I have to go back to school this morning after a relaxing half-term, and let me tell you, if I didn't have important exams at the end of this year, I would most likely still be in bed. So this chapter is dedicated for all of you who have to go to school this morning. Also, as always, my heartfelt thanks to all who reviewed: the reason I continue to write this story!
"The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved." - Mother Teresa
I spent the most of that Sunday in the library, working on all my assignments. When I had finished all the work set, I took to doing the work yet to be set, rather than have to sit and reflect on how my life used to me. Such as it was, I was two weeks ahead of all the homework set. I had thought that seventh year was a lot of work, but with no social life and late nights, it was easy to get all the work done. Just not a particularly healthy or fun lifestyle.
It was a stormy day. The wind was gusting off the lake in great waves, which crashed with stark white foam against the turbulent black water. The trees whipped each other with their slashing branches; the decay leaves victims of this assault, ripped from their homes in the torrent.
Against this bleak landscape, about four o' clock, I felt my eyelids begin to droop, the tiredness setting in. Packing up my books, I wearily slung my bag over my shoulder, and exited the library, beginning my trudge up to the common room.
Finally, I reached the portrait hole, I entered, and was greeted by hastily shushed whispers, and covert glances. It was obvious that a conversation had just stopped. The reason it had just stopped was me. There were around 20 people in the common room, my ex-friends, a handful of seventh years, and the rest sixth and fifth years.
My friends were seated by the fireplace, looking slightly embarrassed: I didn't need to guesses to work out who had been talking about me. I felt a spark of anger rise within me: what were they saying about me, to the whole common room no less, that they didn't feel that they could say to my face?
I marched up to Lily, whom I guessed was the perpetrator.
"Did you say something?" I asked.
She looked at me, her lip curling in disdain.
"As a matter of fact, I just did. I was just remarking how much we didn't know about you."
"How much you didn't know about me?" I was confused.
"Yes. I would never have thought you the type to spread malicious rumours, much less to spend the night in the boys' dormitories. Or do you want to deny that as well?"
"I never denied that I-"
"Oh – another excuse? I suppose you were just sleeping then?" She laughed, the whole common room joining in. I felt my face flush in embarrassment, and felt the familiar awkwardness set in.
"Look, I –" I hung my head, my voice sounding weak in the space of the common room.
"You what, Rose?" She asked, belligerently. "You only spread the rumours because you were jealous of me?"
"No, I didn't – " I stared at the floor, my eyes beginning to well up with tears, upset that my former friend could ever be this... this cruel.
By now, the common room was filling up, people drawn to us in anticipation of some juicy gossip.
"The way I see it, people just don't go spreading gossip about their friends unless they have a motive."
The tears cleared in my eyes, and my fists clenched. The embers in the fireplace popped and crackled.
Lily continued. "And that motive is normally jealousy. Mind you, you are pathetic. You don't have the guts to be anything more." She sneered.
And then I felt it. Some barrier, some dam, snapped within me. All the hurt, all the angst, all the stress that I had been feeling coalesced in that one instant into a white hot spark of anger. My eyes jerked up to meet Lily's, my head wrenched back as my body was overtaken with the rush of this anger.
"Jealous? Of you? Why?"
She looked taken aback that I was standing up to her.
"Well, I don't know..."
"You don't know? That's a first. You tend to know everything, Lily. Maybe that's why I'm jealous of you? Because you're soooooo intelligent. 10 Owls. Very nice. And you're sooooooo kind, so condescending as to even help us mere mortals, with that long suffering martyr look on your face, with the work that we find difficult."
"It's not my fault you find potions difficult." She managed to get in.
"No. But you don't have to be so superior about it. And at least I'm not a hippocrite."
"A hippocrite? In what way?"
"Do you really want me to answer that? Fine. First off, you're always telling me to stand up for myself, to not be a push over. And yet as soon as I start doing something you don't like, whether choosing a film you don't like, or sitting in a seat you don't like, questioning what you say, you start to boss me about, and expect me to take it.
"Second off, you always tell me to not care what people think about me, when in fact, you're the one who has to study so hard, who has to score the highest in every test, to perfect the spell first, because you have to prove to people that you can do magic.
"Third, you disparage sports like Quidditch as being for jocks, because you can't do it. Anything you can't do is lame, and everything you can do you have to do best."
"I'm not like that – "She tried to butt in, but I was on a roll. Two weeks, or maybe even longer these feelings had been repressed, and nothing, and no one, was going to stop me. For the first time in my life, I was standing up for myself, and it felt good. I raised my voice to a shout.
