Title: Somebody Out There (11/15)
Author: silverphoenix
Rating: T
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Summary: In the middle of a war, there are going to be casualties. This is inevitable. When two people lose their friends, they come to realise that death is not the end of happiness.
SOMEBODY OUT THERE
Part Eleven: If Only
"I have to do this now or I'll go mad," you announced. I looked up, confused, and was about to ask what you meant when you kissed me. I've been kissed before, but never like that. Never with that feeling, never with that… I don't know what it was, but did you feel it? I think you did, because you pushed away from me. You left. You knew that your kiss confused me, but you still left.
I'll never forget this night, and I don't think that you will forget it, either. I feel emotionless now, so detached; it's as though everything has suddenly become clear but, at the same time, everything is more confusing.
The thing that confuses me most is that I think that I'm afraid of myself. This is ludicrous, because that's the one thing that shouldn't confuse me. Even in the midst of this war, my enemies are not the ones I fear.
Is that irony? I'm not sure of anything anymore.
Is this love? Is this the way of love? To confuse us, to drive us round the bend and make us mislead each other, ourselves, into thinking that it's not?
Would you describe our friendship as close? I would, yet that kiss, the thing that should have brought us closer than anything else, has just made me realise that we've been building up walls between us. I think they're glass walls; we can see through them but, in spite of that, we seem to be choosing not to do so. Glass cracks: don't throw stones in glasshouses.
Your kiss was a stone.
The glass is all coming down around our heads, and I need you more than ever, but you left and I don't know when you're coming back.
I shall be sleeping alone tonight, Hermione. If you come back, if you want to take a chance and try to make things right, I shall not stop you. I want to welcome you into my arms and into my heart and I'm tired of pushing you away and you pushing me away.
I'm just tired.
If only you'd given it a chance instead of running away. I won't hurt you; I could never hurt you.
If only I had been the one to make the first move. Would you still have run away? You're with Potter, aren't you? Crying into his shoulder and letting him tell you what a bastard I am. Let him. I'm the first to admit that I don't like the wizard a great deal, but I probably deserve it. I've been letting you slip through my fingers for too long and even Potter could see that there was something between us.
There is something between us, isn't there? It's not friendship anymore and I don't think it can be again. Come back to me, Hermione. Talk to me. Tell me your fiction, tell me your lies: tell me that you don't love me, but just come back to me.
Please?
