Well I was the one who showed you the sky | Sander

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Rosalie Williams couldn’t sleep. Tomorrow she would be graduating and leaving Hogwarts forever and yesterday she got the news that Brandon was among the very few who had survived the explosions, but he wasn’t doing well, that much she knew. She had left her dorm earlier, she didn’t know how much earlier. It had been a while, at least an hour, the Hufflepuff guessed based on where the moon was now and where it had been when she crawled up into this window ledge. She had laid in her bed in the Hufflepuff common room among her sleeping roommates for about the same amount of time, maybe. It was well past curfew. It was late and the castle was dark except for the light of a few, sparsely placed candles, likely just so professors and prefects could see their way. Rosie knew she could get in trouble for being out this late. But she had a feeling even if she was caught she wouldn’t get into any major trouble except for maybe just being asked to return to her dorm. Everyone knew what had happened, and she was one of the lucky ones. Her loved one had survived. Still it was hard not knowing. She’d get to see him the day after tomorrow. 2 days from now she’d walk into St. Mungo’s and find him there… she tried to shake the thought out of her head but she couldn’t. She was scared.

Tomorrow she had to say goodbye to the last 7 years of her life. Tomorrow she had to say goodbye to the room she had lived in, and to her common room. She had to say goodbye to the lake and to the library. She had to say goodbye to the professors and to the house elves. She would bid farewell to Scotland and make her way on the Express into London before working her way north again to her home in Ireland. It was too much. Saying goodbye to the thing in her life that was always consistently there while she was scared about something, someone, that wasn’t. Brandon had just come back into her life. And she liked having him back. Rosie reached her hand up and wiped the tears out from under her eyes. Deep breaths. She’d be okay. Everything would be okay. Deep breaths.

@lysander

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Sander knew that he wasn’t supposed to be out of bed at this hour, but his mind was racing and he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to gain any sense of peace in the Ravenclaw tower. Everything felt oddly claustrophobic there, even though he knew that he was happy. Sander was rarely the kind of person to be overwhelmed by emotion, so to have so much of it was… strange, especially considering that what he was feeling was opposite to the way most of his peers felt. Lysander wasn’t cold-hearted – he did feel bad for the people that had lost their lives in the explosions – but he hadn’t had any personal relationships with the deceased, so it felt fake to try to mourn them. And trying to suppress what he really did feel was an equally distasteful prospect. He oughtn’t feel bad for being happy, even if the happiness did come at a rather inopportune time.

Lysander walked down, a bounce in his step that spoke of relentless energy and nothing to put it towards. He was hoping that doing a lap or two around the school would tire him enough that he would be able to sleep, so Sander was taking the longest path possible. He was surprised, however, when he heard a soft sniffling noise. Sander paused, taking a moment to actually observe his surroundings, instead of (foolishly) assuming that he would be the only one out at that particularly moment. After he took a moment to swivel his eye around, the Ravenclaw came across the source of the noise: a Hufflepuff he had some acquaintance with, Rosalie Williams. Sander approached her slowly, making his footfalls slightly heavier than he was accustomed to so that she would be sure to hear him coming. “Are you alright?” Sander asked awkwardly, suddenly aware of how his own spry gate could be misconstrued as being pleased about others’ pain. He was not suited for this type of conversation, but he was trying to get better about the whole ‘emotion’ thing in preparation for the rest of his life, so… he had to start somewhere.

rose harriet granger-weasley

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Rosie knew that it was possible that someone would stumble upon her. She wasn’t exactly hiding. She was in plain sight and was on a well traveled floor on which many professors had their person quarters, if she remembered correctly. Maybe she had put herself there wanted to be found. She didn’t think that she had, but she wasn’t exactly in control of her own thoughts right now. She tried to maintain control, but the harder she tried to think, the harder it was to keep the tears away. A Ravenclaw student in her year approached her, someone else who would graduate with her tomorrow. She knew Lysander enough. They were in classes together, primarily Care of Magical Creatures. And, Rosie was close with Susan, so she knew Lysander due to his close relationship with their mutual Ravenclaw friend.

