"Blaise, you're not like the others."

"I know."

"Would you care to join me at Hogsmeade?"

I don't know how Astoria got to caring about me. These sorts of things, you're not supposed to notice. I noticed the entire time. The way she was friendly to me. Included me in conversation like I was anyone else. Ignored that I ignored her, ignored everyone.

I wanted to grab her by the shoulders, to scream in her face.

No, no, no, no, no.

At the same time, I wanted to kiss her.

I wanted to want to kiss her.

But I didn't kiss her. I didn't want to. I didn't kiss her.

I didn't grab her shoulders. I explained.

"Oh."

Oh, she said. I understand, she meant. You hurt me so bad, she meant.

"We could go as friends?"

It was pathetic. She would settle for being friends. Pathetic.

"Sure, that sounds fine. Can Nott come?"

"You mean Theodore?"

I meant Theodore. I don't want to share his name with her. Just because she knows it doesn't mean it can't remain my secret.

I nod.

Theodore joins us. We all sit at a table. We talk about classes. It's suffocating.

It's so commonplace, so normal. Like we're all friends. Like friends.

I think he can tell how weird it is, too, to have friends plural. So he excuses himself.

"Have a bit of Transfig," he says. I didn't sign up for this, he means. You aren't my friend if you're not cynical, he means. So he excuses himself.

"I see what you mean now." Her voice is soft, quiet, careful. Gentle.

"See what?" Mine is sharp. I mean for it to be.

"I see why you didn't want to."

"Want to what?"

Want to go out with her, she means. With a girl, she means.

It's Theo, she means.

I stare at the wall behind her. I feel betrayed. How can she just say it like that, with her eyes. Like it's trivial, means nothing. Like blood and family and gender mean nothing. They don't, of course. But it bites me that she knows, that she gets that. It's painful to be understood, it's intrusive.

You feel like a child, so simple and easily understood by adults. Stop understanding me. Stop making me a child. Stop making me simple. I don't want to be simple because they're all simple, if I'm simple then I'm like the rest of them, and they're awful, awful, shallow and mean and stupid and silly and novel and useless and absolute accessories to the landscape.

Don't make me a child, Astoria.

"It's like you're a child, actually."

I look away from the wall and into her eyes. Legilimens?

"No, I mean it. Not a child-child, Blaise, but... You need someone to take care of you. You need to be taken care of. That's what I noticed about you, at first, I mean. You tried so much to blend in that you stood out. You hate attention, but you crave it."

I glare at her. She's unfazed.

"Look, I know you don't really know me. You probably hate me, by now. You don't even want to be friends with me, I can tell. But tell me I'm wrong. Tell me you don't need someone to care for you."

"You're wrong, I don't need someone to care for me. You're wrong on two accounts."

"Two?"

"I don't care if you're my friend. I clearly don't have to put any effort in, so what's the loss?"

This surprises her. She knew she was risking things before, telling me about myself, telling me things I hated and knew. She knew that as I glared at her I wasn't really mad. She knew I could act. So she kept going.

"He needs you, too, though."

He does not. I almost shake my head. He doesn't need anyone, anything. Like an owl in a cage he is beauty in isolation.

"Really, he does. It's the same as you, but reversed. You need someone to care for you, he needs someone to care for. It's like something happened to both of you and neither of you say it. The same thing, except different."

His mother is dead but alive to him, mine is alive but dead to me. It's obvious. It's stupid. It doesn't affect people that much.

"He doesn't need me," I say.

"He does."

"He needs a pet."

She smiles at me. I hate it. "You are his pet. Can't you see it?"

"No." Yes.

Even if I'm the dark one, the powerful one, the one people are afraid of, it's him. He's my keeper, he makes the decisions.

"I think you can."

I feel something inside me plummet. Plummet low and plummet hard. Now everything inside of me hurts, now the edges of my eyes prick. Because I can see it.

But do I see it because I want to or because it's there. Do I see it because I'm weak.

I am weak.

Layers and layers of robes, a table between us, but I feel so exposed. The feeling of falling churns within me and I decide to fall with it, to expose myself further.

I use a tone I never use, the tone of a child.

"He doesn't love me, Astoria."

"Ask him."

"He doesn't."

"I promise he does. He doesn't know you do, though. You need to ask him, to tell him."

"He'll reject me. He'll hate me, and I..." I can't lose him. Not him.

I hate it, needing someone. I want to be independent, to be adult. But she's right, she's entirely right. I am a child, a bitter child who wants and needs and cannot ask and cannot tell.

"He'll hate you if you don't, Blaise."

I shake my head. I'm tired of my voice's hoarse betrayal.

"Did you see how he left? He hated seeing us together. He can see that I'm drawn to you, to your brokenness, and he imagined that he saw something in you, too. It hurt him, Blaise. If you don't tell him, you're cruel. A coward."

At this I stood up. "Good day, Astoria."

"Blaise-wait!" I didn't.

She thinks I got mad at her and took off. She thinks she crossed the line. She did, but that wasn't it.

I am a coward, I am a coward, I am a coward.

I am a coward but I will not let them hurt you.

I am a coward but I will not hurt you, Theo. I will never hurt you, Theo.

I am a coward but I will be brave for you.