Well, life's been a bit crazy lately, but here's chapter ten for you guys. As always, thanks for reading, and don't forget to review at the end! (:

A sentence in this chapter is actually where I got the title of the story from. See if you can find it.

Chapter Ten

It was a warm summer evening. I was sitting back against the pillows on my bed, flipping through 'Witch Weekly' lazily and neglecting the packing I should have been doing for the upcoming term, seeing as it was late in August.

All of my family was off, somewhere; I couldn't exactly remember where they'd gone, but I really didn't care.

The loud crack of someone Apparating directly in front of me was the thing that really gained my attention. In my shock, it took me a second to realize that the intruder was none other than Antonin Dolohov- and that, somehow, succeeded in shocking me even more.

"Wh-what are you doing here?" I questioned, staring at him.

"Something I should have done a long time ago," he responded, coming toward me in one swift movement. Only then did it occur to me how predatory his gaze was.

"Antonin, what-"

"Sh," he urged softly. He was standing over me, and it suddenly occurred to me how appealing he truly was. Leaning closer, he whispered, "Isn't this what you want?"

As I nodded mutely, he chuckled, and his fingers brushed my hair back from my face. "It's what I want, too, Ally. I love you." His mouth was so close to mine that I could almost taste his words, as rich and dark as the rest of him.

Before I could feel his kiss, though, my eyes fluttered open to find that I was quite alone in my dark room.

I really hated dreams that got my hopes up that way.

---

That was not the last time that I had such a dream involving Antonin. It made things really awkward in person, though I only saw him sporadically that summer; after his and Amycus's falling out, he couldn't exactly spend much time at my house, and it was improper for me to go to his unsupervised.

Which only made it all the more freaky when a pair of familiar arms slipped around me from behind at platform nine and three quarters. I spun around immediately, not at all accustomed to that sort of greeting, particularly from him.

"Ally, I've missed you," he grinned, more at the surprised look on my face than anything else.

"I've missed you, too, but was that any reason to physically assault me in the train station?" I laughed in return, pulling away from him. As much as I didn't want to, I really didn't want rumours to start circulating about us that early in the year, either.

"You know you enjoyed it," he teased, and I rolled my eyes.

Moments later, we were seated in the same compartment on the train, one which was thankfully empty besides us. There was so much catching up to do that I wasn't even sure where to begin.

"I missed your birthday," he began, as if reading my mind to know that I needed a conversation starter.

With a shrug, I mumbled, "Doesn't matter."

"I guess not," he replied, "to you, at least. But I feel bad. Will you let me make it up to you?"

My immediate thought was that this couldn't possibly be Antonin, because the Antonin I knew never felt bad, and definitely never ever asked to make something up to someone when it hadn't been required of him.

"Um," I fumbled.

"Excellent," he cut me off. I knew better than to argue, though I was baffled.

"How was your summer?" finally I decided to ask, picking something more neutral and hoping he would keep it that way.

"Pretty miserable," he informed me nonchalantly.

Raising an eyebrow, I questioned, "Why?"

For a split second, he seemed contemplative, as if he was struggling with his response. The look was gone so quickly that I thought I must have imagined it. "Just because," came his nebulous answer, and so I decided to drop that vein of conversation.

"Did you miss me?" I teased.

Antonin looked at me for a moment, more seriously than I thought the comment had merited. "A lot, Ally."

"Oh."

We were both quiet. For some reason, Antonin being nice was far more difficult to deal with than Antonin being taunting; I couldn't stand the fact that I wasn't quite sure how to react. Even more surprisingly, he didn't seem to be reveling in that fact for once.

"I love you," his voice finally broke the silence.

My eyes fixed on his immediately. What? Every time I'd imagined and dreamed of him telling me that had been different from this. I wished I could respond like I did in my fantasies, but all I did was gape wordlessly, my mind not at all reacting the way it was supposed to.

"No you don't," I heard my voice, cold and foreign. The expression on his face changed from one of a sort of resignation to that of disappointment and hurt, one that didn't seem to belong there. I was waiting for him to start laughing, say he was only joking, or else for myself to wake up and find out it was just another odd dream.

Neither happened.

Antonin clenched and unclenched his jaw a few times, getting that far away look that he got when keeping his emotions in check. Though nervous to see which emotion that was, I was intrigued by this reaction; hadn't he known that I would rebuff empty words?

"I do, Ally, with every fibre of my being," he insisted. There was a tiny bit of desperation laced into his tone. My Antonin was never desperate.

Shaking my head, I answered, "Don't lie to me, Antonin. You don't even know how to love."

If I'd slapped him across the face, he probably couldn't have been more dumbstruck. "I'd never lie to you. I love you. I do. You... you can't just..."

But what he thought I couldn't just do, I never found out. He went quiet, looking off into space. I suppose I was lost in my thoughts as well, because I jumped when I heard the swish of the compartment door sliding shut.

I was startled to find tears on my face. I wasn't even sure what exactly had just happened.

Woo! What'd you think? Alecto really annoyed me in this chapter, but in a sense, so did Antonin. They're both insufferably immature, for the most part. Oh well, it makes for interesting fanfiction!

Well, don't forget to review- I love feedback. (: Next chapter coming in the next few days, I should think.

Much love! -Caroline