Handprint on the Door

Cadence sat in a stupor while Harry huffed and puffed the first ten minutes he was in her room.

�What is wrong?� she asked for the eightieth time.

It still didn�t explain why he had burst into her room, a wreck, when only an hour before he had left with a smile so broad she was sure it�d be years before it was gone. However this time she was wrong.

She stared at him the first few minutes he was in there. He was breathing heavily, his face was wet as if it had been stained with tears, his eyes were red, he was trembling, and he could barely speak. It was somewhere between fury, depression, and shock. She couldn�t decide which it was. All she knew was that Harry�s behavior was scaring her.

It became evident on her face after a while and he started to calm himself down. Cadence sat in her bed, books and papers heaped about her. She had almost finished all of her homework before Harry had burst in.

�Harry� you�re really scaring me, what�s going on?�

Harry said nothing, as she had expected him to, and paced in front of her bed. �Cadence,� he finally whispered. It was more of a statement. It was almost as if he was saying her name to calm himself down.

�Harry� what is going on? You�re acting as though you�ve seen a ghost� a fairly scary ghost,� she said, remembering the many translucent beings that floated around the Hogwarts castle.

Harry again remained silent before walking slowly over to the edge of her bed. He fished into his pocket, fingering the large necklace in his shaking hands, and then pulling it out.

Cadence stared at the necklace and jumped backward. �Where� where did you get that?�

�Cadence,� he said her name in that same way again. This time though, he would continue. He sat himself down on the bed and noticed that Cadence held her thudding heart, her mouth dropped open. �I�ll tell you where I got it as soon as you tell me what happened the night your parents died.�

Cadence�s brown eyes lifted onto Harry�s contorted face. How dare he ask such a question, she thought to herself. Where did this come from?

Yet as she thought it, she knew for sure that she was being unfair to Harry. After sharing every single bit of his history with her, all of his journeys and tales, adventures and struggles, she didn�t even have the decency to tell him the truth about what happened the night her parents died.

She looked up at him slowly. All she could manage was, �What?�

�Cadence,� he whispered for the third time. It was as if the mere sound of her name made him composed. �I don�t know how to begin� all I know is that I want to know every bit of you, up and down, inside, upside down and right side up� I couldn�t handle the fact that you knew everything about me and I knew nothing about you. It�s hard to talk about, I know, but I needed to know. It was starting to hurt.�

Cadence felt a stab in her heart as he said the word �hurt.� To know that she had caused hurt in the only person she truly loved was enough to make her open her mouth and spill everything.

�And I don�t know if you�ve noticed, but whenever people hear your name� they stop.�

Cadence had noticed. She�d noticed all too well. What with Hermione, Ron, and that Colin Creevey boy, she knew for a fact that her name was well known. She had a pretty good idea why.

�And you even knew my name,� he said it with so much venom that Cadence was taken aback. She stared at him for a second. �Think really hard about this Cadence. Why do so many people know my name?�

Cadence had to stop and think. She had never heard the story of Harry Potter. She had only heard his name used sparsely in her home. She remembered a hushed conversation between her parents when she was about ten or eleven. They were talking about Harry Potter, and how he was not attending Hogwarts. She recalled the conversation vaguely. Bits and pieces came back to her.

�He�s in his first year?�

�Yes, that�s what it says here.�

�Will he be safe?�

�Apparently he�s got plenty of protection there. More than he had at the first place he was staying. With those Muggles.�

�Why would be expose himself to the wizarding world after what happened with his parents?�

�He wasn�t going to learn his wizard skills any other way. The Muggles he was living with wanted nothing to do with Hogwarts or wizardry as it was.�

�I just can�t believe it.�

�We can�t allow our sweet Cadence to be exposed to that world, not yet. Harry has more protection than Cadence ever would have, we have to be extra careful.�

Cadence answered after a long pause, �I don�t know your story Harry.�

�You don�t? You�ve never even heard a rumor? A tale? Nothing?� he demanded.

