Or you might stay standing there, stunned by the idea that you don't hate
him. That you never did. He's perfect (smudged, crooked, flawless) and
you've always been taught to covet perfect things. Puzzled by your
continuing presence he glances up at you. You take a deep breath.
"Sorry." You say. ("Drink." Says Daddy but your immaculate china arms don't move.)
You bend down to help him collect his books and turn you face away from his incredulous look. (Glass fingers used to holding empty glass cups fumble with the concrete material.) When all his books are gathered you both stand uncomfortably in the corridor.
"Um...Thanks." He mumbles looking anywhere but you. (He clutches the heavy material to his chest as though it weighed nothing, but if you'd had carried such a burden for years wouldn't you have stopped noticing it's weight after a while too?) You walk away without another word. If you act any nicer to him tonight he might have a heart attack.
The next day you nod to him as you pass him in the halls. It sends his friends into a flurry of whispers. You can tell he'd convinced himself that yesterday hadn't really happened by the way his eye's widen. (Green buttons grow and grow and you drown and drown.) He gets this look on his face like 'Oh my god, I'm going insane.' And then Granger (Not yarn or porcelain, but twigs. A stick doll with ridged arms and legs and a spray of splinters for hair.) begins to question him and the look changes to 'Oh God, kill me now.' People wonder if you're sick but you nod again the next day and the next and the next, until no one notices, until no one cares, until he begins to nod back.
Soon after you approach him for help in transfiguration. You could pass on your own but your grades are bad enough to be convincing. Your talent lies with potions and McGonnagall, like Snape, favors her house. You make sure you are the only two people in the library so it looks as though you were forced to come to him and you scowl appropriately while grumbling for help in a roundabout way. It's not entirely an act. It galls you that you have to pretend to need help to speak with him. ("If you need help you have already failed." Daddy's voice echoes in you ears.)
Ever the good Griffyndor, he eventually gives in and tutors you, secretly of course. It takes him two weeks before he stops taking offence to everything you say and another week before he begins to laugh. (Oh how those green buttons shine!) You hadn't meant to be funny, but once he starts laughing you suddenly find yourself trying to make him laugh.
Your grades in Transfiguration go up much to your chagrin and soon Christmas comes around. You make sure to look extra forlorn and lonely all by yourself at the Slytherin table and it's not even a day before Harry comes to sit with you. Granger and Weasley trail reluctantly behind, not willing to him leave alone with the Slytherins. You have Granger charmed within two days, Weasley in four. (You cradle them so carefully in your fragile glass hands.) And when everybody comes back from break they know you hang out with them.
Your old playmates (Those fragile porcelain dolls you drank tea with not too long ago.) ask you why and threaten you and then, when you still refuse to leave Harry, owl your father. He sends a cold note that says in no uncertain terms you will stop being friends with Harry or there will be consequences. You take the letter directly to the Headmaster. (Daddy can scream and shout and you will never listen ever again.)
The Headmaster promptly gives you his protection and soon the whole school knows of your betrayal. You manage to make it through the year (Your delicate friend throw stones meant to shatter you but your rag doll protects you. Stone doesn't break wool.) Both you and Harry stay at Hogwarts over the summer. He's getting special training and you've got nowhere else to go.
Harry kisses you the first time at the end of June. (A child's soft peck on the lips. His bent wire glasses click softly as they hit your pale porcelain nose.) You don't speak to each other again for three days. On the end of the third day you corner him in his common room, and when he tries to sneak away you capture his lips with yours. (Not a child's sweet kiss. You're glass fingers dig into his black yarn hair.)
It's an entirely new way to monopolize Harry's attention and it works so much better than anything you've tried before. You grab the chance with both hands (Porcelain hands threaten to shatter from the force of it.) and refuse to let go. Harry is yours and no one else's.
Your seventh year comes and goes. Harry wakes screaming from a dream one night and he makes to leave his bed to tell the Headmaster of it but you pull him back and distract him. The now permanent silencing charm blocks out both his nightmare induced screams and the sounds you coax from him afterwards. Voldemort razes the Ministry of Magic to the ground the next day. You hold Harry through his guilt.
And as you graduate it is all too easy to convince Harry to leave the wizarding world with you. He loves you and, having been deprived of love (Cold closets and colder words are a poor substitute for a patched doll who thrives on warmth.) most of his life, holds on to it almost as tightly as you grasp at him.
You convince him to cut off all communication to the wizarding world and it's not that hard. He has grown distant from Hermione and Ron in the last year. (Shiny new porcelain is so much more interesting than bundles of sticks or cracked and broken china dolls.) Your last missive from them tells you that Voldemort is moving quickly. One by one all the wizarding strongholds are falling. But Harry still stays by your side. Even as the magical world burns to ashes behind you, you still wake every morning with Harry sleeping next to you. Even as his eye's dull and the guilt of leaving his friends behind to die begins to kill him (Shiny green buttons grow chipped and faded and his clumsy stitching begin to unravel no matter how many frozen glass kisses bestowed upon his tattered forehead.) he stay's with you.
