The Last Waltz

The Last Waltz

Chapter 2

Of course, everything has its consequences whether good or bad, but the good ruled out the bad and I was once again thankful to you. I may have gotten detention for unprecedented punching, but I earned a time of silence and peace and on the plus side, I gained Ron back. He had avoided me for a reason which I hadn't expected. You'd think it was because he was homophobic or something, but it was something a little different. I was up in the dormitory when he came running up. When usually he would get what he wanted from his trunk or drawers and run out, this time he ran right up to me with a great big grin on his face.

"Blimey, Harry, the way you knocked Malfoy down! That was capital!"

I blinked at him. I guess you could say I was surprised.

"Look," he went on, "I'm real sorry for being an arse before. I guess I didn't like the thought of you being so in with that jerk. I mean of all the guys to choose, Harry; did it have to be him?"

I laughed, not because that was funny but because I thought that he would have said that he had been upset and couldn't understand what I might've seen in other men. The truth was, being gay was just part of the picture. The thought of it didn't surprise me, these things were trivial to me now. I was the hero of the world...who cared if I liked men. I wouldn't live long enough to fall in love anyway.

Now I had Ron on my side and I felt that same feeling that I had experienced in our fourth year, a feeling of immense relief. Ron may not know it, but he's what holds me up on the earth. He's the one that gets me to keep on fighting because of his honest loyalty. He doesn't follow me or trust me because I'm "me". He follows and trusts me because I believe the right thing and that might not seem like a good type of loyalty, but I'd say it's the most reliable for then I can trust myself to do the right thing just to keep him on my side.

Of course, thanks to you, it couldn't stay that way.

The Valentine's Ball came and the Great Hall was decked out in red, pink and white. Both him and I were going together. Can you believe it? He was helping me make a statement. Because I had learned something, the school wasn't upset with me because I was gay, but rather because I had seemingly been with you. They didn't like you, don't you see? They despised you because of who you were and what you were. I had the vaguest conception of the fact that you must have become a Death Eater by now. I ignored that conception and listened to Ron lead me into conversations with people from my house again. I was no longer shunned, I was the Harry they expected of me, and I was happy again.

Then it came, that moment. The last waltz. I have to admit to you now that I tried to run from that waltz, I tried to show people that it wasn't going to happen again. It was that moment that I began to realize how big my head had gotten. When I wasn't complaining about the attention I was getting for being Harry Potter, I was condescending the human race for the pure fact that I was Harry Potter. After that moment, I had often looked in the mirror and wondered what had happened to the modest me. I am no longer modest, but rather full of myself and it still puzzles me where such an incredible sense of selfishness had come from.

The music began and strangely enough it was the same violin concerto from the Harvest Ball. I led Ginny out proudly and she, no longer a blushing girl of thirteen to gush over me, walked at my side, laughing and joking. I swept her over the floor and she smiled as we moved to the centre of the room. I wanted everyone to see me with Ginny because that was what this was about. It was like showing the world you had quit smoking and that you were clean.

"Having fun?" I asked her.

She grinned. "Like you wouldn't believe! Where'd you learn to dance?"

You were right there, standing behind me the whole time as everyone watched the Boy Who Lived become who he was supposed to be. You just couldn't leave me alone, could you. I suppose it's my fault anyway. I had told you to expect me at the last waltz. This was the last waltz and I was the one pretending.

You tapped me on the shoulder and I knew it was you instantly. I dropped my hand from Ginny's and my other from her waist and then I turned. You were wearing green, ivy green robes and the lining was silver. The true Slytherin, as always. I backed away. I couldn't ruin this, I simply couldn't.

You smirked. "Scared, Potter?"

Those words from you have always triggered a response from me. You ask me if I'm scared and those moments a little fire of fear still stand true in my heart which makes me angry with you for knowing. You look at me and know, hahaha, he's scared. I take another step back because, don't you know, everyone's looking. I can't do this; you won't draw me in. I haven't been truly afraid of anything, but the death of the one's I have come to love, but this fear was a different fear. It was strong and solid and I knew it then. I feared your control over me now. You had me precisely where you wanted me.

