At Night She Came To Me

In her arms, I found heaven.

I grazed a finger down her soft cheeks, her lips, and the contours of her face, feeling the silky smoothness of her skin on my fingertip.

I stared into her deep brown eyes, those eyes that drowned me and made me forget everything else, even what I was, and what she was. I was just a man, and she was just a woman. In that state of heart and mind, what mattered to me was that we were together.

In her presence, I found warmth—something I had not known much about, something I hardly experienced before. Now, not only did she give me warmth, but she also gave me fire. She kindled my spirit and my heart, both of which I had never thought existed any longer. Before, I thought the cold was comforting, because it had been the only comfort I had known…until she came along.

I twirled my finger around a chestnut lock of her hair, and she smiled. Her smile was beautiful and sincere. I remembered that it was her smile that started it all.

It was her smile that stirred something inside me, years ago.

The first time I saw that smile, she was in flowing periwinkle robes. And she was also on the arm of another man, but I chose to forget about that now. All I remembered was the moment she walked in the Great Hall, her hair up with a few loose tendrils framing her face. I once knew that there was something different about her, and not just her fixed teeth or straightened hair. It was the way she carried herself, it was the way she radiated pure joy in her smiles.

I could not bring myself to insult her then, as I usually did. I was too surprised at the new light in which I was seeing her. I had been captivated thenÂ…and still was.

At first I told myself that she just grew up, as I did. I berated myself, reasoned with myself with all my might. She was not for me. I was meant for someone better. Her blood did not mix with my blood. But there was a point in my life when I stopped denying and stopped fighting against it.

Maybe it was because I had been depriving myself for so long of simple joys which I deserved. All my life I tried to live up to expectations, and most of the time whatever I did was not deemed enough. My life had been planned for me before I was even born. I did not know any other kind of life, so I embraced what was taught to me by my father. As a consequence, I missed out on a lot of things that I did not know I even missed.

So I gave in.

I might be my fatherÂ’s son, but I was also a man.

And when I surrendered to her, I discovered my greatest pleasureÂ…and for the first time, my greatest happiness.

In all these years since I first saw her in a new light, I found out a lot of other wonderful things about her. Aside from her beauty, I marveled at her intelligence, her bravery, her tenderness…everything about her. I loved her with as much love a man like me could possibly give—that much was true.

And so every night she would come to me, only at night, in secret.

It would not have been this way if both of us lived in another time, in another place. If we had been any other people, it would have been perfect. But there was no perfection in this sick, sad world.

She changed who I was, but that was not enough. Sadly, no amount of magic in the world could change what we were, and where we came from.

And so we stayed this way. Every night she would come to me.

She would give me her sweet smile. She would look into my gray eyes. She would caress my blond hair. She would hold my hand.

And then every morning I would wake up.

In the morning, I would see her smile sweetlyÂ…but not at me. She would look into a pair of brown eyes. She would caress not my blond hair, but someoneÂ’s red hair. And she would also take his hand. Before my very eyes.

For years, it had been that way. At night she would come to me, and in the morning I would wake up to reality. It was a reality where she was with another man—and not just any man, but a man I truly hated—and I spent my time watching her. I derived joy and pain at the same time from doing so.

That was the vicious cycle, every single day and night.

I would never, ever let her know.

And she never had an idea, for ever since I realized I loved her, I hid under a mask of hostility greater than ever towards her, hoping against hope that I would not give myself away. I inflicted insults at her more painful than before, because I wanted her to feel the pain she unknowingly caused me—the pain of not being able to be with her, the pain that came with the realization that my heart strayed from the direction I had been born to take.

I was never really a brave man. I was scared of what I felt for her. I could not imagine how I could face all the consequences when she would find out. Not only could I not bear my fatherÂ’s wrath, but I also could not bear her suffering in my fatherÂ’s hands.

But then again, maybe I was really brave, because I could bear to live with my pain so long as I would not cost her a far more terrible and unimaginable pain than what I already had given her in all the years that I had known her.

Today was the last day we see each other as students. We were both off to the real world. I had no idea when we would see each other again.

For all I knew, we would see each other next time in a battlefield, where we would have no choice but kill each other, since we support different sides.

When we meet again, she could kill me, but she would not find her death in my hands. That was the most I could do for her. I could kill anyone from her sideÂ…but not her. I would spare her and protect her with all my power from anyone from the Dark Side. Even without her knowing it.

There were a lot of questions in my mind…why couldn’t it be, where do I go from here, why her, why me, how do I deal, and so on. But there were some things in life that were never meant to be answered. And there were some things that were better left unsaid… like ‘I love you, Hermione.’

And I did not know why. All I knew was that at least at night, in my sleep, she was mine.

I alone knew that every night, she would come to me, in my dreams.