Decision Of A Lifetime

[Stefan Archer]

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With little reason left to stay, the Slytherin teen knew his only other option. Running. He'd long since looked for somewhere to go, for somewhere to be his home. For someone to look after him and be the reason he no longer had to watch every person as if they would hit him, but Hogwarts was no longer than place. He couldn't take it much longer. He'd lost every member of his family, his home, and to come back to school, and see what people were writing about him, what they thought about him, he just. He couldn't. School had been a sanctuary for him. A place to escape the hardships of his life, but ever so slightly this had changed. He'd changed. He'd gone from wanting a future, and a life to just being to see a day when clouds didn't hang over his head. For a day when he could smile and really mean it. For a day, when he wouldn't feel like he meant nothing. School had pretty much been what he'd needed before. It was the one place that had brought him happiness, but as he thought more on it, it had brought on a whole new world of pain. He wondered about where he would be without the school. Would his father have escalated in such a way, would he have seen his fifteenth birthday, would his life have taken such a turn. However, he knew without the school, he would've never felt true happiness, a perfect night's sleep, warmth and most importantly, Love. Love being the only thing keeping him at Hogwarts. Kate. Kate. Kate. The most amazing person he could've ever met, yet he was running. From her, from how he felt about her. He hardly knew what love really was. She was the only person who truly didn't make him feel weak. Who made him feel like he could do anything he wanted as long as he put his mind to it. How he felt towards her worried him more than anything. Anyone he'd ever loved had died. His mother might've died when he was young, but he would've loved her then, his father though unconventional as a father Stefan could never deny that he had loved him, and then Kate. He thought of himself as poison as the reason she didn't ever seem as happy as she could be. He blamed himself for everything that had happened to her. Even if he related in no way to it. He just knew that if he stuck around, if they tried she would either leave or she would die. He couldn't live with either. He just couldn't lose someone else. Stefan Archer was in fact cutting out the middle man, running now before it would be much too hard to leave. Even now, he couldn't quite find it in him to just walk out the front door. He knew what awaited him out in the much wider world. He knew and had lived through some of the worse horrors the world had to offer but he still felt he should go back. Hogwarts, his sanctuary had been compromised. The colourblind slytherin felt ashamed of himself, a part of his mind was cursing himself for running. For not trying hard enough when it came to the school and a better life. The other part was telling him to drop everything and just leave. The last part was telling him to run to Kate. To apologize. To tell her that he was a d1ck and hope she'd forgive him. Despite it being time one hundred of him needing her to forgive him. Stefan knew that most would've shown him the front door. That most would've let him leave the first time. But this was Kate. The girl who'd literally picked him up when he'd been thrown on the floor by his father. The only person who he'd actually told about his father beating him. The only person who'd ever seen it. He had to decide soon.

Luckily for him, the summer months had arrived, and he knew in a few days Christmas would occur. It was his first christmas without his dad. While they'd never celebrated it, and he'd never received anything for it, he felt it should hold some value. That and it was almost a year since his father had been dead. Stefan couldn't believe it. Almost a year since his already pretty bad life had turned for the worse rather than for the better. It didn't matter that he'd been free of his father, in the past year since the death of his father, he'd been technically dead for about a minute, lost his home, been in foster care and treated just as badly, run away, lived off nothing and barely managing to pull half decent grades in school. For him, nothing was going right. Marking a year since his father's death was the only way he could justify it. His dreams were still nightmares, and he couldn't ever shake off the feeling of one day becoming just like the man he hated. The man who'd not given him enough of chance. Who'd just not ever bothered to get to know him, or help him when it came to color. He'd never explained it, never apologized for it. Nothing. Although, Stefan couldn't see his father ever having been able to apologize. The man hadn't been able to look Stefan in the eyes without searing hatred. Without seeing Stefan's mother and seeing her betrayal and the cause of her death. He still somewhat believed his mother's death was his fault, though he'd only been a baby at the time. Two years old. It was why he sat in the courtyard, head in his hands trying to convince himself to make a decision. To stay or to go. It shouldn't be hard, he knew it should be simple. He had to run away from his life to be able to start afresh and just be normal. Or he had to run away from the outside world that had torn his life into so many tiny pieces he just couldn't find the right one. All in all, the different emotions he felt inside were leaving him drained on the outside. He didn't sleep well, he didn't eat well. He was so scared of what he felt for Kate, of the outside world, it just felt like he was in a room where the walls were closing in around him. The colourblind teen hadn't been able to vent his frustration. He hadn't been able to deal with the emotions he felt. He wanted to cry so badly, but he was fifteen, he was a slytherin. He could do no such thing. Yet, here he was, head in his hands, elbows propped up on his knees shaking ever so slightly despite the warmth of the night. Then all of a sudden, the flood gates open. He just started crying. Stefan having held everything in for as long as he possibly could, faced with the kind of decision a guy of his age shouldn't have to think about and finally able to let it out. He just started crying, making little to no noise as he cried. The odd sob, or sniffle. The only indication were the shaking shoulders. The way it would maybe make people think he could be laughing if only looking from afar. How wrong they would be. Soon, he'd stop himself from crying, wipe away the tears, suck it away and make a decision about his future. But, for now, he just let it all out.​

