Slow Show

by morningmagpie

Whenever she spoke, it made his whole body hum. Draco M/OC

Disclaimer: Once again, none of these characters belong to me, except for Adele. The marvelous and compelling world of Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling.

Author's Note: I have paired Draco with an original character. I think I have a penchant for girls that have names that begin with the letter A, but that's not important. Draco is not entirely in character (that may be an understatement) but the war has been over for years, and he's been given a chance to mature, due to becoming friends with Adele and becoming pseudo-friends with the Trio. Oh, and the name of this story is the title of a song by The National, which sort of inspired me while I was writing.

Slow Show.

The Past.

Adele.

She harbored secrets like ships at port. They would hover inside of her mind for years, unused, lost and aimless, floating off of the pier, the sun setting red behind them. He knew that she would never let the words slip out of her mouth. It was unspoken, the trust she had formed with everyone. They came to her in the middle of the night, thoughts tumultuous, eyes in turmoil. They came to her over the dinner table, their thoughts spilling onto the plates and resting among the silverware. She was the one that everyone hoped for, the one that could undoubtedly be told something vastly important and you would know that it would never leave the tiny compartment of her brain that she stored all of the other secrets inside of. She would act as though she had never heard it, and the secret would drop off in its own lack of existence, and no one would bother asking her if she knew what it was.

She was ridiculously brilliant at fooling everyone.

He knew that there were nights when she would look up into nothing and see everything. She would replay memories, pause and rewind them like films. He liked to think that he was the only one who noticed when she went outside to stare at the night sky, pondering questions that were larger than herself.

She was abnormally quiet in the evening, but during the day, her mind seemed to jolt itself awake, and she became friendly again, open. She smiled whenever she was looked at, and her conversation was usually engaging. There were moments when he found himself watching her without meaning to. His eyes would slip and land on her, and he found that he could not look away. The smile that lingered on her mouth after she laughed; the spark in her brown eyes when she was suppressing the urge to grin. She became so animated when she was talking to someone about music or literature, hands gesticulating wildly, hair flopping forward into her eyes, fingers flicking it hastily back onto her forehead. She noticed him watching her once, and her eyebrows had knitted downward in a curious, puzzled expression that bespoke of everything and nothing at the same time.

He was strangely in love with her voice. He loved the way that she had now adopted a sort of British accent, the way her tongue now reacted with certain syllables. Sometimes, she would say things that sounded as if she had never left California, regional colloquialisms and flat inflections. He knew that everyone looked away from her when that happened. They all knew what she had given up to come to England, who she had left behind, and the fact that she would never have back those lazy, carefree days of summer before she had come to fight in the war. It had happened to all of them, lost innocence, lost love, but it hurt them considerably more to see her go through it, because she had never asked for it. She had come to England because she had wanted to, she had thrown herself into the whirlwind of hate, and the group had always blamed themselves for it.

She was never one to get what she wanted. It was not because she was without money, or friends, or status. It was because she could never decide just what it was that she insisted she needed so badly. She wanted a small house, an abundant amount of land, a small grotto and a gazebo. She wanted gardens, mountains, forests, beaches, oceans, rivers, lakes, creeks, hills, fields, meadows. She wanted to be able to live everywhere at once, to be able to look out her window and watch the moon, watch pale shadows that reminded her of something no one knew about. She wanted to forget and remember. She wanted to spend hours of time listening to people talk, and then spend hours alone in her room, listening to music. She wanted, more than anything, to be happy.

The End of the War.

There was that night years ago, when she had come over to his house, the small one in the woods, the one that overlooked a cliff that fell off into a canyon of trees, the one no one believed he lived in, and she had stood on his front steps, waiting. The night was turning purple with the setting sun and the grass was blowing softly in the summer wind. The breeze blew her hair into her face, and her eyes were alight with something that he couldn't quite describe. He didn't know it at the time, but he had fallen in love with her at that moment. It wasn't the fact that she was stunningly beautiful, and that he couldn't think because of that. No, it was just the fact that she was there, standing on his porch, with a small, knowing smile on her lips.

She wasn't conventionally pretty; he knew that many people didn't see her as beautiful until they spoke to her. Her hair was too unkempt; her eyes were not that charming color of blue or that captivating shade of green. They were deep brown, and they glittered when they caught the sunlight. Her face was unique, her lips full, nose slightly upturned, eyebrows expressive and dark. She was too thin; her arms showing the stretch of muscle underneath, shoulder bones poking up like small mountains, collarbone a harsh slash of bone underneath her skin. She looked fragile, but there was this resilience about her, this determination to never let anyone think she was weak that kept her from looking insignificant. He was staring at her for what seemed hours, and she finally opened her mouth to speak to him when he opened the door, her arms suddenly around his neck. She was whispering excitedly into his ear, her words hot against his neck, his thoughts suddenly distorted: I'm moving into the country. I'm staying.

