Three Seconds From Insanity ((Danelle))

[Damara Hemingway S6]

Three deep breaths. Three breaths and all my problems are solved. Ha right. Over the years Damara had developed a very sophisticated method of cooling off. She took three deep breaths and fought off the urge that raged inside her to scream. Screaming was juvenile. Damara was an adult and she would certainly act like one even when she didn’t want to. Besides, Damara really didn’t have the time to scream or the patience to deal with the repercussions of screaming aloud in public. Really, Damara only fanaticized about screaming when she started to juggle too much in one day. And always when she did this, she thought of one person; hence the screaming. She kept herself busy to keep from thinking about him, but when she kept herself so busy his face popped in her brain telling her, actually urging her to stop. Nico had been a great boyfriend in that way. All she needed to do to calm down was be near him; his presence alone calmed her after she got over the initial reaction of her racing heart upon seeing him. He was the best thing that had ever happened to her and he was gone.

Nothing had ever been final. There wasn’t a real break-up so Damara could calm herself by thinking that they were still together, but believed it or not, it was easier thinking that they had broken up. It made things more official and Damara could live with thinking of it that way. Everything with them had been so perfect and then in two seconds, it wasn’t and neither of the two had anything to do with it. Really, from the start Damara knew the relationship was a bad idea. They were the children of rival gang leaders for god sakes! This was worse than a member dating a member from the rival gang. These two children could take over the two most powerful gangs in Europe and they were in love! Damara had spent time wanting Nico to just be a normal Gryffindor. Convincing her mother to let her date a Gryffindor could have been hard enough in itself, but Damara would have won in time. But, if Damara would have told anyone of her relationship with Nico, it would have lead to her death and Nico’s death, plain and simple.

Damara scribbled notes to her mother furiously while she tried to come up with a decent concept for her History of Magic essay. Thinking about two things at once was pretty much impossible, but Damara somehow managed it. She would have to go back and correct the grammatical errors though. Still, she pushed through. Days like today were both the best and worst days of her life. Best because she thought about the boy she loved and wanted to be near more than anything. Worst because she remembered that he was taken from her. One, two, three. Crying was another option, but that would barely help. She had shed her tears for him the day he left. She didn’t need to cry anymore, but she wanted to. Damara could picture that day clearly in her head. They were in the Room of Requirement like the always were. They needed someplace for Damara to play her piano. They were kissing on the piano bench when she walked in. Damara had always thought of the girl as a demon and that analysis had only grown worse since Angela turned her own cousin in to the gang. That was the last time Damara saw him. She didn’t know where he was or if he was alive or anything. She wouldn’t dare ask Angela, so Damara was left to wonder and think and obsess about it.

Three, two..It wasn’t working. Her precious method wasn’t working. She was going to lose it. She would lose it. Three..no. She was still panting; she was on the verge of hyperventilating. No, no, no. Damara shot up in her chair and raced from the common room leaving her books on the table. She was going to lose it. She didn’t know if she was on the verge of tears or screaming but she couldn’t hold it back anymore. His face was as clear as day in her mind. She could vividly see what the light always did to his eyes. She could clearly hear his smooth accent in his tone. This was one of the worst days because the pain of his..his everything was eating at her. She had to do something about it. Damara wasn’t a sporty girl, but oh could she run. It was a necessity for a gang member, really. She couldn’t make out shapes in front of her or sounded or even colors. She could barely see where she was, but still her feet led her. She was racing through the corridors and her mind didn’t even connect that she was on her way to the courtyard. It was nearly curfew but some time remained. Still, Damara wasn’t thinking about stupid rules. She wasn’t thinking about anything but Nico and that stung more than anything else. Damara found herself in the courtyard next to a tree. She stared at the blank wall in front of her. She held her arms to her waste as she leaned forward, gasping for air and nearly coming up empty. When she got to the point where she could breath she had to do something. “Three, two, one..” Nothing. The one thing that always cleared her head wasn’t working. He was there. Clear as day in her mind. Wait. Damara turned around. No he was here! He was in the courtyard! It was him. She knew it. She could see him. Damara closed her eyes. “Three, two..” She said in between gasps. He was still there. She closed her eyes again. “Three, two, one.” She opened them. Nothing. He was gone. Was she crazy? What just happened? She turned back to face the wall trying to understand what the hell was going on. She had to know. Damara continued her shallow breaths when she heard something behind her. Was it him again? Maybe she wasn’t crazy after all. She turned around as quickly as possible. It wasn’t Nico. It was some girl. So maybe she was crazy. Damara’s mind was spinning in twenty directions. She could barely speak. “Wh..what?” She asked sharply when she could finally manage it.

