Wandering (Gin)

Darren spilt some of the tea on his robes as she mentioned the name. “Matt Lestrange??” he exclaimed, completely ignoring the hot tea. It wasn’t really a question; how many other Matt’s had been in Slytherin? Still, Darren could not believe it. How far had this date even gone? How recent was it? Was she going to see him again? He wanted to ask all these questions but managed to compose himself before blurting any of it out. He pulled out his wand and dried his robes before continuing more calmly, “I mean, I do remember him. He doesn’t seem like your type.” That seemed true enough. He knew that whatever feelings he had for her had been completely mutual, and if that was the case, well, Matt was as unlike Darren as Lucy was to Gin. But then again, it wasn’t like people only ever were attracted to one type of person. That was just a trait that he specifically was cursed with.

She seemed less phased by his revelation. Though, examining her closely, Darren thought that her body language was certainly a bit stiffer. Nevertheless, extremely selfish as it was, he had wanted to induce more of a reaction. It didn’t really make much sense. He wasn’t exactly sure what he should say in response either. In truth he did like a lot of things about Lucy, it was impossible to be with someone for quite some time and not be fond of them to some extent. But the lack of passion would surely reflect in his voice. “Yeah, she's great. Though... I don’t think you two would get along, to be honest,” was all he responded with.

“I’ve always known”, what did she mean by that? Through the veils of his doubt and pessimism, he looked back at her and thought he saw in her eyes the same feelings that he had for her directed back towards him. Suddenly, Darren contemplated that it might really be now or never. Her feelings towards him may not have died out yet, and his feelings for her would certainly remain forever, but there would come a time where they would move on. It hadn’t happened yet, but Darren was sure that while love for someone and memories of them could last for a lifetime, hopes and dreams had to one day fall prey to the inexorable march of time. Regardless of how her dates had gone, regardless of how his relationship with Lucretia had ended, it was a simple fact that their paths were diverging.

But Darren’s brain was a tangled web right now, and his heart even more so. He knew that he cared for her, as more than a friend for certain. He always had, but despite being as selfish as he was, in his youth he could not bear to deal with sharing with her the danger that he was facing. Afterwards, dealing with trials as an ex death eater, and with the unemployment and shunning that followed, his embarrassment and bitterness had driven him to seek comfort in the arms of solitude. Then there had also always been the problem of her blood status. Half blood was one thing, but Gin wore her half muggle status on her sleeve – as Darren had noted with her clothing. And if that wasn’t bad enough, she had gotten herself bitten by a werewolf. He no longer had a family, but their memory and legacy remained in him, did he really want to tarnish all of that?

Darren stood up suddenly, realizing that he needed to get up and walk to sort his thoughts out. He hadn’t finished his tea, but much of it had spilt anyway. “I should go to Gringotts, before it gets too busy. You want to join?”

Ginevra smirked into her coffee as Darren spilled his tea. Taking her time to place her cup down, her expression remained slightly smug at having elicited a reaction. “That would be the one.” She confirmed. Dating was not a piece of adulthood that she found she rather enjoyed. For all the two dates that she had gone on since graduating from Hogwarts, she felt they were seemingly forced. If she had been the type to feel awkward, the date may have had a twinge of an awkward state but with Matt at least, she had not felt awkward, as she had still enjoyed being around a friend. Was that the trick? Maybe it was not that she could never move on from her feelings for Darren, but that she was too used to it coming naturally due to her history with him. If only dating were that easy.

Raising her eyebrows, she replied “and what may my type be?” Slytherin? Dark hair? Pureblood? Ginevra found that she was not sarcastic in this inquiry, she was truly curious at what he thought her type was. In retrospect, her type was right in front of her and that was not a big secret. But was he ever truly aware of what personality traits she had been attracted too? Ginevra honestly was not sure. She sure could care less about the house someone had been sorted into, and the world would end before she cared to about blood status as a deciding factor in her life decisions. Musing over the thought herself, what traits would she look for in another person? She had only gone on the date with Matt because he was familiar and seemingly nicer than Darren often was to her.  

