Icy Waters - The Beach

Harry was sitting on the beach. It was the time just between sunset and total darkness, a kind of twilight, a blue that seemed to be misty. The wind was icy cold but Harry felt somehow numb to it. He was wearing a thick coat and gloves but the wind went right through them. He didn't exactly mind the cold at the moment- for once the weather was reflecting how he felt- icy, cold, cut off, and yet somehow so totally uncomplicated. A complicated simplicity. But he didn't seem to be making sense at all. Here he was telling himself that he was two things at once. He stared out at the frothy white waves rolling in unrestrained and messily over the beach. Why was he feeling this way? Over the last year everything seemed to have become more bitter for him. Somehow everything was so much deeper- seemed to cut him on a whole new level. He was confused, he didn't know exactly how he felt.

What he thought was hate was so close to love, he didn't understand. Both emotions, though considered very different produced a very similar feeling when they where this strong that they were border lining on each other. It seemed to Harry that both could easily slide into the other. Like when he had been in Dumbledore's office at the end of term, how he had been so angry at him for the exact reason he respected him. Dumbledore with his amazing power to seem so calm and light hearted. And not just seem it but be it. Harry had just wanted to try and break him. It scared Harry now to think that he had wanted to do this, because he knew that that is what probably drove Voldemort to hold resentment for him. Maybe Voldemort and Harry were just the same for that. They both couldn't control how they felt so they took there anger out on those who could.

Harry wondered how many times he would snap at people who were his friends, his role models, people he didn't even know. Maybe that was why he had come to the beach- to feel isolated from all those feelings, to try and wash them away. Maybe he had felt that if he wasn't around any one he wouldn't remember how the anger had rose in him so many times. Maybe he thought that if he were alone, he could just be. Just like he used to be. He wanted to go back to worrying about things happening around him, or to him, or what others were having done to them or doing- he didn't want to have to worry about the pain he was causing himself. When Harry finally took his gaze off the waves and up the beach he saw a tall windswept figure coming up the beach. Harry assumed it was just someone out for a walk. Although he couldn't think who for the life of them would come out in this weather. That was when he noticed that the figure seemed to be arcing towards him. When it finally came to a h! alt beside him, he saw an all too familiar face, though the expression was one that he had never seen on it before. The face wore a gentleness that was near to compassion. The eyes that were usually swelled with resentment and the generous mouth that often held a sneer were relaxed and subtle, though the eyes held gentle traces of worry in fine lines. It was Draco...