You reached into your pocket and that familiar black cloth slipped out from the green with an eerie sound of silk. "I believe this is yours, isn't it?"

My hand reached for it and I didn't even intend it to. Yet the moment that my hand touched the silk, I jerked back. The feelings hit me and all came rushing back and they frightened me. I could imagine you leaning closer and covering my mouth with yours then and there was nothing I could do as the heat seemed to build in my cheeks. I had to get away from you. You had gotten me addicted and I could only hope you didn't know my now new weakness for you.

I ran.

It was the only thing I could do to stop the madness. I ran from the castle itself. I burst from the Great Hall and pushed my way through the crowd and out the double doors and into the February cold. There was snow blanketing the ground outside, but I kept running though it soaked through my clothing. When I reached the lake, I stumbled and fell to the ground on my knees. My hands clutched at the snow on the shore of the lake as it bit my hands with its icy, cruel fangs. I didn't even have time to panic nor feel relief because you were right behind me, standing and watching me hold to the ground because I was afraid of flying from the sanity of this world. Who had taught you to be cruel this way, your father? No, I couldn't see him torturing that way, unless...

"You're a coward; a spineless coward, but maybe that is why they like you as a hero. At least when you're high up, they can pull you down again when they don't need you."

I didn't turn, but merely dug my fingers further into the snow, feeling the snow melt and sting my knees as the frosty liquid seeped through my trousers. I stared out at the half frozen lake, white and blue in the black of night. Opaque and deceiving, it was, for I could have, right then, run out and fallen through. I remained stationary because I couldn't have moved if I had wanted to. I began to shiver, in spasms, and I grit my teeth together until it hurt. You watched all this, I couldn't see you, but I could feel your expression of distaste and distant pity.

"Leave me alone..." I ground out, between my teeth and the sound of your harsh laughter after that stung worse than the frost.

"Why do people always say things that they don't mean?" you asked rhetorically, then you came around and stood before me. I looked up at you, your eyes were like black holes in this dark, formed from your high cheekbones and sharp features. Now you were the demon, waiting to destroy me.

Your hand came out and touched the top of my head, fondling with my hair, twirling it in your fingers and watching it spring back in place. "I finally have you, after years of trying to puzzle you out, you're mine. What makes you think I would leave you now?"

I sat there, shocked and angry. I began to scramble up and give you what you deserved when suddenly your fingers in my hair tightened and you yanked my head back with such force that I froze again. I was now looking up at you completely, my eyes searching your black hole ones. My head hurt from the strength with which you held me in place and I was suffering from an eternal flinch.

You knelt by me, ignoring the snow, and your hand still holding my head in place. You didn't speak yet, but you leaned in close to me and your scent was all about me again. Apples and cinnamon with lemon; a fresh, but dark scent. I breathed it in as your lips brushed my cheek, I took you in as your tongue slipped out and licked my upper lip, I drank you in as you pushed me down into the snow, and I consumed you as you pressed your weight on mine, forcing me to gasp out.

"The green eyed hero is a green eyed bitch," you chuckle as you nip at my ear.

I know I murmured your name again and again, praying to you, worshipping you and those delicious hands of yours as they pressed down between my legs. I praised your soft chuckles and the feeling of your lips on my own. You slid your hands down to my trousers again and slowly pushed downwards and stroked in circles until I was moaning and nearly at the point of screaming. I leaned into your touch, pushing and pushing.

"Do you want me, Harry?" you murmur against my lips.

"Y-yes, don't stop."

"Don't stop what...this?" And you do something with your hand that makes me sob. I'm starting to cry and I am at your mercy. Your name is now written on my lips and it's the only thing I know how to say at this point so I say it over and over again with an unheard plea that makes you laugh at me. You're hateful, but I don't hate you as you lie on top of me, covering me and making me forget the cold of the snow as all I feel and know is your heat and your warmth. As I come, I can only realize one bitter sweet thing and it is that only you know what a coward this hero really is. Such that you could defeat him with one touch.

