(no subject)
Who? Alya Malfoy
What? Running
When? 17 years after grownhp
Where? The Quidditch pitch
Why? Because they can't be five again and because he's not there.
After having caused a brawl in the middle of the new professor's class and getting herself and several classmates busted Alya did the only reasonable thing--she went to the dorm, changed into her sweats and left the castle ten minutes before lights out.
Detention?
Fuck detention.
After six years at Hogwarts Alya did detention standing on her head--once she literally did it standing on her head just to mess with the loser Runes Professor.
She had to get out of the castle so she ran like something was chasing her all the way to the Quidditch pitch where she started running the bleachers. She didn't warm up even though she knew she'd feel it in the morning--she wanted to feel everything burn.
Brando's dad was right about a lot of things but most of all the fact Alya should have waited until they weren't in his classroom. That would have been the Slytherin thing to do. The Malfoy thing to do. Hell, the smart thing to do. All the things that Alya wanted so very much to be but was always falling short of.
Her fourth trip to the top of the bleachers and her lungs hurt from a combination of the cold air and exertion.
She was overreacting--of course-- she wasn't always falling short, just part of the time. It was still more than she could live with.
It wasn't like she didn't try and control herself. She was always trying only to watch it crumble beneath her feet. If it weren't for the TaiChi, her Grandpa Harry's pot, and meditation she didn't think she'd be able to keep her mind half the time. She didn't think she was supposed to feel so tired at 16. She felt worn.
Her thoughts pushed her to run harder and keep going until she felt like dropping and then go further.
The fight in Charms kept playing in her head.
It was wrong. They were wrong. Somehow Leo had been the one to leave and yet she and Brando were the ones falling apart. It reminded her of an old Muggle game they'd played at Brando's. Jenga. The game where you built the highest tower you could with the little wooden blocks by slipping one block out of the bottom to put on top. Except when you pulled out the wrong block and the whole tower fell. If anyone had bothered to ask Alya she could have told them that Leo was the wrong damn block to pull out.
When she reached the bottom of the bleachers Alya thought about another round but knew if she did there was no way she'd be walking to class in the morning. But she still wasn't ready to go back.
Her mind made up, Alya took a few steps at a run and on the fifth step landed with a heavy thud on the ground--on all four paws. She gave a look over her shoulder at the castle before heading towards the Forbidden Forest. If the Sun Bear seemed out of place in a forest in Scotland - well, it wasn't the first time she was out of place--besides she didn't think anything in the forest would tell.