She sat and thought, and then somehow, the pieces fell together. �The boy� who lived.�

Harry�s eyes widened. �Tell me the truth Cadence. Piece it all together. Why do people know your name?�

She looked up at him, her eyes brimming with tears. �No.�

�Yes.�

�No Harry, no one knows.�

�People know Cadence.�

�Harry� it just can�t be��

�Cadence��

�Wait��

�Cadence listen to me.�

�How did you find out?�

�Cadence, you have to listen to me. Tell me the truth.�

�The truth? YOU want the TRUTH!�

Harry sighed. It was happening. Everything Ron and Hermione had warned him about� it was now happening, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. �Cadence, please.�

�PLEASE? TRUTH?� Cadence was now livid. She sat up in her bed, clenching the blanket in her fists. �You want the truth when you�ve been lying to ME? YOU want the truth from ME when you�ve been doing exactly the opposite to my face?�

�I haven�t been lying to you!�

�Yes you have! Sneaking around behind my back, trying to learn about my history without telling me! I would call that lying!�

�I wasn�t sneaking� I had to know��

�No you didn�t.�

�You know all about me.�

Cadence didn�t miss a beat. �Don�t you dare turn this around on me Harry Potter. I would have told you in due course, all you had to do was be patient.�

Patient. The word popped up on him again, just as it had from Hermione�s mouth. Why couldn�t I have listened? Why did that floorboard intrigue me so much? Why? Why?

�Harry Potter, I don�t know why you didn�t just wait for me to tell you. I would have been fine with telling you everything! I would have said what I needed to say, I would have given you all of my background, but no! You had to go sneak around about it!�

Harry now listened to the formal tone her voice took with him, almost as if she had forgotten who she was with him. Tears crept to his eyes, but still, she couldn�t see him cry.

�Where did you find that necklace?�

�It was in a vault� in the library� under the floorboards.�

�Under the floorboards? Vault? Library?�

She knew now that he had been sneaking around, so he might as well have given her the whole truth about how he had come across the truth.

�I�m so sorry Cadence� I wanted to know why everyone knew you� I was curious� I needed to know more about you� I wanted to know more about you� I didn�t know how to ask you. I knew deep down that you were going to tell me in your own time but it wasn�t enough for me, and I�m so sorry. I went to the library� I asked Ron for help� tonight I was looking. Hermione found me and yelled at me for sneaking around and not trusting you to tell me. I realized she was right and I was leaving, I swear� I swear I was heading out when I got caught in a loose floorboard.�

Cadence watched as he fidgeted. It didn�t matter to her how much she wanted to hold him, clean him up, tell him everything was okay� she was too angry and felt so betrayed. He had dared to go sneak around, trying to find information on her, like some spy?

�My curiosity got the best of me, I fished around inside of the floorboard and found some kind of box. It was sort of like the one you showed me today, with all the pictures. But this one� it was strange� The more I had this box in my possession, the uglier and more gruesome it got, evil almost� There were pictures� Old pictures� There was one of my parents�� Cadence gasped. �And the same one you showed me of your parents.�

Cadence stared at Harry, not wanting to believe him, but she knew that he wouldn�t lie to her about something so important. �W-W-What?�

�It was that wedding picture� but old� and almost like it was starting to turn evil. The same with that picture of my parents.�

Cadence almost couldn�t speak.

�I saw this in the box,� he said, gesturing to the necklace in his hand. �And I saw that my mother was wearing it� and so was yours� I forgot to put it back, so I grabbed it� and then I wanted to know. What happened?�

Cadence stared at the necklace and then back up at Harry. She ventured to get out from under the sheets of the bed and as Harry tried to stop her, she pushed him off.

�I�ll tell you everything, just make me one promise.�

Harry�s heart almost leaped for a new hope. �Anything.�

�Get out as soon as I�m done.�

It was the seven words that felt like his undoing. �Cadence I don�t understand��

�It�s not that complicated Harry. You lied to me, you snuck around on me without my knowledge, betrayed my trust, and I need some time to think without you around,� and as Cadence said the words, she felt a piece of herself dying.

