You are five years old and you are curious, impossibly curious, so when you watch Mary Poppins for the third day in a row it seems perfectly natural to wonder. So, like a miniature scientist you devise an experiment. You retrieve your father’s grand black umbrella from its stand in the foyer, carefully climb onto the porch roof from your bedroom window, and jump. It is not until your knees are bloody with gravel and your parents are screaming that you realize your curiosity may have led you astray.
Later, after your mother has washed and bandaged your knees, your father pulls down a large book from the shelf (an encyclopedia, he calls it, and the word is tricky on your tongue but you practice it again and again). He lets you turn the pages, stopping finally on gravity, and your tiny mouth hangs open because it seems almost magical that the answers to all of your questions are right there on those crisp white pages.
Waiting for you.
So you beg your father to take down all of the encyclopedias from off the shelf and that night you diligently haul them up to your bedroom, two by two. You choose one from the pile (‘H’ for Hermione) and climb up onto your bed, propping your pillow against the headboard. Then you carefully, painstakingly remove the bandages from your knees (your mother’s fretful words ring in your ears: you are going to be left with scars), and prop the book up against your angled thighs.
(When you look at the matching blemishes on your knees you can still hear the crack of the spine as you split the pages to reveal hummingbird. It is a perfect memory.)
ii.
You catch yourself staring at it in the mirror again and again. After you shower, as you dress, before you go to sleep: the puckered pink star that glows against the white expanse of your chest. You can still feel Dolohov’s curse hitting you -- crushing against your chest and stealing your breath -- and sometimes you are amazed that this is all you have to show for it.
You’ve been fighting this battle (war, you think, it will become a war) with Harry for years, but this time you have the mark to prove it -- a talisman of sorts, seared directly into your flesh. You wonder how many more marks your skin will earn as you step forward to fight with Harry over and over again.
As long as he needs you.
Until the very end.
You wonder if someday you will die for this boy who lived. They will bury you in satin, you think, and your scars will bear a silent witness that you were, perhaps, in love with an impossible boy who (somehow) taught you so much more than books ever could.
You press your palm against the star -- against your heart -- and you take a deep, full breath. You remind yourself that there are things worth dying for.
harry/hermione -- could you leave me with a scar? (1/3)
You are five years old and you are curious, impossibly curious, so when you watch Mary Poppins for the third day in a row it seems perfectly natural to wonder. So, like a miniature scientist you devise an experiment. You retrieve your father’s grand black umbrella from its stand in the foyer, carefully climb onto the porch roof from your bedroom window, and jump. It is not until your knees are bloody with gravel and your parents are screaming that you realize your curiosity may have led you astray.
Later, after your mother has washed and bandaged your knees, your father pulls down a large book from the shelf (an encyclopedia, he calls it, and the word is tricky on your tongue but you practice it again and again). He lets you turn the pages, stopping finally on gravity, and your tiny mouth hangs open because it seems almost magical that the answers to all of your questions are right there on those crisp white pages.
Waiting for you.
So you beg your father to take down all of the encyclopedias from off the shelf and that night you diligently haul them up to your bedroom, two by two. You choose one from the pile (‘H’ for Hermione) and climb up onto your bed, propping your pillow against the headboard. Then you carefully, painstakingly remove the bandages from your knees (your mother’s fretful words ring in your ears: you are going to be left with scars), and prop the book up against your angled thighs.
(When you look at the matching blemishes on your knees you can still hear the crack of the spine as you split the pages to reveal hummingbird. It is a perfect memory.)
ii.
You catch yourself staring at it in the mirror again and again. After you shower, as you dress, before you go to sleep: the puckered pink star that glows against the white expanse of your chest. You can still feel Dolohov’s curse hitting you -- crushing against your chest and stealing your breath -- and sometimes you are amazed that this is all you have to show for it.
You’ve been fighting this battle (war, you think, it will become a war) with Harry for years, but this time you have the mark to prove it -- a talisman of sorts, seared directly into your flesh. You wonder how many more marks your skin will earn as you step forward to fight with Harry over and over again.
As long as he needs you.
Until the very end.
You wonder if someday you will die for this boy who lived. They will bury you in satin, you think, and your scars will bear a silent witness that you were, perhaps, in love with an impossible boy who (somehow) taught you so much more than books ever could.
You press your palm against the star -- against your heart -- and you take a deep, full breath. You remind yourself that there are things worth dying for.