Background Noise

They've trashed her bedroom again. The clothes are pulled out of the wardrobe, her books have been scattered across the floor and the Kneazle's litter box has been emptied over her bed. It's the second time in five weeks.

She cleans off a small part of the bed and sits down with the intention of surveying the damage. It's really vicious this time, done by someone who wished to cut deep. Her things have been thrown across the room with something close to fury, and she can see a singlet top that has had its straps cut off. Easily mended with a quick spell, but hurtful all the same. Some of her schoolbooks even have pages ripped out of them - she'll have to go to Madam Pince with those...

It's been done by someone who does not think she deserves what she has. The one who loves her is clever and beautiful, and she is neither. There are many who think she ought not to have him, that she isn't worthy. There are some who show it more clearly than others, by stealing her shoes, messing up her things, tripping her up when she walks past.

It's not nice, but even this is not what's most hurtful. What wounds her is the look in their eyes, the whispers they think she can't hear - or do they know she's listening, and say it anyway? It's not only the other Houses, either - sometimes she'll walk through the common room, and someone will say "It's so obvious he's with her only because his parents want it or something", and they'll look up and see her and lower their voice, glance at her over their shoulder and grin slightly. Sometimes she thinks it's not worth it, that all this is too much to bear. Sometimes she thinks they are right, and that he doesn't care for her after all. Sometimes she wonders if she's going crazy.

She has a pug nose. He never thought he would come to love a girl with a pug nose.

She is spoiled and used to getting her way, no matter what, and she is not known for her wit (to put it mildly). She's not even very pretty. By conventional standards he knows she is regarded as ugly, even. But for him, she's the sweetest thing he's ever known.

They have been friends since they were children, playing with each other with the blessing of their pureblood families. When they were eleven years old they started at Hogwarts together. She was always there, ready to take him back no matter what. During his first years at Hogwarts it was she who cheered him up when he was sad, not his friends among the guys. She was the one he told about his fear for the detention in the Forbidden Forest and the terror of the Hippogriff attack. He went with her to the Yule Ball in their fourth year after he had asked Fawcett and been turned down. She didn't mind, said it didn't matter to her, that she hadn't been planning on going anyway but since he needed someone to go with... He knew she was lying, and wondered why. He knew she had a crush on him. He didn't mind it, but he couldn't understand why she wouldn't just admit it.

Later on, in his sixth year, he understood. He understood the uncertainty and the fear of losing what little you had. He hardly dared speak to her, fearing that he might already have destroyed what he could have had.

But he didn't lose! He has won, and the world is his, his and hers when they share it.

He doesn't understand the whispered comments he sometimes hears. They say that he can't love her. They call it impossible, "It's some kind of cover," they say. "His girlfriend should be someone smart and beautiful, someone who would fit him." They suggest that his real girlfriend is a Gryffindor, a Muggle-born, maybe not even a girlfriend but a boyfriend - in short, someone who wouldn't be accepted by his family or his friends. He wants to ask them if they are blind.

"Can't you see," he wants to call out, "that she is the one I love, for real! Can't you see that she is perfect? That she is beautiful and lovely and absolutely wonderful?"

He has never admired someone. He can't understand that for them, he is an icon. And an icon has to be right in every way - and has to love the right person, too.

He has said to her, once or twice as a joke, "Well, at least I didn't fall in love with a Mudblood." She doesn't laugh, because he hits too close to the truth. According to the rules of their class, their pureblood upbringing, what they have is right and acceptable. According to the rules of their school and their classmates, it's something impossible. She is simply not good enough. For them, a Mudblood would be a better choice.

She wishes sometimes that she had never fallen in love with him. She thinks sometimes that she can't understand why she did. He is selfish and arrogant, and he's spoiled rotten. He's not even all that witty - his talent lies in being nasty. And it's easy to be mean and funny. The hard part is being funny, without being mean.

And underneath it all, underneath the hard façade, he is just a boy. Scared, unsure and weak - is that someone to look up to?

On the other hand... she is the same.

Something catches her eye and she tilts her head, trying to see what it is. She freezes for a second, then slips of the edge of the bed and tugs the piece of paper free from a messy heap of robes. It is covered with the round, childish handwriting that is her own, and she recognizes it as being from her diary earlier that day. Someone has underlined the crashing and drown in "Sometimes I feel the world is just crashing down... threatening to drown me..." and drawn a ridiculously sad face beside it; the corners of its mouth are hanging down to the line underneath and fat tears are leaking from its eyes.

She crushes the paper in her fist, scrunching it up into a tight ball. Pointing her wand at it she mutters Incendio, sending the paper up in flames. But the shame won't go away, no matter how hard she squeezes her eyes shut. They have gone into her most private area, her book of thoughts, and laughed at what they have seen. As in the graffiti they left like a dirty footprint on her soul, tears start to run down her face and she presses a pillow against her eyes, trying to fight down the anguish that threatens to override her. Then the sobbing starts, quiet at first but gradually louder until she's bawling like a child.

On the other side of the door someone giggles.

He had no idea it went this far. He knows that they talk, has heard it himself, and he knows that they sometimes push her in the corridors, whispering snarky comments. But he didn't know until now that they attack her in her room, her private area.

With the Slytherin's natural distrust for teachers, neither of them will ever tell. They will cling to each other and share everything - pain, to halve it; and joy, to feel it double - but they won't ask for help from someone else. They believe they are alone in the world, with only each other to turn to. It will sometimes hurt them, but it will also make them strong, independent. If they don't break first.

It didn't use to be so bad. Before he grew up, before he grew into his looks and the beauty he has today - then no one cared who he loved or didn't love. Life was easier then. Now, he has to fit the cardboard cut-out, the dream, that bears his name - he must be the perfect man, with the perfect lover. One the others can look up to, and envy.

There's nothing to either admire or envy in her.

People sneer at their way of living - at the rules about blood and the codes of honour stating who you can and who you can't know. They call it a prison of the mind, a cage for free thinking. Yet they have their own codes as well - just as unbreakable. Are then none of us free to make up our own minds?

She thinks not. Not when she, every day, sees their unwillingness to accept anything other than their own ready-made picture in their heads.

He thinks not. Not after seeing what they do to her, just because he loves her. Approval by their parents was easy to gain. Approval by their peers is proving to be near impossible.

She cries, and he holds her. She thinks of a phrase, "Our love against the world." It makes her angry. Love is not enough. Their love is not enough. If it's them against the world, she knows she will break. She is not strong enough for such a challenge.

He holds her, and she cries. He comforts her, as she has comforted him countless times. He thinks about all that she has given him, all the support, and it angers him that he can't protect her in turn.

Around them the titters and disapproving murmurs fade to background noise - but it's a background noise that will never go away.