Ginevra rolled her shoulders to loosen up. ”You’re not wrong there.” unsure of what she had thought she was getting herself into with entering to see Darren, she didn’t feel regret in the sense that she wish she had kept walking. No, she felt irritated at herself for not leaving the topic alone. His girlfriend was nothing like her, and finding out all of the reasons that she was great was tempting, but she was able to mentally check herself before thinking it was actually a good idea, and not a curious, idiotic lane to travel down. Why did she like causing herself emotional pain so thoroughly? Giving herself the grace to not ask further questions about how their relationship, there were details that she knew would be more difficult to recover from. Their Hogwarts day had been innocent enough, she even had kissed him once, but he was older now. Surely…

Finding that she was quite literally trying to shake the direction of her thoughts from her mind, she stood up a second after he did. Assuming he had been about to say he was leaving, her mouth held open for a moment. Caught off guard, she saw the branch being extended. ”Sure. Fresh air is never a bad idea after being stuck at work all evening.” Throwing the strap of her bag over her shoulder, she motioned her hand out in front of her for him to lead the way.

She really would follow him anywhere.

Picking up her cup of coffee, she tipped the cup into her mouth and chugged the rest. Ginevra never had much of a reaction to caffeine, the consumption was purely for comfort more than to wake up. Resisting the urge to grab another for the walk to keep her hands occupied, she was still aware that her anxiety would not thank her if she continued down that route. Ginevra had realized she had feelings for Darren in their sixth year- she had practice at this. She had practice at being his friend, so why did it feel like she had to wait for another ball to drop?

Darren nodded in approval to her joining him, pulled out a few sickles from his pocket and lay them on the table. He picked up the book encased in the newspaper too, wondering vaguely if there was a good curse in it that he could use on Matt the next time he saw him.

Outside was a bit busy, as wizards and witches apparated in to open shop for morning. It was a strange thing, how being surrounded by a crowd of people only heightened your loneliness. At least this time Gin was with him. As they walked, he felt the urge to hold her hand. To touch her in some way. They hadn’t hugged this time, or even shook hands, and he felt suddenly drawn to doing so. The thing is, regardless of what else he felt towards her, Ginevra was definitely the closest thing he had to family. The only person in the world who would go out of her way to find his house to check up on him. They both shared the misfortune of having lost their siblings and parents, and now being alone in the world. It made sense for them to gravitate towards each other.

It also made sense for her to try to seek someone else to fill the void in her life. But Darren wasn’t happy about it. “Anyway, as for your type, I don’t know, but it’s definitely not Matt,” he scoffed. There wasn’t actually anything wrong with Matt; he was good looking, and definitely kinder and more open minded than one would expect from a Slytherin and a Lestrange. But Darren was hardly being very logical about this topic. “You can’t tell me you actually like him?” he asked, glaring down at her briefly.

There was something cathartic about sunshine. Ginevra had never thrived in the heat, as she was pale enough to burn fairly quick. Nonetheless, she enjoyed soaking up the Vitamin D through walking. Many of her Hogwarts days had been spent in the Hogwarts grounds, working through the roller coasters that her emotions consistently put her through. It was often when she could no longer take the levels of guilt and responsibility that she had fled. It was funny; really, how often she had disappeared and come back, wondering which time leaving would have Darren unable to forgive her. While he never made the process seamless, he remained her closest friend to this day. He had been there with her through some of the roughest periods of her life. Darren had never been the easiest to get along with, but neither was she. They had always had an underlying understanding of the difficulties the other was facing, portraying or all around trying to bury.

Rolling her eyes and resisting the urge to smirk, Ginevra shrugged. She glanced over at him in time to get the brunt end of the glare he was sending her way. ”And if I did like him? What is it to you, really? You have someone you’ve fallen for.” she snapped back, the smug feeling of eliciting some semblance of care out of Darren stomping itself out real quick. Ginevra felt slightly irritated. In what world did Darren have a right to be upset if she had moved on? Had he not made it clear, numerous times, that he was not and would never be interested in her? With that being said, she knew under the irritation that if he had not reacted in any way, if he had encouraged her to pursue another relationship, old wounds would have started to reopen.