He knew that he couldn't, shouldn't, love her. There were things about him that no one knew, and he especially didn't care to tell her. What would she say? The thought of her face, eyes drawn back in horror at what he had done during the war, was enough to deter him from ever divulging that part of his life with her. How could she understand the night terrors, the dreams he had, which, almost inevitably, involved something horrible happening to her? He'd asked Hermione once, if Adele had ever broken down, if she ever had nightmares. He'd received a withering look, and the sharp words: We all fought in the same war, Draco.

Adele had come in then, her hair pulled into a loose bun, strands falling out and hitting the sides of her mouth. She'd smiled at him, grabbed an apple, and had been about to walk outside when she turned around.

I'll be back in a while.

She gave a little smile, one that was passed between the two girls like a secret.

Hermione had nodded, and with that, Adele had left, her hands trailing beside her.

Not everyone deals with tragedy the same way. He heard Hermione say.

And sure enough, Adele would come back hours later, her eyes quiet and questioning and he knew that she was as affected by the war as everyone else.

Impossibilities.

He didn't want to be in love with her. He didn't want to compare every woman he saw with her. After all, he was quite positive that she felt nothing for him, beside their occasional spurts of companionship that had stemmed from the two of them being partners during the war. But other than that, he was sure that the only feelings she harbored for him were simply platonic. It saddened him, of course, to know that she did not long for him as he did for her, but of course, he was sensible enough to know that any sort of relationship with her was impossible. But the what if situations that he created in his mind were too great sometimes, their consequences too astronomical, that he found himself daydreaming about her no matter how many times his pragmatist leanings told him otherwise. How could he not?

The House on the Cliff.

She always came to his house unannounced. She would sit on his sofa, legs curled underneath her, eyes wandering around the bare walls of his house. He never bothered calling it a home; it never felt that way. Sometimes, when she was there, it almost felt like it was. They would talk for hours; she would occasionally bring up the subject of his sad décor. Your house is rather gloomy, you know. We should paint the walls. We should put up pictures or some sort of decoration. Now and then, he didn't even hear what she was telling him, because he was so transfixed on the fact that she said we every time she discussed doing something to his house. Then, just like that, she would be gone. It was a small glimpse of what it would be like to live with her, a teasing hint of what his life might be like if she were in it. He adored her, yes, but no matter what, she puzzled him exceedingly. She gave him birthday presents that were more personal than all of the ones he received from the others. She helped him decorate his cottage, hours spent in Muggle paint stores, hardware centers, in furniture stores, selecting the perfect sofa and chair. She stayed until the wee hours of the morning, talking of nothing, and somehow, managing to divulge her inner secrets, and then she would yawn sleepily and Apparate home. She would walk with him along the edge of his property and look over the cliff, hair swinging across her face, looking into the canyon of trees and saying that she wanted to touch their branches someday. Sometimes they would go flying, their laughter breaking out over the wind. She would take him into Muggle London because she lived there, and they would go to coffeehouses and talk. She'd drag him into record stores and they would listen to bands that she considered to be independent and he liked the sound of them. Sometimes mellow, sometimes raucous. Always fitting the day he was having, always perfectly linked to how he felt when he was with her. He wondered if she knew that: her ability to discover, unearth things about him that he sometimes didn't know about.

But as much as he loved her, she infuriated him as well. There were times when they would argue over the smallest things, arguments that led into possible months of distance and apathy on both of their parts. She unknowingly reminded him of his past, which he fought to forget. He wanted solace, peace. He simply wanted to move on; he didn't want remembrance. Of course, he found it next to impossible, and in trying to forget about it, succeeded in holding onto it more tenaciously than anything he ever had before. If we forget what happened, won't it happen again? This was his logic behind why he held onto the past, but it was a lot simpler than that:

He just couldn't forget.

Remembrance.

She was the one that everyone would miss if she suddenly decided to leave. Her presence at the Burrow was now so familiar, so set, that if she did not show up for a game of Quidditch, or for the daily supper or lunch or even breakfast, everyone would fall into a fit of worry, convinced that she had finally done something to make up for what she had failed to do during the war. Emma, her best friend, used to show up in the middle of the night, eyes wild, hands gesticulating violently, asking if they had heard from her. And if they said no, she would push her fingers angrily through her hair, and disappear.

This had been during the bad times, the period when she'd remember that her friends from back home were gone, when she would run through all of the what-if situations that flew rapidly into her mind. It had been the time when she had told him, in the middle of the night, that she had wanted to die. That she had held pills in her hands and pressed each of them to her lips in preparation. That she had brewed a potion and written a note. That she had braided her bed sheets into artistic ropes, intricate patterns of silk.

Draco asked her what had stopped her from doing it and she said: I did it, once. I swallowed a bottle of pills and I went to sleep. But when I feel asleep, I had this dream about Marie, and she came to my bed and sat down next to me and said that I needed to wake up. She kept saying that I needed to wake up.

It had passed, this grey area in her life where she hadn't known whether or not she wanted to live or die. It was a strange thing, she'd told him, that the problem she'd had with life was that she was tired of living as though she were about to die. And so she'd stopped penning notes and buying bottles of aspirin and instead came to the Burrow on weekends and laughed over games of Quidditch and jokes that the twins told over the table. She'd finally figured out that she just needed to live.

