Shattered Promises, a harry potter fanfic

For (this is a long list this time): Project PULL, The 2012 Hogwarts Games Freestyle 2000 Plus, The Pairing Diversity Bootcamp, The Prompts Only One Hours Challenge/Hardest Challenge Ever, & The Catharsis - Experience Emotion - Competition

Prompts: Song- Separate Ways by Journey, Word- Scarred, Phrase- Always Changing, Quote- "It was all a lie.", Title- Shattered Promises, Mood- Fearful, Emotion- Lonely, Color- Red, Food- Bread, Day of the Week- Wednesday, Prank- Shrinking Furniture, Animal- Fox, Plant- Zinnia, Upper Word Limit- 2550, Lower Word Limit- 2500, Forever, "There are times meant for breaking and words to ignore and a bent to our souls when our skin is at war. If leaving were freedom, well, we'd both walk right out of that door." from Jars of Clay's "Water Under the Bridge."

Shattered Promises

By silver-nightstorm

Summary: Because he was from one world and she was from another and promises couldn't bridge a gap that big.

Words: 2547 exactly, minus the "XX" of line breaks

There's the classical pretty in the world. The fair-haired, fair skinned, tiny nosed, thin-but-curvy-but-still-somehow-tiny-pretty. There's the exotic pretty, with dark hair and caramel skin and high cheekbones and Roman nose. And then there's Eileen Prince. She was right in the middle of the two and she had, unfortunately, ended up with a rather incompatible combination of looks.

Pitch-black hair, snow-white skin, Roman nose, and a haughty attitude to match.

Girls would laugh behind her back about how no self-respecting man would ever fancy her.

She desperately needed air. She was seventeen years old and fresh out of Hogwarts and jobless and she was cramped in her house with her mother who was an incessant harpy and her father who was a prejudiced arse and her little brother who was a dunderheaded prat and her little sister who was a pompous piece of fluff. She couldn't take them anymore so she grabbed her wand and walked out the door and none of them noticed that simple Eileen, quiet Eileen, unremarkable Eileen, lonely-in-a-room-full-of-people Eileen had just left.

It was because of this little action that Eileen found herself wandering through the unfamiliar Muggle area on a little miserable looking street known as Spinners End. Eileen wrapped her coat around herself a bit more snugly as she picked her way down the cobblestones, her heel getting caught in the shallow grooves. She looked up for a moment to see smoke rising up from a factory a few streets away only for her shoe to get caught upon a damned stone causing her to tumble down.

He caught her rather unceremoniously by grabbing onto her scarf and nearly strangling her in the process but she found herself in his arms instead of on the floor and she couldn't bring herself to complain about the slight bruising around her throat.

He was a Muggle.

Why?

Exactly a week later, on another unbearable Wednesday in her house, she quietly walked out the door and thought "Spinners End" over and over again and she was there on that street once more. This time, she wore her nice pea coat with red piping and she had pinned a red Zinnia that one of the house elves had brought her in her buttonhole. She had a matching red hat perched on her head to block out the December chill and she huddled under her scarf as the wind bit her ears as it flew past.

"You're not gonna fall again, are you?"

She spun around, and there he was. Much taller than her, with dark, dark hair and a regal bearing about himself. His nose was hooked as well but she couldn't even see it as ugly because it was his nose and he wouldn't be him without it.

"No, I'm afraid not," she managed after she gaped at him for a full minute.

He smiled at her hesitantly and held out his hand. "I'm Tobias, Tobias Snape," he said. "I didn't get to tell you last week. You are?"

"Eileen. Eileen Prince."

It doesn't really matter that he's a Muggle.

Does it?

He made her happy but she was scared she would make him sad. When they met, every week, every Wednesday, she'd laugh and laugh and laugh and then he'd kiss her until none of her fears remained but then she'd go back home – a home that was quiet now since her siblings had returned to Hogwarts – and she'd wonder what her parents would do if she told them she loved a Muggle and what he would do if he knew what she really was.

She decided. She would tell him. No. She would show him.

"I know you're not the nicest person, but that's no reason to call yourself a witch," Tobias smiled warmly at the tiny girl – woman – sitting next to him.

