Lorelei Jones | 4th Year
"Hi, dear," Gran said when Lorelei hopped off the train to meet her on Christmas Eve. The older woman tugged Lorelei in for a tight squeeze, and Lorelei gripped her Gran back as firmly as she could.
It had been too long since they had seen each other last, and Lorelei had been feeling especially homesick as the holidays approached. Lorelei was just lucky she had two places she could call home. Her house with Gran and Hogwarts.
After Gran had collected Lorelei's things and effectively loaded her onto their bus home, Lorelei began to unwind her shoulders and gaze out the hazy bus windows at her old neighborhood once more. It was a rather cold Christmas Eve that year, yet not even a flake of snow had survived from their last snowstorm the week prior.
The sun was shining in a subdued way, as if concealing its true power to give the people's attention to the other wonders of the season. It was a beautiful display of selflessness and honor. The sun stepped back to let the rest of the world create its own shine through lovingly decorated Christmas trees and hastily hung string lights.
All of it was wonderful to Lorelei, and her heart swelled more with each lurch forward their rundown bus took. Despite the dirt covered floors and gum stuck under the seats, Lorelei didn't see a filthy bus full of lonely people. Instead, she saw the wonder of how so many could cross paths with one another without ever realizing the magnificence of each chance encounter.
You could be crossing paths with a future lover, friend, employer, enemy, and you'd never know. You would one day know them as the person they became once their actions became significant to you, but you'd likely never put the pieces together of the passing glances you could give this person on the sidewalk or at a bus stop or in the middle of a grocery store soup aisle.
"Sweetheart," Gran said, interrupting Lorelei's thoughts with a gentle hand placed on her arm.
Lorelei looked to her with eyebrows furrowed and eyes searching. She noticed for the first time that Gran had a bit of weariness concealed in the tight lines around the corners of her mouth.
"Oh, I think I understand," Lorelei trailed and stared down at her baby blue painted fingers in her lap. She had already chipped part of the polish on her right pinky nail during the train ride back to London. She still couldn't quite figure out how that had happened.
"I know you probably do... I just hope you'll be alright if you have to spend your Christmas with just your boring, old grandmother," Gran explained and fidgeted with the leathery handle of Lorelei's trunk.
"I think our Christmases are usually better this way," Lorelei said with a genuine smile casted towards her Gran. This seemed to allow the older woman to breathe easier, for her shoulders began to rise and fall in steadier breaths.
"Besides, Gran, I have so much to tell you. We won't even have time to consider her absence."
—
After Lorelei and Gran put their sugar cookies into the oven and finished decorating the Christmas tree, the two of them curled into the couch and put a Christmas movie on quietly in the background. There was a gentle Christmas melody coming from their radio in the kitchen, and the living room was only illuminated by the soft glow of the Christmas lights and the flickering luminance of the television.
In this gentle space, Lorelei tugged her pajama-clad legs to her chest and smiled lopsidedly at Gran. She rested her cheek on the fuzzy fabric covering her knees and watched the peacefulness settle on her Gran's face.
After a moment, Gran took a sip of her tea and mused, "Now, what were you wanting to tell me, dear?"
"Well, it was a lot of little details really, but I...I had mostly hoped to discuss all of this soulmate stuff with you," Lorelei admitted with an innocent grin casted onto her fair skin.
"Of course, sweetheart. Tell me all about it."
A warm glow casted over the two of them, and the sweet smell of sugar and vanilla wafted into the air. It was enough to lull anyone into feeling comfortable enough to share their truest thoughts.
"I think I've found him, but I worry about him," Lorelei said and plucked a soft pillow from the cushion beside her. She slowly tugged it to her chest and stared at the couple crashing into one another on the television screen.
Like her and Draco.
"You worry about everyone, Leilee. What makes this any different?" Gran wondered, drawing Lorelei back in with her gentle question. Her French accent was becoming slightly thicker as she grew tired that evening.
"He's known to be one of the most unkind boys at my school," Lorelei said and slightly hung her head. She was scared of Gran's reaction that was sure to come.
As Gran had always told her, kindness was the most important gift one could ever give or receive from another.
Draco didn't seem to follow this same motto.
"And yet, you doubt the truth of your own concern," Gran noticed with eyes following Lorelei's expression over the top of her teacup.
Lorelei frowned and picked at a loose thread on the pillow in her lap. She wasn't sure how to phrase together the jumbled thoughts in her mind. It was a mess.
She liked Draco, and she started to crave his attention, but she hated hearing about all of the cruel things he had done. The ways he had mistreated people — called them names, demoralized them, hit them. She shuddered at the thought of how he had hurt Neville Longbottom last year.
The strangest thing was how he was only ever kind to her. Sure, he had been a bit prickly at first, but he was so different than she expected him to be. He had never called her names, never demoralized her, never hurt her. Still, she wasn't okay with him doing it to others either.
"He's never acted like that with me," Lorelei finally explained after a few long moments spent staring at the light dancing across the wooden floorboards of the living room.
"It makes you not believe that he is as unkind as they say, because he's kind to you." Gran took a quiet sip from her tea and didn't take her gentle gaze off her granddaughter. She didn't dare look away because she didn't want to miss a thing.
"I guess so. It's just...I just feel horrible that I've grown feelings for a person who treats others' feelings as if they're nothing. While he was stomping on others' sunshine, I was casting my own sunlight over the budding feelings and watering them every time he smiled at me," Lorelei lamented, feeling the weight of her guilt sitting on her collarbones.
"It's always uncomfortable when our mind and soul don't align about a person, but eventually, they will align. You hope the happier assumption will reign true in the end, but for now, you have to decide which you will let lead you — mind or soul," Gran said after setting her now empty teacup down onto the table beside the couch.
Lorelei frowned and stared down at her fingers in her lap. That was the hardest part it seemed. The part she dreaded most: deciding.
Did she want to follow her mind, which told her that Draco was a bully that she shouldn't have feelings for? Or, did she want to leap blindly into the unknown after her soul, believing in the goodness she had seen shine through the cracks in Draco's armor and let herself care for him the way her soul yearned to?
Lorelei went to bed that night with even more questions and a certainty that Gran would cheer on whatever decision Lorelei came to in the end.
That night, she had strange dreams of Draco, but the one that lasted the longest was of him sitting on a dark bed in an unfamiliar room. His expression was broken and his eyes hollow as he calmly dabbed away the crimson that coated the pale skin on his abdomen.
Lorelei woke up the next morning in a momentary panic, but the dreams quickly evaded her as she got swept up in the excitement of Christmas morning.
//