Rosie wiped the tears out of her eyes quickly before turning to look at the guy. He seemed… happy maybe? And Rosie knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t be happy to find a girl crying in the corridor. Something good must have happened to him. Good. People deserved happiness even, and sometimes especially, in times of grief. “Yeah, I’m fine.” she said. It was true. She was alright. She wasn’t injured, she wasn’t dead. She was scared, so very scared. And she was sad. So very sad. But, she was, in the grand scheme of life, okay. “Why aren’t you in bed?” she asked, wondering why the boy was also out so very late on their last night in the castle. The girl tucked her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arm around them, opening up a bit more room on the ledge if he wanted to sit.

@lysander

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Rosie answered that she was fine, and Sander made a small, confused face. He wasn’t sure why someone who was crying in a corridor would say they were fine, but since he had asked the question, it seemed inappropriate only to accept one possible answer, so he let it be. The Hufflepuff asked why Sander wasn’t it bed, and his confused face quirked into a small smile. The reason itself still felt slightly silly – Sander didn’t know why it made him so happy because it was illogical that any one event should make him feel so incandescent – but the Ravenclaw wasn’t sure that his fellow student wanted to hear the ins and outs of it all. Instead, he settled for the barest explanation. “I didn’t want to be in bed.” Once he said it, Lysander realized that sounded slightly facetious, but – oh well. Rosie wasn’t normally the kind of person to assume the worst in people, and he didn’t see why she would start now. She made room on the window ledge she was sitting on for him, and Sander lowered himself down beside her. “Why aren’t you in bed?” He asked in return, hoping that her answer would be slightly more informative. It didn’t really matter why he wasn’t in bed, because he was happy. She was sad, so therefore her reasons for seeking solitude elsewhere in the castle were more important.

rose harriet granger-weasley

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He didn’t want to be in bed. Rosie didn’t question his motive. She had no reason to. She wasn’t a perfect, and neither was he. Neither had any real reason to worry that the other would turn them in and Rosie was confident they knew each other well enough not to have to worry about that sort of thing. Especially on their very last night in the castle: what was the worst that could happen? They certainly weren’t going to get expelled for being caught out after hours. Rosie had once been so scared of being caught by a prefect and getting detention. She had never gotten a detention and likely would have cried at the mere possibility of that scratch on her perfect student record. However, that was as far from her brain as possible. She felt cold and stiff and really could care less anymore. He sat down with her and asked why she wasn’t in bed? The answer wasn’t as easy as she wanted it to be. “I just have a lot on my mind.” she said after sniffling. “Mostly though, I’m scared... to leave this place.” she admitted. She hadn’t ever spoken this intimately with Lysander before, but she trusted Susan and she knew that Susan trusted Lysander. She had more that scared her, but she felt silly for being scared by it. She wanted to think positively.

@lysander

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The Ravenclaw boy nodded when the Hufflepuff girl said that she had a lot on her mind. He also had a lot on his mind, but it seemed like his thoughts were markedly less sad than Rosie’s, since Sander wasn’t crying on a window. Rosie said that mostly, she was thinking about being scared about leaving Hogwarts, and the Ravenclaw resisted the urge to frown. “You don’t have to be scared.” Sander whispered, trying to make his voice gentle so he wouldn’t sound condescending when he continued to speak. “Even when you leave, you’re not going to be alone.” There was this strange idea that leaving Hogwarts meant that they were automatically expected to become fully functional human beings and fend for themselves, but Lysander didn’t see it that way. They were still just learning to get through life – in fact, all of life was learning. A day spent without discovering something new wasn’t a day worth living, in Sander’s opinion. “You can choose who you want to share the rest of your life with.” Sander reminded her. He had chosen for Susan to be one of those people, and he had a feeling that Rosie would choose her, too, which meant, in a way, the two of them were connected. This conversation would hopefully be a way for them to learn a little more about each other, and maybe in time, Rosie would want to share her life with Sander, too.

