Garreth's point of view:
Everything around me was dark. Slowly, really slowly, the darkness cleared and let me see where I was. I was at my parents' house. I saw my grandpa.
"Grandpa! I'm so sorry. I'm sorry that I was such a stupid kid. I'm sorry that you died because of me." I burst out and I felt like crying. My grandfather came over to me and hugged me. "You don't have to be sorry, Gary. Come see what you've accomplished in your all too short life."
"Am I dead?" I asked quietly. He nodded.
"Fuck." "Don't worry, Gary. There's nothing you can do about it now anyway." "Neither would I, even if I could. I wanted to save Caelie. I just hope she and Sebastian get out of there safely." I looked at him.
He looked exactly as I remembered him. He looked almost exactly like Dad, only with slightly grayer hair and a little older. He still smiled at me as lovingly as he used to.
"Once you've looked at everything, we can talk further.", he said and left.
Suddenly the scenario changed. I saw Grandpa and me, even younger, standing in the basement of our house. We experimented. Something went wrong and the contents of the cauldron exploded. A few sparks flew through the air and burned our hair. We threw water over our heads and ran outside laughing.
With soaking wet hair we threw ourselves on the meadow in front of the house. We laughed. Grandpa grinned broadly at me and conjured an ice cream for each of us. I was 6 or maybe 7 years old. In the background, I could hear Jennie crying. She was still a baby.
I saw a lot of moments like this where Grandpa and I screwed things up. But I also saw the moments where we were successful and toasted to it with fresh cherry juice.
I saw grandpa lying sick in bed. No, he wasn't sick. It was the poison. I started crying.
I saw the first time I accidentally cast a spell and in the process set the chicken coop on fire. Mum was scolding me because she thought I was cooking out of boredom. Dad cheerfully threw me in the air. He had trouble catching me, after all I was almost 10 years old.
I saw myself going to Ollivander's in Hogsmeade and he handed me a wand that worked immediately. The twin wand for Grandpa's wand. I remembered how proud I was that Grandpa and my wand shared the same dittany plant stem as a core.
I remembered my first and only ride on the Hogwarts Express. I was in a compartment with Ereck, Cressida and Everett. I was excited. Nervous. I was the first child of my parents who attended Hogwarts. Ereck had already been there a year and was a model student. As a result, the demands were high.
I remembered standing next to a lot of other first years. We were standing in front of the lectern in the great hall. I saw a brown haired boy next to me who was talking eagerly to an equally brown haired girl.
But then my eyes fell on the girl who had just been called up, sat down on the stool and was then sent to Gryffindor.
She was gorgeous. Her dark red hair fell over her shoulders and her head was a bright red. I blushed too when I saw her. I didn't know what it was that was happening inside me. Actually, she looked like a normal girl, but somehow I found her different.
"Weasley, Garreth," Aunt Matilda said after a while. I sat down on the stool and she lowered the hat onto my head. As soon as he touched my first curl, I heard his voice. "Ah, a Weasley again. Gryffindor!"
I hated it. I've always been just another Weasley. Slightly embarrassed, I walked over to the Gryffindor table. It was quite crowded, and the red-haired girl was sitting on the very outside. There was still some space next to her. "May I sit down?" I asked shyly. She nodded and smiled at me. "I'm Garreth Weasley. I'm sure we'll be seeing each other more often now," I said embarrassed. She smiled at me and that's when it happened to me.
Her smile. Her cheeks, slightly flushed. She held out her hand to me. "Hi Garreth, I'm Caelie Lewis. I think we're going to be good friends. You look like you're good at cracking jokes," she said. I grabbed her hand and shook it. I felt like my heart stopped.
Another boy squeezed in to us, and pushed me on to Caelie. I breathed in, a little startled, and took in her enchanting smell. It reminded me a bit of cinnamon and raspberries and I really loved cinnamon and raspberries. Caelie tried to talk to me and I really did my best to listen to her carefully, but my body was pumping blood in places I barely knew myself.
I had to laugh as I remembered it now. That was my first conversation with Caelie.
I saw myself and my dad in first grade in Paris over Christmas break. "Gary, what's going on? You hardly talk and you laugh a lot less than usual." "I'm thinking a lot, Dad." "What's bothering you?" "I'm thinking about a girl from school." "Do you like her?" "I'm madly in love with her. So much that it hurts." "Why does it hurt? Doesn't she like you?" "We're friends. Best friends I think. But her heart doesn't race like mine when we see each other."
"Give her time. It was the same with your mum and me. Eventually it will come if you always treat her well. Then she will see that you are a great guy." Dad gave me a loving smile. "I hope so. Thank you, Dad" "Shall we get to know her too?" "She doesn't live far from us. Can she come and see us in the summer?" "Sure. As often as you want. She must be a special girl if you like her. You've never been interested in girls before," he said, grinning, and tousled my hair.
I saw myself in the viaduct courtyard. I ran towards a brown haired boy.
"Stay away from Caelie!" I yelled angrily. He turned to me and laughed at me, "What are you going to do if I don't, Weasley? Do you want to hit me?" he asked, continuing to laugh at me. I jumped and punched him in the face. We fought until Aunt Matilda came over and yelled at us. For the next two weeks, Sebastian and I sat in detention.
