Withered Bloom / Thistle

@Withered Bloom/ Thistle@

by:GoldenSilence

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Fleur was beautiful. Even in the hospital wing, with her eyes and most of her forehead encased in a thick, white bandage. Even wearing one of the hospital gowns that had the distinction of making any misfortunate soul who had to wear them look like they were wearing a pinstriped bathrobe that had sprouted trousers.

Her fellow Ravenclaws hated her for it. Her fellow Ravenclaws, all possessed of studious minds that had nothing but disgust for those who could get just as much mileage out of life without them. They pride themselves on disregarding the outside of people like the wrapper off taffy, but they were every bit as guilty of judging on perceptions as anyone else of any other house was towards Fleur.

The reason for the hatred of Fleur was this- they figured all her time was spent on being pretty and none of it on stuff of substance or meaning. Envy factored in to the equation every now and then, in a glance, a subtle slighting. Suspicion set in beside the envy. The sorting hat had taken an exceptionally long time with Fleur. No doubt she could have chosen any house to her liking, so why Ravenclaw; a house renowned for its smarts?

Why try to improve an aptitude for learning to a superior quality when you already had the quality of beauty to get you anywhere you wished?

It didn't make sense to many of the Ravenclaws' logical minds, harshly guarding their world from an intruder who they felt, had no place in it. Fleur knew exactly what the basic statement at the bottom of their questions as to her choice of house was, and it was this, you could be beautiful, or you could be smart, but you couldn't be both.

Fleur didn't begrudge them their hatred or their envy. It was perfectly just, even if it was perfectly unfair to both sides at the same time.

Even when the components of her beauty were taken separately instead of as the aesthetic whole they formed, Fleur was still beautiful. Her beauty wasn't a composed thing, no matter how others might sneer and think so; her beauty wasn't something she made up every morning and took off every night, it was in everything she did, it formed her like the tiny particles of an atom, so that if you tried to separate her beauty from what she was and make it a separate entity, you would fail miserably.

As it would be for an invalid, so everything was done for her, with the arrogant assumption she could do nothing for herself. They never even gave her an attempt at trying, so that Fleur gave up trying altogether and just simply drifted along, flown wherever the wind willed. What point was there to be a lily of a field and want for nothing when all you wanted was nothing, so that you would have to want for something?

What is earned the hard way tastes twice as sweet and Fleur's life left her with nothing but sixteen years of sour. Her life was paved the easy route without them ever caring if she was smart, what she knew, how she knew it. Her face smothered her personality to the extent that it became her personality. She felt she had a mask that wouldn't come off and wanted nothing more than to run her nails down her perfect face, until perhaps, like wax, , it would all crumble to shavings on the floor and leave what was really her exposed.

Fleur didn't have many friends, though she had many admirers and lovers. Loving and admiration of the sort given a china doll doesn't exactly lend itself to closeness or intimacy, neither of which Fleur had in abundance either. Lovers and admirers alike were all scorned, even those who loved innocently, for fleur could no longer see line between the innocent and the guilty, so blinded was she by the crime. After all, how many out of the bunch loved or admired her for just what they saw? Fleur looked down at them for their shallowness, for their affection, even as they looked up at her for hers.

Fleur was indeed beautiful, but she was also selfish, self centered, self indulging, and conceited in addition. It was hard to practice depravity when you were given wants and needs on a silver platter and harder still to practice humility when told every day what you faced in the mirror. That was another thing Fleur hated, mirrors. She had already hidden the one given her by the well meaning Madame Pomfrey beneath her cot.

Fleur had been told so many times what image the mirror showed, had it memorized to such a point, that she saw no reason to have it face her blatantly from the depths of the glass. Besides, mirrors were horribly one dimensional little things and Fleur, as she often had to reassure herself after being preferentially treated yet again, was not.

Her mother had once told her you always wanted what you couldn't possess. If such was the case, then fleur wanted nothing more than the chill of cold, ice that wouldn't melt to make room for the breathing of a flower.

