7For A., that long summer and all those futures we planned.
Let's go to Jordan and see the stars...
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is JK Rowling's. All hers.
"Hate," your mother used to say, "is a very strong word."
You looked up at her with your wide, child's eyes.
"Detest someone, yes, loathe someone, yes. But not hate," she told you.
Your mother is right. And you know it. And that is why your insides are churning. That is why it is 4am on a Friday morning and you are staring up at your ceiling when you should be asleep.
"I HATE YOU!" you had screamed.
And you'd watched his face crumple. You hurt him. Stung him. Made him scream at his friends to leave so he could cry alone in an empty dormitory.
Just like you'd wanted.
You knew it would pain him.
A four letter word. Not piss. Or shit. Or fuck. Not a twit, or a prat or a dick. Not those overrated swear words that you use all too often when you stub your toe, let your guard down for a brief moment and scream "YOU ARSE!" at the table leg. None of those words.
Just hate. Pure. Undiluted. Venomous.
It was your last resort wasn't it?
You know you're fighting a losing battle against his wit, his passion, his energy, his smile and his sheer bloody niceness.
You know that you're falling for him. Falling deep. Good and proper. It's getting too hard for you to bite back your laughter. And your friends are noticing it too. And you can't bear to see their 'I-told-you-so' glances and hear them muttering about your sanity when you can't think of a comeback because you're too busy trying to control you knees. Too busy trying to stop them collapsing under you, and giving away the fact that the wink that followed the snarky comment made you all hot and bothered. And he just stands there grinning like a lunatic at your speechlessness. The bastard.
And of course, this wouldn't be so much of a problem if you hadn't realised that you missed the teasing and the asking-out that had annoyed you before. And of course, it wouldn't have come to this if he had been the same arrogant, cocky moron of previous years. And of course you wouldn't have had to scream those three words if you hadn't suddenly realised that you were coming perilously close to using another verb in between 'I' and 'you'.
You're afraid. Afraid of what this means – that he will turn that ruddy sentence back on you, and then . .end.
So here you are, in the darkness of the doorway, stepping out onto the stairs and walking down into the common room, with its strange shadows and glowing embers in the fireplace. For one scary, awful second you think that there's no-one there but you – but there is someone, and he is softly calling your name.
You stand there dazed, trying to calculate you quickest method of escape – but you are too slow, because now he pats the space next to him, and there is no way out. You pad towards him, wandering vaguely if he's somehow managed to imperio you. The walk to the sofa seems to take hours. Finally you sit, trying discreetly to move as far away as possible, so that if he begins to shout, there's less chance of your ears bleeding.
Without warning, your mouth opens and you hear yourself apologising, babbling away, trying to excuse your choice of vocabulary – every insult you ever used, every barb, every jibe, every rude gesture and every roll of your eyes.
He turns to look at you and there is amusement as well as bafflement in his eyes. And the cheek of him! Because now he's placing a shaky finger on your lips and telling you to shut up. You bristle inside. You're Head Girl! How dare he! But you swallow your pride and turn your face towards his.
He begins to speak. He tells you how much it hurt, how much pain he endured, how he almost gave up hope – until you can't bear it anymore and make a grab for his hand. His eyes widen in surprise, but he doesn't snatch it away. He lets you run your thumb over his knuckles and caress his fingers and trace the lines in the palm of his hand. He watches you, silently, but you, embarrassed, cannot meet his eyes. So he strokes your long hair with his free hand – the hair you were teased about as a child, and made you wish you were born a brunette or a blonde – anything but loud, screechy, look-at-me red.
You begin to relax, and lift your head to meet his eyes. And you tell him. You tell him how scared you were, how you didn't want to acknowledge the tiny spark all your friends insisted existed between the two of you, how when he sat behind you in Charms, you would just listen to him breathe.
You are holding his wrist, and you rub the skin stretched over his veins and watch as the goosebumps appear. And you tell him what you knew all along but couldn't bring yourself to say – and he replies with those same three words.
So close to hate, but so different.