then she walked outside, heard someone mention her ex-husbands name, and cried again. It was the next day, late into Sunday, that she did finally feel better. Ellen and Virginia hadn't quite understood, but they never really had. Minnie was the only one who understood even a little bit, but even she didn't pretend to know what it was like to accidentally marry your professor, accidentally fall in love with him, and then get divorced without a say in it. But even Donald, who had understood least of anyone, still comforted her. (Though it was in the form of antagonism) She had regretted in her Sophomore year that her marriage alienated her from people she liked. Every other week she spent all day at the arcade, but that didn't stop people from believing she spent all her time with a Professor and thus treating her differently. She had fully embraced that halfway through her Sophomore year however, and asked to stay married.
She almost wished she had legitimately been wasting her time away with Hieronymous Grabiner, because then he would have been annoyed with her and she would have had no pretenses of remaining married. She would have pushed him away with clingy needy behavior and been given the boot a lot sooner, and she probably never would have fallen in love that way. Most of all she was bitter. Bitter there wasn't more to be sad about, bitter that the only thing that was truly hurt in all of this was her feelings. A few kisses in private, a few Saturdays, delicately written letters, and mutual respect had formed the oddest and most endearing feeling inside of her she'd ever known. And now all she could do is regret it hadn't lasted longer. That there wasn't more to it. How could two people be married for two years and never once discuss the idea of consummating the marriage? Only when one of them was a little girl and the other was a man who'd never find interest in such a young girl.
So when she stopped crying midway through Sunday, she knew it was the right thing to do. Her marriage to Hieronymous Grabiner was not normal. It was an accident, even though to her it would always be a happy one. And she'd lost nothing. Impressing him had been done through respect and hard work. Hard work she could not exactly take back, and why would she?
But she was still a teenaged girl no matter how hard she tried not to be. So when it came time to plan her classes, she could not take any of his. The thought brought tears to her eyes. "Why don't you take Green Magic with me Wednesday?" Ellen asked thoughtfully, as if she hadn't even noticed the beginnings of tears. "I know for a fact you've been slacking off in it!" She was referencing the final exam from last year, but it was all Neela could do to smile and put that down for Wednesday. When Neela had fallen asleep, Virginia looked over at Ellen. "Geez, you think she'd be happy..." she said quietly. "Who'd want to stay married to Grabby?" Ellen stifled a laugh. "You said the same thing when she told you she wasn't going to divorce him. I don't know but...she does," she said as she looked towards her very sad sleeping room mate. Virginia let out a sigh. "Yeah yeah...I know...unfortunately," And then her room mates followed her to sleep.
The next morning she woke up later than normal. Virginia was still in the room, and she looked to her. "Running late?" she asked with a peculiar look on her face. "Staying in," she said with a reluctant smile. Virginia paused, then nodded, "Well I'm just late for gym. See you later tonight?" Neela nodded, then went back to sleep. When she woke hours later she felt hungry and her body felt stiff. 'That's what I get for sleeping too much...' she thought with a sigh. She didn't take many days to sleep. Ever since freshman year she took as many opportunities as possible to study and attend classes. It worked out well for your education when the best way to your husbands heart was studying. And on top of that, she enjoyed it more and more for it's own merit. She'd even formed a special bond with Ellen regarding magical philosophy and the idea of pursuing it, though in a different way than Ellen intended.
Everything felt like it had moved entirely too fast. Not just the last two days, but this whole period she'd been married and then divorced. The period in which she became a witch and learned magic. Before they had come to speak to her and seal her magic, she had accidentally turned her hair white. She hadn't done more than that, texture and feel was still the same, but it was as white as snow. She had hoped it would regrow the messy brown it had been before, but it never did. She had been offered the chance to have it turned back, but that wasn't the point. The point was normal teenage girls didn't accidentally have white hair. Then they didn't accidentally get married. Or accidentally love someone. She stared up at the ceiling and thought about things for awhile, ignoring the feeling in her stomach.
