Noticed

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When all I have is on the floor,

Divided, divided.

When I'm a world away from peace,

Behind your eyes is where I know

I'll find it, I'll find it.

Cause who you are defines my dreams.

You already take me there,

You already take me there,

You already take me there,

Heaven in the here and now.

When I'm a broken hearted man,

Complacent and tired.

When I've been knocked out of the race

I've been a fool long enough

To fight it, to fight it

It's in your arms I find my peace.

- You Already Take Me There by Switchfoot

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Noticed

Part II: Obsession

He watched you as you wrote. You perplexed him because you baffled him with your bright, cheerful smile and odd habits. Slightly annoyed by you because you were a Weasley, and he was naturally annoyed at all Weasleys. But mostly, he was infatuated with you simply because you were you.

And he liked that.

And he knew that this was most certainly not acceptable. After all, you were you, and he was himself, and you and him, Weasley and Malfoy ('Malfoy and Weasley', he reflexively reworded). You were lower than him, a shame to the name of all wizards. You, and your family, were worse than the muggles.

He vaguely noted that he also didn't care.

You smiled, looking down at the book on the table in front of you. He couldn't imagine why. Every so often, you would lift your quill off the page and look at what you wrote, which was an odd tendency, he thought. Then you would dip your quill tip and the scratching noise would start up again.

It was almost as if you were having a conversation with the book. He shook his head. His fondness of you was giving him funny ideas.

Like the rest of your second-hand books, the one you were writing in was of the same quality, he noted with some satisfaction. However, you, unlike him, did not care, he observed with disappointment. How could you walk around in rags, with books that appeared to be parchments held together by Spellotape, without care, without so concern, without so much as a fleeting thought? He would have rather DIED than used your book or parchment, something so ugly and cheap as yours. To purchase something whose use had already been spent was a public showing of your lack of wealth and a disregard to your family name.

He would never admit it, but you greatly puzzled him. The way that you could disappear flawlessly in a mass of chattering students, or the way you could be soft-spoken one moment and loud and rambunctious the next. Your writing routine puzzled him. Stop, write, stop, write, again and again. And he knew you always wrote like that because he always watched you.

He always watched you. Wherever you went, he was there. He found simple, primitive joy in studying you. You fascinated him. Your copper hair shone like gold, and it fell in soft waves around your face and down your back. It moved with the lightest sigh and was carried by the smallest breeze. Your face possessed angelic features, from your warm cinnamon eyes to your long eyelashes, from your simply shaped nose to your small pink lips. Your freckles were like stars in the sky, and he would name constellations after them. The Angel, the Graces, Aphrodite, The Butterfly, and the Innocent, to name a few. You were tall for your age, with thin legs and small, sloping shoulders. You looked fragile, but strong, an interesting contradiction that he found most appeasing. You wore your heart on your face, your expressions changing with each new emotion you felt, and he found his feeling connected to yours. When you were happy, he was happier, when you were sad, he felt worse. Whatever you felt was shared with him, and he felt it distinctly stronger.

But he didn't mind; though he would always let you know, with a hefty amount of scorn, that it was all your fault.

And he would never tell you, but he was slightly jealous. Jealous of that book that held your attention when Potter could not, and jealous of the way you loyally followed Potter around like he was the sun and you were a worshipper of his radiant light. He had someone follow him like that as well, but it was not you. He wanted YOU.

He wanted you to smile at him the way that you would smile at that book.

He wanted you to look longingly at him the same way you looked longingly at Potter.

He wanted you to look at him the same way that he looked at you.

He wanted you to notice him the same way that he had noticed you.

It haunted him, the thought of something like you, so close to him but so far out of reach. It vexed him that you were the only thing that he wanted that he couldn't have. He couldn't ask his Father for you, couldn't blackmail or pay for you. He couldn't use you, couldn't discard you when these feelings passed. You couldn't be thrown away and it made you more valuable to him. You were not his, and it made him want you all the more.

And he never told anyone, but he was angry. Angry because Potter didn't notice you, and never would, no matter how long you hung around him, or better said, followed him around like a faithful dog. He was angry because you didn't notice him, and would never notice him like he noticed you. He was angry because he noticed you in such a way in which he couldn't stop himself - his eyes were drawn to you as if they were connected. Nothing you did ever seemed to escape his gaze. He was angry with himself because he no matter how much he had told himself that he would not look, he would - a sneaky, sinful glimpse - and find himself drawn into your innocence. And he was angry because he didn't want to stop noticing you.

He could have had you. You could have been his, but he was proud. He didn't, and would never, associate himself with a younger student, even one as pretty as you were, regardless much he liked you. Even though it was only a year, the year difference signified that he was higher than you, a fact that he savored like a Chocolate Frog. And he would never, ever, treat a Weasley civilly. Speaking to one in tones that did not suggest that he was immensely annoyed and disgusted with the likes of you would be shame upon shame over his head.

He liked you, just not who you were. He liked you, just not your heritage that was clearly displayed in your red hair and freckled skin. His only hope was that one-day, you would be just as infatuated with him as he was with you, just as jealous of his objects of affection as he was with yours. He vowed that he would not stop until you were.

He tried to concentrate on his essay, but he couldn't. There were too many distractions around the library, and in his head. Vaguely, he could hear the scratching of quill to parchment.

Mostly, you distracted him. He didn't like it, but he did.

Your bright copper hair caught his eye whereever you went, and your twinkling eyes snagged his like a fish snags onto a worm. Your laughing voice, always happy, was angelic music to his ears. He would fantasize about a time when all you would notice is him, all you would see was him, and all you would think about was him.

Unknowingly, you were his dream.

To you, he was your nightmare.