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[Sara Moon]

Sara was wrecked, she'd spent the night before studying. She'd been doing that a lot recently, so much so that she rarely saw her friends anymore. Their names whirled in her head, Willow, Stefan, Tara. She missed them, and it was her fault they'd fallen apart. She'd been so preoccupied with exams recently, but it was their O.W.L year, and everything had changeed, she couldn't be as carefree as she used to be. She missed the little girl who'd started here. She'd become more serious, more mature, and a part of her resented that. She didn't lose her temper as easily, which in part was good, but it meant she left a lot of things unsaid. Growing up had made her a coward, or so she thought.
Things were good with Kate, and her family, they talked now-things weren't the same, they never would be, but the truce-if that was the word-had really eased her parent's spirits. She put a lot of the change at Jake's feet. Liking him had changed her, they'd been dating a while now, and she thought she might love him, but she couldn't say it-again, she was just a coward. She froned at the thought. She rose from the window seat, she didn't want to stay in the common room, the colour was enveloping her, and she felt trapped. She couldn't stay there.

She almost ran from the room, and began wandering the halls aimlessly. She didn't know where she was going, and she didn't particularly care. he couldn't study, her mind was crammed with too much information. She found herself in the courtyard. There was a familiar figure, hiding his face. She walked over slowly, and a few feet away, stopped. "Stefan?" she called, he didn't look happy. "Are you okay?" she asked, stepping closer. She'd missed him, but Stefan had never been too comfortable with her hugging him. She didn't want to make him uncomfortable.
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[Stefan Archer]

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<SIZE size="50">His friends were the only people still keeping their. The people he counted as his friends. The few he would maybe trust with the information of him leaving the school. He couldn't tell Kate. He couldn't face her. He couldn't take it, the way her smile would fall, the way she'd remind him how beautiful she was. How perfect they could be together. How much he hated himself for leaving her. How she would be the one to convince him to stick around when all he could think about was leaving. When all he wanted to was leave it behind. His life had completely fallen apart, everything had crumbled. He was willing to give up the last thing that was good about his life, because he was sure it wouldn't last. Whatever he had with all those around him their and then was not what he would have in about a year. Everything could change in a matter of seconds. He knew that more than most. But, it didn't mean he didn't think about trying to make the most of what he had. Just out running the inevitable fall was what he thought he should do more than anything else. It was simple as the fact that Stefan had seen almost everything else crumble. Why wouldn't this be the same? He had few friends, he had few other things. It wasn't what he really wanted, to lose everything else that he held dear. JUst each morning he found it more and more difficult to get out of bed and face the day. It wasn't however that he had managed to sleep, or wanted to. The nightmares he had often were keeping him awake. Most mornings, Stefan Archer found himself just lying under the warm covers, curled into himself just saying that he should get up. That he should eat, that he should do something more with his day, but finding that first step of motivation was difficult. It was getting worse everyday. Hogwarts made him sluggish, it made it difficult for him to actually feel anything but an odd sorrow. He felt lost, more lost than he'd felt when not at hogwarts. When he was trying to find his way from his foster parents house to anywhere magical. It had been a trek and a half, but at least then he'd felt something more. Day after day, it was the same. This day was one of the few when he'd woken up with a determination he'd missed over the past few days. Something he'd missed. Something he thought he wouldn't get back. It was why his mind had somewhat decided to leaving. It had only been as he walked to get some food for leaving that he'd become somewhat over whelmed with different emotions. He wanted to stay for Kate, but he couldn't. He wanted to. A voice spoke, he barely heard it over the sounds he was blocking out. He looked up at the figure in front of him. Sara Moon. Now, he felt bad. Sara meant so much to him as a friend. Even though they had at times had their differences. He had always wished for someone like Sara in his life. Someone to always look out for him, in the way she had done for Kate. They just hadn’t talked in a while. For which he felt bad.


