Notes, etc: if you've
noticed, I changed the chapter titles from the actual titles into lyrics from
Ani DiFranco, because she's brilliant and I love her. this one is from the song
"pale purple".
Disclaimers: if you've
gotten this far, and you still need a disclaimer… well fine. it's hers, damnit!
It's all hers! *runs weeping from JKR*
Warnings: slash, angst. I
think that's it for this chapter- whoa there.
Ratings: this one's a G,
the whole story will be R, I think it's already reached that.
Also: this is my first
non-first person chapter. Huzzah. Someone bring the champagne.
Also also: I would adore a
beta reader, if anyone wants to be one.. I always forget details from the book,
like eye-color, etc…
Casually, he leans against the barrier, slides
through to Platform Nine and Three Quarters. He feels indestructible,
impermeable, like a raincoat. He thinks he's going insane.
Hermione rushes up to him and hugs him and he mumbles
something in response about putting away his trunk and shoves away because he
doesn't want to be touched, felt. He can feel her eyes burning bewilderment in
his back but he doesn't care anymore.
He heaves his trunk into the overhead compartments and for
the first time doesn't feel the strain or maybe he just doesn't notice it
anymore. Fred and George amble through, Lee between them, all unusually silent
and nervous and tense and he wonders why.
Hermione and Ron are approaching he can see them through the
window and he wants to hide from them, from anyone who knows him. Impossible of
course. But all the same. Maybe there is an empty compartment.
He walks from compartment to compartment, nodding sometimes
in acknowledgement of greetings, head down, seeking solitude or maybe just
answers to the questions reeling in his brain until- "What the fuck are you
doing here, Potter?" in that slow and familiar drawl, sweet icy poisonous
adored.
He shuffles his feet. The compartment is otherwise empty and damn
fate for bringing him here. "I just…" He mumbles. "I wanted to be alone."
"Why?" Sneered, a smirk tainting his words. "Sick of Granger
and Weasel? Dirtying your image, are they?"
Ordinarily, even now he can feel the words painting his
tongue in a darker shade of back, fuck you hissed in rage and then
storming away but he can't do it now. Now he just shrugs in a tired sort of way
and says quietly, "I wouldn't expect you to understand."
"No? And why not? Because I don't like you or your friends?"
His eyes flash in the direction of the sneer, the smear of
silver hanging in the air. "No. Because… because…" He shrugs again, helpless.
"Oh." Softly, nearly humanely.
He wonders briefly where this is going. A decent
conversation, it amazes him, the thing he has been longing for ever since they
met and here it is, so casually forced. They are straining to be civil towards
each other or at least not ripping each other's heads off and he wonders why.
He shifts and then, "So why are you here? Alone, and all.
Where're your bodyguards?"
A scowl in reply. "I don't know. I don't care, for that
matter. See, Potter, you were wrong. I do know how you feel. Welcome to life."
A moment and the question burns on his tongue and finally:
"Why do you hate me?"
Silence,
and silence, and then a snarl, "Oh, don't be so bloody naïve, Potter."
And then he really is alone like he wanted to be but now it
aches, the solitude of the compartment, echoing in his chest.
"Harry? Harry! We've been looking all over for you!"
Hermione's voice, rupturing the quiet.
"I've been here all along." He says resignedly and follows
Hermione and Ron back to the compartment where they are sitting and when they
pass Malfoy and Crabbe and Goyle he doesn't catch those grey eyes but he can
hear the voice in his head.
Don't be so bloody naïve, Potter…