give her love » james potter

7

June 18, 1977,

Dear Lina Bear,

Do you remember when Uncle Winston used to call you that? You probably don't because you were still really little, and I honestly don't know how I remember it because I must've only been seven. Yet I still do.

It's weird that we can't recollect things like that, how memories we don't have are in other minds. I can't remember my first words, yet mum and dad do. That makes me wonder when those people die, the ones who have memories of you, and you die. It's basically like you didn't exist. I guess my great-grandchildren can say, "Oh ya, Elliot Pierce was apparently super cool and he was an auror.", but they'll never really know me. I think about that a lot nowadays, what is life even, because one day you're going to be forgotten, you're going to be truly dead because you only live as long as the people who have memories of you do.

That was depressing.

I told mum about that, she rolled her eyes and said I should go get some philosophy degree, then proceeded to go on and on about how Della from work was flashing her third engagement ring in eight months to everyone at work.

But do you believe that Lina? I think I do. It's a tad depressing I suppose, but, times are getting rough and we see so many deaths in the ministry, I just can't help but wonder about it between pretending to give a shit about what type of coffee Jerry wants.

Also, I'm getting my first big case soon! Very excited, these tax fraud cases are important and all, but just not what I want my auror life to be like.

Write back soon,

The Coolest Pierce

P.S

Dad read the last part and said the coolest Pierce was obviously him, Forty-two is really taking a toll on the old man (he also says that tax frauds are very big and exciting, please write him a letter explaining what fun is.)

Siobhan sits with me at breakfast the next day.

She tells me about how she wants to cut her hair, I tell her that she should get a perm because I read in a magazine they're coming back in style, she scrunches her nose and says it will never. I shrug because magazines never lie. They're like future telling books, soft or like crystal balls in divination,

All my 'friends' have decided to sit a respectable five meters from us. I think they have concluded that I've lost my mind with my family, and the fact I kept it from them makes me not the most loved person right now.

I know I should go and talk to them. Apologize or spill everything inside me, but instead, I stay glued to my seat. Only glancing at them occasionally when I hear laughter. I'm tired today, I want something simple, something that doesn't drain me.

It's easy with Siobhan. I listen to her talk and give input when I feel the need to, and that's good enough. She doesn't ask for more, she wants to, I know she does, but she doesn't.

"I lived with my grandma this summer," she tells me between bites of an apple. "She forgot I existed most of the time, so I'd sneak out during the night, and that's when I met these muggle kids," she scrunches her nose, "mum would've killed me if she found out, but anyway, they took me to this gig. I didn't really listen to muggle music, but god, the Sex Pistols were really good--"

"You saw them in person," I interrupt, not sure if this is real. Me and Eli had spent the whole summer trying to see them, we barely even got the music into the house without dad finding out. "That's basically my only goal in life."

She laughs. "Very ambitious."

I shrug. "Jobs and marriage are important, but music is important-er."

Siobhan nods solemnly to that. We, teenagers who are going through the internal-angst-and-rebellion thing, both know the value of music better than anyone.

"I guess one day we'll have to go and catch a concert."

"Obviously."

"Maybe you can marry one of them."

"Steve Jones?"

She tilts her head, her brows furrowing. "I thought you'd say Sid."

I shrug. "Everyones obsessed with him, too much competition," I say, taking a sip of my coffee. "I prefer guitarists, anyway."

Sundays pass by horribly slowly some days, but today it goes by in a single blink.

When everyone in my room has fallen asleep and the moon and stars are at their peak time, I lay in my bed wide awake. I know I'll regret it in the morning and how it's a horrible habit to stay up late, but it's hard to fall asleep now more than ever.

I stare at the ceiling, shadows dimly dance on it. It's a fascinating view because I don't know what would cause it outside. Maybe some tree rustled by the wind or a bird who can't fall asleep like me. The Hufflepuff dorms are on the bottom floor, not the dungeons like the Slytherin or towers like Ravenclaw, we're just the main floor. A tad uninteresting but it's close to the kitchens so that's nice I suppose.

Rachel had given me back my skirt, the one I'd lent her last spring, a few hours ago, only saying a simple, "This is yours."

But it felt like she was saying: "I don't want this anymore, this skirt and you."

That's the thing about friendship, you start to develop your own kind of language at one point. Saying can I borrow this means I'm keeping this for a very long time, or when you hate someone it automatically means they hate the person too.

It's a basic thing in every friendship really, no matter how real or honest the relationship is, you learn to build your own alphabet and dictionary with them.

Perhaps my incapability to be a little bit real, never let us go onto best friend status, but we were in the middle ground of friends and best friends. So it still really hurt, how she gave me the corduroy skirt that mum bought me but I never wore because it felt ridiculous on my short legs, but on Rachels 5'11 frame it looked like something from a magazine.

We'd talked about that a few weeks ago, she'd laughed and said I looked perfectly fine it, she just loved it a bit too much.

Now the skirt sat sadly in my trunk, asking God why it had to be returned back to the little legged brunette.

I remember once when mum and I had gone shopping for bras. While looking through lacy bra's, she had turned to me and said, "Confidence is the sexiest thing a woman can have."

I had rolled my eyes. "What about a pushup bra?"

"Angelina," she'd sighed, putting her hand on her hip because she always did that when she gonna lecture me. "Anyone can wear a bra to make them look more blessed in the chest department. But confidence, sure every woman can have it, but everyone wears it in a unique way. It makes you seem horribly appealing when you're able to own up to, even the bad parts of yourself. A pushup bra can only get you so far."

I had rolled my eyes once again at that.

My mum worked at a law firm, she wasn't a lawyer or anything though, just a normal old receptionist. Sometimes I used to ask her why she wasn't a lawyer, she'd tell me she didn't want to be one. Sometimes I'd ask her if she was jealous of my father, who seemed to have dozens of degrees and a job that paid far more than hers, she'd sigh and say that's what he wanted, she didn't want that for herself.

I'll never get to ask her another question, or roll my eyes at her answers, or yell at her when I'm mad, or feel her arms tangle me into this crushing hug, or the fact that I'll never get to say I love you or even hear her say it.

When I younger I'd crawl into bed with her and dad, she'd whisper stories into my hair as dads snore echoed in the room. "You are loved," she would say softly when a nightmare would leave me terrified, then she'd repeat it, "you are loved, so very much."

Loneliness, hurt, and anger slip into my bed, they make the sheets cold and the bed suffocating.