Hestia,
I didn’t think I would be bored at home, but I am. School was so much fun the first year. Lucius is asking me how I’m doing and if I’m making our name proud. I tell him I am, but I haven’t told him about you yet. I don’t know how he’d feel. He expects a lot of me, but I already told you that. He expects me to live up to his name, and I feel scared because I don’t think I can do that. I want to, though, because I’m proud of my family.
I think I might ask mum if she’ll let me visit you soon. I don’t know how they would feel about you visiting our house. Mum is very strict about who visits and who doesn’t. Also, our house is too clean, and maybe you wouldn’t have fun here. I think I’d have more fun if I went to your house. Maybe if I tell mum you helped me with my homework, so that I could be a good student and uphold my reputation, she’ll let me visit you. She’s glad that I did well, but father says I need to do better. They want me to be on the Quidditch team next year. Lucius thinks I’ll make a fine Beater.
I hope you’re having a good summer. This is more words than I’ve probably said in half a year to you, huh?
Marcus
The ink, molded into words with your stiff, condescended handwriting, sat in the sun -- wet and shimmering -- on the parchment. You blew upon it to dry it quickly so you could mail your letter. You read it again. You were proud of it, and it made you happy to think of Hestia getting the letter.
Was she having Muggle fun? Would it be fun to do what Muggles did in the summer? You weren’t sure, but you thought it might be more exciting than being in your house. Despite that you had so much room, the cardinal rule was never to touch and break anything. You thought it was worse than living in a store. Nothing in this mansion felt like yours. It was all for show and that left you bored. The rooms were too big for you, and they were all empty and shut up, even in the summer, so the sun only made them hot and stuffy.
But then, there was your broom, and the secret hope that you could go and see Hestia. At the end of the year, she told you she went swimming in the summer. You’d never gone swimming because father and mum said it was below you, and you had agreed with them. Besides, the water looked dirty and disgusting. Then, Hestia took you swimming in the lake at school, and you thought it was fun, and the dirt washed away in the shower. You could be clean again.
Now, it looked like the ink was dry. You folded up the parchment and stuffed it into an envelope. You wrote her name, ‘Hestia Jones,’ carefully across the front, but you didn’t know where she lived. That was a problem, and you decided to tell the owl to put the letter ‘In her room, at the house of Mrs. Jones, who is a Muggle.’ Those were horrible directions, you thought, but you had forgotten to ask her where you should address the letter. Of course, you couldn’t ask your mum. Now, you felt stupid, but that was okay if the letter made it to her. You thought it might, but you wanted to seal the letter, too.
The seal, with the family crest of the rearing dragon, was down stairs in your father’s desk. For a moment, you didn’t move, as you processed the idea of swiping the crest and the owl before your mum noticed. Father was at work, and Lucius was away, so they wouldn’t be a problem you thought. That made you feel relieved. You liked your secret to be secret.
There was mum, and you thought she was busy reading or watching Dobby mend something. She hated when Dobby botched up the stitching in her dresses and robes. You didn’t like the house elf much, either, because he often told mum too much about what you did. Of course, if they were both busy, you were free to go into the study.
Creeping down the stairs, one at a time, you came to the main landing. The house, so silent and ominous, seemed to watch you slink into the study. Lining the walls, the volumes of books that your father owned seemed ominous because there were so many. To you, they were witnesses, watching you in a trail, and you felt they might cry out ‘Guilty!’ at any moment.
But that was silly. What were you guilty of? Mailing a letter?
But it was something more than a letter, wasn’t it? You felt sure of this and realized it was important because you felt so compelled to keep it a secret.
As you placed the seal on the letter, you knew it had to be secret because mum would get upset. Then, Lucius and father would be upset. You hated when they were angry, and you didn’t want them angry at you. It was all better when your family was simply proud of each other’s reputations and accomplishments and ignored everything else. You wondered how Hestia’s mum treated her. Did she care about her daughter’s reputation?
Maybe not, you thought, because she let her go swimming at home. Her mum was as Muggle, after all, and your parents always told you Muggles were dirty and only thought about base things. Maybe it hadn’t occurred to Hestia’s mum to think about her daughter’s reputation. You decided you might tell Hestia, in your next letter, that her reputation was important. Your mum might like her if her reputation were better.
You stashed the seal and crept away to find the owl. You walked out of the room, feeling the books glaring at your back, but you ignored them. You needed to hurry, and silent witnesses could not speak.
There was a pop. You jumped. It was only Dobby. You clenched your fists. There was nothing in your hands.
“Young Master dropped this,” the elf blabbered as he picked the letter off the floor.
