A/N: So this is the revised version- I didn't really like the ending and I found a couple of typos, just cleaned it up a bit basically.
This is how it ends.
With the boy and the girl sitting on a bed that doesn't have enough room for space between the two, but must be there because they can't bear for the awkwardness to smother them both. The two of them face each other, a lock of brown hair falling in front of her brown eyes, his collar leaning askew. She moves forward for a moment, her hand darting halfway to his shirt before retreating to the safety of clasped fingers in her lap. He doesn't move, except for his eyes that watch the strand of hair float back and forth with each breath.
They try to speak, their mouths betraying them with garbled half speeches. He wants to laugh, because usually her big words are protection against anyone and the world. She wants to laugh, because her words shouldn't desert her now, not when it's so important.
But the laughter is strangled by the silence too, and they both long for easy conversation and easier laughter and the easiest of all, fighting and arguing.
She begins to speak, because she needs to for a moment. The words come out of her mouth, not directed at him because her eyes are fixed on the wall behind him. They don't tumble, because she is forcing them out. It makes no sense to her, all of this illogic. Needing to speak to him, being unable to speak, wishing to be with him, wanting to run and flee and hide.
She speaks about friendship and mistakes, touches love before darting away as if scalded. The words begin to flow and he sits and watches her lips move and listens to what she says and wishes he could brush the hair out of her eyes.
He nods, every once in a while. Because if she says that what they did was a mistake, then he will agree. She is probably right, because she usually is however annoying he finds it. And maybe it will be easy friendship one again, and the nuances of how to speak with her will be relearned and the world will go on spinning.
She halts, drawing breath. It isn't the most she's ever said at one time, but it might be the most she's said without referencing a book. And he sits and tries to think about it all, because emotions and all that aren't what he's terribly good at.
And she says something about how emotions are running high because there's a war, for God's sake, and he thinks about how it's funny that when she's especially stressed she goes back to God and Muggle things. She talks about how things done in the heat of the moment are often regretted later, and he wishes that her big words would fail her again so that she didn't dissect everything and place them into proper little categories.
He notices that her eyes are shiny. She's probably crying, although he doesn't know why. He didn't just take all of her feelings and put them in a box, although he doubts that all of hers would fit. He's the one with the emotional range of a teaspoon, after all.
He desperately wants to put one arm around her or something, because that's what people do to comfort others. And he likes the feeling of her under his arm, because she leans into his just a tiny bit and sighs just like that.
But he doesn't do that, because he's sure that the moment has passed. He had thought (wished, really) that she might have perhaps loved him. Because he thinks that maybe he loves her.
So he tells her that he loves her, and the words come out in a jumble, love falling into place somewhere between more than friends and I wish. He wishes that she could have found a formula in one of those thousand books she read, how to tell someone that you love them without stumbling over the words.
She looks like she wants to smile, but can't quite. And so she contents herself with saying oh and he isn't sure how to translate this. Maybe it means that she doesn't return his feelings, but doesn't want to dash them on the ground and watch them shatter. Maybe it means something amazing and magical, like a code that he has to decipher and he'll find the meaning of life.
Oh she says again and she slides over a bit until her knee is barely grazing his and she smiles, stretching the cut on her face so that a bead of blood drips out. Her hand once again leaves the safety of her lap and fixes his collar, straightens it. Then it lays itself on top of his, the faint wetness comforting. Oh, she says, and he thinks that maybe oh is the most beautiful non-word. That maybe oh means she loves him too.
This is how it begins.
With the boy and the girl, sitting in class with books and feathers lying in front and his best friend sitting behind them. He is trying to persuade his feather to float into the air, the feather unheeding his frantic movements and words. She speaks up, correcting him in the way of someone who is always right. Maybe he will thank her, for helping him. Maybe they can be friends.
Red creeps up his face, obscuring some of the freckles. He asks her why can't she do it if she's so amazing, and the girl hates his tone of voice. She slides her wand out and waves it just so, precise words and precise movements. The feather floats up, and the teacher bestows congratulations. The girl smiles, the flush of doing something well and being praised for it causing a faint pink sheen to come to her face.
The boy is unimpressed. He glares at her, blue eyes cutting through her pride and happiness. The feather sinks back to the desk.
The girl places her smile back on her face, and says the spell again. The feather floats to the ceiling again, wafting back and forth on invisible air currents. The boy glances back down to his feather, lying unheeded on the desk. Quietly, so the girl beside him can't hear, he whispers the spell and waves his wand in the same precise movements that she uses. The feather floats above his desk for a moment, then he lets it go back down again. He is angry now, bothered that her advice was correct, that even though she is annoying and meddlesome he can't fault her intelligence.
The two pass the rest of the class with forced silence between them, the boy turning around every once in a while to talk to his friend. The girl pretends that she is perfectly all right with her feather dancing through the air, and then reading the textbook when she can't stop her ears from straying to the conversation next to her. She wishes that she could go back in time, not correct the boy. Apologizing doesn't cross her mind, because it is illogical to apologize for being correct.
