II have had difficulty sleeping ever since I began my studies at the university. I am lonely, and that torments me away from the clutch of sleep. However, that is not the entire matter at hand: there exists my godfather, Black, and his companion, Lupin, as well as scattered friends for a semblance of loving contact. Even more than loneliness am I consumed by shame, the shame of love.

The shame isn't for that I desire men; it would be static as such if I instead longed for women. O, this shame is permeating; I feel as though my slightest desirous glance tarnishes the beauty of its victim, as though my love is a disease that pollutes. Every young man I have ever lusted for, it is as if my castings were automatically tattooed upon each of them, and I back away in fear of what I have done.

Confident that I am alone in such emotion, I have become more reclusive, more reticent in the past year. I walk around, pacing my dorm room or wandering the campus, at all hours, sleep being a lost myth now, in search of truth. I sit under the ceiling or sky, smoking cigarettes until my brain feels liquid within my skull. Lately, I've begun sitting in cafes, drinking endless cups of coffee just as I sometimes chain smoke cigarettes, watching bystanders as a spectator to the game of their public existence.

To be fully honest, I don't terribly mind it all. A numbness creeps over me, and I become so accustomed to my solitude that I can imagine no other lifestyle. But occasionally, that second skin is pierced, ripped to shards by stabbings of pure light, when I see you. You are beautiful, amazing to my eyes. Malfoy. You are in my physics class, and I often catch your eyes, those argentine, stormy orbs, upon me. I dare not surmise your thoughts. I see you often in my favourite café, drinking Viennese coffee with a lovely young lady. She is not your girlfriend, I have concluded, a close friend more like. O, how I have tried to recede into myself and live as some sort of monk! But Malfoy, your mere presence tugs me back into the world of desires and dreaming./I

I awake this Sunday morning, and it is raining lightly. I have only slept for a few hours, but my bed rejects me upon my wake. So I wash and dress, realizing that the sun is just rising. I eat no breakfast, only taking a textbook so that I may perhaps study, and make towards an area near the athletic fields, where young men from the university often play games of football. On some occasions, I would join them. I enjoyed football immensely back home. But not lately; I've come to prefer watching instead.

Naturally, it being so early, the field is comfortably empty as the night surrenders the sky to the sun, the rain still falling quietly. I curl up on the grass like a fetal flower and watch the sheer art of the heavens unfold, feeling like the smallest being on earth.

A few hours must pass, for a group of young men slowly fills the field, and they begin a game of football. Daylight fully asserted, albeit shrouded by the never-ending clouds with their rain, I sit up and examine my textbook. Physics, it turns out; I wasn't looking when I brought it with me here. I attempt to study, but the equations are tedious against the day. Between the lessons' lines, I see you in that class, watching me in supine resplendence. My textbook appears to be of little use to me this morning, I realise. I cast it aside, musing instead on the game being played. How immortal sports as these are. The football players are their grandfathers and their grandsons, eternally playing, immune to the whims of the outside world. It enchants me to watch their restless dance, so akin to the swirl of Time.

A figure appears to my distant right, the only other spectator to the game. The figure moves nearer to me. It is you. You see me, and I must quickly avert my eyes to regard the grass instead. Minutes pass, minutes that swell and burst as my thoughts. Finally, you move even nearer, until you stand in front of me, looking down into my spectacles. Your hair, skin, and clothes are soaked wet, detracting nothing from your form. Our eyes meet, and in my mind, the now- invisible stars collide. I could be content to do this staring for hours. Then you speak, and I understand how much more I want from you.

"Good morning, there," you say.