“Give!”
It was a demand, and you kicked the house elf. You were strong, and he smashed against the wall. Your breathing became quicker, and you thought about punching him. He didn’t deserve to touch that letter. It was yours. It was hers. He was filthy.
You slammed your fist into his face. Panting, you kept punching the filthy creature. He was a beast, a stupid beast. Your parents had told you about all kinds of stupid animals like werewolves and centaurs and mere folk, but house elves were the stupidest of all creatures. He was ugly, and you felt angry.
“Marcus.” It was your mum. You stopped, and you realized you were sweating. You looked at your fists, and flinched in disgust. You’d gotten his blood on your hands, and you felt dirty.
“I felt mad,” you muttered, and realized that your heart was racing. There was a pounding in your head, and your breath came in heavy gasps. Despite the fact that you were dirty and sweating, you felt much better. You had been bored, you realized, and punching your servant had been an unexpected pleasure. You felt exhausted.
“He can’t sew for me, now,” your mum commented and frowned slightly. She brushed a strand of blood hair out of her face and stuck up her nose as she approached the house elf. Time seemed to move slowly as she plucked the letter out of his limp hand.
You stood up, but you stopped. You couldn’t punch your mum, so you simply sat back down on the ground because your legs shook. Now, you breathing became heavy again, but this time, it was because you were terrified.
She snapped the seal and read the letter. Like when she approached Dobby, her nose turned upwards in distaste. You knew she finished because she crumbled up the letter, pulled out her wand, and burnt the parchment. Like snowflakes, the ashes flittered to the floor.
“Marcus,” her voice remained cold and detached, but you knew she was angry, “you are never, ever, for the rest of your life, to speak to this girl. She is a Mudblood. She is dirt, Marcus, and you are not to associate with her. Do you want to be dirt? Do you want to ruin your family? You’ll be no better than that slimy elf if you associate with her.”
Your stomach turned. You nodded, but you kept from crying. You stared at your servant, disgusting and bloody. You didn’t know how, but you found strength in your body to get up and run away to the bathroom. You needed a shower.
You rested your head against the window pane as Black, Crouch, and Lestrange made their way into your compartment. You mum had watched you at the platform, her eyes cold and threatening as they swept the crowd, but you had behaved. You were ever the proper son as you boarded the train. It would be your second year, and you were proud you were already as big as some of the fourth year boys. Lucius told you that you would make the Quidditch team for sure this year.
“Cheer up, mate. We’re going back to school. You look sulky,” Lestrange told you, and you noticed he had gotten unsightly red dots on his face. You thought they were acne, but you could never remember anyone in your family having those. You didn’t know why Rabastan hadn’t cured those yet.
“Marcus is just slow,” Crouch commented casually, and you glared at him. He was a puny, wimpy figure, and you felt disgusted by him. He thought he was clever, and that made your throat clench so that you couldn’t swallow.
“I’ll take a slow tongue over a slow fist,” Black remarked. He seemed to understand that you were bigger and stronger than any of them were. “I bet you’ll make the team this year.”
“Lucius says I will,” you throw your brother’s name into the conversation. That got their respect, and you knew it would shut Crouch up for a while. When Lucius was at Hogwarts, you heard -- from the older students in Slytherin -- that he had held court at every meal and in the common room. He was a god among kings, and that garnered you respect, even from witty, snivelling brats like Crouch.
You were satisfied. You, too, held sway among them, and even if you remained silent, you knew your reputation spread a powerful aura over them. Your mum told you reputation was important. The thought that you almost lost it sickened you, but as you felt relief, you saw Hestia pass your compartment.
A chill shot down your spine. She opened the door and said, “Hello.”
You cocked an eyebrow at her, and you were proud that you disguised the terror writhing inside your stomach like some disgusting creature. You thought your feelings, like a traitorous beast, would leap from inside, tearing you open, and expose to your house mates that you knew her and sort of liked her.
“We’re not giving out charity to Mudbloods today,” Rabastan commented. Suddenly, you were afraid you had under reacted. What if they found out about all the times you spoke to her? You swallowed, but it was hard to meet her eyes. You tired to keep cold so that you could speak next.
“You’re contaminating our compartment.” Your reply, on cue, was acidic. However, after you spoke, you thought you poured acid into yourself. All that coldness that you directed at her seemed to flow back into you, and you were afraid that the numbness would choke you. One good thing happened, though, and your bitter comment was too much for the beast. The feeling for her, that horrible beast, died in your stomach.
She left, and you felt relieved. Your reputation was safe, and you knew your mum would be proud. In front of your mates, you had saved yourself.
