Threadbare

Eleven: Months

Harry.

Week Five.

That night you dream of the memory, like a Muggle record playing on repeat: you kissing Remus, Remus kissing back, Remus pulling away and saying we shouldn’t do this, you in a feverish whisper asking why, him saying you’re too young, you saying it doesn’t matter, age never matters, all the while trying not to remember that age once made it all the worse, as if anything could make it remotely all right—

And suddenly the memory vanishes like the weak misty Patronus you used to have before Remus taught you how to make it better. Your mind reverts to another one, a default one. Draco and you smile into each other’s eyes. It’s in the Astronomy Tower drawing room, still with chipped paint and tears in the furniture, but the surroundings don’t deserve to be considered. You’re with him; that’s what’s important.

You sit awake sweating, as if your heart was hurled down a bottomless pit and saved only by the sudden opening of your eyelids. It’s been a month, and you’ve done a fairly good job not thinking of him. He’s just there: a schoolmate, a Slytherin, an inconsequential student like the rest of them. He stays in the edges of your thought, but he has not dared to step in, and you have not let him.

The problem is that he visits you in your sleep, disturbs you with his beauty, bothers you with his pride. He feeds you the past and, hungry and yearning only to be satisfied, you let him. You let him take you in the moments you are most vulnerable.

*

Saturday thrives with homework and Quidditch practice. At dinnertime you shift your eyes from your plate to the faculty table. Remus meets your eyes, but you are far enough away not to recognize what he is trying to tell you.

It’s awkward, to say the least, because when he asked you to leave after that one kiss last night, he was staring at you with such longing that you could feel it on your skin. Neither of you has tried to talk to the other since, and you wish he would prompt something—anything—to make things all right. You’re not quite sure you have the nerve to approach him and do it yourself.

*

Flying has a way of emptying your mind so that many more things can enter it whenever you stop for a break. You are floating a hundred feet above the ground, eyes closed, breeze in your hair, and you remember that when you kissed him you didn’t feel anything but goose bumps and a quiet stir in your groin. There were no invisible hands on your skin, no hard metal digging into your wrists. There was no taste of fear on your tongue. There was no disgust shoving itself into your throat. It was so unlike that Saturday a thousand years ago and you think, maybe, Remus will save you when no one else can.

*

When you leave the locker room with the rest of the team in your wake, Remus is a shadow against the over-bright sunset, hands in his pockets, examining the grass beneath his feet. You break into a smile and tell your teammates to go ahead. You watch them go until you start feeling stupid for ignoring him. When you walk over he tilts his head up and grins as if surprised, wisps of hair falling over his eyes. The gesture is adorably childlike that you have to chuckle, belying the tremor in your chest.

“Quidditch practice again? Aren’t you wearing the team out?”

“The game is on Saturday, and we can’t risk losing.”

He rolls his eyes. “As usual.”

“Yeah.”

There is a second of pregnant silence.

And then:

“I was thinking of the other night.” Remus shrugs, looking somewhat ashamed.

“So was I,” you admit.

“Ah.”

The wind rustles the leaves, smelling of green tea and the yawning sun. You wrap your arms around yourself.

Remus says, “Harry, you and I both know that I am twenty-three years—”

“I told you, Remus, it doesn’t matter. At least not to me. But if you don’t feel that way—which I know you don’t...” You let your words trail off, remembering how he clutched onto you so tightly you felt like one body with him, how he sucked on your lips with the passion of a teenager and the hunger of—well—a wolf.

“I’m your professor,” he says, desperately trying to convince you. The hopeful glaze in his eyes tells you that he doesn’t really want to.

“And I’m your student.” It takes you two steps to be within inches of him. He smells like the wine he keeps in his sitting room, the scent just subtle enough to be sweet. You see yourself in his eyes, fringe in wet tendrils sticking to your forehead, green behind black-rimmed glasses reflecting the pink-and-orange sky, an ordinary boy who just wants someone to be with.

