* 'cause i'm your angel standing by... *

A/N: Anything recognisable belongs to JKR and her wonderful imagination. Everything else belongs to me.


Shiver

[And it's you I see, but you don't see me.]

I watch you open your eyes. Slowly lids lift to reveal crystal green irises, flecked with brown and gold, so familiar. You stare blankly, blurred vision, at the surrounding morning light. Pupils dilate, adjusting to the day, brightness so clear and fresh in contrast to dark sleep tortured with dreams. I'd watched you toss and turn, mumble in your unconsciousness, incoherent and laden with pain, all through the night; because I don't need to sleep, can't sleep, rest my heavy eyes. I can't feel their weight, or the drowsiness, exhaustion. Just drifting in deep oblivion.

A million times I've seen those beautiful eyes open to the day. A new day, so bright and dark all at once. Life: rising and falling, tumbling and gliding. I'll watch them open for forever more, until they close a final time and refuse to flaunt their emerald glow to the world. I wish they could look this way, in my direction, but you pay me no attention. I understand, but it hurts. Standing before you, beside you, you're blinded by your fears and fantasies, your present and future. I'm your past.

You reach blindly for your glasses, clarity at last. Dressed and ready for breakfast, you walk towards me, through me, away from me. I sense the shiver down your spine, chilling your insides, goosebumps on your skin. At least you can feel me. But I don't want to be associated with cold, unease, shivers. I want to be your fire in the night, your guide. I want to warm you, reheat the fire of your soul so you can love again, so you can accept love again. I know you need it, you've been without it for so long. But I can't change anything. I just watch, invisible, on the sidelines sending my support as you play the match of your existence.

I do love you. I wish you could hear me say it, or feel me sending it.

I walk beside you down the hallways, sit close through your lessons. I watch you laugh with your friends, conspire against your enemies, with this weight of the world on your shoulders. You're so strong, and so grown up. I've watched you change and mature, through the years that fly by me like lost moments of an age. Hours slipping away forever, to be stored in the dusty pages of history books and in the quiet darkness of someone's memory.

And I'm with you when you need me the most, when you collapse on your bed after a terrible day and wish you could just disappear. Believe me, being invisible is not all it's made out to be, certainly not for limitless eternity anyway. I feel your pain, see the furrowed lines across your forehead, your bright eyes downcast and shadowed for the moment. I don't know how long the moment will stretch, but I hope it's brittle and will soon snap you from your despair. For your smile is too beautiful to hide. People will miss it; people that need to see it.

I hear you, loud and clear, when you feel that no one is listening. I'm here, watching silently, when you think you're all alone. But you don't see me, don't notice. Look through the present, through the passages of space and time. Because I'm beside you, don't you worry. I'll follow wherever you lead, through thick and thin, light and dark. I've been there from your beginning, in different forms. I'll be there 'till the end.

I wish I could touch you, truly touch you so you could feel me, feel the warmth of my skin, a warmth that faded away so long ago on that fateful night. For you to experience the loving contact of my arms, wrapping around you, because more than anything I want to hug you, hold you, protect you. Do you feel me, feel my presence when I can't resist and run my clammy fingers across your hand, press my wispy lips to your forehead?

Could you believe that I was here beside you, that I'd never actually left you alone in this world? Just because you can't see something doesn't mean it's not there, that it doesn't exist. For I can see you, and I can love you without an unbroken body.

You remove your glasses and snuggle under the covers, my baby, closing your eyes, the windows to your soul. You have my eyes, the brilliant green spheres, and forever you will have my heart. I'll be here by your side when the light returns, when you open your eyes to another vibrant day.


~Sarvi 17/2/01.

Sappy I know, but I couldn't help myself g. Please review!
Lyrics: Coldplay, 'Shiver'.