And I'm trying hard to make you love me,

But I don't want to try too hard

And those four walls now

Are the only place that I can breathe out

-Four Walls, The Broods


She remembered the day she saw him. I mean really saw him.

The grains of time moved deliciously slow, giving her an opportunity to devour every sweet slice of his features. His sly smirk from a sarcastic remark. The way he held himself, staunch and brash, like a serpent at his prime. White-blond hair, tousled over a handsome face, his silver eyes bright and full of alluring determination. Even as a young girl, she knew she could float away happily on that deep toned laugh of his.

Graduating out of his purebred family's downfall, and the harsh aftermath of war-torn worlds had been harsh on him. The battle torturing his strong will, leaving behind a shell of his former self, one that steered clear of the

The quiet man who frequents the back corner of the small, stone pub in the not-so-pleasant part of muggle London each evening keeps to himself, with only his bottle of tequila for comfort. His empty silver eyes stare hot holes through the wall, and the blond stubble on his face is deceiving, as she knows he hasn't shaved in some days. His face now bares a small pink scar under his eye, where he was struck by a bottle two weeks ago, when attacked in a pub fight.

How did she know so much about this hollow of a man who had tried so desperately to keep to himself?

Three weeks ago, she wandered into that very pub, burdened with her own woes of the day looking for a pick-me-up. Beer in hand, she took a seat, and her sapphire eyes fell upon said man. The worn-down man she recalled as the shadow of the boy she secretly loved, back in Hogwarts. All that was light and pride, now faded and silent.

Watching him in the corner of her eye, it became clear to her just how much she wanted to talk to the him, the boy she had loved from afar.

As she exited the pub that evening, the strings in her heart stretched out in a feeble attempt to stay, not wanting to leave the man behind. So many questions lay before her.

And so she returned. The same night every week, and sat at the corner of the bar, watching him bore holes into the wall like it could dissolve with enough strength. Thinking. Thinking about the man he had become. She was trying to summon up the courage to talk to the man who was infamously a ghost of his former self, and had taken to walking off the face of the earth.

One night, after one too many shots of tequila, the courage flowed through her veins, and she walked slowly over to his table and sat down beside him.

"You know, for a while people thought you'd died."

His silver eyes moved slowly from the wall to her face, taking in a moment to drink in her features, before settling on his glass of whiskey in front of him.

"For a while, I had."

And with that, the two began a silent agreement to share the table and drink away their evenings.


After a few weeks, the complacent silence became too much for her, and she tried her luck with opening the jar of worms.

"Why are you here?"

"Why are you here?"

"Because I like this pub. It's nice to have a drink in the evenings."

He scoffed, a small smirk appealing on his unshaven face. "Bullshit"

"That doesn't answer my question."

"It doesn't have to. Maybe try to start a conversation with something a bit more light-hearted, love."

She narrowed her eyes at his bad use of sarcasm. "Fine. My, what shitty weather we are having at the moment."

He laughed. A genuine, full bodied laugh. The type that made her hair prickle and skin stand up on end. "Your pathetic. Try again next time."

The laughter waltzed him out the door.

She did not watch him go. She reveled in the spark of the man she knew reigniting.

Then and there, he became her challenge, her jigsaw puzzle that had been scattered around the room, ready to put back together.

The same evening every week, in the small London pub, be it in silent company or broken conversation about nothing in particular, pieces began to slide slowly into place.


Two months after this trumped up camaraderie had began, he tore his eyes from the wall, and stared at her for a few moments, as she looked calmly into her drink, her mind elsewhere and not noticing his stare. Three weeks after this camaraderie began, he broke the silence.

"I don't understand this."

She looked up at him, brow furrowed in confusion. "Understand what?"

"Why you are here, when you must have much better things to be doing with your time."

She sat still for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders, her sapphire eyes fixed in on his puzzled gaze.

"Everyone needs a friend."

He rolled his eyes at her.

"I don't need a friend. I need calm; confinement from the craziness of the world we have out there." He was unable to hide the disdain in his voice.

She shrugged again, and stayed quiet. Grasping her glass and draining the contents, she stood abruptly and looked down at him with an angry expression on her face. "I don't disagree. But the dark colours in our world have lightened since you last stepped foot in it. Perhaps you should look before you drink yourself to death in a world of grey."

If his head wasn't spinning, he would've almost been shocked from her outburst.


