A/N: long time no see, dear friends! after a long time of absence working on my writing skills and not being able to stand going without a new chapter (have you seen how many new Hogs fics there are? lol), I am (kind of) back. Em, enjoy, even though I still have no idea what I'm going to write about in this chapter. make it up as I go, I suppose.

Song Selection - All This Time by OneRepublic

mazes of darkness

maybe one day you'll love me
when you do, please love me right
they say love lasts forever
but how long does forever last?
so if one day you'll love me
please, I beg you, love me right

They say you never know what you have until you lose it.

You, whom is reading this, is not an exception.

Maybe you might have never experienced it from your heart.

I give you three words. Look around you.

Time passes. Finally the leaves are tinted with hints of colorful reds and yellows before leaving the branches bald and letting winter roll in, and it's not long before spring flies away. People grow along with the ticking noises of the clock, and soon enough, Angela Leigh has changed from a young schoolgirl to a intimidating teenager on her way to becoming a woman.

It's her final year at Hogwarts, and she feels a pang of hurt as she realizes that it's the last time she'll ever get on 9 and 3/4 platform, get herself on the train, awaiting another year filled with excitement. Of course she's been waiting to grow up all her life, but still, isn't being young and keeping it fresh what life is all about?

More importantly, this year will be the last chance she can ever get closer to him.

After she says farewell to her busy mother, she pushes along her luggage and goes to find her friends. But AL's eyes are also trying to find somebody else.

"AL! Over here!"

Before she can turn her head back to see who it was, they've already caught up with her, grinning and excitedly blabbering over her shoulder.

"...and I told him, like, no way, because I hate that place, it's so cheap...oh, hey, AL! Long time no see!" AL grins. Tess seems to already have plunged into her annual summer tell-it-all speech.

"Hey," AL greeted, also giving a friendly smile at everyone else.

"Tess, we know, you really hate Applebee's - and anyways, you've already told us this, like, 3 times." Taylor says. "We should really get on the train - unless you want to get stuck next to Loony Lovegood."

Dani rolled her eyes. "Hey, at least she has good fashion sense. Those earrings?"

"Well, yeah, but I think she likes Justin Bieber." Ashlyn giggled. Even though Ashlyn wasn't really a Hufflepuff, they were all friends, anyways. "And Justin Bieber sounds like a girl."

Justin Bieber was a guy in 5th year. Fifteen and still not reaching puberty. Everyone laughed at the mention of him.

"Wait, Justin Bieber's not a girl?" Tess pretended to be shocked. "Wasn't her name Justina?"

[next part omitted because it was too sillyand pointless to even be included (and because we already know what would break out if someone said Justin Bieber was a girl)]

[all the third year girls in their radius screamed loudly at hearing someone insult their precious beaver)

AL collected herself and got onto the train with everybody else. Having quickly found a compartment, everyone immediately launched into plans for the year/if they should all wear tights with the school robes/all the juicy gossip. And, most importantly, boys.

"How have you been with Neville, Ash?"

Ashlyn smiled. "He's really nice. And sweet."

Sam poked her. "See? I told you so."

"More like, we told her so." Dani implied. "I see you've been busy with Georgina, too, Sam."

Sam scowled at her jokingly. Everybody laughed.

"What about you, AL?" Tess poked her friend playfully. "Any hotties we should know about?"

"Bonus points if he's a ride," Taylor added helpfully.

AL groaned. "Same as always, really."

"Austere?" Tess said instantly.

Everybody groaned along.

Dani sighed. "But...he's like...a Slythie. And he's not single. Plus, you've been in love with him for the past 4 years."

"So?"

Taylor sighed. "So, it's probably going to go nowhere. Not that I don't hope you do get with him," she added quickly. "Just...how about somebody else?"

AL looked grim. This conversation was not going in the right direction. It was only going in One Direction - everybody pointing out her hopeless, never to come true crush and then start recommending random boys. No, she wasn't going to settle for 'Rupert' in Ravenclaw or 'Peeta' in Gryffindor or 'that hottie with the nice backside in Charms'.

Austere, she thought as the train arrived at Hogwarts.

