Written for:
Writing Club: 100 Prompts in one story: Content, Fine, Gift, Mess, Past, Period, Possibility, Price, Promise, Proposal, Purpose, Quarter, Reason, Reputation, Secret, Shame, Sign, Strength, Yesterday, Representative, Wizard, Figure, Self, Partner, Bench, Box, Building, Earth, Engine, Fire, Fuel, Glove, Gold, Hat, House, Lip, Novel, Place, Rope, Shirt, Shoulder, Sky, Smoke, Snow, Train, Track, Tear, Voice, Appear, Choose, Board, Bend, Bring, Convince, Die, Lost, Let, Laugh, Kiss, Find, Escape, Marry, Pause, Propose, Reach, Recover, Release, Remain, Resist, Rest, Share, Risk, Ring, Smile, Spend, Spite, Step, Start, Inside, Over, Comfortable, Either, Former, Glad, Happy, Little, Main, Many, New, Nice, One, Only, Really, Ready, Quiet, Proud, Private, Regular, Secure, Sensitive
February Event at Hogwarts: (lyric) "I'll drown my beliefs to have your babies." - REM and (object) engagement/promise/wedding ring.
200 Characters in 200 Days: Isla Black
If You Dare Challenge: 583. Spoken Gifts
Chocolate Frog Cards Challenge: Isla Black – Write about Isla marrying Bob and being disowned for it.
Writing Bingo: Dragons
Valentine-Making Station: Ask Me Conversation Heart Candy – Write about a proposal.
School of Prompts: Grade 4 Assignment 2 - At least 300 words for the genre 'family'.
Words: 2,081

A Winter Walk

Isla tugged at her golden gloves, taking them off her hands. She raised a handkerchief to her lips to remove her lipstick. Taking the pins out of her hair, she let the fine black locks fall softly over her right shoulder. The party was over. Isla could be herself.

She was proud of her heritage, of course. She was content with being a Black. She knew her place in the world with that name at her back. She had a purpose; she had a reputation to uphold. Life made sense.

But still she felt limited. She was only really comfortable when she was alone. In public, she was a representative of her family. She had rules to obey; impulses to resist; risks to avoid. At the parties her mother loved to send her to, voices clambered over each other to be heard, false laughter was lost in the music of the string quartet. Isla often sat quietly by the wall, finding it all a little bit too much.

The mornings after parties were what Isla preferred. When the rest of her family was still resting, Isla woke early and got herself ready.

It was January, and the night had been cold. Freshly fallen snow covered the earth in a blanket of white, as if the ground was trying to hide some secret. Perhaps it was a sign, Isla thought, that today things would begin anew. She stepped outside to begin her walk and looked up at the sky, at the robins and larks dancing on the gentle breeze, and smiled. The birds always appeared so free, so happy, that Isla liked to imagine she was one of them.

In the little forest, Isla couldn't even see the house she lived in. She could almost convince herself that she'd moved out of one world and into another, where the house she'd grown up in and the politics of her family's past didn't even exist anymore. She sat down on the bench crudely cut from an old tree stump, and breathed in a deep sigh. She looked around her at the forest, so devoid of colour in the damp snow, all browns and whites. It was then that she spotted the figure.

In spite of all reason, Isla was curious. She should have been nervous, she knew. She should have been planning her escape, casting charms to ensure she wasn't seen. Instead, she paused. Remaining exactly where she was, she waited for the figure to move closer. It was highly probable that this person was a muggle, and Isla had never really spoken to one before.

"Good morning," the man said when he drew close.

"Good morning," Isla replied with a smile. He was wearing a loose shirt that looked as though it was probably white once; brown trousers that had been fixed up in at least three different places; a matching shoddy jacket; a green woollen scarf and a hat - Isla thought she remembered it being called a flat cap. He made quite an impression, and Isla began to doubt her decision to stay out. Perhaps she should have gone back inside.

But then she looked at his face. Kind blue eyes shined up at her. There was no tension in his face; nothing to suggest mistrust or dislike. His thin cheeks and prominent jawline were softened by a light dusting of mouse-brown stubble. Life may not have been kind to him, but his face suggested he was kind and nice to others.

"What brings a fine lady like you to this neck of the woods?" he asked, curious.

"It's my favourite place. My mother prefers it if I remain in the grounds, but when I'm able to make the journey, you'll find me here," Isla replied. She could be as honest as she wanted, she thought. She'd never see this man again.

"I'm a regular here," the man replied. "I come collecting fire wood every day. Fuel for the stove."

"For your wife?" Isla enquired.

The man held up his hand with a laugh. Isla saw there was no ring. "No, for my mother. No woman would be stupid enough to take me," he joked.

Isla smiled, all the hate and derision she'd been taught to harbour towards muggles like him lost in his easy manner and charisma. When he tipped his hat and wished her farewell, Isla told him she hoped she'd see him again.

"Well, in that case, my name's Bob. Bob Hitchens," he told her.

"I'm glad I met you, then, Bob. My name is Isla Black," she replied.

She made an effort to see him as often as she could after that first day. She felt like a character out of one of the novels she loved to read, maybe something by Jane Austen. She knew there was a very real possibility that she'd be caught, but she thought the price was worth the peace he brought her. In this private little forest, the world outside couldn't reach her. She felt safe; she felt secure.

