The Last Waltz

The Last Waltz

Chapter 1

Waltzes were never a piece of my existence. I had never seen anyone I know waltz nor had I heard of anyone I know waltzing. But of course, I didn't know how to waltz and I never even considered learning. It was to remain this way until the last year. Seventh year. Our last year and I could remember that night clearly; I can remember exactly how you looked that night.

In seventh year there were four balls which was something I hadn't known existed until that year. Come to think of it, I hadn't known a lot of things existed until that year....like your attraction toward me.

The first ball seemed to be the opening of the riddle that began "us". It was the Harvest Ball right on October thirty-first at eight o' clock. Masks were the theme and I was the walking cliché that evening. I was what everyone had expected me to be that evening. I was the phoenix with a coat tail of flame and a mask of feathers; gold and red. You-wow- you were something else. You were not what I least expected, but nor was I expecting you to look like that. An angel, that's what you were. Your mask was silver and covered half your face with its glittering beauty of feathers and glass and your dress robes were blinding white. It made you all the paler, Hermione had commented, but I thought it was so fitting, perhaps too fitting for you....

You were never an angel and never should be, I thought. Why did your wings look perfect on you? Why did that silver pure colour complement who you were? Why wasn't I staring at you with an expression of surprise like everyone else? An angel attended the harvest....and I was expecting you.

Apparently, or at least according to Dumbledore, there is a tradition at he seventh year Harvest ball. The person with the most creative costume is blindfolded and set in the centre of the Great Hall where someone who decides that they want a dance from this person has their chance only then while he or she is blindfolded. Then the blindfolded victim or winner is expected to guess the culprit before the song ends. My costume wasn't really that creative; I mean, I made it myself and designed it with Hermione's help, but....it wasn't creative. Neville could have designed it, not to be insensitive or anything, but he could have done the same job.

I saw your expression when I was picked and when they all applauded. Your eyes were narrowed and your arms crossed with a derisive leer that no angel should even think of making. A leer that said, "I knew you were going to get picked."

I went forward, my face blank and troubled thoughts racing through my mind as the blindfold was wrapped over my eyes. The last thing I saw was you across the room. You didn't know I was looking at you then and your face was blank then. You were plainly looking at me. Not love; not hate.

The music began and I stood still in the centre, my eyes covered and my palms sweaty. I could hear the whispers and the movement. That's when it hit me. Who on earth would come up? I had friends but no one worth the love interest. Ginny was in sixth year and it was seventh years only. I just couldn't bring myself to look for a date this time. So here I was alone, standing under the violin music as they stroked out a sonata together. I felt a buzzing in my ears, knowing that people were asking the same question. Who would dance with me?

Then the whispers stopped and I heard only violins. Their sharp notes cut at my ears and sent little tremors of excitement down my back. I remember shivering at the feeling, then I felt a warm hand touch mine and the whispers started again. The hand lifted my own and another came to my waist. I reached up and put my hand on the unknown figure's waist as well. It was a thin, formed waist and the fabric was nylon and silk. I would've moved to feel more, but etiquette and dignity held me back. So I let her lead. The music was quiet and almost childish and I could feel the fabric of our clothing brush and under that music and under the sensations that triggered my feet to keep moving, I could hear the surprised whispers. I knew they were surprised because they were frantic and some of them weren't even whispers. They were all so melded together that I couldn't understand a word they said, but I heard faint words like, "I didn't expect that," and "What are they playing at?"

I remained confused and as I moved around the room with the mysterious figure, I began to gain a bit of her fragrance, it was tangy and almost sweet. Apples and cinnamon with just a hint of lemon wafted its scent toward my nostrils and I was instantly addicted. I leaned in to the scent and found my cheek brushing another. A smooth cheek, with a defined jaw line. It confused me for a moment for what girl has such a strong jaw? But I remained where I was, lost in that scent of a dessert. A bit of hair tumbled down and grazed my forehead and I heard the sound of her breathing. Slow breathing with an occasional catch every time I moved.

