~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"I'm not the one who broke you,
I'm not the one you should fear
We got to move you darling
I thought I lost you somewhere
But you were never really ever there at all..."
~"Here Is Gone" by Goo Goo Dolls~
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Well... this is it, I guess.
The last day of my Hogwarts career. It's been... well, interesting, I suppose.
It's going to be odd... leaving this place after all these years. I've made friends here. The team... we're all best mates.
Flint left a few years back. He's older than the rest of us, but his... 'influence' remains. We still play Quidditch to win, and the rest of us still do things together. Usually. I tend to not join them when they're off snogging their girlfriends.
We're mates, after all. Except my mates are rather occupied at the moment. Not that I can blame them one bit.
Alexander Montague, fellow Chaser and friend. He's as quiet and gentlemanly as I am... not. We're both leaving this year, though to very different fates. He and his girlfriend Morrigun Lennox are going to marry right out of school, and probably raise a brood of cultured, linguistically and artistically gifted sproglets.
I wish them well.
Not that they really need it... they're so close and what those girls call 'adorable and fluffy' that it's almost a dishonor amongst the house. Except for the fact that we're all very happy for them.
Kevin Bole and Vittorio Derrick. Our Beaters. Both of them are quite... quite happy with their lives right now, with their adoring girlfriends. As they, too, should be.
Draco Malfoy, our Seeker, the token Prince of Slytherin House, with his indecent amount of wealth, his snooty attitude, and those two goons of his that obey his every command. He has his Princess. Ravyn De Borgia... smart, stunning, conniving, feminine, shrewd, and wealthy. His perfect match.
They will probably spend their lives having one opulent soiree after another, in between traveling around the world, first-class. And I'm sure that they will enjoy every minute of it.
Adrian Pucey and Malice Haughton. They're both going to leave this year as well... and knowing them, they will probably leave, surgically attached at the tongues.
SHE won't be leaving this year.
She's the leader of that troop of girls that drive my friends and the rest of the blokes in the school mad. Although in her case... she drives them nutters in more ways than one.
Oh, she's lovely to look at... all slim, toned limbs and a cloak of dark satin hair. I've seen how the other sodding wankers look at her, as if they'd been starved for a week and she's a Christmas feast. Damn them.
Not that they act upon these notions, mind... her beauty is more than matched by her belligerence. They know to keep out of "smiting range", as it's popularly called.
I hear what they say... they would dearly love to see her incapacitated, unable to do a thing or move a limb. And then... their speculations and lewd desires make me want to kill them. I hex them on principle when any such things happen around me, of course. She's a member of my house, and damn the bloody bastard who sullies the name of any fellow Slytherin in another's hearing.
She is an ice queen to them. Covered with an impervious armor. No one can break through, and she will never be hurt. And similarly, no one can be let in. To drive away whatever demons make her push everyone away. She won't let anyone touch her. Heal, hurt, anything.
It's a double-edged sword.
I know what she is. I know what she is capable of. Underneath the ice, she's like fire. She's beautiful and seductive, but her fierce fearlessness can burn and destroy. And though I know what fire can do, I'm drawn to it. I know that it's there. She has a heart somewhere underneath that cynical, harsh, cold attitude. It exists. And I want it.
But it's not mine for the taking. It's nobody's.
She's as bright as the jewels sparkling on the hilt of her numerous daggers, and fiery as the fires over which she brews her magic.
But all of that is buried under hostility. Protective hostility.
Won't she just open up to the world and let people know that she, too, has a heart?
Or if she won't... can't she just do that for me?
Oh, I'm better off than some, I suppose. At least, she's never put me in the hospital yet. But then... that's because I stay safe around her. We talk, we laugh, we snipe at each other in good or ill humor. It's a harmless exchange back and forth. Wit is gratuitous. It's sharp... but it won't ever wound.
It's safe.
We're used to this. This is how we'd always been. Status quo, and it's all we can have.
I should be satisfied with it. It's more than any other bloke's share in the school. As it is, it could be something to brag about. Twisted, perhaps... but there you have it. I am Cassius Warrington. Fear me, for I'm the only fellow in this ruddy school who can get away with making smart-arsed comments around Fallon Anderson without getting a broken jaw, or worse, in the process.
But dammit, I'm NOT satisfied with that! There can be so much more... if that woman would only let someone close to her once in a while!
I really pick the difficult ones.
She's not easy to love. But for me... I can't help loving her any more than I can help the fact that she wouldn't allow me to love her. We're both stubborn.
She will never know, though.
Perhaps had things been different, I would have told her someday... and perhaps, just perhaps... she would look at me in surprise, and then those catlike dark eyes that smoulder with fire behind the glacially calm expression that she always wears would soften, and then I would be able to claim her as mine.
But the world is chaos. And... due to circumstances, I will not be seeing her again.
And so, as I leave this castle for the underground world that shelters... I have but one thought in my head.
