Belladonna

'Causе there we arе again on that little town street
You almost ran the red 'cause you were lookin' over at me
Wind in my hair, I was there
I remember it all too well

She dreamt all night of him. In her dreams, she found herself happy in the summer holidays, while they were still at their honeymoon phase. The memories of the glorious sun hitting her skin while they had stopped at the English sea. The first afternoon where he taught her how to drive. And how her hair waved in the wind with the car windows down. But her dreams took a twist when the tender Aberforth began to laugh at her and yell hysterically “You are a fool! I fooled you! Who would ever love a little, orphan girl like you?”

She woke up and felt lost until she realized where she was: the Head Girls’ Office. She was exactly in the same position, as she had fallen asleep in the sofa. Except that the cat was now missing and in its position was Minerva McGonagall, sleeping next to her.

“What the fuck?” she jumped, waking Minerva up.

“Sorry, sorry” she apologized, standing up.

“How did you-? When did you-? Why did you-?” she couldn’t formulate any proper questions, “Where is the cat?”

“Cat?” Minerva questioned as pale as a ghost.

“Yes, there was a cat in here” she explained and looked around, but there was no cat in that room. She supposed it must have run away in the middle of the night. “It doesn’t matter. When did you arrive?”

“Um-A while ago... You were crying in your sleep.”

Ofelia lowered her eyes. She didn’t want to admit to Minerva that she was right, but she had to tell her. She would have to tell everybody eventually. Now, she was too distracted remembering what Aberforth had done to question why Minerva was sleeping next to her.

“You are going to say I told you so.”

“I’m not going to say such thing.”

“Forth broke up with me last night. He said he was tired of me and that I was way too young to understand what he meant” she explained.

Minerva stared at her; her lips were a soft line holding the damn words.

“Just say it.”

“I promised I wouldn’t say it.”

“But you want to say it so bad.”

“But it is not going to make you feel better” Minerva explained, taking a seat next to her. “What did he tell you? What does he think you won’t understand?”

“He said-he said that I wouldn’t get it because he was my first boyfriend, but love isn’t forever. He implied that we aren’t meant for each other.”

“So, he did what I told you.”

“You are saying I told you so!”

“No, I’m not!” she tried to hold back the laughter and hugged her instead, “this might seem horrible now, but you’ll get over that loser faster than you think you will.”

“Maybe... But it still hurts to know that I was wrong about him” Bella said with her throat soring, “it hurts to know that I let him break my heart.”

“Wow, no... Bella, you can’t blame yourself for this. He is the dick. You did nothing wrong, okay?”

But those words weren’t enough. She still felt like a stupid child that had just gotten tricked into brushing her teeth. And she felt disappointed like when children find out that Santa Claus didn’t exist.

“Thanks, Minnie. I’ll go now.”

“Don’t call me that.”

And you were tossing me the car keys
Fuck the patriarchy, keychain on the ground
We were always skippin' town
And I was thinkin' on the drive down: “Any time now
He's gonna say it's love”
You never called it what it was

As she walked back to her dorm with the sun already up, she wondered why she had idolized that man with such passion, why had she let herself fall without caution. The man she had been with, the man she had loved, was not the man that had broken her heart the night before. Maybe she had imagined itall . Maybe he wasn’t the man she loved. Maybe he was just a player that had enjoyed turning the life of a sixteen-year-old upside down, all while she dealt with a war.

Maybe he actually enjoyed tearing apart the life of an innocent girl that all she knew about love was near to nothing. Maybe he presented himself as a character that would suit her perfectly. Maybe he just pretended to be a liberalist that could support her until the end. Maybe he bathed her with kisses and compliments just to get her into bed, and then, it got out of hand, so he broke up with her because, Merlin forbids, he could actually fall in love with someone and stay with them.

“Hey, ladies” she said when she finally got to her room.

She was surprised to find them in their pyjamas, doing Ames’s make-up. Someone had slept in her bed, as it was undone, presumably the Gryffindor.