rose harriet granger-weasley

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Rosie had once been someone that trusted everyone around her without having to worry about their true intent or motive. Her run in with the girl from Durmstrang had made her a bit more cautious about who she told what to, however, she knew she could trust Lysander. She knew that she could trust him because she knew that Susan trusted him, and Susan was someone that Rosie would never think twice about trusting with her life. Lysander couldn’t be a mean or malicious person and still have gotten so close to Susan. “I don’t know what I want to do.” she admitted with a shrug. “And one of the people who mean the most to me in the word is lying in the hospital… and I don’t know… and I’m scared that…” she couldn’t even bring herself to say any of it. She didn’t know how bad Brandon’s injuries were and she didn’t know if he was going to heal quickly or if there would be lasting damage. She really had no idea and not knowing scared her. She sighed and brushed her hair back behind her ear. “Sorry - I’m uh… I’m not in my normal state of mind right now…” she felt like she couldn’t complete any thoughts and everything was just swirling around in her head in a big mess with no grammar or structure, or reason.

@lysander

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Sander nodded when Rosie said she didn’t know what she wanted to do. That seemed to be a common theme with the soon-to-be graduates. Even the ones who thought they had a plan for when they got out of Hogwarts were reconsidering what had once seemed inevitable. Rosie continued, stumbling over the words about someone she cared about being in the hospital – one of the Durmstrang survivors, if Sander was correct. He frowned a little when she began saying that she was scared. “Being scared of the future doesn’t stop it from coming.” He said, realizing it probably wasn’t the most comforting thing to say, but it was the truth, and Sander couldn’t give any less than that. He had been hospitalized that year when he had lost his vision, and all of the fears that had run through his head were probably similar to the ones Rosie was having now, but not a single one of them had helped him get better. “You don’t have to be in your normal state of mind.” Sander assured Rosie. “Things aren’t normal.” They hadn’t been normal for a while, not since the first child was found dead on the train. The explosions were just an unfortunate reminder of what they already knew to be true.

rose harriet granger-weasley

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Being scared of the future doesn’t stop it from coming. When he said that, Rosie felt her head nodding without consciously doing so. That was something that she needed to hear. She was scared of coming to Hogwarts at first, before she got on the train. She was nervous that she wouldn’t make friends, or that she would miss her home and her parents. But look how that had turned out. Now, she was scared to leave, but leaving just signaled the start of another adventure, just like pulling away from the station and finding those girls in that train car had been. “No they’re not.” she agreed when he insisted that things weren’t normal. She looked up to the stone arch above them and blinked her eyes a few times, wiping the remaining tears away, calming her breathing back to a normal level. “Well how are you feeling? Are you apprehensive at all?” she asked him. He was graduating too, as far as she knew, most people were feeling weird about the rate at which they were now being thrust towards graduation.

@lysander

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Rosie nodded at what he said about being scared of the future, and Sander wondered if he had accidentally stumbled upon something insightful, that had actually made Rosie feel better. Either that, or she was just nodding because she wanted to be polite. Rosie agreed that things weren’t normal, and then looked up at the stone arch that was above them, rubbing at her face, probably to wipe away the last of her tears. Personally, Sander didn’t mind if Rosie continued to cry or left her face tear-strained, but if that was what she needed to feel better, then Sander wasn’t going to object to it. Rosie asked how he was feeling, and Sander smiled. “I finally have something good happening to me.” Sander said. Well, maybe finally wasn’t a good word – this year hadn’t been horrible for him, but it hadn’t really been above average until recently. “Susan and I are going to start dating.” Lysander couldn’t help but beam at sharing the news with someone. It was still difficult for Sander to believe, but it was reality, and… well, he couldn’t be happier.

rose harriet granger-weasley

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I finally have something good happening to me. Rosie tilted her head back towards the man sitting across from her when he said that, instantly feeling her spirits lift. She was excited to hear the news, assuming he was going to tell her. Rosie loved celebrating her friends accomplishments. She had been over the moon for Jamie when they found out that she was joining a professional Quidditch team. Any good news for anyone was good news for Rosie. And right now, she really needed to hear good news. She needed to snap herself out of this space of feeling sorry for herself. Susan and I are going to start dating. he told her with a beaming smile. “What?!” Rosie asked, feeling her lips stretch into a smile also, which she was sure looked ridiculous with her puffy eyes. “That’s amazing! When did this happen? I’m so excited for you two!” Rosie insisted, reaching out and squeezing Sander’s arm gently. She wanted to know everything and she hoped that Sander would oblige her before she was able to go and find Susan, who had always been a good friend to her.