It wasn't until another whisper joined the throng of silent sounds that I realised that my dance partner was no she. She was a he. She was you. It was surprising how well I knew your voice, how I recognised it in this intonation. Your voice is soft, bitter, and mocking as you whisper. How did I recognise it? I still don't know because you had never spoken to me that way before. Your voice was not the angel's voice, but it was beautiful as your breath invaded the spaces of my ear and sent a delicious feeling of uneasiness through my whole body. I hadn't time to react to your voice though. I was far to preoccupied with listening to what you had to say. I have always been interested in what you had to say because your opinion has always been important to me. I didn't know it, but it has. You always say what no one else dared to say to me. Me, The Boy Who Lived, only heard honest and hurting words from you. Now, you weren't hurting me. Your words were a riddle and a confusion of something which I understood in English, but not in meaning.

The words were so confusing. I still puzzle about them though I now know what you meant. The question is why you chose to say them as if reciting poetry and why you chose to say them right then.

"The first you and me
The first revolutionary heavenly romance
Waiting for the last waltz"

I said your name. I remember because it was so hard for me to say it; I nearly had to gasp your name out as we turned once more. Then you released me and your hand slipped from mine. None but you and I had heard my gasp and so the song ended and I had not guessed who it was. I no longer needed to or wanted to. I knew who you were, but I was more worried about gaining back the me that I had lost right there on the dance floor. To dance with another boy-it was stranger for me than for you, I suppose.

There was silence and I could almost touch it for it was so solid. I reached up to untie the blindfold and I pulled it off with ease, but my mask fell with it. It was the shattering of the glass that broke the silence so to speak. The glass scattered across the marble floor and people stepped back and I looked up at them. Hermione stood across from me, her hands over her mouth in a permanent position of shock and disbelief, Ron was scratching his head and blinking dumbly, and you-I couldn't find you at first. I turned around and there you were, standing at a distance back amongst your people, your costume clashing with their dark materials and black masks. You were the fallen angel just then as you stood, your arms loosely folded over your thinly rising chest. I stared straight at you and I don't know how I was looking at you. Mystified, concerned, troubled, angry, confused, and fascinated could have been any of my expressed feelings for I felt each and every one of them at the same time.

That's when you looked away. It wasn't indifference because you looked down at the floor. It was almost a concede on your behalf as you bowed that silver head of yours and your glittering grey gaze fell from my own. I felt as I you had left me alone in the shame you had caused. You had begun the waltz, but though the music had ended, you had not finished it. It was as if you had walked away just then even though you remained where you were. I felt your retreat. I didn't know what to feel whether it was anger or sadness. It was just too new for me, the feeling of your form against mine as we swirled about the room, the gazes of our entire year upon us from all houses and the only expression you could give me for that was something that resembled consent, but wasn't quite.

I left the Harvest ball.

It had been simple to walk out for what else could I do. I wasn't to remain there, suffering for you. At that point, I believed you had done this all on purpose knowing the result and relishing my moment of complete and utter shame. It was if I had done what you had for you carried on with your friends as if nothing had happened at all except, of course, Potter had made a fool of himself again. It certainly hadn't been the first time that year, but this wasn't fair! You started this! I walked past the crowd and they parted. I scoff as I write this because not many people are able to leave a room and have people part ways to make room for him. I moved through as if it were my due. I am not royalty, I am not special, and I am not different. I am treated like all these things are true because I am the one whose life is to end this year because I know that I cannot end another's. Not for morality but for sanity, I felt that I could not do it.

Hermione and Ron followed afterward and found me in the common room in the armchair by the fire. They each sat in one near me and watched me looking into the fire. I ignored them then. I was too busy with my thoughts, the guilty re-experience of what we had just done at the same time the denial of its existence.

"Harry?" Hermione whispered.

I blinked at her, letting her know that I was there and listening. This was not to be discussed; it was too weird. Even Ron, Mr. Tactless, didn't have a single stupid thing to say.

"What happened out there, mate?"

I was wrong.

"I don't really know."

But even I have my drawbacks.

I watched Hermione bite her lip pensively and look at the fire. "He's just an idiot. He was trying to make you look bad, Harry," she concluded with an air of finality.

I felt myself bristle against her and I couldn't place why at all. I mean, that's exactly what I had been thinking about you for the last while yet to hear it out loud from someone else just wasn't what I wanted. Hearing it out loud made it true and frankly, I didn't want it to be true.

"I'm going to bed, you guys," I murmured, ignoring the worried glances that they exchanged.

Well, I knew I was going to bed, but I didn't know I wasn't going to be able to sleep. It was a good thing that it was Saturday next day because I mightn't have been able to attend classes were it a school day and that would have made things worse.

