DISCLAIMER: I am not JK Rowling, nor do I claim any of Harry Potter as my own. This is entirely fan-made. Also this is my first fanfic - so please be nice! Updating daily!
Peace. A phrase not usually associated with my family. But right now, in this moment, it is all I feel. Golden rays of summer are leaving just as quickly as they arrived. As I stand here, burning under the sun's glare, in the wheat field that lies beyond the garden of the Burrow, I can't help but think back to the events of the year just gone, and how everything is about to change for good.
For starters, I have just turned 16. It may not seem like a big deal, but 16 sounds just that bit older than 15. I have finished my first big set of exams, my OWLS, and am now entering my second to last year. How am I already entering my 6th year? James, Fred, Dominique and Lucy are about to begin their final year at Hogwarts. Hugo, Louis, and Lily are now 4th years. Albus, Roxanne and I are about to begin our penultimate year. Right now, I feel the seconds of my adolescence slipping away. Sure, I am, as of 2 hours and 34 minutes ago, 16 years old, and sure, I have watched my cousins leave before, but this time it feels different.
When Victoire, Molly and Teddy left it made sense, it felt normal. After all, they're at least 6 years older than me, so when they left I had only just arrived. I was 11, which of course meant that they looked like mature adults ready to take on the world. And now I am closer to that age than they are, and I still feel as if I am 11. As if time has moved on but I am still stuck, trapped in my 11 year old body of bushy auburn hair, buck-teeth and freckles that seemed to consume my cheeks. As if nothing has changed. But of course that's a lie as everything has changed.
If I could keep anything from my childhood, I would only save one thing: the innocence that makes being a child so pure. When did lemonade become vodka, kisses become sex, goodbyes become the end? When war games were just that, a game, and your biggest problems were losing a game of wizard chess. I don't mean to sound wistful, but it is a scary thing, watching yourself grow up and knowing there is nothing you can do to stop it.
No matter how hard you try to wish it away, it is going to happen whether you like it or not. I try not to get angry over it, as it is something completely out of my control, watching your parents and your uncles and your grandparents get old, never knowing when you're going to say goodbye for the last time.
I'm probably feeling this way as this is my first birthday without my Opa, my grandfather on my mum's side. His death seems to have got me reflecting on life, what I want to do, who I want to associate with. In his final words he told me how proud he is of me, of everything that I have achieved and will go on to achieve. He also told me that in my life, I will love many times, but there will be one love that burns my soul forever. I don't know what he meant by that but I'd like to think that one day I'll understand. That one day I'll know what it is to love, and to be loved.
I should stop getting all sentimental. I know, I'm sorry. For some reason I always tend to cry on my birthday. Is that a common thing? Every year since I can remember I have cried on my birthday, or reflected, or got emotional.
But anyway, back to the party I go, there is no point sitting around feeling sorry for myself. Especially when this is not just my party, but Albus's too. He has been my best friend, partner in crime, since birth, even despite the fact he has just started going out with that bitch Eliza Chang. Aunt Ginny seemed furious when James let slip that Albus was dating her, you could definitely see that despite now holding the name Potter she is a Weasley through and through.
I couldn't even give Eliza the benefit of the doubt, I have been sharing a dorm with her for the past 5 years and know first hand how much of a pain in the arse she is. Bitchy and snarky to girls but charming and flirtatious around boys. I can't stand girls like that.
She swans around with her sidekick Belle Pickering. 'Pick'ering is right; if it was socially acceptable to wear a sign reading 'pick me' than believe me she would be the first to wear it.
More often and not, you see them sniffing around Malfoy and his lot.
While I don't mind Zabini, Nott and Malfoy are a different story. I have never despised someone as much as I do Scorpius Malfoy. You can smell him before he even enters a room; he drenches himself in thick, musky aftershave which he believes makes girls fall to their feet. Dickhead. Although he is usually successful in his attempts to get any girl he wants.
He is the spitting image of his father: striking platinum blonde hair, piercing blue eyes and a smirk that just makes me want to slap him one. I would quite like to avoid him like dragon pox, but it seems impossible to do so seeing as he is on the Slytherin Quidditch Team.
I, along with Fred and James, am on the Gryffindor team, and Albus is (traitor) on the Slytherin team, alongside Malfoy and his cronies. I chase, and Malfoy beats, and I now have to ensure that I wear two lots of padding and a cushioning charm as Malfoy aims the bludger at me as if I am his worst enemy who has just murdered his family. The latter, not so much, but as friends go we are far from it.
It is clear to anyone that our rivalry is not light-hearted or friendly, but fuelled from the deepest, darkest pits of hatred. He makes it his priority to be my competition on pitch and off it. Closely followed by Zabini, the battle for best marks in the year has been back and forth between him and I since we started.
Which reminds me, our OWLS results should be back by now. I swore to myself before every exam that I would beat Malfoy if it was the last thing I ever did. And God forbid he has beaten me, it will not be a pretty sight.