Hogwarts Oneshots

Ron Weasley x Emily - 'Heterochromia'

Trigger warning: bullying and harassment as well as implied sexual harassment

If the eyes are a window to the soul, then what if they're different colours? Does the colour of my eyes impact the part of my soul I show people? Does it take away from my beauty? My faithfulness? My life?

I'd like to think that no one would ever think so. I'd like to think that a genetic mutation would never impact other people's perception of me, but this isn't a perfect world. Here two eye colours get teased, because what's more unnatural than two eye colours? What's more disturbing than two eyes, independently pigmented? What's more uncomfortable for one to look at that than a girl who dares show her eyes? David Bowie had heterochromia, I wonder if he got the same treatment from his classmates at school.

My arms wrap tighter around my knees where I sit under the tree as a gust of icy wind hits me. My view from the hill top lets me look out on the city, its lights shining back at me; a million worlds and lives I can't experience. A million dreams I'll never know. And they'll never know mine.

Tears slipped down my cheeks as I leant my head against the tree, watching as the sun began to turn the sky a precious pink. My mind drifted away from Carlisle and back to Hogwarts, once again becoming lost in my thoughts of Ronald Weasley and the way he looked at me last time I saw him. The look of shock and disgust that swept over his face when I kissed him as I left Platform 9 3/4 for the final time after our eighth year at school. I hadn't seen him since.

The previous week of my life had been spent pining over the ginger I had been in love with for the better part of the previous decade. Wallowing in self-pity appeared to be a great use of my time and I'd yet to become bored of it. Sometimes I spiced it up and wallowed in a different location; that night's location was the cold outdoors in a park. And from the tree I leant against I could see three childhood friends.

I knew they couldn't see me and I wished to keep it that way, hiding from my past friends that turned on me once we were out of primary school. I'd come back after my first year at Hogwarts to find my three best friends wanted nothing to do with me. I was suddenly just Emily, the weird one who went away for school, the one with different coloured eyes. That's why I hated coming home.

I almost wished I could've stayed at Hogwarts another year, just to escape my home. I couldn't though, so I remained leant against the tree at the top of the hill until the group noticed me. Looking away from them, I went to stand up as their voices began to reach me, shouts "Emily!", "Em!", "Two colours!"

No part of me desired to greet them as I turned to make my way down the other side of the hill.

One of them caught my arm and I flinched, pushing him away but his grip only tightened. The other two were not far behind him as I tried to pull away. I couldn't shake his hand from me as he pulled me towards him. As he opened his mouth, I felt my spine shiver. A wave of anxiety passing over me and getting lodged in my heart.

The last month before I left Hogwarts had been a struggle. One filled with emotional confusion that I hadn't known how to live with, not while Ron Weasley stood before me. I've spent the remaining days at Hogwarts and my current holiday, feeling lost and lonely and outcasted. Somehow I thought I could get over it once I got home, but that hadn't been the case. I don't think I'd realised until now quite what a massive impact Ron Weasley had had on my life for the previous eight years. Without his jokes, I didn't know how to smile. And without his affectionate idiocy, I didn't know how to feel clever, whole, or loved.

The three before me continued to stare and laugh and pull me towards them as if I was some misbehaving dog. I felt like a misbehaving dog, one that had been left all alone and didn't know what to do or whether I would ever go back to the magical world. The idea made my heart ache. Yet, at the same time, I felt free and free from the thoughts I had about Ron.