Disclaimer: No ownership. No characters are mine, maybe Audrey, but hell, if you want her take her.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved
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The live music starts to play, and you think its some generic hipster shite. You smirk as you survey the place, a dive bar full of trendy mid twenty somethings. Tunics and horn-rimmed glasses abound and you wonder for the tenth time that night, all night, every night, why you spend your time with them, these muggles, these muggles. Your curly brown hair isn't cut short, you're wearing a plain button down and a grey circle skirt to your knees. You stick out like a sore thumb in this androgynous mass of coke-thin limbs and designer vintage.
But you remember.
You recall what's his name, Andrew Clark, the economics professor. He was a muggle and twice your age, but he was good in bed and financial advice made for interesting pillow talk. It ended amiably, and his daughter liked you enough to invite you to her wedding. A June wedding, you recall, with daisies in children's hair and a drunk bridesmaid heaving in the stall next to you. That was how you and Audrey met, you were holding back her hair as she gripped porcelain with her wiry girl-child fingers.
Audrey, Audrey who charmed you at the reception, who thought you absolutely had to party with her that night, who had friends who were guaranteed to love you. Audrey, Audrey who was an art student, who was aimless, who was a wreck, who was the happiest person you'd ever met. At least until you got to know Steve, Orson, Kelly, Harry, no not that Harry, god no. They think your name is fresh, and they say so.
You should be disgusted but you're not. You love it. You love these kids, these kids who were born with the means to be twenty something year old children. You love their obsession with taking the markings of the working middle class and pissing all over it, making it their own. You love the American Apparel v-necks and the PBR and Parliament cigarettes. You love their lo-fi film cameras and loft studios, empty except for maybe a bed, a trash bag full of clothes, and a t.v. You love how these loft studios are usually in central London and how the windows are floor to ceiling.
But most of all you love how they don't know you. You live for their addiction to fun times, you live for their lack of purpose. Because you know what it means to have a purpose. You know what it means to, for seven years, live your life around the single aim of keeping him alive. You know, boy do you know. You know first hand how it feels to work so hard and then, then, and then see him leave.
You remember.
You remember firewhiskey and the Leaky Cauldron. You remember your shaking hands cradling his shaved head as he tried to explain he wasn't a boy anymore. You remember the circles under his eyes, and the stubble on his chin. You think he's selfish, the sociopath is dead after all, and you think he just wants to run away from you. You stomp out the door and you think you'll never see him again, and Jesus Christ who are you going to take care of now, you have no reason to exist. Remembering this, right now, as you're watching Audrey get reeled in by some bloke with a guitar, you realize that once again, as always, Hermione Granger was right.
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You open your eyes too fast and the sun sears itself into the back of your eyeballs. You thank whatever god available that Kingsley gave you the day off, because the bed you're in is comfortable and guitar boy had spooned behind you and his limbs aren't that bony and wait, oh good, you're both dressed. And the two strangers at the foot of the bed are clothed as well.
Looking around, you call Audrey, and she laughs at your tone, and she says no worries, she's out with Harry.
No not that Harry, god no.
Curiosity always gets the best of you on mornings like this and you can't resist the urge to walk around the flat, and surprise it's an actual flat, with walls and furniture and food. The place reeks of musicians, guitars and amps and music are everywhere and that old piano in the corner has spray paint on the side. Furnishings are spare.
You decide against waiting around for Audrey, who knows if she'll even come back, so you gather your things and say bye, see you guys sometime, and you swing open the front door and see Harry.
And oh no, it's that Harry, god no, no, no.
Harry's holding his keys with one hand, but your eyes drop to his left hand, which is gnarled and has too many fingers. You're staring, mouth open, not understanding, until your Hermione brain kicks in and your Hermione eyes follow the extra fingers, those girl-child fingers, up the pale arm, past the tattooed bird perched on her collarbone, and into Audrey's own grey eyes, day old mascara crusted and beautiful and smiling.