Disillusioned

Disillusioned

The worst month of my life was June 1998. Incidentally, that was the same month in which Voldemort was finally killed in a permanent sort of way. And I will use his name; it's not as if it matters anymore. But I'm getting off topic. His defeat was not important to me because it meant safety, and no 1,000 year reign of terror or what have you, but because it meant that everyone I knew was holding wild celebrations while I was entirely miserable.

And the worst thing was the pointed glances and oblique remarks from family, neighbors, and my parents' customers that seemed to insinuate that it was an especially lucky thing for Brianna, because, after all, if the Death Eaters had taken over, they probably would have gone after her kind very early on.

The reason that I was such in such dark and deep depths of adolescent angst was that it was the year and the month that I should have left Hogwarts. Only I couldn't since I'd never gone there in the first place.

I used to imagine it constantly, almost obsessively, though it inevitably made me feel even worse. Usually, when business was slow, I would simply flip through a worn paperback, or even a copy of Witch Weekly, only looking up to the sound of disembodied tweeting that announce the presence of someone looking for Taelisier's Wizarding Supplies, as our sign advertised (though to Muggles we were Taelisier's Rare Curios.) But as the summer of my seventeenth year approached, I found myself increasingly unable to concentrate even on gossip columns. I would simply close my eyes and imagine myself far away, bathed in sunlight.

I am standing proudly in my red and gold robes, watching tears of joy form in my parent's eyes, grinning sheepishly in response. Slowly, I walk to the platform that had been set up on the lawn, Headmaster Dumbledore smiling with especial warmth as he hands me my diploma. I sit down to watch the others go up, only to feel my boyfriend's arm around me. He leans in close and whispers in my ear.

"After this is over, would you like me to take you for a ride on my Firebolt?"

"Of course, Harry."

"Good. I promise we won't be too late for the party. It's just that I have something really important to ask you."

I turn to him, heart brimming with love and hope. My imagination decides to skip to the best bits, and without any logical interconnection action we are landing in a secluded glade of the Forbidden Forest. Harry looks up, green eyes sparkling and face earnest. Nervously, he pushes his thick black hair out of his face and gets down on one knee.

"Bri...I know this is sudden, but I don't think we should wait any longer. I love you and I want you to be my wife." He hesitates for a second. "I--I'm sorry, I don't have a ring."

"Well that's no problem, Harry." I pick a small blue flower, and try to suppress a grin as I transfigure it into an impressive, yet tasteful, sapphire and diamond ring. "Of course I'll marry you," I say as I allow him to slip the ring onto my finger.

If I was miraculously not interrupted by tweeting or my mother's scolding, we would usually kiss for a bit and then go on to become the most awesome wizards ever, the end.

I'm sure you're laughing at me, and looking back, it was pretty ridiculous. But it also makes me a little sad to remember how hopeless I felt back then. And there was so much wrong with my little fantasy.

For one thing, the Gryffindor colors. I actually think I would have been sorted into Hufflepuff, as I am not really brave, nor ambitious or clever. For another, Hogwarts has a Leaving Feast, not a graduation. My idea of a graduation was pulled mainly from American Muggle cinema, as going to movies was one of my favorite things to do when I wasn't working. My parents always thought it was a little weird, but with no real friends from the incredibly boring Muggle comprehensive school that was still in session and plenty of spending money from working in the shop, what else was I supposed to do?

The bit where Harry Potter, Hero of the Wizarding World, proposed to me was really the silliest part, but I'm pretty sure most young witches back then had day dreams along the same lines. A bit pathetic, but hardly abnormal.

No, the only truly abnormal thing in that entire fantasy was the way it made me ache for what I couldn't have, even though I would have given anything for it. You see, the only part that actually mattered to me was the last bit, when I performed magic.