Mid-year Resolutions (A Study of the Self) Solo Closed

June 30th, 2023

Autumn sat watching the stars. There was the distant sound of celebrations below, so many of her fellow students gleeful at the prospect of the summer holidays, of graduation. It felt awfully lonely up her, alone with nothing but the vast space, full of shining stars on a deep bluish-black backdrop, and- unfortunately- her own mind. It was beautiful and she was so incredibly unsatisfied. She wasn't new to the concept, but it was strange feeling to have when staring at the night sky, a view which normally provided her such comfort and static familiarity.

It wasn't even as if she could properly give credit to the stars for her discontentment. She wasn't stupid enough to think this was about anything but the way she would be spending her summer, and her reflections on the last four years. She wasn't going back home for these summer holidays, and wasn't that just so lovely?

It was a stupid thing to be miserable about, considering it was nobody's fault but her own. She'd asked for it, rather explicitly, in one of her recent letters to her mother. Communication was sparse between the two, but for some stupid reason Autumn had reached out and asked to stay at Hogwarts for the holidays. Her mother had agreed politely. While their real conversations often began and ended in screaming matches, there letters were short and calm and coldly distant.

Maybe when she asked, Autumn had wanted her mother to disagree. To tell her she had to come back home, because she would otherwise be missed. But that wasn't a possibility, and she knew that. It was always either going to be disinterested agreement or angry, demanding rejection. A "no", not because her mother wanted her there, but because it would send the wrong message to their relatives and neighbours, because that wasn't how things were done. And, well, if that had been the response Autumn received a week ago, she wouldn't have been up here. She would have been in some dark corner of the castle, lighting her mother's old letters on fire.

Was that what all of Autumn Ivy came down to, in the end? A strict choice between pathetic rage or pathetic sorrow? Was there not a single thing the universe could give to her that she wouldn't resent and destroy and later complain about?

She had been a wizard for four years now. Four years of magic and a newly discovered world to explore, and she'd spent those years miserable beyond belief because of some petty reason or another. She didn't think she had a single actual friend anywhere in the giant castle where she lived. (She lived in a castle and never took a moment out of her day to enjoy it. Merlin, what was wrong with her?) She was vaguely aware she was a horrid person to be around, and wow, that was not a fun thing to realise a couple hours before midnight on a dry summer day, the night before she was officially in her fifth year.

All she had was her sister, and she was perfectly aware that she'd somehow find a way to mess that up as well, in the end. That's what she did. Four years of no growth. Four years of hating everything for the stupidest reasons. Four years wasted.

Autumn was shivering and she wanted to go back to her dorm. She wanted the warm embrace of her heavy blankets. Unfortunately enough, Autumn couldn't move. A couple of minutes ago, she had been "alone with her thoughts". Now she was stuck with them. She made a mid-year's resolution to herself, because what else was there to do?

Mid-year's resolutions:

• Stop being me.

By the time she found the strength to stand up and walk back, avoiding anybody who could find her out past curfew, it was well beyond one in the morning, and Autumn wished for nothing more than to be someone else.