She had loved her family like a normal girl would for a long time. But then she learned she had magic, and suddenly it was all erased. Her mother used to brush her hair and talk to her about everything. When she turned 10, that started to adgitate her. If only she could go back to before she was 13 and not get so mad at her mother for touching her hair she changed its color. She was just throwing a fit at the time, but she'd never forget it now. It was fitting to lose her mother in such a way, she guessed. Her favorite thing as a child suddenly gone, and now her mother never could sit and have talks with her. She wasn't a stranger, but she wasn't able to properly be her mother. She was more Hieronymous Grabiner's wife than she was her mother's daughter. Or she had been, when she was married to him.
She was already tired of sulking. But what else could she do? She didn't feel like telling Potsdam never mind about her family. It had been the right thing to do. She had already lost the husband she loved, next she would love the parents she'd loved all her life. It wasn't fair to them to make them think fondly of their only daughter off in boarding school. Without her they might adopt or be able to live their lives without worrying about a daughter who could never be like them again. She sat up.
It wasn't fair, no, but she'd make it. She was going to make sure every last parent who wrote in knew exactly how wrong they'd been when they assumed her perfect grades were thanks to her ex-husband.
The whole school was abuzz by Friday. Neela Peya was no longer married to Professor Grabiner. A lot of people congratulated her and whispered under their breaths about Grabiner, now talking about how he was so evil a man he used a poor innocent young girl after forcing her into marriage. This gossip reached Neela first, and she hid her rage behind a smile. "Oh no, Professor Grabiner was never unusually cruel," she said politely. "And he most certainly never used me." But no matter what she said, rumors went on. They went on and got worse. But Hieronymous had expected as much. The intended course of action was to get everyone talking so that all inquiries would stop. And he knew Neela would never spread such rumors, as he had almost never so much as been in the same room with her without express consent.
Not to mention, she'd been the one who'd come to him with reasons why they should remain married. And he had argued each and every point until she looked him in the eye and asked him if he really did detested being married to her that much. He had explained what he thought was always clear, she was a young woman with dreams and hopes beyond him. She had shaken her head vigorously, and said, 'No, you know that's not what I meant! I meant, what do you want? It doesn't matter how many times you say what I should want, I don't want that! But what do you want?'
He was walking silently to his quarters at this point. The day had ended, and Neela Peya had not been in any of his classes this week. Normally, she took three classes with him every week. Her eyes were so full of life and happiness, and somehow they got even brighter when she looked at him. He was just an aging old man who'd long since had nothing to dream about. But from the moment he'd awoken to see her body being drained of all it's life thanks to his foolhardiness, things had begun to change. He hadn't particularly wanted his life to change. The only piece of his life he wanted to change had long since been gone. So when it was forced to, he was unsettled.
And then he had grown used to her. The way she would stand nervously at his door for at least a minute before actually knocking. The way she would smile at him like nothing had ever been wrong in the world, like he'd never even done her wrong. 'Like I'd never held her against a wall and threatened to lock her in a dungeon,' he thought with a grim sarcasm in his voice. And the very rare occasions where she would lose her temper and put him in his place. They had all unsettled him at first, each and every one of those things he liked about her. What a professor should admire in his student is her studies, her devotion, her eagerness to learn, her respect for the rules, and her dedication. She had all those things, and he admired them. But he admired all the rest of her too, all the things a husband should admire.
And that was why it was so hard to put this to rest. To forget about it. He was still thinking of what he should say to her and how he could assuage her sadness. She was no longer his wife but it felt like she should be. He reached his quarters and placed the book in his hand down on his night stand. And then he sat in his chair and tried to relax. It was like he was a teenager again and trying to think of ways to make up with Violet.
But Neela was nothing like Violet. She was beautiful and smart like her yes, but in a completely different way. It didn't even suit him to compare them anymore. Violet had been his age at the time, and they'd both been foolhardy and naïve. It cost her her life. It cost him the rest of his, or so he thought. He thought he'd spend the rest of his life making up for her losing hers. And he had wanted it to be that way. And if Neela Peya had never been treasurer it would have stayed that way.
'But what do you want?'
His thoughts returned then to the memory of his heartbroken young ex-wife and her tears.