The first week or so went by quite dully, compared to her past experiences. She was expecting something more...fun. Not just boring days of classes and getting lectured by teachers with warning about their NEWTs. Potions was usually boring, but this year, they had double-Potions with Slytherin, and that meant...

She tried to not keep her hopes up too much as she rushed into the classroom, way ahead of her friends.

Snape's unpleasant face leered at her before returning to whatever nasty potion he was trying to make. She looked around and saw that only a few nice and decent Slytherins were there (Dani and such) She waved to Dani and sat down next to her, not only because she was her friend but also because the Slytherins would probably sit near Dani, too.

Austere.

When, finally, the Slytherins arrived, she raised her head from her textbook and immediately recognized his face, with some red haired girl on his arm...

Dyed hair, she cringed. But some part of her was jealous of this unknown girl. Was her name something like...Kaelie? Carly? Something like that.

Austere didn't look at her at all.

She knew she shouldn't have let her hopes up.

"Hogsmeade! I mean, god, I need new books, and some nice socks and siriusly, my bag is so last year..."

Taylor was talking non-stop as they headed off to their first Hogsmeade trip of the year.

Her other friends nodded along and animatedly talked about their shopping plans, while AL was trying to calm her nerves and telling herself she could do this.

She could pick up a conversation with Austere.

Of course, she'd have to catch Austere in some shop, not outside where everybody was watching. And he'd have to be alone. And preferably not with that ginger.

"AL? Earth to AL!" Sam snapped her fingers in front of her. "Daydreaming again?"

"Sorry, I just got kind of caught up..." thinking about Austere.

They quickly hurried off to Hogsmeade, catching up with all of the other 7th years and greeting other friendly faces, and then marching straight onto towards their shopping routine. AL went along, too, but it wasn't as fun as it used to be.

Where was Austere?

When she finally saw Austere in a bookshop, alone and flipping through some Muggle novel, she saw her chance and excused herself from her friends. A few curious glances were thrown her way, but she just shrugged and headed towards the bookstore.

A chime rang somewhere as she stepped through the door.

AL tried to put on a polite smile as she got near where Austere was, and then pretended to flip through some vampire novel about a guy stalking some crazy girl. Nice guy, she thought before taking a look at the cover of the book Austere was holding and then coughing.

Austere looked up.

Here's your chance, Angela Leigh, she told herself.

"You like the Mortal Instrument series, too?" She said, hoping she didn't read the name of the cover wrong.

Austere shrugged as if he didn't find somebody approaching him so suddenly weird. "Kind of," he said. "But I'm not really a shipper, and it seems like the Jace/Clary ship is the key to this series."

"Ah," AL said, trying to think of something intelligent to say. "And, by the way, what do you think of Twilight? Should I read it?"

The boy pulled a disgusted face. "Never do that. You could try the Vampire Diaries, though, they're actually pretty good." He handed her a copy. "If you like Muggle books and vampires, of course."

"Ooookay," she said lamely. Where had her confidence gone?

So they both stood there, books in hand and not really knowing what to say. Just at that moment, that Kaelie or Carly or something redhead came over, dragged Austere away, leaving AL standing there dumbfolded at what had just happened. Austere managed to wave a silent goodbye before rushing out of the store to catch up with his date.

Well, damn, she thought.

When she got out of the bookstore as well, she could barely hear the girl talking to Austere.

"...who is that weirdo?" she was saying as she looked at the shop windows.

"she's not...weird..." he said, but he sounded doubtful.

Kaelie or Carly or someone rolled her eyes. "Really, that girl's a Hufflepuff. I mean, really. A loser. And she doesn't even have good clothes. I mean..."

"well...just maybe," Austere said before changing the topic. AL couldn't believe her ears. She had loved this boy for all these years to know that he thought of her as a...loser?

Blinking back hot tears, she quickly turned away, her sight blurry. She couldn't see anything, couldn't take anything in...

It was only a matter of time before she hit a pole, hard.

She crumbled.

Austere heard a faint shriek.

Kailee didn't seem to have heard anything - but then, she was so caught up in the large range of tights that she couldn't have noticed anything else. People were all heading in One Direction, probably having heard the same shriek he did, too. Austere told Kailee a I'll-be-right-back, and then hurried off to see what the commotion was about.

