13
It's been awhile, awhile since I stayed up till the sunrise of the next day reading Draco Malfoy fanfics while having arctic monkeys playing on repeat in my knock off AirPods.
I'd be lying if I said I didnt miss those slytherin parties where all the characters were nothing like canon, Draco would never do half the stuff we made him do. Matteo who we couldn't figure out if he was tom riddles son or brother, but we all thirsted away — I miss when that was my biggest problem. On the sides on my green walls that I had painted because I yearned to be a Slytherin despite the quiz saying something completely different (cough cough Ravenclaw) I had stupid pictures of Draco Malfoy hung up staring into my soul as I could practically hear the insults that he would say to me if he were real — if any of this were real.
My google docs stay open with my shifting script opened up with my fictional name and "brightest witch of her age" "can tell the twins apart" "Hogwarts It girl" "everyone adores me" and all other sorts of self praise that I knew I was not ever going to get in real life — my parents weren't even canon, Sirius and remus how I had claimed as my parents and described them as madly involve with each other didn't even get to spend more than 8 years together.
The wattpad website open on my laptop while I was supposed to be studying for whatever grade 8 homework I had — I don't remember what the homework was but I remember the Draco x Harry fanfic I read that day — from insults that slowly started turning into confessions and potter slowly turning into harry — I don't think my souls ever felt more alive than it did when I read that.
Instead of wattpad and dracotok my time gets consumed by TikToks about jealousy and depression take over my mind and I started to lose the feeling of joy, the joy that I would get opening a corny enemies to lovers Draco Malfoy fanfic where he would do the most unlikely stuff ever but we all relished in the moment of delusion thinking something this joyous would happen to us in the coming years of the ages we were in these fanfics "y/n" being 16 was nothing like it was when I was 13.
Where was Lorenzo berkinshire even mentioned — did we care ? not a smidge. Those choppy edits of Louis partridge in Hogwarts with a photoshopped slytheirn hoodie — the edits were so bad but we it was the effort that counts — it was what we had before we had ai, sure it looked terrible but there was passion and a soul who took their time to give us these choppy but loveable edits — better than anything ai could ever give us.
Regulus black was somehow slipped in with this lot of slytheirn boys from time to time — back when it was Timothée chalamet and his curly hair, back when he was regulus — so much time has passed that I don't see pictures of Timothee as regulus black anymore — he's just a muggle now.
It was the time to be alive when my every turn was seeing the weasley twins on wattpad — and despite it being 6 years later I still have the worst crush on that damn fred weasley — so much so that I look for him in all the boyfriends, talking stages and crushes I've ever had — sometime I wonder if he's waiting for me in my DR, if he ever noticed when I stopped coming by — if he ever missed "y/n", like how I missed him — when I'd walk into candy stores and think about what the twins would like if they came to my country.
It's been so long since I've been y/n and I always cringe when I hear someone use it online and mock it myself as if I wasn't y/n once — once In a stupid enemies to lovers trope, one bed, forced proximity, rivals — being y/n was so much more than being cringey to me, and maybe I hate it because when I was y/n I was the happiest I have ever been, when I had nothing to worry about expect slowing early so I could spend more time with my s/o — I hate it because I know I'll never feel that same feeling again, the feeling of joy and excitement as I wrote and read stories about a fictional world that could exist if I convinced myself hard enough, but what hurts the most is knowing that this new generation of 13 year old won't experience what we did back in our time, they'll never know how alive dracotok could make a person or how fun it was writing your script.
Now I'm almost past all the ages y/n was but deep down I still feel her in my bones when I see a green apple, or peppermint — that she never left she just grew old like we all have. I am 500 miles from my home, it's an experience I'll never forget — but now im a muggle in the muggle world without Draco or my wand, but my life and Harry Potter books in boxes in my garage, maybe being a muggle isn't that bad — but it'll never be what we all wanted.