Millicent Bulstrode was ugly. Especially in the harsh lighting of the Hogwarts' hospital wing, wishing she could blend with the scenery of the cramped room half as well as she blended with the scenery of the outdoors, and thus avoid being noticed or heard by the pretty girl laying on the bed in front of her, yellow hair tangled in knots from a fitful doze. Millicent was ugly, and she shouldn't be here, and she should really just leave before Madame Pomfrey found her and kicked her out, or worse, Fleur recognized her and kicked her out. Millicent hovered (or rather, loomed ominously, as Millicent could no more hover than a dragon) for a few minutes in anticipation, her cat at her heels, but Fleur was asleep and oblivious.

She was also temporarily blind, Millicent realized with a start as Fleur turned over on her side, showing the bandages that were in place. Feeling equal parts guilty and triumphant over the damage her singular fist had done to Fleur post-quidditch game, Millicent left the infirmary. She had been meaning to hit Harry Potter, but Fleur had been in the way, and Millicent was not particularly sorry. Her targets were never very specific. If they annoyed her, they got hit, if they had annoyed her in the past or were going to annoy her in the future, they got hit. This philosophy of Millicent's pretty much placed the whole of Hogwarts' population under the scrutiny of her fist.

For some reason, though, Millicent was finding Fleur didn't quite fall under the category of idiots to be exploited, avoided, allied with, or persuaded. This worried her. Having had said categories for most of her life, she was certainly not about to just chuck the whole system to the bullfrogs and come up with a new one that included confusing idiots to actually pay attention to.

Bullying was one of Millicent's hobbies and she didn't much care. Not the bullying that involved words, that was too complicated, but pure, unadulterated, physical punches and kicks. She was called ugly, why act like anything else? Acting according to perception gave Millicent a perverse sort of pleasure. To treat people like dirt, crumble them into pieces and grind them under her heel. You hit that target, that weak point, and they crumble.

But for all her bullying, Millicent never taunted. Beating up a person was one thing, but taunting was another altogether, the pain of words felt long after a bruise had healed up. No one was a match for Millicent physically, so instead they often resorted to taunting. Millicent had long ago grown immune to it, or at least, when she was not immune, to appear so at the time. Taunting was nothing but words without merit, and crying or resenting wouldn't change them , but her, into a miserable, whiny baby to be taken advantage of in the eyes of other Slytherins.

Millicent had bushels of clumpy, thick brown hair, sturdily built, a nose you could hang close pins on (and it would probably hold your clothes as well), and toweringly tall. Her hair didn't so much cling to her face as repel away from it, as if her hair and her face were two magnets attached to opposite poles that wanted nothing to do with each other. That was just fine with Millicent. She wanted nothing to do with them, either. Sticking out at jaunty angles from her head, her hair reminded her of string beans, or as others had christened it (and her), medusa. The only decent feature of Millicent's were her eyes, a light gold color that meshed awkwardly with her dark brown hair.

Maybe because they were so peculiar, maybe not, but for whatever reason, few people could bring themselves to stare at Millicent's face, fewer still look in her eyes. When they did happen to look into them, they saw something they didn't like, something that made them feel uncomfortable, though they could no more put a finger to it than to anything else in their lives.

Ugly any way you cut it. When Millicent had first heard her mother say as much to her father in hopeless despair of ever marrying her off, she had practice turning her head this way or that and holding it there stiffly at parties, wearing makeup and bows to try and cover what was obvious.

She had thought of her ugliness like a gingerbread cookie bitten in half, that could be made whole again. If she turned her face this way or that, light would catch it, and she wouldn't look so bad from that angle as from another angle. Millicent refused to believe she was so horribly misshapen from every viewpoint. For the longest time, she thought that her ugliness simply stemmed from a missing piece, that once she found it, everything would click together like clockwork or arithmacy, and then, then-she'd show them all!- she'd be pretty or at least okay. But that never happened, and Millicent stuck out as much as if she would have been beautiful, maybe more so, only the attention she was paid was not flattering.

