Maddie sat up straight in her bed as screams of
terror reached her ears. Still groggy from sleep, she jerked her head around violently, but
failed to find the origin of the excruciating noises. Several other boys were sleepily
searching around, but most were looking expectantly to her bed, and acting quite
surprised to find out that it wasn't her this time. George uncertainly slipped out from his
four poster and made his way over to the couch where a confused looking Maddie was
huddled under a blanket.
"D- do you know where that's coming from?" he asked uncertainly. Maddie met
his eyes and looked at him blankly, with no emotion at all.
"No," she answered flatly, and George walked back across the room. By the time
he had reached Fred's bed, the screams had stopped. Fred leaned over and flicked on the
lamps with his wand.
"I think it came from the girls dormitory," he said slowly, with a quick glance to
Ron, who had joined them. He simply swallowed and went over to the door. Down in
the common room, several groups of younger girls were standing around in nervous
knots, watching the older girls' dormitory door with much apprehension.
"I don't know," began Harry. "Should we go see what happened...?" Maddie let
out a snort of impatience, jumped out of bed and began climbing the staircases on her
way to the room, leaving the boys watching her curiously. Once she reached the room,
she took a deep breath, and swung open the door. The sight inside was an interesting one
indeed. Several girls were bent over Hermione's bed, blocking her from view. The
bedside table had been knocked over, and her lamp was shattered on the ground. Some of
the girls, Lavender among them, were keeping a good distance from the bed, and eyeing it
angrily. Maddie hurried over and pushed through the crowd. There, sweaty and
wild-eyed, lay Hermione.
"What happened?" Maddie stared worriedly at her only girlfriend, and Hermione
wiped some of the tears off her face, muttering, "Oh, that dream...it was just a
dream....but still...a nightmare...a living nightmare..." One of the other girls turned to
Maddie and spoke in fast, nervous, hushed tones.
"We all woke up and she was flailing around in her bed, knocking things over and
screaming at the top of her voice. Someone woke her up, and she started sobbing. Keeps
talking about a dream...sounds like quite a shocker to me." Hermione seemed to be
calming down somewhat, and was struggling to sit up in her bed. She grabbed Maddie's
hand, breathing as though she had just ran up a thousand staircases, and began to
talk.
"It was terrible...I was in a dark, dark room...there were candles all around,
everywhere...I was watching something...pictures, on a wall, moving, almost like a
movie...but it WASN'T a movie....I-I got the impression I was watching a memory. A
dark haired girl...Maddie, she looked so much like you...but she WASN'T you...and she
was sitting on the ground, singing a beautiful song. A dark haired boy...he was about her
age...he walked over and they started playing together. But something bad was
happening...a black cloud, spreading over the screen...and something came out of the
trees behind the kids....and it was the most horrible thing I'd ever seen in my entire life. It
was evil." She was whispering now, though the room was silent enough to hear a pin
drop. "And it...it ruined the girl. It murdered her...massacred her...I couldn't tell what
was happening, but the cloud surrounded her...and she was screaming...and so was I. And
the boy...he was sobbing, trying to get into the cloud, but he just couldn't...and he was
screaming her name..'Katerina! Katerina! Katerina!'" Maddie's eyes widened and she
gasped, but Hermione fell back on the pillow, crying softly again. "I haven't been this
scared in a very, very long time," she whispered. Maddie gave her a huge hug, and
looked at the clock across the room. It was four thirty in the morning.
"Come on, we'll go down into the common room, I'll get Ron, and we can have
some tea and get you calmed down." Maddie helped Hermione into her dressing gown as
the other girls uncertainly climbed back into bed. Waiting down in the common room
were George, Harry, Fred and Ron. One look at Hermione's face and they were all
surrounding her, asking questions and supporting her as she shakily collapsed on the
couch. Everyone else in the common room began crowding the couch as well, but
Maddie assured them that everything was fine and soon everyone was safety back in their
dormitories. As Ron held his arm around her protectively, Hermione repeated her odd
dream, with gasps and worried looks on each face in the circle. When she reached the
end, Ron pulled her into a hug and exhaled unhappily. Maddie recognized the look on his
face to be a mixture of anger at the cause of Hermione's disturbance, and concern for his
girlfriend, who was still shaking.
