DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling.

~ A Perfect Day ~

And magic shall dance with flesh. Masked and cloaked, it is madness.

The three beats of war, peace, and revolution repeated time and again in an endless waltz.

A night, at war, the air thick with curses - both the magical kind and those that are profane in nature.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and the filth removed from the veins as the blood of the unworthy returns to the earth from which it was born.

Frayed nerves, and prey flayed to the bone.

A word of backhanded praise; two steps forward and three steps back. A box-step perhaps; progress, in a way - a new type. Madness lays its roots and beings to settle in for the winter.

Letting darkness gather and grow, slowly nurturing alongside it an illusion - and in the dark, the internal night that has convinced itself that it is not darkness but daylight, the threads of reality become warped and distorted, until the illusion escapes its confines and imposes itself upon the center of perception.

Turning in a slow circle to the half-remembered tune of a melody long lost among the elusive shadows of stumbling steps.

I mustn't run away.

Mocking laughter, uncertain steps.

Casting herself in the image of one sister, as an opposite reflection of the other.

Imaginary wings adorn the slumped shoulder-blades of the unrepentant ice princess. Blood coats her hands, warm and real, sticky and stinking - utterly filthy and unfit to touch her skin; she wants to wash it away as soon as possible and yet at the same time she can't help wanting to revel in it.

The tangled and uncertain relation.

Losing sight of herself, the image in the glass reflecting a different person than the one who stands in front of the mirror, but how can she be anyone other than herself?

Redefining her existence to conform to a preconceived notion of what she should be, struggling to keep up with a partner who seems to be always one step ahead of her. If only he would wait, to let her catch up... No, no, her partner must keep moving forward on his own and she must hurry to catch up, or else how would they ever get anything done?

Her sister may have flourished and become a diamond, but she is the type who cracks under pressure.

I will live without becoming a goddess.

The elegant egotist, her mind betraying her at every turn, the illusions play out in front of her eyes and mix with reality in a way that makes perfect sense to her-

-until the wrong person dies at her hand; the scales fall away from her eyes, and reality comes crashing back with crystal clarity.

Cloak fluttering in the winds of betrayal, mask firmly in place, she walks away - just walks away, it's that easy; no one knows.

Liar, killer.

No one knows.

Murderer.

No one will ever know.

Back to the river Aras.

She will never let anyone see past the metaphorical mask that lies under the real physical mask.

"That's right, I'm an actress."

~end~