“What happened to you?” Walburga widened her eyes, “did you and Forth have a fight?”

“You look like shit” Druella added.

But she couldn’t help it anymore, as she let a sob out, leaving the room in complete silence. Except for her sobbing.

“We broke up...” was all she managed, and both girls stood up to go comfort her.

“I guess I should go” Longbottom said from the back of the room.

“No, Ames, you can stay” she whimpered, as she freed herself from the girls.

“What happened?” Walls asked.

“He doesn’t want to be with me. He says that I’m too young, and that this is what happens every time a couple doesn't work out, but I just don’t know it because he is my first boyfriend” she explained, “he basically said I was immature and stupid. All because I thought that we would be together forever.”

“So, he did what I told you he would do.”

“Minerva didn’t say I told you so, Drue, so you can save it.”

“Oh, but I told you so” Rosier argued, “many times. I warned you that going out with him was a bad idea, and you just said you don’t know him like I do.”

“I don’t sound like that.”

“But I knew he would pull off something like this. The moment he felt pressured he just packed her bags and left you like the little coward he is.”

“Since you insisted on me staying” Ames chimed in, “I would like to give you my opinion. Aberforth is a man that never grew up. He’s been an orphan since 14 and Albus never paid attention to him, so he just grew up freely.”

“That doesn’t justify his cowardness” Druella pointed out.

“Of course, it doesn’t” he agreed, “what I’m trying to say is that he never had to compromise to anything. Then, you appeared. I don’t doubt that he loved you, but... he wasn’t ready for you.”

"Funny" Walburga said bitterly, "you were the grown-up of the relationship."

“I knew it was complicated” Bella admitted, “but I wanted to believe in him. I thought that he had changed for me. I thought that I had been enough for him to-I don’t know.”

Her ego had been brutally destroyed, as she felt like it had been her own stupidity and stubbornness that had led her into this situation. How could she have trusted him so blindly?

“Everything’s going to be fine, Bella” Ames said and then stood up, “I should go now.”

“Ames, aren’t you forgetting something?” Walburga questioned.

“Oh, right, my make-up.” He came back to take it off.

The next night, she was found awake, as the memories kept on torturing her at every living minute. She poured all her thoughts into a journal, writing a song or a poem-she wasn’t sure. At least, it helped her dealing with her emotions.

Deep down, she knew that this wasn’t her fault. But the spine was still under her skin. Less than a year ago, he had cowered. The memory of him accusing her of trying to replace her father with him still stinged. Maybe she should have turned him down that time. If he had so many doubts, if he didn’t know why he was with her, then maybe he didn’t deserve her at all. Maybe not everyone deserved a second chance. She wondered if he had gotten to understand her. When he came back for her, he said he was sorry, but he never told her that he had changed his mind. He had left her because he didn’t know why he was with her, but he never said he had figured that part out. Maybe he never did. Maybe he just missed her and that was why he appeared at her house.

He knew he wanted to be with her, but he never understood why.

'Til we were dead and gone and buried
Check the pulse and come back swearing, it's the same
After three months in the grave

Riddle had said it. Aberforth didn’t understand.

“Bella...” Monty appeared in the middle of the hallway.

She was outside her common room, with her back against the wall. The floor was cold, but she didn’t care as she scribbled her notebook with her pen and ink.

“Monty?” she questioned, “what are you doing here?”

He took a seat next to her. “I had a feeling that you would be having a tough night.”

“So, you decided to go all the way down to the dungeons and hang out?”

“Shut up!” He grabbed her notebook. “What are you writing?”

“Just some random thoughts about Forth...”

“And then you wondered where it went to as I reached for you/But all I felt was shame/And you held my lifeless frame” he read, “wow! This is hard. I think this could be an amazing heartbreak song.”

“Nice to know that I’m useful at something.”

“You are useful at so many things... This reminds me, we found someone that can play the bass.”

“Really?” she asked uninterested. “Is he any good?”