Without thinking it over, Stefan began to nod. To say, yes I'm okay. It was simple, he'd spent so much time convincing others that he was okay, that everything was fine, that he wasn't sure how to do differently. It wasn't like he had ever been okay. He'd been better, and he'd been worse. But it was always on the negative scale of things. However, Stefan knew that he would never be able convince her today. Tears were streaming down his face. It could be the one time where he'd be truly honest about it. Even looking up at Kate's sister, he could see the girl he loved in her eyes. He looked back down at his hands. Tears continuing to pour down his face as his mind shifted back to Kate. He wanted to run to her. Tell her how much he cared, how much it broke his shattered heart that he was scared to be with her. That every time he saw her, and thought of them he couldn't help but feel like no matter how hard he could try with them eventually, she would leave him. Her amazing smile, her laugh. He couldn't take letting his heart out that much for it to only be shattered later as he lost her to either someone else, or just something. He shook his head. There was no point continuing to deny that he was all right, tears were still streaming down his face. He couldn't stop them. "No" He managed to say, not bothering to even look up at Sara. He couldn't meet her eyes. He hoped that this admission wouldn't make her think less of him, in the same way that he didn't exactly want to see pity in her eyes. "I love her, but I can't lose her. I can't lose someone else." Stefan muttered quietly. Not sure what he was meant to say to Sara. The sister of the girl he loved. The sister of the girl that he was going to leave without saying goodbye to. "I'm not okay. I'm so not okay. Everything is horrible. My life is a mess, a disaster." Stefan looked up briefly, tears still staining his cheeks. The red of his eyes making the deep blue even clearer. "What did I do to deserve it? Am I really a terrible person?" Stefan looked back down at his eyes. In his mind, the words he said made him think he should stay at Hogwarts, but he didn't think he could last much longer in the school. He need air, freedom. He needed to fix his life. Put it back in an order. Get himself away from feeling horrible, like a complete failure. But, now, all he could do was let out all he'd been feeling the past few days. He had to hit more rock bottom before he could begin to stand up again.
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[Sara Moon]

Sara had been feeling helpless, lost. She'd felt that way ever since Kate's illness. Her biggest ambition in life, was to help people, to be an auror-and she couldn't even help her own sister! Looking at Stefan, she remembered how she'd failed him. When he'd needed comfort, she'd gotten angry, when she'd suspected that something was wrong-she'd been too afraid to do anything about it too afraid to think that her suspicions might be true. As he looked up at her, she filled with shame. She'd always prided herself on the fact that she cared about others. Her pride..her biggest weakness. She loved Stefan, in a purely platonic manner. He was brave, and so much stronger than he thought he was, so much more than she could ever hope to be. She sighed, and stared at the ground as hebegan to nod his head, knowing he was lying, but could she really blame him? It was all he was used to-his whole life, his whole existence had been a big lie, a big cover-up. He'd hidden it all, the abude she knew he'd endured, the pain he felt. She knew that as a rule, boys didn't usually talk about their feelings as much as girls, but Stefan...She just wished she could make him see his own worth. He was one of her closest friends, she trusted him like family, and she wished that she knew how to help. If Kate were here, she'd know what to do. She kew Stefan better than he knew himself.

