Louis Weasley watches her often between the shelves of the dusty nooks and with the smell of ink overwhelming him. Fingers clenched, necks craned, and eyes squinted, she just sits there. Sometimes she doesn't even study, she just watches the world SPINNING around her, just like him. She watches the whispered conversations, the laughs, the silent tears, the broken hearts, and the frustrated groans.
He can imagine she understands the meaning of life more than anybody, because nobody watches quite like she does, not even him.
He remembers the first time he saw her.
She was tucked away from the spinning of the world, with hair darker then night, SKIN as pale as the moon, and bitten nails painted red as her eyes flickered across the book she was reading.
She was beautiful, sure, but he had grown up with beautiful his whole life, and there was nothing physically striking about her.
Then, her eyes lift from the printed words and search the room before locking with his, and for a moment, he can feel the world SPIN and a ringing in his ears that sound like bells.
His cousin's hand is shaking his shoulder, but it doesn't matter, because he can see little smudges of brown, like smudges of dirt in her eyes of the ocean, reflecting off the candle light.
Her eyes are green and blue, a mix of two, like the colour stood firmly in the middle of a crossroad, not knowing what route to choose.
And he doesn't know why, but his eyes can't be peeled away from her, sitting there, looking right back at him.
It feels like a stretch of forever when their eyes lock, but it's only really half a second.
He realises that her eyes have moved on to other things in the library, and but his are still locked on her eyes of the ocean.
When she looks away, the chair feels harder, and his bones feel colder.
It startles him that he said she was just beautiful, and nothing special.
Really, she's astounding, breathtaking, bewildering, startling.
She's as pale as the moon, and as dark as the night.
He doesn't know why he never noticed her before. Surely, he should have.
The next time he sees her, it's in the great hall, and the same thing happens.
He's calmly shoveling eggs into his mouth, when his eyes land on a girl sitting alone, eyes cast down to her plate and her hair – as black
as night – falling around her, like a curtain shielding her from the world.
His eyes glance away – but at the last second, she catches his and lock eyes with him.
And its barely a quarter of second that he sees this, but he sees her eyes of the ocean, the girl from the library.
Her eyes are as deep and scary as the sea, a kind of raw, wild beauty that stops his heart.
When he takes a double take to keep their eyes locked for longer, she's already turned away, and is now looking around the room.
He wishes for her eyes to be back on his, because he feels lost, like he's taken the wrong direction, or like he's hanging off the side of the Clift, wishing and wondering for someone to save him. Only she can save him now.
After that, he doesn't stop thinking about the girl with hair as black as night, SKIN as pale as the moon, and eyes of the ocean.
He doesn't even know her name. He longs to know the friends she has, the house she belongs to, the words she says, how she talks, what her hand feels like in his, and what her favourite song is so he can sing it to her as she falls asleep.
But nobody seems to know who he's talking about when he asks. She's the mystery girl, the girl that fades so well into the background people believe she is the background. The girl with eyes of the ocean.
The third time he sees her, it's because he has sat in the library for a week, just waiting for her to sit down in that nook that nobody knows about and watch her watch the SPINNING of the world.
When he sees her enter, he leaves a book on her seat, and scrambles off to hide behind a bookshelf as she turns the corner into sight and sits down.
Her fingers, bitten red nails and all, touch the book and her eyes of the ocean sweep the room – and for some miracle, her eyes find his.
And it's almost two seconds longer before she casts her eyes away this time, down to the book
he left her.
She picks it up slowly, and he spends the rest of the day just watching those eyes of the ocean flit across the page.
He is sure she knows he's watching her, because the tiniest of smiles has twisted her mouth.
But, like how she likes to watch the world spin, he likes to watch her eyes of the ocean.
So he doesn't pull away once, not until the library has fallen into lock down, and she is walking out, her eyes locking with his for one more moment of stopping hearts and caught breaths, and this
time, she smiles too.
When she's gone, he feels cold and empty, he fingers cling to his elbows, and her smile doesn't leave his mind for weeks.
Not until they're in the library again, and he is watching her watch the world spin, like always, and her eyes lock suddenly with his.
And just like those times before, the world stops spinning, and his heart stops beating.
Her eyes of the ocean are as light as sea foam that morning, smudges of dirt decorate the light blue more then usual.
And when he slowly holds up that piece of paper that reads 'Hi', she laughs; lightly, freely, warmly.
And it leaves footprints in his heart and handprints in his soul.
And he doesn't know why, but it scares him.
He's a bit addicted to her; her and her eyes of the ocean.
It's still months before he actually talks to her.
He leaves books he knows she'll like often on her seat, and she will always look up at where he is hidden, on a table around the corner, or sitting behind a bookshelf pretending to read.
And their eyes will be searching for eachother, silver and the ocean, like the moon reflecting off of the sea.
And each time the world gets a little warmer, but that isn't enough, because he needs more.
The air feels a little clearer, and breathing doesn't seem important anymore.
But he can't take it anymore, because once you're addicted, you need it constantly.
So when they pass each her once in the hallway, he stops.
She shyly pulls her eyes from the sea of the crowd and locks them with him instead.
He moves forward, like a shark approaching through the sea, until he's standing right in front of her and her eyes of the ocean.
They both smile, a kind of shy whisper, like a secret that must be hidden.
"Hello.", he says, and his voice is so quiet, he doesn't know how she catches it with the loud mob of students pouring around them.
"Hello.", she says back.
A rush of excitement warms his bones in realization that he is hearing her voice for the first time.
It is light, and as beautiful as a bell, with her tongue touching the roof of her mouth for the 'll' sound, and the word ending in a breath and a smile.
They look at each other for moments that seem to stretch into minutes, that stretch into hours, that stretch into days, before he says, "You have beautiful eyes."
"So do you.", she replies immediately as one bitten, red-painted nail pushes back her hair as dark as night.
He grins like an idiot, and the crowd pulls them away, and soon she is almost lost by the sea of students.
But then he sees a flash of ocean eyes, so he calls, "What's your name?"
"Diana.", he hears softly, in her voice of bells over the loud crowd, and he drops back willingly, his fingers and toes tingling.
He doesn't talk to her again after that. He doesn't need to.
Their eyes lock often, over breakfast, lunch, dinner, in hallways, and in the library.
One day he returns to his dorm to find a note stuck to the door loosely.
It reads, looped in curly writing:
Silver eyes, Meet me at the Astrometry tower, 8pm. Diana x.