Drowning

As I looked at him, the sunlight sliding off his eyes, making them sparkle like hidden emeralds I couldn't help the feeling like I was drawn to them. It was almost frightening, this strange power they seemed to hold over me. Their beauty, it was intoxicating, to the point where sometimes I didn't even know if I was breathing. These eyes, they embodied everything I knew, despised and yes, loved.

Love, a mere four-letter word; the word had been defiled, the filth of the world corrupting its beauty. So often, the word dropped of someone's lips without meaning. And now, they were about to spill down my own.

"I..."

I felt myself drowning again, my world a green haze. His eyes, they refused to leave mine.

Somewhere, buried beneath all this, I knew, somehow, that it was - to use a cliché - now or never. And I realized with a sinking feeling that most likely, it would be never.

My conscious thoughts started to flood my brain again and usher away the green mist. I felt my breath catch in my throat and I was vaguely afraid that I would start muttering incoherently, baring my soul to him if I so much as opened my mouth.

But the pain, the pain was the worst of all. It was an aching emptiness, like echoes resounding off empty cave walls, voicing endless need and unspeakable desires.

Joining this mixture of emotions was utter fear. The nagging feeling of loneliness, never quite there but never quite gone either. It would seem to disappear in the company of people, their chatter suffocating it. But when night fell, and I was cold, it would come and lay itself beside me again, embracing me in its icy grasp.

"Really Malfoy, I don't have all day," he remarked dryly.

Usually, I would have a barrage of sarcastic remarks to throw back into his face but today was different.

The mere mention of my name on his lips was enough to make me want to feel them with my own.

Everything had been changed in the blink of his green eyes, and I was lost.

Suddenly I had wondered, tugging my blanket around myself, how much warmer his arms would feel around me. I wondered how his body would feel, soft and warm beneath my own. And for a second, even if only a fleeting second, lost forever in time, I felt complete.

After that, I was once again left with the artificial warmth of my blanket and my eternal companion, Loneliness.

During these moments, it had seemed almost logical, to tell him what I felt. And so this moment was born, me struggling to put my feelings into words and him, staring at me with growing annoyance.

"I..."

He sighed as I repeated that same word again.

I remember countless times spiteful words had just flew from my tongue without me having even to make a conscious effort to sound hateful. And I remember his every response, laced with contempt.

At times, these responses had hurt, but I rationalized, it was better he spit insults at me than not speak to me at all.

Yes, that's how pathetic I am.

But enough of wallowing in self-pity, I set out with a mission.

I took a deep breath. Now or never, I chanted silently in my head, fighting a losing battle with my pessimistic thoughts.

"Harry, I lo..."

And then my voice was drowned in that of another's.

"Harry, let's go! I don't want to be late for class," came the voice of Hermione Granger.

"What did you say?"

I felt my façade crumble then. I had just spoken the three words I had ached to for so long and he hadn't heard them.

I looked up at him and forced myself to regain my composure. My gray eyes somehow managing to withhold the assault of tears I knew were just waiting to burst out.

"Forget it, Potter. I might as well have been speaking to a rock," I managed to blurt out though I knew my voice was shaking.

Anger flickered in his eyes as he bought into my insult.

Ignoring my glare, he turned away from me and to my utter disgust, slipped his hand into Granger's.

I closed my eyes.

I had my chance, and now, it was shattered forever.

As I myself walked away, I felt a hand slip into mine.

It wasn't the hand of any living being.

It was the hand of my best friend, Loneliness.