Pour Vos Yeux Seulement: For Your Eyes Only

SUMMARY: It was an illicit affair born one morning in Paris above a small café.

AN: I'm a horrible person that has neglected this story beyond belief. Please forgive me! I'm utterly stupid. I am so sorry! On the plus side, I feel like two years has sort of shifted my writing style, so enjoy and let me know what you think!

Chapitre Quatorze

All your dreams are over now

And all your wings have fallen down

Oh all your dreams are over now

And all your wings have fallen down

She's just like you

So why keep doing what you do

Why cut a friend

Why cruise that mean lean to an end

You could have heel-toed

To another place

You could have peeled slow

To a better face.

April 12, 2007

The Wedding Rehearsal

"LOVELY! OH, JUST LOVELY," shouted Lenore, the couple's wedding planner.

Standing beside Ginny in front of a lavishly decorated alter of bronze and gold with an embellishment of green and red rubies, Harry felt nervous. Ginny had just finished saying her vows to him. A stain glass window of a sweet baby Jesus and Virgin Mary smiled down at him, as if urging him to feel as they felt. Undeniably happy. In the background the church's choir practiced. They would perform at the couple's wedding, singing odes in simulation to their perfect nuptials. He could feel the sweat trickle from his neck down his spinal cord, and it felt cold.

Tentatively, he held Ginny's hands as Lenore bubbled on about the couple's loveliness. Their clammy palms touching spoke of the underlying betrayal they had each suffered at one another's hands. In their unison, they were less dirty, less likely to have the finger pointed at them and the word infidel uttered in their presence. This is why he did not like Churches. He would be a heathen in every aspect—a murderer, a liar, a cheater.

Harry turned a wide-eyed stare to Lenore who in return shot Harry a devilish grin. I am in Hell, Harry thought, with a slight shake to his head, as if to remove the notion from his head. He then turned to Ginny, who wanted so badly to gain approval from Lenore that her neck was stretched out, as if to give her a swan-like appearance, her chin raised and her eyes glistening. Harry shifted uncomfortably under her stare, embarrassed at his lack of sentiment within the Church –not for himself, not for the man who stood to plan his wedding. Not even for his future wife. He was a heathen indeed.

When he had held a naked Ginny not but two nights ago he realized what his life goal is. He would live his life to satisfy Ginny. He had bestowed upon her a hurt that he would spend his life making up to her. And she will to him. They had agreed that night to carry on, as if he hadn't walked in on her riding Seamus, looking at the Irishman in a way she had never looked at him. Seamus would still be a groomsman, Ginny would get her dream wedding—the big celebrity wedding of the year would stay intact.

He felt the corners of his lips crack as his tongue darted out to ease the stinging. He watched as Ginny's eyes followed his tongue. He noticed that she was breathing heavily, her pose still firm, but nearly now resembling a petrified duck. He couldn't talk.

Finally, the silence between them broke, "Isn't this lovely?" she asked him with a grand smile. "I know we're going to be happy together."

He knew he would be enslaved to her and maybe there will be happy days, but never forever like most matrimonies promise.

Suddenly, the singing that had played like a hushed murmur in the back of Harry's head stopped. He finally broke eye contact with Ginny and looked around. Lenore had motion to the choir to stop and now he stood directly in front of the young couple, arms crossed and head tilted to the side.

"I don't know how I feel about this anymore," the wedding planner said, his nasal voice adding a horrifyingly annoying ting to his proclamation.

"What do you mean?" an assistant asked from the sidelines.

"Li—zzy!" Lenore whined. He motioned for one of his top minions to come stand beside him. A short, blonde woman made herself known. "Please, Lizzy, tell me what's wrong with this couple?"

She crossed her arms much like Lenore and tilted her head to the side as well. "They look miserable," she said plainly. She gave a slight shrug, "this is not a funeral, and this is your wedding. How about a smile?" She herself projected a fake smile, as if in the order of teaching them. "See?" she murmured. Harry imitated and Ginny glowed ten times brighter, her lips stretched out painfully to fully reproduce the assistant's pseudo-warming smile. They were a happy couple about to get married.

"Now say your vows, Mr. Potter…" Lenore urged.

Harry licked his cracking lips again. "Ginny," he started his rehearsed lines.

...

Utter chaos ensued in Harry's mind as he clenched at his eighth glass of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey. He had thoughts of a man pressed flush against his body, sharp angles and rough skin on skin contact. He felt sick to his stomach, having never fantasized about a man before outside of Draco. This faceless concoction in his mind was just a figment of his fractured desires. These impromptu desires were inappropriate, his current situation a gleaming red flag of the misery that would come with this chosen life. He was sitting outside the Burrow at his own dinner party.

