A/N: I've jumped in to take up the reins for one round in this position. This was an interesting prompt, and this was definitely a situation where the story wrote itself and took some turns I had not anticipated.
I've always been a bit of a US history buff (hi! American here!), and I've actually been to the island of Roanoke in North Carolina. It's quite pretty, and it's true that no one knows what happened to the colonizers who settled there. As I write later on in this story, it's also true that one of the leading theories is that the local indigenous people (the Algonquians) took the colonizers in after perhaps a hurricane or other natural disaster (or just winter, because colonizers were really bad at surviving colder weather.) Other theories involve natural disasters, the colonizers being massacred by the Algonquian people, and aliens. It's also true that no one knows why Croatoan was carved into the tree despite it being the name of a neighboring island.
If it isn't obvious, I could probably write an entire 3 page paper on Roanoke but I will refrain from doing so and hope that that very brief summary helps people understand the real history, even though it plays a very minor role in the story itself.
Written for Round 4, S9 of the QLFC as a temporary stand-in for teammate ginnys01.
BEATER 1: Roanoke
CW: General atmosphere of isolation, loneliness
Word Count: 1,136
He is alone.
This remains an unequivocal fact.
He wasn't always alone. A time existed once where the world did not feel like a barren island, devoid of all things breathing in time with his own screaming lungs.
Dean could recall this time, allowing mild fondness to swell in his chest as he did so. He'd look to the sky for an answer, and, finding none, turn inward.
The first few days on the run proved that nothing about this would ever be easy. Another well-known fact, one which kept Dean's feet on the ground despite its cruelty. The bag he carried grew lighter day by day, and every time he did not happen upon a small town in a valley, it did not gain weight.
People in the towns did not notice him. He often felt like he wore a cloak of Invisibility as good as the one Harry owned. (He'd lived in the same room as the boy wonder for six years, of course he and Seamus had gotten Neville to spill about some of Harry's secrets eventually.) Even those he stopped to haggle with for food swept their eyes quickly over his features when they interacted and no doubt forgot him when he left their line of sight.
Autumnal colors adorned the trees he passed through, but to Dean, they looked grey and dead. Not even rabbits hopping between the mountain laurels seemed really alive.
On this particular evening, he finds himself seated beside a small brook, feeling exquisitely lonely. Leaves flow on the surface of the icy water, catching on the moss-covered rocks that create eddies against the current. A large boulder provided a decent roof, and he'd set up his sleeping equipment below it. (Sometimes he enjoys not sleeping in a tent.)
The sketchbook Dean carries around sits abandoned beside him, the light in the sky disappearing behind the trees and the tops of hills earlier and earlier every night. Holding a wand and a charcoal pencil at the same time was impractical and uncomfortable, it was easier to give up sketching as the light faded. Dean is staring off into the distance, playing with a twig between his fingers, thinking of the past, the present, the future.
He thinks mostly of Seamus.
It's always of Seamus. Their farewell had been too rushed, too violent, too urgent. He wanted more time, but the world refused to give it to them. Their first kiss might've been their last.
A particular memory floats to the forefront of his mind in this moment. A story of solitude, much like the type he feels now, something Seamus had been so proud to share all those years ago.
It had been during their fourth year, one of those nights they spent on the common room sofa, dredging up strange tales and odd memories.
"Did you ever hear 'bout the people who disappeared in America?" Seamus' eyes had grown wide in the dying firelight.
Dean respectfully shook his head. Seamus' grin widened, and in the way he always had about him, wove a story so grand and eccentric it was difficult to believe it was a tale about Muggles.
"Well, mostly Muggles," the Irish boy admitted at one point, "Some say there was a witch amongst them."
The story ended with an entire colony of people disappearing from an island off the coast of North America. Seamus claimed there was one who remained behind, one who tried to get John White's attention when he'd returned from England. She was the spirit of the only witch in the entire village, trapped in the body of an owl after completing a transformation spell.
It seemed the story of the witch remained uncommon knowledge in Muggle history. White clearly didn't know of her existence. Dean did some research of his own not long after Seamus had told the story and found nothing about a witch.
But now, sitting by the babbling brook, thinking wistfully of better days and of Seamus' gentle hands and soft lips, he feels like that witch. An animal, a remnant of a person who does not know they are the only one around. Who does not know that no one else can perceive their existence.
Cursed to carry around secrets that may never be told.
He shakes out of his trance and glances around. The silly little fire he's made continues to push out weak flames. It will die before long - for now it provides a warmth he rarely gets in the dead of night.
"You'd love it out here," he whispers to the image of Seamus in his mind. "It's so… quiet."
An owl hoots in the distance as if in agreement. Dean pulls his legs up closer to his chest and continues his conversation for cold comfort.
"Remember that historical event you told me about in fourth year? You know, the one about that vanished colony?" He says. "I feel like that colony. Like that witch trapped in the owl's body. I feel like I've vanished and no one knows. No one except you, I guess."
And his parents, but he does not care to discuss them lest he bring further pain to his already damaged heart.
"I sometimes wonder if that colony all became animals. If that witch cast a spell that turned them all into woodland creatures. I know Muggle historians wish to say it was the local indigenous tribes, that they took the colony people in. Would anyone welcome in people who were so lost?"
Can anyone save him?
"I'm not sure I'd want to save me if I had caused harm to the supposed savior." Dean says, and he realizes this question goes deeper than he'd anticipated. He stops himself from continuing the conversation.
Best to let these thoughts go. In the darkness of night, it is too easy for him to become lost in philosophical questions when he is so utterly alone. No one else is here to provide an answer.
Dean allows himself a sigh before standing up shakily to sit down on the blankets lying beside the rock. His elbow connects hard with the lichen covered boulder, and he curses quietly.
The frogs have started up their familiar chorus while he's settling underneath the blankets. Night has fallen suddenly, as it always does in the valleys Dean spends his time in now. Cool air is rushing down from the tops of mountains, covering them all in it's thickness and making Dean shiver where he lays.
As he lies on the dirt and rocks, the thought that circles in his mind every night before he falls asleep rears its ugly head. It whispers into his ear that perhaps tomorrow, he will run into a fellow traveler, and his loneliness will succumb as friendship blossoms.
It is wishful thinking.