20 Dec. 11 – 7:40 AM

Sh…

Do you hear that?

…

It's another chapter. Going to take my Calc. final in a bit…

EDIT: 25 February 2012 – 4:04 PM: Trust me, I'm trying to work on this story, and all of my other ones…

If someone told me how hard senior year was going to be, I would have pleaded with them to give me all of their notes! ALL OF THEM!

I got an A on that Final by the way. :D

Alfred sighed, ignoring his pumpkin juice.

Mathieu sighed as well, munching on a muffin. "Alfred, you have to eat."

"I don't want to."

Francis, a French student, a fifth-year, gasped. "Mon Dieu, Alfred n'ai pas de faim! C'est le fin du monde!"

"Tais-toi!" Mathieu cried out softly, hitting the older boy. As surprising as it was, Alfred seemed too depressed. Or rather, distracted. He placed his hand on the other's shoulder. "What's wrong, Al?"

Alfred shook his head, bringing himself back to reality. "It's not much, Matt." He decided that his throat was dry and that he could put this off for a few seconds, so he drank some of the pumpkin juice. Feeling the cool, orange liquid slide down his oesophagus and splash in his stomach, he put the now empty glass down and sighed.

"Do you remember yesterday, that boy with those huge eyebrows?" He gesticulated with his hands, holding up his hands to describe the size of that guy's eyebrows. Maybe Mathieu knew his name.

Mathieu looked clueless. "You mean that kid that got hit with the Quaffle?"

"Yeah, him!" Alfred was elated. "Do you know his name?"

"No one knows his name, Alfred."

Mathieu and Alfred both turned to Francis. Francis picked around at the eggs and sausage that they were eating this morning.

"Francis, what do you mea-" Mathieu was cut off by the Frenchman again.

"No one knows his name." Francis set down his utensils, seemingly annoyed. He wiped his mouth and then reached for the pitcher of pumpkin juice to refill his glass.

Alfred reached out; he was clamping his hand down on Francis's so hard that the other couldn't move. "What do you mean, frenchie, by 'no one knows his name'?"

"Let go of me, Jones." Alfred did and Francis poured his drink, replacing the pitcher in its proper spot and downing the pint of juice rather much like Alfred chugging down water after a game of Quidditch.

"That boy – whose name is unknown except by few – came to Hogwarts the same year as me, along with Antonio, Gilbert, and Yao." Francis's blue eyes were staring at nothing, across to the two North American students, as though lost in a distant memory. "I had never been here to Scotland and my parents thought I could better my English rather than my German here.

"As we got sorted out to our houses, one student was never called, but was placed with Gryffindor. He sat down next to me.

"He was quiet, never speaking to anyone that would try to attempt conversation, though he would talk in class about the lesson if someone didn't understand. I had Potions with him, as well as Defence against the Dark Arts. He seemed very intrigued by both. I was more intrigued by the fact that the teachers never said his name. At least not his first name. It was as though he didn't exist."

Francis paused again. He looked around and was thankful that the other students hadn't risen up as early as they had. No classes today meant that a lot of students were sleeping in.

"Keep going," Mathieu insisted. He'd constantly been overshadowed by Alfred during family reunions and he could understand the feeling of being non-existent.

"Please." Alfred gripped his glass tightly in his hand.

"I managed to ask him to help me study for a Potions final. We were in my dorm room at the time, around the time of the Yule Ball, so no one was around as they were getting ready for the party and putting off studying to the last minute. It was just the two of us in the Ravenclaw Common Room. As he helped me study, I asked him what his name was. He looked at me and seemed so frightened by the question, as though he would die if I asked again.

"'Don't say that! Don't ask my name!' he yelled at me. I was frightened as well. I thought I'd asked a harmless question. When I managed to calm him down, I asked him why I couldn't know his name. He didn't seem like a bad person; we were only eleven at the time, so he couldn't have committed some huge crime.

"He told me that his name was cursed."

"Cursed?" Alfred knew that curses on families were hard enough to deal with.

To have a curse on something that a person couldn't change, on their name, sounded unbearable.

"Oui. I asked him to tell me, that I would be fine. He started to hyperventilate a bit, but he did tell me. I asked him instead how his name came to be cursed."

"How did it happen, Francis?" Mathieu wanted to bawl. This boy must be so lonely, never having anyone talk to him.

"It was- Damn…" Francis looked behind the two North Americans. His eyes were now distressed, a feeling of guilt misting and mixing in the light.

Alfred turned, knowing his cousin turned too, and was face-to-face with the vibrant green-eyed boy that enchanted him yesterday.

The fifth-year student held a tray with a plate of eggs and sausages, a small pitcher pumpkin juice, and a plate of toast with some marmalade on the side. The tray was slightly shaking now, as were the other's hands. His face was pale with fright.

"Francis…" Alfred remembered that voice from somewhere else, somewhere other than yesterday.

"I-I'm sorry," the Frenchman insisted. He didn't know that the other came early for breakfast as well. This was one of the few days that he, Mathieu, and Alfred ever did such a thing, but regarding the other fifth-former's hair and attire, the other had just woken up and had rushed to get to breakfast before everyone else, just like how it had always been. He reached out towards the other, as though by just standing and reaching out an arm, everything would be fine. The Englishman, his first friend before he got acquainted with Antonio and Gilbert, would forgive him...

The green-eyed boy trembled. Alfred stood up and grabbed the tray from the other's hands. He felt the soft skin of the other and almost sighed.

"Hold on, bud. We'd have a lot of glass to clean up if you dropped the tray," Alfred said, trying to steer this... conversation from this curse-business.

"Al..."

Alfred blinked, tray in his grasp now as the older student let go.

"How do you know my name?"

The older student ran from the Great Hall, never paying any mind to the shouts that were after him.

Arthur couldn't breathe. He sat on his bed, trying to stop his hyperventilation.

"That French bastard..." Tears rolled off of his cheeks just like the night before, but so much worse. Alfred almost learned his name.

"Arthur..."

"No, stop!" He cried out, almost seeming insane because no one was there. Talking to nothing was not something that a wizard did. What a great wizard he was!

He was so strong already. He had defeated his brothers in duels years before he had even been enrolled at Hogwarts. What a great wizard!

Who couldn't save the one he loved...

Alfred lay on the ground, rain and blood on his body and staining his clothes.

"Stop! Stop!" He kept on screaming, trying to keep the horrifying memories from invading his neutral life. He wasn't too happy in this time-line, but Alfred was safe and happy.

That was all that mattered.

"You'll lose everything... Just when you think it's fine and lovely...

"You'll never be happy."

Arthur stood up, his heart frantically pacing to keep up with his thoughts, which were almost slurring together.

Oh God; Oh God; They were right; This curse won't ever go away; I will never be happy; Iwillnever behappy;;Alfredwillbesafedon'tworry'Icanneverbewithhim;I'

Why?

"Arthur... why?"

The sound of glass filled the room and Arthur was lucky that Professor McGonagall was coming to check on him already by the time he had shattered the mirror, shards of silvered glass cutting deep into his wrists.

26 February 2012 – 6:56 AM

Ignore the rants.

*French Rant.* Puttane de broudelle de merde...

*Japanese Rant.* Watashi no inochi kirai...

Anyway, read and review.

Mon Dieu, Alfred n'ai pas de faim! C'est le fin de monde! – Oh God, Alfred isn't hungry! It's the end of the world!

Tais-toi! – Shut up! (informal/rude)