𝑆𝐴𝑉𝐼𝑁𝐺 𝐷𝑅𝐴𝐶𝑂 𝑀𝐴𝐿𝐹𝑂𝑌

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟒 - 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤

╭────── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.  ──────╮

𝐃

I twisted and turned in my bed. Blaise was lightly snoring in his part of the room and although it usually didn't bother me much, I felt my head sore and throbbing. The tap in the bathroom was slightly leaking and drops of water hit the white porcelain every couple of seconds. As the heater in the centre of the room burned on, the coals inside it made a crackling noise whenever they hit against the metal. Every minuscule, discreet sound seemed to be thumping loudly against my eardrums.

In my insomnia, I decided to remember my way through the few things that I'd read in the notebook. I didn't bother convincing myself to only think of them once. I was sick of pretending that my mind was as disciplined as my behaviour.

In the few lines that I'd read, there was no mention of magic. This left me with the possibility that the receiver could be a muggle. Yet, this didn't rule out anything yet. I might as well had stumbled on a dry page. For all I knew, she could be writing to a wizard or a witch.

I had stumbled on two quotes where Ophelia proclaimed how much she missed the person she was writing to. This fueled me with some inexplicable anger. She had also mentioned something about 'our fourth year'. This mere line had raised another idea in my head. When I thought about our fourth year, all I could think of was the Triwizard Tournament. Somehow, in my twisted mind, it made sense that maybe Ophelia had met a friend in the year of the Tournament. Who knew, maybe she had kept in contact with that friend. The more I thought about the possibility of her having some hulky Durmstrang pen pal in Eastern Europe, the more I wanted to somehow devise a plan of burning the Durmstrang school to the ground.

The anger stayed in my mind for long enough, until I dived deeper into my memories. She wrote that she didn't want to go to 'the Academy' or 'Mrs Petrova's'. I could only imagine these were her old ballet schools. I was more at ease now. It seemed more reasonable that she had a childhood muggle friend back in London, and since ballet was a primarily girly hobby of the muggle world, there were more possibilities for the addressee to be a muggle girl.

Then again, Ophelia had just been accepted to a prestigious ballet academy and I was sure this professional institution sought many male dancers as well. In my sleepless mind, this seemed like the perfect explanation – why she never seemed to have a shred of more-than-friendly emotion for me. In my mind, things were as obvious as they were apparent. Muggle or not, Ophelia was sure to have somehow found herself in a relationship and it didn't matter whether it was a Durmstang boy or some fit dancer. She was taken and certainly not mine.

I saw her right before my eyes; she was dancing. She was a fairy or some white creature of the deep forests. A man behind her was holding her waist and lifting her in the air like she was no more than a feather in the wind. Suddenly she was a swan; a white, elusive swan, hovering over a silver lake – her prince was in love. He landed her on a pointed shoe just in time for a delicate pirouette and then the man knelt before her graciously. They were both flawless in their movements; the countless, late-night rehearsals must have paid off. He held her hand as Ophelia dived forward, extending her leg behind her back. As her leg reached up towards the skies, the man got closer and closer. As she completed her perfect pose, he lightly pressed his lips on hers. The theatre below them raged in applause and the two dancers retrieved from the stage. The prince had won her over.

I shook my head to get the image out of my mind but it was persistent and whenever it disappeared, it gave its place to other, more devastating thoughts.

I miss you so much, she had said. Even the slightest chance that she was missing some male friend sickened me. Why couldn't she miss me instead? Maybe that other guy was better, smarter, more handsome, more of everything. Who could have known that while I was counting my words and moves around her, she had some other man in her mind all along?