Strawberries

We weren’t meant to be. It was not written in the stars, not that I had ever believed in that sort of thing anyway. Nor was it written in our hearts, both turned cold from giving too much and not getting back. We were not soul mates. Neither of us had a soul to speak of. Hers had been robbed by a memory, and I am not sure whether mine ever existed.

I couldn’t tell you what brought us together. I still don’t understand it. Maybe it began that day in the library. Somehow we ended up working side by side. Both alone. Both avoiding speaking as if we would be struck dead at the first word. She reached across the table to dip her quill in the ink pot, and the sleeve of her robe slid back. My breath caught in my throat. I saw - or thought I saw - several long scars, pale on even paler skin. I was gripping my quill so tightly I thought it might break, wanting so badly to tell her that I understood, to pull up my sleeves and compare my skin to hers. But, how could I be sure? And, after all, snakes did not talk to lions. All we gave was venom.

But, perhaps she knew. Sometimes I thought I felt her eyes on me. I would turn my head slowly, hoping to catch her, but her face was always hidden by a curtain of scarlet hair. I was sure she saw through me. She could see that I held the same darkness in me. Darkness that had nothing to do with Voldemort and curses and war. The kind of darkness that comes from having your heart ripped out of your chest and crushed. The kind that comes from living a life of silent screaming, with only a razor to soothe the pain.

I suppose all that matters is that she found me. She walked into the dark tower. She caught me so off guard that I forgot to adopt the Slytherin scowl. What she saw was a vulnerable little girl with an upturned nose and blonde ringlets. I expected her to leave, but she only closed the door and walked forward until she was only a few inches away. She pushed back the sleeves of her robe and I did the same. I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening. My eyes traveled over her arms and her gaze slid over mine, and then up to my face. I felt my skin burn and met her eyes and what I saw there made my heart flutter in my chest. I took a sharp breath and she closed the space between us and then her mouth was on mine. She was kissing me, and her lips were slightly cooler than mine, and her tongue was silky soft in my mouth and she tasted like strawberries and I felt myself shiver. She pressed herself tighter against me and my arms slid easily around her neck and my hands tangled in her long, soft hair. The scent of cinnamon would stay with me for days after. Nothing else mattered, just the feeling of her fingers tracing over my sides and her tongue sliding over my own and Gods, Draco had never made me feel like this.

We laid together on the floor, our hands intertwined between us. The only sounds were our slow steady breathing and the beating of my heart in my ears. For one moment, we just were.

She broke the serenity by rising to her feet and pulling on her clothes and reminding me that we had places to be. She was right, of course. We left separately. There was no goodbye.

I’m not going to say it was love. It was passion and lust and tenderness and knowing that we understood one another. We never expected it to last forever, or even past that night. We never spoke again, except for the occasional snide comment exchanged in crowded corridors. But I never forgot that night, how her skin looked against mine. How it felt. The heat from her body and the chill of the air and the way the moonlight made everything seem ok. Now she is gone, and her body is cold, and she and her scars have been buried. But sometimes, late at night, I can close my eyes, and taste strawberries on my lips, and feel her in my arms. And that will never die.

*~*fin*~*