The thing about what I was going through was the fact that everyone chose not to acknowledge what had happened on Halloween night and even you betrayed me to that indifference. You walked past me, spat the same insults at me and I could only look at you in disbelief as you sneered at Hermione and called her a mudblood and tripped Ron in the hall and called him, "Potter's little lapdog". I could only blink at you when you made the same old comments about my parents and their "not living" situation. Yet, you were relentless. Why? I can't suss it out because you were the same, but I wasn't. Your insults were like nothing to me; they bounced off me each time and only made me look at you and think again of that moment when your hand reached for mine and we had waltzed. We had waltzed together! Yet, your behaviour toward me was nothing compared to Ron and Hermione, my best friends, they gave me worried looks and talked about me when they didn't think I was listening. All about how I had changed since that night.

The truth is that I hadn't changed. I had been the same since last year's encounter with Voldemort. They thought it hadn't phased me but its true that I was now expected to kill him or die and the issue was the I had no desire to do either. I had become listless since then and I couldn't bear the hero that I was supposed to be not because he was awful or anything but rather because he was something I could never be again. It was that realisation that I would never be that hero which made me expected to kill or live which made me hate it. The hero which would murder to ensure the safety of the world. Save the world, Harry, they told me and I would nod with my expected grim nod. The problem was that I didn't mean that grim nod, I really wanted to shake my head slowly and say, "Get someone else to do it; I can't do it anymore." I kept on suffering for them though because that was the most heroic thing that I could do for them. It was the closest thing to becoming a hero that I would ever achieve and I knew it then. This is what had changed me on the inside, but you-you brought it out and now....they would find out. Perhaps that was the best thing for the world. Realising that they look to the wrong person for safety. Nothing, nothing but a seventeen year old boy with nothing but a past to forget and no future but darkness to face not because he chose to bear this brunt of a load, but because he was chosen. I hope they choose someone better than me, someone who still understands the world and who loves it more than I do. My love for mankind has already deteriorated.

I no longer even looked at my two best friends with the same love I once did. Don't blame me, though, I couldn't help it. I moved on, though because I'm selfish that way. I couldn't let them find out for the sake of keeping a place where I belonged and knew. I may not like the hero guise, but I was safe in it knowing that at least I could act out what they all wanted of me. Yet, behind it all there was a lingering obsession for you, wanting to know you like I hadn't before, and wanting to understand why you had chosen to do this to me.

Even though, I had chosen this path to forgetfulness and merely moving on, you were still there...being yourself and I began to despise you on a different level, one on which I couldn't understand. I wouldn't touch you though; I was afraid of what I might do when I met you alone. I would either beat the living bollocks off of you or talk to you civilly and both frightened me equally.

I made it until December and then I could hold back no longer. It had been like holding my breath in and then came the Yule Ball and I made a firm decision. It didn't take me very long to write because all I had to do was close my eyes and imagine us waltzing again and the words flowed. In the end, I was ready and I came to the conclusion that I would not leave miserable that evening nor dissatisfied with myself.

People milled about and chattered as the drinks were passed around. Now, the Great Hall was filled with people from fourth year all the way to seventh year. Ron kept bothering me because he knew that I was withdrawing again, but not this time. I was merely in thought as I watched you across the room. I was waiting for the last waltz.

The final song was announced and it was probably around one in the morning yet you continued to dance with your own. You led wonderfully and I would have only watched if it weren't for my sanity and the plan which I had concocted.

It was time.

I moved through the crowd of slow dancing students and teachers. All of them seemed only like décor as I singled you out in the crowd. You were in black robes tonight of velvet which created a pallor on you once again that reached out and plucked you from the rest of the crowd for me.

You were just about to dance with yet another Slytherin girl and I could see the anticipation with which she stared at you. Her hand clenched your lightly as you led her to the near centre. You have to be watched, you have to be noticed, and you have to be seen all the time, don't you?

I stepped right up to you bravely and you froze. You were thinking of vengeance, of fear, and of horrid things just then as I stepped up to you. I was thinking merely of the waltz.

I said your name and you looked at me, your grey eyes narrowed with suspicion. I swallowed and waited. You knew what I wanted, but it was either rejection or acceptance.

You turned to your would-be partner and apologized without batting an eye and I watched her face fall, I watched the eagerness with which she had looked at you, shatter into a horrid look aimed at me. At least I was being hated by a Slytherin for another reason other than for who tried to kill me. She turned and walked away with as much dignity as she could, yet rejection from you left people with no dignity. Rejection is your weapon forever.

