A/N: Something akin to a vignette, just to get my muse back into play, so I know she's not dead. Expect something more from me as school starts; for whatever reason, that really kicks my writing juices into gear...hum.

Disclaimer: J.K Rowling is the owner of playground. I'm just a kid playing in it.

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When he looks at her, he feels fuzzy. His arms tingle and his throat feels like he's just swallowed sand, and he'll usually stutter something that could rival Crabbe and Goyle in levels of stupidity. She'll stare his way with her honey colored eyes with a swell of both loathing and self-pride. And he knows that he's mirroring the exact same gaze.

"Granger."

"Malfoy."

No conversation they hold is civil in tongue. Their banters are full of poisonous sentences, barbed threats, and frosty leers – and he can't bring himself to even care; not even when she makes a half-thought out remark about his mother being less of a person than a troll. He knows that no matter how hard he tries, he cannot find another girl like her. Not in wit, in beauty, or persona. She is the one. He knows this, and it makes itself known with a dull ache inside his chest.

And isn't this how it's supposed to go, like in all Muggle fairytales? The prince who loves not a princess, but a peasant, and with the confession of love, she's supposed to come spirit away with him and live happily ever after?

So why is he cold, and she off with another?

No matter the day, the week, the time, again and again, he finds himself victim to the same vicious circle of ache and remark. It's a game for her, he knows – and he's losing. And as boy turns to man, the warmth turns to a dying ember, which dissipates to ice. If he's powerful, now will she see him? Now will she talk to him without a simper in her tone, an anger in her eyes?

And without realizing it, he's changed. He's morphed into a monster so heinous, she can't even bare to look at him, the next time they meet. Gazing at the tears in her eyes, nothing but anger spewing from her mouth, she hisses, "You're a monster."

And he pauses, letting the words sink in. She's so very right, that it hurts to think about it. Her words lacerate his mind, till he's brought down to the very thought of one thing; if he is truly a monster, then this is why his is alone.

Because no one, nothing, loves a monster.

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A/N: WTF is this, I don't even...yeah. I can't say much. Written in all of five minutes, while hungry. Feed me with reviews.