Out On The Line

~

We're just good friends.

That line never worked for me.

Perhaps because no one ever asked.

No one ever even knew we could have been more than that.

Not even him.

He could have known maybe, deep down but he didn't say a word if that was true.

And I sat as the loyal and clever friend.

Never doing anything more than being a pestering know-it-all who mothered him.

Everything I said and did had to give off the impression I was satisfied with how it was.

So no one would have thought that I longed for him to compliment me, for him to ask me to the ball as more than a friend.

Occasionally I'm sure you would have seen the looks I gave him when I believed no one was looking, not even him.

But yet again I was too perfect, no one saw them at all. I didn't leave a single clue behind of my feelings.

So much so that now at our reunion no one recalls any hint of it past that awful article.

I'm sitting by him now, avoiding his eyes because I see him looking at me now.

Does he wonder what could have been?

Is he thinking the same thing?

I'd asked myself about all the what-ifs, like they might even have existed.

Will he ask me to dance tonight?

Ten years after we separated as companions, it would be ironic if he suddenly saw me for who I am. If he gazed into my eyes with intent and if he could see what I'd wanted back then.

I stand taking his hand as he greets me friendlily. He hugs me unexpectantly. And I succumb to his endeavoured embrace. He feels right. All I'd ever wanted was him to feel the same way, for we only ever shared hugs as friends.

If only such an embrace could inspire something in him.

But then that was my secret desire.

Like in the past, I would never admit it to even one portion of the world, in a subtle way.

I never let emotions slip, however much I wanted him to see the signs. I never risked it in case he saw what he'd dread.

As we danced to the moon above, silvery light cast from the enchanted ceiling showing the sky, he said nothing singly.

I pondered if this was it, his silence meaning something unknown.

Yet I dared not to look up to him. Instead I rested my head on his shoulder and let the saga carry on.

I craned my neck, to look over his shoulder, he'd grown quite a bit since when he'd started Hogwarts. Even since I'd last seen him at graduation.

By the stands stood Colin Creevey and his wife, he was for once on the other side of the camera. Colin was the bane of many students at Hogwarts, always had a knack for taking awkward pictures - good pictures yes, but compromising for those in them.

And over the other side of the room I spotted Cho Chang. I'd once thought of her as an adversary, as most boys in the school had fallen for her atleast once. The only exception to this I'd noted was Ron, who was impervious to her charms, or maybe he saw the truth that she had none for him at least.

At that I moved round to place my head on my man's other shoulder. He seemed unnerved by my avoidance of his face. I longed of course to look into his eyes, they held something special in them like everyone's did. In fact, most people who knew him believed in what they saw in there, that the eyes could be portals to the soul, an indication of a person's true spirit. I however never took much note of his eyes or what they showed despite the fact that others judged him on what they saw there, my faith in him was based on what he was like truly inside, qualities I knew he had in him.

Looking over him, away from him I recognised a pale face in the crowd, Fleur Delacour.

I nearly laughed at that. If only Viktor Krum was here, then we'd have a full reunion of the Triwizard Champions.

I was quite sure Cho might use that to her advantage if it had been so. I could imagine the blunt melodramatic cry of how the memory rose back up to haunt her. Bringing with it no doubt the condolences of the dozen or something crowd of males already surrounding her fragile form, as she would announce her melancholy after all the years still and burst into crocodile tears.

Fleur meanwhile broke in to steal the dance from me, gliding away with him and a sparkle of veela charm in her eye. Lucky for me I knew he was all too immune to her, part of the reason why I think Fleur liked to try it on. Thesedays she was an assistant at the school, which must have been why she was here. Cho and Colin too would seem out of place but for the fact that the reunion was for several years all at once.

I'd read, I think, more recently about Fleur's promotion - international correspondent between the European wizarding schools and also teaching French for those students going on exchange to Beauxbatons.

I silently watched the two gracing the halls beautiful floor with their steps. I studied his figure, I'd never considered him for much of an athlete despite his quidditch position. His structure more slight than most. His hair too was of little importance to me, nice as it was.

What was inside mattered most.

His appreciation of my being, that was what I loved dearly about him, the only slight hint that he might ever think of me that way.

From the floor I caught a glimpse of his miserable face scowling at the flirting half-veela witch. I popped a hand over my mouth to stop myself from giggling in amusement at his predicament.

I wondered if awards would be for me still, as the best witch of the class a decade ago.

I hadn't really made the most use of her life.

Even Ms. Delacour had done better than me.

Unsuccessful at inventing charms, I couldn't get the job I wanted in arithmancy, not enough experience they said.

At least not as good as my ambitious competitor who'd they'd sacked me for several years ago.

It had been my first job out of Hogwarts. I'd never found another good enough for my mind.

It was wasted on writing tasteless mindless articles on the use of dog-violet in love potions or how to make yourself alluring as a veela; that I wrote for witches weekly now.

So ashamed of the dull articles I had a writers pseudonym, only ever admitted I was a journalist, small time explained it away. Junk. All of the magazine and yet I still wrote because it paid its way and for my continued existence in my own place.

And they'd surely crown him King of something in the awards. He was like Cho and several select others, someone who'd done great things with his life, achieved something. Made a name for himself on his own merits.

He'd overcome everything from his haunted past, from the family legacy he had and now he was only himself - not merely the sum of all his genetic predecessors or ill-fated relations.

Towering over the other stars because unlike them all before, he'd succeeded totally in his field as someone legendary.

I recalled watching him on the stand at the graduation, giving the speech to everyone about how life had ended up, about what was important.

Then it had made me feel special, proud to be as he described. But now I knew I had none of that former glory.

I was a washed up witch in a dead end job, hanging onto earlier dignity and grace.

What could they possibly crown me except loser of the year.

I glanced up from my reverie to see his startling eyes boring into me, filled with a partially hidden concern. I bit my lip, afraid to look once more to him.

Why was it him I adored? The man who was so wrong for me, that was only a friend and nothing more.

I hadn't always felt like this. There had been a time when such feelings were wholly alien in concept. Yet everything had changed in my heart from fifth year and what was today had been ever since.

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