”You have spent, what? Years? Going around with this girl playing house and living your life. For all I know you’ve gone and married her. And yet the thought of me with someone else, someone who treats me like a human being, is just too much? I know you don’t like people.. like me, but I would have thought that our friendship would have had you at least wishing me some sort of good fortune.” Ginevra rambled out her feelings, not taking a breath until she was done. Exhaling largely as she realized that she had wished for years that she would not be so hot and cold and at this point, would likely not even happen. It was apart of who she was, the highs and the lows. Darren just so happened to manage bringing it out in her the strongest.

Within her ramble, she truly was hoping he would not tell her he had decided to commit further to his girlfriend. She knew that was likely her limit. Could she truly say goodbye to their friendship, if he had?

Darren was well aware of the hypocrisy, or at least the perceived hypocrisy, of chastising her for dating Matt when he was apparently still in a serious relationship with Lucy. But although he knew it was simply not fair or rational to expect her to be alone forever just because he felt that they weren’t right for each other, the thought of her with anyone else – it certainly wasn’t specifically about Matt – filled him with disgust. It was irrational, but he had simply not given it enough thought, or approached it with enough maturity, to address the contradictions in his care for her happiness, and the possessiveness he still felt towards her. “First of all, I haven’t married her, and what do you mean I don’t like people like you?” he said, genuinely curious as to what she meant. He could guess, but there was no way she was actually that dense. “But anyway, don’t be an idiot. I’m looking out for you. I would wish you good fortune if I thought he was the right guy for you. He’s not.”

Darren went back to reflecting on what he wanted exactly from her, and what was the right thing to do. But his train of thought was abruptly interrupted as he suddenly noticed a woman with heavily lidded eyes and very long dark hair walking in the direction of the Leaky Cauldron. Lucretia… Wearing a dress that clearly reflected her status, and a familiar look of disdain and pride, she was quite hard to miss.  She also gave off the aura of a woman raised to believe so fervently in her own innate superiority that she seemed a foot taller than the rest of them, despite being roughly average height. Darren hoped against hope that Gin had not noticed her, but any attempt by him to switch directions was made unnecessary when Lucretia’s dark eyes met his, and she instantly switched directions to walk towards them – her expression becoming impossibly even more sour as she did so.

“Darren,” she greeted formally, as she approached. At this point there was about a one in a million chance that he was going to get out of his without Gin finding out that he had lied. But he had to try. “Lucy,” he responded. “Didn’t expect to see you here.” But her eyes had now fallen on Gin. “Umm, this is an old friend of mine, I just saw her here after a long time. Ginevra, this is Lucy. ” He attempted, at least, to pretend as if they were still together, as if this wasn’t the first time Darren had seen her in 2 months.

But Lucretia didn’t respond. She continued to look at Gin, and the look of fury and disgust in her face made it clear that she knew exactly who, and what, she was. “Anyway, I really need to get to Gringotts quickly. Need to withdraw some money to get some new things from Borgin’s... I’ll see you...” But Lucy interrupted his rambling. “You know, Darren, I was quite disappointed about how things ended between us. I missed you, and I was hoping we could reconcile… But if THAT is what you replaced me with, well… It was clearly for the best. Good day.” And without another word, she walked past them, leaving him standing there feeling both furious and embarrassed.

Allowing a breath to escape her lungs, Ginevra’s heart skipped a little faster as he confirmed that he had not married the other woman. It sounded absurd to think of his girlfriend as ‘the other woman’ but as on and off again as their friendship could be, Ginevra felt she had to have been an important part of his life. ”You know exactly what I mean.” she replied, aware that he was playing stupid. Ginevra had not forgotten that he had been the person to stay with her during the first full moon to ensure that she was not alone, while also having known her enough to know that if she was the only one involved, it was likely she would have forgot to take her potion. With his safety in the picture as well, her memory would become much more precise. She had always had little to no regard for her own well-being. When it came to her family and friends? There was nothing she wouldn’t do.