You don’t pause to ask yourself what he could see in you. You don’t pause for anything at all. You close the distance between you and him and it happens all over again, except this time, he forgets to stop.

*

You do homework in the common room on Tuesday night and when you are about to ask Hermione why asphodel only works when harvested in the nighttime, you realize that neither she nor Ron is anywhere in sight. You stare at their usual workplace for a while, your brow furrowed, because they’re always here Tuesday night, trying not to make sweet eyes at each other and failing miserably. But Seamus breaks your reverie when he slams a heavy book down on the table and takes Hermione’s seat.

“Hey Seamus, have you seen Ron and Herm anywhere?”

He shrugs. “They said they were going to the Owlery. I think they just wanted to have a quick snog, though.”

“Right.” Where else could they be? The library? The thought almost makes you laugh. Ron would never consent to going to the library with anyone this late on a school night. He always said it might tempt him to stay up reading, which didn’t prove to be a problem until he and Hermione got together.

They’re so lucky, you suddenly think.

Perhaps someday you and Remus...

Or perhaps not.

You go back to your homework.

*

At breakfast the next day Ron and Hermione enter the Great Hall together fashionably late, holding hands and smiling like Gryffindor just won the House Cup. You fell asleep before Ron came in last night; when you awoke early in the morning he was surprisingly motionless on his bed, his mouth hanging open from what you could only think of as exhaustion. But now, seeing them, you’re beginning to change your mind.

A treacherous voice inside you cries out in jealousy, but you want to feel happy for them so you do, standing up and giving them a huge hug to say that they have your love and full support. The traitor complains: Why are only some people lucky enough to lose their virginity to those they love? Everyone deserves the right. You think: Because I’m Harry Potter, and my very birth was a misfortune.

They’re laughing at one of Dean’s jokes and you’re laughing along.

Feels just like the old times.

*

Remus greets you with a question whether Snape treated you all right on Monday evening, and you tell him without thinking, “Last night Ron and Hermione...”

He raises his eyebrows, invites you to take a seat on the couch, and sits beside you. His hand falls close enough to yours to hold without requiring flirtation, and you do so. He hesitates before he entangles his fingers in yours.

You rub the back of his hand with your thumb. It is smooth like silk like youth like Draco’s, but you don’t remember this consciously and so you shake your head with a grin. “Everyone in the school knows. They’re all lovey-dovey. They obviously slept together last night, even if they’ll neither confirm nor deny it, and why they chose a Tuesday is far beyond me. But.”

“But?”

“The point is that I realized you’ve never told me anything. I was just wondering...”

“Of course you are. Aren’t we all?”

“So tell me about yours.” You edge closer in attempt to convince him, looking directly into his eyes because that’s always a measure of sincerity, or so you’ve heard. You are smiling stupidly but you don’t care. “Whom did you lose yours to?”

Amused, he shakes his head hastily, hair flying in all directions. It really does look good on him. “I don’t think this is the time to discuss this.”

“Why not.” You frown.

“Because, Harry, my personal life—”

“Come on, Remus, you’ve kissed me, for Merlin’s sake. Tell me.”

In the end, of course, he tells you, because you refuse to start the training session until he does. It was to Sirius at the end of sixth year. They had been a couple since October of the year before, but they waited for the right moment, and the day before summer seemed like the best one. When you ask Remus how it was, nostalgia glazes his eyes and a small smile finds its way to his face. He is silent for a few moments, as if in a trance, and you know the answer right away. He says, “It was good; it was his first time, too, and he was great about it,” but he’s trying hard to sound like an adult, even if he’s bubbling inside.

“I miss him,” you say.

He nods. “So do I.”

You bury your face in the crook of his neck and breathe him in. You think about Sirius and your father and Draco, the people you miss and used to love and maybe still do.

*

On Saturday Gryffindor wins to Hufflepuff 240-70. Remus cheers merrily in the stands. Draco is nowhere in sight.