Maddie folded her hands in her lap and stared at them, debating with herself in her
head. She was quite aware that the dream had something to do with her, and the name
'Katerina' held quite a lot of significance, but she didn't feel like bringing up the matter at
all. They sat for a long while, quietly discussing the dream and trying to figure it out. In
the end, the boys decided it was probably a random nightmare, and after much insistence
that she was absolutely fine, Hermione went up to bed. Fred, Ron and Harry followed her
up to the branch at the stairs, but George hung back, looking softly at Maddie in the dim
firelight.
"What's up, Squirt?" Maddie looked up abruptly, being awoken from her
thought-world a million miles away. She squinted into the fire for a few seconds,
uncharacteristically silent. Wanting nothing more in the world than to throw herself
down into his arms and tell him everything, all her thoughts and worries and fears,
Maddie got up and swept over to the staircase. She could feel, if not see, his hurt look as
she moved right past him. At the foot of the stairs she turned around and called back to
the dark shape in the arm chair.
"It's just the weather again."
(*)
The next morning was once again, foreboding, sullen, and all-in-all, not fun at all.
Everybody was wary of discussing the previous night, and the tension between Maddie
and George was at an all time high. Fred was so sick of the shuffling feet and heavy
silences that he skipped breakfast, and Hermione was so annoyed with Ron constantly
asking her if she was okay that she wasn't even speaking to him anymore. It was quite a
relief to everyone when classes began, and they could put their minds to something else.
Unfortunately, Potions was holding an interesting development. As Harry, Hermione,
Ron and Maddie took their seats in the chilly dungeon, Malfoy began animatedly
whispering to the goons flanking him on either side. After a few shifty side-glances, the
little ferret himself stood up and began shouting across the room at Hermione.
"Heard about your little escapade last night! Are you so desperate for attention
that you would actually wake up the whole house in the middle of the night? Or can a
little nightmare really scare you that bad? Watch out for that cloud there, Hermione!"
Ron growled in anger and jumped up so fast that the lab table went clattering to the floor.
Just as he reached Malfoy, the classroom door swung open and Ron jumped back, fully
prepared for a harsh punishment from Snape. But to his great surprise, the person who
was walking through the door was not the notorious hook-nosed teacher, but...
"Percy!?" It was indeed, the bookworm himself. Dressed in a pair of crisp black
robes, hat perfectly centered on his red head, Percy Weasley took his place at the head of
the classroom, and set a very official looking set of textbooks down with a resounding
thump.
"Class, please take your seats," announced Percy in a voice that was trying to be
much older than it was. Ron simply stood there gaping as his older brother began to call
roll from a leather bound book.
"Percy! What are you doing here?" Percy peered rather sternly over the tops of
his glasses at Ron, then cleared his throat quite deliberately.
"That will be Mr.Weasley to you, thank you, and I'll have to ask you to take your
seat now, Ronald." Ron scowled and plopped down next to Harry, who was trying very
hard not to laugh.
"What's so funny?" hissed Ron. Harry swallowed his giggles and leaned
over.
"Nothing, Ronald." Ducking his friend's fist, Harry settled back to listen to the
most boring
Potions class they had ever had. After a long analysis of a Color Changing serum, Percy
finally checked his watch and very formally dismissed the class. Ron sighed impatiently
and raced up to the desk in front.
"Perce, what's the deal? You're not a teacher!" Percy seemed indignant.
"Well, I know that of course, but that does not mean I am incapable...the teachers
of Hogwarts have been very busy, and the Ministry has asked some of the more
responsible interns to come and substitute to give the teachers a chance to work
on fixing the shields around the school, if you must know." Percy was so proud to know
what was going on that he forgot not to let his classified information slip. Now, looking
at the alarm on Ron's face, he reddened and laughed nervously.
"Ju-just joking, Ron, then. I'll just be leaving." Ron turned around to where
Hermione, Harry and Maddie were standing, looking quite dumbfounded.
"Funny bloke, isn't he?" Ron nodded at Maddie and turned to Hermione and
Harry, both of which seemed to be thinking hard.
"I guess we were right- there is something up. Dumbledore should be able to
maintain the shield on his own...shouldn't he?" Harry looked apprehensive and unsure.
Hermione nodded slowly, and looked on the verge of quoting Hogwarts, A
History when George barreled over to the group, shivering in the hallway of the
dungeons.
"Hey chaps! Did you catch a drift of Percy? He's actually teaching here today!"
Ron scowled.
"We just had him for Potions- guess what we found out?" Ron and Harry quickly
filled George in on their multiple discoveries. As they were telling him about the black
spiral papers, and the shields still not working, George kept sending worried side glances
at Maddie, who looked small against the black stone wall. She apparently did not like
that.
