Twigs and Porcelain

Disclaimer: Look, even IF I felt like being sued by lawyers and even IF I was so stupid enough to claim Harry Potter as my own, none of you rabid JKR fans out there would believe me. Sheesh.

A/N: This is quite possibly the weirdest, out of it fic I have ever, ever written.

Twigs and Porcelain

You watch her walking up the aisle in that white white dress (white like a china doll) that looks so wrong on her golden skin (golden like the sun). Not golden golden but white golden, the kind of healthy exuberance you get when you play out in the sun and you spend your days enjoying life to the fullest just because.

(Just because I want to.)

And her ridiculously bushy hair has somehow been tamed down (twigs of brown) into sleek, shiny, smooth hair that doesn’t belong to her, not really, because that isn’t her, not the real her, standing up there in that aisle with that white dress (white like a china doll) when you know she doesn’t belong in white (not a china doll) at all.

She’s not a white person.

(Not a china doll.)

(No no can’t be, not really, not fragile, not her.)

And the picture is all wrong (all bent out of the frame) because she’s wrong, she’s not in it, not really, not the real her, the real her’s not here, (tucked up in a box with a porcelain figure), and the other person in the photo is all wrong too, wrong person (little rag doll) or is it the right person after all?

(Maybe it’s the frame that’s wrong.)

Because maybe little twig people don’t belong with porcelain figures but with rag dolls. Simple with simple. Lasting with lasting. Because twigs last, all woven together (all bushy hair and buck teeth) in a framework of brown and plants and living things.

And rag dolls are floppy and stupid and should all be cut up into tiny little pieces (floppy black yarn hair and taped glasses) and be put away in the earth.

Not in the picture.

But he is in the picture, and you are not, no, you’re a little porcelain figure tucked away in a box in the attic marked ‘Don’t Touch.’ Which is ironic really, because all you ever wanted was not to be touched (no don’t touch that Draco, it could break) at all. By anyone.

And then she came, and she touched him. (Little twigs poking at porcelain.)

And then he learned that it’s okay not to be perfect after all, that you can be flawed (sharp branches clawing at the glaze) because then you are human, and if you’re human, then you can love.

(Love love love love, love is weak weak weak weak not for perfect porcelain dolls.)

Love is for twig people and rag dolls that have gone through so much together.

That’s fate. A little kid who tosses her toys around her room, (blue and white room shaped like a globe) and then doesn’t bother to pick up the mess afterwards, so that the toys have to pick themselves up painfully and get to wherever they can before she tosses them around again.

And they end up in the strangest of places.

(Little porcelain figure in a box in the attic; little rag doll in a picture with the love.)

But now the little twig person looks like a china doll, and that hurts, because when she was a twig person you could persuade yourselves that twigs go with rags (filth and scum) but now she’s a china doll and you know that china goes with porcelain (no no Draco, china goes next to porcelain, not wood) and it hurts.

Rag dolls don’t deserve her (rag dolls with messy black hair and stupid scars)

Porcelain figures don’t deserve her either (porcelain so cold so messed up)

But porcelain and china belong together.

And looking at her now, maybe you think twigs and porcelain could have gone together too, if they’d tried. (try harder Draco, you know you can do it)

Only she didn’t want to try (little twigs scratching at him trying to break him)

And she wanted to be where she was safe

Comfortable

(because who knew what would happen if you did something against the rules for once little twigs are good little twigs who do what they’re told)

So she went in the little safe toy chest with the rag doll instead of the high dangerous shelf with the porcelain figure. Two dolls, safe in their loving cozy home, porcelain doll left high and dry on the shelf until he is shoved away in a box in the attic.

(picture doesn’t fit the frame)

But then maybe the frame was never meant to be after all (golden frame golden glowing with hope.)