With a painful sigh, I placed the photo beside the twigs and reached into the box yet again, my eyes closed to the world, wishing I was still 13, innocent and with the girl I loved in a freezing lake below a gray autumn sky, waiting tomorrow and all the glory it promised.
When I removed my hand, clutching in my long fingers was a note in her lovely cursive hand… and it began….
"Dearest Sev,
I hope this note finds you well. I thought fourth year charms would be infinitely more interesting than this, but Flitwick is going on and on about summoning charms. That's SO last year. I'm sitting with Mary and Alice, both of whom are having far too much difficulty with this. I mean really, accio, point your wand, and viola, right?
But anyway, Potter and Black and Remus all have it down, and they're fully engaged in abusing the process by summoning Flitwick's wizard hat and claiming with such mock innocent eyes that they simply misfired their curses.
Curse them.
Potter keeps saying "I summon Lily's heart!" and I hope that is impossible, because that would result in my death, if my heart were to me summoned from my chest. Obviously.
I swear the average IQ I this room must be the same as Crabbe and Goyle's.
Why do you hang out with them anyway? And I know you and Lucius Malfoy remain friends. I mean, Malfoy really? He redefines scumbag in new and disgusting terms. I hear he's working for Lord Voldemort (Don't get mad I wrote the name you big baby). And Rosier? Rosier is such a jerk. Avery, Mulciber, Wilkes, Lestrange, ugh your friends are as bad as Potter's gang.
I'm glad we found each other in this crazy school, I hope I can keep you sane with all those terrible influences you surround yourself with. Now, I know you have your own mind and such, but they are such disgraces. They give Slytherin a bad name. And I hear Lestrange is dating Sirius's insane cousin Bellatrix Black. That girl needs medication.
I'm sorry I'm in such a foul mood, I'm sick with worry for my family under the reign of Lord Voldemort and I'm sick of ALWAYS having to suffer the company of Potter and Sirius.
Remus is actually a delight, I don't see why you can hate him. I bet he's a prefect next year! I hope I can join him, I don't see why not, Slughorn and I are practically best friends! (Just kidding, you're my best friend)
I guess I should go help Mary and Alice. Maybe I'm judging them too harshly. We are friends, but they don't understand things like you, Sev. Nobody does.
I was thinking about the first day we met, and you called me a witch. I was so offended.
It was really the best compliment I've ever received.
Love always,
Petal
I held this note tightly, as she passed it to me in the Great Hall on her way to the Gryffindor table with a friendly wink. I read it to myself in my own charms lesson when Flitwick wasn't looking and then I re-read it, and read it again until I memorized it.
It had been signed
Love always, Lily
And after class when Roddy Lestrange, Avery and Mulciber raced over, excitedly discussing muggle murders and the rising of the Dark Lord, I felt a sick twinge in my stomach.
Something felt wrong and something felt right.
There was a cold hatred inside me that proceeded one's downfall, but I was little concerned with my future of my soul. My concern was the excitement of my friends, those who defended me, accepted me, and my concern for the beautiful woman whose note I would be re-reading all night.
And the choice was beginning to form, light or dark?
And I was beginning to feel torn. I wanted to have my cauldron cakes and eat them too, who wouldn't wish for that?
And then Sirius hit me with a tripping jinx as I stood from the table at lunch and my face fell into someone's mashed potatoes, and the dark side began to hold more appeal, with every battle, the dark side grew inside of my heart, the darker side of magic, so alluring.
Who wouldn't be allured? Lily, I reminded myself, always Lily.
But I was 14, and I wanted something glorious.
"Want to go to a meeting Lucius and Bellatrix are setting up?" Roddy asked me after I cleaned the potatoes from my face disdainfully, "It's In honor of the rising of the Dark Lord. In honor of disposing of trash like James Potter and Sirius Black."
"Yeah," I nodded, avoiding Lily's eyes from across the hall, and holding her note so tightly in my clammy palm, "I'll be there, mate."
It was the beginning of my fourth year, but who cares about my fourth year? It was the beginning of my life. My heart beat far too quickly as I remember those racing, confused, adolescent thoughts, that adolescent hatred, that adolescent love, all of those youthful feelings that had grown and manifested into the rest of my life.
I sighed, and to keep my thoughts from growing too deep, my hand dove into my red box of memories once again and with my hand, I pulled out a pair of James Potter's glasses, and despite the plummeting feeling within my stomach, I burst into laughter, a sound I was not used to hearing escape my own lips, a strange sound in Spinners End, but no other sound could accompany the sight of those glasses, no sound but laughter could explain the memory.
I smiled to myself…
AUTHORS NOTE:
Things about to get… a little dark… =]
Pls read and review!
It means so much
-your devoted author