"What are you looking at, George?" Maddie was scowling at him with her
arms crossed and an indignant look on her face. "Worried that the poor little Madison
can't handle the bad man by herself?" George whipped his head around, hurt by her
off-collar remark. He met her eyes and his face contorted to match hers. The three other
people standing there stood stock-still, watching for his reaction with bated breath.
"No, Madison. That's not exactly what was going through my mind. My,
my, you're quite the ray of sunshine. The weather must really be getting to you today,
huh?" He spit out the last part sarcastically, and the look on his face as Maddie spun on
her heel and stormed up the steps to the school said quite clearly that he had not meant to
say it. He turned, mouth hanging open, to Hermione, Ron and Harry, who immediately
assumed the position of people who had definitely not been listening.
"Er- ooh, look at the time. Gotta run to class. See ya George!" With a
sympathetic smile and a wave, Hermione led her friends up the staircase, whispering to
them urgently. George simply let his head fall against the dripping stone wall, cursing
himself under his breath.
"Way to go, George old boy," he whispered aloud. "Nice stage to tell her you love
her on!" Still shaking his head in disgust, he moved out of the shadows and into the
classroom, wondering what in the world to do next.
(*)
Norax shook with fury in his comfortable white armchair. Someone had been in
here. He knew it. Someone had watched the memory. The bad movie. The sad movie.
That movie that he was supposed to be able ot put away and forget. The movie that he
was never supposed to think about. The movie that he was reliving right at that very
moment. In his brief moments of sanity, Norax was clever and deducting, and yet he
couldn't think of a single reason why anyone would watch The Movie. Why anyone even
knew about The Movie. Then the voices started screaming. The horrible dialogue that
haunted him day and night. To him, to each other, the two of them never shut up. He
knew that their were others, had to be others, but for a very long time, it had just been
these two, taking their turns at taking over. And they didn't always do it nicely.
Of course you're thinking about The Movie, you dolt! It's only the entire
reason you're here, planning what you are, doing what you are. And don't worry. When I
found out who showed the girl, they'll be sorry...
Just calm down, just calm down, you don't know that someone saw The
Movie. Maybe you're just getting excited about the mission being completed, and you're
letting old memories slip back...
Of course someone saw The Movie you idiot! The Triverscreen is on the other
side of the room! The candles are all burnt down! If you don't have anything smart to say
then SHUT UP!
Get one of your maidens, that'll calm you down...
There's no time for that! We've got to find out who showed the girl. There must
be punishment for the one who showed the girl...
Why are you in such a rush to blame someone! You're always fighting, blaming,
stirring up trouble! Why can't you just leave well enough alone?
It was you
Wh-what? I don't know what you-
Shut up. You showed her. WHY?
We-well...I wanted her to understand...understand why we are the way we
are...and everything that happened to us...but I think- I think I must have shown it to the
wrong person, cause that other girl saw it...but-
Punishment. There must be punishment for the one who showed the girl.
NO! I didn't mean- it's okay- they don't understa-
PUNISHMENT!
Please! No...please...aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...
Anyone who would have walked into the underground chambers at that point
would have been met by a sight more disturbing than anything they had ever seen. A
fully grown man, flailing around on the floor, beating himself with an iron fire poker and
screaming into the night. In short, punishment, for the one who showed the girl.
(*)
Maddie crawled onto her bed, crying loudly and quite aware that she was skipping
class. But everything was catching up to her, and her respect for the way things were
supposed to run was tainted by the fact the nothing was running that way. Pulling the
blankets thickly over her head, Maddie sobbed into her pillow, trying, very hard, to forget
that she had ever existed. All the people she thought she had found strength in, all the
footholds she thought she had, they were all proving to be illusions, something much
different from what they were at first. A crash of thunder punctuated her cries, and
Madison Faith Wells thought back to her aunts dark predictions for the school year. She
never wanted to face her pitiful life again. And as she stared out the stormy window, she
wondered if she really had to...
Meanwhile, in a place so far away it might as well be a different story, a group of
wizards in official looking robes were pouring through dusty books. A couple of men
seemed to be dictating to the air, and invisible hands quickly wrote down their every
word. The men looked haggard and hungry, as if they had been concentrating on the task
at hand for quite some time. Finally, one of them broke the silence with a waver in his
voice.
"Found it...more on the Golden child...and the 'Yellow Muggle'...but...oh God..."
he trailed off as his eyes roamed the yellowed parchment. One of his fellow workers
leaned over his shoulder in concern.