Later, she hears the boy tell her friend that she is annoying and interfering and a hundred other things that make her feel stupid and hurt. She tries not to cry, because she tells herself that the opinion of one boy doesn't matter to her.
She cries though, because she can't lie to herself.
This is how it blossoms.
The boy and the girl, sitting in a library, the girl doing homework and the boy passing time when his friend has gotten a detention. It's odd, because though all three of them were there that night when they fought the troll the girl and the boy still aren't quite comfortable with each other. They haven't learned how to speak without arguing, how to help one another without calling the other stupid.
The girl hunches over the book, impatiently shoving her hair out of her face every once in a while. Sometimes, she reads a passage out of the book that she finds especially interesting (bezoars can negate the effects of the Imperius Curse, if the caster is weak- isn't that interesting?). The boy listens sometimes, because her voice is much nicer when she isn't correcting him or telling him that his collar isn't fixed or his tie is off.
The girl and the boy sit in the library, and she realizes that maybe having this intruder come to her sanctuary might not be so bad, as long as he stays quiet. She notices that he's got a piece of parchment out and writing avidly, though when she speaks he looks up and listens.
She tells him to get his feet off the table and he does, putting them on the chair next to him instead. The girl glances over at the parchment, trying to figure out what he's so interested in. Chess, he tells her and his eyes light up. She looks at him and doesn't see him as Harry's friend or the annoying ginger boy who isn't terribly smart. He glows with happiness from what belongs to him and she understands this boy, for just a moment.
The moment disappears soon, lost when she reads another sentence that she finds interesting and he retreats back, balling the paper up. Stupid, he whispers, and its almost like he forgot she was there for a brief moment of time. He is an odd sort, she thinks, because he doesn't want the world to see him when he glows.
They sit in almost companionable silence, the only sound the rustling of book pages and him shifting in his chair every few seconds. It seems that he doesn't want to leave her, out of pity or a sense of friendship.
After that, they are closer. It will always be him and his best friend first, but she completes them in a way. And she can see when the boy glows inside, his steady light of loyalty and being there that is so often cast in shadow by his best friend's burning courage and heroism and her shining intelligence.
She thinks, as the year pasts and she learns these two boys inside and out, that he's the type of person who's glow is only noticed when he's gone.
This is how it strengthens.
The girl and the boy, sitting together in a common room that is empty except for the flickering glow of the fire and the heavy friendship that lies between them. For once, their third Musketeer isn't present, torn away because of a stupid woman who laughs at cruelty. The girl mutters the word toad under her breath, and the boy glances at her for a moment. He nods, and she wonders if he knows how her thoughts trace through her mind in silver and black or if he is merely agreeing with her insanity.
She shivers, involuntarily, the heavy book in her lap not enough to keep her warm. The boy motions her over, and she slides underneath his arm. It is lovely and comfortable, though she covers part of the book because she doesn't like people reading over her shoulder. She knows that he probably wasn't anyways.
She leans into his shoulder a little bit, wanting to sink into the warmth for a moment and forget about stress and Voldemort and curses that illuminate death in green light. His scent of grass and Quidditch and something slightly sweaty are more helpful than the crinkle of pages beneath her fingers or the feeling of a new quill clasped in her hand.
And she knows that she might be falling headfirst into something scary and not found in textbooks, but she doesn't lie to herself. She never could, not with this boy.
The boy sits beside her, drinking in warmth and and the faint smell of inks and books that seem to follow her wherever she goes. He has no qualms about lying to himself, about pretending that what he feels for this girl is nothing more than brothers and sisters, best friends forever.
Maybe he'll tease her about her apparent marriage to books and the library later or she'll ask him why in the world he can remember the move that the Chudley Cannon's Seeker did in '64 but not that he has Charms homework, and they'll toss words back and forth like daggers. That is what they do, after all, when the heaviness of friendship isn't enough to hold back whatever the heck they're feeling and they need to force it back down.
This is how it breaks (and finds its way back together again).
With a girl and the boy sitting in the same armchair, entwined together. The other girl (original girl) sits in the chair that faces towards them, her book clutched tight between white knuckled hands. She makes a point of always sitting here, of saying look, I don't mind them at all. It works usually, because people don't see the girl when she has a book in her hand. She is merely another fixture, like the table with the lamp or the fireplace.
And of course the boy doesn't notice, because he is wrapped in a beautiful haze of yellow ribbons and lavender perfume. Maybe he spots her every once in a while, out of the corner of one eye or the other.
The other boy, the one who calls the both of these two friends, tries to bridge the gap with passed apologies that neither actually said. Blind, he wishes he could say to the boy. Why don't you say something? he wants to ask the girl. But he doesn't, and he watches the two of them dance about each other.
Daggers of words are tossed back and forth again and again, aiming for the heart instead of only maiming. The girl begins to put on make-up in the morning, then take it off before anyone sees except for the talking mirror that tells her she should leave it on. The boy stays away from both of his best friends and wraps himself tighter in lust, a blanket woven out of kisses and halfhearted conversations.