Not that you’re trying to look for him.

~~~

Draco.

“Who won?” you greet, but Pansy says “Gryffindor” at the exact moment, rolling her eyes in exasperation. “As usual. Why didn’t you go, anyway? I thought you wanted to learn their moves.”

“Certainly, but I didn’t feel like seeing Potter’s face again. It makes me want to—” Kiss him to oblivion? Ravage him in the showers? “—kick something.”

“I know what you mean, but I still think you should’ve gone.” You watch her take off and fold up her winter clothes: cloak, scarf, jacket. She places them neatly on the couch and takes a seat beside you. Harry would never be this neat, you think, and proceed trying to eradicate him from your conscious thoughts. “I’m sure you could endure his face for an hour or two for the sake of the House. No one here is as good at remembering Quidditch tactics as you.” As she speaks she trails her fingers down to your chest, her touch so gentle you can hardly feel it. Her breath smells like today’s lunch, and the moment is so unabashedly unromantic that you want to go to the bathroom and hurl.

“Well, yes, I do have a knack for remembering play-by-plays,” you reply with a flattered grin. She smiles at you from behind her long eyelashes.

“So, Draco, I was wondering if you were dating anyone. Just curious, I suppose.”

“No, I’m not,” you force yourself to reply. For one thing, saying yes would mean gossip and consequential murder. You’d rather skip the oblique glances and the hushed whispers.

“Then I guess it will only be appropriate if I...”

Good God, you think, but by then it’s too late.

*

You cough.

She extricates her tongue from yours and furrows her brow with concern. “What’s wrong?”

The bile is rising up your throat and in the back of your mind you see salvation: a toilet bowl and an empty stomach. Your eyes water as you try to keep it down. “Pansy, I think I’m gonna be sick.” Which is true but perhaps not in the way she might think. You cough twice more for emphasis, a hand over your throat, and turn around to run to the bathroom.

*

“Since you said you had a headache,” she says, placing a tray on the nightstand, “I got you some chicken noodle soup from the kitchens.”

“Oh. Pansy... you didn’t have to.” You’re feeling much better now, admittedly because she’s no longer trying to seduce you. “But if you’ll excuse me...”

“Yes, of course. You need some rest, don’t you? I’ll leave you alone, then, but if you need anything, just wail.”

“Right. Thanks.”

She leaves.

Fragrant smoke is blowing above the soup. You stare at the bowl. The bowl that Pansy Parkinson, of all people, brought up for you.

Good God.

*

Week Six.

Your mother and I are going to Switzerland for the holidays. Would you like to come with us? If not, you’ll have to stay at Hogwarts as there will be no one to look after you at home.

You look out the window at the snow falling in small, dust-like particles on the white-powdered world below. You are stuck in an empty classroom on the sixth floor because Pansy is down at the common room and is probably waiting for you to come back from your brief trip to ‘the library.’ It’s only Wednesday afternoon and you’re supposed to be doing homework, but she just might go up to the library to look for you, and you’d really prefer to be alone right now. She’s been smothering you more than usual these days, so much that you cannot wait for the holidays to come, even if it means being one of the few lonely seventh years in Slytherin for two weeks.

No, you reply to your father’s note. You resist the urge to add something more, a pleasantry or an insult, and fasten the piece of parchment to Preston’s leg. He flies off with it into the closing day.

“Incendio,” you murmur, and Lucius’s note burns into dust.

*

“You’re not going?” she shrieks, shocked.

You find it difficult to hide the secret satisfaction in your drawl: “I’m not. Hogwarts is a fine place to spend the holidays, anyway. Wonderful here, really.”

Pansy frowns. And thinks. And frowns even more. “All right, then.” She heads for the girls’ dorms.

Nonplussed: “Where are you going?”

“Unpacking, of course. Someone’s got to stay with you for the holidays.”

It is only when she has disappeared that you realize what she meant.

Merlin.

*

