Chapter 10
Handprint on the Door
Cadence sat in a stupor while Harry huffed and puffed the first ten minutes he was in her room.
"What is wrong?" she asked for the eightieth time.
It still didn't explain why he had burst into her room, a wreck, when only an hour before, he had left with a smile so broad she was sure it'd be years before it was gone.
She stared at him the first few minutes he was in there. He was breathing heavily, his face wet as if it had been stained with tears, and his eyes red. He was trembling and could barely speak. His emotions were somewhere between fury, depression, and shock. Cadence couldn't decide which it was. All she knew was that Harry's behavior was scaring her.
It became evident on her face after a while and he started to calm himself down. Cadence sat in her bed, books and papers heaped about her. She had almost finished all of her homework before Harry had burst in.
"Harry. you're really scaring me, what's going on?"
Harry said nothing, as she had expected him to, and paced in front of her bed. "Cadie," he finally whispered. It was almost as if he was saying her name to calm himself down.
"Harry. what is going on? You're acting as though you've seen a ghost. a fairly scary ghost," she said, remembering the many translucent beings that floated around the Hogwarts castle.
Harry again remained silent before walking slowly over to the edge of her bed. He fished into his pocket, fingering the large necklace in his shaking hands, and then pulling it out.
Cadence stared at the necklace and jumped backward. "Where. where did you get that?"
"Cadie," he said her name in that same way again. This time though, he continued. He sat down on the bed and noticed that Cadence held a hand to her heart. "I'll tell you where I got it as soon as you tell me what happened the night your parents died."
Cadence's brown eyes lifted onto Harry's contorted face. How dare he say such a thing, she thought to herself. Where did this come from?
Yet as she thought it, she knew for sure that she was being unfair to Harry. After sharing every single bit of his history with her, all of his journeys, tales, adventures, and struggles, she didn't have the decency to tell him the truth about what happened that fateful night.
She looked up at him slowly. All she could manage was, "What?"
"Cadie," he whispered for the third time. It was as if the mere sound of her name made him composed. "I don't know how to begin. all I know is that I want to know every bit of you, up and down, inside out, upside down and right side up. I couldn't handle the fact that you knew everything about me and I knew nothing about you. It's hard to talk about, I know, but I needed to know. It was starting to hurt."
Cadence felt a stab in her heart as he said the word 'hurt.' To know that she had caused hurt in the one person she truly loved was enough to make her open her mouth and spill everything.
"And I don't know if you've noticed, but whenever people hear your name. they stop."
Cadence had of course noticed. She'd noticed all too well. What with Hermione, Ron, and Colin Creevey, she knew for a fact that her name was well known, and she knew for a fact why.
"And you even knew my name," he said it with so much venom that Cadence was taken aback. She stared at him for a second. "Think really hard about this Cadence. Why do so many people know my name?"
Cadence had to stop and think. She had only heard part of the story of Harry Potter. She had heard his name used sparsely in her home. She remembered a hushed conversation between her parents when she was about ten or eleven. They were talking about Harry Potter and how he was attending Hogwarts. Bits and pieces came back to her.
"He's in his first year?"
"Yes, that's what it says here."
"Will he be safe?"
"Apparently he's got plenty of protection there. More than he had at the first place he was staying. With those Muggles."
"Why would be expose himself to the wizarding world after what happened to his dear parents?"
"He wasn't going to learn his skills any other way. The Muggles he was living with wanted nothing to do with Hogwarts, or wizardry as it was."
"I just can't believe it."
"We can't allow our sweet Cadence to be exposed to that world, not yet. Harry has more protection than Cadence ever will have. We have to be extra careful."
Cadence answered after a long pause, "I don't know all of your story, Harry."
"You don't know all of it?" he demanded.
She sat and thought, and then, the pieces fell together. "The boy. who lived."
Harry's eyes widened. "Tell me the truth, Cadie. Piece it all together. Why do people know your name?"
She looked up at him, her eyes brimming with tears. "No."
"Yes."
"No, Harry, I don't want them to know."
"People know, Cadie."
"Harry. I don't want them to."
"Cadie."
"Wait."
"Cadie, listen to me."
"How did you find out?"
"Cadie, you have to listen to me. Tell me the truth."
"The truth? YOU want the TRUTH!"
Harry sighed. It was happening. Everything Ron and Hermione had warned him about. it was now happening, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. "Cadie, please."
