A/N: Sorry about the long wait for the update (hehe that rhymed) *clears throat* Sorry, I'll try to be more mature about this. Anyway, I hit writer's block, and then a bit of a rough patch in my daily life, so it's been a few days, but here you guys go. I hope you read and review and enjoy. You guys are great! Love ya ~ Piper
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of it's characters, and the chapter also contains lyrics from the song Lost Boy by Ruth B.
Hey Bella? What's wrong? Is someone scared?
I woke with a start, looked out the window, and then at the clock. It was two o'clock in the morning, and I was wide awake and having a panic attack. Great, just great. Sleep made me tired, being tired meant being grumpy, and being grumpy meant probably fighting with friends. I needed to take a walk. I got up and walked down the stairs, and went out the door.
The stars were brighter than they had been the night before. I saw Orion's belt, the Big Dipper, and… Leo. I wished I had someone there to hold me. To help protect me from my dreams, my brother, myself. I looked around, but no one was there. I was all alone, and there was no one who could save me from my loneliness.
I kept watching the stars, and trying to figure out what they were. I had found the north star, the dippers, and a few other constellations. I was finally breathing normally and realized that I was getting tired. I got up, and started to walk back towards the house. Before I got there I stopped to look at my wrist. It was still recovering from my run in with Harry earlier. I promised myself that I would be okay, that I would get better. I never believed myself when I said that, but I figured, maybe one day, that it would come true.
I got up to my room, and crashed into my bed. I grabbed my blanket and cuddled into it. If I had more bad dreams I wouldn't want to sleep, and then I would ruin my life by being tired. I hoped that I would feel better in the morning.
I woke up to an alarm going off, a Rose groaning out loud, and the wound of a door closing.
Rose," I said sitting up quickly, "We've been compromised."
"Mhmm, yeah sure."
"Rose I'm serious. I heard the door close. It was them."
Rose sat up groggily, trying to rub the sleepiness out of her eyes. I saw her shake her head at my paranoia, and then I saw her gasp and start giggling.
"No!" I gasped out, sprinting for the bathroom.
"Oh I am going to kill them, and by them I mean him," I said, as I looked in the mirror.
They had gotten me back, by drawing on my face. I was a kitten, wearing a monocle, and a smile like one the Joker from Batman wears. I turned on the shower, and hopped in attempting to wash the drawings off, although knowing James, he would have taken a picture.
I felt my arm begin to burn from the heat of the water hitting my skin. While the water was perfect, it stung with every drop that hit my wrist. I tried to avoid looking at my wrist, and decided to distract myself by singing one of my favorite Muggle songs.
~ There was a time when I was alone,
nowhere to go and no place to call home,
my only friend was the man in the moon,
and even sometimes he would go away, too. ~
In the same way that I was calmed down by stars, I was calmed down by Peter Pan. Most of my favorite Muggle type things had to do with that character and things pertaining to him. Finding Neverland had become one of my favorite musicals, and this song called Lost Boy had popped up on my radar recently. It had helped me before I had left for Hogwarts in September, and I loved to sit and sing it just so I could feel better.
~ Run, run lost boy,
they say to me,
Away from all reality ~
I got out of the shower, and had calmed down a good amount more than I had earlier. I toweled off, drying off my hair, and got changed into a cute Peter Pan themed sweater, that had images from Walt Disney's movie on it, and some jeans. I walked out into my room, and went to walk down stairs for breakfast.
"You have a really pretty voice."
I whirled around, catching my hand on the bannister, barely stopping myself from falling down them.
It was Hugo.
"How'd you hear my voice?" I asked him, leaning down to his height.
"Oh, they sent me to wake you and Rose up, but neither of you were in your room, but then I heard singing coming from the bathroom, so I listened for a bit. I won't tell anyone if you don't want me too," he said, in a small voice.
"I'd rather you not, just for a while okay?" I asked, adding on, "It'll be our secret."
"Fine," Hugo said, grinning, "But you owe me a pack of sugar quills."
"I didn't doubt it," I said laughing, "Let's go get breakfast."
I watched Hugo run down the stairs and walked down after him, trying not to strain my recently healed leg. I had never felt good at singing, but it was one of the ways I could cheer myself up and that was good enough for me.I didn't want my friends to think I was bad or good because then I would have to live up to their expectations or deal with them telling me I was awful.
I got down the stairs in time to grab a seat at the table before all the boys were there. I loaded up my plate with bacon and eggs, and filled up my glass with orange juice.
"And she starts without us again," Albus mocked, as he and James sat at the table.
"Can't stop a girl when she's hungry," I said giggling, "Anyway it's not like you guys deserved me to wait for you."
"You wound me fair maiden, " James said, clutching his hand to his chest.
""What did James do this time?" Ginny sang out, lightly smacking James upside the head.
