Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter
Chasing Phantoms
I looked around the Great Hall, decorated and festooned to maximum capacity; with rainbow streamers snaking along in the air; with huge, shiny balloons bobbing up and down. The sheen of girls' dresses added to the glamour of the whole scene.
My own straggly brown-blond hair was pulled up in a clumsy knot, and I had on a simple, hand sewn dress. It was made of a shiny, silky mint-green fabric, and hung delicately on my shoulders with slim straps.
Giggly laughter and the sound of dancing feet filled the hall; everyone seemed to be enjoying their last night at the magical school. A medium sized symphony sat in one corner of the room, giving out waltzes and other music.
I sighed as I read the banner that hung behind the staff table: Congratulations Seventh Years of 2023 Seven long, long years of magic and drama, of heartbreak and education, of Quidditch and studying, of everything Hogwarts had to offer.
Well, not everything. Not total happiness.
I played with my small orchid corsage and held on to the door frame, as if for support. Alexander Wood, the star Ravenclaw Quidditch player, and my date, was chatting with his friends. He hadn't been the one I'd wanted to come to the ball with, though.
This is it, I thought. I'll never be back here again.
Turning to go, I caught Jonathan Longbottom's eye. He'd always been such an empathetic, nice guy to me. He and his date, a modest little brunette, looked perfectly happy.
"Where are you going?" He mouthed through the loud music, adjusting his dress robes.
I smiled and jerked my thumb towards the Entrance Hall. "I'm leaving," I mouthed back, trying to hide the lone tear that was traveling down my cheek. Why was everyone happy except me?
Turning, I retreated in my high-heeled shoes down the hall and up to the Slytherin Dungeons, my home for two years. Levitating my already-packed trunk down the stairs, I grabbed my black cloak and fastened it on.
It was raining outside, and I stared wistfully at the clock, hoping my carriage would not be late. I had received special permission from Headmaster Weasley to leave the school early. He always had understood me as well.
My feet were aching by that time, so I took off my silver shoes that I had saved knut by knut for and welcomed the coldness of the marble tiles. Who would have thought that it was all going to end like this.
A shadow stepped out from the Great Hall and came into view. I sucked in my breath. I hadn't planned on running into him.
"Albus? What are you doing here?" I whispered, straightening my cloak's hood. "Shouldn't you be at the graduation ball?"
His dark dress robes brought out his warm green eyes, and his jet black hair was barely tamed. "Leaving so soon, Alistair Knightly… or should I say Rosier?" Albus asked, stepping closer to me.
My carefully mascara-ed eyes watered a little, and I clenched my fists inside my cloak. This wasn't going to end all well if he called me that name.
"You know I have to. I'm due in France in a few hours."
Albus walked with that dignified air of his, but there was no small smile on his face tonight. The green eyes I'd fallen head over heels with were especially beautiful tonight and danced with a sort of regret.
"France?" he repeated. His robes hung three inches from his ankle. I almost laughed. He'd grown so much this year.
"Yes. To get away," I said stiffly, avoiding eye contact. Deep, bitter sorrow welled up in my throat.
"From what?" Albus took another step closer to me, his green eyes looking deep into mine, and I could smell his sweet, cedar-y scent.
Leave me alone. Go back to the ball, and we can pretend we never met. That you never smashed my heart apart a million times, over and over. Leave and we can forget. Please, I silently begged.
"From what?" he repeated, bringing my hand up to his mouth and gently kissing it.
I hesitated. "This."
His black hair fell into his eyes a little. Albus looked so handsome. I don't think he had come with a date to the ball.
"Can't we talk?" He asked, a little more quieter. "About this? About us?"
The tears I'd been so desperately holding back came rushing out. I bit my lip. "Talk? Talk?!?" I repeated, slightly bitter. "I've been waiting two years to talk! Two years, Albus! I gave you my heart for 2 years, and not once did you ever give me yours!"
He gently took one of my shaking hands into his own, rubbing his thumb in small circles on my skin. "I know," he whispered.
I wanted him to leave so he wouldn't hear me lash out with my bottled up temper, and yet I wanted him to stay and here what I had wanted to tell him for a long time. I wanted him to leave so he wouldn't ever see me like this.
Albus stayed, and I wasn't finished. Gods, I had just begun.
I remembered the first time I'd set eyes on the boy in front of me. Looking preoccupied and thoughtful, we both reached for the same door of the compartment at the same time. Me, I challenged him for the compartment, and he just looked at me with that small smile of his before going in.
The image of his messy black hair, his small smile, and his shining and thoughtful eyes stayed with me all this time. I loved his quiet yet determined mannerisms that showed every single damn time, and his clever ways that had landed him in Slytherin in the first place.