"PLEASE? TRUTH?" Cadence was now livid. She sat up in her bed, clenching the blanket in her fists. "You want the truth when you've been lying to ME? YOU want the truth from ME, when you've been doing exactly the opposite to my face?"
"I haven't been lying to you!"
"Yes you have! Sneaking around behind my back, trying to learn about my history without telling me! I would call that lying!"
"I wasn't sneaking. I had to know."
"No you didn't."
"You know all about me."
Cadence didn't miss a beat. "Don't you dare turn this around on me, Harry Potter. I would have told you in due course, all you had to do was be patient."
Patient. The word popped up on him again, just as it had from Hermione's mouth. Why couldn't I have listened? Why did that floorboard intrigue me so much? Why? Why?
"Harry Potter, I don't know why you didn't just wait for me to tell you. I would have been fine with telling you everything! I would have said what I needed to say, I would have given you all of my background, but no! You had to go snooping around for it!"
Harry listened to the formal tone her voice took with him, almost as if she had forgotten who she was with him. Tears crept to his eyes, but still, she couldn't see him cry.
"Where did you find that necklace?"
"It was in a vault. in the library. under the floorboards."
"Under the floorboards? Vault? Library?"
She knew now that he had been sneaking around, so he might as well have given her the whole truth about how he had come across the truth.
"I'm so sorry, Cadie. I wanted to know why everyone knew you. I was curious. I needed to know more about you. I wanted to know more about you. I didn't know how to ask. I knew deep down that you were going to tell me in your own time but it wasn't enough for me, and I'm so sorry. I went to the library. I asked Ron for help. tonight I was looking. Hermione found me and yelled at me for sneaking around and not trusting you to tell me. I realized she was right and I was leaving, I swear. I swear I was walking away when I got caught on that loose floorboard."
Cadence watched as he fidgeted. It didn't matter to her how much she wanted to hold him, clean him up, tell him everything was okay. She was too angry and felt so betrayed. He had dared to go sneak around, trying to find information on her, like some spy?
"My curiosity got the best of me, I fished around inside of the floorboard and found some kind of box. It was sort of like the one you showed me today, with all the pictures. But this one. it was strange. The more I had this box in my possession, the uglier and more gruesome it got, evil almost. There were pictures. Old pictures. There was one of my parents." Cadence gasped, "and the same one you showed me of your parents."
Cadence stared at Harry, not wanting to believe him, but she knew that he wouldn't lie to her about something so important. "W-W-What?"
"It was that wedding picture. but old. and almost like it was starting to turn evil. The same with the picture of my parents."
Cadence couldn't speak.
"I saw this in the box," he said, gesturing to the necklace in his hand. "And I saw that my mother was wearing it. and so was yours. I forgot to put it back, so I grabbed it. Then I wanted to know. What happened?"
Cadence stared at the necklace and then back up at Harry. She ventured to get out from under the sheets of the bed and as Harry tried to stop her, she pushed him off.
"I'll tell you everything, just make me one promise."
Harry's heart almost leaped for a new hope. "Anything."
"Get out as soon as I'm done."
It was the seven words that felt like his undoing. "Cadie, I don't understand."
"It's not that complicated, Harry. You lied to me, you snuck around on me without my knowledge, betrayed my trust, and I need some time to think without you around," and as Cadence said the words, she felt a piece of herself dying.
"Think?" another word that would be his undoing. "About what?"
"It's not about us. it's about me," she whispered, and she knew she was being honest. He had done something so wrong and so deceitful, that she was going to find it hard to forgive him. She knew he had done it for his own reasons. It didn't make it any more right, but he had meant no intentional harm upon her. What she truly needed was time away from him to collect herself so she could forgive him sooner. but he couldn't know that.
"What do you mean, think?" he asked her, a sudden frenzy in his heart. He had to know what she was going to do. Was she going to completely terminate the relationship? How could she? Did she not feel the things that he felt whenever he was with her?
"Harry," she whispered. "I need to have some time to myself to think about where things are starting to go. and where they are right now. I need some time without you around to know whether what you have done is going to affect me."
Harry felt his heart break in two. He had no idea that things could have happened like this. Again, he felt the tears in his eyes, but still couldn't let her see that he was in distress. Until the end, he had to be strong.
"Tell me what happened," he whispered.
"All right," she whispered back. She looked away from him and felt herself travel back in time. It was so cold. so dark.
