The Smart, Pretty One

I've always been the smart, pretty one. The quiet sister. Parvati came out of the womb a mere three minutes before I did, but three minutes could just as easily been three years. We're that different. Parvati looks just like me, down to the little mole we each have in the middle of our backs, but inside we're nothing alike. My parents are always hardest on her. Her grades are never good enough. She talks with her friend Lavender too much in class and gets letters sent home from the teachers. I never get letters sent home. I'm always perfect. They never have to tell me what to do, I just do it. It's expected of me.

I don't work too hard at school. Learning has always come easily for me, and when the teachers lecture in class, I take my notes, but my mind is always thinking of other things. Thoughts and dreams that would make my housemates snicker behind my back; things that would make my parents lock me in my room and arrange my marriage to a nice Hindi boy quicker than you can say, "Quidditch".

There's always been something different about me. Even when I was a very little girl, I'd get a serious expression on my face and tell my mother, "I'm never going to get married." She would laugh at me and give me one of those mysterious looks adults get when they think they know more than you do.

My first years at school were simple. I studied, I read, I wrote in my journal. Through it all there was always Lisa - Lisa Turpin. She was funny, smart, and just like me in so many ways. It was a joy to sit up late at night and talk about literature or philosophy. Finally, after years of listening to Parvati babble about boys and clothes, I had found someone just like me.

When I found myself thinking about Lisa, I didn't think it was anything strange. She was my friend. Her clothes became my clothes, both of our wardrobes so mixed up the end of the school year was always a guessing game as to what belonged to who. We acted out plays, and debated current events. I even let her drag me to the Quidditch games. It was only natural for me to want to be with her, to think about her all the time. Right? Then, one day in fourth year, everything changed.

I'd gotten up in Potion's class to get some extra Abyssinian Shrivelfig from the student's Potions stores. When I turned around to go back to our desk, I saw her - really saw her. She was sitting on one of the uncomfortable student stools, her ankles locked casually around its spindly wooden legs, her sweater wrapped around her waist. Her brown hair was cascading down around her face like a silken veil, and little clouds of steam fogged her glasses as she perched in silent contemplation of the slowly simmering cauldron. She reached up a hand and absentmindedly pushed her hair behind her ears, and suddenly I realized the way my chest hurt when I looked at her wasn't normal. She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

We still studied together and talked late into the night. But now when her hand brushed mine, I would feel the butterflies in my stomach start to churn so hard I thought for sure they were doing an elaborate folk dance. I'd lean over her shoulder to point out a stray quotient in an Arithmancy problem just to breathe in her scent. She smelled like dusty books and shampoo and just a little bit like those butterscotch candies she always carried around in her pocket. Sometimes being in the same room with her made me want to pull out my wand and just freeze everything - just for a moment. Long enough for me to reach out and touch her, to run my fingers along the soft curve of her cheek bone and whisper that I was in love with her, and when I made time speed up again, she'd never even know.

That year I went to the Yule ball with Ron Weasley; it was my first real date. None of the girls could understand why I hadn't accepted the other invitations. There had been several, mostly from older boys. Lisa was going with Terry Boot. I hadn't wanted to go, but I told myself it was just because I'd never really cared for dancing. The evening was disappointing, overall, but I chalked the feeling up to the fact that the boy I'd gone with had been just as uncomfortable as I. Ron couldn't take his eyes off of Hermione Granger, and I stayed with him far longer than Parvati stayed with Harry. I knew what it was like to sit and watch a girl dance with a boy you couldn't stand, just because he got to put his arms around her.

I watched Terry and Lisa move across the floor and cringed whenever I saw her laughing as he whispered in her ear. I felt sick inside, like I'd eaten one too many chocolate frogs, and I couldn't seem to keep my foot from trembling in agitation. When I saw Terry lift Lisa's chin with his hand, I turned blindly to Ron and asked if we were ever going to dance. I was painfully aware that just behind me, Lisa was receiving her first real kiss.