He always went looking for her if she went missing. He normally knew where she went, because he'd found her there countless times before. It was hundreds of miles away from the central house, and so small, that he was always quite impressed with her for choosing this spot as her hiding place. It was on the coast, and the crash and swell of the waves would be quietly roaring in the background whenever he found her. He would sit next to her, and her eyes would have that expression in them, the ones where he knew that she was contemplating all of those questions she had asked and all of the answers she had been given. He knew that she was never completely satisfied with what they told her. She turned her head to him, eyes resting on his. I wish I could have saved them. He would lean against the rocks, unable to think of the proper words to say, and just ask her if she wanted to go back. She always said no. She cried, sometimes, but mostly, she would sit with him and stare at the stars, her back against the sand and grass. I'm sorry for making you worry. I just couldn't stay. She would push her back harder into the ground. I just couldn't stay.

The Solace of Familiarity.

Knowledge kept her alive. It fed her in the middle of the night when she couldn't think of anything else to do. He would give her a new book a week, something that he always carefully picked out, something that he was always positive she would like. He would leave her notes and maps to find them, sometimes starting in her garden or on the steps of his house. They never led her to the same place. She loved solving the puzzles; it made her feel important, triumphant. She would scream with glee when she had figured it out, and would commence to happily devouring the book. It kept her up at night, those novels. Symbols and philosophies and theories kept her awake when she was supposed to be sleeping. But sleeping meant dreaming, and he was certain that she wasn't quite ready for that.

Secrets.

She carried her own feelings inside of her like they were sacred. If anyone asked her a question that meant she would have to supply them with a real answer, she would lie. I'm fine. I'm having a great time, thanks. I seem sad? And for some reason, they knew it was best not to contradict her. She was proud; she liked that no one fully understood her. He was the only one audacious and arrogant (or stupid) enough to press her, and when she was yelling at him, eyes bright, mouth hard, she would finally tell him the truth. She would look defeated, and her shoulders would slump, but he would pull her to his chest, and tell her that he felt exactly the same.

She always liked it when others revealed their secrets. She could keep those better than her own.

The Thoughts of Others.

He often wondered what it would be like to kiss her. He often wondered if she would kiss him back. It would certainly push their tentative relationship into another territory entirely, one that was unexplored, remote and dangerous. Their weekly chats at the coffeehouse were kept relatively secret, as were her daily stops at his house, because he still wasn't entirely accepted at the Burrow. He was better friends with the Weasleys and Harry and Hermione than he had been before, hell, he was friends with them now, but they still mistrusted him.

He saw Harry look at him once when he was staring at Adele, and he knew that the other man knew exactly how he felt. He had a feeling nearly everyone knew. Ginny would watch him as he passed Adele the plate of potatoes, a small smile on her lips, and a look in her eyes that screamed: I know about it. Why keep it a secret? He suspected that Hermione had known since the beginning of it, perhaps even at Hogwarts, because she spoke to him about Adele the way people speak to one another about treasures, about secrets; with a sort of intimate confidentiality that meant the both of them cared more deeply for her than they could explain.

Sometimes she would invite him over to her house, and he would show up, look at the furniture and paintings hanging on the wall, marvel at how much it seemed like her, how everything from the comfy, slightly worn chairs to the bookshelves sagging with novels reminded him of exactly the way he felt every time he saw her. He wanted to stay in her house forever sometimes. She would then seat herself comfortably on the sofa, pat the space next to her, curl up with a mug of tea after passing one to him, and they would talk for hours. They would talk about nothing, really. Ice cream preferences, funny moments of the past, literature, favorite bands, most visited countries: safe topics, generally. They would sometimes delve into the slightly scarier parts of their past, but if they did, he would stand up abruptly, say he forgot something he had to do at home, and leave, her eyes fixed on him as he walked out the door. He would lean on the wall outside in the hallway, his hand against his forehead, cursing his stupidity. His chest would ache for a few moments, because he couldn't help thinking, despite the occasional fuck-ups, that it just felt ridiculously right to be sitting across from her in her living room, making jokes and satirizing everyone they'd met that day. He noticed that whenever she was over at his house, that the place suddenly seemed full, as though it was finally a home. He couldn't quite explain it, but he sometimes hoped that she felt that, too. But he knew that she was too much of realist to harbor any sort of romantic feelings for him. She was too intelligent, too reasonable. His pragmatic ways were slowly becoming obsolete, and it was horrifying to him that his rationalist reasoning was flying out of his head like a Snitch. He had learned as a young adult that acting the way he had before, never thinking of what his actions might do to other people, had been, in simplest of terms, rubbish. When he was a child, the feelings of others were insignificant to him. Now, with more experience and more modesty, he knew that sagacity was really the only thing that was going to save him. He had to control his feelings, beat down his past prejudices and shit reasoning.

That was another thing that frustrated him about her: she always made him forget to be rational.

Memories.