"The boy who lived. the boy who lived." she repeated. "You may have been the boy who lived, Harry. but no one ever said anything about the girl who survived." She paused and didn't notice that Harry's eyes were wide. "I'm sure there are just rumors of my family's escape. That's probably why my name isn't as widely known as yours. Everyone assumed that Lord Voldemort had finished off everyone except for you, but no one remembered that a family of three had heard of the possible attack and fled everything they ever knew to live in a strange but safe country.
"I grew up in America and I was only an infant when my parents came here. I wasn't aware of the struggles they had adjusting, but fortunately enough, we made our way back into the wizarding world without really being noticed. My father and mother continued their jobs from where they were and we built our wizard homestead steadily each year. By the time I was ten everything was done and ready. I started Quidditch training, and I didn't start my actual witchcraft schooling until a year later.
"It was wonderful, you know. I loved my studies and I absolutely adored Quidditch. My father had been a Keeper for Gryffindor and my mother had been a Beater for Hufflepuff. Quidditch was in my blood. My father instilled it into me at a young age and I found that being a Chaser was my best suit. My mother mostly controlled my studies, and by my fourth year she had told me that I was advanced enough to take my O.W.L.s early. So I did. She told me that if I had been going to Hogwarts, I probably would have been a year ahead of the children my age, mainly because it came as second nature to me. Almost everything did.
"The only thing I didn't have was real friends. The only people I ever talked to were my parents and occasional pen pals I had through owl. That was never long lasting. My parents were very strict about where I went and whom I talked to. I was never sure why. Until that night.
"It was so dark. so cold. so wet. It's imprinted in my mind as though it were yesterday. I woke up and thought it was a normal day, but my parents had been acting strangely. I didn't question it, I just carried on with my normal Quidditch training. my normal routine.
"But it was almost evening when my parents screamed at me to get in the house. there was a storm. they didn't want me out there. They were screaming bloody murder. I can still hear the terror in their cries.
"I didn't know what was going on. I was too scared to say anything. I landed and ran right into the house. Within seconds, the doors were sealed and my parents were huddling against me, cooing and coddling me, telling me they loved me, telling me that if anything were to happen, I should flee as soon as possible. I shouldn't ask questions, I should just run. I was scared, I feared for my parents' lives and my own. I cried. I asked questions like 'Why? What is going on?' and they told me everything. Why they had never let me out of the house and why we weren't living in England. I knew there was something strange about why we were in America. They always talked about England like it was the greatest place to be raised. They told me the whole truth. Even things I don't want to share with you.
"They told me about you. They told me there was one boy who survived and he was already in Hogwarts. They told me that if I was ever to meet him, I should probably stay away. Trouble would follow us. I cried. What did that mean? Why would I meet you? Why would I come to Hogwarts? My mother. she was wearing that necklace.
"I didn't know what to think, I just lay there in a puddle of my own tears, clinging to my parents like they couldn't let go. I didn't know what else to do. I was scared.
"It all happened at once, hours, but it seemed minutes, later. The entire house began to tremble and the front doors blew off and the whole house grew dark. I felt something in my heart. like some kind of evil had overcome me. My head throbbed. I wanted to run like my parents had said for me to do. I wanted out. I wanted to leave as soon as possible, but I wanted my parents right there with me. I couldn't leave them. I had never been more scared in my life.
"My mother stood up and told me to run. I told her no, I wasn't going anywhere without her. She ordered me to run. My father did as well. I couldn't see much, but I heard a voice. My parents stood in front of me as if they were shielding me. I remember my mother screaming, 'You won't take her!' My father was screaming the Killing Curse and whoever was standing in front of them was cackling.
"In a flash. I saw my mother bend over. She took off her necklace and threw it. Another flash. I saw my father fall. I screamed. My mother looked at me and on her face was the look I'll never forget as long as I live. It told me how much she loved me and would miss me. She said, 'Run' before she too fell.
"And so I did. I ran so fast and so far, Harry. I was almost out of the city before I stopped. I didn't even bother to look back. I was too frightened. I don't remember much after that. all I remember is waking up in some strange room. My grandmother was there with some unfamiliar faces, and they told me what happened. I apparently had collapsed on someone's front lawn and then immediately taken to the hospital. They sent an urgent owl to my grandmother in England.
"I was spared the details. but it didn't matter. I knew all of them."
Tears were now flowing freely down her cheeks and she stood at the window of the hospital wing. It seemed as though everything had happened all over again.
"I don't want to ever live that day over again, Harry, that's why I spared you the details," she whispered.