What Ron replied I'll never really know, because, without listening to his response, I bolted from my seat and joined Parvati. I spent the rest of the evening with some nameless French boy. He smelled like wine and laughed too loud. I let him lead me around the floor, and when he kissed me in the rose bushes I blamed the uncomfortable feeling that made my skin feel dirty on the fact that I didn't really know him. I didn't acknowledge the little voice inside of me that said it would have been the same with any other boy.

The year ended in tragedy. That summer was marked by quiet hushed conversations amongst the adults. People were scared, confused, and when fifth year started I was eagerly looking forward to settling back into my routine of studying in the library and reading late into the night. Change disturbs me, and there is something about the solitude of the library, everything in its place in neat orderly rows, that made me feel that everything would be all right. I'd been made Prefect. My parents, of course, were not surprised in the least. There was no celebration, no congratulations, it had been expected of me, and as always I had not disappointed. What novelty, what joy is there in that?

On the train though, Lisa spun me around until I was dizzy, her crazy, loopy giggle making me feel that everything was all right. Her hug caught me off guard. When we parted, our eyes met for a second, and I saw something there that frightened me even as it made me want to laugh out loud.

We were even more inseparable after that. Fifth year went by, and still I never said anything. We didn't date boys as if by some mutual accord, but we never said anything either. Our conversations were of our castles in the sky. What we would do when we grew up, where we would live.

"I'll never get married," I told her.

Lisa smirked. "I know," she said. "You'll just live with a series of lovers in a fabulous flat in Paris."

"Mais oui!" We would laugh then and fall onto the bed, exhausted from staying up so late, both of us not wanting to stop talking, not wanting to go to bed. We'd still perform well in our classes the next day, and it was just so hard to go to sleep, knowing she was there in the bed across the room. I would watch her sometimes while she slept. Her arms would be wrapped around a pillow, one long, high arched foot sticking out from underneath the covers. I wondered what she dreamed.

One night we were talking and when it was getting late I looked over at her sleepily. She was lying on my bed, her hair fanned out on the blue pillowcase. "I'm too tired to get up," she murmured.

"Then shove over," I told her. I pulled the covers up around us both and extinguished the lights. Our other roommates were long asleep, the silencing charms they'd put permanently around their beds giving us a luscious, tempting privacy.

I don't know who started it. I suppose it was me, but a tiny part of me would like to think it was her. I was watching the way the moonlight cast shifting shadows on her face. Her eyelashes formed dark and mysterious question marks on her cheeks, and I was startled when they fluttered open. She was watching me. We stared at each other. It might have been a minute it might; have been an hour, but all I know is that at one point we stopped staring and I felt her lips under mine.

Softness. That's the only way I can describe it. One word though, can never adequately describe the way it made me feel. I felt like all my insides had turned to treacle, my heart pounding with exhilaration like it was the first day of school and my birthday all rolled into one. We just kissed for a while, gentle kisses, exploring, my fingers brushing along her jaw line, her lips kissing the corners of my mouth. It was sweet and innocent and I never wanted it to stop. I fell asleep with her head on my shoulder, her body warm under the covers. When I woke up, I was alone.

I walked to breakfast with a light step, but as I entered the Great Hall, I felt a sharp sick feeling in my stomach. Instead of sitting in her usual place, Lisa had moved down the table to sit with Terry Boot. She smiled up at him when he poured her a glass of pumpkin juice, and I knew somehow that nothing would ever be the same again.

Secret is a dirty word. It's what you can't tell anyone, not even your best friend, not even your sister. I cried by the side of the lake that day. The cold wind ruffled the waves into little mocking hands, and the rain that pattered down was too gentle to wash away the pain. Some day I'll live in a flat in Paris and have another woman for a lover. Some day I'll be able to be who I am and not have to be scared. Some day I hope I'll be able to look back on what I lost that day and not feel as if I've lost an integral part of my soul. No one will know. No one really knows what goes on inside of me behind the books and the ink stained fingers. For now I'll do what I'm supposed to do - flirt with boys, keep up my grades, and try my damnedest to beat out Hermione Granger for head girl. What else do they expect from the smart, pretty one?