Prompts listed in the AN at the end.
My Fair Lady
I believe there are monsters in the world born to human parents. I believe that he is one of them. He played me like I was a doll; lured me into a beautiful nightmare and watched as my heart shattered into a million fragments. He left me broken and afraid. He drove me insane; I reverted back to my childhood like it was the only happiness I'd ever known. Once, I saw the man behind the beast. Now there's only a beast.
It began with the first lesson I should have learned. The second you're perceived as weak, you already are. I was in the library, and Tom and his friends were a few tables over. It was their fifth year, though I was two years below them. April was beginning to rear its head, along with the final term of the year, and while the rest of us mere mortals were studying as much as we could to get the grades we wanted in our end of year exams, they were sat there without a single book out on the desk in front of them, their laughter disturbing the innate peace of the whole room. No one dared tell them to be quiet.
"Tom, you never seem interested in girls," I heard one of his friends comment.
"That's because love is for fools. I could make any girl I wanted fall in love with me, but the price isn't worth it," he replied, his usual self-important tone colouring his words.
"That's a rather bold claim."
"I think we should put that theory to the test. Her," came another of his friends' reply. I didn't look up. I didn't want to know which poor unfortunate soul they'd picked on this time; which heart they'd offered to sacrifice like a lamb to the slaughter.
"Who is she?" asked another voice.
"The Girl with No Name," Tom replied. "A Mudblood. Hardly worth my time."
"It's nothing serious, though, is it? It's a game. And she looks ripe to be played with." The echo that carried around the room brought with it a sinister shiver. His words sounded deadly.
I looked back to my work and tried to ignore the rest of their conversation. They wanted to ruin yet another life, and I was powerless to stop them. Instead, I turned a blind eye and acted as though I didn't know a thing.
It was two days later when I saw him again. I was out in the grounds catching what little heat the Spring sun provided, and he was heading down towards the banks of the lake. I watched him for a few moments, wondering how someone could command so much attention just be walking. Tall, handsome, confident, walking with that charismatic smile of his. That was when he saw me. Suddenly, he wasn't walking to the lake anymore. He was walking towards me.
I don't know why my heart felt the need to skip a beat. Maybe it was just simple biology. I was a girl, after all, and a boy as handsome as him had never so much as acknowledged my existence before. Maybe it was a warning, as if my heart knew the path this would lead me down; as if it could feel the shadow of the pain I would one day endure.
"Hello," he said as he sat down beside me, as if he'd done it a million times. I wondered if that was the trick. If you looked like you'd done something countless times before, maybe people just accepted that you had, and didn't stop to ask questions. "You're a third year, if I'm not mistaken. How are you finding your electives?"
"Care of Magical Creatures is interesting, and relatively easy. But Muggle Studies isn't quite what I expected it to be," I told him, and his dark eyes stared intently into mine as if he was actually interested in the answer, like what I had to say was precious in some way. The attention was so foreign to me, it made me uncomfortable.
"What's so bad about Muggle Studies?" he asked, curious.
"Well, it's, er… it's not easy," I admitted.
That was when he laughed. His laughter was heard so rarely, it had the power to electrify. It's sweet, silken notes rang loud and clear like hidden in them was a song.
"Herbology's my favourite subject, though," I added when his laughter died down.
"I prefer Dark Arts," he replied.
"Don't you mean Defence Against the Dark Arts?" I asked.
"Of course," he smiled and looked at me, a strange sort of brooding in his dark eyes.
It seemed to me like there was something unsaid lurking between the lines of what he said, but I didn't know what that was. I didn't understand.
"Remind me of your name," he casually asked.
"Myrtle. Myrtle Warren," I told him, drawing my eyebrows together in confusion.
"Of course. It was lovely talking to you. Perhaps I'll see you again," he replied, and smoothly moved to stand, smiling at me before he walked away.
It was only then that I remembered his conversation with his friends in the library. A thought struck me somewhere in the back of my mind where misery and gloom loved to reign. There was a possibility that I was The Girl with No Name.
His painstaking attention to detail soon became apparent. Anything I told him, everything he asked of me, he remembered my answers. He'd bring up facts about me casually in conversation. It made me feel like he cared. I made him into some kind of angel in my mind, like he was made of starlight and sunshine, and the darkness had never touched him. I didn't see the shackles he was closing around my wrists, tying me to the fate he was laying out for me.
I was sat in a disused classroom, waiting for him, some time in early May. A spider was building its web in the corner, and I was watching intently. The spider had made the frame, with lots of straight strands of silk joining together in the middle, attached at the ends to the stones of the walls. Its legs were working their way around in spirals, starting in the middle and working outwards, to complete the orb. As I watched, a small insect flew too close, and became entangled in the threads. The spider was on it in a flash, spinning the insect round and round while its hind legs worked the silk. It didn't take long for the insect to stop fighting.
When Tom walked in, he was already smiling.
"My fair lady," he called me, and I couldn't help but smile. "How are you?" he asked.
"Much better now that you're here," I told him.
His arms came around my waist and I relaxed instantly. I hadn't noticed myself get all wrapped up; I hadn't seen myself fall for him; but all of a sudden I was intensely aware of how dependent I was on him for my happiness. It was like I'd been half a person before, walking through life with my eyes half-closed, but now I saw the world in all its glorious colour. It was like I'd never quite fit in my own shell before him, but now I knew how to contain myself, with the shape of him holding me together at the edges where I was most likely to come undone.
