Words

Draco,

I once was told that love was a complicated thing, that love meant sacrifices, and pain, and tears. Love meant never having to lie, never having to guess, never having to feel; that love was unexplainable. What I didn't realize at the time was that love meant so much more than that. So much more than sacrifices, or pain, or tears. Love was more than never having to lie, or guess, or feel. It meant strength. And words. And heartbreak. At least, that's the less optimistic side of love.

Love to me was words. That's all it was. I knew nothing of love, or how to survive it. All I knew was that I never wanted to be in love, and for a while I thought it didn't matter. For a while I thought I would never be in love anyway, that no one in their right mind would ever be in love with me. I was deep within myself, and I didn't want to come out, nor did I plan on it. So many years I spent hidden within my shell, a fragile shell that could be broken like glass.

And eventually it was. A person I never thought could do so broke my fragile shell.

I guess you could say I never knew it was coming, but indeed I did. I knew months ahead of time that someday... someday he would lure me out of my fearful soul, and I wouldn't be able to go back in. That 'someday' came much too soon.

I've never been one to speak my thoughts, or feelings. I have never been close to much anyone, except for maybe my brothers, in which I told nothing to, not even Ron. For I knew that if I ever did, they could use it against me at any time. Tell anyone. Reveal my secrets to the world. That went for Harry, too.

I found myself staring at him so many times. His black hair was always untidy and messy, just the way I liked it. His green eyes seemed to always glitter, as if excited about something. They comforted me just by looking at them; they warmed me in a way no one else knew how to do. I never fancied him for being famous, or popular, or anything of the sort. I knew many girls did, but that didn't bother me. What bothered me is that I could never find the courage to speak to him. I wondered what a conversation with him would be like; short, to the point, useless. It was those thoughts that kept me from telling him the truth, from telling him what was really going on inside my head. But, like my brothers, I knew I couldn't. I couldn't pour myself out to him. I couldn't pour myself out to anyone.

Except for one. One person.

It will be hard for me to tell you this, to tell anyone this, but... I feel I must. I must tell someone. I can't hide it forever... and I don't want to. All I need is for you to listen this time. Just this once.

When this all started was last November, when Quidditch season had just begun. It was very early in the morning. No one was awake but myself. I love waking up first; I feel powerful, fresh, and superior. Superior to all those still asleep in their beds. It's common knowledge for me to be the first into the Great Hall, and the first out of the Great Hall.

As I walked happily along the Gryffindor table, I stopped in my tracks. Someone was awake before me. The King of the Slytherins was sitting at his House table, doing nothing, just sitting. I had no idea what he was doing, nor did I want to know. For a second I just stood there, staring at him, until he looked up at me. My eyes wandered to the floor, and slowly I sat down. The plate in front of me filled with food, but I was not hungry. Not then.

He had never done that before. He had never sat in the Great Hall with me, alone. He had never stared at me like that. I knew something was going to happen. I pushed it aside in my brain, but in the pit of my stomach... I knew. That undeniable feeling bubbled up inside of me, and I pushed my plate away. I didn't want to feel it. I didn't want to realize that he was sitting there, still staring at me.

But I did.

And he was.

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The mornings continued. I couldn't stop my routine just because of him, that would be childish and out of the question. I felt as though he were doing this on purpose; burning his eyes into me like he did. I had never looked into those eyes. Never. But I knew those eyes were looking at me all the time. And I didn't know why. Why was he doing it? Was he trying to make me crack, make me angry, make me upset? It was working. I wasn't getting angry, though, nor upset. I was getting anxious. What was he thinking about? If only I had known. He never spoke a word to me, unless it was to insult my family. What was on his mind? Why did he keep staring at me like that?

I wanted to know. I had to know. I thought of what I could do. I thought of Tom Riddle's diary, and how I could write in it with someone writing back. I wondered if he would ever write in something of the sort. I wondered...

The first Hogsmeade weekend was planned for November the 27th. I found it to be the perfect opportunity to look for something like a diary, something that I could read without him knowing... at the time I thought nothing would go wrong, nothing would happen, that he would never write in it.

But write in it he did.

It was November the 29th when I deliberately bumped into him, causing him to drop his book bag. I had expected for him to begin yelling insults at me for practically charging at him like I did, but not a single word came out of his mouth. When he did nothing, I started to pick up his things for him. He looked away for a fraction of a second, and I took the opportunity to slip the diary in. It was perfect. I handed him his book bag and off he went, not looking back.

You can only imagine how much he wrote. He filled every page with his thoughts, his dreams, his life. He was quite an amazing writer. Instead of having two diaries connected to one another, he would write in the diary, and I would hear it, like he was speaking to me. I listened to his voice everyday, stayed up every night just to see if he would talk to me more, and more. I became so entranced in his writing that I felt as if he were living in a strange, alternate universe unlike my own, even though he went to my school, and had all the same classes I had.

