Orokid: While I am not happy with the ending (Harry and Hermione- together forever!! cries), I sort of decided that this is the reason why Harry moved in on Ginny instead of Hermione. It's petty, but it's all I've got as a Harry and Hermione shipper. Despite the fact that it randomly goes off into several directions sometimes, there are parts in this fic that I've actually worked on and LIKE. Imagine that- me liking something that I wrote. Scary, isn't it?

Anyway… I don't have that much to talk about, so you're let off right now. Other than that, let's get to the disclaimer!

Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter series- if I did, the "nineteen years later…" chapter would have been Harry and Hermione together instead of Harry and Ginny. Nothing of the series belongs to me at all, if you want to think about it, and there's no stoping the truth in everything.

Cries My shipping…

Unspoken Thoughts

I never knew how you could care for someone so much, yet believe that the intensity you feel is nothing more than friendship. I never understood how you could speak of an emotion, yet never have an understanding of it. I never thought that the person I care for the most and the emotion I barely understand could ever intertwine and show me a feeling I don't want to admit to having felt within my soul. I never knew that someone like me could wear my heart on my sleeve while around someone like her.

I fell in love with my best mate, a woman whose heart is so pure it makes me look like a shadow while standing near her. She's a goddess in a world of mortals, and it is forbidden to ever even dream of holding such a forbidden fruit in my hands. Besides, I am only Icarus who flew too close to the sun, currently falling toward the ocean at an accelerating rate.

My emerald eyes can't help but watch her as she crosses the room, her sweet smell filling my nose and lungs as she moves past my chair towards the fireplace. They follow her as she takes hold of the poker and bends down to recreate the flame while the ashes made die, my teenaged orbs taking in the sight greedily. I admit that it is most likely the worst thing I could do, but there are many other things involved to my actions- I am a man after all, and my body does things I'd rather they wouldn't while in the presence of this particular woman.

Now, don't start believing that I fell in lust with her and not love, like I had stated earlier. It is my belief that, even if you are so deeply in love with someone so pure and saintly as she was, there is always a bit or lust within your body as you watch the one you care for and love. There's always a tingle down below when your thoughts turn to mush, thinking of the ways you'd like to taint her pureness, but there's also a hard clenching sensation within your chest where your heart is when you realize that there's no way you can get such a feeling return. I know that my friend, who had cared about her in such a way before I had even found myself looking at her different, had only shrugged off the emotions and moved on with his life, living other women as if he had felt nothing for her. As much as I have tried to do so, the possibility of being able to watch her without that heartache within my chest is impossible. I'm not like him, who can forget every feeling her touches produce, and I doubt I could ever be remotely like him too. Besides, that itself seems to be much like a curse to me since I would rather live my own life instead of someone else's, or by another's beliefs.

I watch her sometimes when she doesn't realize that I'm staring, and the task of keeping her unknowing of them seems to be a lively game. I've gotten better at it, which is a very good thing when you lose yourself in the beauty of the woman you love so often it's hard not to notice once in a while. People have commented over my glazed look when I'm supposed to be studying, or eating even (because it would be time for classes by the time I snapped out of my reverie), and they wonder if I'm losing a battle with my hormones and deep affections for the friend I treasure all the more than the other.

I suppose that it isn't too amazing that everyone in the school- including the teachers and ghosts- know that I'm so deeply infatuated with her. Once in a while, I sometimes get to thinking that she too might see through my every innocent and guilty thought and action and desire, and that she's currently waiting for a good time to tell me that any relationship now wouldn't work, or would be too awkward between us. That would be too painful a moment for me, and losing her out of any of my friends would hurt too bad. Losing her presence in my life would be like taking a dying man off muggle life support, like ripping the heart from my chest. It would kill my very soul before I'd put my wand to my chest and say the words I've been threatened with since the day I was born, just so to kill my body right along with it. Well, it was that or throw myself towards the Deatheaters…

Bloody hell, look at me- I'm preparing for my own death, let alone for the let-down that may or may not come. I'm readying myself for the heartbreak and torture, if just from the act of her lips saying "I'm sorry" in such a soft sad tone. It's laughable almost, but… every word, no matter how extreme I had said them, is truer than the hatred and spite I feel towards He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I would rather die stabbed in the heart by her refusal than to meet my end at the very splinter he calls a wand- the one that had pricked me once when I was too young to express myself in anything except wails.