And, even if I didn't know it back then, I'd loved him desperately ever since he looked straight into my eyes and grinned.
"In fifth year, you wouldn't even look at me, or talk to me! Not even when we were partners in class! You said you didn't want to be friends with someone like me." I sobbed slightly, not caring how my make-up looked.
"That's not true! I was… so young and stupid back then, Ali…" Albus fired back, then recoiled at his tone. He looked thoroughly embarrassed.
It seemed as if there was a giant bucket of water swaying dangerously inside me, threatening to pour out.
Music from the Great Hall resounded in the Entrance Hall eerily, and the tall wizard shuffled his feet slightly and raked his hands through his short hair---a habit I had grown accustomed to.
"Later on the year, when we finally stepped out of the partners-in-class category, you said you just wanted to be friends out of pity I was so. . . so stupid, that I thought it was a first step to being accepted in the House full of outsider. So I was friends with you. And Nathaniel. And Henry. They've always been so nice to me. They understood what it was like!"
"Nathaniel and Henry have been good mates," Albus said, half to himself and half to me.
"The older girls in Slytherin and Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw … They said that you'd never fall in love. That you'll be just like your brother who had broken a million hearts without a care in the world. I didn't believe them. I thought that you were different from James. You guys never were really alike."
Images of a not-so distant past flashed through my mind, images of Albus chatting quietly and grinning, always side by side with Nathaniel and Henry in the picture. The there was me, with my crazy loud antics that brought the Noble and Proud House of Slytherin shame. Me, running around laughing and joking, trying my hardest not to blush when the dark-haired pureblood would look at me, with my Slytherin robes flapping behind.
The boys would stop, probably because they'd wonder where that sound was coming from, and I'd look up from the floor and give a wave of hello to Albus. He'd raise his eyebrow and act conceited, and Henry would smirk us. Then the boys would walk away again, and I'd be left, confused but still giddy.
"I guess I loved you that much, Al. I wanted so much for you to understand, and for you to return those feelings. But you never did."
"Ali. . . I can make it right. . . " His eyes pleaded with me, and he carefully laced his fingers around mine. "Please----"
"Don't interrupt me Albus Potter!" I half-screamed, tears running down my face. The giant bucket had tipped, and I felt drenched with my own tears.
"Sixth year, we went out on two dates, only because I'd work up enough courage to ask you! I was so happy when you actually said yes!" I wiped my nose on my cloak. "Then I found out that you were doing this just so you can get back on the girl that dumped you for Malfoy! You said that night that you just wanted to be friends, and you hoped that I would 'understand how much this meant to you.'"
"Alis…"
"That same year. . . oh Albus, you have no idea how much you broke my heart! Do you know what I had to go through, each day? Do you know what it's like to see someone you love, someone you'd do anything for, drop you like a hot potato just because she came from a Dark family? Do you know that I even turned went on a date with Arnold McLaggen, just to make you jealous? Have you got any idea what a boring prat he is? He was good looking. . . yes. . . but gods, all he wanted to talk about was how great he was!"
That had been one of the most horrible days of my life at Hogsmeade. One year older than I was, Arnold had the sort of voice that droned on the same pitch, even after two hours. And I didn't think Albus ever noticed about me and Arnold.
The 18-year-old stared at the ground, pink patches on his cheeks. "Damn McLaggen," he muttered.
"Sixth year, a lot of things happened that year didn't it. . . when Nathaniel and Layla just started to like each other, you don't know how that made me feel! I wanted to be like Layla. I wanted to be able to giggle when you would give me a special wink or a knowing look or just rave on and on to my girl friends about the last time we talked!
"But you know what? I never had the chance to!" I shrieked hysterically. "Because you still wanted to be just friends! You wanted to study in the library alone, all day, rather than… I don't know, talk about random things! And when you did come out of that stupid library, you wanted to run off with Nathaniel, Henry and John instead of passing notes during class! Hell, your idea of bonding with me was to look for prospective Mrs. Albus Potter! How do you think that made me feel?!"
"I was stupid, okay?" Albus yelled, his calm composure finally breaking. "I didn't know any better! I hardly knew anything about stuff. . . like this."
I sat down on my trunk, crying openly into my cloak. It was a terrible, terrible shame how I had wasted my older childhood.
"This year! This year, I thought maybe, just maybe you were ready. Ready to be my one and only, ready to finally accept me as a real girl! Not another friend! And we did! You don't know what state of euphoria I was in, Al, when you asked me out! I thought nothing could touch us. The world could have blown up, and I wouldn't have cared."
