Title: Bend and Break
Rating: Teen (just to be safe)
Summary: "Do you ever wonder what happens / To the words that we send/ Do they bend, do they break / On the flight that they take / And come back together again / With a whole new meaning / And a brand new sense?"
Fandom / Pairing: HP, R/Hr
Notes: Parts Two and Three of ?. Set during HBP, the sequel to Thirty Kisses.


2.

It was easier to just ignore him.

It was easier to pretend he didn't exist. That his presence wasn't setting off that annoying sixth sense in the back of her head. She hated, now, how she always innately knew where he was. She scanned a room and was all-too-aware of his presence. She could never allow him to blend into the background; he stood out, vibrant, in her eyes.

She hated how her ears were tuned to his voice, and she could pick it out in a crowd. She spent less and less time in the common room. It was easier to ignore him when she couldn't see him, couldn't feel him on the edge of her senses -- the corner of her eye, the faint scent of him, the whispers of his voice, the ghosts of hands on her shoulders, on her arms, on her face--

She hated how parts of the library, her favorite parts, had ghosts of memories that haunted her. If she let her mind wander, she could feel his lips against her ear, whispering -- a joke, a word, a something -- an action that left her breathless.

It was easier to lock it all away. It was easier to ignore him. It was easier to pretend he meant nothing to her, he was nothing special, he added up to the sum of his parts and was neither lacking nor in excess. It was easier to pretend he was just another guy.

It was easier to ignore the hurt and the pain. She figured that it, like any good problem, would fade with time. But it ate at her and left her aching, needing a companionship she had once taken for granted and abused out of fear. Suddenly, the world was colder.

It was easier to ignore the way her chest contracted when she saw him. It was easier to ignore the way her stomach bottomed out when he walked past her. It was easier to ignore the fist around her heart when she saw him with Her.

It was harder to stem the tears when he looked through her.


3.

It was entirely too easy for him to ignore her. Too easy for him to brush past her without a care, to look at her without seeing her.

They didn't speak, ever. They would stand not three feet from one another and remain silent as stone. Neither of them wanted to be the first to break, to undo the bindings on their emotions and unchain their beasts. The livewire of tension that had crackled around them before was gone, replaced by an icy coldness that left others in their presence frostbitten.

It was entirely too easy to lose himself in the new girl, to forget everything that was real and dive into a falsehood that comforted him. Legs and hands tangled so tight he couldn't tell which ones were his. The hedonistic rush kissing her gave him. So what if she wasn't everything he wanted in a girlfriend? That didn't matter.

A hollow place he couldn't quite find ached, exposing the lie for what it was.

On quiet days, he sat in the common room in his favorite chair by the fire, stretched out to the limit. His feet would bump into the small table there and that hollow place would ache more pronouncedly than before. Once, he had quietly set out the chessboard, placing his pieces in their appropriate spots. His pieces, the white, turned to him when they didn't see their favorite opponents.

Something in him snapped and he banged the edge of the board, sending the pieces flying. He swore and cleaned up the pieces, a little whisper in his ear chiding him for his vulgarity.

He found the king and queen pieces embracing on the floor and that part of him that had snapped, that had been unable to take the lies, cried bitter tears. His own face was stony as he separated them and placed them in the box, crushed velvet forcing them apart.

It was entirely too easy to write her off as another girl, just another girl. It was even easier to appreciate her now that the veil of friendship was gone: soft, dark curls framing a heart-shaped face and bright eyes. Full, round breasts that tapered into a natural waist that swelled into the twin curves of her hips. Legs that were long for her height, that went on forever.

He remembered late nights in the common room, bent over a low table, where he had stolen glances at her. A skirt that rode up revealing inches of lighter skin, skin that didn't normally see light--

Lips, full and red from her biting on them, perfectly, kissably swollen.

He wanted her. He wanted to run his hand up her thigh, to feel every inch of her--waist, hips, stomach, breasts, arms, neck, hair, face--all of her. He wanted to hear her laugh at his sarcastic comments, to explain concepts to him, to vow she would beat him at his own game--

It was entirely too hard to pretend he didn't miss her.


AN: So. Parts two and three of a planned seven, but we'll see how that goes.

I'm very happy with how this turned out. Part Three was the hardest of the lot, but two was no picnic either. Two actually hits very close to home for me.

References in the last part: the daydream (kudos to the one reviewer who caught that), the DoM kiss, and Hermione's mistletoe daydream.

Anyone who names all the references in this chapter will get to request fic from me. I don't write slash and I don't write lemons, but everything else is fair game.

Game on!