After dinner a Slytherin first year approaches you and says that Snape wants to meet you in his office. The student looks both afraid and proud of himself. You forget to terrorize him, distracted with Snape’s request. There couldn’t possibly be anything wrong; life is sweet as usual, and the Incident with Harry is old news. You haven’t spoken with Snape since he told you what he knew.

Perhaps something new has transpired?

You hasten to his office. When you’re in the dungeons, standing in front of his door, your breathing is quick and there is a hodgepodge of ideas dueling in your mind. You inhale deeply and, with an anxiously tight fist, rap three times on the door. He mutters a “Come in” and you push it open.

He is busy with his paperwork, and that, at least, is a sign that this isn’t serious enough to merit a tidy desk. He asks you to sit down, and when you do he looks up at you, frowning. “Draco, I’ll make this quick. I have been informed by your teachers about your unsatisfactory performance the past weeks.”

You blink.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it?! Do you realize what a difference these weeks will make in your record? Do you not know the effects of a seemingly innocuous bout of laziness and inattention?”

“But Professor,” you begin, oddly relieved, and you want to jump up and laugh just because, “I’ve been completing all of my tasks well enough, and I—”

“The reports I have gotten clearly say that you have not. Yes, you’ve been completing your tasks, but your past assignments have been completed seemingly with the mindset of a second year. You have made it obvious, Draco, that you merely want to get your requirements over with—and I must say this attitude definitely does not live up to the expectations of the faculty. Is there anything you would like to tell me? Any problems, perhaps?”

“No,” you say immediately, and resolve to work harder. It’s embarrassing enough that the other professors are concerned; you don’t think you could live with the Head of Slytherin House’s disappointment as well. You don’t want Snape, of all people, to think you’re pathetic.

“Draco, breakups may be hard work, but—”

You gape.

“—Yes, I’ve conjectured it for some time now, seeing as you and Potter have stopped making eyes at each other—but moving on is a priority, and that includes making the best out of your education. You should be glad your father is still paying for it, might I add—”

“What father,” you interrupt without much thought.

The silence hangs precariously between you.

And since you’ve begun it anyway, you might as well continue: “My father pays for my education because he has not attained his own. That’s in Professorspeak. What I really mean is, he can very well sod off. Please don’t mention him again, Professor, and I promise to do better next term. Thank you for the concern.”

His beetle black eyes burn through yours, narrow but surprised. With a slight nod, you head out the door.

*

You, Pansy, Crabbe, and Millicent Bulstrode are the only Slytherin seventh years who aren’t going home for the holidays. Crabbe asks Bulstrode out for the Hogsmeade weekend, whereupon you promptly decide you don’t feel like going. Pansy, however, urges you to have a good time and start the holidays right, and somehow convinces you to put on your winter clothes and go out with her. The Saturday is then wasted on sweets and her quickly dulling companionship.

When the two of you return to Hogwarts a grand Christmas tree greets you in the Entrance Hall. It has fairy dust for tinsel and sleepily blinking lights and miniature fires in azure and lavender. “It’s beautiful,” Pansy says, eyes mystified and childlike, sparkling with the ornaments.

“It is.” You gaze at one small purple flame, amused at how its sky blue center looks like time and space eternal.

“Really?” Pansy asks, turning to you.

“Why not?”

Pansy shakes her head slowly, a smile spreading across her lips. “You’re not who I thought you were, Draco.”

“I never am.” You take her by the wrist and pull her toward the Great Hall before anything gets too mushy. Harry is staring in the direction of the faculty table as if listening to the their conversation, his eyes so intent you wish they were fixed on you instead. Then he turns his head to the Slytherin table and you examine your food. Pansy is speaking animatedly with Bulstrode and fails to notice the color creeping up your cheeks. You’re rather glad she doesn’t.

