Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling. For the Final Round of the Quidditch competition (Season 2). Italicized phrases are from 'A Crazed Girl' by William Butler Yeats.

Team: Famouth Falcons
Position: Chaser 2

Prompts: (word) victory; (poem) A Crazed Girl by William Butler Yeats; (word) pain.

~x~X~x~

A Beautiful Lofty Thing

~x~X~x~

I don't know when, the first thought came to me... where from it was born as she wrapped my long, warm body around her slender neck; my lengthy body wrapped so many times around that I was even partially settled over the bottom half of her face as she ventured out into a windy, winter's day.

THAT crazed girl...

I thought, even as the young girl hunched her shoulders and ducked her dark head against the winds beating her back, almost pushing her petite slender body back many steps. Every forward step a struggle.

I did not comprehend what all the screaming was for, or the excited chanting which she joined enthusiastically, behaving so differently from the quiet, distant girl I'd sensed her to be before these new thoughts.

But there beside her was a gangly youth, to which she frequently turned and I felt her smile from beneath my comforting warmth; a small shy thing, in spite the bitter cold biting at her exposed skin, which I protected from the cold of the world outside.

And I thought perhaps I understood...

… improvising her music.

To this taste of victory... companionship.

X

There were many nights after that, with my new sentience, which I bore witness to her standing atop an airy tower.

She stood alone, quiet and thoughtful, neck craned up and staring into the star-filled sky; so many dots glinting in the far distance that left me in utter awe.

This... those nights full of dreams and twinkling lights was

Her poetry, dancing upon the shore...

X

She often parted company from me, and there were many months I lay forgotten and abandoned in a dark trunk.

Sometimes I despaired- missing my small companion, who grew every time I was parted form her, growing ever lovelier and loftier.

Those times, this consciousness was torturous, for I must withstand with little sanity or comprehension, why I should be set aside and tucked away until I could once more embrace my tranquil companion.

But she came back for me, every season.

X

Sinistra, the other's called her with terrible scorn.

But he, that boy that she so seemed to trust with the inner part of herself... to him she was Aurora.

She was a lonely thing, my sweet Aurora. No one comprehending her shy nature. No one willing to extend kind words to my little girl and see what richness lay within.

Except... for a dark youth with a vicious and cruel nature she allowed the privilege of her beautiful name.

To her, he was almost gentle, almost kind.

Almost...

And my poor Aurora... she felt for this boy who would only bring her pain. Even I, new to everything in this strange world, could sense that.

But knowing the acute suffering of loneliness, could not blame the poor child, who had no one else.

X

Her soul in division from itself

Climbing, falling She knew not where,

It was her dancing that enchanted that boy, he saw.

One day, in the sparkling of a gentle snowfall, dancing because no one was around to watch and frolicking in the snow.

Her severe silence broken, the serious countenance torn away, bearing her beautiful, soaring soul.

He must think her a snow nymph, I thought to myself as I observed the boy watching her twirl, all her movements graceful as my long body wound itself around her swirling body, dancing in the wind she created along with the inky blackness of her hair.

But she was lost to him before then, the lucky, unfortunate boy.

X

"You're going to catch your death," she told him one day, our last; her voice full grown with confidence, her tone full of disapproval.

"I'm fine," he all but snarled at her in a voice that was usually poetic, almost, but not marred by some form of illness.

And suddenly my girl stopped, grabbing the much taller boy and forcing him to stop along with her and to my consternation, proceeded to unwrap my silver and green body form her neck, and proceeded to wrap me around the stunned and immobile boy.

"There, that will keep you warm. Honestly Severus, I don't know what it is about your gender and your absolute refusal to accept that you're cold and do something about it!" she said in teasing boys before marching away, smiling at the boy who had gone bright red.

X

Severus, the boy who injured my poor companion, never did return me to her. Instead choosing to hold me in his hands on nights he lay in bed, staring and awake, occasionally pressing my folds to his nose to catch a whiff of her heavenly scent.

Though he never wore me, and I never saw her, I knew this to be because he'd injured her more han she could bear.

The sighs he exhaled while holding me were proof of that until the day I was hidden away and forgotten for what felt like an eternity where I dreamt of nothing more than my old companion, of the stars she lived for, of the dances she performed in the snow...

X

But I did... see her again.

She was older and even more beautiful. On her countenance, there was a look of bravely born tragedy. Her deep blue eyes filled with a sadness as infinite as the skies.

As her fingers ran over my body, looking thoughtful and confused, I felt what might have been joy at the familiar touch.

She raised me up, held me to her face, inhaling the scent he'd preserved on my person.

Her form seemed to tremble then, and drops of wet warmth fell onto me. And though I did not understand why her tears had come, why her body was wracked with sobs that tore through and rent my conscious, I was content to for once be in her embrace.

...that girl I declared,

A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing

Heroically lost, heroically found.

No matter what disaster occurred

She stood in desperate music wound,

Wound, Wound...

~Fin~

A/n: Written from the POV of a Slytherin scarf.