She remembered things that no one really cared enough about, or thought about enough to keep stored away in their minds. She would bring up memories that people had forgotten about years ago (Remember that one time when Emma and George played Quidditch out back, and Emma screamed bloody murder when a Bludger came near her? Remember when we all went dancing, and half of you had never seen a club before?) and then there would be this sudden, infectious laughter and rambunctious yelling over everyone's voices as they recounted the story in their own words. She would glance across the table at him, shrug a little, and he would chuckle. It was never the same if she wasn't the one to bring it up first. Her words and sentences were clever and sweet, and she had a better idea of what would make people laugh. When she was gone, and the dining table practically shook with the absence of her, the stories would dwindle, and become practically legend, until she showed up the next night for supper. And then the table would be alive again, with their raucous laughter and high-pitched shrieks, and everyone knew that she was the one that kept everyone coming back.

She was the only reason he came back to eat dinner with them. Harry, Ginny, Hermione, Ron, the Weasleys, their acquaintances, they all knew that he had no reason to come to the Burrow every night. They had never been friends, and in school, they hadn't had any common ground whatsoever, and with that, had decided to hate one another. He didn't come in contact with them until she had become friends with them. After the war started, he had realized that he couldn't continue doing what he was doing. He couldn't live his life as a person without thoughts, a person who did what he was told and nothing else. He went in the middle of the night, and waited while Potter stood in the doorway looking bewildered, and had tried to hide his sneer. He suspected that she had convinced them that he was reliable. He didn't know why she did it, because she had hated him as much as the others. Slowly, all of them had come together, especially that summer at Grimmauld Place, when they were huddled together in close quarters, fearing death and the death of their families. They knew that they would all become friends after that.

The Beginning.

When she showed up for the seventh year at Hogwarts, he knew that he was lost. She had walked into the hall with the other American students, the ones who were willing to risk their lives for a cause they did not fully understand, her curly hair falling into her eyes when she tilted her head down, her lips tight against memories that no one knew she had. For the first time in his life, he hadn't cared who she was, what her status was, whether she was pureblood or halfblood or muggle-born; all he had cared about was the fact that, for some reason, he very much wanted the chance to talk to her for the rest of his life. He didn't understand the feeling at first, but now, as he is sitting in his study, glaring at the fireplace, he knows that that had only been the beginning of what he considers to be his transformation.

She regarded him with little more than frigid civility when they had first met. Her eyes were glacial, and almost rivaled his own. He hadn't known brown eyes to have that sort of indifference. He had always associated them with warmth, with the earth, with summer. But whenever she turned her gaze on him, he felt his insides tighten, partly from the fact that her stare was hard, calculating, and partly because of the fact that her making eye contact with him was monumental. They had little to do with one another. She was placed in a different house: she came to classes; she fought to forget about what was happening at home. They passed in the hallways sometimes between classes, and he would consider stopping her, telling her that he wasn't who she thought he was, that, really, he wasn't the sort of person they had described to her. And then he would remember that he was, and he would walk away. How tragically amusing, how horrifyingly ironic, that the fresh, young Death Eater was fascinated by the Order's newest member. The bright eyed girl with the pureblood background, but who couldn't care less about it. He would stay awake for hours thinking about her, her ideals, how different she was. He went over things she had said, the words she used to describe places, the stories she would tell, insignificant anecdotes that made people laugh. He thought of himself; who he really was, how frightened and alone and remorseful he found himself to be. He tried to ignore his attraction to her and repeat the words She isn't pretty. She isn't pretty over and over in his head like a mantra.

He often wondered what she would think of him if he ever gave her the chance (or if she ever took the time- or the risk) to get to know him. It kept him up until well into the morning, his eyes constantly closing and opening, closing and opening, seeing her face, and not seeing it at the same time. She was elusive, a paradox in terms of what he had been brought up to believe. He wasn't falling for her at this point; he just knew that he was mesmerized by her. It should have tipped him off.

He used to think that she would have been perfect in Slytherin. She lied to get what she wanted, but then she would turn around and lie to save someone else. She was late to classes, she failed to do all of her homework, and she was brash and rude to some of the Hufflepuffs. But then again, she was brilliant, stood up for the Golden Trio and the muggle-borns that members of his house still ridiculed. She was loyal, but she wasn't as brave as the others were, mostly for the fact that she thought about things before she did them, instead of blindly leaping into the line of fire. She was clever, resourceful, and ambitious, and it irked him that she had not been placed in his house.

Whenever she spoke, it made his whole body hum. She was witty, and her words clicked in her sentences, and even though she never directed her words at him, he always felt peaceful when he was listening to her. He felt as though he could turn into a flash of light and not care what the consequences were. He could listen to her forever.

The Weightlessness of Flying.