Yet, for the rest of the train ride, you still felt dirty.
“Is this really Muggle fun?” you asked her as you both floated on the murky water.
“It’s not all we do. I garden, too, you know. It’s just I didn’t think anyone else would appreciate this experience. I asked others, you know, but you, well, you were the only one that wanted to come.”
It was irrational. After five years, the words floated back into your mind. Suddenly, you, too, were back swimming in the lake. The water was so cool on your skin, and you were only in your boxers. You couldn’t remember their colour, but she was wearing a black swim suit. You thought it had looked decent on her body, and you liked the way her hair fanned out around her head as she swam.
She had been your first crush. You were too embarrassed to tell anyone about it.
“My mum has gardens, but she doesn’t tend them,” you told her. You didn’t mention how dirty Dobby had tended them. You thought it wasn’t important, and you figured she was good at Herbology because she gardened.
Maybe you thought of her because you were in a garden, but it wasn’t a simple Muggle garden like you imagined hers to look like. It sprawled around the Rosier mansion, and Lady Rosier had offered your family a tour. She was a celebrated Herbologist, but of course, the house elves did all the difficult work with tending the garden. She oversaw the breeding, and many of the plants were rare.
Your mum, father, and Lucius were thrilled. You had been bored. You never liked Herbology. It reminded you of the only one of your failings. It reminded you of her.
“Does she have yellow roses?” Hestia asked you. You didn’t understand what she meant. You thought she might be making it up. There were only red roses.
“What?” You thought she would admit it was a joke. Maybe it was a Muggle thing. It was too late. You were curious.
“My mum grows yellow roses. I love them. There are these daises, too, and they grow with them. They’re my favorite flowers.” She was so honest. You knew she wasn’t lying. Besides, she never liked to lie.
“No. I’ve only seen red roses.” She had seemed sympathetic to this. He felt ashamed that he didn’t know of her favorite flower. For him, at eleven years old, purebloods had always known everything. How could his parents not tell him about yellow roses?
And now, three summers after you wrote the letter, you were looking at her favorite flower. Well, it was a version of it. The roses were golden, and you thought Midas himself had touched them. Lady Rosier had mentioned that she bred them from simple yellow roses. So, in a way, you figured, they were yellow roses.
They were Hestia’s favorite flower. Now that you saw them, you knew why she liked them.
Maybe all the yellow in the flowers, and her love of the color, had helped place her into Hufflepuff. Maybe her attachment to the earth and nature had put her there, you thought. When you saw the flowers, you could picture her, kneeling in the dirt, like in Herbology class, and trimming their stems. In your mind’s eye, she was so careful, but she kept getting jabbed by the thorns. However, she just smiled and kept on pruning.
They were beautiful, but you had a difficult time picturing them with daisies. In a way, they would look ridiculous. The smallest of these roses were at least the size of one of your fists, and your hands weren’t tiny. Beside common, mundane daisies, you thought the roses would overshadow them. No one would see the daisies.
But then, you wondered, what the daisies would do for the roses. Would the daisies make the roses look humble? Maybe, you thought, the daisies would take away the awe these flowers inspired. But, and only but you decided, the daisies could gain some majesty from the roses. Maybe, together, the flowers would look nice. Maybe, together, odd pairing complimented each other.
And you knew why Hestia liked them together. Then, you knew why she had liked being with you, too.
You waited until Lady Rosier and your family moved on to another part of the garden. Then, you pulled out your wand and cut some of the roses.
Hestia,
I know we haven’t talked in almost three years. I would be lying to say we don’t have huge differences between us. I also would be lying to say that you didn’t help me. You were my first real friend at school. Many of the kids were afraid of me because of how I looked and because of my brother and my family’s reputation. You helped me that first year in Herbology, and I passed that class because of you.
This summer, I saw these flowers in a garden of one of my mum’s friends. They’re magically enhanced, so they’re probably more gold than yellow. I thought they were made of gold at first. The point is, they reminded me of you. I never saw your yellow roses, but I would have come. I wasn’t allowed. I don’t know if you understand how a pureblood child is supposed to act, but visiting (here there were ink scratches that blotted out several lines) Muggle-born, children isn’t exactly proper behavior. Neither is swimming in lakes.
I’m going to say I’m sorry for not really talking or writing to you in three years. I hope you like these flowers. Write back if you feel like it. If not, I’d understand.
I think I should tell you that my mum stopped me from writing to you, though. I liked the flowers together, though, and I thought of us. It’s weird, I know, but I thought of you. I don’t think I’d ever tell a soul, but you were my first crush. I didn’t think I even knew it at the time.
Marcus