Sometimes we walk together, and sometimes he talks. I suppose it must be harder for him, being in the place where we once were. He tells me he loves me and that he misses me, but in truth I am never alone long enough to miss him. I am loved and protected from hurt constantly, and we are not together.
Token and meaningless suggestions of how we could have worked are all he can offer me now, and I offer him nothing in between times. It hurts me too much to remember… it hurts me too much forget.
I do not miss him. I can't miss him. I've been removed from our place, set down in an old environment and told to survive without him, and found myself surprisingly capable of doing so. And he? He remains behind, feeling loss and remembering things that I have nothing to help me recall.
When one leaves and one stays, who can blame the one who stays for remembering all the places we were together, the days we spent pretending? Who can blame the one who leaves for forgetfulness, for avoiding reminiscence?
Sometimes we walk together, and he talks. He supposes it must be harder for me, being away from the place where we once were. I miss the open skies, the raw beauty of the whole area. The clouds, the Forest, the lake… I miss the wind blowing past me, telling his secrets to my ear if I knew how to understand.
At least I'm not perpetually faced with the hall we once sat in, the field in which we were so happy, because you know he'll never be able to get away.
Sometimes I meet him again. Sometimes we walk together. Often, he is silent. I deduce what the gaps between the words mean, what he is saying when he says nothing. The gestures he uses have to speak when he cannot.
He is the place where we were together, missing me, and already broken. And I cannot be the one to heal him, even if I were strong enough. I take what strength he has in a relationship which will never happen, and I fail to detach myself from him.
Sometimes we walk together, and sometimes he talks. When he does I glean an understanding of what happened. When he doesn't I find out what it has done to him.
I visit him at Hogwarts, where he is a Professor these days, and he kindly, cruelly, doesn't mention my scars. We don't talk about what happened in the war much, the days we spent in the Order fighting together. Seeing Fred's lifeless body did something to our non-relationship, maybe driving a wedge between us. Maybe that wedge had already been there.
I saw Oliver fall at the hands of a Death Eater, and any doubt I could ever have had about how I felt for him was eradicated in that single moment. I don't know what happened after that because his Death Eater joined my own in attacking me and I was forced to leave his body lying on the floor.
Sometimes we walk together, and he says my name, over and over and over… I sometimes wonder if he was conscious and saw me leave him in that corridor. I wonder if he needs to make sure I'm there, that I won't leave him again… if only he knew that if it came down to it I never could, I never want to miss him.
And for me? Why is it that we can't be together if he misses me so much, and loves me so much, and no matter how hard I try and hide it I love him?
I was scarred in the War. The psychological scars of seeing my best friend's body followed by watching the man I was in love with fall to the Death Eaters have changed me. I saw Fred dead, and I watched Oliver die, even if it turned out that he wasn't so very dead after all. We'd fought together before but I'd never seen him hurt. He'd always been so strong.
When I walked away something happened to Oliver which to this day he hasn't talked about. Some hurts go too deep. Some things have no words.
Even now, when I try to interrogate myself I end up avoiding my own
questions!
It wasn't only my soul that was scarred in my desperate unthinking fight after I saw Oliver fall. My face bears the brunt of that attack, my slow limp. There is nothing in me to love any more, and we can't be together now. The memories of loving him hurt me, as does the knowledge that all the time he loved me too. He misses me even when I'm with him because the cold diamond façade that I've put up to protect myself from emotion.
Sometimes we walk together, when my leg can stand it and when I think I can cope with spending that much time alone in his company. Those days are my good days, when the wall is up firmly and I don't allow myself too much hope. On my bad days I have a mirror in front of my bed so that when I look up I can see the curse scars on my face, and I lie in bed and cry for the friends I lost, and for the innocent Katie Bell who thought she knew what life was all about.
Sometimes he talks, when I'm not too shut off and he isn't feeling too bad. Other days we walk in silence, my hand gently resting on his forearm as he supports my every limping step.
Today I turn up an hour earlier than I'm supposed to. I wanted to leave before Angelina or Alicia came and started fussing over me, trying to encourage me to put on a nice top and some make-up. The last few times, my mother's joined them in their little hit squad. With Oliver, I refuse to appear more than what I am. The idea that someone might still love me like this has somehow seeped through all the layers guarding me, and the vanity I still retain has said that with this one person there is no need to act.
Today, I am shown up to his rooms near the Gryffindor tower. It's the first time I've been into the Hogwarts building since the battle. It brings back memories, and there was the alcove where they placed Fred's body. I walk the scared hallways and try not to hear the screaming, the odd moments of silence, the dust and the spell lights and the intense concentration and the taste of death in the air.
By the time I get to his rooms I'm having a bad day. I place my coat on a hook on the back of the door, shaking, and pull a tissue out of my
pocket, and start rebuilding my walls again ready for when I have to walk back through the nightmares. Don't remember them.
Oliver comes in as I am drying my eyes, and for the first time hugs me, holds me in his arms, wipes a tear away with one finger, asks me if I'm okay. It seems impossible that there can be good things associated with feeling, but I--
I feel Oliver press his lips to the crown of my head, and he's saying "Katie, Katie, ssshhh, it's okay, I'm here, and you're here, and I won't leave you."
The walls I have been trying to build up have shattered under the hideous weight of empathy. It's not condescending pity, but real, sincere knowledge of how I am feeling, and I understand that some days Oliver feels like this too. But not this day, today he is whole and stronger than I. He's always been stronger really; he's the one who has been able to face up to surviving.