@lysander

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Apparently, all that Rosie needed to cheer up was to hear that Sander and Susan were dating. Sander was happy that it made Rosie happy, but it was also a little weird that she seemed so invested in that relationship. He had never had close friends who were dating people – except for Susan, but considering what was happening now, wouldn’t it be a little weird for him to admit that he was happy to see her dating someone else. Rosie asked when it happened, and Sander’s mind churned quickly to find a story as to why they were together without mentioning Susan’s Animagus training. “The night of the lightning storm.” He said quietly, still trying to figure out a story. Instead of mentioning the exact events, Sander decided, he was going to go with the whole feelings thing. “I guess it was just… meant to be.” Lysander struggled with the idea of soulmates in any sense, especially because it strayed dangerously close to the idea of a fairy tale that he wasn’t comfortable applying to his relationship yet, but at the end of the day, he couldn’t deny that for him… it was always Susan. It was always going to be her.

rose harriet granger-weasley

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It wasn’t exactly that Rosie was invested in her friends relationships and love lives, but more than she really needed to hear some good news right now, and this was the perfect thing. She loved hearing that despite the awful things happening around them, love was still present in people and things weren’t completely awful for everyone. It was like a small light in the darkness that currently was surrounding Rosie’s head. Plus, she had known that things were slightly awkward between Sander and Susan since the kiss a little while back, and she was happy to hear that obviously things had been worked out. He explained that it happened on the night of the lightning storm and the Hufflepuff nodded. That was an oddly sweet story, Rosie had never liked storms herself, but she did understand that some people felt romantic or powerful during storms. However, it didn’t seem like Sander really wanted to go into detail on the evening, and so she wouldn’t push it. She was closer with Susan anyway so many Susan would want to tell her more. “That’s great!” Rosie nodded. To be honest, Rosie had never thought of the two of them dating until Susan told her about the kiss between them. However, Rosie had really never thought about herself dating anyone either and here she was. She had been too naive. “I’m glad it’s working out for you two. Susan’s a wonderful girl - not that I need to tell you that.” She added with a small laugh. She and Susan had been friends since they met, but she knew Sander probably knew Susan better than she did anyway.

@lysander

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Sander nodded when Rosie said that she was glad that things were working out for him and Susan. He was glad, too – the period of time when they had barely been friends had been difficult on him. Their relationship had grown quickly, and that had been scary at first for Lysander, since he hadn’t had many friends to speak of thanks to his endless obsessions with both unicorns and books. This year had been good for him in that way – he had cobbled together a group of people that cared about him and who he cared for in return, and he hoped those relationships survived past graduation. In any case, though, not having his best friend with him had felt like missing a part of him, and now he had that part back, and then some. “I don’t think I could date someone who wasn’t wonderful.” Lysander said pensively. Truthfully, he couldn’t imagine dating anyone who wasn’t Susan, but he supposed that was a good thing, because it meant that he was committed to the relationship. It would be troublesome if he was already imagining dating other people when his relationship with Susan was in its infancy. “What about you?” Sander asked curiously. He didn’t know enough about Rosie, he realized, especially not in the romantic arena.

rose harriet granger-weasley

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Sander admitted that he didn’t think he could date someone that wasn’t wonderful. Rosie couldn’t help but smile and nod at that statement. He was a very sweet man, or at least, that was the impression that she was getting from him. And he had to be if Susan liked him enough to date him, since she was a pretty sweet girl herself. He then turned the question around on her, which question, exactly, Rosie wasn’t sure since she hadn’t exactly asked a question. But he asked “what about you?” and she figured that he wanted to know about her dating life, maybe? “I don’t think I could date anyone less than wonderful either.” Rosie agreed, still with the smile on her face. “I’m dating Brandon Fisher - note uh, why you found me here crying…” she explained. Brandon had been one of the survivors of the explosions, however, at least he was one of the survivors and not one listed among the dead. “We’ve been together for a few months… I think he’s pretty wonderful. He’s very sweet, and he wrote me a song and played it for me before he left.” she said, happy to be thinking about Brandon in a happy, nice way again, rather than thinking about him lying in the hospital like she had been.

@lysander