Her eyebrows shot skyward as he answered her. Obviously, he knew that she wouldn't believe him if he said otherwise, but it warmed her to the core that he had finally allowed himself to feel bad, allowed himself to admit it, to acknowledge it. there was nothing wrong with what he was feeling. "I'd guessed as much." she replied, taking a seat beside him. She nodded as he spoke, knowing who he was talking about; "Stefan-you're not going to lose her." she replied simply, looking straight into his eyes; "I know Kate, and she loves you, I don't know if she knows it or not, but she does. It's like, when you're around..her whole world lights up." she added. "Stefan, I know you don't see it, but not everything is bad, not everything is false. Just because you love her, doesn't mean you'll lose her." she explained, hoping he'd see what she meant.

She nodded as he continued. He needed to get it out, and she needed to be there for him. "A disaster?" she questioned quietly. She hated herself for being absent, while he was hurting. She'd been so self-absorbed. A wave of self-loathing washed over her, as she looked up at Stefan's tearstained face. Rage filled her as he questioned her; "Stefan-you have done absolutely nothing to deserve what you've been through!" she exclaimed, standing up, bloodlust filling her, as it hadn't for months, her anger escalating. "You-you are one of the bravest, strongest people I know, and you put so much before yourself-it's unbelieveable! You care so much about your friends, you care so much-so don't dare think for one single, solitary second, that you are a bad person, or are-in any way, to blame for the bad things that have happened to you." she finished, she'd risen unconciously during her outburst, and as she realised this, she returned to her seat.

 

[Stefan Archer]

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<SIZE size="50">The last thing Stefan had ever expected was to feel so hopeless in the one place that had in the first instance given him hope. Hogwarts was the most amazing place he'd ever been to. Had the honor of being at, and yet here he was at the crossroads of his life trying to decide which path was best for him. School and no School. Stefan wasn't that great in classes. He struggled to go to most of them, it wasn't that they didn't interest him, he loved the classes but he struggled to get out of bed in the morning, it didn't mean that on most days he managed to ever be able to leave the house dorms. It was a constant challenge, one he hadn't muttered a word to, because he just couldn't. He knew people thought so little of him as it was, adding this, whatever it was wouldn't help his cause. Though Rumor has It, hadn't mentioned him much since the first time, he didn't exactly want to give them more. He didn't like being the centre of attention, and much less in the case of a magazine talking about something that was almost completely true. Something that he had so few people about because he was embarrassed. It was why he did believe he deserved most of what he got. He was an embarrassment, to the house of Slytherin, to the name Archer, to any guy. He should've been able to fight back. He should've been able to stop it from happening. He kept telling himself that he should've been able to say something. He thought of himself as a coward. How could he ever let something like that happen to him. That for the first fourteen years of his life he'd let the man who was supposedly meant to love him make him feel the worst pain imaginable. He'd made him feel so small, he didn't know why he'd bothered getting up some days. He'd always liked being around Sara. With her it was different. Easier. Sure, she was the ones who'd pressed the subject about his home life, but he saw her as just curious. He knew in the end she'd been looking out for him. He had felt terrible when he'd been horrible to her. Now, he just wondered why she even bothered to stay with him. Surely a crying teen slytherin boy wasn't a sight most would want to be associated with. Her words, You're not going to lose her, he knew they weren't true. Everyone eventually left, moved on. He hadn't spoken to Sara in a long time, in a sense he even saw this as someone else leaving. He hadn't seen Willow in a long while, and he hadn't seen James in just as long. Each person he'd once known had just left like all the rest. He was too scared of losing Kate. Of losing her when he'd finally opened up, that she'd use any information she knew on him against him. He knew he sounded ridiculous, but he couldn't shift those thoughts from his mind. Being completely open with someone, wearing his heart on his sleeve in such a fashion, he couldn't do it. At least now, he could leave without being too heartbroken about it. Though a part of him told him, if he left now, he'd probably never love anyone else. He couldn't get the courage to tell Sara about the foster family. He didn't know if she knew about his dad. He'd only told Kate. He'd only uttered the words to her. If she'd told anyone they'd never said. A part of him thought that Sara would be pleased to hear that his father was gone. He wasn't so happy about it, if he was perfectly honest.