I saw myself and Caelie in the common room. We were in second grade and I had long been in love with her by that point. We had spent most of the summer together and were very familiar when she fell asleep next to me and I secretly snuggled up to her.
At the end of the summer, when she spent a few more days with Marlee after second grade, I found her worn blouse at home. Me and this blouse spent many hours in the bathroom and in my bed as a result. I was really glad that grandpa showed me how to do laundry properly beforehand. It had taken me a while to clean up all the remnants of my crimes, but I couldn't help it. I was really ashamed when I gave it back to her. I was glad though that after a few weeks as she grew it didn't fit her anyway.
I saw myself in the winter of fourth grade. I'd heard rumors that Caelie was interested in that Slytherin guy. I sat crying in the bell tower. I was really desperate. Why wasn't she aware of me? I've always been by her side. I'd have given anything to have her return my feelings. Didn't I deserve her? Wasn't I worthy of happiness? Why this guy I had so much in common with? Why him and not me? I couldn't let him take Caelie away from me. No. I couldn't. Caelie was mine even though she didn't know it yet. Nobody in this world could give her the love that I could give her.
Poor Caelie. Now, as I realized, I was really obsessed with her. No, I was still. But unlike before.
I saw myself wandering around the library. One look at the Sallow boy as I surreptitiously sneaked back and forth between the rows. Handsome boy, you couldn't blame her for having a crush on him. I've always hated my red hair, but his brown ones looked really good. He had a lot less curls than me, but his hair looked a little wild too.
I couldn't let him and Caelie get together and then she would disappear from my life. I could have lived with staying single forever, as long as she was by my side. Even if only platonic, but I didn't want to live without her. And I didn't want her touching anyone else. At least not in such a romantic way.
So I snuck between the rows and when Sebastian wasn't in his place, I poured into his cup a tasteless toxin I'd brewed up especially for the occasion. It was planed. That was an attempted murder. I understood now what Sebastian meant when he said there was a difference between an accident and murder.
After pouring the poison into his cup, I went back to our common room and played a game of chess with Caelie. I didn't really like chess at all, but Caelie looked so damn cute when she was thinking. And I often let her win because she looked just as cute when she was happy.
Sebastian came back, but then finally seemed to keep away from Caelie.
I remembered secretly observing Caelie taking a bath during the fourth grade vacation. That was the first time I saw her naked. She had fallen asleep in the bath and I snuck in and kept the water warm with my wand so she wouldn't be woken up by the cold water. As she slowly woke up, I jumped out the window in a panic and broke my ankle.
"Merlin's beard, that's embarrassing," I thought to myself as I looked at all these situations, "Especially out of the window. If I had just said I had to pee, she would never have been mad at me."
I saw Caelie in fifth year, at the Triwizard Tournament. At the Yule Ball. She was so beautiful, even more beautiful than ever before. She was wearing a floor length, dark red dress. We went there together. As friends of course. When it was said that the Yule Ball was taking place, I took the first opportunity to ask her, which she accepted with a smile. But when I think back to that evening, how we tried to dance tightly into the night, I'm sure that at that point, there were feelings on her part too.
Or maybe it was the white wine that was handed out to the seventh graders as an exception, and from which I was able to steal a whole bottle for us. She leaned her head against mine and I remember Sebastian's piercing gaze as he danced with Imelda. I remembered grinning at him spiteful.
A little drunk we fell asleep in the bell tower afterwards. I was leaning against the wall and she was resting her head on my lap. It really was a miracle that she didn't notice my erection.
From that moment on, things went uphill. I felt like we were touching each other even more than before, and she snuggled up to me more and more often. She blushed more and more often when we spoke or when I got too close to her. I noticed that her heart raced more often in my presence.
And then came sixth grade. I offered her a drink, which was perfectly safe, but she couldn't take any of the ingredients and passed out. It was only afterwards that I found out that she was allergic to papaya. When I knew that she was reasonably well, I stopped going to see her. I kissed her on the forehead and I didn't know how she took it. I just hadn't thought about it. I did it more often when she was sleeping, but never when she was awake.
And too big was my fear that the situation between me and Sebastian would escalate in front of her eyes and she would see how I really was. Obsessive, jealous, insecure, aggressive... and dangerous.
I didn't want her to get to know that side of me. Then I would have finally had no chance with her.
Then I heard that she had been released from the hospital wing. I gathered all my courage and invited her to meet me outside Hogwarts. And with that followed the night under the oak tree. I was so excited. Her heart was beating harder than it ever had before. I could tell she wanted to confess it to me. But I was the first to do it. I'd had these feelings inside me for so long, I just had to say it first.
We kissed and fell over each other. Everything felt so familiar and foreign at the same time. We knew each other so well and trusted each other. Caelie and I, both as hormonally charged as we were, didn't let any more time pass.
That very same evening, I saw her private parts for the first time up close and touched it. I tasted it. And Merlin, it was fucking good. Never before had I felt such arousal. I had let her panties disappear with me in the bathroom from time to time in the past, when she was already living with us, but this was something completely different.
Touching her, tasting her, feeling her twitch under me when she experienced her peak, or even just hearing her when she moaned. All this was absolutely wonderful, and only made my love for her grow beyond measure.