He heard something strike, like a match, to the side of him. In the light Hermione stood, a candle in her hand.

"Sorry to startle you Harry, but I didn't see you inside and thought to look for you out here. She sat beside him on the small marble bench the Weasley's had in their backyard, casting a charm to have the candle hover close to them. "Ron and the boys are in there making a ruddy mess, I can see why you'd find refuge out here," she paused, giving him an once-over. "Are you all right, Harry?"

He felt his body lax and his brain give forth to an illusion of abrupt familiarity. This was Hermione, his best friend, and the foundation of his very being. He just looked at her, and took a sip of his firewhiskey. She continued on, "It's scary, isn't it? To have a love so grand it can light up an entire house? Don't be afraid to accept it. It's scary because you feel that you're officially solidifying your future, as if it's predictable…but remember, the love you two have for each other will grow and expand and never be predictable, but always a pleasant surprise."

Her fortune-cookie approach to his relationship with Ginny made him smile weakly as he brought the glass to his lips for another taste.

"Ginny loves me," he finally said. He tried to keep his words from slurring. He needed to say this right. Hermione nodded in agreement. "But what if I don't love her?" He saw in his peripheral vision her smile fall replaced with a look of panic. He knew that Hermione was resizing the spectrum of their conversation now. He knew that she was both horrified and eager to know.

"What are you saying? You love Ginny, Harry. You're marrying her tomorrow."

"But what if I don't love her anymore? What if I told you everything has been a lie, up until this very exact moment." His throat began to hurt; it felt as if it were stretching to allow this big amount of information to come out. His eyes began to sting at the sensation and notion of what he was about to do. "What if I love someone else?" She gasped. "What if I love that person so much, I can't imagine marrying Ginny right now! That I'd rather be shunned from my friends, my family, just to be with that person?"

Hermione gently took the glass from his hands and sat in beside her. She then held both his hands in hers tightly, prompting Harry to look her in the face. "Are you sure you're in love with this person, Harry? That it's not just lust driving you…"

"I am, I can't stop thinking about them."

"When did this happen?" He noticed her intense gaze as he slowly fell apart in front of her. His shoulders shook as he began to sob. She quickly pulled out her wand and placed a silencing charm around them. He was fully crying into his hands now. She slipped an arm around his waist and held him close to her, like a mother to an injured child.

"It started and ended when I was in Paris."

"So this person is the reason why you overstayed your visit in France?" He nodded slowly and relaxed into her protective embrace, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as they spoke quietly to each other regardless of the charm she had placed. He had ceased in his sobbing, but the tears still ran down his cheeks to spill onto the collar of the black dress shirt he had decided to wear this evening.

Hermione took a deep breath. "What happened to the other woman?" At this question, Harry began sobbing again. She tried to calm him with soothing shushing sounds, but he wouldn't relent in his cries. He thought, truly he was in hell. That this moment of complete truth and utter peculiar clarity would surely condemn his soul to hell.

"The other man," Harry choked.

"What did you say?" she asked, her panicked tone masked from her calm outward appearance.

"It was not a woman I had an affair with, it was a man."

He could hear her voice shake as she asked, "Are you gay, Harry?" He noticed that she was not holding him as tightly as before. Perhaps he had pushed Hermione to the brink of her level of acceptance. He was the infidel, the liar, the freak. She was Hermione.

"I don't know," he answered honestly. "Before him, I've only been with one woman, and that is Ginny. And I've been with one man who made me feel…remarkably alive." He shook his head with a frustrated groan, "it didn't make sense. How a person can make me feel such a way. I thought I had that with Ginny but with him, the feeling was unrelenting—our dynamic was unrelenting. I felt surreal in the most delectable sense." He paused and drained the amount of liquor that was left in his glass and threw it to the ground, "well fuck it! He doesn't fucking want me anymore," Harry wiped his face with the back of his hand, tasting his salty tears.

"Why doesn't he want you?"

"Because I ruined it! I ruined him. Paris. I fell in love in Paris," he said the city with a hateful slur to his words. "I ruined that city and him for love."

"So what now?" Hermione asked weakly.

"I have to marry her."

"How can you marry her if you feel this way?" Hermione asked in disbelief. "Harry. I love Ginny like a sister, despite her attitude and approach to the handling of your wedding. But Harry," she regained her hold around him. "Harry, you deserve to be happy. Your whole life has been about pleasing and saving others. Perhaps it's time to save yourself."

He scoffed. "I'm the bad guy, remember? I cheated. I don't deserve to be happy." At this, Hermione stood only to fall to her knees in front of Harry. Grasping his hands in hers once more, she looked up at him.