When he saw her play Quidditch, as Gryffindor's newest Chaser, he never thought he could have seen someone so graceful on a broom. They played differently in America, or so he presumed, because she and the other American boy, Peter, rode their brooms in a style he had never seen before. There was purpose to their moves, yes, they looked like people you would not want to come in contact with on the pitch, but there was beauty to it as well, a sort of splendor and magnificence in their feints and dives. Adele would dip and twist on her broom and she would circle the other opponents, as if she were taunting them, daring them to follow her, and when they did, she would spin away quickly, always twenty feet ahead. She would hang upside down, her legs the only thing connecting her to the broom, and she would let her arms trail down past her head, fingers skimming the grass. She would twist over, and, as if she had read her teammate's mind, the ball was in her fingers, and then she sent it into the goal hoop. Sometimes, she would hold onto it, effortlessly outsmarting the opponents. The Quaffle was always strategically thrown past another player into Peter's hands. They won every time.

Loss.

He could still remember the day that she had been told her friends from back home had died. It was eerily sunny outside, as if the weather was laughing at her. She had been nibbling on an apple, absent-mindedly putting it down and then picking it back up. She wasn't one to eat much; he'd noticed that over time. She was sipping some water, the skin of her throat exposed as she tilted her head back to get all of it. It was then that the letter had floated down onto her plate. She'd picked it up curiously, as if she didn't understand why it was there, but her eyes were wide with sorrow, and she seemed to already know what the letter contained. His gray eyes had been fixed on her, and he watched as she opened the letter, dark eyes reading the words, but not really seeing them. She stood up, walked calmly out of the room, and then he heard a crash as soon as she was out of the Great Hall, and she was gone. He knew then, somehow, that she would forgive him if he followed her.

She was sitting on the benches outside of the castle, her body shivering with its own violent sobs. He had always been awkward in situations like these, and he didn't know exactly what to do. He ran a hand along the back of his head, and stepped back and forth, trying to make up his mind. She had glanced up at him then, her eyes red, rimmed with tears, and suddenly devoid of all the coldness she had reserved for him for months. Without thinking, he sat next to her, and before he could understand it or prepare for it, her head was on his chest, and her arms were wrapped around his thin frame, and they were holding one another, loss to loss. He tried to formulate words of comfort but nothing except incoherent thoughts came out of his mouth. He smoothed down her hair, and rubbed circles on her back. He tried to quiet the rebellious thoughts that were buzzing in his head. She fits; she fits in your arms. Her head, look, it fits underneath yours? But he had to ignore them, he was supposed to ignore them, (what would his parents think? What would the members of his House think?) but he realized, after a time, that he could not. He couldn't refuse her friendship if she decided to give it to him. He leaned his head on hers, and held onto her, hoping, somehow, that she understood what he was thinking. She quieted, and pulled away from him. He didn't know it yet, but it was sort of the beginning of the end for him, to put it in clichés.

Adele's Eyes.

He could never tell if she was lying. She had a tricky way of being able to force words into your mouth, and you couldn't remember if you had said them, or if she had said them. She was delighted by the fact that no one could tell, and when he asked her how she did it, she'd simply shrugged, and said: I've always been the one to tell the truth.

She was the one who would come home from work and then stop by his house, even if she was exhausted and her eyes were closing with sleep. She would listen, and he would talk, and it would continue like this for hours. If he needed to talk to her, she would put whatever she had in her hands down, and she would turn those disturbingly understanding eyes on him. Before he knew her well enough, he had had to look away every time she did that. It would have been too revealing to look at her when he was telling a secret. She would figure out more than what you said, and it was dangerous if you just wanted her to know the basics.

The Beginning of the End in Paris.

He should have asked her long ago if she felt anything for him.

Sometimes, she would not speak to him for months, after one of those days when they would talk and she would misinterpret something he had said, or he would say something he didn't mean.

Once, she'd asked him if he was ever going to fall in love and he'd told her no. It wasn't as though he actually thought that, it was actually quite the contrary, but he felt that if he told her yes, she'd ask with whom and that would have led to extreme complications. She had yelled at him, told him that he needed to move on, that he needed to stop lying face down in that tragedy he called his past. He found that he was furious with her, and told her that the past was not something you simply put down and forgot about. What do you think I had to do? She screamed it at him, and he was stunned for a moment, and then he had said, Anyone with slight intelligence could easily discern that you've done exactly the opposite. Her eyes had blazed with loathing, and she'd slammed the door when she left. They didn't speak for three months after that.

Both of them knew that the other had flaws, but neither of them wanted to disclose their secrets, their demons, the nightmares of the past. Their relationship was complicated, too intricate and complex for two people who were only twenty-one. How could he explain to her that she shouldn't be with him? That he didn't deserve her? She doesn't care, mate. She wouldn't care. She's just as messed up as everyone else. Harry told him over drinks a few weeks later. She fought in the same war as you. Maybe not in the same way. But it was still the same war.

There were times when he was convinced that maybe, she loved him back. Those thoughts happened on the days when she would drop by his flat, a glass of coffee in one hand and a pastry in another, hand them to him, and then tell him they were going to Paris. They'd Apparate or Floo, and then they would be standing on the balcony of some museum, or boutique, or bookshop, and her wavy hair would fly across her face, into the sun, and the colors would jump out at him. Her hair was brown, but there was auburn, and caramel, and gold, and mahogany in there as well, and he would long to run his hands through her hair just once, just to be able to tell himself that he did. He would quell his urge to do so by running a hand through his blonde hair and then awkwardly stare at the sky. Sometimes, she would lean into him, her head on his chest, and she would say things that didn't mean anything to anyone except him, and then she would push off of him, give him that secret smile that he knew was entirely his, and she would be gone. It was like trying to keep up with someone who had been playing the game, a game in which he had no idea how to play, five years longer than he had. She hardly made mention of those days when they talked afterward. It was aggravating as hell, and somehow, he loved her more for it.