His voice filled me with such warmth and ease. I felt as though he were right there, whispering into my ear. Sometimes I could feel his breath in the air, but I knew it was never meant to be. I knew someday I would have to tell him.

He stopped looking at me. In the mornings in the Great Hall, he wasn't sitting there, doing nothing like he once did. He was scribbling like mad in the diary. It was so strange. He would be sitting on the other side of the Great Hall, but he was speaking to me all at once.

One morning, when he was writing, I muttered something under my breath. I don't remember what I said, but I do remember I was staring straight at him. And I do remember him stopping. He looked at his diary as if all of his writing had suddenly disappeared. He flipped through every page, a look of confusion on his face. I had no idea what was going on. Then I realized... I had spoken when he had been writing. I had never done that before. Feeling risky, I decided to say something else to see if it had the same effect.

I whispered his name. I could see his eyes widen. He closed the diary. He checked the cover, the back, and the pages once again.

That was when he looked up at me. He looked up at me, and I was looking right back at him. It was as if he knew. It was as if he knew that it was I who said his name.

His face was expressionless. Blank. Nothing. I tried to not smile, or frown, or do anything of the sort. I sat motionless at the table, my goblet frozen in my hand. It was if time was standing still. We were just... staring. Staring. And staring.

Suddenly, breaking the moment, he looked back down at the diary. And then... he smirked.

That damn smirk would be the death of me. Once again, his head swiveled up towards me, but I was already dashing out of the Great Hall. I could no longer stand to be in there. I had to get out.

He kept writing in it. And every time he did, I would say something to him. I felt I had to. It was... I don't know what it was. Something inside of me told me to do it, to make him understand that I was absorbed in him, and I couldn't let him carry on without saying anything.

I kept going into the Great Hall every morning. We seemed to have understood each other. He knew it was me, and I knew it was him. We could never be separated; the diary told us that. The diary held us together. He knew I had read his innermost thoughts, and he was okay with it. What I didn't know was that I had done what I said I would never do. I had fallen in love.

One day in December he wrote that he wanted me to meet him by the lake at midnight so we could actually talk to each other. I was skeptical about it at first. I didn't know what to say; he had lured me out of my shell; I had no choice. I told him I would, and when the clock read 11:30 I crept out of the portrait hole and ran to the lake.

It was raining. He was already there. Niether of us said a word. We didn't have to. It was a perfect night. We were wet and freezing from the rain, but we didn't care. We had found each other, and that was all that mattered. No one knew about us, and we planned to keep it at that way. Every midnight it would be the same thing. No words. No pain. No heartbreak. No tears. He was my strength, and I was his... and we planned to keep it that way.

His eyes were blue, not green like Harry's. Thinking about Harry made me want to laugh. I had had nothing but a silly crush on him, for lack of a better word. I hadn't known what love was.

Before long a month had passed. The cold and bitter winds of January didn't keep us from meeting at midnight. If we had not met, we knew the relationship would have been broken, ended. And we knew we didn't want that to happen.

One midnight changed everything. It was raining again, harder than ever. I arrived at the lake and saw that he wasn't there. I felt heartbreak already. He was always there before me. Always. Just like in the Great Hall. I knew that if he weren't there before me, he wouldn't be there at all.

I waited for at least half an hour. He didn't come. I felt the tears welling up inside my eyes, but I couldn't let them out. Love didn't mean tears. It meant never having to lie, or guess, or feel. It meant strength. But he was my strength. And without him, I had nothing. The tears let loose. I couldn't hold them in any longer. Without love I had to feel. Love did mean tears, and pain, and heartbreak.

I stopped hearing his voice. The voice that always whispered in my ear with poetry and wonderful words was gone. I wanted him to write again. I wanted him to tell me what had happened, why he wasn't there, why his voice had vanished from my soul.

I continued going to the lake at midnight, every night. He was never there. I didn't expect him to be. I would sit at the edge of the glassy surface of the lake and think about everything he had written... everything he had never said. Why hadn't we said anything? Why hadn't you said anything?

It was one afternoon that I had suddenly heard your voice.

"I'm sorry," you said. "I can't."

And that was all. Four words that cut into my soul like a knife. You wrote nothing more than that. I wanted for you to tell me everything, everything that was going on in your mind, what you thought about all of it. But I would never know.

The only place I saw you was in the Great Hall. Every morning. You had kept going, and so had I. You were staring at me like you used to, again and again. It was as if nothing had ever happened. It was as if you never had a diary, as if you never wrote beautiful words. And I, being the timid, vulnerable girl I was, never looked up at you. I couldn't do it. I knew that if I did, the tears would come out.

And... love doesn't mean tears... does it?

Sincerely yours,

Ginevra Weasley

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