She didn't go to the pub the next week. Her anger for his arrogance rang ferociously in her heart, keeping her away from his company. She decided that a night of loneliness may open up his eyes to see for himself how that his pride was getting the best of him, and he should go and see how their world had changed for the better, and not for the worse.

But it didn't mean she didn't miss him.

No activity quelled the want to wander down to the familiar stone pub just around the corner from her small apartment. Being in his presence gave her a warmth that could be felt down to her bones, and on that night alone, nothing could keep her warm.

He didn't miss her. Not really.

He still had his usual corner table in the back, by the fire where he liked it. And his bottle of whiskey with the crystal glass. And he stared holes into the wall in front of him until he felt fit to leave later in the night.

Yet, he found his eyes meandering to the chair in which she would usually occupy.

Again.

And again.

He drank two bottles of whiskey that night. But the next morning, squinting his eyes and a dark glare painted on his face, he set foot through the passage that set his safety net behind him and in full visibility of his nightmares.


She arrived at the pub before him the following week. Sitting down with her bottle of wine, anticipation threatening to bubble over, she waited for him to turn up.

When he sat down opposite her, she sensed a different air about him. "You went, didn't you?"

He ignored her. Slowly, taking deliberate steps, he up-stoppered his bottle and poured himself a glass of whiskey. She watched him with articulate precision, not missing an action.

"Didn't you?"

He ignored her once more, lifting the crystal glass calmly to his lips and taking a sip. She watched his tongue lick the lingering taste off his lips softly afterwards.

By god, did she love him.

She rolled her eyes at his actions. "Your childish silence answers the question for me. Well I suppose this renders a big fat 'I told you so'."

He shrugged, before taking another sip of his drink. "Yeah okay. I went. I gandered. It's a bloody alley. Doesn't look much different than before, except theres a few more open stores and less Wanted posters. Where were you last week?"

She looked up at him, his eyes were boring into her own.

"I…I had other things to do. You know, those other things you keep telling me I could be doing that would be better than being here."

He stared at her.

"I didn't actually mean…"

"Mean what?"

Her breath caught in her throat at what he could blurt out next.

He shook his head in frustration.

"I didn't mean you should go off and do them. I just…figured you'd have other places you'd rather be, is all." He turned his eyes away from her, frowning down at his drink, like he was unhappy his mouth had betrayed him.

Each word he was saying made her feel more and more weightless.

"I don't exactly care that you are here. But I'd rather you be here than out…out there."

He stammered the sentence to her, glaring viciously at the amber liquid in his crystal glass.

She broke a small smile at him.

"Oh really? So does that make us friends?"

An exasperated sigh and withering glare was the answer she received.


So she continued to entertain his tequila flavoured, moonshine decisions, and the conversations became less forced and more open. He weaned out of her, her families fallen status and parent's whereabouts, and she prodded him until he cracked about his parents trial and fathers imprisonment. They discussed their early years at Hogwarts (never the late years), and their mutual affection for flying.

He began to venture through that passageway more often and embrace the change of the world he left behind, and she tried, but failed, to put her kalediscope of feelings into a shadow of a sentence.

The evening when he walked in with a shaven face, she knew a real change was beginning to show in him.

He sat down, whiskey in hand, with a small smirk grazing his lips. He silently filled his glass, and hers, and watched her watch him.

"What do you think?"

She lifted an eyebrow

"What? Like you haven't not noticed."

She took a sip, and cocked her head to one side, smiling softly.

"Oh, I've noticed. I'm just trying to fathom it. Who knew you could look so prim and proper."

He frowned.

"Prim and proper?"

She smiled in reply.

"That's the last time I try to look clean cut. Dirty and unruly forever, for now on."

"If that's your decision. Though I'm sure ladies would find you much more attractive clean shaved, you know."

He looked sideways at her.

"Do you think I look more attractive clean shaven?"

Their eyes met and her whole body vibrated with need. Need to be close to him, and need to tell him.

"Do I count?"

He shrugged and turned away. Her stomach descended like a coffin deep into the earth.

"Well yeah, I spose. You are a woman, aren't you?"

She nodded and looked down at her drink once more, lifting the amber liquid to her lips and finishing it all in one clear motion.

She drank two bottles of whiskey that night. He drank one.


A/N: Hi there! Hope you enjoy this story, I loved writing it! All comments welcome :)