But it was those evenings when she was gone from the table that he most acutely felt what she had done to him. He knew that he could not love another woman as long as she existed. He knew that it was melodramatic and unrealistic, but there wasn't anything he could do. He loved her, and would not settle for anyone else.

She would tell him sometimes that she thought he was in love with someone, and that it was unfair that she hadn't told him who it was. Her eyes were always veiled when she asked him this, as if she was afraid of the answer. They were practically best friends, she said, and it was true. He hadn't bothered with having friends when he was at school, and having her now was like having the best confidante he could ever ask for. Those secrets he told her were never told; those memories they pulled out of their heads and spent nights trying to piece together: no one knew. It was like they were silently aware that neither of them would be sane without the other. He knew that if he lost her, if suddenly her presence at the table was just another memory he had collected, that he would wait out the rest of his life in his home, eager to waste away time. He was being sensational, emotional and completely over the top, but he loved her, and being in love was hardly a rational state of being.

Midnight.

He remembers that night years ago, when he saw her at that charity ball he had tried to convince his mother to let him ignore, when he saw her and fully realized just how beautiful she really was.

She was wearing a black dress, and her skin was pale, even more so than it normally was, and her eyes were shadowed a dark blue, midnight, and she was almost unreal. He had stopped abruptly, mouth agape, and felt his stomach drop. She looked over at him, over her shoulder, hair waving loosely down her back, and smiled that smile of hers, and he felt his legs shake underneath him. He almost felt as though he hated her; this amount of power she had over him…. It was nothing short of astounding. He tried sending thoughts to her across the room, thoughts he didn't even remember thinking: I love you. I love you. But he couldn't bring himself to even think the words; they were final, then, tangible and disturbingly real. He had not consciously acknowledged that he loved her at this point.

The Present.

Truth.

He knows, that night, when she comes looking for him when he isn't at the dinner, that he will have to tell her. She's been seeing people on and off for the duration of the time he's known her, and it's been killing him to watch her do it. Every time he sees her with someone, a new smile on her face, a new laugh, his stomach churns and threatens to explode out of his mouth. While he stares into the flames, he hears her say his name, her voice a quaint mix of American and British, and he turns to see her in his doorway, hair a beautiful mess, eyes dreamy and hard, her mouth open in a slight o.

"Adele." His mouth always hums after he says her name.

She smiles at him. She walks across the room to sit next to him, placing only enough distance to keep their positions from being too intimate. Her body hardly takes up any space; she is thin, but he always finds it attractive on her, in a way that he could never explain. He prefers girls with more to them, but she is charming in her skinniness, and he is so used to her like that, that it would have jolted him to see her any other way.

"Why weren't you at dinner? We waited."

He scoffs.

"You mean you waited?"

"Well…yes. I waited."

He smiles a little, knowing that she was probably the only one to have cared enough to keep them from eating. But it disappears, because he knows that this is the moment where he will have to tell her how he feels. She notices his fading grin, and pushes on his arm playfully.

"Are you depressed or something?"

He laughs at that, a little bitterly, which she must miss, because she laughs too. He feels a tightening in his chest, and once again, he is reminded that he would practically give up organs to be able to sit like this with her forever.

"No."

"You're lying."

"How would you know?"

"You get this slight glimmer behind your eyes when you lie." His heart flip- flops. He can't explain it, but he always feels this twinge of happiness and sorrow when she mentions something about him that she's discovered. "And plus, I know that you haven't missed a single dinner since they started two years ago."

He gives her a small, sad smile, and says, "Did you ever notice that was about the same time you started showing up?"

It's out of his mouth before he has a chance to stop himself, but it feels good to have it out there in the space between them, his sort of declaration dangling in front of their mouths.

Her lips drop into a look of surprise and realization. He shouldn't be pleased to see the expression; it's merely her solving the puzzle, figuring out what had been wrong with him all these months. It isn't as though her eyes light up because she loves him back, no; it was the knowledge thing again. She now knew how he felt, and that was primarily the goal, the main reason why she had come tonight. He knows there is no reason for her to stay now.

Her eyes have suddenly become stormy, dark and closed off. It's entirely unexpected, this look of almost horror and loss etched into her face.

"You never told me." Her tone is flat and hard, and it hurts him to hear her say it like that. Her eyes look similar to those that she used to bestow upon him during school, unfeeling and manipulative, able to poke out every possible emotion and rub him raw.