Harry didn't know what to do. He wanted to go hold her, he wanted to tell her it was okay. He wanted her to know that he felt the same way about losing his parents. It was a wound he didn't want opened. He wanted to cry with her.
But he couldn't. He had to leave.
He stood up and walked over to her. He stood almost a foot away from her, watching her pale blonde head lean over the cool window toward the night. He knew that her cheeks were the sweetest shade of rose and that her dark chocolate eyes shone with the mist of her tears. Her small, soft hands caressed the cool glass and her tiny frame panted as she breathed up and down. She was so beautiful and so unique, and he could see it in one vision.
But it hurt so badly to know that he had lost all of it just because of his stupid curiosity.
"Cadie." he began.
"Don't call me Cadie," she shot angrily. The only light left in his eyes died. "Leave."
The words were so cold and so bitter that they shattered every hope he could have ever had in his heart. His mouth dropped open and his extended hand faltered. "What?"
"You made me a promise, Harry. I can't have you here now."
"Why not?"
"Harry." she half chuckled, half sniffled. She didn't turn around. "You betrayed my trust. I need time to convince myself this love is worth my heart being lied to."
The daze that he had tried to pull out of was becoming a cloud, raining upon his head. He stepped backward, his green eyes glinting in the pale light of the hospital wing.
"When can I see you again?" he whispered.
"I don't know," she said back. "I'm going back to classes next week. I'll meet you in the common room the night I'm coming back."
"Next Monday?" he asked.
She nodded. "Go."
He couldn't say much else, so he walked toward the door and finally, he turned to stare at the beautiful figure he could make out in the window. He left, tears streaming down his cheeks so hard he could taste them on his tongue. He stared at the closed door and pictured her in his mind, standing in front of that window. Would he ever again know the sweetness of her touch? Would it always be different?
"Harry?" she whispered. She stepped away from the window and turned to see that he had left. She turned back to the window for a split second, felt fresh tears pour down her face, and walked slowly toward the door. She stared at it, picturing Harry walking away.
Lightly, she raised her hand and pressed it palm down on the door.
Harry could almost feel the heat from the room on his own hand as he pressed it closely toward the door.
And in unison, they whispered, "I love you."
Handprint on the Door
Cadence sat in a stupor while Harry huffed and puffed the first ten minutes he was in her room.
"What is wrong?" she asked for the eightieth time.
It still didn't explain why he had burst into her room, a wreck, when only an hour before, he had left with a smile so broad she was sure it'd be years before it was gone.
She stared at him the first few minutes he was in there. He was breathing heavily, his face wet as if it had been stained with tears, and his eyes red. He was trembling and could barely speak. His emotions were somewhere between fury, depression, and shock. Cadence couldn't decide which it was. All she knew was that Harry's behavior was scaring her.
It became evident on her face after a while and he started to calm himself down. Cadence sat in her bed, books and papers heaped about her. She had almost finished all of her homework before Harry had burst in.
"Harry. you're really scaring me, what's going on?"
Harry said nothing, as she had expected him to, and paced in front of her bed. "Cadie," he finally whispered. It was almost as if he was saying her name to calm himself down.
"Harry. what is going on? You're acting as though you've seen a ghost. a fairly scary ghost," she said, remembering the many translucent beings that floated around the Hogwarts castle.
Harry again remained silent before walking slowly over to the edge of her bed. He fished into his pocket, fingering the large necklace in his shaking hands, and then pulling it out.
Cadence stared at the necklace and jumped backward. "Where. where did you get that?"
"Cadie," he said her name in that same way again. This time though, he continued. He sat down on the bed and noticed that Cadence held a hand to her heart. "I'll tell you where I got it as soon as you tell me what happened the night your parents died."
Cadence's brown eyes lifted onto Harry's contorted face. How dare he say such a thing, she thought to herself. Where did this come from?
Yet as she thought it, she knew for sure that she was being unfair to Harry. After sharing every single bit of his history with her, all of his journeys, tales, adventures, and struggles, she didn't have the decency to tell him the truth about what happened that fateful night.
She looked up at him slowly. All she could manage was, "What?"
"Cadie," he whispered for the third time. It was as if the mere sound of her name made him composed. "I don't know how to begin. all I know is that I want to know every bit of you, up and down, inside out, upside down and right side up. I couldn't handle the fact that you knew everything about me and I knew nothing about you. It's hard to talk about, I know, but I needed to know. It was starting to hurt."