"AND FINALLY, BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, IS THE HYPOCRISY OF YOUR PRIDE. YOU HAVE ALWAYS MALIGNED JAMES POTTER FOR BEING ARROGANT, FOR BEING PROUD, FOR BEING CONCEITED, BUT YOU ARE THE ONE WHO'S PROUND, LILY EVANS. YOU'RE THE ONE WHO CAN'T STAND BEING BEATEN IN TESTS, WHO WON'T TAKE ORDERS OR EVEN SUGGESTIONS FROM ANYBODY, and..."
I leaned in and lowered my voice to a whisper so that only Lily could hear –
"You're the one who won't date the boy you fancy because you're worried of what people will think of you. You don't want to admit you were wrong about James Potter."
I had a flash of inspiration.
"That's the reason why you are so irrationally cross about the lesbian rumour. Because you're worried what James will think of you."
Her face paled, and I knew that I was right.
"You say I'm jealous of you, Lily. You say I'm pathetic, Lily. I will neither refute nor attest to these claims, but I will say this. Better jealousy than pride, better pathetic than a proud hypocrite."
The last ember of my anger was fast-fading, a weary ache setting in, as I turned my back on the gaping face of my former friend, pushed through the gathered crowd, dimly noticing the faces of the Marauders also staring at me in shock, and burst out of the common room.
And then I ran. I ran as fast as I could, down staircases, corridors, pushing past all in my way. Not afraid because people might be chasing after me, whether Lily to make amends with me, or the Marauders to console me. I ran because I was afraid that they might not be following me, and so if I ran fast enough I would never know.
Eventually, I collapsed outside the broom shed, tucked away by the Quidditch pitch. I lay on the floor, my chest heaving as I welcomed the burn in my legs and my lungs. It was raining, and I was vindictively pleased – no one would know that I was crying.
As soon as I could stand, I began to work on unlocking the door of the broom shed. After disabling the anti-theft charms, my fingers scrabbled with the lock, cutting themselves in the process. Once in, my blurred vision made out a broom, which I grabbed, past caring about whom it belonged to. I would return it later, and no sane person would want to fly in this lashing rain in any case.
I kicked off from the ground viciously, and then I was off. I was free. Clad only in a school shirt, skirt and tights, because I hadn't been bothered to pick out an outfit this morning, I flew up into the clouds, soaked in an instant.
It must've been cold, but I couldn't feel it. I was too absorbed in my internal sensations to notice. I was trying to make sense of what I had just done, and what it meant.
I flew over to the opposite side of the lake, buffeted strongly by the howling wind, and landed in a small cove, out of site of the castle. Sitting on the shore, my mind still reeling with my emotions and my eyes still crying, I sought for comfort.
Unbidden, the words of John Keats rose to my mind. When he was afraid, and lonely, "then of the shore of the wide world I stand alone, and think, till love and fame to nothingness do sink."
The poem, "When I have fears that I may cease to be" reflects on fears that time is moving too quickly, that one won't achieve "fame" or have "love". But Keats said that his problems faded to "nothingness" when he stood, "alone" as I was, on the "shore of the wide world" and saw how insignificant he and his problems were. Recalling these lines, I felt my problems dissipate.
Kicking off my shoes, and grabbing my stolen broom stick, I plunged forward into the freezing cold water and jumped onto the broom, attempting to balance upon it. It didn't work. I fell off into the icy black water, but 30 seconds later was trying again. Five attempts later, I was on, my feet one in front of the other as if I was on a tightrope.
I nudged the broom forwards and sped off across the lake, spreading my arms wide and throwing my head back, whooping in exhilaration as I left my troubles on the shore.
It couldn't last forever though. As the light began to fade, and I lit my wand, I noticed that my arms were blue. The iciness of my body hit me as if I had fallen into the lake again, the sight of my purple skin a jolt back to reality.
My white shirt was transparent, clinging to my skin, my black skirt drenched, my nylon tights dripping water. The coldness was in my bones, my feet, hands, ears and nose painfully numb. I flew back to the shore in the stinging rain, groping blindly in the dark for my shoes. It took me a good five minutes to pull them on, my stiff fingers not cooperating.
Finally, it was done, and I got back on the broom, preparing to fly back to the castle. However, I realised that I wasn't ready to go back. I didn't want to face anyone. Maybe Lily was right, I was pathetic. I just didn't care anymore. I angled my broom in the direction of Hogsmeade.
The flight there was a blur. My mind was beginning to become as numb as my body felt, and it was all I could do once I alighted outside the Three Broomsticks Pub to cast a glamour to disguise my face and my wet clothes.
I booked a room for the night, glad of my emergency five galleons, and was shown the way into my room. As soon as the maid closed the door behind me, my glamour collapsed, and I sank down on the bed, cast a warming charm over myself, and then huddled my frozen body into the duvet. A deep haze washed over my mind, and I sank down into oblivion.
Have a great Monday morning! Lol EllieBaby xxx