"Your body is not who you are.
You shed it like a snake sheds its skin.
Leave it, forgotten, behind you."
─────
𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐍
- 𝒏𝒐𝒖𝒏
The thin outer covering of the body;
An outer layer.
➵
Born with the type of beauty that many craved, Gemini Delmar...
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29| WHAT IS AN OCEAN, IF NOT A MELANCHOLIC HEART?
Christmas was approaching rapidly, bringing festive cheer to the students of Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang alike. Naturally, all of the Hogwarts staff was still engaged in making sure that the grandeur of their celebrations remained breath-taking as ever, if not more. Talk of the season, which would only be enhanced by the addition of the Yule Ball, roamed every nook and cranny of the school premises. Apart from the babble, however, there was also a notable increase in students who had put down their names to stay at Hogwarts for holidays this year.
To say Gemini was displeased would be a gross understatement of her malaise. She had always been one of the students who stayed behind and had enjoyed the opportunity of solitude. Every year she would stay, and every year she would disappear. Because Gemini loathed Christmas with every fibre of her being. She thought it was ironic that an occasion of light, love, and joy should bring her such dread and pain.
Each day closer to the festival worsened her mood. In a way, it felt like time had stopped in a loop. Year after year, she was put through the agony of replaying her memories like a broken record on Christmas while people exchanged gifts and celebrated with their family and friends.
Despite what she said or did, Gemini had no friends. Probably because she didn't want any. It had become a default mechanism in her to push away each person who tried to get into her life — sooner or later they were bound to leave anyway. She had learnt the meaning of impermanence at an age when things were supposed to be permanent. The unfairness of it all made her furious. And she metamorphosed this hate and anger into concentration. She used it as fuel that pushed her further, harder, each time she went for a run, sat down to study, or set her mind to accomplishing the most unexpected feats.
She thought exercising was one activity that spent her built-up energy productively. Besides the exhaustion that made her incapable of thinking anymore, the sight of the Black Lake was like soothing medication. And that did not hold true for only weekends. Even generally, she loved spending time at the edge of the lake, either sitting comfortably in a cocoon of leaves and branches on the beech tree or with her feet immersed in the cool water. Her curiosity about the aquatic world drew her to the same spot over and over again.
In her current situation, it was even more useful.
Gemini didn't think she could handle any more boys asking her to the Ball. Most of them were jerks, who did nothing to improve her already miserable mood, but she actually pitied the nice ones who asked her at the wrong moment.
Contrary to what everyone expected, Blaise hadn't asked her yet. He, quite like her, hadn't asked anyone but had received several proposals.
Even now, as she was sitting on the bare grass behind Hagrid's cabin, she could feel the expectant looks the rest of the class was throwing at her and Blaise. It was their last Care of Magical Creatures lesson of the term and Hagrid had given up direct contact with the skrewts, opting instead to make them prepare a fresh selection of food with which to tempt the creatures.