Her efforts had been fruitless. It was like being inside a dark church and trying to catch the light when there were no windows. Millicent learned the more she tried to hide it, the more blatant and pronounced it became, so she stopped trying to hide it altogether. She always felt silly and superficial worrying over something as fickle as appearance. If people liked her more for her makeup, bows, and ribbons, it certainly wasn't going to give her any burst of self esteem, for no matter what, and she could not forget what was beneath even if others did.

Millicent may have been among the most hated (though in Slytherin, this position was very nearly a tie) but the way she looked at it, at least she was hated for the right reasons instead of liked for the wrong ones.

Now, Millicent accepted how she looked, even if she didn't exactly embrace it. When doors slammed in her way because of how she looked, Millicent knocked them down, and usually pranced about on them for a bit in good measure. Besides, her looks gave her the excuse she needed to hide in the corner and stay away from people (that was, when she wasn't fighting them or they weren't fighting her.) Millicent, as a rule in general, didn't like most people. Being blessed with the ability to understand them through her art and observation, she saw no reason why on earth she would actually interact with them.

The way Millicent saw it, if you didn't reap the benefits, why bother sowing the seeds of kindness or such at all? Millicent was all about persuasion, getting people to do things for her alone without even realizing they were doing things for her alone. Persuasion was important. Cunning, too. More so than ever when you were in Slytherin, were you stamped your way across the waters of life while the others were all still on the other side building a bridge.

Millicent would be serving as the Slytherin's Neville Longbottom if she hadn't had both persuasion and cunning in spades. When cunning or persuasion was mentioned to the students of Hogwarts, a debonair man twirling a moustache came to mind, or even perhaps Draco (who would have done a splendid job of twirling a moustache if he had had one, but as he sadly did not, had to settle instead for a glare that made his petite frame stretch at least ten feet taller.)

Millicent didn't use smooth words or actions like Draco did to get what she wanted. Millicent wasn't much with words, when she spoke at all; it was in short, brief phrases or sentences. This gave many the opinions that Millicent just didn't think before speaking, which was the direct opposite of the truth. She hated to talk so that when the occasion presented itself, she worked out how to communicate in the most brief and succinct way possible.

Working out how to communicate in the most brief and succinct way possible was exactly what was on Millicent's mind at the moment. Four days later, and she was in the infirmary, at Fleur's side again. This was not to hint that it had been four days since last she had been there. In fact, it had been precisely four hours. It was only to make sure that Fleur was still ill, of course. The longer she was an invalid, the better. Right?

Right. It had nothing at all to do with the way Fleur looked on the cot. Beautiful wasn't the word Millicent was looking for. It had been overused far too many a time in Fleur's case. No, there was more to it than that. She pulled you in like a fishing hook (and probably guts you just like one too, thought Millicent.) It also had nothing to do with the way that Millicent found herself talking to her.

Sure, she was asleep and couldn't comprehend a word Millicent was saying, but that was the whole reason Millicent was talking to her in the first place. It was nice to be able to share all her thoughts, her opinions, all of her, with someone without them being able to take such valuable information and use it to hurt her.

Fleur droned out the chattering, nervous voice of the latest visitor in an influx of them by tapping her fingernails loudly against her bedspread. It was the strange one that spoke in monologues again. Fleur had a feeling that whoever it was might as well have been talking to a stuffed animal. They weren't talking to her in order to get her input and if she had indeed given any sign of being alive or conscious, they would have fled.

Fleur wasn't surprised. She got many visitors like this, but most of them talked only of their unresolved feelings for her. They didn't talk of secrets like this, painful secrets, or intimate things, as if they had known her forever. They didn't talk to her as if they had no one else to talk to.

