Disclaimer: Don't own anything, not even the computer I'm working on lol

Frost on the Window

I sat in the window seat, absentmindedly tracing patterns in the frost on the windowpanes, my mind drifting lazily, my thoughts disjointed and vague, almost against my will found myself etching out her initials, I stopped midway and drew my hand back sharply, silently I shook my head as if to dislodge all thoughts of her as I turned away determined to try and focus on something else like the most recent discovery of a magical creature that would eat all of hair according to a (newly bald) eye witness.

Only, as I turned to look back across my empty flat it served only to accelerate my lonely thoughts, in the months since she had moved out it felt like all the warmth had leaked out of the place leaving me feeling even more lost and hopeless. Where do you go when your home no longer feels like a home? Its a bitter and empty shell, a twisted reflection of myself, however much clutter and knick knacks I fill the shelves with, the funny ones she used to tease me about, the place always seemed empty, the shelves somehow bare.

Its better this way though, she was always going to move out to live with Ron eventually, they planned it and she even talked to me about a million times, being flatmates was only ever a temporary thing so I don't even know why I was so shocked when she finally announced it, her face flushed with excitement. I celebrated with her of course, congratulated her and played the dutiful role of a girls best friend as I always did whilst she remained so blissfully unaware even though she herself remarked on how pale my face was.

I laughed it off and reminded her that my face was always pale.

I don't remember all of that night, I would be surprised if she remembered any of it, for me most it was a mixed up blur of pain and alcohol but there were just a few moments that are crystallised in my memory. Both of us had become drunk to the point that it seemed like a good idea to go outside and look at the stars, lying there on that small patch of grass in the moonlight I half-listened as she described to me how she had planned out her life from thereon in, marriage, kids, a dream job and the man she loved.

It all whirled around my head as she gazed up at the sky but I could only stare, fixated, at the ground where our hair, chocolatey-brown and white-blonde, lay innocently tangled together and when she turned and asked me whether there was a guy I wanted to marry and have kids with I just smiled mysteriously and said she would have to wait and see. She laughed and looked back at the stars, it was just me being me after all.

Later she hugged me, even kissed me on the cheek, if a little drunkenly and she thanked me for putting up with as a flatmate since Hogwarts, thanked me for being her best friend. All I could do was smile back at her then lock myself in my bedroom and read backdated copies of the Quibbler all night till I was so tired that the tears stopped on their own.

Whenever my defences dropped slightly though, like today for some reason, the image of our hair lying together like that flashes through my mind destroying any hope of peace and leaving me feeling more hollow than before with the ache for her presence and her voice fiercer than ever.

Sometimes I would think wryly that if I couldn't quite be counted as mad before then this would definitely be the thing to tip me over the edge even if being near her everyday had been every bit as torturous as being without her. Which was the more unbearable, to have her close but still untouchable and the tainted joy of always seeing her, a constant reminder of what I can't have? Or to be completely bereft of her, my own memories enough to remind me, to haunt me and add fuel to the slow burning fire that ate at my insides?

I can't even pinpoint when my infatuation with her began, we grew so close after the war, she with so few female friends, myself who hadn't had any friends at all until recently, both of us working hard to look after people in the aftermath of the battles and somehow managing to get along. I stayed close to her most of the time, I figured we were just too different not to work well together, she had her logic, I had my illogic but I had only really meant for it to be a temporary thing, a work thing so of course, as per, we ended up being friends instead.

I looked up to her at first I am after all a Ravenclaw and we value intelligence so what wasn't to be admired about the cleverest witch of the age, then I found out how easy it was to talk to her, I told her things I'd never told anyone before, not even my father. In retrospect that was probably what started it, having someone to listen to me and even to comfort me sometimes was a heady tonic when it was something I had never really had before and when that person was just so damn beautiful it would have been hard not to fall for her.

Soon I was catching myself thinking about her all the time and wondering what the hell was wrong with me, then it was the fact that I kept staring at her and by that point I was pretty sure there was something wrong, I would have said it was nargles if I hadn't been for the fact that I hadn't been anywhere near mistletoe for over a year. By the time I realised how much I wanted, needed and loved her I was in far too deep to even attempt getting myself out, I'd been fooling myself all along really and now all I cold do was hurt because she belonged to Ron, that was the way it was supposed to be.

He makes her happy and that's all that matters.

Even if sometimes I wish things could be different or that I could just have a minute where she belongs to me, I know its not real so I find myself wishing that I could just cut her out from my thoughts altogether instead, almost that I could cut her out of my life though I know without even her friendship I would be worse than a shell. Always every nerve inside me throbs and aches with missing her and wanting her as if someone had cut at me with a cursed knife, inflicting stinging wounds that refuse to heal.

I blink as I notice the slow wet trails that have seeped down the contours of my face and slowly I curl in on myself willing them to stop but knowing they won't, my arms draw tight around my knees and my back presses up against the frosted windowpanes. With my eyes closed against the onslaught I don't even notice the sound of the door opening, don't even realise that I'm not alone anymore until I feel an arm go around me and the soft breath in my ear.

"What is it?"

"Nothing, just nonsense" I mumble, unconsciously leaning in closer to her warmth.

"Okay"

So it doesn't matter if I never become the most important person in her life, doesn't matter that she won't ever love me the way I love her, or kiss me, or hold me closer and dearer than any friend could be because I need her anyway. Her friendship is all I have.I know they weren't really in character much but I sorta like this lol, one of those random things I write in the middle of the night when I can't sleep lol, anyway please review :) makes my day :P ~xx~