Harry Potter's Twin Sister

A Trip Down Existential Lane

Hazel's eyes were heavy and her arms felt sluggish. Her stomach was weak and her eyes burned. It was only the third week of school and she had officially burned out. 

Years of studying, learning, and exploring the world around her, and she couldn't even survive three weeks of Hogwarts.

What was wrong with her? She was only in her first year, and yet she felt like she had been staring at textbooks forever. The silence in the library was a burden on her ears, and she felt like her head was slowly being compressed.

She didn't even have the energy to be frustrated.

What is the point of all this schoolwork? How is this making my life better? Why do I even bother to put in all this effort when I'm getting dismal marks and nothing else?

At that moment, all she wanted to do was fall out the library window. Not because she felt particularly suicidal, but because she felt nothing. No excitement, no anticipation, nothing that would motivate her. The teachers seemed to think that the more work they gave, the more effort their students would put into it. And so far, it seemed like Hazel was the only one who was suffering. The only reason that the library was quiet was because everybody else had already finished their work, while Hazel could do nothing but stare into space and dream of adventures. 

Today she was especially taken with imaging that she was a cowgirl, living in western America, with her herd of horses and her evil husband. He was a chauvinistic prick, and theirs' was an arranged marriage. But luckily he had died under "mysterious" circumstances, and Hazel was left with his vast cattle-ranch, where she spent her days looking after herds of beautiful cows and she swam in crystal clear streams, and when she was hungry she ate fresh bread and preserved fruit. It was a lonely life, that was for sure, but Hazel loved every moment of it. Yeah, maybe she was a little awkward when she rode into the one-horse town every other week for supplies, but that didn't stop her from telling the Sheriff what's what. He was an old man, not particularly interested in pursuing justice, but that was were Hazel came in. She would ride after thieves and bandits (wearing her disguise of course), firing at them with her pistols while still riding her trusty steed, Lighting, or sneaking up on their camp at night, taking them out one by one, until she had rescued the jewels and/or prisoners. Then she would return to her humble cabin and sit in front of the fire with her many dogs.

Hazel was rudely awakened from wonderland by Madame Pince, who was shelving some books nearby and had decided that it was a perfectly decent time to start coughing loudly and obnoxiously.

Hazel stretched in her seat and watched Madame Pince's coughing fit intensify.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, I'm going," she muttered under her breath as she gathered her things.

She didn't bother to sort them out neatly but rather swept them into her large book bag, bending pages and spines as she did so, and earning her an appalled look from Madame Pince.

Hazel couldn't be bothered, and traipsed out of the Botany section. She heard something fall out her bag and could barely bring herself to stop walking to bend over and pick it up. She spent several seconds just looking at the item, wondering if it was worth the effort. Realizing that she was just wasting her own time by standing there like a fool with her mouth hanging open, she huffed out a large sigh and grabbed the pencil off the floor, sending a wave of blood rushing to her head. She stumbled out of the library half blind, her vision being temporarily impaired from the sudden excess of blood to her brain, and somehow she managed to make it all the way to the end of the hallway.

By then, Hazel wasn't tired, she was just mad. Her blood was finally pumping after hours of sitting in the library, and she had enough energy to scowl at nobody in particular. She didn't know where she was going, but she knew where she wasn't. She was sick and tired of being indoors, of being trapped in this castle. She just wanted to get out. She just wanted to do something for the sake of enjoying it. She enjoyed transfiguration, she enjoyed charms, she enjoyed history, but not when she was being forced to learn it. Hazel hated feeling like her life wasn't in her control. Everyone was telling her what to do, what to learn, what to think about, and when she did get to do things that she liked, she was being told to wait, to stop, to focus on something else.