"What is it, Frank? Oh! How...disturbing." The other men quickly circled the
butcher-block table, excitement in their eyes at the possible end of their search. Frank
pulled the piece of parchment carefully out of the old book and laid it out for all eyes to
see. It was not an encouraging report:
A child shall
come to you
A child who is gold
And this child will bring safety
To those in peril
Her voice alone is the key
The only weapon that is yours
And when she sings the proper notes
None will harm you
Her voice-won victories
Will be kept quiet, will be kept underground
Although they mean much
But happiness will not always rest on the child
She will fight many times and win
And when the only thing left to save is herself
She will be overcome
The Yellow Muggle watches, unable to intercede
As the evil devours his only nemesis
A slow, painful end will be hers
And her cries will be forever unmatched
For so long she fought, so long she held strong
Until now
Her heart and lungs
Her brain and soul
Every part of her will be tortured and destroyed
Her sacrifice will be enough to end the first terror
But a new one has formed, and there will be no stopping from that point
'Til forever
"Blimey." The silence was broken by the last man to finish the prophecy.
"Where'd you find this, Frank?" Frank slowly closed book and showed the gilded cover,
with a flashing title. Hogwarts, the Next Hundred Years, As Foreseen by Rachel
Galya.
"We've got to owl Albus. Right away. We've got to warn-" But Frank never got
to finish his sentence. Because at that point there was a huge crashing noise. They were
dead before the yellow light had time to flash out.
(*)
Hermione sat quietly at the dinner table. She longed to have things back to
normal, to know what was going on. Her normally studious, happy attitude had been
subdued by the past few days events, and the fact that her, Harry and Fred were the only
ones from the group that showed up to dinner did not help a bit. For what seemed like the
hundredth meal, they picked at their food, shuffled uneasily around the silences and
wished things were different. Harry kept babbling about something to d with Quidditch,
and Fred was continually nodding, looking like his mind was almost as far away as the
point of Harry's monologue. Finally, Hermione threw down her fork and shouted, "Shut
UP, Harry!" Everyone looked up in surprise at the sudden outburst. Hermione exhaled
sharply and bit her lip, then continued on. " I'm sorry, but we can't keep going on like this
constantly! Pretending everything's perfect, pretending we're...pretending we're not about
to kill each other! Where's Ron? Where's Maddie? Where's George?" She was standing
up now, waving her hands around and attracting some very interesting looks. Harry stood
up, gripped her shoulders and lowered her back into her chair.
"Calm down." Hermione shot him a look of death, clearly stating that that was
not what she wanted to hear. "We're all stressed, but you were the one who told us to
pretend like nothing happened!" Harry brought up a very true point.
"Well,I meant...to a point! Now I'm near tears, you're about to talk Fred to the
point of insanity, and half our friends are missing!"
"If it means so much to you, then go find them," said an exasperated Harry,
dropping his hands from her shoulders and falling backwards into his chair heavily.
"Fine!" shouted Hermione, and she stormed away from the table so fast her chair
toppled over. Harry exhaled sharply and rubbed his eyes. Fred twisted around
uneasily.
"Maybe you shouldn't have said that, bloke." Harry nodded with his hands
covering his face. "Come on, let's go join the search party."
(*)
Ron stared pensively into the flames dancing in the grate. He knew it was
probably somewhere around dinner time, but he didn't care a bit what he was missing out
on in life. He just knew that, as usual, things were spiraling out of control, and, as usual,
he felt totally helpless as far as any way to help. On top of everything else, he knew
Hermione was suffering, but she wasn't even speaking to him at the moment, so what was
the point in trying to figure out what to do? He was having quite a good time, sitting
there, wallowing in self-pity, when he heard a noisy knot of people burst through the
portrait hole. It was Harry and Hermione, and to Ron's astonishment, they were arguing!
He had never, ever seen them fight like this before- arms waving, faces red, screaming
loudly. Fred was walking behind them, telling both of them to "STOP YELLING!!!!" ,
but no one paid him the slightest heed.
"You didn't need to 'come and make things right', Harry! I don't mind at
all when you belittle my feelings towards my friends and the current situations of
gloom and depression!"
"Well, there would be no belittling needed if you didn't make such a huge case out
of everything!"
"YOU ARE BOTH GIVING ME A HEADACHE!"
"I do NOT make a huge case out of everything! "
'''The current situations of gloom and depression' Of COURSE you don't,
Herm!"
"Woah- what's going on here?" Ron stepped out of the shadows and right
between his two foaming-at-the-mouth friends.
"Ron, stay out this."