"AL!" He heard a loud shout before seeing a group of girls hurry towards someone lying on the floor.

AL?

As in, the girl he just spoke to awkwardly in the bookstore?

Sprinting now, he quickly went over to only see her in a heap, having fainted from...hitting the pole?

But why would she do that?

Pushing his way through the crowd to get a better look at her, he catches the eye of a friend of AL's and taps her on the shoulder.

"Hey...em, Tess?" He said, praying that he remembered her name right.

"Um, it's Taylor," the blond girl said, rolling her frantic eyes. "Aren't you Austere?"

He looked down. How lame was he, not even remembering someone's name right? "Well, yeah. What happened to AL?"

Taylor opened her mouth to probably tell him all the details before stopping. "Wait, do you have something do with this?"

Well, yeah, because I was speaking to her only minutes before she suddenly passed out in the middle of the street. Of course, I murdered her. But his sarcasm never works, anyways. "I was speaking to her in the bookshop, around ten minutes before I heard her shriek."

AL let out a groan. Taylor quickly hurried over to get closer to her friend. Her other friends were trying to get through the mob before he heard her let out a few words.

"Taylor?" AL weakly said before getting even more pale, tears in her eyes. "He...he said I was a loser."

Then she completely passed out.

Taylor and the other girl, Tess, went to find him later, after making sure that AL was safely sent to the infirmitary.

"Austere Gamao," Tess said, as if she was angry.

"What did you do to AL?" Taylor asks me, her eyes filled with fury.

He doesn't know what to say. "I...was recommending her a vampire book."

"A vampire book!" Tess exclaimed. Yeah, a vampire book. Maybe she's allergic to bad romance novels. That's probably why she passed out.

Taylor looked serious. "She said that somebody called her a loser. Maybe it was you."

Austere doesn't know what to say. Someone says she's a loser, and the first person they come to interrogate is him? Not likely in normal circumstances, but then this wasn't one of those kind of things where you could just apologize and let it get over with.

"I..." He wonders if he should tell the truth. "Well, Kailee said she was a loser. And she just asked me, and I just kind of said something like 'whatever' or 'maybe' or some meaningless word..."

The two girls seem to snap right there.

"So you agreed that she was a loser?" Tess says menacingly. It's as if she's about to pounce on him at any moment.

Austere shifted from one foot to another and tried to not look at them. "Well..."

Taylor narrows her eyes. "Look, Austere Gamao, I'm going to tell you something, since AL's probably never going to have the courage to tell you. She's been in love with you for Five. Damn. Years. and you're not about to just call her a loser and get away with it. Don't you remember anything? She lived really near you before she moved when you were young, and you were friends. AL never tells us these things, but we found out after a while. When she was young she only thought of you as a friend, but ever since second year...anyways. Has becoming a Slytherin turned you into a cold-hearted animal? Do you only have eyes for..."

"Redheads?" Tess suggests.

"Well, yeah," Taylor says. "Anyways, don't just say that you have nothing to do with her, because you were friends before and admit it, you really liked hanging out with her. We're not forcing you to hook up with AL or anything, but just keep in mind that there was always a girl right behind you, helping you with your studies, and hoping she could just be in the same class with you, even if it was that damned Potions. Do you not remember the many times she 'anonymously' gave you a hint on your Transfiguration essay on Animagus? Sure you didn't know it was her, and I understand that you've been too caught up in your own little world to notice, but you're going to have to at least pull your head out of your arse and at least give her an apology when she wakes up. Because you were always her motivation, what got her going. And she's not going to be very happy that you called her a loser."

Austere was silent, not knowing what to say.

He remembered when he was in Muggle primary school, and he was in the same class as AL for two years - third and fifth grade. They had always been friends, because of their parents' close relationships and the fact that they lived so near to each other. She was always fun and outgoing, and always helping him out, even in the places he didn't notice.

she loved me.

You never know what you have until you lose it.
(and once you lose it, you never get it back.)

Austere Gamao was not an exception.

her prince never realized anything,

and the princess broke her heart.

[it is not a happy ending.]

A/N: ...yep. It was kind of weird, but, siriusly, give me some slack, I haven't been writing for some time, and I hate writing dialogue.

But...AUSKEE!

heh.