Neither Fair nor True PV Willow

Dear Flash,

For you to talk to me about communication is laughable. I have never seen you as a burden, or hard to love. I have loved you for three years. Even when we weren’t speaking I never stopped loving you.

What I don’t understand is why you continually refuse to let me in. Have I made myself untrustworthy? The reason I flee is not for what you have done, but for the fact that I had to find out through someone else that things were going on with you. Things they knew that I didn’t. And maybe it’s selfish to want to know, but I don’t care about being selfish when all I’ve done is give myself to you. I’m not blind, I know we’ve both been suffering. But I also know you don’t like to talk about stuff. So I chose to wait and hope, which seems to have been the fool’s choice.

I have many questions. They’ve been building and stacking like the most unstable Jenga tower since we met. I have been waiting, patiently. So, so patient for you to come to me on your own. I need to know that whatever I ask you, you will answer truthfully. No hidden meanings, no half truths, just the truth.

Let me help protect you. Stop doing everything alone when I’m right here. I know you don’t have a great relationship with your family, but trust me when I say I will stand with you. But you have to let me in first.

Willow

OOC Note: Delivered at breakfast April 6th by owl.
@Flash Holmwood

Dear Willow,

I'm sorry. I want to share things with you. I want our lives to be connected, to be a part of one another, that's what love is to me. At the same time, I don't want to see you in pain, and maybe that itself is selfish. You say that I shouldn't do everything alone, but what about things that cannot heal, that are futile to fight against? What good is it to drag the people I love down with me, when all it will do is reveal how hopeless I am? Is it so evil that I want to protect you from that?

I told you I was attacked in September, that my eye was taken. It was by Marion, and she cursed me. I am tired of talking about it, it was horrible. I never want to think about it again, but I have to think about it every day. I am robbed of my sleep every night, and no desperate thing I do alleviates it. This ailment has robbed me of my concentration and energy, and I can no longer find any time to enjoy myself. I am only ever tired and bitter, like I'm becoming a hollow shell of myself.

Does it make you feel better to know the truth, even knowing there was nothing you could do to help? Your attention and love, our hugs and conversation, were some of the only joys I could derive from this last year. If you knew how profound my suffering was, would you not have yourself been miserable? Maybe, even if this is truly a heartless act, you can at the very least understand why I chose it. It wasn't because I didn't trust you. You still have so much life ahead of you to figure out who you are, and this was not a chapter I wanted etched into your book. I didn't want to be a black spot in your life.

I feel like I am rambling. If you ask something, I will be honest. I just want you to think about how some things are better left unknown.

Great love,

OOC: Delivered by an owlery owl after classes on April 6th.
@Willow Anderson
For ease or reading/moderation:

Reducio

Dear Willow,

I'm sorry. I want to share things with you. I want our lives to be connected, to be a part of one another, that's what love is to me. At the same time, I don't want to see you in pain, and maybe that itself is selfish. You say that I shouldn't do everything alone, but what about things that cannot heal, that are futile to fight against? What good is it to drag the people I love down with me, when all it will do is reveal how hopeless I am? Is it so evil that I want to protect you from that?

I told you I was attacked in September, that my eye was taken. It was by Marion, and she cursed me. I am tired of talking about it, it was horrible. I never want to think about it again, but I have to think about it every day. I am robbed of my sleep every night, and no desperate thing I do alleviates it. This ailment has robbed me of my concentration and energy, and I can no longer find any time to enjoy myself. I am only ever tired and bitter, like I'm becoming a hollow shell of myself.

Does it make you feel better to know the truth, even knowing there was nothing you could do to help? Your attention and love, our hugs and conversation, were some of the only joys I could derive from this last year. If you knew how profound my suffering was, would you not have yourself been miserable? Maybe, even if this is truly a heartless act, you can at the very least understand why I chose it. It wasn't because I didn't trust you. You still have so much life ahead of you to figure out who you are, and this was not a chapter I wanted etched into your book. I didn't want to be a black spot in your life.

I feel like I am rambling. If you ask something, I will be honest. I just want you to think about how some things are better left unknown.

Great love,
Flash

Dear Flash,

What is connection if not a little bit of suffering together? I have dragged you down at every possible point I could have. Finding me in the bathroom during my breakdown, throwing the friendship bracelet at you and running away, being sad about my grandma, about Astrea, the not one but two times Hufflepuff's have ended up in the basement, when fire couldn't cease to fill my dreams. I set Jack Warren on fire. I haven't been able to win a duel all year, I quit prefect and demanded you go to tea with me the next day because I felt like a failure. Have these become black marks in your story? Has that erased all of the good we have together? Should I have stopped telling you all of this ages ago to preserve the happiness we had?

You give yourself too much credit in the power that you believe to have over my life if you share bad news. The idea of sharing what is going on in your life, of all the bad that is happening, isn't always solution based. The solutions come in how we take care of each other. You have no concentration or energy? Then we study together so I can help you on a bad day so you don't fall behind. I could bring tea to breakfast, not to fix anything but to provide you comfort in the day.