Bob told her he was a mess. He told her he had no skills, no real income and no future. Isla didn't realise it was a warning. She didn't know that she was falling in love.

It was three months after they'd first met when they were sitting together under a small umbrella, listening to the April shower as it fell on the fresh leaves of the canopy above.

"Why do you keep coming back?" he asked her, looking at her with such sincerity she had to look away.

"Because I like to spend time with you," she admitted. "Because I'm happy here, in a way that I'm not at home. It's not a home for me, that big house. It's just a building with many rooms for living ghosts to drift through until they die."

"I can't give you what you need. I have no rich carpets to lay at your feet. I only have dreams and dust," he replied.

"I don't need anything. I don't even want anything. I've had so many things all of my life, and I've never truly been happy. I'm happy here, with you, talking. That's all I need. Every day, I know I can choose. I can either stay indoors with all the fineries of life there, or I can come out to a cold, damp, dreary wood to share an hour or so with you." Tears began to collect in Isla's grey eyes as she spoke. Bob moved from the bench, coming around to kneel on the sodden earth at her feet. He looked up at her, taking her cheek in his wet hand.

"I hope…" he began, sounding nervous. "I hope that what you've said is true. I'm glad you feel that way. Because… because I think I love you," he finished.

Isla smiled, a large, genuine smile, like it didn't matter that her dress was soaked through to the skin. "I love you too," she told him. He leaned in slowly, hesitantly, to place a chaste kiss on her lips.

"I hope you don't live to regret it. I hope you never look back and see this as a mistake.

"I will never regret it. I can promise you that. Already, today is a brighter day than yesterday. You fill my world with colour. You give me strength. You're my release."

The pair sat smiling at each other, basking in the warmth of their happiness.

"What of your family?" Bob asked.

Isla's smile fell from her face as she looked away. "There are things you don't know, can't understand. I can't tell you just yet. But we'll have to move away from here. They'll be ashamed of me. I'd never see them again," she told him.

"Isla, they're your family. I can't ask you to do that," he protested, gentle.

"You're not. I'm making the decision for myself," she told him firmly. "When the breeze attempts to sway an old bamboo stalk, it snaps, but the young ones bend, forge their own paths up to the sun. This is my path."

"Well, if that's the case," he began, moving one soaking leg so he was balanced on one knee. "I promise I'll propose properly when I have a ring, but, for the time being, Isla Black, I love you. I want to marry you, and spend the rest of my life by your side. Would you do this humble man the honour of agreeing to become his wife?"

Isla smiled. His words reached her ears like gifts. "Yes," she answered. "I thought you'd never ask." She paused for a moment in contemplation before drawing her wand.

"What's that?" Bob asked, confused.

"There are laws against what I'm about to do, but you need to know. I need you to understand everything. All I ask is that you keep your mind open. Please don't be afraid."

Bob watched as she pointed her wand at her left hand and muttered an incantation. A jet of magical silver light left her wand, wrapping itself around her ring finger and settling in place. A perfect engagement ring now sat in its rightful place, complete with a single diamond.

Bob's face turned pale as he watched, completely transfixed.

"Was that magic?" he asked, dumbfounded.

"Yes," Isla confirmed. "My whole family have it. We've all been trained in its ways. My family believe it makes them better than non-magical folk. They believe they should be the benefactors of this world, that their magic sets them above the rest.

"I don't share that view. I believe magic is a gift, and as a gift, it should be treated with respect. The main purpose of magic, in my belief, is that it's used for good. It should be used to help everyone equally, to cure ills and fix homes. To eradicate poverty and disease. We have the knowledge, just not the motivation."

"I was raised to believe that I, too, was above non-magical folk. My parents taught me that as they taught me to read and write. I'll drown those beliefs to have your babies. I'll tie a rope around their necks and watch them hang."

Isla knew this was a sensitive topic, and she should tread softly, and be gentle on Bob, but she couldn't help the passion that roused her spirit at the thought of her family's false beliefs.

Bob was silent for a while, taking everything in. "Perhaps it's a little soon to be talking about having children," he eventually said.

Isla considered him for a second before laughter took over her. Bob joined in, laughing at the absurdity of his statement after all she'd just said.

"Well, I still want you, if you'll still have me," he noted when their laughter had died down. Isla nodded, and leaned forward to kiss him again.

Isla didn't tell her family about the proposal. She didn't tell them she was in love. She was scared of the consequences she'd face if they knew, scared her father would do something that she wouldn't be able to recover from. The men of the Black family were sleepy lions in the day time, when they thought things were fine, but the dragons in them could be roused at a moment's notice, and the dragons in them were only ever out for blood.

Instead, the young lovers, the partners in crime, made a plan. Isla would slowly pack her things - only the things she wished to take - over the next couple of weeks, so that they wouldn't notice. The morning after the next party she'd go out for her walk as usual, at quarter past six in the morning. At the forest, she'd Apparate them both to a spot near the train station. They'd board the train bound for Scotland and begin afresh. Their first stop would be a chapel in Gretna Green, where the priest had already agreed to marry them. Isla would leave her former life behind, the period of secrecy and deceit long over.

She met him in her most plain dress, covered by a brown overcoat, all her belongings shrunken into a small box in her hands. They reached the station just as the steam engine they wanted to catch was approaching along the tracks.

They took their seats, and Isla took Bob's hand in hers with a smile. He wasn't a wizard, but he'd cast a spell over her heart she never wanted to break.