"HARRY, DON'T YOU DARE YELL AT RON!
"HERMIONE! You REALLY need to stop SCREECHING!" The four friends
stood in a circle, glaring at each other as the fire cast dramatic light and shadow about
their faces. Finally, Ron broke the silence.
"I'm going to my room," he whispered coldly.
"No, I am!" Harry exclaimed.
"Forget it guys, I'm going to bed, and I won't have either of you in there as I try to
sleep!" Fred stood firm in the middle of the group. The three boys regarded each other,
seemingly sizing each other up. Then there was a mad rush for the stairs.
(*)
Maddie's hands trembled as she lifted the heavy sash of the large tower window.
Using all her strength and some she was sure she didn't have, Maddie hoisted the pane as
high as it would go and then put her hands on the slippery stone sill. The gale had calmed
for a short time, and Maddie drew a deep, shuddering breath as she regarded her view of
the grounds. She could see Hagrid's hut off in the distance, and the Whomping Willow,
and the Forbidden forest. Everything looked peaceful and quiet.
"What am I running from?" she whispered aloud. As if in answer to her question,
a fork f lightening sliced the sky, and rain started pouring. A gust of wind slapped her
face, and the tears began. Far away, Maddie could hear faint yelling and arguing, and
imagined dealing with anything human. And then, just as clear as before, the instructions
were coming.
Climb up onto the window sill. Maddie, shivering with fear, lifted one leg
over the wet stone and positioned herself in a crouch on the five inch sill. Bracing
herself, she looked down to the ground, and promptly threw up.
"Oh, no," she sobbed. The yelling was getting closer. Yelling meant people.
People meant...
Let go of the sides. Maddie, vomit down her front and positively rocking
back and forth with sobs, pulled one hand into her chest, and was now balancing all her
weight on three fingers. The yelling was right outside the door now, and she had to do
something. She teetered on her heels for a moment, but just then, Fred burst through the
door, and was about to shout something over his shoulder when he saw Maddie, framed
frightfully in the window, rain sopping the floor and wind making the curtains flap.
Let go of the sides.
"Maddie?" Fred cautiously picked his way towards the window, slow but sure,
Harry and Ron following close behind.
"Please," she sobbed, "don't." Let go of the sides.
"Maddie, whatcha doing? It's kinda cold out there. Why don't you come in here
and let us help you?"
"Fred...go away!" Maddie was shaking violently. Let go of the sides. Maddie let
out a loud sob, took a deep breath and quickly drew the other hand into her chest.
Now just fall...And she did. Right backwards, onto the floor, sprawled out
in a dead faint. Rain was pounding in through the open window, soaking the
wind-whipped bodies, but nothing could compare to the hurricanes that were roaring in
their souls.
(*)
George smiled to himself as he slipped quietly up into the dorm. He knew that it
must be past curfew, but he couldn't care less. He had completed one part of his mission-
the permission. But he still had to actually carry out his plan. He allowed the smile to
grow as he thought about the plan in itself. His flashes of brilliance usually came in the
form of pranks, but he was quite pleased with his latest idea. Positively grinning now,
George pulled the door open quietly and was surprised to see a bustle of activity inside.
Not only were Harry, Ron and Fred awake, but Hermione was standing there as well, and
everyone was wearing an expression of...of...their faces were hard to read. Almost like
someone had died. George rushed over quickly, knowing something was terribly, terribly
wrong.
"What's going on?" he spit out, eyes searching the room for any sign of Maddie.
He caught sight of her, bundled up in one of his sweaters and wrapped in a blanket,
sleeping on Fred's bed across the room from the window. Water was splashed all over
the floor, and Fred, Ron and Harry looked suspiciously wet. "What's going on?" he
repeated. Hermione sighed and walked over to Maddie, leaving the four boys looking
uneasily at one anther, all searching for appropriate words.
"Um...well...something's happened," Ron lamely. George's eyes flashed
dangerously, and Fred took over.
"Tonight, when we got back from dinner, we came upstairs....and the window was
open."
"In the middle of the storm?" George broke in. Fred nodded and closed his eyes
like he was trying to flush out some sort of mental picture.
"And when we looked at the window," Harry said softly, "Maddie was there-
standing on the window sill...crying..." George's eyes were like dinner plates as he sat
down hard on the bed nearest the door.
"She- she was...was she?" Ron nodded in answer to George's unasked question.
"But why?"