“Oh, yes!” he smiled, “he is. I told him to find you tomorrow morning.”

“What, why?”

“Because if he can impress you then, he’s the one.”

“It’s going to be hard to impress me starting from the fact that he’s a he...” she explained, “and I'm not actually a fan of the male gender right now.”

“I’m sure you can make an exception.”

“Why can’t we find a female bassist?” she offered, “a female bassist sounds so hot.”

“I think Minnie knows how to play bass...” he said thoughtfully.

“You’re kidding!” she exclaimed way to excited.

“Ha! Of course, I’m kidding.”

The next day, Ofelia was sitting next to a tree. Motivated by Potter’s words, she decided to turn her nonsensical phrases into a song. The problem was that she couldn’t stop writing, and she couldn’t edit. Perhaps this wasn’t a song at all, and just some words she was feeling into her notebook.

“Hi.”

“Hi?”

A blonde boy with Ravenclaw uniform approached her. He carried a bass with him.

“Let me guess, you are the bassist.”

“And you are the leader of the band.” He sat down next to her. “Monty said I had to show you my skills.”

“Monty said I was the leader of the band?” she laughed.

“So, what are you working on?”

“Oh, nothing in particular. Just-some shit...”

He took the notebook with her permission and started reading the endless lines.

“Are you writing a song or an opera?”

“Give me that!” she took the notebook off of him, “can you play or not?”

“I can play mostly anything” he bragged.

“Go ahead then.”

The boy played the bass with a melody that he seemed to have invented at the moment, which did surprise her, as it was pretty good. But then she noticed that hanging from his neck there was a chain with a charm in it. The Grindelwald symbol, or what Riddle had described as the Deadly Hollows symbol.

“Why are you wearing that?” she interrupted his playing.

“Uh-I’m not a Grindelwald supporter” he responded, probably too afraid of the girl’s reprehension against acolytes. “I’m a Deadly Hollows follower.”

Yes, that was interesting... A Deadly Hollows follower was exactly what she needed now that she had promised to crash Aberforth Dumbledore’s life and, well, that included his psychopath of a brother, who was very much buddies with Grindelwald. At the end, this was Aberforth’s fault for trusting Bella with his family secrets. Stupid arsehole. She remembered seeing the same image of the Deadly Hollows on an old parchment in his private office at their childhood house at Godric's Hollows.

“Interesting...” she admitted, “what did you say your name was?”

“Bella, we’ve been in the same class for seven years... It’s Leonides, Leonides Lovegood. My friends call me Leo.”

“I’m not your friend” she remarked, “but welcome to the band.”

“I’m so happy that you liked Leo” Monty said, “he’s so talented.”

“Yeah, he’s okay.”

“Okay?”

Bella was helping Monty with his Potions final project in his dorm.

“So, you put this in your hair every day?” she changed the subject.

“Yes, this is how I get my perfect, shiny hair...”

It was true. Monty had perfect hair. All into one place and perfectly sleek back. But that wasn’t natural, as she recalled the mess his hair was while they were at war camp.

“D’you wanna try?”

“Your hair potion? What would it do to my hair?”

“I don’t know, but isn’t it fun to find out?”

“No, if I get bald.”

“You won’t” he assured her, “it will at best straighten it.”

Losing her curls? That sounded radical, but she guessed it was a nice way of helping her friend to experiment with his potion.

“Pour it in!”

The transparent potion touched her hair and with some help of Monty it went into all of it, adapting and shapeshifting her hair.

“Oh, Godric...”

“What is it?” she said, “is my hair gone?”

“Check it for yourself.”

He handed her a mirror and she finally saw the result. Her hair was completely straightened, smooth as it had never been... and she loved it. It was weird, but she felt so mature and so sophisticated. Not wild and childish as she usually did with her uncontrollable hair.

“I look so pretty” she whispered.

“No, my friend, you look hot!”

“My hair is so long though...” she pointed out, staring at the straightened edges that were at waist-length. “I look like Rapunzel.”

