A/N: welcome! First of all, thank you for taking the time to check this out! Second, I started this nearly 5 years ago and let it go until April 2012. Needless to say, I've changed a good amount as a person and writer since 2008. As such, when I reread what I had written, I facepalmed at how I had portrayed Rose. However, I didn't want to completely rewrite everything. So I deleted some of the unhealthiest chapters, revamped some, and went back to writing. The writing style and content are different in the later chapters because of the time gap.
So here it is! I hope you enjoy!
He made her wonder, sometimes, why he was her obsession.
The conceited smirk. Unkempt white-gold hair. Lean, tall, graceful. Pale skin, sharp features, grey eyes that made her melt whenever they settled on her.
"You're worse than your Mudblood mother." he had said disgustedly.
"Do you want me to teach him a lesson about messing with Gryffindors?" James had offered dangerously upon seeing her shuffle into the common room.
"No! No, don't do that!" she had cried. "I'm fine, really, I'm fine. Just a little rattled, that's all."
She was used to his worried, skeptical looks. She would've preferred Al's company to James's, but Albus had wound up in Slytherin. Maybe if he was here she wouldn't be like this.
She had been known for her fiery personality, of conversing animatedly with her Gryffindor peers. Now she spent most of her time hunched over in armchairs, quiet and wrapped in self-imposed solitude, doing schoolwork because that was the only thing she could do to keep her mind off things. As it was, her grades were the same. But her strength seemed to diminish, and the absent-minded and vague doodles and scrawls multiplied, all bearing an embellished and distinct, abnormally clear "S" and "M."
She watched him and pretended, pretended his smiles were for her, that he laughed for her, that his arms encircled her, instead of whoever had caught his eye of late. It didn't matter that a girl was at his arm as long as she was allowed to pretend.
"Rose...are you okay?"
Vague nods and smiles. "Yeah, of course I'm okay."
A lie just like the lies she told herself before the classes he was in - lies about how she hated him, despised his name, his lineage. But then he would enter the room and she would cave.
If only his words didn't chafe as much.
"Get over him," Albus had advised with in a worried voice. "You'll only hurt in the end."
Indeed it hurt. But she indulged in the pain that he caused, simply because he caused it. Stupid.
It was only too long before the pity began. Not the compassionate type of pity; the kind that one would toss at beggars in disgust accompanied perhaps by a bent Knut or two. It was the kind she could never have stood for from anyone before, let alone him, but right now she'll settle for any kind of attention.
A rare moment with him by her side working late into the night. Pity still undoubtedly laces his gaze as she writes with a shaking hand and tattered wits. He puts down his quill, signifying that he's done with his portion of the work; she isn't too far behind.
"You look pathetic, Weasley."
She doesn't answer, but revels in the sound of his voice. She casts a dim eye his way, and a spark ignites her dull gaze when she realizes that he is scrutinizing her. Her heart jolts forward, and her already unraveling nerves begin burning away in earnest. She suddenly wishes that she had been taking care of herself; becomes painfully conscious of how scraggly she must appear.
"What the hell does it matter to you?" she demands, reaching far back enough to muster the type of nastiness she used to infuse every word with.
"You sound awful, too," he continues, ignoring her. "What's gotten into you recently, anyway?"
You, she wants to reply. But that's equivalent to suicide, no matter how much her nature demands that she tell him the truth.
His eyes trail down to her parchment. His eyes widen, and she glances down. Horror rears and takes over as she realizes that his initials are scrawled in the margins on half the work she's done.
His gaze latches onto hers incredulously; she's completely helpless, immobile, and looks away immediately, pretending she can't feel his eyes burning into her face.
"My name?" he asks, disbelief thick and heavy in his voice.
She doesn't respond. Her gaze has gone glassy as she retreats deeper into herself before the rejection hits her head-on.
She thinks she sees something like wonder pass through his piercing grey eyes, but her eyes are so dim she could think that she saw desire in his gaze, simply because that is what she wants most. And desire is certainly not what is in his eyes now.
She looks back down at her paper, bracing herself for his searing disgust, her chest clenching in dreadful anticipation. So much for having ever tried to hide it.
"You forgot the 'H,'" he remarks, and leaves.
She opens her eyes in amazement and wonder.
He has not rejected her. Not outright, anyway.
He has accepted her obsession.
He doesn't hate her.
Elation floats through her limbs.
"Wait!" her treacherous voice cries out.
He doesn't look back, but it's easy to imagine he is amused; that a smile - no, a smirk - tilts his lips before he turns a corner and out of sight.