Chapter 35
"The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
The smoke of my own breath…"
- Walt Whitman [The Song of Myself]
'She definitely knows,' Rose thought to herself, trying to ignore the looks of worry Ava kept sending her throughout their herbology class. Rose had known Ava was going to find out from Sam sooner or later. As much as she trusted Sam not to go around gossiping, Sam and Ava were notorious for telling each other everything. Rose didn't think that Sam had just gone and blabbed to her girlfriend, but Ava knew Sam so well that Rose was certain she'd wheedled the secret out of her.
"Do you want to go on a walk, Rose?" Ava asked, gesturing towards the lake as they left the greenhouses. It really was a nice day. So far, April had been mostly rainy and gray, but today the sun had peaked through and the warmth of spring could finally be felt. There were other students out enjoying the nice weather, but as it was still midday the lakeshore hadn't become too crowded yet.
"Sure," Rose decided after a moment of waffling between her desire to get this conversation over with and to avoid it for as long as possible. As they picked their way down the hill to the path that looped around the lake Rose tried to strategize. She wasn't sure whether to go on the offensive with Ava or stick strictly to defense.
"Don't be upset with Sam, but she told me about what's been going on with you and Professor Lupin," Ava began the conversation before Rose had made up her mind. Defense it was.
"I'm not upset. Was expecting it, really." Rose responded, glancing up at the smaller trees that were just beginning to become covered in springtime flowers. The larger oaks and maples were still resolutely dormant, waiting on warmer weather. Various daffodils and wildflowers had pushed their way up in patches along the trail bringing life and color back into the once brown and gray terrain.
"Rose… I… are you sure you're thinking this through," Ava asked cautiously. Rose gave her a chagrinned smile.
"That's such a Ravenclaw question," Rose hedged, and Ava's sharp eyes lingered on her face in concern. Rose looked back at the ground, knowing she wasn't going to weasel her way out of answering the question and finally admitted, "Probably not."
"He's our Professor."
"I know he's our Professor, Ava." Rose said in annoyance.
"It's just… don't you think he might be using you?"
"You wouldn't say that if you had classes with him." Rose answered sharply, trying to remind herself that Ava didn't know Lupin very well so she shouldn't get angry with her. "Lupin is kind and respectful and encouraging, he's compassionate and honest. He's not the kind of person who would manipulate anyone for his own gain."
"I don't know, Rose, if he's using his position to come onto students—"
"He's not—" Rose began and then, realizing how angry she sounded, took a moment to breathe and started over in a calmer tone of voice. "He's not coming onto students. If anything, I was the one who pursued him."
"But… but why?" Ava asked cautiously as they paused to pick their way around a mud puddle. "I know you find him attractive, but this could really ruin things for you if others find out. You're not usually one to take risks for no reason."
"I didn't just jump into bed with him at the first opportunity," Rose snapped. "We've just been working together so closely this year. I've gotten to know him really well, and things just… just happened."
"Rose… are you in love with Professor Lupin?" Ava asked hesitantly.
Rose could feel the flush on her cheeks. She opened and closed her mouth but only silence came out. She settled for giving Ava a shrug and a hopeless smile and was embarrassed to find that her eyes had become quite watery. Ava watched all of this with a look of concern.
"Rose…. Please don't misunderstand what I'm about to say, but aren't you getting married?" Ava asked. "I know things are different for, for, purebloods, and whatnot, but doesn't that mean anything to you?"
"Of course it does," Rose said, her face flushing in shame. She wasn't sure how to explain this to Ava while not revealing Stefan's secret. "Stefan and I… we have an understanding."
"Oh." Ava responded awkwardly. Silence stretched out between them and the two paused to watch the tentacles of the giant squid breach the surface of the lake—seeking the warmth of the springtime sunlight.
"I'm just trying to understand…" Ava began after another minute of walking, and Rose gave her a teasing grin. Ava flushed slightly and smiled back, "Is my Ravenclaw showing again?"
"Very much," Rose laughed, "But go on."
"If you and Stefan are okay with being with other people… wouldn't it just be better not to get married and be with… whoever it is you want to be with in the first place?"
"That's just… not how things work for us," Rose answered, frustrated at how easy Ava was making it sound. "I just met an aunt I didn't even know I had because she was disowned for marrying a muggle. If I don't marry Stefan, and if he doesn't marry me, we could both be in that situation. We'd lose our families, resources, opportunities, public respect… you just don't understand."
"I do understand that actually." Ava said, twisting her short hair around a finger in irritation, her tone of voice stonier than Rose had ever heard it. Rose's face whitened as she realized exactly who she was talking to and what Ava had recently endured from her family.
"I'm sorry, Ava, I didn't mean to—"
"It's alright." Ava cut her off with a sad smile. "I know our situations are different… just, just don't assume that because I'm not a pureblood that I don't know anything about choosing between your family and what you want."
"You're a lot braver than I am," Rose said looking down at her toes.