"No!" protested Eileen. "I'm… I'm a real witch… with a wand and spells and magic and…"

"Eileen, stop this!" said Tobias, standing up abruptly. "You're being ridiculous!"

She pulled out her wand and flicked it at the couch he had been sitting on. "There!" she said triumphantly.

"You can't wave a stick and make something happen," said Tobias with an eye roll. He sat down on the couch only to have it shrink down to the size of a bowl underneath him bum.

"What?" he sputtered. "What?"

But he still stayed and he made her beautiful. And when she was worried about her parents he would simply say, "The world's always changing, Eileen. Your parents need to keep up with the times and with you." And then he'd kiss her protests away.

Everything was perfect. Then she became pregnant. Her parents threw her out. After all, they couldn't have a disgrace in the family.

"Shh, shhh… Don't cry… don't cry, darling… Don't mind them, they're dunderheads for leaving you… Don't you worry, I'll be here for you. I'll be here forever…"

"I'm sick of eating bread."

"Well, so am I, darling."

"Can't you go hunting or something?"

"Hunting where? There's a bloody mill down the road and no wilderness for miles!"

"I dunno! Just… bring some food that's all! Like… fox or something!"

"You can't eat a bloody fox!"

"Well, at least I'm trying! There are only so many things I can make with just bread!"

"If you'd at least use your wand to get some food but no, you can't!"

"I told you! It doesn't work that way!"

"Then get us some money! I can't feed you and that brat if you can't even pull your weight!"

"Are you saying I'm fat?"

"Wot? No! I… no, I never said that, stop!"

"Don't you dare call me fat!"

Because it doesn't matter who threw the first blow, only that it was thrown. Once that line is crossed, it can never be uncrossed.

She shrieked and pushed. She clenched his hand her iron grasp. He cried as he remembered how he treated her. This wasn't her fault… it was his. And he vowed to change.

He didn't.

Her stomach was scarred now, the stretch marks remaining but he assured her that she was still beautiful.

She cried. She cried because she had treated him so horribly. And she vowed to change.

She didn't.

There's a reason that it doesn't usually work. Muggle and Wizard. Wizard and Muggle. Muggle and Witch. Witch and Muggle. Muggle and Magic. Magic and Muggle.

One can always do it easier. Doesn't matter what it is but… when a simple Accio can accomplish was muscles can, why bother to get up? And when your spouse can do what you cannot so much easier, why would you do work? And when your spouse refuses to do things for you any more, why would you accept that? After all, magic is effortless. Magic is easy. Magic is simple.

Just use it more.

"Just leave!"

"What?"

"You can't use magic to do anything useful around here, why would I want you to stick around?"

"You wouldn't dare!"

"I mean it! Get out of here, you're useless! All you've done is saddle me with this son and…"

"All I've done? All I've done?! I don't think you understand, but it takes two to make a child. And he is certainly your fault! You're the one who always begged, oh please, just once more tonight, don't go…"

Another blow.

She just ignored it now, because it was easier that way. She felt incomplete when she didn't talk to him, but what could she do? They would only fight more.

Then comes the jealousy because it's not fair that one can do more than another, that one has more power and more ability. Why's the one worthy of magic when the other is not? Who makes that decision? Who says that it's fair? Because it's not. It isn't fair, plain and simple. It isn't fair and it will never be fair but that's not what people want to hear. They want to hear apologies and then they want to see that cup of coffee fly into their hands to with a flick of a little magic stick.

That will never happen.

He snatched the wand from her fingers and jabbed it into the air. He slashed and swished and flicked and flared. Nothing. Not even the slightest spark or the tiniest tingle. His shoulders slumped and he collapsed into the couch, that very couch she had turned tiny and turned big in mere moments. The wand fell from his listless fingers as tears made their way unwillingly down his cheeks. A little coo caught his attention and he looked down into the big brown eyes of his son and he couldn't help but smile.

But then the boy touched the wand and jumped as sparks emitted from its tip and the man scowled once more because apparently he was the only one who wasn't good enough.

She kept her wand away now. She had seen his face when her boy did his magic. She had seen his anger and his jealousy and his violence. And she had seen his sadness. More than the others, the last scared her the most.

