𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 - 𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐨 𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐟𝐨𝐲

29 - Contentedness

After moments of desperate contemplation, we found ourselves walking toward somewhere I didn't know. I don't know how my trust had suddenly been amplified as I walked by her like she was tugging at me. My head was held down, like there was a gravitating source constantly pushing on the bone of my neck, my skull, alongside so, tilting as gravity increased. But every once in a while, this strong force would ease on my bones and I would be able to glance at the intricate stone and the array of portraits. There were many portraits. They moved and swayed slightly with each deep breath they took, -or perhaps my eyes were frantically shaking, causing their movements to be simple figments of my brain-. The girl guiding me, (whose name was whimsical on the tongue [Luna Lovegood]), had a musical skip to her walk, but it wasn't like she was skipping, necessarily; just every so often you would hear her bare feet roughly glide against the cobblestone and bounce through the echoed walls. She did not talk to me much, but she did talk. She would talk in a humming sort of matter that was so distant to me, it was as if she was speaking to the hairs on her face. 

As we reached a portrait of a lady, whose brows were sharp and eyes were dull (a juxtaposing contrast of features), she spoke, asking a rather strange question that I could not quite catch. Luna answered faintly, and the portrait swung, inviting her to a dark-lit room. As I was about to follow her down this rabbit hole, Luna turned 

"You'll have to solve one of her riddles, it's how you get into the Ravenclaw common room" 

I didn't know how to reply to this. The recurring dizzy feeling intensified, as I was frozen in my skin. She gave me a thin-lipped smile, her eyes dazy as if reflecting my vertiginous haze. Before I could say anything, which I presumably wouldn't have anyway, but it is pleasant knowing I could, the portrait slammed shut; dust 

"What has beautiful hair, a pretty face, two arms, a fish's tail, looks like a mermaid, but isn't a mermaid?" The portrait of the lady asked, and I was rather frightened at the coincidence of this nature: I felt as if my skull was glass and my brain was a poster that had all my secrets written and underlined in bold marker.

The portrait seemed to be rather frustrated at my silence; "What has beautiful hair, a pretty face, two arms, a fish's tail, looks like a mermaid, but isn't a mermaid?" she huffed, sending the dust that was covering the canvas into the air. I coughed slightly, my ears and eyes began to burn with the sudden gush. 

 "A portrait of a mermaid," I said quietly, and I doubted she would hear anything. The portrait swung open. I was not sure if my answer was correct, or if she simply was annoyed at this. Nevertheless, I slowly approached the darkroom, my legs aching to be brushed by warm salt water. 

"You've made it. You truly are a Ravenclaw, I see," Luna said, appearing out of almost nowhere (for a moment, my imagination had assumed she emerged through the heavy dust that came along with me). 

"Yes, I have," I said, whispering. I will admit, after speaking to the portrait, my malnourished ego had accumulated by the slightest. In fact, at one point, I thought I had been able to go back to Draco and tell him what I truly wanted to do, but I knew that I wouldn't. 

A few minutes had passed, and Luna and I were sitting by a fire. I had the urge to touch the burning light, but the heat it radiated simply in the atmosphere was enough of a caution sign. I had the book 'Jane Eyre' resting heavily on my lap. The book was closed after reading several pages; I had reached a particular part where there was some awful tension between both main characters (Jane and Mr. Rotchester). Throughout these pages, the narrator expresses feelings of love; a notion I found highly romanticized and irritable. I did not understand this concept. How can one throw themselves away, their dignity, any spare elegance; every reasonable thought towards one person? As far as the book had gone on, I thoroughly communed with Jane, but her concept of love fumbled me severely. Was this sort of love taught? Why, of course not- It is more so a developed feeling, just like any other feeling; just like hate, anger, jealousy, curiosity. It is not something you learn formally. It is something you develop either with yourself or intertwined with the figment of another person. I don't believe I have loved before. And if I have, that realization is not something I am very familiar with. Perhaps I am too prideful to believe in love, whatever that feeling may be: You see, unlike hate, love flows into loose branches. You might love how much you hate something, but you could never hate how much you truly, honestly love something.