Topic: the curtains close , laurie (Read 42 times)
Liberty Martin day.dreamer_ s e v e n t h y e a r p r e f e c t[M:0:0:0:] member is offline
look for the girl with the broken smile
Joined: Aug 2007 Gender: Female Posts: 386 Karma: 48
the curtains close , laurie « Thread Started on Aug 16, 2009, 8:39am »
--------------------------------------------------------------- the battle's done and we kind of won so we sound our victory cheer where do we go from here? ---------------------------------------------------------------
It was strange to think that only a few months ago, she and a whole group of people Libby could almost call her friends were standing in this very room, practising spells and hexes that would help them if it ever came to a fight against the Death Eaters. The room was so empty now; it was only the second day of term, so most people were probably still unpacking or eating dinner, but somehow Libby had expected someone else to be in what had been the DA’s meeting room for the whole of her sixth year. It wasn’t used anymore; they could finally meet in public, no longer fearing their punishment if they were found out, and so no-one had really wanted to go through the labyrinthine corridors and protection spells still in place to get here for meetings. She looked around the chamber, dummies still standing by the walls, mats still stacked in one corner. Libby had been so scared every time she’d come here, worried that she’d forget how to get through the charms, or that she’d humiliate herself again, or – worst of all – that she would be accosted by Death Eaters on her way and be tortured so much that she’d spill the secrets (not that she would ever have told anyone anything). She still felt the hint of that fear now, alone in the room without the friendly comradeship of the other students risking everything to be there, but it didn’t bother her: they had won.
They had won. It was still a concept that, after all the months of hiding, of practising and helping each other out, of biting fingernails right down every time there was news of a new attack on a muggle town, was difficult for Liberty to grasp. They had won. Nobody had to hide anymore. Nobody had anything to fear.
There were still things that had to be resolved, that was for certain, but they were problems that the Ministry would have to deal with and therefore not things that Libby was going to worry about – she didn’t see herself ever wanting to join the Ministry, not after she’d seen how easily it could be infiltrated and how corrupt it could become with just a few moves. You Know Who might have instigated the Muggle Born Registry, but the Ministry had carried it out. She’d had friends on that list, close friends who’d had to lie about their past not because they were ashamed of it, but because they wanted to live. Some of them had had to run away, and by the end of the year there had been a whole collection of people using the Room of Requirement as a sanctuary; muggle borns, half-bloods like herself and purebloods alike. In the end, it hadn’t mattered whether someone was considered pure of blood or not; people had died, regardless of whether their parents had been able to do magic. The Death Eaters had suffered losses just as their side had, perhaps even more so, since they lost their leader and therefore their raison d’être. And at the end of the day, Libby might have been on the winning side, but she’d still lost too. Everybody had, with each dead body that had been laid down the centre of the Great Hall. She could still see them there now, when she went to eat. Libby found that she wasn’t as hungry this year as she’d once been.
It was worth it though, wasn’t it? Those poor people who’d died, they’d not given their lives in vain. They’d fought for a better world, and had sacrificed themselves for it. Libby thought that there were worse days to die – you died brave and would be remembered as such – but at the end of the day, you were still dead. She wished that the war could have been won with considerably fewer fatalities, but wasn’t that the essence of war; unnecessary wastage? Every student in this school that was still alive had lost years of their life to this war, whichever side they’d been on and however much disgrace their family was now in. Libby thought it was a shame that they’d all had to grow up so fast, but she was grateful for it too. She’d not liked herself much, but now she was finally beginning to accept who she was, and change the things that she really disliked about herself. And that was down to the war; if it had never happened, if she’d never joined the DA and forced herself to swallow her cowardice, if she’d never found that burst of courage and fought in the Battle, she would still be the small girl who hid at the back of classrooms behind curtains of hair, not speaking to anyone and bursting into tears the moment someone said something mean. She’d still be a coward, she’d still be worthless and there wouldn’t be anyone to miss her if she wasn’t there. She was still a coward in many ways, but Libby finally felt as though there were people who wanted her around. She had friends, and as perverse as it sounded, she had the war to thank for that; friendships were forged in the most dire of situations, and those were the ones that lasted when the war was won and the mess cleaned up.