I offered my hand and you looked at it with extreme disinterest. How you could manage such expression is beyond me. Yet, there you stood looking at my hand and I pulled it back. Your eyes came back to mine and the confusion settled in.

"Not this way," you murmured. I reached into your pocket and pulled out a black cloth and I handed it to you.

You stared at the small cloth and then at me. By now the people around us were watching. It took a moment for you to understand because we never understand each other and I doubt we ever will, but whenever comes the time that we do that us when evil and good become no more and we are merely two in the same existence. You put the blindfold on me, tying it around my head carefully and I felt unreal as your fingers brushed the back of my head and slid intertwined with my hair.

"You lead." your whisper was heard only by me as you leaned into me and grabbed at my right hand. You were close into me again and I held you as I might hold clay. I was ready to mould the dance this time.

I didn't mind the people around us as we began to sweep the floor. I pictured how your black cloak would mingle with my red and the colours would seem to whirl together as we turned again and again. I still didn't know how to waltz, but I had learned a little from you after the first time. I knew to turn and step back. I closed my eyes and forgot to care about everyone else. I could hear them moving to make room for our flippant swirls about the room, but I ignored the whispers that came with it. It was just you and me now. We were now "us" as we turned and turned and I only had blackness and you to cling to. I was leading the both of us and I was the blind one. It was an aesthetic irony which I could only appreciate then.

I rested my head near yours, both of us the same height, the same build as we fit together like puzzle pieces. You were warm; people expect you to be cold, but you're not. You seem to bring a warmth so unlike your personality that I can only hold onto you in this dizzy blackness.

My head was so close to your ear, I could feel it as your hair tickled the bridge of my nose. I began to whisper my little confessions, all written down somewhere in my room, but engraved in my head.

"Make me blind
Cover my eyes
You can do what you want
I'm paralysed by the perfect mood
When we're dancing with blindfolds on
You make it easy to love you and hate you
I can't explain it, I feel insecure
You say we're waiting for the last waltz"

You removed my blindfold.

I've never looked at you so closely nor you, me. Your eyes are merely irises pooled with malice which makes your eyes glitter so amazingly. It doesn't matter with which expression you look at anyone, there's still that ill will there and for some reason, I find that incredibly distracting and what's more, attractive.

I hadn't planned the kiss, it just seemed to happen as our eyes met. I don't think you expected it either and I don't know who began the kiss because we both leaned in. The waltz had stopped, but we were still dancing in our own secret. People gaped at us and shook their heads, but we missed that end of the drama; for now it was just another you and me.

That evening as I drifted off to sleep, I could only relive that kiss again and again. I could feel it as if it were happening just then over and over. Your fingers playing into my hair and your lips pressed urgently over mine, open as you slid your tongue across my lower lip and inside. I remember the sensations as I slid my hand around your neck to pull you closer in and we stood connected, heat against heat.

At that point, we forgot who we were and what we were. It was simply that kiss. At that point, I didn't even know what it meant, but it was like we had dropped everything, kissed, then picked it all back up again...at least that is how I felt about it.

I could never tell what you thought because you are outside of us. You were distant and still are. You are like someone watching from outside and describing everything you do in detail and making it so that you almost live your life, but don't really. I don't even know what I'm saying...I have to collect myself.

Once again, it was like it never happened again and I longed to speak to you, to really speak to you. People avoided me, Ron wouldn't look me in the eye, Hermione did nothing but look at me, and the teachers were cold with me, but you-you were the same. That is why I blame you. Because you made me, each time, wish it never happened and go along in the madness that made it seem like "us" didn't exist. Because of you that moment was nothing but a forgettable dream and I liked it the way we were. I liked that I passed you in the hall and you'd insult me again and take down every thread of self-respect I had. The only thing you wouldn't mention and I could see you wishing at me the same was the kiss and the waltzes. I could destroy you with something that was already destroying me. Your memory was bitter in my mouth and fresh each day as I looked at you. You were fake, cowardly and I hated you, yet to me you were also very real, brave and I...think I loved you.

