Disclaimer: Still not mine.
Author's Note: Here's part two. Also betaed. I'll upload the other two chapters tomorrow. At the moment my internet is a bit whacky...
Beta: Tsubasa no Ryu, thank you.
II.
Three months pass before you see him again. At your best friend's wedding. Of course he is invited. Everyone knows him, and what is more important, everyone likes him. You like him too, don't you? You just don't love him.
He's still beautiful, you didn't expect it to change, but you can see the fine lines of sadness etched into his face, can see that his eyes are just that tad bit duller, that he smiles less. Maybe that's merely what you want to see. Maybe he's just recovering from the flu. You had it too; you called off work for two days to get better. You tell yourself that that's the reason he is so pale, so thin, so worn out.
You see him chatting with your friend and you wait a little bit longer, go to the bar to get something to drink. You didn't see him during the ceremony. You try to pretend that you didn't look for him either. Your friend told you that he accepted the invitation. You asked him if he would bring someone. Your friend didn't know. Now you see it for yourself. He came alone.
You are not the only one who noticed. A Ravenclaw you only know by sight is hitting on him and you can see him blush. You know it is all too easy to make him blush and you love it. No, you don't love it, you like it, that's all. He's blushing and ducks his head, you think that he's chuckling, but it's hard to tell from your point of view. That Ravenclaw puts a hand on his shoulder and you can see his eyes sparkle as he looks up with that breathtaking smile of his.
You watch them as they swirl over the dance floor and something like jealousy flares in your chest. Yours! He is yours! He shouldn't be dancing with someone else! But he isn't yours anymore, is he? You pushed him away, you had to tell him the truth just to satisfy some feeble Hufflepuff tendency of yours. You hurt him, you broke his heart. Do you really want him to keep pining over you, to never find someone else? Wasn't that your reason for telling him in the first place? So that he could find someone who returns his love? Not so selfless anymore, are you? Thoughts of a spoilt child. You still don't love him, but no-one else should love him, either, and more importantly, he shouldn't love someone else. Your brow furrows as you come to that conclusion. He deserves better than you. You know that. Why can't you grant him a bit of happiness? Merlin knows, he hasn't had much of it in his life. You had your chance.
Still, your eyes follow him. They are glued to his slim form, to his unblemished skin, to his brilliant eyes, to his silky hair, to his graceful movements. Your ears strain to catch every word that falls from those soft, pink lips, every laughter. You can almost imagine his scent that always entranced you. He smells like his garden in spring, still fresh and new and beautiful. Just like him. He always seems so youthful, so full of energy, but at the same time he has a range of experience and a sapience that goes well beyond his age. Like spring. It's always new and like the first time, but there have been countless springtimes before and it is like an age-old tradition for new flowers to break through the earth and to blossom. He is spring. What are you? His winter? His ice that destroys everything with its unyielding cold? Would you have destroyed him, had you stayed? Maybe. You will never know for sure. Maybe he would have managed to melt the ice around your heart.
You have long since lost the habit of pretending that your heart isn't tightly warded and guarded and protected so that no-one will be able to hurt you. You know that it's true, but you never regretted it. It is part of your personality and he knew that when you got involved.
You have hurt a lot of people, broken a lot of hearts- you never felt responsible. If they had wanted a lovey-dovey romantic sap they shouldn't have agreed to go out with you. You can count, on one hand, the number of occasions when you bought flowers or arranged a picnic or did something as hopelessly cliché as that. And all those occasions were in connection with him:
You bought him flowers and chocolate and sent them to him after your first date, you even bothered to floo him right the next day. You made him breakfast after your first time together: The eggs were burnt, the coffee tasted like rinse water or perhaps skele-growth, you broke three of his plates, the tray was covered in sugar, the bacon had crumpled to an unappetising mess, there was only a deplorable rest of orange juice left in one glass, after you had to use the rest of it to put out the fire in the pan with what was supposed to be pancakes, you had a headache and were in a very foul mood- but you made him breakfast! If you remember correctly, he was laughing so hard that tears were running down his face and you went out instead, while you kept thinking why you didn't just order breakfast. You learned from it, though, and when the time came for his birthday you got the house-elves to prepare you a picnic basket. In was an enjoyable day, wasn't it? You were certainly happy as he snuggled into you and then thanked you in that unique way of his. It did pay off to be nice to him.