Hearing how great you're suffering doesn't make me feel better, it doesn't bring me joy. It also doesn't make me suffer anymore than I was yesterday. Flash, we are both kids. Well, teens, but I think teens are still technically kids. You are carrying the weight of at least three adults. My parents would always tell me I'm carrying too much around the time my grandma died. Holding it all in to make sure they didn't suffer more.

We both want to protect each other, but in different ways. Which I think is funny. There's so much different about us yet we work. But, you are not protecting me by not telling me what's going on. Especially if it deals with something like hags. I also attend Hogwarts, it seems like its an occupational hazard.

I just have two questions, for now.

1. Why did you ever stop wearing the watch from your brother? I know you really love him, but one day it was just- gone without an explanation. Did it break?
2. Was Victor a hag? What happened with you and him?

With Love,
Willow

OOC Note: Delivered after dinner April 7th.
@Flash Holmwood

Dear Willow,

I know your words have truth to them... I wish it was easier to accept. I wanted to run away from it, I wanted to pretend nothing was wrong. I was freaking out. I don't know. Sharing that seemed so wrong, like seeing that your lifeboat is sinking and telling others to hop on. Please forgive me. I still don't know how I feel about it. I'm going to see Syl later today for lunch, so I will talk to him too. I don't want to lose my friends, you both are more important to me than anything else I have. I know I've said this before, but I am still struggling to understand how to be a good friend. Recent events have not made this any easier.

I will answer your questions.
1. I still love my brother. I am going to see him over Easter Holiday, actually. He allowed me to come stay at his flat in London. After first year, I was conflicted about our relationship, which made me not want to think about him. When you were upset at me, you didn't want to look at our friendship bracelet for a while, right? Since then I've forgiven him, but I like the watch you gave me much better, the last one was already a bit worn when I got it.

2. Victor was not a hag. He and I were barely acquainted, actually. He was an acquaintance of Vladimir Athanatos, along with Marion. I do not know when Marion was replaced by a hag, or if she was ever a student to begin with, but I believe Victor was once a normal student. He died by the Forbidden Forest before we even started school. What returned was something else, the thing people knew as Victor was some kind of puppet made by the hags in answer to Vladimir's request.

It acted like Victor, but it was not him, it was some kind of tool. It helped release the black blood curse in the Slytherin common room, and made us fight each other over summer. It was clearly capable and willing to hurt us, and it died two more times while always coming back. I don't know what it was, but it should not exist. We learned early on that bringing people back from the dead does not work, yet nothing could stop it, and nothing was being done about it. As though something like that living in our dorms was normal, like it wasn't just waiting for the next opportunity to kill us all.

I will tell you what happened that upset Burnett, but I do not want to. It could put you in danger to know. The only reason Burnett knows is because Marion told him, and she told him in order to make me suffer. Maybe you can already figure it out for yourself.

Love,

OOC: Delivered by an owlery owl after breakfast on April 8th.
@Willow Anderson
For ease of reading/moderating:

Reducio

Dear Willow,

I know your words have truth to them... I wish it was easier to accept. I wanted to run away from it, I wanted to pretend nothing was wrong. I was freaking out. I don't know. Sharing that seemed so wrong, like seeing that your lifeboat is sinking and telling others to hop on. Please forgive me. I still don't know how I feel about it. I'm going to see Syl later today for lunch, so I will talk to him too. I don't want to lose my friends, you both are more important to me than anything else I have. I know I've said this before, but I am still struggling to understand how to be a good friend. Recent events have not made this any easier.

I will answer your questions.
1. I still love my brother. I am going to see him over Easter Holiday, actually. He allowed me to come stay at his flat in London. After first year, I was conflicted about our relationship, which made me not want to think about him. When you were upset at me, you didn't want to look at our friendship bracelet for a while, right? Since then I've forgiven him, but I like the watch you gave me much better, the last one was already a bit worn when I got it.

2. Victor was not a hag. He and I were barely acquainted, actually. He was an acquaintance of Vladimir Athanatos, along with Marion. I do not know when Marion was replaced by a hag, or if she was ever a student to begin with, but I believe Victor was once a normal student. He died by the Forbidden Forest before we even started school. What returned was something else, the thing people knew as Victor was some kind of puppet made by the hags in answer to Vladimir's request.

It acted like Victor, but it was not him, it was some kind of tool. It helped release the black blood curse in the Slytherin common room, and made us fight each other over summer. It was clearly capable and willing to hurt us, and it died two more times while always coming back. I don't know what it was, but it should not exist. We learned early on that bringing people back from the dead does not work, yet nothing could stop it, and nothing was being done about it. As though something like that living in our dorms was normal, like it wasn't just waiting for the next opportunity to kill us all.

I will tell you what happened that upset Burnett, but I do not want to. It could put you in danger to know. The only reason Burnett knows is because Marion told him, and she told him in order to make me suffer. Maybe you can already figure it out for yourself.

Love,
Flash