It was only because she was asleep, she reminded herself. Whoever it was didn't expect her to be listening, so she tried not to, though snatches caught her ear now and again. Fleur tapped her fingers on her bedspread and tried hard not to continue to listen, to put an end to the phrases she caught. It was enjoyable, she found, to be talked to as nothing more than human, with no pretense or attempt to please, no awe or fright.

Fleur could pinpoint just who it was, but pretended she could not. She was not astounded to find Millicent had a crush on her. Most people did, to some degree. So predictable. Well, it was payback now, for the injury Millicent had caused her. Fleur could manipulate and hurt as good as any Slytherin. The person on the other side of her bed would have wanted to remain a stranger until they chose to reveal themselves and so they should. And when they did unmask their identity, Fleur would have had her little revenge in full.

A lull filled the room as Fleur made her presence known, sitting up in bed.

Millicent had a sudden urge to claw at the door as her cat was doing in order to make as hasty an escape as possible. This, though, Millicent realized, ever practical, would be rather hard when she was sort of all tangled in her chair (grace and ease were not two of Millicent's strong points.) Fleur had woken up.

Unable to remove herself from the loathsome chair (Millicent resolved to allow her cat to use it as a scratching post sometime in the near future) Millicent tried to make herself as inconspicuously silent as possible. Silence descended all around, like a swift blanket of comfort. Feeling unbelievably drowsy, Millicent was in that place of half formed ideas and thoughts right before sleep when Fleur spoke, startling her.

"So you're here again. You have been coming here often. Who are you?"

Millicent froze. Fleur's awakening had a paralyzing effect, until now, like a china doll, she had been safe in nonconformity and lack of emotions. Now, she was awoken from her slumber, and human, dangerously so.

Feeling rather silly, Millicent shook off her feeling of stupidor.

You could hardly expect Fleur not to notice when she went tramping everywhere like an elephant, in the plural at that.

"Yes, you. I know you're there."

Her panic contributing greatly to the speeding up of her reflexes, Millicent jumped up from the chair at last, and made a beeline for the door.

"Wait, don't go."

Millicent, curiosity getting the better of her senses, stopped pulling at the doorknob and went back to stand beside Fleur's bed again. It was a bad mistake. Fleur grabbed the end of her braid, and in a quick move, kissed her on the lips.

Minutes went by and expanded, balloon-like, until Millicent thought the world around her would pop. Then, it was over, and for all she had been shocked and confused, Millicent found herself wishing it could continue, so that maybe she could find the solution to the problem that it had slapped her in the face with.

Please don't let her know who I am, pleaded Millicent. Please. If Fleur knew who she was, all was ruined, because Fleur would never kiss her. Not willingly. Why, Fleur probably just thought she was another boy. Millicent was speechless. Her kissing experience was limited to her cat, who always left her with a mouthful of fur even though she only kissed the tip of his nose.

Fleur, apparently more advanced and used to such things, wasn't speechless, though on the inside, she too was reeling, wound up so tightly that everything was turning all at once and she was no longer sure of a sturdy emotion on which to place her feet.

The game of revenge, of fun, had ceased to be so. It wasn't supposed to effect her as well, but it had. There was no victim, no conqueror, there was only..

Fleur drew her emotions inside herself like a very efficient vacuum.

"So," she said, all matter of a fact. "Well there, that's what you wanted, isn't it?"

She does think I'm a guy. She must. Millicent tried to calm the pounding in her ears. "I'm not one of your male admirers."

"Oh, of course not. You are a world apart, no?" Fleur's tone was teasing, and Millicent could tell that her flirtations had never been serious. "You are very quiet. I thought your tongue would be loosened by now. What's your name?"

"Doesn't matter. You have a long list of names. You'd only forget mine."

"You're right. I would." Fleur moved herself back into her bed and under the covers, a hand to her still aching head. "No name, then. My mystery admirer instead, I suppose. Though likely I will forget that, too."

When Millicent did not respond, Fleur spoke again, gesturing with one delicate hand. "And now I would ask you to leave. I need rest."