Maybe she was not such an importance in his life anymore; there had certainty been a time where she felt she had been a priority, had been someone important, even if with Darren that usually meant in a minor way or rather, not the way she had wished for since their later years at Hogwarts. ”You’re looking out for me by telling me you don’t know why he isn’t the right guy for me, but not why. Alright.” she paused and exhaled a little. ”He’s not, though. She decided to throw him a bone. It was so easy to be stubborn, to lie. Ginevra felt tired and wanted to at least give him some sign that she was not only in his company to argue and snap at him. It was this momentary release of her guard that had her not initially realize why Darren had tensed up at her side.

The realization that Lucy, the one girl who had managed to get Darren to surrender his heart, was in front of her hit her fast and it hit her hard. Ginevra absently wrapped her arms around her stomach, covering the scar her clothing already hid. Although a majority of the evidence from the night that changed her life had disappeared, the emotional scars would remain forever. Physically, she still held the scar across her abdomen and on her right thigh. For those who knew it existed, a pink tinge could be seen across her neck, leading to her collarbone. She had intentionally left a reminder of the initial blow to humble herself against letting her guard down and overall, the consequences of impulse.

If she had not been a skilled healer, even in her Hogwarts years, it quite possibly would have been much worse. Ginevra was proud to be a survivor. She was proud to have become something more than her misfortune.

Why then, in this moment, did she feel so small?

Refusing to show vulnerability in front of a stranger any longer, Ginevra let her hands fall loosely at her sides and willed her face into a mask of calm. Moments later, she found that her anger was started to rise with the look Lucy was giving her and moments after that, the desire to hit the audacity out of the woman faded into shock as the stranger stormed away as fast as she had come. Turning slowly onto her heels, Ginevra was unsure of what exactly had happened. If she was processing the situation correctly, Darren had lied. But why would he do that? Why would he act like he had his love life all figured out, only to question her on the dating decisions she had made? Acting on instinct, she reached out and grabbed Darren’s hand, marching him into an alleyway close by. ”Explain what the hell is going on. Now.” it was not a request.

She had decided in that few seconds that she would give Darren one opportunity to tell her the truth or she would give herself the respect she had always failed to muster and walk away.

Darren had noted the way Gin had wrapped her arms around her stomach, knowing exactly what that meant. It was clear that Lucretia’s presence had brought back painful memories of that day. At the moment he had felt a strong urge to hold her, to protect her. She had suffered many of the same fates he had – losing her family, being ostracized by much of society for what she was. Her ordeal was certainly even harder than merely being an ex-death eater. Society’s collective memory and judgement had lightened regarding that issue over time, but werewolves were still neglected by a large part of society. Compassion wasn’t a feeling Darren often felt, but he often did towards Gin, and that pain was not something familiar to him. Nothing felt heavier than that. Even his own pain, for the pain he felt for her was magnified by imagination and prolonged by a thousand echoes.

He wanted to say something about that, but after Lucy left, Darren felt too embarrassed at his lie, and fury at himself and Lucy for the entire situation. Overcome with these feelings, he just stood still, until Gin grabbed his hand and led him to the alleyway.

Fury eventually overcame his embarrassment, dominated all his thoughts. He kicked a rubbish box nearby to the ground, spilling its contents. Adding to his irritation, it turned out to be enchanted with magic and scooped up the trash and sprang back to its original position. Darren swore, and fell to the ground, leaning against the wall with his head in his hands. There was no doubt that Ginevra understood what had happened, she wasn’t stupid. The entire façade that he had moved on, gotten his life together; all of that had crashed and burned. He knew he had to explain, he owed her that, but what could he say?