Cadence felt a stab in her heart as he said the word 'hurt.' To know that she had caused hurt in the one person she truly loved was enough to make her open her mouth and spill everything.
"And I don't know if you've noticed, but whenever people hear your name. they stop."
Cadence had of course noticed. She'd noticed all too well. What with Hermione, Ron, and Colin Creevey, she knew for a fact that her name was well known, and she knew for a fact why.
"And you even knew my name," he said it with so much venom that Cadence was taken aback. She stared at him for a second. "Think really hard about this Cadence. Why do so many people know my name?"
Cadence had to stop and think. She had only heard part of the story of Harry Potter. She had heard his name used sparsely in her home. She remembered a hushed conversation between her parents when she was about ten or eleven. They were talking about Harry Potter and how he was attending Hogwarts. Bits and pieces came back to her.
"He's in his first year?"
"Yes, that's what it says here."
"Will he be safe?"
"Apparently he's got plenty of protection there. More than he had at the first place he was staying. With those Muggles."
"Why would be expose himself to the wizarding world after what happened to his dear parents?"
"He wasn't going to learn his skills any other way. The Muggles he was living with wanted nothing to do with Hogwarts, or wizardry as it was."
"I just can't believe it."
"We can't allow our sweet Cadence to be exposed to that world, not yet. Harry has more protection than Cadence ever will have. We have to be extra careful."
Cadence answered after a long pause, "I don't know all of your story, Harry."
"You don't know all of it?" he demanded.
She sat and thought, and then, the pieces fell together. "The boy. who lived."
Harry's eyes widened. "Tell me the truth, Cadie. Piece it all together. Why do people know your name?"
She looked up at him, her eyes brimming with tears. "No."
"Yes."
"No, Harry, I don't want them to know."
"People know, Cadie."
"Harry. I don't want them to."
"Cadie."
"Wait."
"Cadie, listen to me."
"How did you find out?"
"Cadie, you have to listen to me. Tell me the truth."
"The truth? YOU want the TRUTH!"
Harry sighed. It was happening. Everything Ron and Hermione had warned him about. it was now happening, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. "Cadie, please."
"PLEASE? TRUTH?" Cadence was now livid. She sat up in her bed, clenching the blanket in her fists. "You want the truth when you've been lying to ME? YOU want the truth from ME, when you've been doing exactly the opposite to my face?"
"I haven't been lying to you!"
"Yes you have! Sneaking around behind my back, trying to learn about my history without telling me! I would call that lying!"
"I wasn't sneaking. I had to know."
"No you didn't."
"You know all about me."
Cadence didn't miss a beat. "Don't you dare turn this around on me, Harry Potter. I would have told you in due course, all you had to do was be patient."
Patient. The word popped up on him again, just as it had from Hermione's mouth. Why couldn't I have listened? Why did that floorboard intrigue me so much? Why? Why?
"Harry Potter, I don't know why you didn't just wait for me to tell you. I would have been fine with telling you everything! I would have said what I needed to say, I would have given you all of my background, but no! You had to go snooping around for it!"
Harry listened to the formal tone her voice took with him, almost as if she had forgotten who she was with him. Tears crept to his eyes, but still, she couldn't see him cry.
"Where did you find that necklace?"
"It was in a vault. in the library. under the floorboards."
"Under the floorboards? Vault? Library?"
She knew now that he had been sneaking around, so he might as well have given her the whole truth about how he had come across the truth.
"I'm so sorry, Cadie. I wanted to know why everyone knew you. I was curious. I needed to know more about you. I wanted to know more about you. I didn't know how to ask. I knew deep down that you were going to tell me in your own time but it wasn't enough for me, and I'm so sorry. I went to the library. I asked Ron for help. tonight I was looking. Hermione found me and yelled at me for sneaking around and not trusting you to tell me. I realized she was right and I was leaving, I swear. I swear I was walking away when I got caught on that loose floorboard."
Cadence watched as he fidgeted. It didn't matter to her how much she wanted to hold him, clean him up, tell him everything was okay. She was too angry and felt so betrayed. He had dared to go sneak around, trying to find information on her, like some spy?
"My curiosity got the best of me, I fished around inside of the floorboard and found some kind of box. It was sort of like the one you showed me today, with all the pictures. But this one. it was strange. The more I had this box in my possession, the uglier and more gruesome it got, evil almost. There were pictures. Old pictures. There was one of my parents." Cadence gasped, "and the same one you showed me of your parents."
