Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, Jo Rowling does.
Chances
Only a brush of an arm. One second. That was all it had taken. One second. He had passed her on the pavement of London, walking opposite directions. She knew the young man from a time of childhood but he didn't seem to recognize her in the single second of their contact.
As he walked, he couldn't raise the courage to look up from the pavement. His mind was preoccupied with one second in time where a loved one disappeared from his life. One second was all it had taken to rip away the one person he needed most. Lost in his own saddened thoughts, he had not been watching where he was going. A brush of an arm of a passerby. He looked to see who it was he had touched by a coincidence. A contact of only one second.
She continued walking the pavement in her original course. This boy, known from younger school years who had disappeared from her life at the age of eleven. For one second she looked into the eyes she recalled so easily, eyes the color of precious emeralds, and for one second she saw his pain. This boy, now a man, had always seemed so sad. But she couldn't help thinking what could cause such a hard pain as this.
One second and the brush of an arm. He could feel her gaze inside him, her eyes familiar but in too far a distance of time to locate them in his memory. A chance meeting on the streets of London. He continued his original course of direction as she turned away from him.
His eyes had once been so bright. Those eyes that had been permanently etched into her memory now held only fading embers of the fire she had once known. She turned away, no longer able to hold his gaze for she now felt saddened by what could take away such a fire. One second and a brush of an arm on a random street, they continued to walk away from each other.
As she walked away from him he remembered a childhood friend unseen since beginning his life at a different school than hers, now found on a crowded street in London. He looked over his shoulder as he walked. She did the same. They shared one more second of contact on a crowded street before turning and continuing on their separate ways. A random and brief moment in time.
His mind returned to the random moment that had changed him for the worse. A single second of past time lost, an irreplaceable second of life. The choice was made and the chance was lost. Preoccupied with his forlorn thoughts, he continued in his original course. One second gone.
He, again, looked over his shoulder. She did not turn to meet his eyes as she disappeared into the crowd. The one second of contact fell away with her. One second. That was all it had taken. One second.
On a random street, a brush of an arm that had turned his attentions from his sad thoughts. A random street, a random person among many others, a chance brush of an arm. Is anything simply by casual chance? In one second he made a choice to take a chance. In one second he turned his back on his original forlorn course and followed in hers. The chance not lost, he fell into step beside her. She looked over to him and smiled in greeting. Only one moment, one second of life, a chance meeting.
The End.
A/N: Thanks for reading! Reviews make me happy. Please help me be happy :)