The Prime Princess

Love is a joke.

She knew that. She had known that for a long time.

When a woman falls in love, she suddenly becomes blind as a bat. She no longer trusts her friends and always suspects everyone and everything that everybody is trying to break them up. Oh, the irony. How stupid she can be?! She actually believes her own lunacy! She sees things there where they don’t exist. Every little hint that has been said while messing around is a true fact to her. Every little joke is a threat to her and to her dear boyfriend she has placed up to a pedestal.

Love makes people stupid, mad and blind.

So why bother with falling in love at all? If you know how it affects your brain, then why to take a chance? Go mad? Go insane? Yell at your own friends? Suspect them in crimes committed towards her and her oh so bloody loved guy? Throw away seven years of friendship? And for what? For a guy who made her brain do summersaults? It’s only chemicals that are messing around in your brain, making you soooooo stupid!

Chemicals, that make you feel. Chemicals, that brainwash you. Chemicals, that make you believe that you and him belong together, make you believe that you love him, make you believe you just can’t live without him. Chemicals, that make you believe that everyone else are evil and against you two.

There’s no magic in love, no romance or anything. Only chemicals deprogramming your brain to save the species. To reproduce. It’s all written in your genes, Mother Nature’s way of making humans to reproduce by clouding their minds and saying it’s Sweet Love. That’s a lie! There’s no love! There never was! But humans wanted to see that. To see that there was something more. Something destined, something mysterious. And so it was called love with the rules of monogamy.

“If that is love, then I never want to fall in love!” cried Hermione. She didn’t want to hear that. She was one of those people who believed in love.

The dark entity sighed and rolled its black eyes.

But you did fell in love. You became blind and stupid.

“I’m not stupid or blind!”

Oh, but you are. You just don’t know it yet. You think you are still Plain Jane and you haven’t changed a bit. But are wrong. Oh, so wrong.
***
Draco circled around his father. Lucius was sneering coldly. He wanted a piece of that revenge he’d been planning for a long time.

Lucius fired the first hex. Draco shielded himself and backfired the same hex. Then the real fight started.

Professor Snape opened one of his eyes and looked up from the floor. Around him lay dozens of students and some other professors. Draco and Lucius were having a duel that started to destroy the whole castle. Snape wanted to yell at them, make them stop but he had lost the ability to move at all. Suddenly two figures dashed through the smoke and flying curses.

Of course, cursed Snape as the hero of the century with his trustworthy companion rushed to the scene and put an end to it. Harry took out Lucius and Ron tried to take out Draco but had problems with that, so Harry helped him. Finally there was a moment of silence while two griffindirs glared at the fallen students and professors.

“WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?” boomed Professor Dumbledore as the elderly wizard marched to the scene and found poor Professor McGonagall from the floor among others. Harry and Ron turned around to see a huffing mad Head Master.

“The Heads…” started Harry but Ron sensed he was going to turn the whole thing around and so he cut in.

“They wanted to bring two students before you cuz they have done some horrible things,” said Ron quickly. Dumbledore stepped closer and looked at students on the floor. They all sorta looked liked stunned.

Madam Pomfrey arrived seconds later with her mediwitches army and started to take away the fallen students and professors. Head Master looked them working and then turned to his pet students.

“Who did what that the whole Griffindor House has tried to stop them?” asked Dumbledore and guided them away from mediwitches. Harry eyed Ron and silently wanted to shut him up. Ron didn’t notice him or just made a face that he hadn’t noticed him.

“Camme and Ginny,” said Ron quietly. Dumbledore looked at him for a long time, trying to see if he told the truth and then backed away a little.

“And what horrible things they have done?”

Harry was desperate. He didn’t want that his girlfriend and best friend would get into serious trouble because Ron couldn’t hold his mouth shut. Ron glanced at Harry who was starting to get very angry with him and then looked at Dumbledore.

“They have been using dark arts on one student,” confessed Ron and was glad he had finally said it.
***
She was tired. She had lost the will to live on with the knowledge what really was going on inside her head. Nothing was real. No more real that dreams or nightmares.

When you know it’s a dream then you’ll wake up from it, said the dark entity and circled around her.

Can you really realize at one point that love is a scam and you’ll fell out of love, asked Hermione from herself. The darkness came closer. It didn’t have a name. Not yet. Not until Hermione recognized it.

Yes, and you’ll feel all hollow inside. Just like you always have been. You have never been filled with feelings you call love, happiness and joy, because these things don’t exist. You, people, just imagine it, believe it and so your brain produces some chemicals that make you high, to make you happy so you wouldn’t kill yourself. Self-preservation.

Hermione curled up inside the darkness and wept for how stupid she has been.
***
Madam Pomfrey had revived Ginny and Carmen and sent them to Head Master’s office as ordered. Ron and Harry stood outside behind the door.

“Were you insane?” asked Harry, “They’ll be expelled because of you!”

“I know!” yelled Ron, “But I don’t have to feel guilty anymore!”

“And you just betrayed your friends so YOU COULD FEEL GOOD?!”

“Sorry, but I think it was for the best,” said Ron and marched off.
***
Draco was trotting around in the Hospital Wing, huffing mad that Hermione hadn’t woken up yet. Blaise was behind tons of books to find something about the condition she was in. Madam Pomfrey was clueless.

All the griffindors were already up on their feet and ready to complain to no end. Draco was herding them out of the Infirmary and told them to shut up. Some ravenclaws and hufflepuffs were also raising their voices but Draco made sure to throw them out of there. He needed to sort things out.

“So, have you got anything?” asked Draco and looked at Blaise who was skimming old books. Blaise only shook his head.

“Oh, great. Ooookey then, I’ll go and check on the Mudblood and her little friend.”

“Uhuh, you go and do that.”
***
Hermione still heard the voice inside her head, telling things that were real but just awful and felt really wrong. A song started to play in her head. A ghost of a beautiful love story.

They call me The Wild Rose
But my name was Elisa Day
Why they call me it I do not know
For my name was Elisa Day

There was something familiar in that dark depression. She had met it before but then she had seen its face. The face had been her own face.

On the last day I took her where the wild roses grow
And she lay on the bank, the wind light as a thief
As I kissed her goodbye, I said, 'All beauty must die'
And lent down and planted a rose between her teeth

Hermione raised her head and looked at the entity before her and really looked at it. The edges started to clear up but the black cloud still surrounded the figure just like it had for years.

“Stop this!” yelled Hermione to herself. “This is not real!”

The figure laughed at her face.

What are you waiting for? You are married to the pain. Open your eyes and see the world ending.

“No! You’re lying!” screamed Hermione. She knew the truth but she didn’t want to believe that.

Oh, how naïve you are. And so stupid. You are blind, you know that but still you think you can see the world as it is. Just reach out and touch the destruction. Everything is dying, falling down and drying up. But I stay the same. My name is Legion, because we are many.

“Get out of my head!”