~~~

Harry.

Week Seven.

On Sunday morning you and Ron enter the Great Hall with sleepy smiles on your faces. Hermione is on vacation with her parents but that didn’t stop you from feasting on sweets and drinking Butterbeer until you saw yellow last night. Today is the second day of Christmas break and it feels wonderful not to be busy with schoolwork. What with your newfound diligence during the last weeks of first term, you’ve almost forgotten how it is to have no pedantic burden.

But before you reach the Gryffindor table Draco and Pansy Parkinson strut in, and before you know it Pansy has an arm akimbo and is leering down her nose at you, which is an admirable feat seeing as she’s a head shorter. “Why, look who’s here. I admit I expected to see you still here, Potter, but I wonder why Weasley’s hanging around?” She turns to Ron. “Does your family have no space to take you in, or are you here only to share a room alone with him? A bed, perhaps?”

“Pansy, maybe—” Draco begins, but Ron interrupts:

“Jealous, aren’t you? I’m only glad I don’t have to go past a pug and a gorilla—not to mention my own pig snout—to get what I want.”

“Pig snout, eh? At least I can—”

“Sod off, Parkinson.”

“Fuck you, Weasley!”

“Stop it,” you mutter to Ron before it can turn ugly.

“Pansy, let’s just go, all right?” Draco mumbles. He spares you a millisecond glance and his eyes are dark gray and unreadable. Then he wrenches her arm and drags her away to the Slytherin table.

Ron is seething, as expected. He spews a few expletives and then, “Malfoy should really teach his girlfriend how to shut up!” whereupon you look at your shoes and resume silence.

“I...” Ron starts hesitantly, but you let out a laugh that sounds as fake as it really is.

“Come on, Ron, it’s all right. We’ve been over forever.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, as if he knows you more than you know yourself.

*

“God, I missed you, why do you have to turn into an effing werewolf all the time.” You push his back to the door, trailing small kisses on his neck. Remus releases a throaty moan, out of breath all of a sudden. You smile into his skin.

“Um. So, Harry, what did you do today?” he asks innocently, pressing the backs of his ankles to the door to evade your crotch, but he only makes the situation worse for himself because you step forward and completely envelop his legs in between your own. You grind against him, surprised even at your own daring; he gasps involuntarily; he places his hands on your shoulders and begins to push you away.

“Harry, you’re such a teenager, can we please deal with this calmly...”

“Deal with what?” You raise an eyebrow, taking time to examine his flustered expression, before parting your lips and capturing his.

“With—mmph—wuth yer—ah—” He manages to pull away. “With your hormones, of course.”

You kiss him again and, struck speechless, he returns the favor. You want him so badly and you don’t know why. You are hard against his thigh and he knows it too, because while he runs his hand up your neck he is trying to shift to his left to escape. You nearly chuckle at this, a grown-up man avoiding an over-hormonal teenage boy. It sounds like a bad movie plot.

And then, in the same moment you pull away, breathless, your lips and the tip of your tongue swollen with pleasure, you realize why he wanted to adjust his position.

“My hormones?” You slide your palm down, down to the fly of his trousers, down to the embarrassing tent it has been reduced to. “Or yours?”

“Good God, Harry, I don’t feel very comfortable—”

“I’ll say.” You smirk. “Can I take your clothes off?”

He gapes, horrified.

“You don’t have to say yes...”

“Yes. Yes, Harry, I—no! I meant no! Merlin...”

You are working on his zipper, but he swats your hand away, slides across the wall, and thus extricates himself from your grasp. He walks to his couch, sits down, and begins to tap his shoes madly on the floor, obviously distressed.

You ignore your aching erection, shove your hands in your pockets, and wait.

He clears his throat. “Well. I don’t know what that was about, Harry, but—”

“Wasn’t it obvious enough what that was about?”

“Harry,” he says, meeting your eyes. “I don’t want it to be awkward between us... or... it’s just that...”

You sigh softly. You’d guessed this would happen, of course. Not that you gave yourself enough time to think. You’re not sure what came over you.

Slightly humiliated, you step back. “Do you want me to go?”

“No, no.” He shakes his head quickly. “If you want to stay, you could. We could talk. But listen to me, Harry.”

“I’m listening.”