The scuffling of feet and clearing throat told Fleur Millicent was still very much present and had not left in accordance to her unspoken desires. If there was anything Fleur was used to having obeyed, it was her unspoken desires. She frowned.

"What, why are you staying? I would hardly think for conversation."

"I don't like talking much."

"I can see that. Well, I do, and you are boring me. Please leave. Haven't you already achieved the pinnacle of your little utopia?"

"There's no point in that if I can't understand it."

"What's there to understand? Having kissed me, you can hardly seek further knowledge. I certainly don't want to know you. Leave now or I'll have you thrown out."

"That would require a good deal of effort."

Fleur came up with her best retort for that, but her clever words were wasted upon the air, for by the time she had spoke, Millicent was gone.

Millicent returned undeterred a day later, with, judging by the ruckus she was causing, a multitude of objects in tow. The floorboards were scraped as she went about setting up an object in the corner, and several times, in between the gentle noise of rustling paper and swishing, Fleur caught the noise of something being tapped against a glass of what she guessed was water.

"Why the silence? You can hardly pretend to be invisible now, with all the noise you are making. Unless, perhaps, you are Peeves."

No answer.

It went on like this for several days until Fleur thought she'd go mad.

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Fleur rolled her eyes, though it was useless considering they were bandaged over and the visitor couldn't see them. Millicent had come back again, she was sure of it. Fleur decided that as soon as she graduated from Hogwarts, she would make it her life's goal to be a hermit. A hermit with modern connivances like a bubbly hot tub and facial peel, of course.

"You don't have to try and slouch around like that. I know it's you . I even know who you are, and I warn you, if you don't leave, I will make sure I tell everyone I possibly can just what you were doing coming to visit me. Don't remember compassion and remorse being high on the Slytherin list of priorities. Neither do I remember inter-house interaction that isn't of the beating up sort."

"Maybe I just came here to gloat."

"I doubt it."

"You tell and I'll make your blue eyes go back to black again."

And with that threat, Millicent disappeared, dropping something on the edge of Fleur's bed as she left. Curiosity getting the better of her, Fleur tore off her bandages, not caring if Madame Pomfrey gave her a sound scolding later. She stared at the object for a few minutes and then, apparently on whim, ran out the door after Millicent, bandages disregarded, but hospital gown and slippers still very much in place.

Madame Pomfrey came in on cue just as Millicent sped past her in hasty retreat, with Fleur running after. Feeling as if she had come through the aftermath of a tornado, Madame Pomfrey sat down on Fleur's bed and looked herself at what had begun all the hubbub in the first place and caused Fleur to take to her legs like a greyhound.

A small painting lay face up on the quilt, an eclectic combination of colors, and shapes, abstract ideas made to represent something concrete, Madame Pomfrey thought, squinting it through her spectacles, but yet at the same time, resembling nothing in particular. It baffled her. Shaking her head, she picked it up gently and placed it in a chair beside Fleur's bed.

Painting was Millicent's passion. People didn't act around Millcent, they just were. No one tried to impress her, so she saw people as they really were. That was what attracted her to drawing in the first place, to go beyond the external to the raw core. Everyone had a soul, a spirit, whatever you wanted to call it, glimpsed beyond their eyes sometimes, behind their smile, whenever doing what they loved. Millicent couldn't quite say why she had drawn Fleur, and wouldn't have said it even if she could. Some things were just better left to vague thoughts instead of defined by words.

The portrait of Fleur was meant to show the inside, not as she appeared to anyone else (for what would be the use of drawing it then? It'd be just another lousy copy, and if you only copy something, it gets the worse for the wear, as Millicent had learned from experience) but as she was.

Self portraits aren't always in the details, but sometimes in the pieces.

Sure, Fleur hadn't realize all of this, but she'd realized enough of it to draw her own conclusions and that was where and why she had gone after Millicent, why Millicent had made the painting-on the inkling of a hope that maybe, just maybe, the key to the pieces missing were in the hands of a stranger.

****The End******