The one four lettered word that rivals the words hate or love.
Fear.
The one word that everyone knows. Its the word that you've come to know greatly. And its the emotion that is constantly haunting you, day or night, it doesn't matter. It's still there, wrapping around your very soul, hovering over your shoulder, enticing you with it's colorless shadow. The shadow only you can see, for it is always in your mind.
Your heart speeds up, your breath quickens. Your eyes dilate, your throat becomes dry. Your chest contricts, and you close your eyes to shut it out, but no, it won't leave. You open your mouth to speak, to scream, to do something, anything. But instead, you gasp precariously for air as your heart pounds mercilessly against your ribcage.
Fear. It's something you can't avoid, something you meet up with everyday. You get it in small doses' while during the schoolyears, wondering if your teachers will notice the new and overly large bruises' forming on your pale skin. Large doses' at night; daddy says you need to keep up your strength better.
And your scared. Of course you are. That what Fear does. It scares you. Its' a funny thing, though, that the words "scar", and "care" are hidden within that one word. Scare. Scar. Care.
Fear.
You hate it, though you've grown used to it. Daddy loves it though, he loves to hear you scream in pain and that god-awful word - fear.
Fear.
You have been ordered to meet your father every night at the manor, it doesn't matter if you have plans, get your fucking ass over there before he gives you something to plan about! It wouldn't matter if you tried to tell someone, whos' going to believe you anyways? Snape, perhaps, but who knows? Weren't he and your father best friends in school? So much good that would do.
Your father does leave his marks, though. You can't show them, however. They are to deep, to hidden. Because the mark is inside you, tainting your heart and killing your pride every damn day.
And now it's seventh year.
You can leave him after you turn an adult...but where would you go? Where could you go without being followed by your father? Without him knowing where you were all the time? Hmmm?
Not to any of your so called "friends", thats for sure. Your supposed to marry Pansy, aren't you? Yes, you are. And you will, because your father says you must, or else.
Or else.
Or else the fear will come back worse than before. So much worse, in fact, that you think you should just save your goddamn father the time of killing you, and do it yourself.
And you almost do, except that stupid emotion comes back, full force, as you are almost caught with the knife held in your hands by your fellow clasmate and "friend"(Ha!). And not only that, but it still remains as you remember the knife shaking in your hands, making it hard to steady the blade.
And in the end, you don't do it.
Because the fear stops you.
But there was something else, you muse as you flip over on your bed, sighing as you remember the look he gave you only two hours ago, in the Great Hall.
It brought something other than that one emotion into your chest, something inevitable.
Something that was not fear.
No, quiet the opposite, in fact.
Security...
That's what it was. That's what the feeling was when his green eyes pierced through your body, with a look of determination on his face, so strong that you let your mask of indifference fall entirely from your face for more than a few measely seconds.
And a bit of you...just a tiny bit, maybe the smallest corner of your heart and mind...is revived from the pain, the cold, the blackness, and, most of all...
The Fear.