When you are done with me, you lie beside me so that your lips are near my ear and I know that you know my defeat. And you whisper to me, the same whispers that send shivers toward my spirit and make me start awake at night because your voice is the soundtrack of my dreams.

Again, it's a riddle that solves "us" but confuses me.

"Praise the wine; it's so divine.

But it stings like a rose.

Highlight of the night is the unhappy ending

You keep refusing to answer my calls.

Drop the bending and stop the pretending

We're getting ready for the last waltz."

And you leave me there, tears streaming down my cheeks, and the shivers from before returning. Ah, but I knew you were cruel and its my fault for falling weak to you. I take a moment to regain my strength, then I scramble up again. I stagger back to the castle like a drunk man, but I have only myself to blame.

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I didn't recover from that night and I don't think I shall ever because it became a repeat every night. You weren't surprised when I came back for more. You didn't say a thing in dissent when I cornered you in the hallway the next evening and began kissing you and fumbling with your clothing. You merely tilted your head to the side and watched me kiss, bite, and lick every inch of you I could get. It makes me wonder at what point did you become so feline and cunning; you had changed. You were deadly, everything about you was deadly. Even you knew you had changed for you even compared yourself to a bottle of wine. Wonderful at first, terrible the next, addicting first, then nightmarish the next; this is what you are. Then, in the end, you combine all your traits and become some addictively terrible monster with an appetite for blood and torture.

Why did I worship you so?

Each time, you were finished you would begin the incantation. I call it an incantation because I believe that you had been cursing me from the beginning, knowing you wanted to destroy me, and knowing that success was within your reach. I knew your plan, but I watched it with disinterest. I didn't know Harry Potter the hero anymore; I knew only myself and my need for you every hour, every time I awoke. You had been right, I was yours now. Now I believe that this was that promised vengeance of long ago. Why had I thought you so harmless? Something childish, something to be mocked and forgotten, and something useless forever: this is what you were to me......then.

Your incantation, I have memorized and your curse, I have accepted.

"Another you and me

Another revolutionary heavenly romance
Waiting for the last waltz

And so it seems

We won't find the solution;

Confusion leads the dance.

You're waiting for the last waltz."

I walked through the months blindly with a dizziness that I could only sense. I was dying slowly from lack of sleep, lack of emotion, and lack of everything else. During the day, I followed Ron and let him pretend that I was still the hero. Even though he and I knew that I was gone. He knew it when he looked at me, my eyes were still green but the had lost their lustre, my expression was too compliant and content. No smile, but no frown just complacency. Poor Ron; he didn't know, he couldn't have known because I didn't tell him. The teachers blamed it on my senses. Something about Voldemort being near.

It was April and my mind had become merely a navigator to find you wherever you were. At breaks, I'd find you and corner you. You'd be there waiting for me with that breathless smile of yours and your eyes glittering their brightest. Then when I'd push up against the wall and force my knee between your legs, you'd chuckle and say, "Goodness, Potter, I'm beginning to think you like me more than what's good for you."

I ignored your taunts because if I heeded them then I would deteriorate faster and I wanted to make this last for as long as possible. I filled my mind instead with only the sound of the grunts and moans you made when I went down on you. I wanted to convince myself that in some way, I had you too. It wasn't so because when it was over and I lay exhausted on the floor, you were the one who would pick yourself up and say the incantation and I'd be left waiting for the last waltz again.

Those moments afterwards when I lay there, intoxicated by you and emptied by you, were the worst. I could feel the coldness rise in my body and my scar would begin to burn and I'd curl into a ball, shaking, sweating, and muttering as the tears poured out and I choked on them. I didn't even know where I was anymore, but I knew that I was going to die that year.

Ron came to me one day. I was sitting in the common room, looking down at the homework I said that I'd be doing, but wasn't. He came up and sat across from me. Hermione had distanced herself from me and I, from her. It wasn't because she hated me now, it was just because we were not compatible anymore. Our conversations were awkward and useless, sometimes I didn't even pay attention. Plus, she couldn't take worrying about me anymore; it was too much for her. Ron and her were still close which made me grateful to him even more. So Ron spent enough time with both of us sometimes leaving me on my own which gave me that time to run after you.