Cadence stared at Harry, not wanting to believe him, but she knew that he wouldn't lie to her about something so important. "W-W-What?"
"It was that wedding picture. but old. and almost like it was starting to turn evil. The same with the picture of my parents."
Cadence couldn't speak.
"I saw this in the box," he said, gesturing to the necklace in his hand. "And I saw that my mother was wearing it. and so was yours. I forgot to put it back, so I grabbed it. Then I wanted to know. What happened?"
Cadence stared at the necklace and then back up at Harry. She ventured to get out from under the sheets of the bed and as Harry tried to stop her, she pushed him off.
"I'll tell you everything, just make me one promise."
Harry's heart almost leaped for a new hope. "Anything."
"Get out as soon as I'm done."
It was the seven words that felt like his undoing. "Cadie, I don't understand."
"It's not that complicated, Harry. You lied to me, you snuck around on me without my knowledge, betrayed my trust, and I need some time to think without you around," and as Cadence said the words, she felt a piece of herself dying.
"Think?" another word that would be his undoing. "About what?"
"It's not about us. it's about me," she whispered, and she knew she was being honest. He had done something so wrong and so deceitful, that she was going to find it hard to forgive him. She knew he had done it for his own reasons. It didn't make it any more right, but he had meant no intentional harm upon her. What she truly needed was time away from him to collect herself so she could forgive him sooner. but he couldn't know that.
"What do you mean, think?" he asked her, a sudden frenzy in his heart. He had to know what she was going to do. Was she going to completely terminate the relationship? How could she? Did she not feel the things that he felt whenever he was with her?
"Harry," she whispered. "I need to have some time to myself to think about where things are starting to go. and where they are right now. I need some time without you around to know whether what you have done is going to affect me."
Harry felt his heart break in two. He had no idea that things could have happened like this. Again, he felt the tears in his eyes, but still couldn't let her see that he was in distress. Until the end, he had to be strong.
"Tell me what happened," he whispered.
"All right," she whispered back. She looked away from him and felt herself travel back in time. It was so cold. so dark.
"The boy who lived. the boy who lived." she repeated. "You may have been the boy who lived, Harry. but no one ever said anything about the girl who survived." She paused and didn't notice that Harry's eyes were wide. "I'm sure there are just rumors of my family's escape. That's probably why my name isn't as widely known as yours. Everyone assumed that Lord Voldemort had finished off everyone except for you, but no one remembered that a family of three had heard of the possible attack and fled everything they ever knew to live in a strange but safe country.
"I grew up in America and I was only an infant when my parents came here. I wasn't aware of the struggles they had adjusting, but fortunately enough, we made our way back into the wizarding world without really being noticed. My father and mother continued their jobs from where they were and we built our wizard homestead steadily each year. By the time I was ten everything was done and ready. I started Quidditch training, and I didn't start my actual witchcraft schooling until a year later.
"It was wonderful, you know. I loved my studies and I absolutely adored Quidditch. My father had been a Keeper for Gryffindor and my mother had been a Beater for Hufflepuff. Quidditch was in my blood. My father instilled it into me at a young age and I found that being a Chaser was my best suit. My mother mostly controlled my studies, and by my fourth year she had told me that I was advanced enough to take my O.W.L.s early. So I did. She told me that if I had been going to Hogwarts, I probably would have been a year ahead of the children my age, mainly because it came as second nature to me. Almost everything did.
"The only thing I didn't have was real friends. The only people I ever talked to were my parents and occasional pen pals I had through owl. That was never long lasting. My parents were very strict about where I went and whom I talked to. I was never sure why. Until that night.
"It was so dark. so cold. so wet. It's imprinted in my mind as though it were yesterday. I woke up and thought it was a normal day, but my parents had been acting strangely. I didn't question it, I just carried on with my normal Quidditch training. my normal routine.
"But it was almost evening when my parents screamed at me to get in the house. there was a storm. they didn't want me out there. They were screaming bloody murder. I can still hear the terror in their cries.
"I didn't know what was going on. I was too scared to say anything. I landed and ran right into the house. Within seconds, the doors were sealed and my parents were huddling against me, cooing and coddling me, telling me they loved me, telling me that if anything were to happen, I should flee as soon as possible. I shouldn't ask questions, I should just run. I was scared, I feared for my parents' lives and my own. I cried. I asked questions like 'Why? What is going on?' and they told me everything. Why they had never let me out of the house and why we weren't living in England. I knew there was something strange about why we were in America. They always talked about England like it was the greatest place to be raised. They told me the whole truth. Even things I don't want to share with you.