“You’re on the rebound. You shouldn’t be making any rash decisions. You shouldn’t even be—”

“That was a month and a half ago, Remus!”

“But are you over it yet?”

You brush off his question. “I want you,” you say slowly, like a crucial argument or a secret revealed. The room is quiet for a moment, absorbing the revelation or cringing at it. Remus stops tapping his feet. The fire silences its crackling. You hold your breath. A gasp in time.

But Remus stands and says, “We should really discuss this first. You don’t even know how I feel, Harry, how could you entrust your emotions so easily?”

“I trust you,” You plead with your eyes for something you cannot recognize.

“Listen to me. Maybe... maybe we can... take things further between us. Someday. But not now.”

“Why...” you begin, but you know you have no choice.

Inside you still gapes the loss of something you could have had.

You don’t fully understand it yet.

But you trust him, and when he opens his arms, you throw yourself into them and sigh against his shoulder.

*

Remus is reading when you wake up with your head in his lap. Yawning, you sit up and languidly stretch. Your neck is sore from the elevation, but the tingles in your skin refresh you. Remus closes his book. You ask him what time it is. He checks his watch and replies: half past midnight. You yawn again, but oddly enough you don’t feel too sleepy, as if you got an entire night’s rest. You stand up, glancing thoughtfully at the fire and thinking how there is nothing of the sort at the Gryffindor dorm room. But Remus says, “You’d better get going.”

You nod. “Right. I’ll see you on Wednesday. I mean, tomorrow.”

“Yes.” He stands, walking over to the door with the businesslike strides of someone who has to get rid of something but doesn’t want to. You chuckle at his seriousness, and he offers you a smile you don’t know what to make out of. You long to touch him as you walk past; but you know you should take it slow if you decide to ‘take it’ at all, and so you manage not to give in to the temptation.

“Bye,” you call out behind you, voice lingering as if to guarantee tomorrow’s tryst.

“Bye,” he calls back, and you make your way to the Gryffindor tower, hoping that the Fat Lady doesn’t kill you when you wake her up.

She doesn’t. When you enter the common room Ron is staring at a copy of Hogwarts: A History, his face screwed up as if totally unable to understand any of the content. He takes one look at you and attempts to hide the book, but seems to think the better of it and says instead, “What were you doing out so late?”

“Just hanging out with Remus,” you answer lightly. Caught.

“Hanging out? Till midnight?” His left brow is raised in calculated interest.

You shrug.

“You don’t look very tired.”

“I never said we were training or anything.”

You blush.

Caught.

Instead of the teasing reply you expect from him, he frowns slightly and, voice careful as ever, asks: “What about Draco?”

It’s the last thing you need. You move past him without a reply and go up to the dorms. You huff to yourself as you undress for bed, wondering what’s wrong with the world. First Remus mentions Draco and now Ron does. Draco is ancient history, and you, at least, should be the one to remember him while everyone tries to help you forget, not the other way around. Is Draco that important? Was your relationship that special?

You lie between the sheets with your eyes closed, thinking about how Remus makes you feel tingly and young and new, like the Harry you were before, the Harry you were happy with. You think about how he makes you feel nothing but pleasure, and how Draco made you feel caged in your own skin.

You greet sleep once more, and dream of Remus and Ron and how they are clinging to mistakes they don’t think you can let go of.

*

Christmas Eve is the perfect day to discover that you can kill with only your wand at rapid succession. The flies drop like flies, and so do the large flesh-eating slugs Hagrid has kindly collected for you. Remus’s proud smile fails to reach his eyes, and you think he might be torn between being glad and being afraid. He can be so overprotective; you want to shake him and say that Dumbledore put you through this, and if he thinks it’s okay then it should be. But you leave Remus to his worries, glad that at least some things on earth have not yet been shot to hell.

