Utopias and House Differences

Sometimes you think that nobody in this damn school is straight. First there's Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, whose relationship alone defies several laws of reality (but angst has never looked so good on a couple of gay boys). Then there's Ginny Weasley and Luna Lovegood (which was to be expected as Ginny has already exhausted the supply of available males in the school and Luna's unsteady enough to keep her on planet earth). Ginny's brother claims to be straight but you can tell (as can the rest of the school) that even with Harry's time taken up by his new boyfriend, Ron is spending an obvious amount of time with Neville Longbottom. (You don't think there's anyone at Hogwarts who hasn't heard the story of the time Neville and Ron were both late for Potions and when they rushed in the door Neville's trousers fell down because they weren't properly fastened. You still find it hard to believe that Professor Snape was so shocked that he didn't take points off, but you weren't there so what do you know?) Then of course there's Hermione Granger and Parvati.

    You don't have any problem with it, why would you? After all, Parvati is your sister and Hermione makes her happy. You just find it annoying that you can't seem to find anyone in the school to talk to who's straight. Not that you should be talking since you're sleeping with your sister's best friend. You just want to know what it's like to see things from a straight person's point of view, preferably a girl's. In all the books you've read, it's always the girls who sleep with the boys they love and get nothing for it but lies and sex. Nobody in this school seems to know anything about unrequited love. This whole school is gay and in perfect utopian relationships where no one lies to anyone and no one has to settle for second best, or for being second best; and the only person you could talk to about loving someone who deosn't love you back is the one person you can't talk to because she'll deny knowing anything about everything. And she's a Gryffindor, so it's okay.

    Not only is the whole school gay, the whole school is apparently also sleeping with Gryffindors and you were always one to go with the flow. The day after Harry and Draco come out of the closet, Lavender Brown finds you in the library late at night and tells you that your sister is sleeping with Hermione. You shrug and ask if she has a problem with that (You've always known that Parvati likes girls and you had always planned to stick up for her when she came out like the good sister you think of yourself as. You really are a good sister aren't you?) Lavender says that no, she has no problems with lesbians, she just wants to understand more about them, like how you become one and stuff. That is when you roll your eyes and tell her that it's late and if she wants to talk she can find you in the morning. Instead she follows you back to the Ravenclaw dorms and for some strange reason you let her into the common room and the two of you talk. You tell her that in your opinion, people are born either straight or gay and the ones who say they're bisexual are just indecisive since eventually they'll end up with one or the other (or they can end up alone but no one thinks about that). Lavender says that you're absolutely right and gives you a bright and beautiful smile. Looking back, that's probably the moment you started to fall in love with her and for all your Ravenclaw wisdom it takes you months to realize that that smile was fake. You suppose that it's your Tao to be blinded by Lavender's brillantly shining teeth and bubblegum pink lipgloss and Gryffindor audacity. Even so, this whole thing is still your fault, but you find a tiny bit of comfort telling yourself that the Tao made you kiss her then. (But you're a Ravenclaw so you're smart enough to know that it's a lie. You're still not the only liar in the school.)

    The first time you had sex it was like drinking a waterfall of strawberry-pumpkin juice from a martini glass. It was passionate and fun and perfect and when it was over you didn't want it to end so the two of you just kept doing it for days and weeks and months on end and you were just so in love that you didn't mind that the name she was crying wasn't yours. You kept telling yourself that she only confuses you with your sister because she spends so much time with her (and Ravenclaw is noted for being clever but not for being cunning and cleverness isn't getting you anywhere when it comes to lies and you wonder if you should talk to a Slythyerin about lies but they're all in their perfect little utopias so what would they need to know about lying to one's self anyway?) So Lavender's Gryffindor courage gives her the ability to sleep with someone she doesn't love as a subsitute for someone she will probably never have (perfect little utopia and all that), and Draco's Slytherin cunning gives him the poise to balance out all the tricky issues involving the Dark Lord and a certain parental figure and still manage to get the guy, (and Cedric's Hufflepuff loyalty gives him the good fortune to be dead so that he doesn't even have to deal with all this), and the only thing your Ravenclaw intelligence gives you is the wisdom not to tell anyone that Lavender loves Parvati and to tell everyone but Lavender that you love her. And this goes on, and on, and you all get to keep your perfect utopias.

    That lasts until Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy break up. Screaming break-ups directly in front of the Potions classroom are not something that exist in utopias (and if it was anyone else everybody would've turned a blind eye but as it it's the foundation for relationships that can survive against all odds, and the optimists have just been proved wrong). Apparently, Harry had cracked under the strain of lying to himself and attempting to restore order to the wizarding world, and Draco had cracked under the strain of coddling Harry's psyche and attempting to explain to him that the wizarding world didn't need to have order restored to it since the great war everbody seemed to think was coming hadn't started and no one was worried but him.

    After that, everything changes. First you cuddle less in bed; then Lav starts going back to the Gryffindor dorms every night. Pretty soon, the two of you aren't even cuddling in class or the dining hall. Finally, Lav tells you that she doesn't love you. You tell her you know. That's the last you see of her except in classes where you don't speak, don't look at each other. So Lav sits alone looking at Parvati and you sit alone looking at Lav. Finally you go to see Draco Malfoy; somebody who knows what it's like to be alone. He says he's heard about you and Lav and for what the word of a Slytherin is worth, he's sorry. You wonder if perhaps it is you who should be saying as such to him, and he says no. The boy who is single-handedly responsible for the disillusionment of all of Hogwarts gets no sympathy. That gets a laugh out of you since it's so painful and true. The two of you begin to talk, for long hours into the night and long days and longs weeks; you tell him your theories on bisexuality and he respectfully disagrees. The two of you decide that perhaps you should try an experiment to see who is right (of course you both know that he is). This proposal leads to longer conversations about Dark Marks, loyalty, love, sex, and other things for months on end and it seems to you that Slytherin cunning mixed with Ravenclaw cleverness possesses the power to solves the world's problems. As the days go on you begin to register the differences between a girl with perfectly tanned skin and bubblegum flavored lipgloss and a boy with silver eyes that match his skin and hair who occasionally borrows your eyeliner while talking about politics, and slowly you understand that bisexuality is the fact that you love them both, regardless of what gender they are. And after while you realise that you were only half-right. While nobody in this damn school may be straight, the whole school is definitely not sleeping with Gryffindors.