[Danelle Gregory H6]

Even though it was still rather cold out, Danelle had wanted someplace where she could write in peace. So, she had bundled herself up in about four oversized sweatshirts and her winter cloak with a blanket, and left the Hufflepuff common room to go out and sit in the courtyard. Her notebook was tucked under her arm along with a pencil, Danelle didn’t believe in using ink pens when writing. She felt that the ink made her ideas seem permanent and then when she wanted to modify them later on – no matter how little the modification was – she couldn’t get the original out of her head and therefore, the entire written piece was absolutely ruined. Pen seemed so permanent, pencil did not. Out in the courtyard, she was sitting on a bench not too far away from the door that led back into the castle, in case she wanted to escape back into the warmth. Her legs were propped up and her back against a stone fixture, her notebook resting on her legs and her pencil moving swiftly over the lined pages. Her handwriting was hard to read unless you were skilled at it. It was loopy and messy at the same time. A lot of her teachers disliked having to read her essays because her handwriting was so difficult to read, but there wasn’t really a solution around that problem was there?

It was so peaceful out in the courtyard that it wasn’t long until Danelle was lost in her writing. It wasn’t like she was writing something fantastic or amazing; it was just random stream of consciousness writing. Sometimes, though, that turned out to be her best writing. If there was anything she would publish, it would definitely be one of her stream of consciousness writings. Danelle wasn’t looking to be a novelist. She wasn’t wanting to publish a children’s series that sold internationally. She just wanted to say she had published something that meant something to her. It wouldn’t be difficult, right? Danelle had been told her entire life that writing held no future – but she was determined to prove them wrong. This is where her stubborn streak showed up with a bright light inside of her. She hated being told that she couldn’t do something, because truth be told she could do anything and everything she put her mind to. Right? Right. It was quite pathetic when a child had to reassure herself that her dreams would come true if she made the attempt to achieve them. Wasn’t that usually the parents’ job? “Yep.” Danelle sighed and erased a misspelt word.

A breeze blew by and pulled at the loose strands of Danelle’s hair, but she really didn’t care. She liked the breeze, even if it did feel like ice fingers running all over her skin. She was still all bundled up, though, and so that was little comfort. But as usual, Danelle really didn’t think about what things she should bring outside. It was a shock that she had been able to remember a couple of sweatshirts and a blanket. Thinking about remembering things she did and did not remember reminded her of E, which brought a gentle smile to her face. She probably wouldn’t be cold if he had been there, he would have given her his coat. “How sweet of him,” Danelle said to herself as she continued to write in her notebook. She hadn’t really talked that much with him, but their conversation had been friendly. They hadn’t been friends before, and that wasn’t shocking either considering Danelle was horrible at keeping friends for longer than a year or so. It was completely possible, though, that they might be friends in the future. And that made Danelle all thrumming on the inside. She loved the possibilities of new friends.

At that moment, someone burst out into the courtyard. The girl seemed quite distressed, and Danelle did not want to get in the middle of it. She figured that the girl didn’t want her in the middle of it either, but that was okay. It worked out for the both of them. Quietly, Danelle moved her feet off the bench and she set them firmly on the ground, her eyes never leaving the other girl in the courtyard. Slowly, she stood – trying not to make a noise. The girl was far enough away now that Danelle probably could leave without being noticed, but there was always something that had to go wrong. The girl turned around and then turned back to face the wall, and then turned around again. Danelle was almost near the door and was about to slip out when the girl’s voice rang clearly through the otherwise quiet air and pierced Danelle’s ear drum. Danelle frowned, taken aback by the rude tone of voice, and hugged her notebook close to her chest; “I didn’t say anything.”

|Sorry for the wait.|

[Damara Hemingway S6]

This had never happened before. Why wasn’t it working? Damara could usually hold herself together. Never before had she had to bolt like that. It was immature. It was insanity. Toughen up, Damara. She tried to tell herself. Get over it! Get over him! But he was all that she could think of. She saw him! He was there. She wasn’t crazy. He was there. She knew it in her heart and mind. She also knew that she was acting crazily. Damara had a lot of darkness and hate in her. She wasn’t a normal person. She didn’t think like a normal person hence her spur of the moment break-down. Sometimes the hate and the anger and the longing became too much. But this was bad. This was the worst it had ever been. Strange as it was, Damara was thankful this little break-down did not happen in her dorm. If Angela would have seen it, she would never have let Damara live this down. At least Damara was here where she could humiliate herself in front of a complete stranger and not a Merciano. They couldn’t know about this and the Hemingways couldn’t know about this. Damara’s family saw her as strong. She was a strong daughter, sister, and leader. She had to snap out of this. She had to get over this.

