A Little Fall of Rain || Fiona & Keller
This is the way the world ends: not with a bang, but a whimper. It was all Keller could think as he heard the click of his dorm room door as Fiona left, the silence falling. There had been no shouting or swearing or screaming until his lungs were hoarse: but their words had spoken loud enough. The look in her eyes as he’d told her everything – the whole truth, exactly as she’d asked – had been pure hurt. Keller had known that keeping secrets, that lying, and that avoiding that moment would take a toll, but had he anticipated this – the end of their relationship? The answer was a resounding no, and he ran a hand through his hair, feeling numb. He had not wanted things between them to fall apart, and yet, there was a tiny seed inside that was happy she was gone – merely so that he could hurt her no longer. The silence was deafening in her wake, and Keller raised his eyes from where they had fallen to the ground to see the dark outline of the door in the fading afternoon light. She was really gone. That was impossible to Keller to fathom – that she had really walked away from him, from them – even though he had been the one to instigate it. He felt hollowed out and empty; he was T.S Eliot’s Hollow Man as he stood there. Keller’s eyes fell once more, staring vacantly at the carpet, his head ringing and pounding with the silence – he couldn’t even conjure the sound of her voice to repeat her last words or their parting goodbyes. Was it really over?
He wasn’t sure what happened to him over the next hour or two, but when he next blinked, the sun had disappeared and he was kneeling on the ground. Standing, his joints stiff and cold, he walked blankly from the dorm room, hardly seeing where he was going. All he could think was that he was filled with such sharp-edged regret that he had to find Fiona – the mere thought of not seeing her anymore was making the air in his lungs run thinner and thinner until he could hardly breathe. He would, inevitably without her, revert back to the person he once had been – the one who couldn’t even contemplate what a life with another person would be like. Fiona had taught him that; she had shown him how to love, and Keller knew that his life was hollow without that. His blank walk turned into running – he ran from the Ravenclaw common room and down a dozen flights of stairs. Keller didn’t need to think about where she’d be – it was instinct to assume that Fiona would take comfort in the animals at Hagrids. The air outside was thin, but Keller threw himself into a fast run, hardly caring who he passed and who threw him an odd look – he hurtled down the slopes to Hagrid’s hut, seeing instead that the lights were off. Keller skidded to a stop at Hagrid’s door before hammering on it in desperation. “Fiona!” he yelled, hammering until the skim peeled off his fist before running around the back, searching for her pale face and bright blue eyes – but she was nowhere.
Panic the size of a wrecking ball hit Keller, and his eyes stared into the forest behind Hagrid’s hut. It was dense and dark, and just as Keller was shaking his head, thinking that Fiona wouldn’t enter there, he heard a howl – it was deep in the forest, but it made Keller reach for his wand. Without thinking twice, Keller started running into the forest, beating back branches and twigs in an effort to make as much noise as he could – he would draw Fiona to him, and if not, he draw away whatever was near her toward him. “Fiona!” he called, voice breaking with worry. “Fiona!” Keller pointed his now illuminated wand ahead of him, shining it down a rough path that he could remember Fiona showing him once in an effort to get him interested in animals. Keller couldn’t stop, his legs forcing him deeper and deeper until he didn’t remember which way he’d come, but it mattered not – he wouldn’t leave without her. His heart hammered, knowing that she was here somewhere; he could feel her. “Fiona?” he yelled, desperate. Slowing to a walk, Keller cursed and glanced around frantically, unsure which way to go, what to do, or how he would ever find her in the maze of the Forbidden Forest.