"He became an artist in the cover of night, solely to get back at Iz," Rose said, sitting next to me.
"She looks perfectly clean to me," Hermione said, looking me over.
"The wonders of modern plumbing and soap," I said, happily shoving eggs into my mouth.
"Ahah! But the pictures were worth it," James spoke out, "Blackmail, blackmail for a thousand years."
"At least I looked good, All you looked was silly the other day," I said defensively.
"You can't say she's wrong there," Harry called out from the kitchen.
"You don't even know what we're talking about!" James called back at him.
"He doesn't have to know," Ginny stated, "I learned that a long while ago."
We all started laughing, and branched off into conversations of our own. I had finished eating a bit ago, but I was enjoying all of the conversation. I had never known how much fun I could have just sitting around a table talking to other people.
"Oh, by the way Isabella, I love your sweater." Hermione said, smiling sweetly, "Peter Pan was one of my favorite childhood cartoons."
"I really like Peter Pan as well. It has always been one of my favorites, and I got this sweater in a Muggle store a couple of years ago," I explained, "Oh and that reminds me, Rose and I have a proposition to talk to you about afer breakfast."
"Please do tell at the table Iz," James requested, "We would love to be filled in on the proposition."
"It was girl stuff yesterday, and it's still gonna be girl stuff today," I replied.
"Ew, mom make her stop," James complained.
"Can't. It's a girl code thing," Ginny said, winking at me.
"Well then I'm done with breakfast," James said, walking away from the table.
Rose and I giggled at the fuss he was making, and said we were done too. We told Hermione to come up to our room once she was done. We walked up to our room, and closed the door behind us. I walked over to my bed and pulled out a deck of Muggle playing cards, and started to shuffle them.
"Hey Iz, other than the art you found on your face this morning, you're doing okay, right?" Rose asked me.
"Rose, you don't need to worry about me, I'm okay, and after our girl's trip I'll be even better."
"Okay Iz, I believe you, just don't be afraid, ya know, to talk to me or anything like that. I know it's been hard for you these past couple of years with your family, but shutting everything in isn't a good thing to do."
"Rose, I'm serious, It's all good. I'll start opening up eventually. It'll just take time."
I went silent and started dealing out a game of solitaire. I pulled an ace from the top of the pile, and moved it to begin my game.
"Whatcha doin'?"
"Solitaire."
"Yup, still have no clue what it is."
"It's a Muggle card game that you can play by yourself."
"Muggle cards?"
"Yes Muggle cards," I said, smiling exasperatedly, "You can play tons of games with them, with multiple people, add decks, only use parts of decks, do magic tricks."
"Magic tricks?" Rose questioned.
"Yeah like 'pick a card, any card' and stuff like that." I said, looking at her weirdly, "Your mum never told you about any of these things?"
"No. How'd you find out about 'em?"
"The Muggle villages have always been my solace. I saw a street magician doing card tricks and such, and I thought it was really cool. Cause It's magic without, well, magic."
"Can you show me a trick?" Rose asked, her eyes growing with excitement.
"Let me finish this game, then I will."
Rose watched closely as I placed my last few cards on top of each other, and shuffled the cards to mix them back up. I fanned put the shuffled cards toward Rose.
"Okay, so you're gonna pick a card and look at it, but don't let me see or tell me what it is," I explained.
Rose picked out a card, looked at it, and then placed it in the stack. I started mixing up the cards, doing flashy thing like laying out all the cards and flipping them back over. I asked her to cut the deck, after explaining to her what that meant, and then I grabbed the card off of the top of the deck.
"Is this your card?" I asked, holding up the four of clubs.
"Merlin," Rose gasped out.
"Yup, that would be a Muggle magic trick," Hermione said, closing the door behind her as she entered the room.
"No way, no way that's a Muggle thing!" Rose exclaimed.
"It is though! I didn't use any real magic!" I exclaimed back.
"Mom?" Rose asked in exasperation.
"It's true. No real magic. Now what is it you girls wanted to talk about?"
"First, why do older boy's leave or start acting like gentlemen when the phrase girl stuff is mentioned?" Rose asked.
"And second, we want to plan a girl's trip Muggle style with you, and Ginny and Lily if they want." I stated.
"Well, the second question is easy, I think that is a wonderful idea and I definitely do miss the Muggle world. Now for the first that takes a bit more of a delicate talk," Hermione began.
We went on to learn about the changes our bodies were soon going to go through as we began to grow up. I was glad none of that was happening to me now, but I never wanted to have that talk again. After Hermione explained all of that nasty stuff to us, she told us to be thinking of some things that we would want to do when we went on our girl's trip.
I was so excited because I knew that I could come up with some fun things to do. I was looking forward to my last few days before school started back up. I just needed to keep busy and stay away from my own thoughts, and then I would be okay.