�Think?� another word that would be his undoing. �About what?�

�It�s not about us� it�s about me,� she whispered, and she knew she was being honest. He had done something so wrong and so deceitful, that she was going to find it hard to forgive him. She knew he had done it for his own reasons. It didn�t make it any more right, but he had meant no intentional harm upon her. What she truly needed was time away from him to collect herself so she could forgive him sooner� but he couldn�t know that.

�What do you mean, think?� he asked her, a sudden frenzy in his eyes and his heart. He had to know what she was going to do. Was she going to completely terminate the relationship? How could she? Did she not feel the things that he felt whenever he was with her?

�Harry,� she whispered. �I have to have some time to myself to think about where things are starting to go� and where they are going now. I have to have some time to myself without you around to know whether or not what you have done is going to affect me.�

Harry felt his heart break in two. He had no idea that things could happen like this. Again, he felt the tears in his eyes but he still couldn�t let her see that he was in distress. Until the end, he had to be strong.

�Tell me what happened,� he whispered.

�Alright,� she whispered back. She looked away from him and felt herself travel back in time. It was so cold� so dark�

�The boy who lived� the boy who lived�� she repeated. �You may have been the boy who lived Harry� but no one ever said anything about the girl who survived.� She paused and didn�t notice that Harry�s eyes were wide. He had been right in his guess. �I�m sure rumors of my family�s escape, and that�s probably why my name isn�t as widely known as yours. Everyone assumed that Lord Voldemort had finished off everyone except for you, but no one considered the possibility that a family of three had heard of the possible attack and had fled everything they ever knew to go over to a strange country.

�I grew up in America, and I was only an infant when my parents came here. I wasn�t aware of the struggles they had adjusting, but fortunately enough, we made our way into the wizarding world without being noticed. No one commented, no one said anything. My father and mother continued their jobs from where they were, and we built our wizard homestead steadily each year, and by the time I was ten, everything was done and ready. I started Quidditch training, and I didn�t start my actual witchcraft schooling until a year later.

�It was wonderful, you know. I loved my studies and I absolutely loved Quidditch. My father had been a Keeper for Gryffindor, and my mother had been a Beater for Hufflepuff. Quidditch was in my blood. My father had instilled it into me at a young age, and I found that being a Chaser was my best suit. My mother mostly controlled my studies, and by my fourth year she had told me that I was advanced enough to take my O.W.L.s early, and I did. My mother told me that if I had been going to Hogwarts, I probably would have been a year ahead of the children my age, mainly because it came as second nature to me. Everything did.

�The only thing that I didn�t have was real friends. The only people I ever talked to were my parents, and occasional pen pals I had through owl, but that was never long lasting. My parents were very strict about where I went and whom I talked to. I was never sure why. Until that night.

�It was so dark� so cold� so wet� It is imprinted in my mind as though it were yesterday. I woke up and thought it was a normal day, but my parents had been acting strangely. I didn�t question it, I just carried on with my normal Quidditch training� my normal routine.

�But it was almost five when my parents screamed at me to get in the house� there was a storm� they didn�t want me out there� They were screaming bloody murder� I can still hear the terror in their screams.

�I didn�t know what was going on, I was too scared to say anything. I landed and ran right into the house. Within seconds, the doors were sealed and my parents were huddling against me, cooing me and coddling me, telling me they loved me, telling me that if anything were to happen, I should flee as soon as possible. I shouldn�t ask questions, I should just run. I was scared, I feared for my parents� lives, and my own. I cried. I asked questions like �Why? What is going on?� and they told me everything. Why they had never let me out of the house, why we weren�t living in England. I knew there was something strange about why we were in America. They always talked about England like it was the greatest place to be raised. They told me all of it. Even things I don�t want to share with you.

�They told me about you. They told me there was one boy who survived, and that he was already in Hogwarts, and that if I was ever to meet him, I should probably stay away. Trouble would follow us. I cried. What did that mean? Why would I meet you? Why would I come to Hogwarts? My mother was wearing that necklace.