Fallon... wherever you will go with your life, whatever happens... your heart might not be for anyone to take. But you will always have mine.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"I'm not the one who broke you,
I'm not the one you should fear
We got to move you darling
I thought I lost you somewhere
But you were never really ever there at all..."
~"Here Is Gone" by Goo Goo Dolls~
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Well... this is it, I guess.
The last day of my Hogwarts career. It's been... well, interesting, I suppose.
It's going to be odd... leaving this place after all these years. I've made friends here. The team... we're all best mates.
Flint left a few years back. He's older than the rest of us, but his... 'influence' remains. We still play Quidditch to win, and the rest of us still do things together. Usually. I tend to not join them when they're off snogging their girlfriends.
We're mates, after all. Except my mates are rather occupied at the moment. Not that I can blame them one bit.
Alexander Montague, fellow Chaser and friend. He's as quiet and gentlemanly as I am... not. We're both leaving this year, though to very different fates. He and his girlfriend Morrigun Lennox are going to marry right out of school, and probably raise a brood of cultured, linguistically and artistically gifted sproglets.
I wish them well.
Not that they really need it... they're so close and what those girls call 'adorable and fluffy' that it's almost a dishonor amongst the house. Except for the fact that we're all very happy for them.
Kevin Bole and Vittorio Derrick. Our Beaters. Both of them are quite... quite happy with their lives right now, with their adoring girlfriends. As they, too, should be.
Draco Malfoy, our Seeker, the token Prince of Slytherin House, with his indecent amount of wealth, his snooty attitude, and those two goons of his that obey his every command. He has his Princess. Ravyn De Borgia... smart, stunning, conniving, feminine, shrewd, and wealthy. His perfect match.
They will probably spend their lives having one opulent soiree after another, in between traveling around the world, first-class. And I'm sure that they will enjoy every minute of it.
Adrian Pucey and Malice Haughton. They're both going to leave this year as well... and knowing them, they will probably leave, surgically attached at the tongues.
SHE won't be leaving this year.
She's the leader of that troop of girls that drive my friends and the rest of the blokes in the school mad. Although in her case... she drives them nutters in more ways than one.
Oh, she's lovely to look at... all slim, toned limbs and a cloak of dark satin hair. I've seen how the other sodding wankers look at her, as if they'd been starved for a week and she's a Christmas feast. Damn them.
Not that they act upon these notions, mind... her beauty is more than matched by her belligerence. They know to keep out of "smiting range", as it's popularly called.
I hear what they say... they would dearly love to see her incapacitated, unable to do a thing or move a limb. And then... their speculations and lewd desires make me want to kill them. I hex them on principle when any such things happen around me, of course. She's a member of my house, and damn the bloody bastard who sullies the name of any fellow Slytherin in another's hearing.
She is an ice queen to them. Covered with an impervious armor. No one can break through, and she will never be hurt. And similarly, no one can be let in. To drive away whatever demons make her push everyone away. She won't let anyone touch her. Heal, hurt, anything.
It's a double-edged sword.
I know what she is. I know what she is capable of. Underneath the ice, she's like fire. She's beautiful and seductive, but her fierce fearlessness can burn and destroy. And though I know what fire can do, I'm drawn to it. I know that it's there. She has a heart somewhere underneath that cynical, harsh, cold attitude. It exists. And I want it.
But it's not mine for the taking. It's nobody's.
She's as bright as the jewels sparkling on the hilt of her numerous daggers, and fiery as the fires over which she brews her magic.
But all of that is buried under hostility. Protective hostility.
Won't she just open up to the world and let people know that she, too, has a heart?
Or if she won't... can't she just do that for me?
Oh, I'm better off than some, I suppose. At least, she's never put me in the hospital yet. But then... that's because I stay safe around her. We talk, we laugh, we snipe at each other in good or ill humor. It's a harmless exchange back and forth. Wit is gratuitous. It's sharp... but it won't ever wound.
It's safe.
We're used to this. This is how we'd always been. Status quo, and it's all we can have.
I should be satisfied with it. It's more than any other bloke's share in the school. As it is, it could be something to brag about. Twisted, perhaps... but there you have it. I am Cassius Warrington. Fear me, for I'm the only fellow in this ruddy school who can get away with making smart-arsed comments around Fallon Anderson without getting a broken jaw, or worse, in the process.
But dammit, I'm NOT satisfied with that! There can be so much more... if that woman would only let someone close to her once in a while!
I really pick the difficult ones.
She's not easy to love. But for me... I can't help loving her any more than I can help the fact that she wouldn't allow me to love her. We're both stubborn.
She will never know, though.
Perhaps had things been different, I would have told her someday... and perhaps, just perhaps... she would look at me in surprise, and then those catlike dark eyes that smoulder with fire behind the glacially calm expression that she always wears would soften, and then I would be able to claim her as mine.
But the world is chaos. And... due to circumstances, I will not be seeing her again.
And so, as I leave this castle for the underground world that shelters... I have but one thought in my head.
Fallon... wherever you will go with your life, whatever happens... your heart might not be for anyone to take. But you will always have mine.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~