Quote Me if I'm Wrong

Chapter Six: The Lost and Found Light Not Lost

But we can't live in the light all the time. You have to take whatever light you can hold into the darkness with you. -Libra Bray, A Great an Terrible Beauty, 2003

...It was as if I felt her prayer to the Sacré-Coeur, as if, not that I did, but as if. While I listened to her tender whispers I let the darkness loom over me, constantly searching for the light, even though I knew exactly where to find the light. She was my light.

To some who don't know me they wouldask, in pure childlike curiosity, who I was just talking of, was it my mother? My sister? Alicia? Most people who don't know me would never think to ask if my light was Parvati Patil, they would just assume it was a girl my age, or of my blood, never a girl so much my junior or a girl so apparently naïve. But for those who do know me, they know I'm layered, I know what is real, I understand the serious, I want to be underestimated, and I'm terribly funny.

My layers are thin and tend to sink in upon their boundaries. The shell that I show to the world has the sole ambition to entertain, but the under layer that I have only shown three people is so much more than you see. I have shown that bit of myself to my Fred, and he has shown his to me, it is a twin thing. Once, and I do not quite comprehend this action. I showed my self to Mi. I'm the only one to ever call her that, with the obvious exception of Draco. I let her see me, first it was a harmless smile, and then acquaintance took on a whole new meaning. A strictly platonic meaning. Parvati has seen me, without the needed bloodlines or the lopsided grin. She saw me through that incandescent light that all twins mysteriously radiate. There is a strand of life that hems all twins together. Having an equal half brought us together, odd isn't it, and yet so natural?

The realness of life is something I find blares at people, and we do not always listen. Mi always listens, and I find that unhealthy. I tend to pay attention to the large and vivid pieces of history, the details slip by. Parvati clings to the smal and seemingly arbitrary details. See we compliment each other. Sometimes though, what is real, hurts. The real is what brings the pain. I can easily understand why Harry has taken refuge in his head; it's a place where we have our Once Upon a Time...Happily Ever After. I the reality we want to see the lively smiling face of Sirius Black, but he fell through the veil and will not come back to us.

The simplicity of the imagination.

If could hide from what is real, I would, realization brings into the light what you wanted to keep hidden behind the study curtains. Realness has brought me a little sister with slit wrists. The real brought us two grave markers. Two. A little sister, who never found herself, never grew up, or maybe she grew up too soon. None of us saw what we should have seen, though I do not know what that is, and now we realize the real.

Any idiot, including Percy, could grasp that what is happening is serious. Not just Ginny, but everything that is whirling about us is drop dead, hardcore, painfully, agonizingly serious. Every little choice we make in the here and now will hit us later, when we least expect it to. If I write her back what will she do? Will that give Voldemort something else to wave over our already drowning heads? As much as I hate to see the black swimming around me I think that if we stay in the shadows then what is will sink in and we will know what we have to do. As much as I want to light my candle I think if I postpone it the result will last longer.

To be underestimated gives the advantage. To be enveloped in unseen possibilities makes you stronger. The scales tilt toward the jester if the king thinks he will not lop his head off the moment he turns his back. I have learned that to be the underestimated party opens the floodgates and the opponent will dwindle away the choices until there are none left and at the last chance they will see their fatal flaw and you, the underestimated, will strike with infamous accuracy.

That is how we, the Order, play the chess that is war. We are the rooks, the knights, the bishops, overpowered by our rulers, but capable of bluffing the house out of chips. Mi, though many only see the book hiding her face, has the ability to launch that book skyward and when the book hits her enemy on the head some sense is finally knocked into him. I should know; Advanced Mythology of Numbers really hurts. Or, look at my flame in the darkness, turn your eyes to Parvati. You, like most before you see the stupid, giggling, gossiping girl who haunts the harem of Gryffindor tower. You, who are the true naiveté, do not see the depth, the war, and the power that she is. You would doubt her ability to rule, but rule the kingdom of my heart she does. It is just...at the moment...she is being challenged by another. Another I underestimated. A tragic mistake. I thought Gin was okay, we all did, but we should have known what happen when you underestimate.

Underestimation is a process that looks to take moments, but in reality takes ages. When I saw those pure white veins slanted open I thought that there was still hope. I underestimated the will of a young girl.

The owl that landed with words of guilt-laden confession was yet another underestimation of mine, I thought I had lost her. How terribly wrong I was...I should never have underestimated the Sacré-Coeur, never, never, never...but I did. And now one Sacré-Coeur is dead and the other finding her inner darkness to be the embroidered light holding my soul together.

I don't think that is healthy for me to think like that. Mi talks like that and usually it make my head spin and I have to say something witty, perform a gesture of great humor. For Fred and I, we are the jokers. We jest in bells and dance on clouds, we sing with heart, and we throw caution to the butterbeer bottles flying through the air.

It is a tragically comical thing...light. I have known where my light lay and yet I ceaselessly quest for what is not lost. While I was stretching for what was in my grasp she came and found me, and for at I am ever grateful. I have found what I needed, the match has been struck, the embers will burn, the torch of the Sacré-Coeur has been passed from the dead to the loved and I am ready to embrace what I have run from.

I though I knew how to hold the cards, seems I had yet to cut the deck.