At that moment, Nathaniel and Layla wandered into the Great Hall, talking excitedly. Spotting me and Albus, they froze. Nathaniel swore under his breath.
"Do you mind?" Albus spat impatiently, something I hardly ever heard him do.
"Sorry mates," Nathaniel muttered, dragging Layla out back into the Great Hall. Layla just gave me a small smile, after eyeing my ruined make-up and red eyes.
I sniffed again and pointed in the direction where the couple had disappeared. "I wanted what they have! I wanted to go on moonlit walks, and have the best life in the world. I thought I'd suffered enough.
"But when we went on dates, you were never into it! You didn't act the way Nathaniel does when Layla's around, and that was what I wanted! You didn't even act like you were interested in what I was saying!
"Maybe I was wrong to expect that of you. You're not Nathaniel, who fawns over Layla and practically kisses the ground she walks on. You're not Henry, who doesn't lead girls on. And you're definitely not Johnathan, who treats girls like equals. You were Albus Potter. Albus Potter, the quiet yet deadly heartbreaker of Hogwarts."
I checked the clock and took a shuddery breath.
"Then you broke up with me, because you said you weren't ready for commitment. By the gods, Albus! You're eighteen!" I took a deep, shuddery breath. "I realized what a fool I had been, always believing you, thinking that you actually cared for me, the outcast of the House, the unwanted one of her family."
"I do care for you," he said in a low voice.
"No you don't! Not in the way that I wanted! From then on, I knew that you'd never be mine. So I decided that I would quit annoying you. Quit bugging you and pestering you like an idiot gnat that I am. I signed up as a curse-breaker to work in another country. I had to get away. There are too many memories here," I sobbed, clutching Albus' hand like a life line.
"You can't leave," Albus said, his beautiful green eyes downcast and shining.
"Why not Albus Potter? Give me one damn good reason why I should stay here, and continue to let you walk all over me. You were never ready. You never wanted to be ready. And all the while, I was just waiting." I wiped my eyes. "A girl can only wait for so long, Albus! I'm through waiting. I want more than that."
Albus took my hands and pulled my sobbing self towards him, crowding my arms into his chest. Without the slightest bit of hesitation, he leaned towards me and paired his lips with mine.
I wanted so much to fall into him and listen to him tell me that we'd work it out, that I could fall in love with him again, that we'd live happily ever after. But the other side of me knew that Albus Potter had broken my heart too many times, even if he never knew it.
After half of a blissful minute, I tore away, still sobbing slightly.
"Can't you wait?" he implored, looking into my eyes, and still holding one of my hands. "I can make it right. Just give me time."
Bitter anger rolled up in my chest and unfurled.
"Wasn't all that enough?" I yelled. "Two long, horrible years of hell? I told you, Al. Waiting for you is like. . . waiting for Gryffindor to lose the Quidditch cup! Useless, and heartbreakingly disappointing."
I used my wand to levitate my trunk up and walked out the main doors and onto the steps in the rain. Albus came out, staying on the top step.
"I was scared, Alistair! You've got to understand," Albus cried. "Do you know what my life was like at home? I had grown up thinking that I wasn't good enough for anyone! You've seen how James acted, and how my parents are! I'm not like them! And my parents! Lord, my parents. I was scared of… I was scared of having a love like theirs and having it flung back at me! I didn't trust the word "love"!"
"Millions of times, I tried to give you my heart. And every single ruddy time, you took it and smashed it to pieces. You never tried, Albus Potter! Anything that didn't interest you wasn't worth pursuing, in your world!" I said shakily, my whole body soaked in the freezing rain.
"I didn't know…. that you loved me that much," he said. "I just thought… thought it was a game!"
"A game?! You thought that it was all a game?! All those dates and smiles, were just A GAME to YOU??!! Merlin's Beard… you really are like your brother, no matter what you say…"
"That's not fair," he pleaded, his eyes begging for forgiveness.
"Yes it is, Al. I gave you two years. I think that's enough of my life wasted," I answered bitterly. "And to think, I was excited to go to Hogwarts. If I just knew what would happen when I got here…"
"You can't mean that! I. . . . love you, Ali!" He called as I was taking another step with my bare, cold feet. The rain tamed his black locks more than any sort of hair gel could.
I looked back for half a second, and shook my head grievously. Getting into the warm, dry carriage, I looked out at the tall, lithe figure outside in the pouring rain.
Then, half to myself and half to Albus, I whispered, "I guess it wasn't enough."
Hope you guys enjoyed this. Reviews and constructive criticisms would be very much appreciated, seeing that I'm pretty new at this.
Thanks:D