"Well, by the time she got down from the window, she wasn't in the best state for
questions. It seems like it was a lot of little things...built up over along time. At least
that's Hermione's theory." Fred sat down next to his brother and patted him gingerly on
the back. "She's okay now, though. We've been keeping an eye out for her. Hermione's
staying in here for the night." George stood up abruptly and turned t leave the
room.
"Where're you going?" asked Ron with concern in his voice.
"There's something I have to do. Something that has to be done. Tonight." And
with that, he turned and stormed mysteriously from the room, leaving the others
wondering just how many more surprises they could deal with.
Morning dawned gray and rainy once more, suiting the mod f the tower perfectly.
Hermione sat up, bleary eyed in her seat next to Maddie's bed. She saw Harry, Ron and
Fred scattered about the room in various states of awkward sleep. Maddie was fitfully
rolling around in the oversized sweater. As other students began readying themselves for
the day, Hermione woke up her friends to ask the important question- what to do about
Maddie? They were debating urgently when they heard a little voice behind them.
"Good morning guys. See you at breakfast." Maddie padded down the stairs
quietly, leaving the others gaping behind her.
"Well, that settles that matter," said Ron dubiously. And the four bolted down
after her.
Maddie was vaguely aware that everything was not as normal as she was treating
it. Fuzzy memories were swimming around. Some of them must have happened
recently...but everything seemed void of time...just swirling around restlessly. Maddie
knew that she had almost died...a couple times maybe. A scar was burning with
white-hot persistence along her collarbone, and she absentmindedly traced it's path with
her finger. As she did so, another memory rocked her consciousness- a man, rubbing her
collarbone, calling her something...the name Katerina was reminiscent of the
dream...piece by piece, the horrible life of the past few months was reconstructing itself in
Maddie's mind. Not paying attention to the world in front of her, Maddie ran headlong
into something tall and solid.
"Sorry," she murmured, then looked up and was met by an interesting sight. It
was George, covered in brightly colored paint. The shiny liquid had dried in his hair, on
his hands, robes, face, and there was even a spot of blue on his teeth. "What's all over
you?" George grinned, but Maddie thought she noticed a nervous quiver in his lips as he
threw back his head and stared at the ceiling. Maddie followed his gaze and nearly fell
over at what met her eyes.
Instead of the normal gray sky, flashing and rainy as it had been for several weeks,
the ceiling was crudely covered in a layer of bright blue paint. Every couple of feet,
across the entire expanse of the monstrous blueness, there was a puffy cloud, painted a
white color. Then, shining right in the middle of the ceiling, directly over the Gryffindor
table, was a bright, fiery, orange, red and yellow sun. The overall appearance was similar
to the type of painting a kindergartner brings home to be posted on the refrigerator, and
yet, radiating from the hand-brushed strokes was the same type of pride and love that
those special pictures always carry. Maddie shifted her openmouthed stare to George,
who was searching her face eagerly for signs of reaction. He swallowed hard and smiled
nervously again, preparing himself speak.
"Here you go Maddie. I fixed the weather." George's words echoed the childlike
manner of the mural stretching over their heads "Now can you please be happy again?"
Maddie's mouth slowly closed, and her eyes widened as she saw George barreling on.
"Because I discovered that I can't go through each day without at least one of your special
smiles. One drawback to you Maddie, is that you're addictive. Now that I've been living
off the...energy, I guess, of your friendship for a while, I can't remember how I used to get
by without it. And something else I've discovered, in the past few weeks, is that just a
little while around a sad you is enough to make me sick. Iloveyoumaddie" He spit out the
last words quickly, staring her straight in the eyes, then paused, realizing that he had
finally said them aloud. "I love you with a love that best friends don't have. I love you
with a love that brothers and sisters don't have. I love you with a love that I don't think
I'll ever understand, and the only thing that means anything at all to me right now, is that
you know that." He stopped, breathing heavily and looking like it had taken every bit of
strength he had to say the short monologue. Maddie trembled violently at that same
monologue. She was so shocked, so taken aback by the display before her eyes. He had
painted her a mural. He had fixed the weather. He cared enough to take his time...to do
something so wonderful, so silly...to lay his emotions down, bare before her, and accept
whatever answer she had for him. Her eyes went back the painting, then to the floor, and
finally to George's face.
"When I walked in here this morning, I had a million things wrong crowding my
brain. Now, I can't remember a single one. I...what I mean is...me too." Her lips turned
up in a brilliant smile, the first one in several weeks. George smiled back and wrapped
his arms tightly around Maddie, who was at a point far beyond words or tears. And the
entire school burst into applause.