The year passed into another and I kept going because this was the last year. There were people dropping like flies all around us; they were all dying and crying. Yet, there I was, I still looked at you with the same hatred and the same fascination and you knew it and you liked that I finally suffered for you. You've always been selfish that way, you couldn't take that I was just suffering, no, I had to be suffering from a wound that you were inflicting. This is what let me know that my love for you had been unrequited.

That didn't mean I would let go, however.

Valentine's Day Ball. It was like a whisper haunting the castle. Was it going to be a repeat of the Yule Ball. Even I didn't know because, you see, it all depended on you. I didn't know of course that it would in the end depend on me and there is the irony, I suppose. Because in life, it will always-in the end-depend on me.

I hadn't been spending any time with anyone not even my best friends. I had withdrawn from them for you and that's what you wanted wasn't it. Now I was alone in this fight. They were still all on my side, but at a distance because it turns out that Harry Potter is gay and well, you know, that's weird. The rumours flew and I don't understand why you didn't suffer when the mail flew in. The howlers telling you to keep your hands to yourself or the ones that asked you personal questions for everyone to hear. It was nothing, I suppose, compared to what I received from the masses. Spend your time with better things, Potter, you've got a world to save or You haven't the right to make such a choice at such a crucial time; do you realise that there are people dying because you're to consumed with your teenage hormones and even Keep your bloody hands off my son! which was really interesting because it was addressed from Mrs. Weasley.

I didn't read all of them; I hadn't the time or the presence of mind to receive anything more from people I had to look at on a daily basis. I wasn't sane anymore. I couldn't have been. You were slowly stealing my sanity and I can blame you for that because after the mail came in you changed again. It was subtle at first then you became an exhibitionist, making a fool of me. During Potions, you would turn in your seat and blow me occasional kisses and bat your eyelashes and the Slytherins would all crack up laughing. Even Snape gave a little smug smile.

Then it got worse to the point where you'd call out across the room, "Potter, tonight; same time?"

It should have made you look bad because I was the one that looked away, the one that pretended that I didn't see that malicious glint in your eyes, the one that acted like he didn't want to run up and see whether you were really all mouth and no trousers, the one that ignored the laughter and the mockery, and the one that pretended that your voice wasn't the soundtrack of his dreams every evening. I hated you for making me love you. I hated everyone for the taunting looks cast my way or the frightened, violated looks they got when I accidentally bumped into them or brushed by them. I hoped and prayed to God that it would stop and that it would all just fade away and be only a phase.

God seemed to have other plans and I suppose so did you.

It was right after a Quidditch match and I of course got the snitch. I wasn't about to lose my game over this for you had taken enough away from me to be honest with you. I had won and the crowd was cheering. I was overjoyed because for a moment they were forgetting what I had done and were remembering who I was. For once in my life I was happy that I was Harry Potter and not just some boy. I was the Boy Who Lived, that's right, worship me, I am the one who's going to save your lives in the end. I would've thanked you just then because if it weren't for you, I mightn't have learned to love the crowd as I had at that moment.

Of course, what reason had I to thank you when you did what you did just then. I had dismounted my broom and stood looking at the people as they catcalled and whistled, and as they applauded and cheered when you ran down from the crowd. I felt that sense of impending doom that one feels when a bludger is coming straight at him. I stepped back, but you ran right up to me and threw your arms around my neck, like a girl.

"Oh, Harry darling, you did it. You won it for me!"

I pulled away and stared at you. Your expression looked so real, the joy, the adoration, and they all fell for it, but me. I could see the glitter, the glitter that was always there. The iris of malice. I knew that this was all a game to you then. We were dancing together, back and forth, trying to lead each other. I wasn't paying attention to the steps though, I was just waiting, waiting for the last waltz. Yet, though I now understood you, I knew that you didn't understand me and this was something I had to rectify.

I punched you. I punched you right in the jaw. You collapsed and a cry of outrage went throughout the stands. I watched you scramble on the ground, holding your jaw, a bruise already forming. I stepped back as you looked up at me. That feigned expression of joy, of adoration had been replaced by hatred and the malice was written all over your face.

I gave you a smile which was real to the extreme and a small mock salute. "Until the last waltz then?" I said, and my smile grew wider as your expression grew darker. I have seen you this angry before but definitely not in the same circumstance. It was that day when your father had been carted off to prison because of me. Oh, you were furious and you swore your vengeance. Was this your vengeance?

I walked away without a backward glance leaving you with your hand on your jaw and malice, as always, in your eyes.