(an: Thanks again to all those who review. It encourages me beyond measure. I had a great vacation, which invariably lead me to this chapter. Hope you enjoy.)

Ch. 7

I managed to avoid him on that trip back to school. The thought of just seeing him again made me shake. I was so nervous. My emotions were split in two, fighting for domination. I needed to see him, yet I never wanted to lay eyes upon him again.

We, mercifully, completely missed each other until we sat down in the Great Hall. He was across the table, seven people down to my right. I caught his profile with my peripheral vision. I knew he was watching me as well. It was just a question of whether or not one of us would look up.

He was the first to try, about halfway through the meal. I saw him stare pointedly at me. He was trying to get my attention. I immediately felt tears well up in my eyes and I suddenly couldn't breath. I cursed at myself. I thought I had gotten over him. I pushed back my barely touched plate and fled from the room and back to our dormitory. Thank Merlin I was a prefect. I ran up to my room and fell into my familiar bed, tears pouring down my face until the sweet release of slumber took me away.

I woke up early the next morning, before everything else, including the sun. I sat on a window seat facing east, waiting for the magical moment when our star rises above the horizon. It was relaxing, just staring out into the inky blackness without a single thought in my head.

Just when I started to see the faintest rays shining over the mountains, I heard him come down the spiral staircase and walk up slowly behind me. I knew it was him. I always know when it is him. He didn't have to do anything but walk up behind me and the tears started flowing again.

Before I acknowledged that he was there, I just sat in time, watching the sunrise, trying to compose my thoughts and feelings. I wanted to turn around and kill him. I seriously desired to wring his neck with my bare hands until his lips turned blue and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Yet I had the strongest urge to turn around and rush into his arms and cry out all my frustrations while he held me. I wanted to scream at him, to spew verbal venom at him, to use vicious rhetoric to destroy him the way he had done to me. I wanted to feel his fingers flow through my hair as his soothing Scottish brogue told me that everything was right now. I wanted him to tell me that the past five months had been nothing but a horrible nightmare, that I was awake now, back in reality. I wanted to hate him.

At last the tip of the sun shone over the mountains and I could no longer look at the fleeting beauty. Trying my best to keep all emotion out of my voice, I repeated one of my favorite poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar. It was the only way I could acknowledge he was there without having an emotional breakdown.

"An angel, robed in spotless white; bent down and kissed the sleeping Night. Night woke to blush, the sprite was gone. Men saw the blush and called it dawn." I barely whispered it, but I know he heard every word.

"That was beautiful." He said softly in return. I just blinked another tear away.

"I'm sorry." He murmured, a slight quiver in his voice. When I still said nothing, he continued, "You were right. And I'm sorry I couldn't see it."

He was silent for a few more moments.

Then he said, "I, uh, went to her house early this August to surprise her... I even got her some daises, they were her favorite. But when I got there... she wasn't alone...When I landed in her back yard, who else should I find next to her but Adrian Pucey. That son of a bitch was stroking her cheek and whispering sweet nothings into her ear."

I could hear the anguish in his voice. He was tremendously upset.

"I loved her Emma." He choked. "I loved her because I thought she loved me. And I needed that so bad that I destroyed my relationships with the only people who really cherished me... But I was just her plaything. She used me, Emma...I thought she loved me...she just laughed it off when I confronted her about Pucey...she said she knew it was over with me weeks ago...we were nothing but a fling...I meant nothing to her...I don't understand..." he spoke in such agony and misery that I wanted to torture Evelyn Darcy until she bled to death.

A few more moments passed before he could speak again.

"You were right. She is evil, and she swept me away... I just got so caught up with her..." he broke off. My heart was weeping for him.

I turned around to face him. I found him sitting on the floor, his back leaning against an armchair. His legs were folded up beneath him, giving his arms a place to rest while he buried his head in them. He looked so innocent, so weary.

What to do? What to say? I had to forgive him.

And humor is my best defense mechanism.

"I should have let you stick with Quidditch."

He laughed through a repressed sob. It made one hell of a funny noise. We both burst out laughing at the racket, howling through tears, relieving both our hearts.

I had my Oliver back.