He was lonely in a house of magic, just as she had been once been long ago.

They would sit in a room worlds apart. They wouldn't talk because then they'd scream. They couldn't leave because it wasn't really an escape.

The little boy crawled on the floor between them, cooing and blabbering nonsense, oblivious to the sadness he was growing up in.

She tried leaving, of course. She's just packed up her stuff and walked right out of that door but when she left she remembered him. She remembered the way he used to run his fingers through strands of her hair. She remembered the way he used to kiss her just so to make her melt from her head to her toes. She remembered the way he used to make her feel beautiful.

She just couldn't leave. Even if she left, she would still be haunted by him. She wouldn't be free.

She picked up her wand again, one day. It had been a few months since she had taken it out. It made her sad. Sad that her family didn't want her, sad that Tobias couldn't do magic as well. It was a reminder of everything that had gone wrong.

When she touched it, there weren't any sparks. Not anymore.

She cried that night, curled up in the sheets, pulling the comforters tight around her, alone in the bed. She could hear him when he returned from the mill, knocking the mud off of his boots at the door and turning on the tap to get water to make himself a cup of tea. She could hear him as he climbed up the stairs and closed the door to their son's room and as he tried to quietly make his way into their room.

He found her like that, huddled in a cocoon of sheets, trembling and trying desperately to stop her sobs before he found out. He slid into the bed behind her and pulled her close, her back cradled in the curve of his body. He spoke to her like she was a child, whispering comforting nonsense into her ears and soon her trembling stopped and soon her breathing evened and she was fine once more.

It was like they used to be.

They could do it. They could survive. They could last until their son grew up and then they could leave each other and they could finally do it, really do it, really go, really be happy.

They sat next to each other in silence, like usual. Their boy was eight now. They'd almost made it, they could do it, any day now, any day.

"It was all a lie," she said softly, so softly he wouldn't have heard her unless he was listening for her. He was. He always was.

"What was?" he said softly, trying to keep his voice even and calming and nice and not angry.

"You said you'd be here forever. But… I guess that's not true now, is it?"

He didn't have anything to say. After all, she was right. He couldn't argue a fact.

Once, he would have tried to.

She had expected that letter but actually seeing it made it so much worse. She could see the betrayal on his face. She could see the anger and the jealousy and the violence and the sadness. It broke her heart. It broke what little of her heart remained.

She took her son to the platform alone. He couldn't bear to come with them. He couldn't bear to experience the world that he would never be a part of. She went with her son and helped him onto that train and hauled his trunk up into the train, trying to disguise the tears in her eyes as laughter and trying to smile and pretend that everything was okay but it wasn't. It wouldn't ever be because he wasn't there to hold her up and keep her strong and hug her close and hold her hand and whisper to her that it's all right because they were together and her baby would be home soon and they'd be a real family and they'd love each other forever and for always and…

The train disappeared and she broke down and cried, hugging a strange red-haired woman who waved a tearful goodbye to what appeared to be twenty red-haired children. The red-haired woman cried because her family was being torn apart. Eileen cried because her family had never been together and it was still being torn into pieces.

The house was thankfully silent. They didn't have anything to argue about anymore. They didn't have anything to talk about.

(He tried to leave. Tried to abandon her but the first step he took out of that door, his pea coat on and his tiny brief case in his hands, all he could think about was her. Her eyes, large and brown and beautiful and the way she smiled and the way her hands would carefully chop meat for their stew when they had meat and the way she used to laugh long ago when he still could make her laugh. Tears would run down his nose and he'd shuffle back into the house even as his mind was plagued by images of her in her own world of magic with their son, the world he would never be a part of.)

She reached for the box that was carefully placed above the mantle but discrete enough that he would never need to look at it if he didn't want to. She reached for the box and she slipped on the edge of the rug and she grabbed the box but it fell with her. She couldn't stop her fall and she tried to twist herself to land comfortably, falling onto the box with her wand instead. The painful sound of old wood breaking reached her ears and she shrieked as she opened the box and looked upon the shattered remains within.

(He walked in the door and couldn't help but feel happy. He hated himself for it as he watched his love break down.)

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