a/n: set during ootp
shiver.
so i look in your direction/ but you pay me
no attention, do you?
- coldplay, shiver
xxx
There was something so awe-inspiring about her, in a real yet ever-so unattainable kind of way.
Like she was some kind of porcelain doll that couldn't dare be touched, so the corridor parted in two like the red sea just so she could get to class - giving all the insignificant fish a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
And he can't help but beam a smile back. Even when Zacharias jabs his ribs and shoots him a dirty look. He forgets all about the arbitrary rules of 'playing it cool' and ends up looking like a big fucking moron with his crooked smile, and desperate eyes... and he just wonders why?
Maybe its because she was Susan - fucking - Bones, and she was one of the many who might have a sliver of a chance defeating the dark lord - well, her and that Potter boy anyway. Maybe it was because her family consisted of great witches and wizards who fought heroically for the livelihood of them all. Maybe it was because her grandmother's portrait hung in the main atrium, just to remind the rest of them what a proper witch looked like.
Or maybe, just maybe, it was because he was Wayne Hopkins - and the only thing he ever had going for him was that Uncle Joseph was once a substitute chaser for the Puddlmere United team.
Yet still he can't help to want to be seen.
So, he leans by a stone wall on the third floor corridor everyday after potions. Waiting an extra few minutes (with the other hopeless fools) for the young Hufflepuff girl to walk by, just so he could beam a large smile her way.
(he thinks if they weren't all enamored by her hazel eyes, they might've even noticed the bags underneath them.)