I can't help but laugh lightly at the thought, and especially the way I had imagined her holding a knife to my chest, plunging it in as I yell the killing curse towards He-Who-Messed-Up-My-Bloody-Life. It's amazing just how vivid your thoughts can be when faced with two challenging things like these.

My nose, which could sense her whenever she was in the room alone (all because of that melon scented soap she used in her bath, as well as the lavender scented lotion I know she adores, and the strawberry scented perfume she tends to wear more often than not now), could smell her standing directly behind me, so close that I felt as though I were in an orchard surrounded by fruits and flowers. It's a more than heavenly thought, and I wouldn't change it for the world since it has become rare than enough when I do feel as if I am standing on a cloud.

Oy, I need a cold shower…

"You have a mistake right…" Her hand had reached over my shoulder, and I could feel those things she kept beneath her shirt pressing against my back. For a moment, I couldn't stop myself from reveling in the moment, or from the thought that maybe I had died and gone to heaven. It's natural, right? "… here." I merely gazed down to the paper, and I found that the words were barely legible in the state I was finding myself in. Mind you, my chicken scratch is sometimes readable by others, although usually not, there were times when even I could not read the things I wrote- yet she could read all that I had scribbled, and I sometimes pondered how. Still… this wasn't the time to think of that, since my mind had seemed too preoccupied with more mature thoughts.

Still, despite my inner unvoiced thoughts, I had turned back to gaze at her seemingly endless deep brown eyes and nodded my thanks due to a broken voice box than seemed to be unfixable at the moment. She smiled, her silent way of accepting my quiet gratitude, and simply continued reading over my shoulder. If only she knew the torture she was placing me through…

Maybe, if Voldemort ever caught me, he'd used this as a punishment to get me to leek information about the Order and such- if he did, he would surely make me crack open like an egg.

When she was finished with pointing out my mistakes (something I wouldn't mind every so often if she would just lean on me just so), she had straightened herself, and I tried my hardest not to look as if I were a child who had lost his favorite toy. The orchard of fruits and flowers moved to the one who had seated himself across from me, and I made it seem as though I were writing something I could add to my essay- except I was writing it slowly, and I took intervals to look past the top of my glasses at the two.

Why was she touching him like that? And why couldn't she have placed her hands on my shoulders like she was with him? Why did he get the special treatment anyway? It's not like he was the one that had the world put on his shoulders. I did. And what did I get as gratitude for the pain, torture and regret that I've gone through? Certainly nothing that she was offering their other best mate.

I think that was the first time (or second… or third…) that I had actually thought about using the avada kedrava curse on someone other than Voldemort or myself…

And I don't think I need that cold shower any longer.

While I hadn't meant to do so, I had slammed my book closed, completely alarming the other two from the paradise they must be in- happily skipping along in the fields, holding hands together, completely forgetting about the world… and me. It's unfair, mind you, and I don't see why I have to be forced to watch this tiring game of cat and mouse that I cannot participate in. Then again, I think I now have a slight clue on how Crookshanks must feel whenever she's away from him and with one (or both) of us, her best mates- alone, left out, and hungry.

"I'm heading up to the dorm," I stated as verbally non-violent as I could, sliding my parchment eagerly into the pages of the book I had shut seconds ago. "See you both later." I don't believe that I've ever hotfooted my way out of a room ever before as I had that moment. Personally, I didn't quite want to believe that my chances with her had been taken from me much like my childhood had, but… it had been so blatantly obvious that not even I could miss it, and I know that I can be as dense as the stone beneath my feet at times.

With a sigh, I made a decision that I knew would have to happen, whether I wished it to or not- it looked as though I might have to give in to Ron's sister after all… Besides, I'm like my father in many ways, I suppose- I don't want to lose my friends over a girl, and I won't start now just because I'm in love with this particular woman.

FIN

Orokid: Like I mentioned earlier, I didn't have much in me after reading the final chapter of the book. I was depressed over the fact that Harry and Ginny almost got it on, and all the Hermione and Ron moments made me want to cry. But… c'est la vie, right? This is why fanfiction exists- for people like me.

Hope you guys enjoyed it, even if you're not like me. Please give me a review- I would love one or two. And, if you would, please do not flame me with things like "HGxRW4ever!!", or "HPxGW4life!!". I'm already sad as it is. Thanks.