She looked around the meeting room and smiled. “We won.”
Re: the curtains close , laurie « Reply #1 on Aug 16, 2009, 10:28am »
It seemed like forever since she'd been in the old DA's room, so Laurie had decided she wanted to pay it a visit. It seemed like only yesterday that everyone had come in here and trained, trained, trained. But that was before the war. Everything was different now. She was somewhat sad about it. Some might say that was stupid, why would someone say the war being over was a bad thing? That wasn't it, though. She was glad it was over, it was just... It felt a little more worth it when they were in secret, had to go through all the obstacles to get there, and they're work actually met something. She wasn't saying it was useless now, there just wasn't that much of a reason. Now the only reason they would need was for tests and such. It probably wasn't as big a deal to the others as it was too her, but she felt saddened by this. She didn't have many friends, being as shy as she was, and it was the closest she got to having friends. It didn't bother her much that she didn't have friends, but everyone she'd met was so nice. Especially Nazim. This was where she'd met him, and it brought back good memories being in the same room.
Laurie thought she was probably the only one who would ever come in this room again. After all, the others had friends they hung out with on a regular basis. Laurie didn't see much of many people since she was shy and was almost always doing homework. There were a few people she would see sometimes but going out with people wasn't really her thing. She was usually either working on homework or curled up in a chair reading a book. As she was going through the obstacles, she felt a lump in her throat as she thought that this was probably the last time she'd ever do it. It was probably the last time anyone would ever go in there. She was sure no one would want to revisit bad memories, memories of the war. She was sure no one would think of how the DA had brought people together, people that might not have even talked to each other if it hadn't been for this. She would certainly have never met Nazim if she hadn't started coming to the meetings. With the way they avoided each other in the hallways because of the other Slytherins, there was no way he'd have just come up to her and started talking. And she might not have talked to him even if he did. There really weren't many Slytherins like him, as bad as that sounds. She'd decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, though, and it was probably one of the best decisions she'd ever made.
Laurie slipped through the doors and sat on the floor in the corner. She had missed this room, missed it immensely. So much, in fact, that she contemplated returning regularly, or at least once in a while, so she could think of and enjoy old memories. She decided she would at least return once a month, if not more. After all, she owed a lot to the room. No one had discovered them in there last year. She understood it was actually the leaders' fault that they hadn't gotten caught, since they set up the obstacles and such, but she was still happy thinking about the room. It was exactly the same as it had been the year before, and in her opinion, that was great. Made it easier to remember. Laurie looked up when she heard a noise in the room. She realized it was the door opening. She sat a moment, curious as to who would be coming down here and worrying it was a teacher who'd found the room. Her worries weren't needed however, as she recognized the figure. Liberty Martin, a seventh year Hufflepuff. She recognized Liberty from the DA meetings and smiled, thinking that someone else loved it as much as she and had come down to the room. Liberty walked into the room and didn't notice Laurie in the corner. She seemed to be caught in her thoughts. Then Laurie heard her say "We won." She had to be thinking of the war and the old DA meetings. Again smiling, Laurie stood up and walked over to Liberty, shyly saying. "Hi. Guess I'm not the only one stuck in the past today."