“I mean, we could cut it off.” He took some scissors. “Should I go for it?”

“You know what? Fuck this, sure!” and so he cut her hair until it reached below her shoulders.

Later that day, as she was going back to her dorm from the afternoon classes, an owl approached her. She immediately recognized it as Aberforth’s owl, and she couldn’t help to get her hopes up. Maybe he had changed his mind. Maybe he wanted her back. But what would she do if that was the case? Would she take him back after the pain that he had caused her again? And if she did, what would stop him to shred her into pieces yet again?

However, the letter just read: I put your things into a box. Feel free to pass by to pick them up whenever you want to. Forth.

Such an impersonal letter, though all his letters were impersonal.

He wanted to return her things. Only two day had gone by since they had broken up and he was already kicking any sign of her ever existing at his life out. She guessed that meant he wanted his things back as well, so she spent the rest of the afternoon packing up some of his stuff too. Some shirts she had kept without his permission, which now she felt too ashamed to return, and two books he had lent her. Her closet, free of Forth’s stuff, felt so empty it almost made her cry. But she didn’t. She had done enough crying.

Instead, she decided to paint her lips red and chose a tight, black blouse to return his things. She let her hair down, not sure what to do with her new style now.

They say all's well that ends well
But I'm in a new hell every time
You double-cross my mind
You said if we had been closer in age
Maybe it would've been fine
And that made me want to die

As she sneaked into Hogsmeade, she wondered if maybe she had overdressed herself. She did want to look stunning, like the break-up had done wonderful things to her, but she was scared that maybe it was too much. And that he would read it as a big fat lie... which it was. But it was too late to repent as she found herself at his back door faster than she expected. She knocked and waited for him to open.

“Bella...” was the only thing he said when he opened.

Aberforth looked the same as always. Cherry blonde hair in a bun, beard of a few days. Casually dressed in a white shirt and linen trousers. But somehow, he was different, as the coldness in his eyes was new. Cool, blue eyes as her presence was simply unimportant. Maybe it was... maybe he just didn’t care anymore. He didn't even notice my hair...

“Hi, Forth” she said, trying to sound as unaffected as possible, “’got your note.”

“Yes, just give me a second.”

He went inside, but didn’t invite her to come in. So, she stood awkwardly on the door waiting for him to come back. It felt stupid to wait outside when she had been inside so many times, when she had gotten to call that place a home, when she had been inside only two days ago. But she supposed this was more about setting boundaries than anything else.

“Here it is” he came back with a bigger box than she had brought.

“Thanks, here is yours” she awkwardly handed it to him, and he accepted it without saying a word, “uhm, sorry, I don’t mean to be that bitch, but...”

“But...”

“My Slytherin scarf’s missing” she said, as she had noticed that her scarf wasn’t inside the box.

“There was no scarf here. I just put everything that was on your drawer in there.”

“Oh” she smiled knowingly, “but the scarf was in your drawer. The higher one. You put it there after I lent you my scarf.”

“There is no scarf in here” he insisted.

“Sure, there is” she pushed on, “here let me se-”

She tried to walk in, but he put his hand in the doorframe cutting her way. That sudden movement scared her.

“What did you do to your hair?” he asked grabbing a piece of it. 

There was no interest in her voice. He didn't even looked at it with emotion. No way of knowing if he had liked it or not. Ofelia supposed that it didn't matter anymore if he did so.

“Isn’t it obvious?” she returned finally taking a step back from the door, so that he couldn’t touch her anymore.

“It looks good on you, I guess.”

“Am I getting my scarf back?”

“For the third time, there is no scarf here!”

“Don’t yell at me!” she yelled back, “my scarf’s in there, and I want it back!”

“It’s just a bloody scarf, Bella” he insisted, “just buy a new one.”

She was just about to explain to him why she wanted it back. She was just about to say that that scarf was the first thing her dad had bought for her after she was sorted into Slytherin. That scarf was her papà’s sorting gift that he had spent months saving to get for her. She was just about to explain all of that, until she saw the glimpse of someone inside.