�I didn�t know what to think, I just lay there in a puddle of my own tears, clinging to my parents like they were attached to me. I didn�t know what else to do. I was scared.

�It all happened at once, hours, but it seemed minutes, later. The entire house began to tremble and the front doors blew off and the whole house grew dark and I felt something in my heart� like some kind of evil had overcome me. My head throbbed� I wanted to run like my parents had said for me to do. I wanted out. I wanted to leave as soon as possible, but I wanted my parents right there with me. I couldn�t leave them. I had never been more scared in my life.

�My mother stood up and told me to run. I told her no, I wasn�t going anywhere without her. She ordered me to run. My father did as well. I couldn�t see much, but I heard a voice. My parents stood in front of me as if they were shielding me. I remember my mother screaming, �You won�t take her!� and my father was screaming the Death Curse and whoever was standing in front of them was cackling.

�In a flash� I saw my mother bend over. She took off her necklace, she threw it, and it was picked up. Another flash� I saw my father fall. I screamed. My mother looked and me and on her face was the look I�ll never forget as long as I live. It told me how much she loved me and would miss me and she said, �Run� before she too fell.

�And so I did. I ran so fast and so far Harry� that I was almost out of the city before I stopped. I didn�t even bother to look back. I was too frightened. I don�t remember much after that� all I remember is waking up in some strange room. My grandmother was there and unfamiliar faces, and they told me what happened. I apparently had collapsed on someone�s front lawn and then I was immediately taken to the hospital, and they sent an urgent owl to my grandmother in England.

�I was spared the details� but it didn�t matter. I knew all of them.�

Tears were now flowing freely down her cheeks and she stood at the window of the hospital wing. It seemed as though everything had happened all over again.

�I don�t want to ever live that day over again Harry, that�s why I spared you the details,� she whispered.

Harry didn�t know what to do. He wanted to go hold her, he wanted to tell her it was okay. He wanted her to know that he felt the same way about losing his parents. It was a wound he didn�t want opened. He wanted to cry with her.

But he couldn�t. He had to leave.

He stood up and walked over to her. He stood almost a foot away from her, watching her pale blonde head lean over the cool window toward the night. He knew what the tears on her cheeks looked like. He knew that they were the sweetest shade of rose and that her dark chocolate eyes shone with the mist of her tears. Her small, soft hands caressed the cool glass and her tiny frame of a body panted as she breathed up and down. She was so beautiful and so unique, and he could see it in just one vision.

But it hurt so badly to know that he had lost all of it just because of his stupid curiosity.

�Cadence�� he began.

�Leave.�

The word was so cold and so bitter that it shattered every hope he could have ever had in his heart. His mouth dropped open and his extended hand faltered. �What?�

�You made me a promise Harry. I can�t have you here now.�

�Why not?�

�Harry�� she half chuckled, half sniffled. She didn�t turn around. �You betrayed my trust. I need time to convince myself this love is worth my heart being lied to.�

The cloud of daze that he had tried to fill himself in was now dark, raining upon his head his own misery and grief. He stepped backwards, his green eyes glinting in the pale light of the hospital wing.

�When can I see you again?� he whispered.

�I don�t know,� she said back. �I�m going back to classes next week� I�ll meet you in the Common Room the night before I go back.�

�Next Monday?� he asked.

She nodded. �Go.�

He couldn�t say much else, so he walked backwards toward the door and finally, staring at the beautiful figure he could make out in the window, he left, tears streaming down his cheeks so hard he could taste them on his tongue. He stared at the closed door and pictured her in his mind, standing in front of that window. Never again would he know the sweetness of her touch. It would always be different.

�Harry?� she whispered. She stepped away from the window and turned to see that he had left. How could she even entertain the fact that he would stay? She turned back to the window for a split second, felt fresh tears pour down her face and she walked slowly toward the door. She stared at it, picturing Harry walking away.

Lightly, she raised her hand and pressed it palm down on the door.

Harry could almost feel the heat from the room on his own hand as he pressed it closely toward the door.

And in unison, they whispered, �I love you.