Prompt: Wonderful Talent (#400)

March 1992

"Wizarding children's stories seem very different than muggle stories," Violet commented from where she sat on a stone bench in the courtyard. A small, leather-bound book- a collection of stories by Beedle the Bard- lay open on her lap, which she then shut as she finished it.

Beside her, Tracey looked up from the licorice wand she was chewing the end of while studying for their next Potions quiz, and looked at her best friend, who had recently become interested in wizarding children's stories after a discussion they'd previously had where she discovered that they'd grown up with very different fairytales.

"You should be studying for the test," Tracey pointed out dryly, not without a little bit of envy. Because no matter how little Violet tried, how atrocious she was at the practical aspect of Potions, the girl with jet-black hair seemed to have great memorization skills. It seemed she never had to crack a book in order to get a high score on a quiz or exam. Which Tracey found rather irritating, considering how much time she herself devoted to her studies. Granted, her scores were usually higher than Violet's, but only barely which wasn't really fair when she studied so hard for those scores.

Violet waved her hand in dismissal. Violet did not study. Ever.

The only times she cracked open her text books was for homework, and even then it was with extreme reluctance and prejudice. In that aspect, she and Harry were quite similar she supposed.

At the thought of her twin, Violet felt a familiar ache in her chest. She missed her brother.

It had now been just over three months, and they were still not talking to each other. Not that Harry seemed to be actively going out of his way to avoid her (although with the size of the castle, and their houses being on polar ends, he didn't really have to try).

This was the longest they'd ever gone, without speaking to one another. The longest a row had ever lasted, and Violet had to admit that it scared her how much time Harry could spend apart from her without even a symptom of... regret or anything.

Violet recalled a time- perhaps because they didn't have anyone else- when they clung to each other.

Violet wanted to smile, or cry, remembering times locked in the cupboard when she and Harry would curl up on the little pallet facing one another. Times when she needed to get her mind off the crawly spiders that inhabited their cramped living space... times when she needed Harry to quiet from one of the Dursley's punishments, and she would tell him stories of magic. Stories filled with castles, knights, and dragons.

Even the stories from her head, and the magic in them, was nothing like the reality. But then... when magic seemed only the stuff of stories with it's limitless possibilities despite the strange things that happened around them, it was something that comforted them. A secret they shared in whispered voices, stories she told in defiance of the Dursley's and their mania against all things imaginative or remotely magical.

It was part of one of her earliest memories.

She recalled, she couldn't be anymore than four, though she felt as if she must've been three. And for the first time, Harry had asked Aunt Petunia about his lightning shaped scar.

Violet hadn't understood why Aunt Petunia had gotten so angry that she grabbed both of them by the scruff of the neck and locked them in the cupboard for the rest of the day. But she'd grabbed Harry so hard, that her nails had scraped his neck, and Harry started to cry.

And as they both sat in the dark little cupboard, Violet had pulled Harry close, her little scrawny arms trying to shield him and comfort him. Wanting almost to absorb him into herself, so that nothing would ever hurt him.

"Shh... don't cry. She's just lying, because it's so special Harry," Violet had whispered into his hair, pressing her face right against Harry's as she hugged him tight while he cried silently. Because to cry out loud, was to incur uncle Vernon's wrath. He had no patience for the twin's cries, as it was all expended on Dudley's temper tantrums. "She's jealous, because your scar is magic."

"Which one is your favorite?" Tracey asked with a sigh, taking off her glasses and scrubbing at her dry eyes. She needed a study break.

Violet snapped out of her thoughts and turned to her pretty friend. Briefly, she turned to look at the book of her lap, as if to contemplate the answer, but it was already at her lips.

"The Warlocks Hairy Heart," Violet responded before scrunching her nose and offering a smile. "Although, it's a bit silly for a heart to become hairy. It has no hair follicles!"

Tracey furrowed her brow and stared at Violet with a wry but amused smile. Leave it to Violet to relate logic to an obscure piece of a children's story.

"Yes, because removing a heart will stop one from feeling emotion," Tracey pointed out dryly, before scrunching her own nose in distaste. "I always thought that story to be gross."

"Well, which one is your favorite then?" Violet asked, turning up her nose in imitation of Daphne at her most snottiest. Tracey briefly giggled before responding.

"I always wanted dad to tell me The Tale of the Three Brothers."

Violet furrowed her brow, wondering why something about that story seemed to remind her of something, but pushed it away. While she had enjoyed that story much more than Babbity Rabbity, or the story about the fountain, it didn't quite speak to her the way the story of the Hairy Heart did.

Having no heart... being able to cut it out, and not have to feel anything, it seemed something almost worth envying. Except, that for the warlock it turned out so terribly.

And at the same time, her heart ached for the fictional man. Perhaps because.. when she read the story, she couldn't help picturing Professor Snape as the Warlock. And she couldn't help wondering if perhaps their very odd Head of House, who could be as cold as he was cruel, had put away his own heart.

Was that possible? Was their magic to disconnect from your emotions?

TBC...