Masquerade

Masquerade

We hide behind these masks of our own making, all the while yearning to see just a glimpse of each other's faces.

She is sick to death of this.

She has told herself that she would eventually learn to deal with it, that she would get over it, that it proved that they were never meant to be in the first place. She has told herself that she had finally seen his true colours and she should be glad that it had happened before anything had really happened. She has told herself that she wouldn't want him if he broke up with her because that would make him a heart-breaker, twice over.

But in the middle of this, they are still friends. She still dreams more often than she should of a boy who has a girlfriend. And he did say it, after all, he said it right aloud and didn't even seem embarrassed or try to take it back - and he doesn't feel the same way about her, he just couldn't.

After all, she is not so innocent. The canaries and McLaggen and the moustache . . . she thought they would help to dull some of the pain, so that she wouldn't have to try so hard to not let it show, but the memory of them just make her sick.

What had changed between Herbology and the common room? She is desperate for this knowledge, more desperate for it than for who the half-blood prince was - or is. She has not forgotten the way his face looked when she mentioned the possibility of her going with someone else. It hadn't been a lie, couldn't have been a lie.

And even though she knows it isn't true, she can't help feeling that she's missed her chance completely.

***

He tells her that he reckons he lost it. She looks down and doesn't say anything at all, even though he knows that she should be hurt by his apparent carelessness. He tells himself that it was a bloody idiotic necklace anyway, and that she should have known that there wasn't a bloke at Hogwarts who would be caught dead wearing it.

Later, she moves back before he's even touched her shirt, and he knows that this is payback. Her eyes don't look any different than they usually do when they go their separate ways, still a little starry and a little empty. When she whispers "see you 'round," it still sounds more like a promise than a goodbye.

She'll bounce back. She'll find someone else, someone who wasn't all ready . . . someone who would be willing to spend all day with her. Everyone's first relationship is a disaster, right? So you can learn and chose better the next time.

He's stopped feeling the rush of triumph every time he mentions her. More often times than he'd care to admit, he's imagined what would've happened if he had gone to the party with her instead of McLaggen. But every time he does, he makes himself imagine her with Krum, and he feels a little better, though not ever for long enough.

He's got a small mark on his hand from where the canaries bit at him, and he's caught himself tracing it while she talks about the latest amazing Divination class. And all he can hear in his head is her saying, "Divination is rubbish."

***

She bumps into Harry as she leaves the Hospital Wing, unsatisfied as usual. He smiles at her, the same smile he had used when she had been completely ignored in the common room: the smile you give to someone who doesn't realise that they're being tricked. She knows what's happening, and this time she doesn't even ask him to tell him she's been there if he wakes up.

She can practically feel him slipping away from her, inch by painful inch.

She knows that the muted laughter that follows her and the silence that precedes her is never coincidental. She knows what the only pieces of gossip that she never hears say about her. She knows how she is painted: oblivious, clingy, airhead. She knows that if she only told the truth, she would not be able to refute all of those claims.

That night, she finds herself the only one awake and contemplates the girls behind the pulled curtains on either side of her. To the left: her best friend, to the right: his. Parvati has gotten very good at pretending she has no idea what's going on, almost as good as she is herself. When she tells her daily lie, Parvati's face does not wince at all. But she loves her all the more for this - and for what she heard her say to Padma when she wasn't really taking a nap.

But the other girl gives her more to mull over. He has stopped saying "But Hermione says . . ." every day, but she watches his face when she comes into the room and knows it is only a matter of time.

She is sick to death of this.