Quickening

"My life is not theories and formulas." ~Audrey Hepburn

When she was younger, she used to wait for eclipses: her father had marked them down on the calendar for her.

She would stand on the front stoop, and stare, and stare, waiting, waiting, waiting for the sun and the moon to cross paths.

"Don't stare directly at it. It can blind you," they warned.

And still she would stare, even when it happened, because she knew it wouldn't blind her. It would go dark in the middle of the day for the briefest of seconds, her eyes would sting, but it wouldn't blind her. It couldn't blind her. It would never blind her-

Simply because it wasn't in her plan to go blind.

*****

It came and it went like clockwork.

When it didn't come, she was scared.

It's the scared that comes when you realize that the plan you had counted on for years was no longer the plan you could use due to circumstances.

She looked at him as he ate his bacon and sipped on his pumpkin juice, unaware. Blissfully unaware. She wanted to reach over and hit him over the head, give that red head of his a never-ending ache, hit him, hit him, hit him.

But instead, she reached over for another piece of toast.

*****

"Are you sure?" she was asked, as she stared at the gray wall outside of Potions.

"I'm sure," she replied matter-of-factly, as if they had asked whether the sky was blue or whether asphodel was another name for wormwood.

"But are you sure?" she was asked again.

"Trust me, I am sure of these things," she whispered, before walking in the classroom.

*****

And as the reality of the situation set in, she slowly began to steel herself. She began to disassociate from her mind and from her body, because she wasn't one of those types to live in denial. Emotional, yes, but delusional, never.

There was no going back. There was no way around the situation.

She had a plan.

This is the way things would have to be.

*****

As her problems grew, and problems often had the tendency to grow, she began to see herself in a different light, knowing that soon - soon - she would have to do that which she thought she would never have to do.

"Are you sure that this is what you want to do?" she was asked, as she stared at the gray wall outside of Potions.

"I'm sure," she said matter-of-factly, tears falling onto the blackened floor she despised so much.

*****

The day came and the day went. It was a Saturday in the middle of final examinations. They never noticed she was gone; they figured she was studying, as they sat in Hagrid's cabin, blissfully unaware. After all, she was forever studying.

And the Hospital Wing was as sterile as ever, she noticed, walking, her black shoes stepping lightly.

"Lie down," she was told, and as she took off her robes, she stared out the window to the sun. It would run out of energy one day, she had read somewhere, somewhere - she couldn't remember where right now, and it didn't seem to matter much.

She clambered onto the bed, it was far too big for someone as small as her, and there was an ache in her heart, as she knew it was time.

And as she braced herself, she spotted a calendar in the corner, and noted the date.

Yes, there would be an eclipse today:

A moment of darkness as the world continues on its all-consuming path towards the ultimate end.

"Today she dresses
For the change she's facing now
And the storm that's raging
A safe haven she has found
She doesn't care
What the prophets say anymore
For the love she had
She has no more
So she gathers rain
She gathers rain
To rinse away all her guilt and pain
She gathers rain
She gathers rain
To wash and cleanse and make
her whole again

Her imagination
Has started stretching wide
And her new conviction
No longer will she hide
She's not branded
When prophets speak words of fire
The same love she gives
She requires
So she gathers rain
She gathers rain
To rinse away all her guilt and pain
She gathers rain
She gathers rain
To wash and cleanse and make
her whole again..."

Collective Soul, "She Gathers Rain"