Bitterness was the next emotion that overcame him. “What do you want me to say? You moved on, I didn’t, I couldn’t.” The interaction had caused his cool demeanor to collapse, and emotions were flooding out without Darren able to control them. “I was with Lucy for a long time… We were content, but I wasn’t happy. Every day I was with her I wished…” He paused. Even with almost no self-control left, he still could almost not bring himself to continue. It had always been easier for Darren to push people away than to let them in, especially Gin who made him feel at once the best he could ever feel and yet also the most frustrated. But at the moment, at least, it felt easier to say the truth. “Every day I wished she was more like you. That she was you.”

It felt good to be honest, but Darren realized that wasn’t really an explanation, so he continued. “I’m pretty lost. I don’t know what I’m doing, what I want. But I want you to be happy, so I told you that so you could move on.” That wasn’t the whole reason, but it was certainly the main one. “The way she treated you… I’m sorry about that,” he added, hand still clutching his forehead and resolutely not looking at her. “She’s just hurt. That’s all I do, hurt people around me.”

Prior to Ginevra becoming a werewolf, one of her biggest fears had been exactly that: werewolves. She could recall cave hopping in the days they were on the run, content with getting as far away from what she had presumed were people who had no sense of humanity remaining. This had been one of the hardest truths to swallow when going through her first full moon. Who was she now that she was a werewolf? Would she be able to hold onto the identity that she had shaped? Darren offering to be with her during the first full moon was the moment she had started to admit that she did not only have love for him, but was in love with him. For a teenage boy, he proved to be a man that night. Full-grown adults often could not find the will to face the inward challenges that such an offer would ask of him, and he did it for her.

No one argued that the sky was made to hold the moon and the stars. Ginevra had admitted to herself that from the age of sixteen that her and Darren went together a little something like pickles and mustard: perfectly imperfect for her liking, while rejected by essentially everyone else. Ginevra would have cried with joy at the thought of getting a love story that allowed her to simply sway; sway into her partner’s arms; sway into a life that allowed her to discover what it meant to have peace, what it meant to have stability. When she thought of Darren, there had never a clear picture of what a relationship would look like. The idea of him allowing himself to accept her into a role that was not a complicated friend dynamic seemed so lovely. In theory, he would have one day professed his feelings for her and they would have walked into the cool night air.

But life was not that picture perfect. Darren had never professed his love for her and night air would occasionally carry a full moon.

Allowing his hand to release from hers, the place where it had left felt rather empty. She stood and watched as he kicked the basket and escalated in his irritation as it restacked itself. She stood and watched as his exterior crumbled and he dropped to the ground. She stood and watched as he processed the lie unraveling as all lies eventually did. Every muscle in Ginevra’s body was screaming at her to go to Darren, to comfort him. She resisted and closed her eyes for a moment. She wanted to kick and scream. She wanted to yell, ‘on what planet did I ever get to move on!’ but she didn’t. She waited, listening as he continued to allow himself to be vulnerable. In these rare moments when his guard came down, she knew better than to stop the train from rolling down the hill.

Leaning her head back and opening her face to the shadows covering the sun, her teeth pulled back on her lower lip. ”You want me to believe that after years of me being stupidly vulnerable and open about my feelings for you, that when you landed this ridiculously gorgeous and PUREBLOOD woman, you went to bed at night hoping to wake up to me?” It was rare that a sneer appeared on Ginevra’s face, but as she processed what was leaving his lips, her wall went up. These exact words were what she had asked Merlin to come to fruition; this vulnerability was what she had begged him to show all those years ago.

If everything Darren had said was taken at face value, this would be too simple. This could have been accomplished years ago. ”You’re right, you have hurt a lot of people around you. Including me.” the statement wasn’t fair and she knew it. On many occasions, she had been the reason to cause him pain. In this moment, she was hurt, confused, yearning. ”How she treated me is how she treats everyone like me. How she treats me, is how you would look at a werewolf you did not know. For all I know, it is still how you see me! That is how people like me are treated all. the. time.” this was not a complete exaggeration. She was fortunate enough to be able to keep a job, but that did not mean that she was not shunned away from certain activities.