Liberty Martin day.dreamer_ s e v e n t h y e a r p r e f e c t[M:0:0:0:] member is offline
look for the girl with the broken smile
Joined: Aug 2007 Gender: Female Posts: 386 Karma: 48
Re: the curtains close , laurie « Reply #2 on Aug 16, 2009, 5:16pm »
Joining the DA was possibly the best thing that Libby had done. In the years since she’d joined as a terrified fourth year, she’d made friends, got better at what had probably been her worst subject up until that point, and made friends. And while the making friends was almost a miracle in itself, she’d also felt as though she were a part of something. For the first three years of her Hogwarts life, she’d drifted round on the edge, too scared to talk to anybody and not really trying with her work. For all its illegality, the DA had given her a place at Hogwarts that she’d not had before, and Libby really appreciated that. Sure, she’d grown older and more mature too, and that probably contributed to her finally improving on her stutter and feeling happy to be around her friends, but the DA had certainly helped. Without it, she’d still be struggling with the most basic spells and not having anyone she could turn to for help. Not that she’d turn to anybody now, but there were people she could ask, if she wanted to. She was still very much a solitary person, and that meant working through problems on her own. But she was a part of something, something that had been good and had helped win the War, and that was nothing if not a good thing. And this place was where it had happened this past year; it was a good place, just as the Room of Requirement was a good place. And the DA…it was a good thing. A very good thing, for Libby. She’d still be a lost little girl without it.
"Hi. Guess I'm not the only one stuck in the past today."
Libby hadn’t realised that she’d not been alone in the room; in all honesty, she’d not thought that anyone else would want to come down here again. They’d be too busy catching up with their friends in those really loud, excited conversations that gave her a headache, or looking at the memorial, or something that would keep them away from the memories – both good and bad – that this particular room held. Libby didn’t have any large groups of friends to greet, since she preferred to meet up with them separately (it was far, far less stressful and she didn’t have to worry about freaking out over a group of people wanting her attention and making all the hard work she’d put in over the summer to improve her confidence go to waste), and she happened to like the memories. Not all of them were pleasant, but what didn’t kill you made you stronger. She wasn’t dead, and she wasn’t strong, but she was getting there. Someone else speaking, however, made her jump and instinctively hold her arms up across her chest, biting the end of the sleeve of her jumper and doing her best to seem smaller than she already was. Then she remembered that she didn’t have to seem small anymore, because she was comfortable being herself and didn’t want to be invisible (although her conviction in that wasn’t exactly one hundred percent), and slowly lowered one of her arms until it was dangling uselessly by her side before turning to smile at the other person.
Laurie. At least she knew the girl’s name, and the fact that she’d been in the DA. That was a start, although Libby knew a lot of people’s names, being the kind of person who remembered faces easily but found actually talking to those faces a whole lot harder. They’d never really spoken, but Libby had made a point of speaking to as few people as possible at the meetings last year; they were slightly less scary if she didn’t have to meet new people at the same time as participating in an illegal club, and she did know a lot of people from the first DA anyway. “The f-future’s scarier than the past,” Libby replied, picking at the threads on her sleeve she’d pulled loose by biting it, before realising what she was doing and resolutely shoving her hands into the pockets of her skirt. The way to seem more confident was to break nervous habits, and if you seemed confident then you felt confident, or something like that. “At least all that stuff’s already happened.”
Re: the curtains close , laurie « Reply #3 on Aug 16, 2009, 7:13pm »
Funny thing about the past. It could haunt you. Or maybe that wasn't so funny, it was a horrible thing to have your past haunt you. But another funny thing; you couldn't really do anything to stop it. And Laurie knew this fact very very well. Sometimes it seemed like hardly a day had gone by since her mother had died. That was one of the memories that haunted her. Death happened every day, and she knew that, everyone knew that, but only people who had actually lost someone close to them knew how it felt for the others. People with both of their parents could only guess how horrible it was not to have any at all. Or to have one who dumped you on your grandparents' doorstep and ran away to America. Laurie didn't even understand how a parent could do that. When she had children, if she ever did, she would love the child/children to bits. There weren't many people who could just abandon their kids. Hopefully she wouldn't be a bad parent. She then stopped thinking for a second and then wondered how she'd even gotten to thinking about being a mother. Strange...
