Married At Five
At age five you married your best friend, you don't know if it was binding.
You face the inevitable when the Sorting Hat sadistically separates your close-knit circle of friends into different houses. You feel the rift get bigger as everyone projects black and white stereotypes upon other houses.
The group is lost forever like flotsam in the Atlantic. But you and her, there's something special. Till death do you part, that's what both of you promised.
Study sessions are arranged.
By second year, she's growing...different. You see her during the summers and it starts feeling...different. When third year starts, you notice that other people treat her differently. She is different now. You notice that other boys notice and you feel something that isn't indifference.
Study sessions are less regular. You tell yourself you don't care.
You see her during the holidays, barefoot on the beach. You didn't want to go, but your parents made you. Three families on an outing! Beach, potluck! "It'll be fun!" they insisted.
You sit with her on the sand. No one talks.
"You never talk to me anymore," she breaks into the silence.
"You never talk to me!" you retort back.
"I'm talking to you now," she states.
"Well, so am I," you counter.
More silence.
"Have you--"
"Are you--"
Both of you say at the same time. Both of you stop and wait, but there's silence. The two of you laugh nervously.
"I was just asking if you're going to the Quidditch Cup," she says. "You?"
"The same," you answer. You two share a smile. It's comfortable now.
Talk continues about the teams, ending up in a heated debate about that controversial new potion said to reverse the Oblivious. She thinks it should be tested further and allowed, "that charm's often used irresponsibly." You think someone was being too noisy for their own good.
The day ends far too soon. But you see each other again at the Quidditch Cup, feeling like children as the two of you spend way too much money and eat way too many sweets.
By fourth year, she's beautiful. The Yule Ball is announced and the two of you avoid the topic like leprosy. You feel the friendship is too fragile to risk for an adolescent dress-up game. You'll go alone and she'll go alone and since you're friends and both alone, it'll be perfectly normal if you two dance together.
Then a girl asks you and before you realise, you've said yes. Maybe it was her closeness, the purr of her voice, her intoxicating scent. Who knows? But you do know your plans have just gone down the shitter. You tell her and Guilt stabs your heart as her face falls before she quickly masks it.
So she goes with someone else. You stare at her all night. You're glad her date is an idiot. You're not glad when she ditches her date for another boy. Your date keeps ruthlessly dragging you onto the dance floor and embracing you in a vise-like grip.
The two of you never speak of that night again.
You Floo over to her house one summer day and her mother tells you she's in the garden. She's sitting against a tree, her back to you, reading Bewitching, a magazine for witches.
"What to Do When You've Fallen for Your Best Mate," the title declares in bold letters.
She screams when you say a timid, "Hi." Slamming the magazine shut, she laughs almost hysterically and blushes like mad. "Oh, I was just reading my horoscopes," she explains, all you've said is "hi." You nod and everything's normal.
Fifth year is crazy. But she's calm, cool, and collected. You cling to her and hope she doesn't know that you're clinging. This is a dangerous time, an "our house or your house!" ultimatum. But the friendship grows stronger. Hardier flowers bloom in arid land.
Sixth year is eventful in many ways to many people. Classmates disappear and whole families are mourned. But the most frustrating moments are the ones only the two of you noticed. She has a rather serious romance and you're reduced to a creepy lurker who is very nonchalantly following every minute progress in their relationship. Her romance ends just as you've given up hope and started your own with that even more seductive girl you went to the Yule Ball with, now with much better endowments than she had at fourteen. You wonder how long the two of you can play this game of hide and seek. Though no matter how frustrating the game is, the friendship is a solace.
"Sometimes I get scared. I like to think that nothing will happen to me...to you. But I don't know. Last week Dumbledore called aside a third-year girl from my house and informed her both her parents were de--had passed on. I know her. I tutor her in Charms...But nothing will happen to us, right? We've never hurt anyone," she states with a pleading tone.
You want to reassure her that nothing will happen, but all you can think of is how students no longer open owls with exclamations of joy. How every day you see students returning from Dumbledore's office, pale and trembling, with an official looking piece of parchment clutched tightly in their fist. You think of how many students walk about with vacant stares after being given a Numbing Potion to stop their uncontrollable sobbing. You want to reassure and protect her, but can't. You want to kiss away her tears and murmur that she'll always have you, but her boyfriend wouldn't appreciate that. Your silence tells her all this and she understands.
By seventh year both of you are completely free. It feels like the last chance for everything. Death moves closer and closer to both of you and the NEWTs loom menacingly in the not too distant horizon. Study sessions are in earnest now, not just free time to examine her face before she looks up and you have to quickly pretend you were staring at your notes the whole time.
One day her hand covers yours as you explain the causes of that mass boom of pixies in 1056 for History of Magic. You suavely gape and stop talking and she hurriedly removes her hand, but you've waited long enough.
You reach for her hand, she blushes, her eyes a soft, warm brown.
"Padma," you whisper.
"Blaise," she answers.
Both of you realise the marriage was binding, Finnegan knew what he was doing.