[funny how they all have my face]
You’re very brave.
That’s the first thing Ernie ever told me. I was not being particularly brave. I was, in fact, running away.
–Don’t know what you’re talking about,†I told him. He smirked, like I was flirting with him. I wasn’t. Not intentionally.
–Lisa, yeah?†he asked me. I nodded. I wasn’t surprised that he did not know my name - I was not, by any means, special. We were running from the Carrows: I had come, to stay in the Room of Requirement with everyone else, solely because I had nowhere else to go.
Mostly I was tired. I was tired of running by now. I missed sleeping in our real dorm rooms and seeing Mum at Christmas and I was tired of being noticed. Yet at the same time, I craved attention in the worst way. I wanted to be included. But I did not want to be singled out.
–Well, Lisa,†- and here he elongated the word so that the L seemed to last forever - –I always know what I’m talking about.â€
That was true. Ernie did. When he was uncertain of anything, his pompous manner made up for it all. –What does that mean about me?†I asked. I wanted to hear his response.
He flashed me a grin. –I can’t tell you that.â€
A few seconds later, he dashed past me and back into the Room of Requirement. We had been staying there for the last several days, when Neville Longbottom erked his way into Ravenclaw Tower (with the ever-present help of Luna Lovegood, someone who did not mind being seen) and explained to us that we did not have to settle with the Carrows any longer.
I had never been a particularly productive member of Dumbledore’s Army. I doubted, in fact, that Harry even knew who I was. I was not quite sure I wanted him to.
Ernie, however, had the pompous and noticable air that made it where nobody could look away from him. It made the fact that he chose to approach me even odder: the boy who nobody could look away from and a girl who nobody could look towards. What a lovely couple we’d make.
[he got to be strong if he wants to be a man]
It was incredibly easy for Ernie Macmillan to be strong and weak all at once. He could be faling apart and not a soul would know. I did not know why this was, other than the fact that a circle of people around him could hide the fact that he was all alone on the inside.
Which is why it was so strange that I first noticed how horribly tired he looked.
–Ernie,†I said (yes, Lisa of all people initiating a conversation!), –are you all right?â€
He glanced at me and then turned his gaze entirely to my own. I felt warm the second our eyes met, but it was not because Ernie in particular was looking at me. It was because someone was. –Lisa!†And he said my name longer than it was meant to be said, just like he had done previously. –Why do you ask?â€
–You look tired,†I said. –Are you all right?â€
He nodded. –I’m fine,†he said stubbornly, –just a bit worn out.â€
–Aren’t we all?†I asked.
Ernie shrugged. –I suppose so.†He paused for a moment, like he was going to tell me something that might be important. And then he burst out, –I got a letter from my mum the other day. The Death Eaters - they’re coming after her now.â€
–Oh, Merlin,†I breathed. Ernie shifted slightly on the chair he was sitting on, closed his eyes, and nodded. –Ernie,†I said softly, –I’m so sorry.â€
He nodded and his head sank a little. –It’s because of me. Because I can’t keep my bloody mouth shut and stop fighting the whole world for just a bit.â€
The Death Eaters were not particularly concerned with me. I was a mousy-haired seventh year who had been with Harry since the beginning (yet he still did not know who I was.) They would not go after my family because I doubted they even knew that I was there. I was a half-blood, and floated comfortably under the name Turpin, a name for a house full of secretaries. My mother was the witch in the family; it was because of her, I suppose, that I was allowed to return to Hogwarts. I was nobody special, and I preferred it that way. I did not think I wanted to be on the radar.
So then bears the question as to why I joined Dumbledore’s Army in the first place. Yes, I had very little left, but I could not sit with the fact that others had nothing left at all. I joined because I wanted to coax myself into believing that I could do something. Anything, in fact. I wanted to be friends with a famous man and do something important. After all, doing something important and being something important are entirely different things.
The former has nothing to do with you, and the latter has everything.
[daddy watch your little black sheep run]
Before long my life was centred entirely on talking to Ernie. I did not know how it had come to this. It had, I thought, started with him catching up to me after I freed some first years, continued with frequent talks, and ended with my realisation that he was more important than saving the first years. I, like the teenage girl that I often forgot I was, had convinced myself I was in love with him, and I was equally as convinced that he did not love me back. It did bring up the question: why did he approach me just as often?
It was May; we had been in the Room for several months, and never before had I seen Ernie walk into the room the way that he was now. His head was low, his shoulders drooping, but most of all, he looked entirely helpless.
I rushed to him before anyone else could. –Ernie,†I said, and could not finish my sentence before he turned to me and pulled me into a room that I had never seen before. I suppose the Room had created it for us and us alone, much in the way that it had created beds and hammocks and shelves upon shelves of books. The idea that there was something for just the two of us made me smile and shiver at the same time.
Ernie was pale and you could see the circles under his eyes for the first time in months. He spoke with some horrible kind of urgency. –They got her,†he said in a low voice that was dragged down by horrible fear. –They got my mum.â€
I could not speak for a moment, and even less could I understand how Ernie felt. –She’s not dead,†he continued. –They…don’t want to spill too much pure blood.â€
I put my arm around him, and he did not force it away. Instead, he curved inwards towards me and buried his head on my shoulder, and I saw Ernie cry for the first time. I did not know what to do or what to say, and the fact that he expected me to was one of the hardest things I had ever had to deal with.
–Lisa,†he whispered, but his head was still on my shoulder and the words were muffled. I could not hear what he said next, but I was entirely sure I wanted to know.
[you forgetting to fly, darling when you sleep]
It was not quite the same between Ernie and I after that. I avoided him for a few days for multiple reasons, the most prominent being that I did not know what he had told me and I did not want to have to ask him. Eventually, he approached me.
–Why haven’t you been talking to me?†he asked me. –Is it because of what I told you?â€
I was quiet for a second and then admitted, –I don’t know what you told me.â€
Ernie closed his eyes and then exclaimed, in a rush of the most happiness I’d seen from him in several days, –Merlin, Lisa, it was hard enough to tell you the first time!†I saw his eyes flit, momentarily, from person to person, looking to see who was watching us.
–Well?†I prompted, causing him to jolt back to me. He paused for a moment, like he was building up courage for something, and then slowly reached towards me and murmured, –You’re very brave.â€
–Hardly,†I whispered, but he was already kissing me. And for the first time in what felt like forever, I knew that someone’s eyes were entirely on me.
Forgetting to Fly by Padfoot11333
Story Notes:
I am not J.K. Rowling. Nor am I Tori Amos, who wrote the song Sweet Dreams from which I took the title and subtitles of this story. (I have a knack for this.) If I were either, my life would be considerably more exciting.
Chapter Endnotes: Reviews are love.