He sat on the cold stone bench, leaning back against the wall behind him and staring up through the canopy of richly painted leaves to the stormy autumn sky beyond. It was uncomfortable, but he didn't really notice. He had a ton of homework left up in his room—it could wait until later. His housemates were probably hanging out in the common room; a few had invited him to go boating out on the lake, but he had refused. Their prattle and noise only irritated him today.
It was a day for the cold and quiet. To let the wind blow through him and numb all the thoughts and feelings roiling beneath his placid, permafrost exterior. Obscuring the already indistinct. With a gusty sigh he folded his arms against his chest, flicking white-blond hair out of his eyes. The courtyard was empty, filled with bright foliage that swirled and skittered across the uneven concrete tiles, a blazing wild dance of color against the drab walls and foreboding clouds.
Christmas break was coming up. Most of the students here spoke of it with a tremor of anticipation and joy, ready for an end to studying and a chance to indulge in presents stacked beneath a fragrant pine tree, gallons of hot chocolate, and snowball fights. Happy. Naïve. Foolish.
He wasn't particularly looking forward to going home, to be perfectly honest.
Even if honesty wasn't a trait he was all that familiar with.
Uncomfortable family meals—the entire extended family, mind you—and old family friends that made even his blood run chill in and out of the house at all hours. The God forsaken formal parties. It was an endless season of fake cheer, alcohol consumption, cheesy sentiments, and constant good manners. All the while surrounded by people pretending they weren't fighting a gruesome war in the shadows of their glamorous lives.
They all knew exactly what was going on secretly, yet for some reason when everybody got together they felt compelled to play pretend in their world of glass and luxury. As if they weren't bitter and cruel, as if the hearts beating beneath all that silk and jewels weren't spoiled by the most pungent of malicious dispositions. As if the blood that flowed through their veins was clean of sin and grime.
Pure.
He nearly laughed out loud at the twisted irony. The same hands that tortured and killed held crystal goblets aloft in a wordy toast. Lips that sneered at the dead, defiled body of a young muggle curled in warm greeting, pressed a gentle kiss to the cheek of a relative. Hands covered again and again in the blood of others clasped welcomingly.
They played in the light.
But they dwelt in darkness.
Pale brilliance hid natures of filthy and treacherous ilk. Like the notorious white masks of the Deatheaters numbered among them. Everyone knew and no one said anything. Layers and layers of twisting, binding threads of pureblood tradition and formalities held their world in a delicate balance—a crystal glass, a razor sharp blade. Honed, deadly, forged of steel and yet constantly treading on thin ice.
Bright laughter broke through his thoughts, scattering them carelessly as it skittered merrily around the courtyard.
He growled under his breath as he caught a glimpse of the trio making their way along the path that ran in front of his perch. They hadn't seen him, and she was still chattering on happily, ridiculously, hands waving madly through the air as she periodically burst into peals of laughing.
The boys chuckled at her, exchanging looks over her head and grinning. Gryffindor scarves were bundled around their necks, hair ruffled by the wind as they quickened their pace at the cold. Happy and bright, the idyllic little scene of friendship and camaraderie.
It was all a bit nauseating.
They breezed past, either not seeing him or ignoring his presence completely, which suited him just fine. He wasn't really in the mood for putting up wit their pathetic attempts at verbal sparring, especially not the self-righteous jabs of Miss Granger.
She laughed again at something Ron said, elbowing him in the ribs.
He hated her.
Her life was a mixture of laughter and hard work. Hers was a world he would never understand, and would never know.
And his thin, cynical lips trace the contours of a curse as she walks away.
Crucio…
He believes. He believes she does not belong here, that her kind are beneath him. That this world is so thoroughly his, and that people like her have no place within it.
For all these reasons he knows he should hate her.
But what he hates more is seeing her smile, watching her succeed in her studies, catching snippets of conversation after she's gone home to see her parents for holiday. That despite everything she goes through there is a genuine, hard-earned happiness that he doesn't have the patience or restraint to obtain.
He hates.
And he's so sick of hating.
He sulked back against the wall. Her laughter echoes off the wall, traces of her merriment still reaching his reluctant ears. And there's so much innocence and soul behind it that it hurts. It's wild and unbridled, without any trace of the cruelty that always seems to lace through his, and he thinks to himself that she's still such a child.
He despises her, and the laughter that she still has when all he feels is cold.
He tried to believe his own reasons for hating her as she flounces off, but the bitterness gnawing at his gut is bred of envy instead of disgust. That hidden within her laugh is something so bright and pure when he feels so stained and empty. That she has love within these walls when all he can cling to is his hatred.
It's weakness, he knows, but it looks so enticing from here.
He knows.
She's poor and unworthy and filthy. She should have nothing that he would want, nothing to offer the world, nothing to envy. She might have been smart but she was altogether too emotional, and she made little effort to conceal it.
But as the cold seeps into his back through the dark material of his cloak, all he can think is that his world is touch and words when she finds deeper meaning in everything.
Because he fights and caresses in order to feel something, to light fire in his blood. But she battles and loves on account of what is in her heart. It's unsteady and unsure, but she throws herself into it wholeheartedly. He can't understand it, and it feels illogical and stupid to him.
But she laughs.