Of Light and Shadow

For years I have lived a double life, cold and withdrawn, silent and scathing.
It started in my youth, just after I left school. I choose a path I was not pleased with and became one with evil.
Then I was saved; by a man who knew me when I was only a tormented and lonely child.
When I was taken in by him and given a new life I realised that I wanted to help others where I had been failed. I wanted to stop people turning down that dark path.
I took my mentor’s life as guidance and started to teach.
But I couldn’t be like him, he was jolly and bright where I had lived in shadow so long light hurt my eyes.
I retreated into the darkness again and contented myself with helping as I could. I used my ties to the sinister world to help my mentor and our fight. Though I still taught, I never inspired the trust he did and it ate at me that he shone while I skulked.

Then the bright boy arrived, the one who would save us all. The golden boy who had survived was a miracle, I knew that he was, I would be a fool not to. But I was awed that an infant could be touched by such a taint and still remain innocent and fresh. He was everything I wanted to be and more, because he had survived and gleamed. He grew hating me, and I was jealous of him.

He was a careful combination of his mother and father but uniquely himself. He had his mother’s eyes, beautiful and beguiling, and his father’s arrogance.

His friends were bright and as innocent as he was, though the air around them grew dark by fate.
I tired hard to keep them in the light, but fate makes us all puppets. They suffered but they didn’t fade. I knew in some way I helped, a small effort, but I helped.

The nights were always long for me, and I wandered the halls. It was then that I saw the doorway.

A room that only appears when there is a great need for it. A desire so strong it calls it into being. I knew it well; I had spent most of my school days hiding in it trying to find some normalcy.

Since the Ministry’s recent muddling in the school’s affairs I knew a few students had used the class to teach themselves Defence Against the Dark Arts. It was a fine success as well. But that as far as I knew those informal classes had ended in the previous year so who could need the room now?

I decided to enter the room and find whom it was who needed the solace, hoping to pass the name on to my mentor. He would be able to deal with the youth in question and guide them in the right way.

As I opened the door I heard music loud enough to hide my entrance. I planned only to see who had hidden themselves away and then leave. But then I saw her.

Hermione Granger was moving in time to the music. She was totally absorbed in her dance and the rapture on her face was evident.

With her eyes closed and her cheeks flushed she tossed her body about the wooden floor in lovely abandonment, as if she was peeling off layers of troubles and worry with her movement.

I was captivated; here was one of the bright ones lost in a world of music and movement alone. I moved deeper into the room and the door swung closed behind me unnoticed. What could have caused her to run to the confines of this enchanted space? What worries was she trying to shed in her frenzied movements?

I watched this puzzle unravel and twist itself on the dance floor in front of me for what must have been 2 hours when she stopped and made her way to the table in front of me to drink some water. There was no way she hadn’t noticed me, what could I say to explain myself?
In the end I just choked out the words closest to my lips. “Miss Granger you dance well.”

“Thank you” she lowered her eyes, slightly ashamed I think. She might have blushed but I couldn’t tell, her face was so flustered from her exertions. She finished the water and moved back to the floor.

She was going to dance again! Knowing full well that I was watching! I felt a compulsion to join her, help her ease her burden in the dance. Soothe her the way she preferred it. Something even Dumbledore couldn’t do. She moved her hips in a suggestive movement and turned to look me in the eye.
“Do you dance Professor?” Hece wce was wanton and smouldering. I suddenly didn’t care about helping her ease her burdens in dance, but to push them out of her mind in an altogether different way.
“I don’t think that it would be.” I trailed off and turned my burning face away. I was appalled at my train of thought she was a child!

She didn’t say a word but continued in her dance. This time she was more deliberate and selective in her movements. My eyes were drawn to her slender hips and tiny waist as she rolled them expertly in time to the beat. Her body spoke volumes about her and betrayed my ideals of her innocence.

Her dance was ageless and primal. Every man and woman understood the subtle nuisances in it.
Even if I had been absent from its charms for a long time, I still knew what this was.
Her dance had changed from an expulsion of sorrows to a seduction of life like a butterfly in a chrysalis. I couldn’t resist it anymore.

What she had done in her dance was what I had been trying to do my entire life. I had to dance with her if only to feel the joy and accomplishment with her.

I covered the distance to the dance floor in three long steps and put my hand on her hip, using it to guide my movements. I followed her lead using her spirit and body to guide me.
The dance soon took over and I was just moving. I didn’t need to think anymore, I didn’t need to feel or judge. I just danced.

She guided me out of the shadows that night and He grew hating me, and I was jealous of him. she taught me, her teacher, how to abandon the old ways and re-grow a new life.
She took me into the light and I shone.
We just danced until dawn when we left for our respective rooms.

And I would be lying if I said I didn’t dream of her afterward. She guided me to the light as a guardian angle would guide a lost pilgrim.