"Harry," she paused to draw and release a breath. "You'll hate me for this for the rest of your life, but I can't lie to you anymore. I should've told you a long time ago, but I was scared." Tears began to form in her eyes and Harry wanted so desperately to wipe the tears from her cheek. He couldn't stand seeing Hermione cry. "I caught Ginny and Seamus with each other, intimately, while you were in France. Ron and I went out for dinner one night, and I went to the women's loo and I heard two people shagging in the stall next to me. The restaurant was muggle, so I'm assuming she thought no one would recognize her voice. I heard her say his name. I heard him say hers. I left the stall immediately and told Ron I didn't want to eat there anymore and we left. Harry…I think they've been seeing each other on the side for the longest time.

"I went by the apartment to expose Ginny, to tell her that I knew a few days later. You have to understand Harry; I didn't know how to deal with this completely. It took me a few days to figure out exactly how I wanted to handle this and even then I was unsure, thinking I was meddling where I wasn't meant to. However, instead of the confrontation I had pictured in my mind, your front door was open and I found a drunk Ginny on the floor, crying. She looked done up, like she had just gotten back from partying." Hermione sighed. "She looked downright ridiculous. She could barely stand, kept calling me Lavender." Harry nodded. Ginny only floo'd Lavender to party with. "I asked her why she was crying, and well, she repeatedly said she missed you, but when I finally put her to bed, I found a letter from Seamus where she had been crying on the floor, can't believe I didn't notice the letter before. I read it probably fifty times, Harry. He didn't want to see her anymore. He mentioned that he was tired of living in the shadows with her. That he wanted their relationship to become public, regardless of you. I left the letter there, and she never brought up me being there. She was probably too drunk to even remember me being tucking her in.

"I'm so sorry, Harry. I mainly came to France to try to bring you home, thinking Ginny was just rebelling, but Harry. I think she still loves him. During her doe party she was tossing back drinks, I was surprised she didn't get sick all over herself. She stupidly slipped out in front of me that she was leaving early to see a 'special friend,' Merlin knows it was Seamus. I'm so sorry I didn't tell you sooner, and now you're caught, and hurt, and I've just fucked things up even more for you, Harry." Her head fell on top of their clasped hands and she bawled at her betrayal. Harry rarely heard Hermione swear.

"I already knew," he finally said, his voice low. Hermione stared at him in utter bewilderment. "I caught them on the night of my stag party."

"And you still want to marry her?" she asked in confusion.

"How can I go in there, Hermione, and tell the whole family that I'm leaving their daughter to fight to regain the affections of a man?"

"If you don't Harry, you'll never live a day of your life fully happy."
"Perhaps that's a burden I'm willing to carry on my shoulders." Hermione removed herself from in front of him and reclaimed her spot beside him, staring out across the vast grounds. Harry felt her shiver beside him and threw an arm about her shoulders. The alcohol that ran through his veins kept him warm. "We live the majority of our lives trying to find that particular person to make happy. Although Ginny might not be that particular person she's all that I've got. If I lose her, I lose everything. I lose the family I've come to love, and I'm not going to risk that."

"Harry, we would still love you. You have to believe that we would." He shook his head.

"But I don't. You'll feel contempt for me, betrayal. I can't."

"And what about your lover in Paris? If he's the great love of your life why would you not fight for him, bring him back here and show us your true happiness? We couldn't blame you for finding true love, Harry."

"Your wildly quixotic plans will get me killed one of these days, surely, Hermione." She gave a huff of a laugh and he squeezed her, a small sad smile on his face. "How about we go rejoin that party, eh? After all, I'm sure everyone is missing us."

...

He awoke with a start the next morning, quickly finding his glasses on the nightstand and noticing the time, it was only four am. He could hear Ron's ridiculous snoring in the bed next to him, Hermione clung to him in hopes of not falling off the slightly magically enlarged twin size bed. He remembered the night before their fussing over the old mattress and how it wouldn't take to the enlargement charm because of the bed's old age and overall stubbornness of being manipulated. Harry wished so painfully that his demeanor was similar to that of the mattress. Harry had agreed to get ready for the wedding at the Weasley's house, hence the crammed living situations. They were his family, and plus, it felt nice to have everyone in the house once more, like old times. He thought that he would wake this morning having forgotten the amount of telling from yesterday, but instead the regret hung in his belly like a fat tumor.

At that very moment he pictured Ginny in her lovely couture wedding dress, diamonds pinning her hair up as her veil covered her pale, angelic face. He pictured reaching up to remove it from her face and feeling nothing as he unveiled his bride in front of hundreds of people. No glowing feeling of love or pride. Nothing.

How would he outwardly appear at the ceremony? Like a scared groom about to promise his youth away? Maybe he'll come off as being so jumpy that people will think he's so pathetic they'll feel sympathy. Others will think it cute. The rare few will know it's all a lie.

