Disclaimer: Anything you recognise is property of JK Rowling. Inspired by Another Love by Tom Odell. No infringement intended.
Living A Little
"I need a break."
He was back and he was all she could see. His quiet smile when seventh years clapped him on the back as they passed him. His bemused shrug whenever a gaggle of sympathetic girls finally left him to eat in peace. His half-hearted chuckle in response to a poorly-timed joke. Suddenly, he was everywhere. And she didn't understand it. It had only been four days. Had it really been just four days?
It was a bit like trying to stop biting your nails, he'd decided. You thought you were doing really well until you realised you were chewing a cuticle.
Couldn't she dye her hair? he found himself thinking during one particularly difficult lesson when he'd looked her way seven times in thirteen minutes.
'She should wear a hat or something,' Padfoot murmured with a smirk as he watched him turn his head resolutely towards the window.
'She should,' he said earnestly to Padfoot's delight.
'I find nothing funny about Switching parts of your anatomy with upholstery, Black. Your warped sense of humour is disturbing my lesson.'
'My sincerest apologies, McG,' Padfoot said with a laugh in his voice.
McGonagall's mouth was dangerously thin. 'Five points from Gryffindor for your impudence, Black. And Potter? Potter!'
He looked around, nonplussed.
'What on earth is outside that window that is so fascinating?'
He shrugged, picked up his quill and made a show of copying everything on the board into his notes.
McGonagall sighed, the lesson moved on, and the sunshine continued to glint off Evans' stupidly red hair.
"I need a break from school, from Snape, from being sad. From you."
He hadn't even been here. How could she have become so aware of him, so obsessed with him, while he had been away? She was watching him all the time. Properly watching him. As in 'looking away when he looked up' watching. Except he didn't look up to her anymore.
She had brown hair. Glossy, straight, sort of fruity-smelling. Very brown.
She didn't shout at him. She didn't antagonise him. She didn't insult him or his friends. She didn't sulk if he beat her at a test. She didn't laugh when something went wrong for him. She didn't preach at him when he got another detention. She didn't belittle his hobbies and interests. She didn't snort derisively at his worries.
But she did hold his hand. She kissed him sweetly and snuggled into his side when they sat on the sofa. She listened to him talk about Quidditch. She offered him advice when he didn't know how to deal with his mum. She said 'Yes' when he asked her to Hogsmeade.
And that was the most important difference really.
They had fun. Lucy had the same sense of humour as Padfoot, she had Runes with Moony so they had something to talk about, and she supported the Harpies like Wormtail. She fit in surprisingly well. She was relaxed, as far as girlfriends went. She didn't demand to know his every thought, his every secret. She didn't need to be with him all the time. She wasn't overly annoyed if the lads interrupted their time together.
She was just what he needed.
"What will you do?"
"I dunno. I might live a little, you know?"
She was happy for him. He seemed happy, too. The seventh years clapped him on the back and asked him how he'd managed to snag one of the prettiest girls in school. The gaggle of girls primped and preened around him and seethed with jealousy around everyone else. His half-hearted laugh had more substance to it.
And Lucy seemed happy. They attended Charms Club together, and while Lucy had never seemed particularly unhappy, now she was positively brimming with joy. She often heard her talking to her friends about James' most recent joke, or James' most recent plan for their date, or James' most recent problem with his mother. Lucy really cared about him.
And so she was happy for him.
But she couldn't stop the thought from creeping in – a break implies he'll come back, right?
If he were being brutally honest, he knew the lads didn't interrupt their time together accidentally. And if he were being brutally honest, he was glad that sometimes Padfoot was an interfering old bag. Because sometimes, it was just a little too much like work, being with Lucy.
He tried. He tried so hard. He didn't think of Her when he was with her. He didn't think of Her when he kissed her. His friends had always glorified his loyalty. He had always striven to live up to their ideal. It was just that, after, when Lucy left, he was all too aware of the fact that he'd just spent the past few hours not thinking of Her. He wondered if he'd always have to congratulate himself for passing two hours without looking round for red hair and a sarcastic smile.
Every acknowledgement of this failing of his would lead him to redouble his efforts. He'd make plans. New plans. Plans that had never been tainted with the possibility of Her. They'd walk around the Lake rather than hike up around the caves surrounding Hogsmeade. He'd buy her quills and packets of fudge instead of notebooks. He'd seek her out in the Common Room and avoid her when she was in the library.
The others helped him. Moony left homework to the last minute so he could distract her for an hour or so. Wormtail got ridiculously wound up about the latest signing or the abominable strategies the Harpies were using in their games. Padfoot thought of more and more outrageous statements to shock her with – though he thought that was more for Padfoot's benefit than his own.
And he let them. And he felt really rather shit about it all.
He ruffled his hair. He seemed to remember that she hated that and stopped. Then he seemed to remember that he'd just declared he was taking a break from her and ruffled his hair with a renewed vigour.
She'd never really bothered with him before. Sev had manipulated her view of him and she hadn't ever reassessed it since they fell out. She'd had more than enough time to reassess him now. She found him to be witty and intelligent and surprisingly moral. She found that all that hair ruffling nonsense was similar to her jumper-fidgeting nonsense. She found that people mostly thought his pranks were funny, even if they were at the centre of it. She found that she liked what she'd found.
He wondered if it were even possible to exorcise the ghost of Her from his heart.
"It's nothing personal, Evans. And I'm not angry with you. I just… I'm tired."
If this was what it had been like for him, no wonder he had been tired. She was already exhausted.