Our eyes meet across a room crowded with memories of the days where we were both so careful of the other, walking on eggshells which in truth we still do now, although he tells me time and again that he loves me which he couldn't before.
His eyes are brown and they will catch me and cradle me if I let my walls down, but I need to do it myself, not with his assistance. It was just this catalyst which let me know that I have lived in the world of shadows and mourning too long. They died so that we might have a better world, but we haven't got there yet, and I have to keep fighting for that otherwise what was the point in their sacrifice? I repeat the words in my head as Oliver murmurs them in my ear, but for the first time I actually believe.
I can't talk to Oliver today. This thing that I have, could have, with him is so new and so fragile that I don't dare ruin it when I am finally coming back to myself and healing. When I am finally facing up to the dreadful truth of being alive. If I talk to him now… well I don't know what I will say, and I need a while to grieve in a way that won't destroy me again as learn how to live.
I smile weakly at him. I hope he knows what this means as I gently move out of his arms and get my coat. We're going to be alright, I think, but I have to do it by myself first before I can lean on him and let him catch me. I refuse to be weak the way I have been up until now. I feel almost ashamed of myself, but I'm no longer disgusted and guilty. There is hope.
I leave and walk through the corridor filled with nightmares. I let myself cry at the memories, but they don't haunt me. I think I have to remember them, the way that they would remember me.
It's two months later when I apologise to my parents. My mother bursts into tears. My father wraps me in his arms and swears never to let go.
Angelina and George and Alicia all visit the week after. For the first time I am able to look at George without feeling bad. I am able to laugh. For a while, I forget that I am scarred, I forget the things that no eighteen year old should ever see, I forget the pain, the pain that makes me mad in my dreams and stops me from sleeping.
I decide after another month that I can't avoid Oliver any longer. I feel fairly certain that I won't just fall back into relying on him, now I have remembered the time when I was as strong as him. Our days as Chaser and Keeper, where I scored as many goals as he could save. I like these new days, where I can remember the good things about myself.
I walk through the nightmare corridor, blow a kiss to Fred's alcove, and head up to Oliver's rooms. I know he isn't expecting me, which will make this all the sweeter.
I knock and enter swiftly. He is lying, red-eyed, on the bed, obviously having a bad day. I, for one, am feeling as brilliant as is currently possible. I haven't hidden my scars- he's seen them already, and in any case, this is who I am.
"Hello," he says quietly when he sees me walk through the door, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.
I look round at this room. I didn't take in that much the last time I was
here. The walls are Gryffindor red, the bed is small but looks comfortable. There's a picture of the old Quidditch team on the bedside table- in it, the miniature Katie and Oliver are kissing. In fact the whole picture looks as if it's had a strong dose of Love Potion- only Harry isn't kissing anyone. I feel a sudden burst of shame, that even Angelina and George, the two people closest to Fred in the whole world, coped better than I did.
There's a broom over the tiny mantelpiece. I have an idea. "Let's go flying," I tell him.
We head out to the Quidditch pitch, not saying a word. I'm honestly terrified of what the next words out of my mouth will be, and what they will mean. Oliver has his broom, and I take a Cleansweep out of the broom cupboard. We fetch a Quaffle. I attempt a few penalties on Oliver.
The silence is deafening, roaring with the unspoken words between us.
"Why are you here?" Oliver asks eventually. "It's not the right day for you to visit, and anyway you missed the last two… I wasn't sure if you were going to come any more."
I touch down gingerly, careful of my leg. Oliver looks at it as if I'm made of glass, so I hop off my broom and push myself to walk towards him normally, no limp, just so I can prove I'm not a delicate little flower who needs protecting.
"I stopped feeling guilty, I got my life back, and now I'm here to see if there's any possibility that I haven't completely fucked up this- you know, this thing, between us." That was quite possibly the worst explanation of all time, and I can't find it in myself to blame Oliver for his confused expression.
"What are you saying, Katie?" he questions, getting off his own broom and walking towards me. He's so intent on what I'm saying that he's abandoned his broom on the ground. That more than anything shows how important this is to him, and I realise quite how essential it is that I don't fuck up. Just keep it simple, Katie.
"I'm back, I've stopped hiding. Whatever you want to call it. And I finally learnt how to miss you, and I've loved you for such a long time Oliver, so please--"
He takes my small hand which has done such unspeakable things in his own larger one. The deep brown eyes reminding me of damp earth and spring meet my own, and I'm lost but in the way I want to be.
"So can we finally go out?" he asks. In anyone else this would come out with a touch of a joke, but this is Oliver and he's deadly serious. Not deadly, amazingly alive.
"I think so," I tell him, watching as he reaches out, pushes a mass of blonde hair behind my ear to reveal the scar cut all the way down my left cheek. I slowly limp one step forwards and I'm in his arms again of my own accord.
"I love you," he says, in the last second before he presses his lips to my own in the centre of the Quidditch pitch where we first met. There's no need for a cheering team, a wind to tell me his secrets, beauty enough to make my soul weep with happiness… I have Oliver's lips tasting of hope pressed against my own, and he just is.
Sometimes we walk together, and sometimes he talks. Most of the time, we're too busy living the rest of our lives.
a/n: I'm not usually the sort to ask for reviews… but I'm really interested to know what you think about this. So… pretty please?