”Think about this one for me real quick, imagine it real clear. When I walked into the pub, you had been honest. You had told me that you were single and theoretically, I had been enough of a prat to admit again that I had not moved on. You kissed me, and she walked in. On a level of you are already moving countries to realizing you made 5000 mistakes in that moment alone, which end are you?” crossing her arms, she took his moment to finally look directly at Darren.

This was an ocean of feelings they would have to crash through together or drown trying.

post

Darren glanced up upon hearing her words and saw her sneer. She really didn’t believe him. How could she doubt it?

Yet, he reflected, her doubt was understandable. Darren had always been very careful with his words. Gin’s intensity burned like fire, but he was the opposite. He was cool in demeanor, controlled in his emotions. The downside was that he far too often he found it impossible to voice his feelings properly, and so kept it all inside. Gin simply didn’t understand him because he had never been capable of explaining. He still wasn’t, but in his present state he found it easier to just pour everything out, regardless of the consequences. Honesty and openness weren’t traits that came naturally to Darren, but in this brief moment, he embraced it.

Gin, too, was acting differently, her tone and words far more candid and direct than ever before. Indeed, if Darren had understood her correctly, she had just admitted that she hadn’t moved on. He met her intense gaze but wasn’t quite sure how to respond. There was so much she didn’t understand. “I don’t know… But, It’s not about her. I don’t care what she thinks. If I hadn’t been feeling like shit for lying to you, I wouldn’t have just let her walk away with saying that.” That was true, but what she had said earlier was also accurate. He mostly overlooked Gin's lycanthropy, largely through mental gymnastics, but he didn't treat most werewolves the same way. While Darren had never been like Lucretia, who revelled in mistreatment towards those that the pureblood circle deemed less worthy, he certainly felt some level of disgust and didn’t view them as equals.

But Darren needed to explain more. If she didn’t believe him or forgive him, if she finally gave up on him after all this time, then at least she should understand. But where would he even start? “Look, ever since they died I just became a different person,” he said, opting to start from the very beginning.. “I don’t know how or why, but I learnt to be empty and cold. Perhaps it was just easier to be like that and feel nothing, than to be who I really was and feel all that pain and longing. But then I met you, and somehow, you brought that part out. Somehow you sensed that within me.”

“Maybe that’s why I tried to remain distant. Even then,” he said. Distant really hadn’t been the right word, they had been quite close at Hogwarts. But he certainly had refrained from escalating it beyond a friendship. “Maybe I didn’t want to feel that way. But there was more. I knew my future was dark, and yours didn’t have to be. I don’t want to sound noble, it wasn’t all just all just nobility,” he added, reflecting on the hang ups he had over her blood status when he was still a teenager and had bought into pureblood supremacy far more than he had now. “But believe me it was out of care for you.”

“And you’re right, I do hurt people, that’s why I tried to push the people I love away from me, you most of all.” It was the closest he had ever gotten to admitting that he loved her. But he had now reached the part that he had avoided saying for years, but he knew he had to say it now for her to fully understand. He looked at her again, his gaze far harder than it had been previously. “But you know, even if I could have gotten over all those things, and with Voldemort gone, it might have been possible. Even then, I soon had to deal with you being a werewolf too. You, going and getting yourself bitten and never understanding what that…” He had been about to say what that meant for me, but he trailed off after realizing how hurtful his words would be, and how selfish it all sounded.

But she had to know, he told himself. She didn’t understand. “And you are right. I was raised the exact same way as Lucretia was, as they all were. If my parents were still alive they would disown me if I was ever to be with you. But they aren’t, so instead I will just be disowning their legacy. And that’s all I have left really.” Except her. That really was the choice it all came down to in the end.

“So I tried to move on, with Lucy… But no, I never did. And every day I wished it was you instead,” Darren repeated.