Safe
Girls don't make sense. They really don't.
They always turn on you, when you're trying to keep them safe.
They wear their hair in thick brown plaits—or maybe in blonde pigtails, but for now, let's say brown plaits—and they do the most incalculable things. They're brave when you want them to be cuddly, and they're cuddly when you want them to be brave. They're weepy when you don't have time, and then when you do have time, they don't want you anymore. And they just won't let you keep them safe.
She was right about the Galleon. She was absolutely right. You stopped carrying yours a year ago, after the D.A. got busted, because you never thought the Galleon was anything more than a device (and gosh, Hermione, a pretty cool device) for scheduling meetings. All right, so maybe you took it out a couple times over the summer, to see if you could figure out how to do a Protean Charm yourself, but you never thought you were going to use that Galleon again. Because you never thought there would be a Battle of Hogwarts. Even now, you couldn't believe that Albus Dumbledore, whom you worshipped, because he was brilliant and he made you a prefect and he was the only one You-Know-Who had ever feared, was letting a battle happen inside Hogwarts. But she said it was real, she kept insisting it was real, and even though you weren't sure you believed her, you charmed the porthole to keep her safe, and now you were hearing crashes and shouts and explosions, and someone had seen the Dark Mark above the Astronomy Tower, and even though this couldn't be happening, you knew it was happening. And you were a prefect, and you had to keep everyone safe.
Even when those cheeky twelve-year-olds begged you to take them out into the corridor, and you checked that she wasn't looking and you uncharmed the porthole and you took them out for a minute, you spent the entire time counting noses and looking over your shoulder.
You just had to keep everyone safe.
Because she was right, you know. It must be awfully hard if your mother got murdered.
People were getting murdered all the time now.
Imagine if anyone in Hufflepuff got murdered.
Cedric Diggory, for example. Cedric Diggory was the first to go. And then Dumbledore made you a prefect, and you thought, I have to keep everyone safe. Not like last year. This year, everyone has to be safe.
So you joined the D.A., and you made it your top priority, because you knew it was the most important thing you were doing that year, even though OWLs were coming up and you had to get good OWLs. Even though you sometimes had other things on your mind, like, well, blonde pigtails. You made the D.A. a priority, because you were a prefect, and you had to keep everyone safe.
And for the first year, it pretty much worked. Professor Dumbledore disappeared for a while, and Professor McGonagall got attacked, and Dolores Umbridge was a total git, and so was Draco Malfoy. But in Hufflepuff, the first year you were a prefect, everyone was safe.
Then the war started, and her mother got murdered.
And you realized that the war was going to happen to you anyway, even if you were a prefect, and even if you took extra lessons in Defense against the Dark Arts, and even if you did your damnedest to keep everyone safe.
And she got mad at you, and the one good thing in your life (aside from being a prefect) broke up, and all there was left to do was study all the time.
You had studied a lot this year, but you still weren't sure you had figured out how to keep everyone safe.
And if your thoughts sometimes strayed to someone who didn't seem to care so much, whether or not she was safe, what of that? Because the one you really wanted didn't want you anymore, and there was a war on, and it was coming too close for comfort, and you were studying all the time now, and you still hadn't figured out how to keep everyone safe.
Of course, it was really too soon to say, "I love you." You realized that when you tried to say it, and you stopped. You just didn't want to wait too long. Because you didn't say it last time, and you should have. You realized that now.
It was really a mistake to meet the right girl too soon. When you were fifteen, and you hadn't a notion in hell of what you were doing. You should have gone out with someone else first, made your mistakes on her.
Not on someone who mattered.
You just wanted her not to be crying all the time. You wanted her to be happy again, like last year, before her mother was murdered. You wanted her to be safe.
You just wanted everyone to be safe.