Nico had been her everything her world. So when she began this downward spiral, it was natural for her to think of him. Everything she loved about life which wasn’t much, she learned from him. He showed her that she could be happy and live a life that included more than just death. He was everything she loved and he was never coming back. Damara didn’t know what happened to him. She probably never would. They could have killed him. Her own family could have killed him. None of her family had mentioned it though so she doubted it. They that had killed a Merciano boy, the Hemingways would have advertised it around the Entourage, but Damara hadn’t heard a thing. It was almost easier thinking that he was dead. It hurt less than thinking that he had left her without so much as putting on a fight for her. That thought stung more than the rest. The pain still lived within her. Damara tried her best to numb it and it usually worked. But, not tonight. Tonight it stung worse than a thousand snake bites.

Damara reached her hand to her forehead. It was burning hot now. She wouldn’t be surprised if she stressed herself to sickness, if that was even possible. It was flaming hot but she had just been running and scaring herself silly so it wasn’t really surprising. Damara eyed the girl. She didn’t have the energy to scare the girl away nor did she really feel like it. It didn’t seem like this girl wanted to intrude. She simply wanted to get away from the very sickly looking Damara. Damara couldn’t blame her. She probably looked like some tall, crazy, lunatic right now a look that wasn’t too off from how she felt. Damara felt out of her mind. She had just seen Nico clear as day in the courtyard for God’s sake. She wouldn’t be surprised if she was shipped off to St. Mungo’s immediately for insanity and stuck in a padded white room with a straight jacket. It would probably be the best place for her. Damara shook her head. “I thought..”She said gasping between sentences. “I thought you were him.” She wasn’t thinking about her words. She was just saying them with this far-away look in her eyes. His was stamped so clearly in her mind, she wouldn’t be surprised if the girl could see him too. “But, you’re not.” She mumbled. No this girl wasn’t anywhere close to be Nico but Damara wished she was. She needed Nico more than anything right at that moment. She needed him to wrap her in his arms and sing her the lullaby he used to beg her to play for him on the piano. But he wasn’t here. Damara brushed a piece of flaming red hair from her face. She analyzed the look on her girl’s face. “I’m probably scaring you, right? That’s all I ever do.” She mumbled. Her vision was going hazy. She was more saying words than actually meaning anything by them. Or maybe, maybe she meant them more than she could realize. Maybe they were coming from her heart for once and not her mind. Maybe she was finally breaking through her icy soul. “I scare people away. I push them away. It’s better off that way.” She finally mumbled before sinking her body to the ground, nearly falling over. She eyed the ground as she just wanted to lay on it and sleep. Damara managed to stay sitting straight as she let her mind take her to Nico, forgetting everything else for a brief moment.

[Danelle Gregory H6]

Danelle tilted her head at the girl, who was obviously not in the right frame of mind. She spread her arms wide, “Well, I’m not…a him…obviously. I kind of have breasts and other womanly parts.” The comment was meant to be funny, but she doubted the girl was in the right frame of mind to even laugh at a decent joke. In fact, this girl seemed to be really out of sorts. Kind of insane. Danelle found herself wondering if she wanted to be near her when she finally cracked. After all, the Hufflepuff read enough books about murder to know that insane people probably weren’t the best people to make friends with. She bit her bottom lip and toyed with her notebook, her eyes ever leaving the red head as she seemed to break herself down even more.

“Oh…” Danelle started, protesting weakly, shaking her head, “I wouldn’t say scaring me, really. I mean, you aren’t holding an axe – so that’s a definite plus, and you aren’t cursing me with a pointy shiny stick called a wand – so I think I’m in pretty good shape.” She wondered if the girl was hearing a word she was saying or if she was just looking at Danelle as the crazy one instead. If she had heard a word the girl was saying, she didn’t let on. Danelle tucked her hair behind her ear and walked closer to the girl, just as she slumped to the ground. Oh, lovely. She set her things on the ground and sat down beside the other girl, “You are aware that you just used ‘way’ way too many times in that sentence, right?”