He stood from the squeaky twin size bed and made his way out the bedroom to Ginny's. He just wanted to see her before the rest of the household awoke. He just needed to see her face, see the face that would ultimately sign his death certificate. Approaching her door he found it locked. To anyone else in the house, they would knock one more time and with no response, and come back at a less ungodly hour. Because this was Harry, and she was his wife to-be, he damned such proprieties to hell. He waved a hand over the doorknob and it clicked softly, slowly opening. Because Ginny was the only girl, she got her own room, with no hassle or fear of needing to share her bedroom this day, since it was her wedding day. She wanted to keep it traditional. No seeing the groom before the wedding and vice versa. She made that very clear the day before.

However, he fathomed that perhaps Ginny thought it acceptable to have one of his groomsmen visit her before her wedding. Sleeping beside her was Seamus. She looked so happy, lying there with him. The blanket covered their obvious nakedness, and Seamus held her in a way that was protective and unforgiving. They weren't sorry at all for their relationship, just unfortunate in its handling and timing.

He sighed softly at the sight of them.

.

At around seven am the whole house will wake up. Hermione will be the first to happen upon Ginny's wide open room to find the girl still in the arms of Seamus and deeply asleep, Ginny's alarm clock sounding so loudly it can stir the dead. Hermione will feel Harry's magic in the air, knowing that the couple before her was charmed to oversleep and not hear the alarm. Hermione will find this letter to read aloud to the family and smile:

My Loved Ones,

As you can see, Ginny and Seamus belong together. I am an inconvenience to their happiness, and yet they are still able to meet in secret and fulfill their aspirations for one another. Do not be angry with them. Love is a mighty web that will catch us all and devour us whole. I have felt such a sensation before, but not with Ginny. Do not misunderstand this declaration; although I love her, I am not in love with her. I never wanted to hurt anyone. Forgive me for the betrayal that I have set upon this family, I'm sorry that I can't be the son-in-law, brother-in-law, husband that you all want me to be. Ginny and I aren't meant to be together and although I tried, I am tired of punishing myself for the failures in our relationship.

I am not mad at Ginny or Seamus, simply sad that I kept them apart for so long. Please do not look for me, as I do not want to be looked for. I am going to fulfill the same aspirations Ginny and Seamus are fulfilling.

You won't understand this, and you won't want to. But I have to fight for love, a chance at being happy, without being blinded by what's proper to do and what's best for everyone. I am being selfish, but I can't begin tell you how wonderful it feels.

Enjoy this start of a new life, Ginny. I love you and will always be here for you.

I will see you all again one day.

Love,

H

Soft, soft cruel

Can't we change our minds?

We kill what we build

Because we own the sky.

He found his shoes buried in sand, the sun beating down on form, his jeans and t-shirt suddenly becoming a heavy burden under the rays. He looked out across the vastness that was the body of water, his body yearning for the contact. Suddenly, Harry began to strip out of his attire as he made his way to the edge of the water. When he was finally down to his boxers, Harry entered the water. He closed his eyes, the coldness of the water hitting him with a sharp blow each time a wave came through. He felt his feet dig into the wet sand, wanting him to be lodged into it and trip, trapped. He kept moving, despite the deeper waves trying to push him back to shore back to his old life. He kept moving. When he was shoulders-deep, he stopped, looking up at the still clouds above him. He felt the undercurrent of the waves putting such a force on him that he felt he would be taken away by it, thrown underwater and suffocated. With all his might, he stood still and listened. He listened to the crashes and the howling that the waves created against one another, like a broken record that sang of endless pain. The violent waves wouldn't still, not against the glaring sun, and the crisp and clear sky. It would make its noise forever, crying out in foul play and deception as the sky blatantly lied. There was no stillness and silence on ground. It was a nightmare, a nightmare Harry was too fond of. He could allow this nightmare to continue, or he could just let go.

Without a final thought, Harry took a further step into the water, immersing himself completely.

He let go.

.

Draco dropped his coffee mug, the porcelain breaking against his tile kitchen floor, shouting aloud. He clenched his stomach, a pain shooting through him that felt like the tip of a knife piercing his flesh deeply. He groaned softly as the pain ploughed through him, looking down at his stomach in puzzlement, half expecting blood to appear on his hand. He shook his head as Dorian ran into the kitchen.

"Draco, are you okay?" the other man looked down at where the mug had shattered on the floor, and back up to Draco's terrified face.

"I don't know," he started slowly while leaning against the kitchen counter for support, "I had this horrid sharp pain…but it's slowly going away now."

Read the AN at the top. 2 more chapters to go and we'll be at "the end" folks. Thanks for sticking around for PVYS!