You start to think that maybe you made a mistake. No, not a mistake, you don't make mistakes. It was merely that you reached an ill-informed conclusion. If you had know that you would miss him so much and that sleeping around wouldn't be nearly half as fun as it used to be... Would you still have done it? Set him free? Because, face it, you were using him, abusing the power you held over him by knowing that he loves you and being free of the obligation to return those feelings. How often did you demand that he do something for you? How often did you wake him in the middle of the night just to sate your lust? How often did you do something in return?
You hardly listen to your friend as he rambles on about his bride, their house, the planned honeymoon or some other such nonsense. You sip your drink. You know that your friend won't hold it against you. He's used to it. He is one of the few who can deal with this and won't be offended. That's the reason you are friends.
"Just go over to him," he finally says, rolling his eyes and you make a non-committal noise in the back of your throat because you haven't listened to him. "He's bound to notice you staring."
You finally snap out of your thoughts and look up at him with confusion: "I don't know what you are talking about."
"Of course not," he is mocking you now, his lips quirking into a sardonic smile. "You only talked about him non-stop for the last three months, but why should you remember him?"
You glare at him, but he is wholeheartedly unimpressed and just waves you away: "I have better things than to argue with you about your non-existing love-life on my wedding day. Contact me when you pulled your head out of your arse."
He turns away and you curse him silently as he kisses his wife and leads her to the dance floor, laughing happily and all in all giving off the appearance of a happily newly-wed couple, which they are of course. You doubt that the marriage will last. She's superficial and cares more about her looks and counting calories than about sharing someone's life or at least leading a stimulating conversation. You told him so, he agreed and laughed. That's just him, he doesn't expect it to be perfect or to last. He lives for the moment. Maybe you should do so too, then you would still be together with him.
It is inevitable that you bump into each other, he's coming from the dance floor and you take a step back into his way to avoid being trampled by a pair of over-enthusiastic Hufflepuffs.
You turn around, a fake apology on your lips before those startling eyes register with you: "I'm sorry."
He smiles, but you can see that it is strained and that it hurts him to see you: "It doesn't matter."
"I am really sorry," you emphasise, reaching out before unsurely dropping your hand, and the words get a whole new meaning.
You realise that those four words are just as true as those fateful other four words. You are sorry. Sorry for hurting him, sorry for reminding him, but most of all sorry for not loving him.
His smile turns sad and you see the starting of tears in those eyes: "It's fine. I'll see you around."
With that he turns around and disappears in the crowd. You don't see him for the rest of the evening, not in reality, anyway.
Instead you meet his friends. You can't say yourself if it was intentional on your part, on their part or just pure coincidence. You stand there against the bar, ordering another drink, thinking vaguely that maybe you should stop before you get royally pissed, but not caring much either way. They are suddenly next to you, one of their children safely tucked in his mother's arms. It looks like there is another on the way.
The greetings are more or less neutral, too civil to be natural, but lacking the hostility you have almost expected after that break-off.
"So how have you been?" she asks.
"I can't complain. Yourself?" you return, mentally rolling your eyes- why doesn't she get to the point at once?
"Fine," she nods with a smile, "Taran is teething."
Didn't you always wonder about that?
"You broke his heart," he finally bursts out and you are almost thankful for his lack of tact. "He isn't doing too well."
"Oh?" you draw up the mask of carefully crafted indifference and you see him clench his hands into fists.
"No, he's not... himself," she falters. "He cries a lot and he eats little."
You don't know what to respond. You don't owe them an apology.
"He doesn't want us to be angry with you," she adds softly. "You know how he is and I can't really hold it against you that you were honest. But maybe it would be best if you stayed away from him so that he can heal."
"I stayed away from him for the last months," you defend yourself- why do you feel the need to defend yourself, by the way? "It's not like I'm stalking him."
She nods: "All I'm asking is that you won't purposefully seek him out. It shouldn't be too difficult, seeing as he hardly goes out anymore."
"Is it that bad?" you hear yourself asking and she nods once more: "He really loved you, he still does and that you turned him down seemingly destroyed his will to live. We try to get him to move on, but he's still as stubborn as ever."
"Just leave him alone," he concludes that statement with a string of derogatory names and you take your leave.
See what you have done? No four words can make up for it.
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