She didn’t know what to do in these types of situations. Hell, Danelle didn’t know what to do in any type of boy-girl trouble situations. She didn’t have a lot of girl friends to have to support and comfort in break ups or heart breaks or whatever. It was probably why she hung out with guys more than girls. They weren’t nearly as emotional and all over the place as girls were. Danelle had enough trouble dealing with her own emotions, let alone someone else’s. Besides that fact, she couldn’t even begin with the comforting because she wasn’t quite sure what to say or even what the situation was.

So, with a deep breath, Danelle took a stab: “He’s a jerk.” Hopefully, that was the right thing to say.

|Sorry for the delay and the shortness.|

[Damara Hemingway S6]

Damara had never been so venerable, so open to anyone in her life. She could use this against you. What are you doing? She urged herself. But, Damara was hardly relying on her brain for the moment. Her heart was doing all the talking. This girl wouldn’t exploit her. She was probably too busy freaking out that a Slytherin was talking to her to do anything at all. Damara wasn’t a friendly person. People didn’t want to talk to her or try. They could take one look at her and see that she could kill them in a heartbeat if she wanted to. Damara had this soulless look about her and sometimes, she was that girl. Other times, she was this girl that had been let down too many times and completely normal. First her father, of course it wasn’t his fault, but she had looked up to him more than anyone and he was gone forever. Then, Nico. He could come back. If he really wanted to, he could be with her. Damara would be too weak to dismiss him. She would kiss him in a heartbeat; tell him that she loved him. But he wasn’t going to do that and her father wasn’t going to come back either. This was one of the days that Damara was a normal girl. Too bad days were short in Damara’s mind. Her normal streak wouldn’t last very long.

Damara looked harshly at the girl. A jokester or so it seemed. Her normal streak was fading. Not quickly but she was slowly snapping out of this shell she had been placed in for the past twenty minutes. Damara raised an eyebrow. Her famous sarcasm was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t let it out. She sighed sadly. “I can see that.” She said shaking her head. “I just. I thought I saw him, but I didn’t. But I wanted to.” Yea, maybe she really was crazy. The fact that he still haunted her everyday scared the hell out of Damara. He left! He supposed to be gone from her life. But he wasn’t he would never be. The part that really made her mad was that she didn’t want him to be gone from her memories, her thoughts. She brought this on herself, really. Why did she over work herself? The voice used to sound like her father when she did that, sometimes her mother, but lately it was all Nico. She shook her head. Insanity.

Damara tilted her head to the side. Did the girl not realize that Damara could hurt her in a second if she wanted to? Too bad Damara couldn’t hurt a fly in her current puppy like state. If Damara actually knew how to tell a joke that wasn’t purely sarcasm, she might have even joined in with the girl’s witty banter, but she didn’t. “Okay so maybe I’m not scaring you but right about now you’re probably asking yourself if I’m crazy.” She said flatly. “I’m asking myself the same thing.” That would probably scare her. But, Damara was in the right mind frame to scare anyone off. Damara’s eyes snapped up at the exact moment that the girl asked if she realized she had used ‘way’ too many times. “Do you realize that one curse from this pointy shiny stick called a wand and you’d be begging for me to kill you to take away the pain?” She snapped as she pushed from the ground and regained her footing. Yep the puppy dog faze wasn’t about to last long. In fact, it was officially over. And when the girl said that he was a jerk, Damara was positively back to her old self. “Who the hell are you to call him a jerk? You have no idea what you’re talking about, the situation, or even who you’re talking about.” It wasn’t quite a blow up. Not yet at least. Damara shook her head. Her red hot anger was getting the best of her as always. She was fire or close enough anyways. “The only thing I’m crazy for is saying anything. God..” How could she have been so stupid to let herself get like that? Damara could say one simple thing about her family and everything they worked for would be ruined. “Say nothing about this to anyone.” Damara said threw her teeth. “Not that many will believe you anyways. To all the students I’m just ‘that silent, soulless Damara girl’ anyways. It will remain that way.” She said icily trying to cool off but failing. She needed a few more seconds to compose herself or blow up, either way.

[Danelle Gregory H6]

Danelle was a firm believer in stereotypes. She believed that people acted a certain way and formed their personalities a certain way so they would fit into a certain kind of group of people. Everyone just wanted to feel like they belonged, and so it was only acceptable to assume that they would change themselves or mould themselves into something that would be accepted in a specific group. She didn't see anything wrong with this theory, and therefore never tried to prove it wrong. However, unlike many people, Danelle enjoyed the challenge of being proven wrong, and therefore, when she saw the girl acting the way she was – in an almost sane 'I'm human and have a heart' kind of way – Danelle let her hopes rise to the occasion. By now, Danelle had decided that the girl was a Slytherin in her year, she recognised her from some classes. Of course, Danelle couldn't place her name –the girl wasn't important enough to Danelle for her to really learn her name. She did have a feeling that it started with a D, though, but that could be because her own name started with a D.