So he sat across from me, eyeing me with that I-have-something-to-say look. I looked up at him and he looked down. "Harry mate?" he began then stopped and I watched him with a sidelong look.

He dithered about a bit, then he cleared his throat. I waited, nowadays I'm very good at waiting because I have nothing better to do. I wait for people to speak, I wait for myself to speak, I wait for you to be unoccupied, and I wait for those moments when you really notice me. This is what you had turned me into, satisfied?

"Harry, I don't want to sound like I know everything, because I don't. Its just...you're ill and everything and its Voldemort and his trying to get at you that's making you like this. You've stopped fighting..." he trailed off, his eyes downcast. "The thing is...you can't stop fighting because if you stop, the world stops, no, if you stop...I stop. You gave up too soon; he's closer and closer because your nightmares are getting worse. He's after you and he'll use anybody and anything to get at you. I just can't watch you give in. You're Harry Potter...the Boy Who Lived, not the Boy Who Decided It Wasn't Worth The Fight And Died Because He Gave Up!"

I stared at him. He knew, but he didn't know the half of it. I wasn't giving up, I was giving in. It was my destiny to kill or be killed so I had made my choice. Besides, what would I do once I fulfilled my destiny so early in life. I was only seventeen for bloody sake! Yet, if I went down...who else? Who else would take my place? Who could, who would be willing.....oh, so many would be willing to die for the world, and I didn't even deserve this title of hero anymore.

"What if I don't believe that I'm The Boy Who Lived?" I replied, my voice catching because it had been a while since I had spoken with any feeling.

"Then the rest of us becomes The World That Died; do you want that?"

"Oh, Ron...you haven't the vaguest conception of what you ask..."

"So what if I don't, at least you do...or so it seems. Stop lying down, Harry, like that you mean nothing! Even if Voldemort gets you, you'll mean nothing because you didn't fight him. The prophecy said that you would kill him or die trying and if the prophecy said so then that's what's got to happen!"

I stood up. "Well, if the prophecy says so...I needn't do anything!"

Then and there Ron did something surprising and he knocked me down. He was always bigger than me and taller than me so when this happened I wasn't surprised at the pain that followed with his fist. I fell and my head hit the carpet. I pulled back up, my head swirling. I felt the blood in my nose gathering and then spilling. Ron stood above me, his fist still raised, and his face red with a calm rage, even his eyes had the fire in them. I didn't even know what I was doing, I got up and swiped at him. He moved out of the way and walloped me in the chest. It knocked the wind out of me and I fell again.

I could see the other Gryffindors in the common room gathering around in amazement. Ron Weasley was beating Harry Potter up.

"Ron, what are you doing?!" Ginny screeched, but we were both in our own world as I tackled him, bowling the table over and with that several of the girls screamed. Ron and I were on the floor, a mess of legs and arms flying. I'd punch him and he'd kick at me which would send me backward. I went mad and I stopped fighting fair and I scratched, bit, and pulled and punched. Ron was almost helpless except that he caught my arms and pinned me.

We were covered in bruises, cuts, and bleeding scrapes and the fight had lasted what-ten minutes? I stared up at him, my chest heaving when suddenly he smiled at me, amusement shining in his one swelling eye and his other normal one.

"What?" I asked, still trying to get my breath back.

"Only The Boy Who Lived would fight me like that," he laughed and I froze, a little surprised. I couldn't help it, I smiled back and he let me go, helping me up. Everyone was staring at me, but I didn't care; they always stared anyway. I stood, straightening my robes and feeling...not so ill anymore. I felt like I had started breathing normally again. We made for the door through the painting hole when Hermione stepped in front. Before I could say anything, she hugged me tightly as she couldn't ever let go.

"Harry, don't let us lose you," she sobbed.

I stared at her when she let me go and I smiled again. At least, I could try...I didn't have to give in and I don't think I was alone in this anymore. I hoped I wasn't alone in this anymore. "I won't; I have a destiny to fulfill after all."