Within You, Without You

I woke up Saturday morning on the couch. I'm going to be aching all over today, I thought to myself. I went to move when I realized that there was a bit of weight on me. I turned and saw that Fred fell asleep on the couch as well...only he seemed to have moved in his sleep and was currently using a good portion of me as his own personal pillow. My eyes bulged out.

"Mornin," I heard a voice say, and I turned and saw George looking at me smirking.

I looked at him helplessly. "Can you help me move him without waking him up?"

"Sure thing, sure thing," George replied, and the two of us got him off of me and laid him back down on the couch.

"What time is it?" I asked, yawning. I grabbed my charms book from the side table.

"About seven in the morning. Speaking of which, I was just heading back to bed. If you'll excuse me," George said to me, yawning and scratched his head.

I nodded and went up to my dormitory as well. Although still feeling slightly tired, I felt the inability to fall back asleep. To be honest I felt a bit restless. Deciding to just start my day, I took my time to get ready so by eight o'clock I was in the Great Hall eating breakfast. Only a couple of people were awake at this time (it was the weekend crying out loud) and I hastily sat myself down, took some breakfast on my plate, and ate as I opened up my book. It was a book I got at one of my schools - my Muggle schools (that's such a weird word; I have to get myself used to this vocabulary) - from back in the states. We had to read it for a class and well, I switched to a different school before we were done. It was "A Separate Peace," and I must say I read through it a couple of times (along with several other school books that I never found the time to return over the years). I ate and read for a while, and then when I was done I went out onto the lawn near the lake. As I got closer to the Forbidden Forest side of the Lake, I saw two eyes peer out at me. I set my stuff down as Voltallis came over to me and sat down. I sat leaning against him and clutched my sweater a bit closer to me. Although it was mostly sunny out, every now and then a chilly wind came as if trying to tell everyone that the fall was coming.

I reached into my bag and pulled out my Care of Magical Creatures Book as Voltallis snorted. I smiled at the creature and then decided to look up Thestrals in the book. As I was reading though, one sentence in particular jumped out at me.
"'People believe them to be bad omens, but this is due mainly to the fact that they are only visible to people who have seen death and accepted it.'"

I stared at the page some more and then glanced to look at Voltallis. I thought back then to when I first met Hagrid, and how he seemed a bit sad when he realized that I could see Thestrals. The only reason I could even see Voltallis was because I witnessed my parents death. That's kind of a bleak and depressing realization, isn't it?

I pet Voltallis' mane and heard someone call out "Lucy!" I looked up and saw three figures heading towards me.

"Hey Lucy," Fred, George and Lee said to me.

"Hey guys. What's up?" I asked, closing my book as they sat down.

"We were bored and didn't know what to do and we came out here and we saw you sitting here and we decided to join you!" Fred replied, and I laughed.

"Hey Lucy....How are you...sitting, like that?" Lee asked awkwardly.

I was confused at first, but then I thought of what I just read: Thestrals could only be seen by people who saw death.
"I'm leaning on Voltallis. He's a thestral," I told them, hoping they knew what that meant and that I didn't have to explain further. Voltallis moved a bit underneath me and I moved a bit so that he could get up. He snorted and I gave him a pet, and then he went back into the Forbidden Forest. I turned back to the three of them and saw them looking at me slightly sad.

I hated making people sad for my situation. The subject needed to be changed. "So what did you guys do today?" I asked.

"Well, I went back to sleep after I saw you in the morning and then I woke up and woke up Lee and then woke up Fred who was asleep on the couch-" George started.

"And then we went to breakfast and we go bored and found you." Fred finished.

"I thought we told you that already," Lee said.

"Well, I thought that there was a chance that maybe something else exciting happened in your life, but apparently I was wrong," I told them, smiling, and they all laughed. Conversation then steered towards the twins' developing inventions. They told me as of late they were making mainly joke candies. They were nice enough to ask me if I wanted to be a test subject for them.

I declined.

We continued talking when I looked up at the sun that was climbing through the sky and peeking through clouds. There was a pause in conversation, and I took the time to tell them it was getting late. "I have a good amount of work that I should get started." It was really only probably around two in the afternoon, but I did have a bit of work that I wanted to get out of my way.

George, Fred and Lee looked at me in disbelief. "Work?" Lee asked me.

"As in schoolwork?" George asked.

"It's Saturday, you know," Fred finished for them.

I laughed. "I know, but I'm still trying to catch up to everyone you know."

We said our goodbyes and they talked about considering making me do their work since I had a good "work ethic." I smiled as I made my way to the Gryffindor tower. I was finding myself slowly making my way into a group of friends, and I didn't feel like I was forcing it. I felt like they were genuinely enjoying time with me and I was genuinely enjoying time with them.

As I climbed through the portrait hole I looked around the common room and saw it was completely empty. "Accio bag," I muttered under my breath, catching my bag as it zipped towards me. I kneeled down in front of the fireplace, deciding that I'd do my work here.
I yawned, and looked at the fire. The flames licked the edges of the fireplace, soot forming on the brick inside. I was kneeling in front of the fire when it happened. When it all happened. My eyesight started getting blurry and I squinted while looking into the flames, trying to clear my sight and mind.

It didn't work.

As I opened my eyes fully again, I wasn't in the Gryffindor common room. I turned from the fireplace and saw that I was in my house from back in the states that I lived in with my parents. And there they were. My god, there they were. My mother, with her long brown curly hair that I grew into and her laughter etched onto her face, even when she was stressed. And father, his eye color sometimes blue sometimes gray, reflecting in my own. His laid-back, intelligent stature. Happiness was etched into both of their faces, even with the fact that we were living in America in fear for our lives. I looked at my parents, and I found myself the physical fusion of the two of them. I closed my eyes. This was a dream, this was a memory. Get me out of here I can't deal with this. Not now. Not now.

"At last, my love has come along," I heard my mother sing, and my father chuckled. He flicked his wand towards the CD player and Etta James' voice overtook the place and he took her hands and they started waltzing.

No. I wanted to get out of here. I needed to get out of here. I couldn't see my parents die. Not again. I turned back to the fireplace and blocked out my father and mother's laughter and singing. I blocked out Etta James' song, their wedding song, until I couldn't hear anything. I closed my eyes and breathed in deep.

And then I felt myself inhaling smoke. Fire seemed to be going down my throat and I started coughing. I opened my eyes and felt disoriented. I didn't know where I was or what was happening. I felt myself falling, and looking forward, I saw myself falling into the fire. But I couldn't stop myself. I put my hands out to try and stop it, but I knew it wouldn't do anything. I didn't know if I was sleeping or awake anymore. I didn't know what was really happening. All I knew was that the taste of fire was real, and the heat that started licking at my entire being was real as well. The pain was real. I wanted to scream but I couldn't. The more pain that I got the more I became conscious of what was really happening. My god, was I going to burn to death by falling asleep in the common room fire?

Suddenly I felt something push me from the side and the heat seemed to start slipping away from me. How long was I in the fire even? A couple of seconds? Several hours
"Aguamenti imber!" I heard a voice say as everything turned black and I felt myself slip away into that nothingness.