She listened to this girl talk, her mind working in whirs and gears. She was feeling, like a normal person, not some stone Slytherin. Perhaps that's why Danelle hadn't turned on her heel and left the Courtyard and the neurotically insane and slightly creepy girl behind her. Then again, Danelle hated seeing anyone upset anyway, and so she probably would have stayed long enough to make sure she was all right. Maybe she would prove Danelle wrong about the stereotype thing. Perhaps this girl would show her that Slytherins were ready to feel emotions and to show that they felt emotions other than hatred and malice. Of course, that was before the girl turned her charm on and basically threatened her with a curse. Great. Danelle rolled her eyes and looked down at her nails, seemingly dulled by the threat. They were all the same. It bothered her. All she was trying to do was attempt to be friendly, perhaps make the girl feel a bit better. But no. Slytherins had to be Slytherins.

Her gaze landed back on the girl and she shrugged, not saying anything yet because she had a feeling the girl wasn’t finished. She was right. Don't say anything to anyone about whatever was happening here. Danelle sighed dramatically and looked at the girl; "One: you Slytherins are all the same. Someone tries to show a bit of compassion, to show a bit of comradity, and you get all snippity. Seriously, is the word 'nice' not in your guys' dictionaries? Two: You're crying over a guy. Any guy that makes any girl cry, is a jerk. Maybe he didn't hit you, or yell at you, or hell..maybe he was the perfect guy to walk the face of this earth. But you're crying and acting quite insane because of him. Something isn't right there," she raised her eyebrows at the girl and then shrugged, "And three: I don't think any of the people I talk to are really all that interested in you, sorry to break it to you."

[Damara Hemingway S6]

Out. She had to get out now before she did anything else crazy, before she let anything else slip? What the hell was she doing? She was Damara Brianne Hemingway for Christ’s sake! She would one day run a very powerful and influential gang. This was no time to lose it. Did she really want to be sent to the nut house? Crazy Damara. Crazy. Why the hell are you acting this was? But screaming inside her head only made her more crazy, more unstable and maybe she was. But Damara had been a wreck ever since her father’s death. She was a walking, talking crazy person with a wide which made her lethal. Why did Nico do this to her? Why did merely thinking about him make her snap this way, make her lose her ever loving mind? Damara had loved and lost. It happened all the time in life, in, movies, in stories. So why did this one epic romance make the world spin, Damara’s world spin. Why couldn’t she just pick up the pieces and move on with her life? It was because Nico made up her life. After her father’s death, Damara changed. She wasn’t that sweet girl anymore; she was nothing. Nico brought life back to her and now that he was gone, so was her sanity once again. He defined who she was and he always would.

Damara wasn’t really mad at the girl. She was just an easy target. Usually Damara tried to hurt Angela, but the demon was nowhere in sight which was probably a good thing. And Damara couldn’t just walk away and hold her tongue. She didn’t have that kind of self-control and if she did, she wouldn’t be Damara. Damara fought her way through life and she would die fighting no matter how she died. She would always fight, prey on the weak, and destroy the strong. Hurt them before they hurt you. This had been her motto for years and if it changed it would be because Damara was cold and dead in a coffin. But despite all that, sometimes for a moment, her guard dropped. You could almost see her, the real Damara. But the wall went back up in five seconds and the only thing that remained was this soulless thing it front of you. And that was Damara.

Damara’s blue eyes were fixed on the girl cold as ice. She listened to her every word and then took in a deep breath. “Three seconds.” She spoke the word out loud. She literally wanted to blast this girl across the world so her little device was the only thing to save her. “Three: I will never be as weak as the idiots in my house.” So much for house pride. Damara never had it; she only had pride for the Entourage. Maybe it was weird that Damara was mocking the girl by doing her technique backwards, but counting back from three was her thing. “Two: Do you see any tears in my eyes?” Cold as ice. “One. You’re dead mud-blood. Goodbye.” And with those cruel and demonic words, Damara turned and left the courtyard with nothing but vengeance on her mind.

((Sorry for the wait and that she left. Couldn't make her stay any longer without trying to kill Danelle.. ))