They survive the year, and it takes a near death before they (metaphorically) kiss and make up, and she wishes that he would really kiss her. She pushes the wish away as fast as she can, because just friends is better than hatred and dark words that cut both ways and broken hopes that taste like salt and sadness.
The boy pretends that he did no wrong, because apologies to her are difficult and sometimes he thinks that she cuts through what he says and understands what he's actually trying to say. And they return to talking and flinging insults and the other best friend looks at them and thinks that nothing at all has changed.
And maybe the world hasn't changed, but the lives of the boy and the girl have been turned inside out, so that something once hidden can almost be seen.
This is how it shatters.
With the girl and the boy standing and the other boy watching the two of them. The boy's eyes ask her to come and she wants to follow him so bad, because where he's going there is warmth and safety and him. Here, there is cold wind that manages to dart through the flap of the tent and broken conversations that go around and around in circles. And she knows she can't (shouldn't) blame either boy, but she does. She blames them both for being naïve and the heroic one for being courageous and foolhardy and not planning and the loyal one for not understanding her, for going through with giving up when she wants to so bad and can't.
And she can't say anything, she can't move or breathe or answer. Her hand reaches out for a moment, then stops. I want to go she tells herself, but her legs and locked in place. The boy looks at her with anger and a faint tinge of something that is almost but not quite regret and turns and leaves. The other boy looks like he wishes to take back everything, so that maybe he will come back.
The girl stares at the tent flap for a while, sitting there because she can imagine him walking in, smiling, laughing, telling them both that it was all a big joke. She would be angry with him, for a little at least, but then she would hug him and everything would be perfectly all right.
And the days pass, each following the next without listening to her pleas. She wishes that he would come back, that the next time the sun peeks over the trees he'll be there.
He never is though.
Instead, she spends her days trying to fill the spaces with horrible jokes and tieing herself closer to the other boy so that the loneliness won't be too much. They try to comfort each other, though they can't manage to comfort themselves. It's okay though, because the silence and the unsaid words (Ron and Ginny and parents) might drown them with loneliness, but at least they'll be lonely together (and she knows that it's an oxymoron, but what does it matter if there isn't anyone to correct?).
And they live, and they break, and they pretend that everything is halfway to all right.
One day he comes back, and she isn't sure that she can forgive him. Because she held a light in the darkness outside for three weeks and two days and seven hours and he didn't come, so why is he allowed to come now?
This is how it is forgiven.
With the boy and the girl standing in an empty room, the boy begging the girl with everything but his words to not make him kill another one. He swallows, rubbing his hands on his jeans for a moment, the freckles on his face showing more than usual. The girl sees a glimpse of what this is and almost refuses. She doesn't though, instead taking one of the fangs in one hand and the delicate golden goblet in the other.
The instant both are in her hand her whole body tense, eyes shutting tightly against whatever images shine themselves in front of her. The boy leans, forward, worried, wondering what has happened.
He touches her shoulder gently, the shock falling over him colder than jumping in a frozen pond. Words twine there silky grey way in front of him and for a moment they strangle him as well.
Your mother and father have their memories stolen away by you, even though they were only in danger because their daughter was a silly, stupid Mudblood. Friends in danger because you're a Mudblood. Mudblood. Dirty blood. Not enough for him, for anyone-
The boy jerks himself away, trying to tell her that she's smart and intelligent. She doesn't answer, not to him. She whispers broken apologies that stumble off her tongue and fall into the air, mumbled protestations that don't convince herself.
Finally he yells at her, asks her how she can be so illogical as to think she's stupid, when she's the best in the school. How she can say she's putting them in danger when their best friend is the Merlin damned Chosen One.
The apologies stop and she raises the fang. For a moment, her eyes stare at him, wild and crazed and filled with salty sadness and he is afraid that she will stab him instead of the goblet.
But she does, driving the fang in, and the gold bends and buckles and the wisps fly out. They cloud her face, but she stabs it again and again, until he holds her hands with his own and lies pretty white words that spin visions of everything is okay and you'll be fine.
This is how their story begins again.
With the girl and the boy (or are they a man and a woman now?), sitting in marriage counseling. The counselor knows them both, maybe better than they know themselves though not as well as they know each other.
It's the eleventh time in three years they've found themselves here, in this little room with the soothing blue and silver walls that piss the boy off to no end and cause the girl to tease him about changing the color scheme of the house to it. They don't seem like a couple about to break up, for all that they are sitting in a counseling office and are now hurling words back and forth at each other. The couselor doesn't say anything, just sits and watches and sometimes moves breakable objects out of their reach.
Rose was supposed to be at day care then and what were you doing at the office at eleven at night fly through the air, though thankfully their wands were taken away before this began so they can't really hurt each other.
At the end of forty-five minutes, the girl stops in the middle of her sentence (and you know how important goblin rights- oh look at the time) and thanks that counselor, who has been reading a book for the past twenty minutes. The boy takes a couple of minutes more, the red flush to his face fading away, before thanking her as well. The two walk out of the room after retrieving their wands, a little space between them.
It seems almost accidental, the way the girl walks just close enough so that her purse nudges his hip, how the boy's hand grazes her hand every few steps.