He is your perfect, tattered boy and no one else can have him, ever.
------------------------
"Sorry." You say. ("Drink." Says Daddy but your immaculate china arms don't move.)
You bend down to help him collect his books and turn you face away from his incredulous look. (Glass fingers used to holding empty glass cups fumble with the concrete material.) When all his books are gathered you both stand uncomfortably in the corridor.
"Um...Thanks." He mumbles looking anywhere but you. (He clutches the heavy material to his chest as though it weighed nothing, but if you'd had carried such a burden for years wouldn't you have stopped noticing it's weight after a while too?) You walk away without another word. If you act any nicer to him tonight he might have a heart attack.
The next day you nod to him as you pass him in the halls. It sends his friends into a flurry of whispers. You can tell he'd convinced himself that yesterday hadn't really happened by the way his eye's widen. (Green buttons grow and grow and you drown and drown.) He gets this look on his face like 'Oh my god, I'm going insane.' And then Granger (Not yarn or porcelain, but twigs. A stick doll with ridged arms and legs and a spray of splinters for hair.) begins to question him and the look changes to 'Oh God, kill me now.' People wonder if you're sick but you nod again the next day and the next and the next, until no one notices, until no one cares, until he begins to nod back.
Soon after you approach him for help in transfiguration. You could pass on your own but your grades are bad enough to be convincing. Your talent lies with potions and McGonnagall, like Snape, favors her house. You make sure you are the only two people in the library so it looks as though you were forced to come to him and you scowl appropriately while grumbling for help in a roundabout way. It's not entirely an act. It galls you that you have to pretend to need help to speak with him. ("If you need help you have already failed." Daddy's voice echoes in you ears.)
Ever the good Griffyndor, he eventually gives in and tutors you, secretly of course. It takes him two weeks before he stops taking offence to everything you say and another week before he begins to laugh. (Oh how those green buttons shine!) You hadn't meant to be funny, but once he starts laughing you suddenly find yourself trying to make him laugh.
Your grades in Transfiguration go up much to your chagrin and soon Christmas comes around. You make sure to look extra forlorn and lonely all by yourself at the Slytherin table and it's not even a day before Harry comes to sit with you. Granger and Weasley trail reluctantly behind, not willing to him leave alone with the Slytherins. You have Granger charmed within two days, Weasley in four. (You cradle them so carefully in your fragile glass hands.) And when everybody comes back from break they know you hang out with them.
Your old playmates (Those fragile porcelain dolls you drank tea with not too long ago.) ask you why and threaten you and then, when you still refuse to leave Harry, owl your father. He sends a cold note that says in no uncertain terms you will stop being friends with Harry or there will be consequences. You take the letter directly to the Headmaster. (Daddy can scream and shout and you will never listen ever again.)
The Headmaster promptly gives you his protection and soon the whole school knows of your betrayal. You manage to make it through the year (Your delicate friend throw stones meant to shatter you but your rag doll protects you. Stone doesn't break wool.) Both you and Harry stay at Hogwarts over the summer. He's getting special training and you've got nowhere else to go.
Harry kisses you the first time at the end of June. (A child's soft peck on the lips. His bent wire glasses click softly as they hit your pale porcelain nose.) You don't speak to each other again for three days. On the end of the third day you corner him in his common room, and when he tries to sneak away you capture his lips with yours. (Not a child's sweet kiss. You're glass fingers dig into his black yarn hair.)
It's an entirely new way to monopolize Harry's attention and it works so much better than anything you've tried before. You grab the chance with both hands (Porcelain hands threaten to shatter from the force of it.) and refuse to let go. Harry is yours and no one else's.
Your seventh year comes and goes. Harry wakes screaming from a dream one night and he makes to leave his bed to tell the Headmaster of it but you pull him back and distract him. The now permanent silencing charm blocks out both his nightmare induced screams and the sounds you coax from him afterwards. Voldemort razes the Ministry of Magic to the ground the next day. You hold Harry through his guilt.
And as you graduate it is all too easy to convince Harry to leave the wizarding world with you. He loves you and, having been deprived of love (Cold closets and colder words are a poor substitute for a patched doll who thrives on warmth.) most of his life, holds on to it almost as tightly as you grasp at him.
You convince him to cut off all communication to the wizarding world and it's not that hard. He has grown distant from Hermione and Ron in the last year. (Shiny new porcelain is so much more interesting than bundles of sticks or cracked and broken china dolls.) Your last missive from them tells you that Voldemort is moving quickly. One by one all the wizarding strongholds are falling. But Harry still stays by your side. Even as the magical world burns to ashes behind you, you still wake every morning with Harry sleeping next to you. Even as his eye's dull and the guilt of leaving his friends behind to die begins to kill him (Shiny green buttons grow chipped and faded and his clumsy stitching begin to unravel no matter how many frozen glass kisses bestowed upon his tattered forehead.) he stay's with you.
He is your perfect, tattered boy and no one else can have him, ever.
------------------------