Kindness

Soon after the welcome feast, the first years marched to their dorms. They all had had a very exciting day. Now they felt tired and the thought of a good night’s sleep, under the warm sheets, felt comforting. As the boys walked up to the Gryffindor dormitory, the boy with the untidy long hair looked around and said. “I could have sworn that there was one more of us.” The others shrugged and continued to climb the stairs.
Meanwhile, on the dark school grounds, under the moonless sky, the kind headmaster took the hand of a frightened little boy into his own and walked towards the whomping willow saying, “Now, Remus, let me show you, how to get to your other dormitory.”

Always.....

It was all for that red head. He had loved her for as long as he could remember.
He could recall the first time he saw her, on that swing, high up in the air, threatening to fly off, her beautiful red hair all over her face, her laughter like a hundred china bowls tinkling together. And he had watched her from a hole in the fence, unable to approach her, afraid of frightening her away.
It was true that they had become friends a few years later. And just as he hoped, she had received the letter. He did not remember who was more delighted. She, at being selected to study in the most prestigious school of the country. Or he, simply because she had been selected.
They had travelled together to the new school on that red steam engine. How much fun they had that day. He had told her all he knew about the school and the cool stuff they did there. She just sat there lapping up his every word, as if he was the cleverest person in the whole world. How he had looked forward to spending the next seven years, in the same class, with her. They would be best friends, they learn many wonderful things together, someday they would fall in love and get married….
But that stupid hat had spoiled everything. He was placed in a rival House. And if that was not enough, there was that horrible boy, always pushing his untidy black hair out of his eyes, and his obnoxious friends. How he hated them all. They behaved as if the school belonged to them. They broke every single rule. Even the one about not going near that darned whomping tree. And the teachers did nothing to stop them. He had a sneaky feeling that one or two of the teachers even encouraged them.
But he would not have minded any of it, if that red haired girl had not been so taken up with that horrible boy. Why, one day she couldn’t stand the sight of him. And the next day, they were going steady.
It was to win over her, that he joined the gang. It was not as if he liked his new friends much. But they were smart and powerful and rich. He thought, if the red haired girl saw what cool friends he had, maybe she would begin to spend more time with him. And maybe, just as he had hoped, she would fall in love with him. But that did not go as planned. She hated his friends. And gradually began to dislike him. One day, she stopped talking to him.
He still did not lose hope. He knew she would soon get bored of that horrible boy and his stupid pranks. And she would and come back to him. They would be friends again. He carried that hope in his heart like a little beacon.
Until this morning.
The Daily Prophet had carried a two- line announcement on the wedding of the only son of Fleamont and Euphemia Potter.
In a moment of madness, he thought that he would rush to her, fall at her feet and beg for his love. He would promise her everything she ever wanted. He would give up on those friends of his, whom she so disliked.
But even as he thought about it, he knew it would never work. Instead of being pleased, she would despise him for being so weak. He was lost. He was broken. He was devastated. The only girl he could ever love, hated him. There was no way out. His life was over.
***
Suddenly, he smiled. He knew the answer. Didn't he always say that the girl was similar to him in so many ways. This was just one of them.
Just as she could not control the way she felt about him, he too could not control the way he felt about her.
He would love her…. Always.

Upholding traditions....

The fanfic saga continues.... This one is a little more than a mere fanfic.

“What is it that you are putting up on the walls,?” his mother asked.
Posters, Mom,” he replied in a lazy voice. ...
"Yes, but who are those women? And what are they wearing?"
“Oh, that one is Brigitte Bardot and the one next to her is Sophia Loren. Don’t they look lovely in those bikinis?," he grinned.
He sure knew of a way to irritate his mother. After all, didn’t she irritate him enough – with all that talk of pure blood and pure races and old family tradition.
“They don’t look like our people,” his mother said. She could already sense a battle brewing.
“Our people are ugly. Why would I want to put up their pictures,” he replied in a drawl. He was beginning to enjoy this.
His mother tried not to respond, and turned her attention to another picture her first born had pasted on his wall. An odd-looking machine with two wheels. “And what does that do?,” she asked, in an attempt at reconciliation.
“Oh that’s a mobike,” the boy said. “It is what people use to travel from one place to another.”
“Why would you need that, when you can simply disapparate?,” the mother asked, trying to keep her voice under control.
“Because Mom, not everyone likes the feeling of being squeezed through a very thin rubber tube,” the boy replied, in a voice full of condescension.
“Is there anything about our people that you like? “ The mother asked, her voice tight.
“Nah, Nothing,” the boy replied carelessly. He knew he was hurting his mother. But he could not help himself.
His mother let out a deep sigh. She reminded herself that he was only 16. Boys that age were difficult. She simply walked out of the room and shut the door behind her.
That night he left home. Never to return.
***
Years later, long after Orion and Regulus were dead, Walburga would sit in the room of her first born and wonder:
Would everything have been different if I had told him that I did not care much for all that pure blood stuff?
But then, she thought, a woman has to uphold family traditions and abide by what is expected of her – whether she is in the Muggle world or the Magical World.

A writer's block called Lazy

I have always maintained that I suffer from a writer's block. The fact is that I know it is spelt LAZY.  Since I have always been writing for as long as I can remember (and I have friends and acquaintances who can remember it), people often ask me to write for them. I promise... I plan... sometimes I even put my fingers on the keyboard and then Mr Lazy comes calling...... This has been the story for the last few years, when my best writing was done in my head, but somewhere lost its way in the journey between head and hard disk.

And then...one day, just a couple of weeks ago, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I decided to take part in a fanfic with a bunch of Potterheads. (Oh yes! I am a Potterhead. An obsessive one at that). The idea was to write two fanfics based on the First Wizarding War -- the time around the rise and fall of 'you-know-who' . By the end of the afternoon, there were not one but six fanfics... Here's the first one:


...He marched up and down the tiny corridor. He ran his hand through his dark, untidy hair. Nothing was like it was. No one could be trusted. He did not know who to count among his friends. Sometimes, he thought he would go crazy.
Once or twice he thought of going to meet Dumbledore. Afterall, Dumbledore would be able to help him sort out his thoughts. But then, so much was happening, and Dumbledore needed all his time to deal with more important things. Things were getting progressively bad. Worse than he could ever remember in his entire life. Unexplained accidents kept happening all the time. People kept disappearing.
Everyday he kept finding out about more and more people who had gone over to the dark side. He sometimes felt that there was no one he could trust. He longed for the good old days when he and James could take on, almost anyone. But now, James had Lily and Little Harry to protect. And He had all three of them to protect. After all, he was their Secret Keeper.
Secret Keeper. He wondered how wise that decision was. Everyone in the magical world knew that he and James were like brothers. And everyone would guess that if anyone had to be the Potter’s Secret Keeper, it would have to be him.
Should he make someone else the Secret Keeper? Someone less flamboyant, more obscure? For a long time he thought it had to be Remus. But Remus was a werewolf. And he knew that werewolves had a special place in Voldemort’s Army.
He continued to pace up and down the corridor.
Suddenly, there was a timid knock. He opened the door slightly. There was a small balding man standing outside. “You said, you had something important to ask of me,” the man outside said.
Sirius suddenly grinned. He opened the door a little wide and said, “Come in Peter."