Chapter 8: Roomates and Wishes
by FromthedepthsofDreams
You're the beauty that is deeper, than eyes can merely see. The closest thing to perfect, but the farthest thing from me." The great Oliver Wood finds the girl of his dreams the only problem is she despises him. Can he win her over or will she forever judge him by his faults instead of the beauty the lies beneath?
OW/OC rated pg-13 for language and just to be safe.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything about this except for those characters, places, and themes not present in any of JKR's books
I slowly the touched the tip of wand to the wick of the last white candle and set it on the evenest part of the musty red rug that could be found being careful lest it tip and set the room on fire. All around our dorm, my roommates had lit a variety of white candles varying in shape and size collected over the years from various school parties, feasts, and classes for our own purposes. The light provided little light in the darkened room but a dim glow that seemed to rise from all different points of the room, the ceiling including tonight as a few of the floating candles had been dragged upward by a large draft.
As we all finished we convened rather seriously in a circle evenly spread out, each girl acting as a one point of the star of a pentagon lined in flower petals focused towards the small wooden box in the center. It looked exactly like you would expect a treasure chest to look except it was small no bigger then six inches wide and four tall. It was a dark brown wood, what I kind I'm really not sure, not being a tree expert myself. Embellished on the cover in mysterious glistening gold was the same emblem that we had replicated around ourselves. It was a pentagon shining, emitting a soft glow on our all faces. We all stared at it, feeling comfort in just listening to the silence, as if below it we could hear the magic emanating from the box and ourselves.
Teleri spoke first, as was characteristic, always the leader. She was fierce looking, with untamed wild red hair that seemed to rival her empowering green eyes. Her skin was Irish fair and smooth with out a blemish of any kind be it acne or scar. Her face was serious and headstrong; her cheek bones high-class and defined. She looked flawless to the naked eye, despite the grave face she masked herself with, but nothing is ever what it appears.
When I first met her, coming in fresh and new from America, she seemed to be this untouchable, unattainable go-getter. She always had the perfect grades, prefect of Gryffindor, athletic, and involved with everything at Hogwarts, from the elite wizards chess club to the Society for Chocolate Frog Trading Cards (quite a bit more popular than one would think). I and every other Gryffindor had her pegged for Head Girl, until her breakdown during our 6th year. For everything one thing I had found perfect and flawless in her nature, I found a piece of despair and trouble; fragments of safely kept flaws. She was closet case of obsessive compulsiveness; no matter what she was doing she had to have complete control over. It got so bad last year that it got to the point where she refused to leave the dormitory for classes or even food. Nobody knew of the situation expect for Professor McGonagall and the rest of us girls that roomed with her. It wasn't long before people began to wonder why the schools goody two shoes wasn't making her regular appearances for club meetings and classes. Us roomies never told anyone what happened, but come to think of it we were never very social outside our small group anyways.
I was most surprised one day when a letter came from her parents; she'd always told me that they were living in Africa, where, due to the complex nature of jungles and their hot climate, even magical communication was deemed impossible. However this letter was not from Africa, this letter had a return address of a flat in the up scale parts of London. It wasn't hard to overhear the content, her parents had sent a howler no less. They did not send their support or love but complained of her inadequacy to receive top marks in her all of her courses and to chide her on the selfishness that she was displaying by ruining the family name with her 'silliness.' Turns out that her family was never in Africa, just too completely absorbed in them to bother with their own flesh blood.
Before hearing that letter, I admit I hadn't always treated her kindly. To be truthful I'd been secretly annoyed, yes maybe even a bit jealous of Teli, but I've gotten over it now. We've both overcame our hidden emotions and became true friends. Teleri is better too, still the leader, but only in very downplayed situations.
"This may be the last time we do this, so lets try to be serious, we don't want another pillow fight like last year." She said and everyone unanimously looked at me, "What?" I asked guilty, "it wasn't like we weren't done anyways, sides I still stand my story." I said a manner of fact. "Eli, you said that a secret agent spy owl, dressed in an invisibility cloak, was sent from Slytherin to swoop in here and throw YOUR pillow at Jessica to start a war between us so they could have the opportunity, while we were divided to finally win the House Cup," mocked Scarlett in a doubtful tone. "Hey, just because you're a non-believer doesn't make me any less right, you just wait, one day the whole world will know how smart I really am." I said in jest, pretending to be serious to back up my story. "Right El, and I suppose that'll all be coming out when you're Minister of Magic right?" laughed Jessica, who had been a silent onlooker till this point. "Nope," I said a grin creeping out from behind my mask of solemnity, "and it's Ministress of Magic to you."
Laughter ensued and as the general chatter slowly dwindled, Teleri slowly opened the box, as a child would, savoring the moment of opening the last package on Christmas. The box was one of things that commanded it's presence known with the kind of awe widening glowing that one would see like rays of light echoing of a piece of golden treasure. We all were thoughtful as Tel retrieved a special quill from inside the box.
The quill was feather from the wing of a jobberknoll, small and blue it wasn't very common to find outside of a potions lab. Jobberknoll's are unique creatures, never making a sound until they are about to die, when they let out a scream that holds every sound they have ever heard. Their feathers have only ever been used for memory potions till us, but I suppose our use as a quill involved something to the effects of the box.
That box held every memory since we had arrived, in a sense it was the Gryffindor sisterhood; it held every high time, and every low, it held our secrets, our passions, and more importantly our desires. It had happened every year since I had arrived, we would sit in this same pentacle and inserted three wishes into the box. It was if we were placing a part of our souls in a sacred place, where together they could lie and record our hidden thoughts.
Each aspiration was made for the school year ahead and never with out any point or reason. Each desire stood for apart of who we were, our minds, hearts, and souls. I'm sure I'm not the only one with the unanswered question of why these three, why not the traditional mind, body, and soul, but it has never been asked. Just as it has never been asked why we did our same ritual every year. These questions, and feelings weren't meant to be answered; they were designed to be discovered. In truth I enjoyed the mystery of being apart of something deep and real.
I picked up my three small pieces of parchment as the quill came into my hands. It was smaller than most quills, which should have made it harder to use, yet it felt natural and soft in my hands. The ink flowed from the pen, so it required no ink well. It was sparkling royal blue as I etched each word in carefully before fading into regular plain old ink the moment my hand left the page, as if the paper was absorbing all the magic in the words.
Folding up my words I hastily placed each creased piece into the box where I watched my words slowly incinerate in a flash of cool blue flames...
A/N: ok this chapter is a little more serious and a little it odd from the normal pace of this story but I felt it necessary to explain more about how Eli gets along with her roommates and the kind of relationship and things that they do at Hogwarts. I know I didn't tell you her wishes but you will find them out in the end… it ties in…also if you're confused about this chapter it is just basically a ritual that they all do as friends to set out their goals for the year and become closer together….not a cult or anything…was inspired by the sisterhood of the traveling pants in a way…….