Disclaimer: I am not British or middle-aged or a published author...so therefore it's impossible for me to be the owner of Harry Potter.
Author's Note: Dedicated to keep my issues drawn, for the Gift-Giving Extravaganza 2013. I hope you enjoy it; sorry about all the angst. Also written for the Ultimate Femmeslash Competition and the Harry Potter Femmeslash Project Challenge, both on HPFC.
I would like to point out that this fic is not compliant with the general universe in which most of my fics are based; although certain aspects (Roxanne being three years older, Lily being in Slytherin, etc.) stay the same, the situations described in this fic do not happen in my normal headcanon.
You love Roxanne.
It's something you've known for a while now. You can't deny the way your heart beats faster when she's around, the way you always make an effort to maintain as much physical contact as possible without being weird, the way you find yourself laughing at all her jokes. You can't deny the fact that you can't find a person prettier than she is; even Victoire, who almost everyone says is the beauty, doesn't compare in your mind. You can't deny how nobody else is good enough, nobody else measures up - because nobody else is Roxanne.
It hurts. It hurts to know you love someone in your family, somebody that you can never have. Just because such a thing isn't illegal doesn't mean it's celebrated; you know that if something ever did happen with you and Roxanne, your faces would be splashed all over the Wizarding tabloids for having an incestuous lesbian love affair, or some other equally ridiculous phrase. You can't imagine how your family would react. Your parents, who do so well at accepting you, even though you're a Slytherin. Your brothers, all too overprotective; their hearts are in the right place, but their minds are not. And then the rest of the family...you can't even begin to think what they would all say about you two.
Of course, that's making the assumption that something could happen between you and Roxanne, and you know that such a thing isn't even possible.
After all, Roxanne is - in your mind - so much more than you. She's three years older. She's a Gryffindor. She's the star of the Quidditch team, the best female athlete in the school, and quite popular. And you? You are just a child compared to her, a little Slytherin with just enough interest in the darker side of things to be unhealthy. What would someone like her even want with somebody like you?
You can't even tell where your love begins and your pain ends, because the two feelings have melded together into one large mess. Loving somebody who doesn't love you back is the worst kind of love - it's painful and heartbreaking and all too much to deal with.
And only adding to the pain is the fact that she does love you - but not in the way that you want. You are her cousin; you're like a little sister to her, and she cares about you deeply, but not in the way that you want her to.
You think you would rather love somebody who doesn't know you exist. You would rather admire somebody from afar, lust after them from miles away, because this closeness is excruciating. It hurts to have her embrace you, knowing the hug is entirely familial in her mind. It hurts to have her lounge on your bed, so casually, when all you want is for the both of you to strip off your clothes on it. It hurts to see her laugh at your jokes, to have your legs touch as you squish on the sofa with four other people, to have her lean her head on your shoulder as she gets tired, and to know all of it is purely platonic in her mind.
The idea of confessing to Roxanne has popped into your mind a few times, but you push it away instantly. You're no Gryffindor. You don't have the courage it takes to admit something like that; you barely had the courage to ask Demetri Vashkov to Hogsmeade back in third year, and you only fancied him a little bit. This - this is all-consuming love, and you're terrified of it. As much as this hurts, her not knowing your feelings, it would hurt even more for her to reject you. It would hurt even more to see her make a face, disgusted by you. You can't imagine the torture of her cutting you off entirely; you can't imagine the pain you would feel if you told her about all this, and it ruined the friendship you have.
At least now, you can be close with her. It hurts - it hurts like hell - but sometimes, there's a moment of closeness so glorious that for a few seconds, you can forget the pain.
You reach your lowest point when you return to Hogwarts for your fifth year. She's not there anymore, of course, and it's the first time since you realized you loved her that you have to put up with not seeing her. She writes, but her letters aren't frequent; she's busy with life now, with her new boyfriend and with her new friends, and she doesn't have the time for a desperate fifteen-year-old. You know she doesn't want to be mean - her letters are always friendly and happy - but you can't help but feel disappointed about how little the two of you actually contact one another.
Everyone notices that you aren't yourself - that you don't eat as much as you should, that your schoolwork isn't as good as it used to be, that you're irritable and aloof - but it isn't as though you can tell anybody the real reason why. You can't admit that you're in love with a family member - hell, nobody even knows that you fancy girls as well as boys. You keep everything in, bottle it up, and you're too much of a coward to let it all out.
You're too much of a coward to do much of anything. You won't admit to Roxanne that you love her, you won't tell anybody else that you love her, and you won't even write about it, for fear of somebody finding out. Once or twice, you consider ending it all, but no, you're too much of a coward to do that as well - you're more scared of nothingness, of death, than you are scared of this pain. At least you know what this pain feels like. You don't know what death feels like.
You make yourself manage - you make yourself keep up appearances as best as possible - and you don't tell anybody that every night, before you fall asleep, the last word on your lips is "Roxanne."