She looks over at him, and he finds, that suddenly, he cannot remember exactly how his lungs fill up with air. Her face is close, and he can feel her breath on his skin, warm and soft. The space between them is next to nonexistent. He doesn't ask her what she means, and she doesn't bothering explaining. But then suddenly, as if a cord has snapped, tension floods back into the room, and he realizes just how close she is, and what he's about to do. She notices too, and pulls away from him, abhorrence and loss and pity in her dark eyes. They beat into his own, until they are a tattoo upon the back of his eyelids.

"I should probably go." Her voice is low.

He nods, and turns away from her. He hears her close the door behind her, and then he lays down on the couch, his arms cradling his head, eyes burning infuriatingly. What did you expect? That she loved you back?

Two Lives Apart.

He doesn't see her for two months. He stops coming to the Burrow, and she stops coming to his house in the afternoons. He hears that she's dating George, that things are starting to get serious. He hears from several sources that it probably won't last. He sees them at a shop in Muggle London (another three months of his not having seen her had suddenly flown by) and he watches them buying some sort of paint and carpet samples, laughing at how ridiculous some of the choices are. His mind buzzes unpleasantly, because he knows that this means they'll be moving in together. And just like that, in a flash of blinding light, he can see where her life will go. She will continue dating George, and he will make her laugh, that melodious laugh that he strives to get out of her mouth every day, and they will kiss and make love, and then he will ask her to marry him, and of course, she will say yes. She'll come to the Burrow every night with him, their hands entwined, gazing at each other in adoration, her fingers tracing patterns on the small of his back. He will come for their engagement party, because Hermione and Ginny won't let him stay away, and he will have to watch her as she's pressed up against George, her eyes floating over to his for only a second, and she'll smile that smile that says what he thought it said when they were in Paris.

She'll float down that aisle toward George; wearing a white dress that will make her dark eyes jump out and flash brilliantly. They will move into a small house in the country, and then they'll have kids, kids with red hair and sparkling brown eyes that laugh when they hear their father tell jokes. They will listen to Muggle music and eat at the Burrow every night, and be excellent at Quidditch.

He leans against the wall, his breath suddenly forced, stomach churning. The thought of her marrying someone else….

And then he pictures her with himself, and the wrenching in his stomach subsides. He can picture the two of them making love in his bedroom every night, the one that looks out on the ocean, the one she always stops to admire when she comes over. He can see the two of them eating breakfast in the middle of the day, their hair mussed, she wearing his shirt, he wearing his boxers. He can see them in London, their fingers intertwined; at a Quidditch match with her hands thrown up in some sort of victory leap, her mouth pressed against his; at the Burrow late at night, mugs of cocoa in their hands, she leaning against his chest; in her flat, laughing at their failed attempt to make French food. He can see nights spent at home, where they sit together and read for hours at a time, holding silent conversations. He can see her marrying him, having his children, beautiful children with wild, brown hair and gray eyes that glitter when they read the books he's collected or when they listen to Adele's music. They will run around the small house on the cliff, their laughter so similar to hers, their smiles bright and innocent. They will hold conversations as a family, and he will fall asleep with her in his arms every night.

He goes home then, and sits at his desk for hours, unprepared to deal with the loss of that life.

And then he knows, knows that he doesn't care if he doesn't deserve her, knows that he loves her and wants to be with her, and will risk everything to have her. It scares him, but he pushes the fear underneath his burgeoning happiness, a realization that he's not as terrified of being with her as he thought he was.

Her Secret Revealed.

It's another couple of months before he sees her again. She looks worn out, tired and lonely. He doesn't see George anywhere. She gives him a tight smile across the room, and he finds that all he can accomplish is a grimace. She seems to understand, and they don't speak for the afternoon. The Quidditch game is played out, she as Chaser on Harry's team, he as Seeker on Ron's. They fly around the other, never coming close enough to actually make contact, or even seek out the other's eyes.

But the evening rolls into the hills, and, suddenly, they're alone together in the kitchen at the Burrow, he slicing up vegetables with his wand, she pouring out bottles of Butterbeer with hers.

They don't talk for a very long time. He has never felt this awkward around her in his entire life, and he makes to leave, if just to be away from the stifling fact that he can't have back what he never even knew was within his grasp. Sighing, he makes his way toward the door, and then he hears her voice.

"I'm not seeing George anymore."

And just like that, she's standing next to him, her eyes smiling at him again, her warm scent and calm smile so close that he almost loses control. She leans in, and then her lips are on his, softly breaking into that unexplored territory that neither of them know anything about. He can't even begin to describe how good it feels, how much his body reacts to having her in his arms. He winds his fingers into her hair, and he is immediately reminded of the sun, and the softness of her eyes when he first sat down next to her. They break apart, and he smiles, and she smiles, her lips looking bruised in the lowlight of the evening.

"Adele?"

She looks at him strangely, and for a second, he thinks she'll tell him that the kiss was a mistake. But then he realizes that she's figuring out what his unspoken question is. She glances down at her feet, and seems to be embarrassed.

"You want to know why I never told you, right?"

He's too stunned to make any coherent sentences. With a crazy, wide smile, he nods yes.