Laurie got back to the topic she'd been thinking about before, but found it a little depressing to think about. She quit before she could get into one of her 'moods.' She didn't need that at the moment. Well, she didn't need it at any moment, but right now, when she was near someone else, was a definate no-no. Not that she could really control it, but she could try, couldn't she? It was a plus that Laurie didn't have many friends, because no one really questioned the random moods she sometimes went in. Sure, there were a few people that noticed them and asked, but she couldn't really find any way to explain, so she mostly kept silent. She wasn't the kind of person to blurt her feelings out to anybody, especially strangers. She kept them to herself at almost all times. It was safer that way. It wasn't that she had some huge secret to hide, but more like she was hiding her own feelings from being hurt. There was no person on Earth who enjoyed getting their feelings hurt, and if they said they did, they were lying. There was no doubt about it.
“The f-future’s scarier than the past.”
Laurie smiled at the stutter at the beginning of Liberty's sentence. She wasn't smiling to make fun of the girl, but rather because she felt some need to stutter at times when she was very nervous, too. She hadn't at this time because there really wasn't anything to be afraid of down here. She was only with Liberty after all, and the girl was hardly a serial killer. "I know exactly what you mean," Laurie responded, with a glazed look in her eyes. She had flashed back to the day of her grandfather's death now, and the look on her grandmother's face when they realized there was nothing they could do to help him. They had both felt so helpless that night, and Laurie had never been close to her grandmother, so chose to mourn in the privacy of her bedroom. But then Laurie shook her head and brought herself back. It wasn't good to dwell on the past, when the future was scarier, as Liberty had said.
“At least all that stuff’s already happened.”
Laurie realized Liberty was right yet again. She had to focus on what was coming up in her life, because there was nothing she could do to change the past. She couldn't even regret and decisions she'd ever made, because what was the point? Memories were there to stay and there wasn't a spell in the world that could change that, no matter how many witches or wizards had most likely tried to create it. But some things didn't need to be changed. They were fine the way they were. Like the war, for instance. Though one could argue points on that. It was a good thing because You-Know Voldemort was gone, but it was a horrible thing because people had died. Everyone was entitled to their own opinion and there was no point in trying to change peoples' minds either. Though there really was no need for a change. Of course people who'd had relatives who died in the war were going to think it had been a bad idea. That was a given. But for most, it was a secret. They were happy about being able to be happy again, and only thought the depressing thoughts in the privacy of their own thoughts.
Laurie had wanted to put her training with the DA to good use last year, but hadn't been allowed since she'd only been sixteen. Too bad it hadn't happened months later when she turned seventeen because she could've helped out. Obviously, they hadn't needed her help, but it would've been nice to feel like she had been needed, instead of having waited and waited in the Hog's Head, wondering what was happening. Although they did hear Voldemort's voice over the loudspeaker, that didn't change anything. They couldn't witness personally what was going on. Laurie thought of how much she'd wanted to be in the battle, but in her heart she was secretly glad of the age restriction. People she couldn't bear to lose would've been fighting their hearts out, and at risk of dying in the war. She wouldn't have known what to do with herself if another person died. Just one more death would probably push her over the edge.
Laurie had been split between relief and sadness during the battle, but thinking back, she knew she was more happy than unhappy about the age restriction. She would've thought differently if the outcome had turned out another way, but it hadn't so she thought it best no to think "What If" questions. There really was no point to them. They were useless and didn't change anything or even get answered. Someone who lived their life thinking of what if questions seriously needed to find something else to. Laurie realized she was rambling in her mind and put an end to it, again looking around the room at the piles of pillows and spellbooks scattering the floor and felt a pain in her heart. "I miss this place," she whispered.
