DISCLAIMER: All things Potter belong to JK Rowling.

~ Rain ~

"It's raining," he says.

"It's not-" she starts to protest, but seems to think better of it.

The sky is overcast but not a single drop has yet fallen. She moves toward him but he steps farther away, keeping his back to her.

Finally she realizes. The weather may currently be dry, but his face is not.

"Want an umbrella?" she offers, deciding to stick to the metaphor.

"No."

There is more she wants to talk about, more that she feels she needs to say.

"Rod..."

He does not want to hear it.

"Just go."

Conceding to his demand and allowing him to have the last word (two things she would never have done if she did not feel such guilt over what she has done to him), she turns sharply on her heel and strides swiftly to where I am waiting for her.

"Do you feel better now that it's over with?" I ask as she approaches. My curiosity is genuine, but it is obvious from the look she gives me that she thinks I am being facetious.

"No."

She walks past me without stopping. I catch up with her easily enough.

"Liar."

"Alright, fine," she snaps. "It's a relief to have everything out in the open, but I feel bad about breaking off the engagement like that."

"Why do you feel bad about it?"

She doesn't speak immediately, and the silence drags on so long between us that I am starting to think she does not intend to reply.

"You won't like the answer," she says finally.

"Tell me anyway."

She mutters something that I don't quite catch.

"What did you say?"

"I said that he loves me." She shoots me a black look. "There, are you happy now?"

She knows that I am not.

"You can't say I didn't warn you."

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"I meant, do you..." I grapple with it for a moment, but in the end I can't get the word to cross my lips. "...return his feelings?"

She stops walking and when I turn to look at her, I see that she is pinching the bridge of her nose as though trying to relieve a sinus headache.

"Can we please just not have the rest of this conversation, ever?" Her hand drops from her face as she belatedly adds, "My lord." As if the pretense of respect at this point in the proceedings will do anything to persuade me to drop the subject.

"You fear to continue speaking of this. Is there something I should know?"

"No, it's more like... there's something you have no reason to know. If I answer your question, I know you'll ask me why. And if I give you an honest answer about that, then I may as well have kept Rodolphus, because our -whatever you want to to call this thing between us- probably wouldn't survive you knowing it!"

Lighting flashes; she apparates away with a sharp crack that is echoed in the subsequent thunder. I am still standing here staring at the space she previously occupied when the rain comes pouring down.

~end~