Euphoria
My world came crashing down when I split his lip for the first time. It was then that I realised that he was human, flawed and equal to the rest of us. He was nothing special, not some untouchable god the rest of the world made him out to be.
I realised then that I was not obsessed with a god. The obsession that tore at my soul and filled my dreams was not with some sort of celestial god, it was with a human. An ordinary, beautiful human. The euphoria I experienced every night and while I was on the Quidditch Pitch was not triggered by a power trip, knowing I was near a god.
I know that now, because I still feel it.
The feeling should have gone away when I saw that he bled red blood like the rest of us. His blood had no shimmering quality, nor was it, as the bedtime stories parents told their children said, like Unicorn blood. Beautiful and cursed, tangy but delicious.
Before I had run, I took a moment – just a single, short moment – to look back at him. Etched into his face was disbelief as he brushed his fingers against his lips, his eyes cast downward…
I was in love.
Skip ahead, three months. The Quidditch Final was days away and Zabini was working us all like slaves because the match was Gryffindor versus Slytherin and Gryffindor always won.
But they didn't. Had Zabini already forgotten about my victory three months earlier? Had he forgotten what I had not been able to expel from my mind and my dreams?
Perhaps he was just worried that I would fail, like I had so many games before.
They didn't always win, because he was not a god. He was not infallible. He had failed before and I had come out the victor and I was going to see that again I would win. I would do so now only for my housemates, whom I wanted to bring victory and glory to, but also for myself so that I could see that look of bloodlust on his face again, that look he reserved only for me. It was the one thing that was held between us and only between us and I loved it.
Skip again, to after the match. I had won, but only just. I know his mind had been elsewhere during the match and that my victory and my house's restored glory was nothing more than a fluke, but I didn't care because that look was on my face and the bloodlust burned in his eyes like an unquenchable phoenix fire. I felt that euphoric high that I always felt when he was near or angry with me. I split his lip again and his expression changed to an unreadable face. His hand wrapped tightly around my arm and I knew I would have marks for the rest of the night. His eyes changed again, and they became softer, more gentle and loving. "You smell like ginger and cigarettes," he said to me.
I couldn't help but look around, searching for the other two members of the Dream Team creeping in the shadows laughing silently at me, but I don't and I wonder for a moment. I speculate what exactly he meant by that statement and I can't help but want to burst. I hold my feelings in and do nothing but reply. "You smell like mint and soap," I tell him, and he does. I noticed it before I split his lip the first time and I wonder if that's when he learnt what I smelled like, too.
A promise to meet the following night passes my lips as I wrench my arm out of his grasp and walk off the pitch, trying to keep my feelings inside of me, even though that feeling of euphoria that I thought could get no better than it already was increases tenfold with every passing second. I feel as though I was flying a thousand miles an hour.
I realised as I walked back to my dorm that the insults and the punches and the search for the bloodlust etched deep into his face and burned into his eyes weren't important anymore. All I needed now was his lips and his eyes and his smile. That was what I had wanted all along.
That was all the euphoria I could handle.