She smiles, a little sadly it seems, but at the same time, with as much hope in her eyes as a little girl. He imagines that this is what she must have looked like when she was younger.

"I never told you, because I thought, well, what if I'm wrong? What if I tell him that I know he loves me and then I tell him I love him back, and it all goes to hell, because there was some huge misunderstanding, and you'd never cared for me in the first place? I hate humiliation, you know."

She gives him a shy, knowing smile.

"You always overthink." He's still smiling at her; he must look like a lunatic.

"And you tend to never think." He notices she hasn't stopped smiling either.

He chuckles, because this is what he loves the most, the teasing, the words they've used to convey feelings they were both too timid to admit to.

"How long have you known?" He asks her.

"For a while."

"And you never said anything?"

"I thought you would want me to leave you alone. In case you changed your mind."

"I haven't."

"I figured."

She grins.

"Everyone told me that you were in love with that bloke back home."

She laughs suddenly.

"Will?" She shakes her head vigorously. "No. I haven't loved him since the war ended. I think they said that to keep you off track."

She smirks at his bewildered expression.

"You mean, that you've been feeling like this"- he makes a wild motion with his hands, back and forth between them, pointing to her and then to himself- "for me, for as long as I've been feeling like this" – he does the motion again- "for you?" He's sputtering, and he feels sort of like an idiot.

"Eloquently put." She smirks again. He throws an aluminum can at her, which she transfigures into a chrysanthemum with a lazy flick of her wrist. "But yes. I've felt like this for a long time." Her eyes aren't laughing playfully right now; they're quiet, and they look serene. "I just, I don't know, didn't want to tell you, in case I ruined what I had with you. And I always felt as though you didn't want to be with me."

She's staring at the bricks of the floor. His mouth is dry.

"That night?" He knows that's what she means. It's hard for her to bring up memories in which she fails at doing something, memories in which she could easily be labeled as naïve. She's hated that word since she was little; she never wanted to be considered inexperienced. It reminds her, as she's told him, that she's merely mediocre, even though everyone else seems to think she'll save humanity or something like that. And that she will never, no matter what, be the kind of person they think she is.

"I thought you would regret it if I kissed you. So I didn't."

"I wouldn't have."

"I realize that now."

"I felt extremely inadequate. That was why I stopped before it went too far." He looks down at his shoes and realizes he should have told her this years ago, and then maybe, he wouldn't have spent all of this time thinking about it. "Whenever I was with you, I always felt as though you could do much better."

"I can imagine you thinking something like that." She smiles. "Plus, Hermione and Harry told me you were afraid to jump into a relationship."

"They what?"

She grins. "They guessed that I liked you. Harry figured it out first, actually. He caught me looking at you at a club, or something. I don't remember, exactly. And then he confronted me, and I just told him. So naturally, Ron and Hermione found out. And they've known for years that you…well… liked me like this" – she makes the crazy motion back and forth with her hands. He scowls, but he laughs afterward. Her eyes are alive with playful laughter, and he wants to grab her and snog the living daylights out of her.

They sit down on the stools, and don't speak for a while. She's staring at the ceiling, a habit she has when she's trying to avoid looking at someone. He wonders if she's thinking that he hasn't yet told her how he actually feels. He'd as good as, but he knows she wants concrete evidence. She's jiggling her foot; he knows she's nervous.

Her voice breaks the silence. "What made you change your mind?"

He's quiet for a moment, and then he speaks.

"The idea of you being with someone else, of you marrying someone else. I couldn't handle it. It drove me crazy, and I knew that I didn't care anymore if I thought you were too good for me. I just…wanted to be with you."

She stares at him for a second with a look on her face that he's never seen before. It's intensity and passion and hope all thrust into her eyes at once.

"I felt that way when you told me you were dating Daphne."

He remembers dating Daphne vaguely, quick, hard kisses in which he hadn't felt a thing, a few nights spent with Daphne in his bed, during which he had stared at the ceiling, imagining her lying next to him.

"I never liked her all that much. I was trying to forget about you." It sounds extremely histrionic, and he notices that she winces a little at his word choice, but she smiles.

"Same."

"With all those guys?"

"Yeah."

"I was…appallingly jealous of them."

He hopes that suffices for concrete evidence.

She frowns slightly. "No one would have guessed."

And he understands her then more than he ever has before at that moment. He understands how difficult it must have been for her, to not know how he felt, because she's always needed to be reassured, to know how everyone else feels so she can base her feelings off of theirs. She wanted to know, so she could finally be the one to tell him how they both felt.

"Adele?"

She looks over at him, and she smiles happily, eyes lighting up, skin suddenly glowing. They stand up, and he pulls her into his arms and he can feel her smile into his shoulder.

"I know."

He feels lighter than he has in a long time; his head is spinning up toward the ceiling, and he smiles wildly into her hair. The words are whirring in his head rapidly, and he feels like he's ten or something.

They lean away from each other, but still hold on. Her arms are still around his neck, and his hands are still placed firmly on her waist. She reaches down, and laces her fingers into his. She leans against his body again, and they stare into the fire, both of their eyes alight.