"They told me about you. They told me there was one boy who survived and he was already in Hogwarts. They told me that if I was ever to meet him, I should probably stay away. Trouble would follow us. I cried. What did that mean? Why would I meet you? Why would I come to Hogwarts? My mother. she was wearing that necklace.
"I didn't know what to think, I just lay there in a puddle of my own tears, clinging to my parents like they couldn't let go. I didn't know what else to do. I was scared.
"It all happened at once, hours, but it seemed minutes, later. The entire house began to tremble and the front doors blew off and the whole house grew dark. I felt something in my heart. like some kind of evil had overcome me. My head throbbed. I wanted to run like my parents had said for me to do. I wanted out. I wanted to leave as soon as possible, but I wanted my parents right there with me. I couldn't leave them. I had never been more scared in my life.
"My mother stood up and told me to run. I told her no, I wasn't going anywhere without her. She ordered me to run. My father did as well. I couldn't see much, but I heard a voice. My parents stood in front of me as if they were shielding me. I remember my mother screaming, 'You won't take her!' My father was screaming the Killing Curse and whoever was standing in front of them was cackling.
"In a flash. I saw my mother bend over. She took off her necklace and threw it. Another flash. I saw my father fall. I screamed. My mother looked at me and on her face was the look I'll never forget as long as I live. It told me how much she loved me and would miss me. She said, 'Run' before she too fell.
"And so I did. I ran so fast and so far, Harry. I was almost out of the city before I stopped. I didn't even bother to look back. I was too frightened. I don't remember much after that. all I remember is waking up in some strange room. My grandmother was there with some unfamiliar faces, and they told me what happened. I apparently had collapsed on someone's front lawn and then immediately taken to the hospital. They sent an urgent owl to my grandmother in England.
"I was spared the details. but it didn't matter. I knew all of them."
Tears were now flowing freely down her cheeks and she stood at the window of the hospital wing. It seemed as though everything had happened all over again.
"I don't want to ever live that day over again, Harry, that's why I spared you the details," she whispered.
Harry didn't know what to do. He wanted to go hold her, he wanted to tell her it was okay. He wanted her to know that he felt the same way about losing his parents. It was a wound he didn't want opened. He wanted to cry with her.
But he couldn't. He had to leave.
He stood up and walked over to her. He stood almost a foot away from her, watching her pale blonde head lean over the cool window toward the night. He knew that her cheeks were the sweetest shade of rose and that her dark chocolate eyes shone with the mist of her tears. Her small, soft hands caressed the cool glass and her tiny frame panted as she breathed up and down. She was so beautiful and so unique, and he could see it in one vision.
But it hurt so badly to know that he had lost all of it just because of his stupid curiosity.
"Cadie." he began.
"Don't call me Cadie," she shot angrily. The only light left in his eyes died. "Leave."
The words were so cold and so bitter that they shattered every hope he could have ever had in his heart. His mouth dropped open and his extended hand faltered. "What?"
"You made me a promise, Harry. I can't have you here now."
"Why not?"
"Harry." she half chuckled, half sniffled. She didn't turn around. "You betrayed my trust. I need time to convince myself this love is worth my heart being lied to."
The daze that he had tried to pull out of was becoming a cloud, raining upon his head. He stepped backward, his green eyes glinting in the pale light of the hospital wing.
"When can I see you again?" he whispered.
"I don't know," she said back. "I'm going back to classes next week. I'll meet you in the common room the night I'm coming back."
"Next Monday?" he asked.
She nodded. "Go."
He couldn't say much else, so he walked toward the door and finally, he turned to stare at the beautiful figure he could make out in the window. He left, tears streaming down his cheeks so hard he could taste them on his tongue. He stared at the closed door and pictured her in his mind, standing in front of that window. Would he ever again know the sweetness of her touch? Would it always be different?
"Harry?" she whispered. She stepped away from the window and turned to see that he had left. She turned back to the window for a split second, felt fresh tears pour down her face, and walked slowly toward the door. She stared at it, picturing Harry walking away.
Lightly, she raised her hand and pressed it palm down on the door.
Harry could almost feel the heat from the room on his own hand as he pressed it closely toward the door.
And in unison, they whispered, "I love you."