The Death of Love

The Death of Love

Waiting

So lately, I've been practicing love potions. Just for fun, you know? Out of curiosity, or something? It's maybe even sadistic, what I've been doing. Who knows? Because I'm not really interested in love right now. In the world we live in, it just doesn't make sense. It's not even that I'm not interested in love for the moment. I don't think I believe in it at all. I mean, the very existence of love potions denies there being such a thing as love, in a way, doesn't it? If true love really existed, magic wouldn't be able to affect it. That's my theory anyway. Magic trivializes the idea of love. Besides, seeing girls like Lavender and Parvati gushing over their current boyfriends kind of makes you think that if they believe in love, you shouldn't. So I figured I wouldn't. Take my own advice, you know? Makes me less of a hypocrite than the rest of the world, anyway.

I've had a lot of free time lately. I've been forced to leave the house a lot, because I'm suddenly an only child for the first time in my life. Ron is staying somewhere else with Harry, planning some sort of crazy thing they won't tell me about, even though I used to be Harry's girlfriend, and for awhile I was his only confidant, but they won't tell me anything anymore. After Harry broke up with me he treated me even worse than he had before he noticed me, the prat. So Harry and Ron are planning some sort of revolution with Hermione, and I'm stuck back at the Burrow with Mum, who is going crazy, and the only way I can keep from going crazy is if I get out of the house nearly all the time.

So that's what I do. And in all my fascinating, out-of-the-house time, I am forced to admit that I can find nothing better to do than play around with love potions. It turns out, to make myself seem a little less giddy and girly, that love potions are some of the most difficult to make. Another thing to note is that I'm not half bad at potions. So although love potions are difficult, I'm becoming rather adept at making them. I don't believe it will be necessary to mention that my old tree house is now off-limits to anyone but me, and that I've also found it necessary to perfect my skill at noise- and odor-dampening spells.

At this point, I've made quite a few love potions, and guess what? They've turned out rather as I believe they're supposed to. The problem is that before I can move on to more advanced potions, ones that have interesting things added in like specifics of who ought to be affected, and when, I've got to be able to test my current lot of potions. I can't very well test them on my mum, and she's the only person I see very often, disregarding the various Order and Ministry members who troop through the house telling horrific stories about war and death and things I'm not allowed to get within a thousand meters of. So I'm waiting for the perfect opportunity. Wouldn't it be a lark if I tested one on Harry? But really, I suppose he's got enough on his hands as it is, with all of this saving the world nonsense he's always dealing with.

The curtain rises, so to speak.

There is a jarring, overly sweet noise issuing from the tiny table next to the door of my tree house. It is a locket that Mum wants me to wear, but I refuse. I don't need her voice hanging about my neck for the remaining part of my life, it's been there in the form of my brothers for all too long. But she would worry too much if I didn't have it with me, so I always carry it in my pocket, as a means of communication with her.

"What is it Mum?" I demand from my cauldron.

"Come in, won't you dear?" she asks chirpily, her voice surprisingly loud in the summer stillness of my tree house.

"I'll be a minute, Mum," I say, simply to keep myself from suffocating under her endless requests.

"All right, dear, that's fine," she responds, a little too quickly, and I am reminded of the summer after my first year. She is trying to be sensitive because she thinks I need it. I wish she wouldn't. Any hurt I may have is only intensified by her motherly concern. I spell my cauldron to simmer until I return, and gather my things to descend from my domain, slightly grumpy that Mum can invade so easily this one place that I consider truly my own. I'm going to need it, I think, as the war intensifies. As I am continually protected and prevented from fighting.

I trip on the last rung of the ladder and land rather ungracefully on my bum in the dirt, adding a change of clothes to the list of things that might be done to improve my appearance. At least it's only Mum.

I enter the kitchen while continuing to brush dirt off myself and greet Mum only in the most cursory way. I am about to take my customary seat at our kitchen table when I realize that it is already occupied. The occupant is much more disheveled than I am used to seeing, so it takes me a bit more time to recognize him. But still, it isn't very long before I step back in alarm. I have been attending school with the bloke for five years, which is plenty to inform me of his less-than-savory personality. Draco Malfoy's father is the one that made my first year so miserable, and now he is sitting at my kitchen table. It's not exactly a pleasant surprise.

Before I even turn to my mum for an explanation, I think of two things. First, a blush rises all too easily on my slightly dusty cheeks at my less than presentable appearance. Second, I know exactly who I will test my love potions on.