It would take so much more than just one person to convince him of it not being his fault. He could think of no other way of explaining it. His father had to have been different at some point, so surely it was his only son's fault how things had turned out. It wasn't good to think about. Stefan didn't like thinking it, but he did. What had he done, what could he have done to make things better. What were his other options? He knew that people were trying to convince him, he knew at the very bottom of his heart that they were right, that he was not to blame, but unfortunately the negative side of Stefan was louder. It won all battles, it would always win the battles. The small voice in Stefan's head telling him he wasn't good enough, that no matter how hard he tried he'd always fail so what was the point in trying. He just let Sara vent, staying quiet as she did so. He didn't know what to say. He felt so touched by her words, it made him feel even worse about what he was thinking of doing. Leaving, when all those around him were being nothing but kind to him. "My life is still a disaster." Stefan muttered. While he mightn't be to blame for it, the truth behind his life was that it really was a little bit of a disaster. It was a mess, it was almost laughable at how little he had. How little he had to cling to. How little he had that could be classed as good. Kate, his friends. Which totaled to about three, maybe four people. That was it. "I can't see color, both my parents are dead, I don't have anywhere to go, all my belongings can fit into one bag, I can barely read, or write." Stefan said. "The only good things in my life is Kate, you and Tara." He didn't want to tell her that if it were not for them he didn't think he'd even be able to get out bed in the morning, on the few mornings he managed it. Yet, even though he only had them, he was pretty much willing to leave it all behind for just another shot. A shot at rearranging his life. In running away because he couldn't take it anymore. He needed to feel the rush he'd felt outside of school. A rush he'd never feel in school.
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[Sara Moon]

Sara glanced at Stefan. He didn't see himself clearly at all. It kille dher to know that someone she cared about was hurting so much, hurting themselves. "Stefan, I know I haven't been around much this year, and I'm so sorry but with the exams this year, I....I got sidetracked, and I'm so sorry." she apolgised, looking up into his clear blue eyes. He was convinced that they'd all leave him, and she didn't blame him-everyone else had, but she knew in her heart of hearts, that if Stefan Archer needed her, she'd drop everything, because Stefan was an honest, good, decent person, and she felt privileged to know him. It was even stronger for Kate, she loved Stefan. They were supposed to be together, everyone who knew them knew that. She was so blessed, she had a loving family a good home. She loved her life, at times, and the boredom she felt so often burned within her. Her guilt, her shame. How could she wish for more excitement, more adventure, when she should be counting her blessings. She frowned at the thought. She had always been overly critical of herself, but she'd criticised the wrong things. She atagonised herself over her looks, she'd admonished herself about her personality, thinking herself annoying, or childish, She'd never seen her pride, her arrogance, her selfishness. She had prided herself on being a good person, but was she really?

She turned to Stefan. She wished she could be more like him sometimes. Still, she didn't think she could ever be as hard on herself as he was. Sometimes, she thought he hurt himsef more, totured himself more than his father ever did. "Stefan..." Sara began, not knowing what to say. He thought his life was a disaster; "So change something. Life isn't about what you have done, it's about what you still can do." she finished, with a flinch at the cheesiness of her statement "Sorry, that was a bit........disney-ish. " she joed slightly, a smile curving her lips. The conversation turned even more somber after that. "Stefan-we've said it before-you can always stay with us, Mam and Dad would love you, and you know Kate and I would love having you around." she answered, touching his arm. She knew that he wasn't that into hugs, though she wanted nothing more than to hug him, and comfort him, but Stefan didn't really respond well to that kind of thing. She didn't know what to say when he told her that they were his life. "You think people are going to leave you, and I do know what that feels like, if not t the same extent as you. When Kate and I...fell apart, I was terrified that I'd lose you, and Tara, and Willow, but it didn't happen, because we all care about each other-Stefan, it'd take something huge for that to change." she answered, after pausing for a few moments in contemplation.