A girl. Another girl... Not a girl, a woman.

Forth followed her eyes and found the girl’s view as well. A woman walking in her underwear with her tits out, who was drinking wine while speaking with someone else. She couldn’t see who it was, but she could bet it was another woman. Probably in her underwear as well.

“Look, Bella, I-”

“Keep the scarf” she said with a dead face, “I don’t think I want it anymore.”

“Bella, don’t do that” he sighed, “please, I want us to be mature about this.”

“Oh, I’m being very mature” she snorted, “in fact, thanks. Thanks for getting my stuff. Enjoy your threesome or whatever.”

She turned around ready to leave and then cry herself to sleep, like the very mature child that she was. Only allowing to cry herself in private now. However, a rush of angriness-fury-hit her like lightning and the rush of fire to her hand was almost inevitable.

Before she could think about it, the fireball was heading into Forth’s door. He eluded it almost professionally, but the poor woman, too focused in her conversation, didn’t have the same luck as her hair burned in flames.

“Shit!” Aberforth shouted, but the other woman through her glass into the other one’s head controlling the situation.

It was too late though, she was already bald in some areas.

“Oh, sorry, I just remembered that I’m not mature at all” she said, calling his attention again, “maybe this is a lesson for you. Next time, don’t fuck a child.”

She grinned and then left, but something had changed within her. Something had just clicked. They were not getting back together. It was over. And she had to move on.

A week passed without her hearing from Aberforth, but that wasn’t a surprise at all. The news about her break-up spread around the castle. It even got into the teachers. The two happiest about it were Professor Dumbledore, who kept smiling pitifully at her during class, like saying I’m sorry, but we all knew what my brother is, you just weren’t smart enough to see it. And the other one was Professor Slughor, who had asked her if their sudden break-up had anything to do with her and Riddle meeting at his Christmas party. She said no, he didn't believe her.

“'Cause there we are again when I loved you so/Back before you lost the one real thing you've ever known...”

The song was finally over. The Pitchfork Kids were recording it with the equipment that Celestina Warbeck had sent them in order to get their first single into the radio. Just the four of them: Chuck, Monty, Bella and Leo. And of course, Ames, who was there to help.

“It was rare, I was there/I remember it all too well...”

Celestina was right. The addition of the bass had put the band into another level. And although Bella was trying to figure the dynamic out, the new kid knew how to keep the beat, which was enough for her. And he wasn’t nosey, which did stand out having the nosiest friends in the castle, more like in Britain.

“That was amazing!” Chuck exclaimed when they were finally done, “men, we’re good!”

“You did a nice job, Leo!” Monty congratulated him.

“Thanks, mate.”

“I just have one doubt” Ames said, “how exactly are you going to get them to play this song on the radio?”

“What? Don’t you like my song?” Bella teased him.

“Why, yes, but it’s 10 minutes” he explained, “it’s too long.”

“I thought you were such a lady killer, Longbottom” Potter teased him, “and you believe 10 minutes it’s long?”

They roared with laughter.

Maybe Bella needed some time to heal. Maybe she had been naïve, stubborn, blind even. But she was sure of one thing now: her broken heart wasn’t her fault, and she was going to be okay. It might not be tomorrow, or the day after that, but she was going to get over him. And she would find someone that loved her. Someone that would stay with her.

And Aberforth wouldn’t. Oh, she just knew he wouldn’t. Because he would never find someone like her. And when he finally realizes that she was the one, she would be way out of his league. Because that train was right onto the next station, and Aberforth Dumbledore had just missed it... and he would have probably regretted it for the rest of his life.

She would be okay. She was going to be fine. And although she couldn’t forget him now, one day he would be a memory of her past. Just a bad moment, a tiny stain, in the history of her life.

And did the twin flame bruise paint you blue?
Just between us, did the love affair maim you too?
'Cause in this city's barren cold
I still remember the first fall of snow
And how it glistened as it fell
I remember it all too well