𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐑

periwinkle blue

“My sleep wasn't peaceful, though.
I have the sense of emerging from
a world of dark, haunted places
where I traveled alone.”

•

THE CORRIDOR WAS DARKER than Skylar Firegold remembered, although she had trudged through them late at nights far too many times. Drowsily, she made her way through, portraits after portraits of people she didn't care about meeting at her from the corners. She knew the path way too much to require wandlight; yet it seemed darker every time.

December had passed as fast as the war had ended. December brought with it cold sweat and knee deep snow and bone-chilling winds, all a reminder of what she had lost in the War. They called it the Battle of Hogwarts of December 1st 1997, only two days before she turned seventeen— two days before she legally became an adult in the World of Magic. She had allowed herself to indulge in celebration for the first time. She never really believed in birthdays—it wasn't really an achievement to be born, was it? It was just a thing that happened. She had learned not to expect much from a birthday since she was a child. Growing up in an Orphanage did that to you, you stop expecting things like cakes, presents an love. Being born was a curse, and she had learned to live with it.

Of course, she celebrated everyone else's birthdays, everyone who didn't feel ashamed of being born, everyone whose life had a greater importance than the girl from the Orphanage. Books had been her friend, the pages her lovers and the smell of ink and paper her perfume. It was books that made her feel, on the nights she found no meaning, that maybe there is some greater force,some greater magic in this world than merely existing. Of course, words were the only magic muggles could make. Books were there for her, always. So when she literally got dragged into the world she imagined to be real only in the pages or her favourite hard copies, she believed her life was indeed important, that she really mattered. And Merlin knows she did.

On the second of December, when she had just finished taking her shower in the Prefects' Bathroom, a courtesy given to all those who fought in the Battle— war heroes,as everyone liked to call them, who still lived in Hogwarts— she hadn't expected Draco Malfoy to be waiting for her at the staircase to the Slytherin Common Room—her new place of being—with a proposition of a celebration. She had agreed to it for she'd agree to anything to take her mind off things. No matter how much she bathed in the cold winter morning, she couldn't wipe the blood of those she killed and those she couldn't save; she couldn't scrub the smell of Dark Magic from her skin and her bones; she couldn't erase the memory of the horrors she had seen.

The party was simple. It was held in the Forbidden Forest, a place that used to be a bane, a scary place for all. But it was peaceful and green, with an area magically cleared of snow and enchanted with heating spells, and nothing was, after all, scarier than what they all had been through. The party had only those she truly wanted the company of— Draco, Harry, Blaise, Pansy, Hermione and Ron. She's have wanted Fred and George there too, but they had returned to Diagon Alley to fix their shop, to develop new supplies. The house-elves had more than happily prepared a small chocolate cake, minced beef pie, hot chocolate, soup, a whole roasted turkey and a lot of pudding. Courtesy to Pansy Parkinson, they also had an endless supply of firewhiskey. To drink to her birthday or to drink away the war, Skylar didn't know.

They had drunk till all had blurred into one, the green of the forest, the chirping of the birds, the hooting of the owls, the cackling of the fire in the small, mundane fireplace Hermione had created, the sounds of laughter or the howls of cry, the friction of skin as Draco kissed her, all blurred into one. The world had moved on, so why mustn't they. Presents were exchanged, robes, perfumes, books. The world had blurred into one as they stumbled back to the castle, through its ruins that were still to be cleared out, and parted ways— Harry, Hermione and Ron to the Gryffindor towers and Skylar, Draco, Pansy and Blaise to the Slytherin dungeons. The world had moved on.