"I don't think it's about being brave, Rose. I think it's just about being tired. Trying to live up to some other person's opinion of who I should be… it just became too exhausting. When I finally decided to be me and live my truth, I got all this energy back that I didn't know I had. I'd been putting so much effort into maintaining a lie that I didn't even realize what it had been costing me." Ava said, her brown eyes warm and kind. "Rose, you're one of my best friends, and I feel like I've come to know you really well over the past few years…."
Rose nodded her head at this in mute agreement.
"And if you don't mind me saying so, you're always trying to live up to this fantasy image you've created for yourself. I'm not judging you for it, I think we all do it to some extent to try to grow and be better than we are…. But what if that person you're trying to be isn't serving you well anymore—what if it's just holding you back?"
Rose felt like Ava had slapped her. She was angry that Ava seemed to have a better understanding of who Rose was than Rose felt like she did at the moment. Turning her head, she wiped her face on her sleeve, trying to hide the tears. As the two emerged at the end of the trail back at the rocky shore, Ava reached out a hand to her friend, but Rose stepped away.
"I think I just… need to walk some more," Rose told her with a watery smile. "I'll see you back up at the castle."
Without another word, Rose turned on her heel and rushed back up the path out of sight of Ava's worried gaze. As she walked, she could feel the tears when they started falling down her face and onto the muddy path. She wiped at her eyes but didn't seem able to hold back the tears. After a few minutes, she was forced to sit down on a rock because she could no longer see where she was going. Above her bloomed the bright pink blossoms of a cherry tree—she would have found it beautiful if she hadn't been so sad. Rose pulled her knees into her chest and buried her face in her arms.
"Stop crying, you stupid stupid girl," she told herself, but it didn't work. And then, feeling angry with Ava, muttered, "Fucking, Ravenclaws."
She couldn't really muster up the ire to be truly mad at her friend for just telling her the truth. Ava had always been good at seeing through her bullshit and calling her out on the selective hearing and doublethink that Slytherins worked hard to cultivate. It hurt so much to know that Ava was right. Rose had spent her whole life trying to live up to the idea of herself as the perfect pureblood daughter. It hadn't mattered that she was really a Potter or a halfblood because when she was in Lucius and Narcissa's arms she felt safe and loved there. But somewhere along the way Rose had become disconnected with herself—she had been so focused on being someone else that she wasn't even sure she really knew who she was or what she wanted. She understood now why she'd struggled so much to answer McGonagall's questions about what she wanted to do with her life.
And it was so hard because she truly loved her parents. Her mother and father had cared for her and raised her—not as an outside but as their child. They had given her a family when hers had suddenly been stripped away from her. They had come into her life at her darkest moment when she had felt her most unloved and forgotten. Rose had spent years crying herself to sleep in that muggle orphanage—unable to talk to anyone about what had happened to her family, unable to fully understand what had happened with her child's mind and memories. For years she thought she was going crazy—that her memories of toy broomsticks and magic wands and two loving parents were strange hallucinations. And when Lucius and Narcissa had taken her away from all of that it had been like getting back a limb or a sense she hadn't known was missing. Rose yearned for their approval and praise and affection because she knew how terrifying it was to live without those things. Could she survive the loss of another family?
Rose jumped at the snapping of a twig behind her and twisted to see the large black dog slinking out of the woods toward her. He was looking at her curiously and, seeming to sense that she was upset, moved with caution. Rose wiped at her face again with her fingers, not wanting even a dog to see her looking so pathetic.
"Hello again," she said to him. "No cat today?"
The dog sat down beside her and leaned into her shoulder before sliding down onto his belly; laying there it calmly watched the lake. Rose reached out and ran her hands through his fur, finding the dog's warmth and calm presence comforting even if he was a bit smelly. She sniffled a bit, blinking her eyes that now felt red and sandpapery. The dog nuzzled her leg, and she smiled at him.
"You're a good boy," she told him, smiling when he wagged his tail from side to side. Rose looked back out over the lake, her feelings of melancholy lingering around her like a tangible cloak. She felt physically weighed down by them.
'Rose… are you in love with Professor Lupin?' Ava's question echoed around in her mind as she sat there. She remembered how vehemently she'd denied this to Sam, yet somehow she hadn't been able to say anything in response to Ava's knowing look.
Memories of Lupin's soft touch as he pushed her hair back from her face and the way held her to his chest while she cried came to her then. She thought of the kind attentiveness in his blue eyes when he listened to her talk and the way his smile filled her own body with giddiness. She remembered his tired face leading up to the full moon and how hard he worked even though he was clearly exhausted. She considered the casual way his hair fell into his eyes and the look, full of desire, that he could give, setting her body ablaze. She could feel the tenderness of his touch and could see his uncertainty and vulnerability when he gave her Lily's book of poetry. Could recall the way his voice sounded reading her words of love and longing before she'd ever known that she felt those words for him: 'Before you came things were just what they were: the road precisely a road, the horizon fixed, the limit of what could be seen… Now you are here again—stay with me.'
"I think… I think I love him," Rose admitted aloud, her confession heard by no one but the warm spring sunlight, the blooming cherry blossoms, and the dog who lay beside her.
