Butterscotch Dreams

Butterscotch Dreams

There she was again, always in the same place: dancing in and out of the fog of his mind. Why won't she just let his dreams alone? If she was going to continue haunting his mind he at least deserved to know who she was, always alluding his grasp at the last second, her long curly hair spinning just out of reach. What color was it? Brown? No, now it looks blonde...it just turned red....wait, now it's black.

He only knew two things of this mystery girl: her eyes, and her smell. Her eyes were a light cinnamon brown flecked with gold. Sometimes filled with tears, sometimes glowing with anger, but most often they were sparkling with laughter as she danced out of his reach. Her smell was what mostly stuck out in his mind--it was buttery, but sweeter, like the smell of a favorite candy that you would only get when you visited a loving grandparent.

He knew one last thing about his mystery girl--he loved her. He desperately longed for her to reveal herself so he could know, finally, who she was. Strangely, he knew that she was a real person, not just a figment of his imagination. She walked the same halls of the same school that he was in right at this very moment. He was sure of it.

"Wait!" he called out as she danced away, lost in the fog, leaving her lovely scent implanted in his mind forever.

Harry Potter woke up a few moments later with the word 'wait' on his lips still and the smell of that unknown candy perfume in his nose.

*

"I don't know who she is, Ron," Harry said wearily, as they sat in the common room playing chess in a secluded corner. "It's driving me crazy!"

Ron was the only one who knew about the secret girl who tormented Harry's dreams every night.

"Well, go on what you know about her. There can't be that many girls in Hogwarts that have chocolate eyes and smell like candy. Check," he said staring at the chessboard.

"Her eyes are lighter than chocolate, Ron. You're thinking about Hermione again," Harry said gloomily, telling his king to retreat to the far corner of the board.

"Oh," Ron said, looking up and grinning. He and Hermione had been going out for a month and they were still in that 'I can't take my mind off of you' stage.

"I guess I'm just going to be doomed to pinning away for a girl I don't even know," Harry said, trying an unsuccessful attack Ron's queen.

"Don't say that, Harry," said Ron, trying to cheer up his friend. "I tell you what, tomorrow's a Hogsmeade trip, right? We'll go into Honeydukes and any blasted perfume shop that they have there and find this mystery smell. And that, my friend, is checkmate," he said, looking up at a now smiling Harry.

*

"Is this it?" Ron asked wearily, as he held what seemed like the hundredth bottle of perfume up to Harry.

"No, it's sweeter. That smells like flowers. We're looking for candy," he said, pushing past Ron to the back of the shop.

"Well, I can't smell anything anymore, my nose is numb," Ron grumbled. He never thought that he would have to do this again after he bought Hermione that perfume last Christmas.

After about another hour, they left the shop and trudged back to Hogwarts with their noses tingling.

"I can't believe we didn't find it! Three perfume shops and Honeydukes and we didn't find it!" Ron moaned, as he plopped down on the overstuffed sofa in the Gryffindor common room next to Hermione.

"What were you looking for?" she asked, looking at her boyfriend strangely.

"Oh, nothing," Ron said dismissively, turning to face his girlfriend and placing a loving arm around her.

"Okay, where have you guys been all day?" she said, looking very pleased to have a reason to sit closer to Ron.

"Hogsmeade," Harry said, sitting down on chair and staring gloomily into the fire. After a few minutes he said, "I'm going for a walk." But Ron and Hermione were so lost in a snog fest that they didn't hear him.

*

Harry first trudged the grounds thinking of who this girl could be. Was it Lavender? No, her eyes were hazel. Parvati? Nope, her hair was too short. Cho! That must be it! Wait, no her hair was straight, plus her eyes weren't that light brown. What if it was someone like (he could barley even think it) Pansy or Millicent? Ew...

When he had worn out the ground around the lake, he silently decided to pace the floor in the Room of Requirement. Even if he had to stay up all night, he would find out who this mystery woman was and why she was now haunting his every waking hour as well as his sleep.

But someone was already in there. Ginny was lying on a light blue sofa, a cup of hot cocoa on a table behind her head, staring into a marble fire place. She was wearing a long white nightgown, which led Harry to believe she came here when she couldn't sleep. However, she was there for the exact opposite reason.

Ginny came to the Room because she didn't want to sleep. A mysterious stranger was haunting her dreams and she didn't want to look into those pale green eyes again.

"Oh! Sorry, Ginny," Harry said, turning to leave seeing that the Room was already occupied.

"No, its okay, Harry. I just came here to think. It'd be nice to have someone to talk to," she said, sitting up and making room for him on the sofa.

"Why aren't you sleeping? It's like midnight," he said, sitting down next to her and taking the cup of cocoa that appeared on the table next to him.

"I don't feel like sleeping, so I came here," she said, popping a light brown candy in her mouth.

All of a sudden, Harry was hit with the smell that had been haunting his dreams for the past three months.

"Ginny, what is that candy?" he said, trying to sound nonchalant, staring at her intensely.

"Butterscotch. It's a muggle candy my friend at home used to always have them at her house. I'm kind of addicted to them now," she said, looking intently at Harry. She had seen those eyes before--the pale green that seemed to pierce her soul.

Harry was still staring at her like he'd never seen her before. Her eyes, the ones that had so often swam in his head, suddenly lit up with a dawning comprehension. All of a sudden, her lips were on his. She tasted like butterscotch.