scorched | [ o15 - broadcast mind ]

All children, except one, grow up.

You smile eagerly as your Dad starts reading you your favorite bedtime story. Petunia has never enjoyed this story. She would snub the idea of staying a child forever. To her, becoming older means that she will be given more privileges. When you’re a child, you want to do everything that you can’t then.

As always, Dad can tell when you are tired, and he says he will continue the story tomorrow night. You try to protest, to tell him you can stay awake till the end. He smiles and kisses your forehead, and bids you goodnight. He walks over to Petunia’s bed and kisses her on the forehead and tells her goodnight as well. He turns off the lights and closes the door behind him as he exits.

You can hear Petunia shuffling under the covers. “Don’t see why anyone would want to stay a child forever.”

“Because it’s fun,” You respond immediately. You know she is silently judging you. You squirm under your covers, slightly embarrassed.

Even though it’s dark, you know Petunia is making a face. “It’s fun being told you can never do things because you’re too young?”

“Well, not that part,” You say as you turn to look over at her even though you can’t see her. “But, you get to go on adventures,” your voice ends up a soft whisper.

“Those things don’t really happen. There aren’t any fairies.”

“Even so, you get to go out and go on adventures. When you’re older you don’t get to do that,” you say softly.

“So you want to be like him? Never grow up?” asked Petunia.

You wonder why people think remaining a child is a bad thing. Your cheeks turn red and you say, “You make it sound like it’s a terrible thing.” Are you wrong in thinking being a child forever would be great?

You start to go on adventures, pretending that you are The Boy Who Never Grew Up. Having several adventures and trying so hard to get your sister to join you.

You don’t realize it, but a new adventure comes to you when you turn eleven. You learn about a whole new world waiting for you. There are spells, and monsters, and all sorts of dangerous things that you could never imagine. But to see these new things, you can’t be a child anymore.

It’s not until seventh year when you think about that favorite book that you always loved to listen to. You find it in the bottom of your trunk, and you start to read it, and rediscover another part of you.

That was the last time the girl ever saw him. For a little longer she tried for his sake not to have growing pains; and she felt she was untrue to him when she got a prize for general knowledge. But the years came and went without bringing the careless boy; and when they met again she was a married woman, and he was no more to her than a little dust in the box in which she had kept her toys. She was grown up. You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow up. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than other girls.

You close the book; a fond smile appears on your face. You get up from the bed, and place the book on top of your nightstand, right next to your Head Girl badge. You grab the Head Girl badge and pin it on your Hogwarts uniform.

All this time, you wanted to be the boy that never grew up. When actually, you are the girl that grows up to be a woman. If you hadn’t grown up, you would’ve missed out on this wonderful adventure.

You walk out of the girls’ dormitory and enter the common room. You greet a couple of your fellow Gryffindors before you head out of the portrait hole and head down to The Great Hall.

[ooc: To avoid fourth-walling, the book is Peter Pan but going to refer to it as The Boy Who Never Grew Up. And that was one of the titles it was given when it debuted in 1904. And this is pretty much all head-canon except for the part of her being Head Girl obviously. I was going to do another idea for the Broadcast Mind but I want to wait for Merry to come back for that one.]