You barely notice him the first time you meet him. Just another kid, a skinny streak of nothing in your opinion.
If you had been pressed to give a description of him afterwards, you would have had to think for a minute before recalling his insignificant appearance.
He had dark hair, green eyes, and pale skin.
Of course, soon your ignorance of his identity is erased. It is replaced with the purest hate you have ever known, a burning in your stomach, a twitch behind your eyes.
You hate him for all the reasons you tell him, of course. Under that, however, is that feeling that says he will always be noticed more than you, loved more than you.
And along with that feeling comes a whispering voice that says he really just deserves more than you.
The first time your festering hate fades is in third year, right after he beats you in a Quidditch match.
Just when your hate is at an all-time high, you look at him and really see him.
See him, with his wild hair and flushed skin and green eyes.
You attribute this fluttering in your stomach to anger and humiliation (because to acknowledge an alternative is not acceptable)
So you tromp angrily off the field, and crush down that fluttering until that familiar hate floats back up when you see him gloating the next morning.
Puberty really hit you like a brick wall. You wonder if it hit Potter the same way (oh god oh god don't think about Potter).
You hadn't realised it would be… this strong, this needy.
You had never thought that you would have turned out... this way. (don't think about it, think of Pansy Parkinson or your father never forgiving you)
Still, no matter what you do, you can't block out the dreams.
You wake up every night sweating and gasping and unfulfilled, dreams of wide-open green eyes and a lot of revealed pale skin still flashing behind your eyelids.
Even if you're tired of denying it to yourself, you've still resolved never to tell another living soul.
When he brushes past you in the halls, a glare thrown your way, when he's yelling at you, eyes narrowed, you can't breathe.
Maybe it isn't very healthy, clinging to how much he hates you, but it's the most intense emotion he will ever feel for you. So you keep right on clinging.
After you provoke him, see that angry fire behind his cool green eyes, that hate-filled look he reserves just for you, you always feel like all the air has been pushed from your lungs.
In both the best way and the worst way possible.
You never knew you could hate like this until you saw him holding hands with that Weasley girl.
Your life has taken a definite turn for the worse. Your biggest worries are no longer pleasing your father or hiding a crush. Instead, you fear for your life, your mother's life.
You fear you will fail, and lose everything.
You fear you will succeed, that there will be blood on your hands and a madman rising to power because of your misdeeds.
You had never thought that both fears could come true, but as the old man fell from the tower you knew they had.
Your life is ashes and blood and giant snakeskins.
The mark on your arm burns every time you witness a murder.
You are happy you do not dream of green-eyed, dark-haired boys, because there always seems to be blood in your dreams these days.
And then, he wins, and it is finally over.
You find him by the lake, and he is alone. No friends and definitely no Weasley girl.
He looks at you with eyes too empty to hate you.
"Where're your friends?" you ask. You are too tired to fake hatred, to tired to do the old, familiar act.
"They can't understand… this." He looks blankly at you, then back at the lake. You wonder if he is as tired as you are.
You talk then for a while, about how you understand the guilt, the endless lonelineless, and the hurt and fear that won't fade no matter what you do. When you finish, your stomach hurts, you eyes burn and all you want to do is run from those too-green eyes staring right through you.
Finally, he smiles at you, a different look than the hate-filled one he normally reserves just for you.
Your heart stops. You know you will dream again of hot skin and green eyes and dark hair and… and…
Of being in love with Harry Potter.
You hate sleeping these days.
Such a waste of time.
Why dream of something (paleskindarkhairgreeneyes) when the real thing is lying beside you in your bed?