Similitudes

We're not so different, you and I.

We both have parents who don't understand us, if for slightly different reasons. Mine don't understand me because I've changed. Yours are different because the rest of the world changed. My parents don't recognize me; after watching six sons grow through the dangerous years of adolescence and puberty, they are unaccustomed to tracking the growth of a daughter. Your parents simply don't recognize you. They never have. It's quite possible that they never will.

Both of us are the victims. Always the victims, and never the heroes. Even when you tried to be a hero last summer, it came out all befuddled. You got it all wrong, like you always do. When I tried to be the hero, I put myself and others in danger. I almost got myself killed, like I always do. You've been taunted by others your entire school career. Others have hurt you your entire life. Even those who meant well and even those who loved you. Those hurts are the hardest to bear, but you bear them somehow. All day long you hold hot, stinging tears at bay, and your eyes sparkle with effort. The twinkle in your eye makes you look cheerful, didn't you know that? It makes you look like you are enjoying the tortured hell you live. I know better. I've been haunted my childhood with a single hurt. My death would have been a blessing in comparison. You understood, and you welcomed the darkness that has slowly been invading my innocence.

Both of us take pleasure in watching new life flower and bloom in the way of plants. You anxiously water and care for your herbs and exotic plants every day. I watch you stroke their leaves, whisper into their delicate buds. At the end of every day, you ask them how their day went. Once I scoffed at you for telling me the flora are the only thing in this world that can understand the human heart. Now I can almost hear the small, fragile voices of the plants as they answer you back. You gave me pots, seeds, and a little copper trowel you specially ordered for me. It has a wooden handle, and my name is carved in the dark ebony. Ginevra. The windowsill where our plants reside is quite comic, really. It's as if an invisible line separates our two "gardens". Your side is a well-groomed showcase of your most exotic and beautiful plants. My side is a chaotic mess of chamomile, daisies, and spontaneous bursts of marigolds. It brings a smile to my face simply thinking of it. Who knew that we could be so different in something in which we are both so much alike?

We are both not what we appear to be. You never got any attention as a child, so you would lose your socks, trip down the stairs, or forget how to drink to get attention. You did anything to get attention from grandmother, your uncle, anything. You never got the attention from the people you craved, though. They always stayed inside their heads, sitting stiffly in a bed in a ward in a Wizarding hospital. How my heart broke for you when I learned the truth; your parents do not even know your name, and will never giggle when you lose your pocket money, or forget a spell. They will never know that you are so much more than your clumsiness. They will never even know that you are their son. I, with six older brothers, always assumed I was the accident. I was the mistake of the family. From the time I was a babe in my mother's arms, I was loud. I was determined that if I was the mistake, everyone would know about it. I promised myself that I could be just as loud and obnoxious and mischievous as my older brothers. But that's not who I am. I want to be quiet, and gentle, but my loud and raucous behavior has become me. Your foolish antics and clumsiness has become you as well. But that's not who we are.

When I am with you, I feel like a burden has been taking from my shoulders. When you are with me, your words are kind; your touch is gentle. I am able to sit still for hours, your arms around me, your voice in my ear, telling me that everything will be alright. When I am with you, you are able to hold me, to dance with me to invisible music, and don't knock anything over, or trip on my toes. Somehow, when we are together, we are able to be ourselves, and maybe that is the reason we are together after all. There are no real differences between us, Neville Longbottom.

No differences at all.

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Fin