*

You feel nothing when, on Christmas morning, you see Draco and Pansy kissing under mistletoe. But Ron takes your arm and wrenches you away.

~~~

Draco.

Week Eight.

Because Pansy has once again attempted to seduce you in the middle of your catching up with your schoolwork, and you would rather play in the snow and shun your dignity than let her continue, you find yourself in the powder-white Hogwarts lawn getting ready for the interhouse snowball fight. Slytherin-Ravenclaw against Gryffindor-Hufflepuff. Crabbe is rubbing his palms against each other, obviously excited for the barbaric match. You square your shoulders, beginning to map out the direction in which to escape.

The game begins. Ron Weasley throws a ball at terrified Slytherin Malcolm Baddock. Michael Corner gets Colin Creevey on the face. His brother Dennis dangles in the air, held up by the fat right hand of Crabbe, who is forcing snow into his mouth. Euan Abercrombie from Gryffindor pelts mud-mixed snowballs in rapid succession at Graham Pritchard.

With wide eyes you watch the disaster unfold.

You turn toward the forest. You run like the wind.

You crash violently into something and fall on your back in a puff of snow.

“Ow,” you croak, stretching your spine to feel if it’s still working.

“You should watch where you’re going,” he says, and at the first syllable you know who he is.

He stands above you, a giggle on his dry lips, his snow-stung cheeks ablush. You scowl automatically, but inside your stomach rises.

Harry offers his hand and you look at it for what seems like a full minute. You can only hope he didn’t notice; you grab it and let him help you stand up. Despite the frigid weather, his palm is warm as you remember it in the nights you spent at the Astronomy Tower, curling up together in front of the fire. His eyes are the color you have almost forgotten, green and furious and peaceful. He stands like he used to, shoves his hands in his pockets like he used to. Speaks with you like he used to. He does not look changed.

But the present is changed, and when you mirror his habit, placing your hand in your jacket pocket—the hand he held just a moment ago, tingling with his warmth—you tell him, “Merry Christmas,” and pronounce it like a goodbye.

You have said goodbye to him so many times, it seems, and it feels as much like self-torture as the first.

“Merry Christmas,” he answers smoothly, even if Christmas is over and this is clearly just an excuse for small talk. He takes his hands out of his pockets and picks up some snow from the ground, shaping it into a ball for lack of nothing to do. “What have you been up to?”

“Oh, things. School, mostly. I’m trying to catch up.” It doesn’t occur to you until it’s too late that you are admitting defeat. He’s not supposed to know how things have taken a turn for the worse since... the separation.

But then, why should it matter?

“You?”

He shrugs, still fiddling with the snow. “I’ve been training. I can... do more advanced spells now.” He doesn’t elaborate, but you think you may know what he’s learned. You’re afraid for him, all of a sudden. Because of this, you are struck inarticulate.

An awkward silence passes.

“Um,” you begin.

“Yeah,” he says, firing his snowball.

*

“Tired, hon?” Pansy greets, entering the common room from the girls’ dorms. You ignore her, continuing to stare at the fire before which your fingers are spread as if to catch the heat. Your chilled cheeks are beginning to feel like your own skin again, and you sigh in relief.

“Why don’t we go to your room,” Pansy suggests, turning on her nonexistent charm, “and let me give you a nice back rub?”

“I don’t really feel like it, Pansy. In fact, I don’t really like you, so please stop trying to flirt with me.”

She rolls her eyes and leaves. You can tell from her confident footsteps that she’s not planning to back off.

You lean back, thinking about today and how Gryffindor-Hufflepuff completely lost and how you hit Harry with two snowballs for every one he aimed at you. And how he reached out his hand when you fell, and how he looked so normal, so Harry, like nothing ever happened between you and him or him and Lucius. Harry looked like he erased the past and revised the present, and Obliviated all his memories away.

You wonder, was that how he got over his parents’ death? Cedric’s? His godfather’s? How he overcame ten years of hell and six more summers besides?

It’s his only way, you realize. He has no choice but to move on. He’s the Boy Who Lived; that’s what he does.

You wish...

But no.

You only want the best for him.

If that happens to be a life without you, then so be it.

You were never meant for each other anyway.

~

TBC.