"I brought something for you," he said, and drew his wand. He didn't even mutter an incantation, but I knew he'd performed some kind of spell when a bouquet of flowers burst forth from his wand.
I was completely taken aback as I took them from him, amazed at the bright, blood red colour of the tulips and roses amidst the perfect white of the lilies.
"Roses symbolise passion. Tulips stand for everlasting love," he told me.
It frightened me. We'd known each other for a matter of weeks, and he was giving me something that to him represented a passionate, infinite love. I could feel his eyes on me as I ran my fingers over the petals of a begonia. He was watching for my reaction.
"They're beautiful," I told him, my voice flat.
"You can tell me what you really think, you know. I don't bite," he replied.
I smiled. "Isn't it a little soon to be talking of love?"
"Is that what you think, or is that what you believe you're supposed to think?" he asked.
I was caught off-guard by the question. I replied by telling him I didn't know, but the question was on my mind for days after that. I'd never really had many opinions that were completely my own.
"There's a party in the Slytherin Common Room this weekend," he told me. "I'd like you to accompany me."
"Really?" I asked, as if I was unsure of my own importance in his life.
He laughed. "Really."
"Okay."
I'd heard it said that we're all damaged somehow, but I knew that wasn't true. I wasn't damaged, not before him. Love is a weapon as dangerous and persuasive as magic, and he took that weapon and turned it on me like it was a machine gun at point blank range. He persuaded me to see only what I wanted to see in him, and I left out all the rest like it didn't matter; like it didn't set off a million warning bells in my head.
What Tom did was give me hope, and hope is a dangerous thing. The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves until one day there are none. No hopes. Nothing remains but its charred, withered embers. My heart was so close to death when Tom found me, and he filled my heart with fresh green leaves, full of life. I went to that party that weekend, and he set my heart on fire, turning all those hopeful young shoots to charcoal.
We were in a quiet corner of the Common Room while the raucous erupted all around. He asked me how the flowers were doing, and I told him they were still very much alive. He leaned in to kiss me, a brief, respectful, chaste kiss. I don't know if it was the volume of all the voices around us confusing me, or the alcohol I'd drunk, or if it was just me, and I really was that stupid. But when he leant back and smiled at me, I smiled back, and whispered three small words.
I thought he was the only one who'd be able to hear me, but I was wrong. A laughter began to build up, radiating away from us as the news spread, until the whole room seemed to be laughing at me. A bottle of champagne was opened and passed around, as if there was some sort of celebration going on.
I was confused; I didn't understand. I looked to Tom, hoping for some sort of explanation. All I saw was his wicked grin. All I heard was his laughter, the electric energy in the silken song of his laughter filled my ears like it was the only sound I'd ever known.
As the tears began to fall, unbidden, I realised how wrong I'd been about him from the start. How naïve I'd been. I'd painted him as an angel made of starlight; but that was just a disguise for the devil that lived beneath the surface of his eyes.
I ran from that room as fast as I could, the laughter chasing me down the corridors until I made it home to the Ravenclaw Tower. My heart was more than broken. It was shattered. I could feel the pain of each fragment so intensely, I clutched at my chest as the sobs wracked through my frame. I didn't know why they called it heartbreak. It felt like every other part of my body was broken too. In that moment, with the wounds freshly formed, I wanted to die. I didn't understand how I still had a pulse. They say the heart is the only broken instrument that still works, but right then, curled up under my blanket, sobbing into my pillow, I wished it wouldn't. I wished it would let itself be broken, and like a watch counting down the seconds, stop working, and leave time to carry on without it.
My life with him had been like a dream that I didn't quite believe in, but the ending… that was worse than any of my darkest nightmares.
Written for:
February Event at Hogwarts: (title) My Fair Lady and (object) champagne.
200 Characters in 200 Days: Myrtle Warren
If You Dare Challenge: 955. The Girl With No Name
Chocolate Frog Cards Challenge: Elizabeth Burke - Write about a bully.
Valentine-Making Station: Cupid Sticker: Write about a love that is painful.
Submitted to Fanfiction Writing Month at Hogwarts.
Gringotts Prompt Bank:
Great Literature Quotes: "The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves until one day there are none. No hopes. Nothing remains." - Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
Great Literature Quotes: "I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents." - John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Great Literature Quotes: "We're all damaged somehow." - Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty
Word Set: brood, fragment, strange, painstaking
Word Set: sacrifice, starlight, electrify, bite
Word Set: precious, broken, echo, shackles
Word Set: sweet, nightmare, flat, (object) spider web
Genre Specific Prompts: Angst/Drama/Hurt/Comfort/Tragedy - (words) blood, pain, dependent, understand, gloom, peace, devil, contain. (objects) wand, flowers.
Love/Relationship Quotes: "I don't know why they call it heartbreak. It feels like every other part of my body is broken too." - Terri Guillemets.
Love/Relationship Quotes: "The heart is the only broken instrument that works." - T.E. Kalem.
Inspiration taken from the Writing Manipulative People thread.
Once Upon a Time Quotes: "Love is a weapon as dangerous and persuasive as magic." - Hook.
Once Upon a Time Quotes: "Once, I saw the man behind the beast. Now there's only a beast." - Belle.
Orange is the New Black Quotes: "The second you're perceived as weak, you already are."
Words: 2102