Empty Eyes

His eyes...they're so cold. Even when he smiles, and he doesn't do it very often for a sixteen year-old, hormone driven, male teenager, they don't flicker. No glimmer or happiness. It's like some roving hunger swept through and took away everything behind them. They're void now. I used to associate them with warmth; pine green. The green of Christmas mornings when you wake up snuggled beneath the covers and you see the soft branches laden with snow around the window and you know there's another tree downstairs waiting for you, also laden, though not with cold. The green of summer afternoons and lazy days when sticky sap oozes down the bark of a pine, giving it an amber haze that tastes so sweet when you know what to do with it. Of sitting under a tree in the fall with a book or in spring, watching the new green come forth between the soft carpet of grass and the crumbling, moist earth. But not anymore. Now they're empty.

He won't tell us exactly what happened when he got pulled away. The worst moments of my life happened then. But then, seeing him come back, unharmed and only a little weary! My heart was whole once more. That didn't fool me for very long. When we were allowed to see him, and I saw his eyes, I knew something was wrong. They were so...lifeless. Even when he smiled at me. I'd never seen him like that before. Something happened then. I know he saw that boy die...Cedric. But it wasn't the actual death that hurt him. I don't know how I know that, but I do. I think it was the relaxation with which he was killed. How simple it was to take away someone's life; their hopes, their dreams, their memories. But I can't know for certain because he won't tell me. I think he thinks that it would be too painful for me to bear as he does, but what he doesn't know is how much more that void in his eyes hurts me. That and not being able to comprehend what he's going through because he won't tell me.

I'd never known what people meant when they said that you could see love in someone's eyes. Even the love of a friend. It's not possible to change one's pupils or interpret them, or at least that's what I thought. Perhaps they meant some sort of crinkle in the skin; a slight smile; perhaps a half-closing of the eye lids. I never knew until he came back. When I saw his eyes, and they were empty, I knew then. What I had seen before was love. I could only recognize it when it was gone. I had never seen him without that love in his eyes, but now that it was gone, I could see what it was. I didn't know it until it was gone.

I want that light in his eyes back. They're almost gray now, though they're still the same vibrant green that they were when I first met him, if it makes any sense at all. They're bright green, though it seems like they're in a black-and-white movie. You know they're green, but all you can see is gray. No matter how closely you look, they'll always be gray.

But, it isn't just his eyes. His whole manner is different. He scarcely smiles and when he does, it feels like betrayal. I feel it too, though I hope to Merlin that my eyes aren't gone like his are. He doesn't laugh, he doesn't raise his voice, even in happiness, as though he were breaking some rule if he did. He won't joke or take time out for simple pleasures. If you force him to take time for enjoyment, he does it lifelessly. Quidditch is done as though he were a robot simply going through the actions flawlessly. He does all his work mechanically and quickly as if he wanted to merely get it over with. I don't know how he's still alive, or why, but he is. It's like a dementor took his soul and left a shell. A shell with green eyes.

His eyes don't have dark circles thought of as characteristics of one who's depressed. His face isn't splotchy and his hair isn't any messier than normal. His clothes are clean and pressed. Everything is how it was before, physically, except his eyes. Every time I see them, shivers go down my spine in fear. He almost scares me now, now that he's not really all there. That's why I don't look in mirrors; I'm afraid of seeing a bit of that in myself. But he...he's more gone than I ever believed anyone could ever be. They're lifeless. And now, one of my best friends in the whole world, and I'm terrified of him. If only he had some warmth in them. His eyes were extinguished. Like a flame, they were extinguished, possibly never to relight. And they were a fire. Even in his utter fear, they were alight with that, and anger and hope, and always a bit of a smile as they had had ever since he found friends and love at school. Now there's nothing. Nothing at all.

His eyes...they saw something. Something that changed them forever.