Liberty Martin day.dreamer_ s e v e n t h y e a r p r e f e c t[M:0:0:0:] member is offline
look for the girl with the broken smile
Joined: Aug 2007 Gender: Female Posts: 386 Karma: 48
Re: the curtains close , laurie « Reply #4 on Aug 21, 2009, 5:29pm »
Libby hoped that the DA would continue this year. It was a good club, and she’d learned things that she’d never even dreamt she’d be able to do under the tutelage of first Harry, and then Luna, Ginny and Neville. Defense Against the Dark Arts was a good lesson, but even when toad-faced Umbridge wasn’t teaching it, it was still mostly a theoretical subject purely from the point of view of practicalities; teaching twenty or thirty students to do something when half of them probably didn’t even want to be there wasn’t easy, Libby imagined. But the DA had been comprised entirely of people who wanted to learn, and it had been taught in a way that made it completely unlike a lesson, and that was part of its appeal for her; she had the brain but learning in a classroom didn’t work for her, and a more relaxed atmosphere (even one where she was tense the whole time) had been perfect. She’d not needed to be so scared of the teachers, because they weren’t grown-up professors, but people her own age. Everyone had been there for a cause, both with the first DA and the second, and what they’d done had mattered. It wouldn’t be the same, without an underlying war to be fought, but it had become Libby’s support network; she almost thought that she needed it to get through the year. Without it, she definitely doubted that she’d have got through the last one.
But at the same time, Libby didn’t want Dumbledore’s Army to be open to anyone and everyone just because the War had finished. She’d got used to the small number of people in it, finally finding herself vaguely comfortable in a room full of people for the first time in her life, and more people would mean that she was less happy to attend any meetings. The DA and the friends she’d made there meant everything to Libby – it had been the first time at Hogwarts that she’d really felt as though she had friends she could trust – but she still couldn’t deal with a whole load of people she didn’t know. It would be less like the family they’d become in their months of secret meetings and practising defence mechanisms for the almost inevitable battle, and more like any one of the other after-school groups that were out there, that Libby had avoided for the past six years. Sure, it would be good to help the younger students, now that there wasn’t any risk involved, but maybe they’d have to start a club for those who’d been in one of the original DAs. Libby wanted to keep in contact with those friends without feeling scared of all the people she didn’t know. She supposed she’d just have to wait and see; deep down, she knew that she’d be a member regardless. The DA meant too much to her to leave it now, after everything.
What Libby had said to Laurie was true; the future scared her a lot. Not the future as in the next day, or the next week, but further ahead; you couldn’t plan everything, and she’d never really been one to enjoy the unpredictability of life. It led to finding yourself the subject of bullying for years, or emotional distress, or just an inability to cope with everything that was thrown at you, and Libby didn’t want that anymore. She couldn’t see where she’d be in five years, what she’d be doing and whether or not she’d be in a relationship; she didn’t even know if she’d still be alive. It was murky, out there, and that terrified her. She liked things to be clear-cut, but she was also aware that it was somewhat of a naïve desire. Things weren’t clear; that was what made life what it was. And if she couldn’t really see what she’d be doing from one day to the next, how was she supposed to look ahead with anything but fear? She was simply living one day at a time. It seemed to work pretty well.
"I miss this place."
Libby looked round the room and nodded in agreement. It had surprised her how much she’d missed the DA during her fifth year, and upon hearing of its reformation to secretly rebel against the Death Eaters last year, she’d joined without hesitation (which had been a surprise in itself, because she wasn’t exactly the brave sort of person to do something that might threaten her life). “Me too,” she replied, going to sit on the pile of cushions in one corner of the room. She’d felt as though she belonged to something for the first time in a long while here, like she could actually make a difference to the world and for somebody who shied away from anything life-changing, it had been a good feeling. And they had made a difference; without them, the Battle of Hogwarts might not have been won and they would still be under Death Eater rule. Libby shuddered at the thought; it was unthinkable, because there would always have been a group of students who secretly rebelled against the harsh regime. They might not have been called Dumbledore’s Army and they might not have been building on the foundations of a club built by Harry Potter himself, but it would always have been there. The only difference was, Libby probably wouldn’t have been a part of it.
“I think,” she began, picking up a pillow and playing with one of the corners, “I think we did good. This was good.” She looked up at Laurie and smiled. “We made a difference. And…And I think we’ll still make a difference. There’ll probably still be meetings this year, just not in secret anymore.”
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