Mercury's POV

I don't know why I was nervous, I guess I thought he wouldn't be there and I didn't want to face the disappointment that would cause, I didn't want to admit things to myself that I wasn't ready to admit. I walked into the library on Wednesday night of the first week of my Sixth Year at Hogwarts, with every step I took towards our table, my stomach churned and my heart took another leap closer to my throat but that all melted away when I saw a familiar mop of pale blonde hair. He was sat in his usual seat, a short stack of books on the table beside him, I should have guess he would already be working.

I walked over to him slowly, silently until I was right behind him and had to work very hard to stop myself from laughing. I threw my arms around his neck, I startled him which had been my aim and I laughed so much as he prepared to get angry and throw a fit like he so often did but instead, upon twisting in my grip and seeing my face, he didn't get angry. It was an odd feeling of a small amount of disappoint and a large amount of happiness both from not seeing him get mad, like I'd lost something but got something better to replace it.

He wrapped his arms around my waist and hugged me tightly, it was the first time we'd shown any significant amount of affection for one another, it felt right, like that was how would should be.

"I missed you," I sighed into his shoulder, I was too short to rest my chin on his shoulder so instead I rested my head between his shoulder and his chest. He didn't reply but he did hug me tighter and I took that to mean he'd missed me too.

We got to pick our own partners that year, a new Potions Master meant new dynamics in class, Professor Slughorn even managed to keep my attention focussed for more than a few seconds during class. I think Draco was a little annoyed by him, he didn't favour him like Professor Snape had, Draco just worked harder in attempt to gain his attention. Draco was very competitive in class, it was amusing to watch, though a little annoying when we were studying or doing homework since he had become too focussed to laugh at things I said or listen to pieces of my book. Like the first few times we worked together.

I slammed a book down on our table with a loud thud that echoed through the library, somewhere in the distance beyond the shelves Madame Pince shushed me.

"What?" Draco asked looking up from his rather thick stack of notes, I rolled my eyes at him like he should just know what was wrong.

"I may have failed to capture your attention," I began, my voice clearly agitated, "But I've been talking to you for the last ten minutes and you haven't acknowledged a single word I have said." I slammed the book once more for effect before picking it up and disappearing into the stacks. I began to sort through a horrendously unorganised shelf of books, I couldn't understand why people couldn't put the books back where they found them but sorting them calmed me so it wasn't always a losing game.

A moment later Draco joined me, taking half a stack of books from my arms and helping me sort them. "Sorry," He mumbled as he placed a book in is appropriate place. I ignored him because he had ignored me, I'm quite childish like that, really and I'll happily admit it to anyone who asks. "What were you talking to me about?" He asked trying to get me to converse with him, I didn't even look him in the eye as I placed the next book on the shelf.

"I'm sure it can't have been that important." He said, he was trying to make me angry so I'd have to shout at him but I knew him better than he thought I did, I could play this game for as long as I wanted too. He tried several other lines to no avail.

"Mercy, I don't know what you want me to say," He sighed in the end, defeated by my willpower to hold a grudge until I was satisfied enough to let it go.

"You need to stop trying to get Slughorn's attention so much." I told him, "You're like a girl who's desperate for a guy who's never going to notice her."

A smirk adorned his face as he said, "Speaking from experience there?" I hit him almost gently with my last book before putting it away in its slot on the shelf.

Draco's POV

I tried harder to be less focussed, which seemed ridiculous to me really since I very much wanted to get good grades so being focussed seemed more like an advantage really but who was I to argue with Mercury's logic? Even if it was majorly flawed.

Something was off about her this year, she seemed to get angry easier than she had before. Little things I said that she would usually over look became big things that haunted me for a while before she would rest her head against me while we read and everything was fine again. She seemed sadder too, like the weight on her shoulders was somehow heavier than it had been before, I wished I could carry that weight for her but whenever I asked about her she would shrug me off, say it was nothing and then laugh and joke about it just being a hormone imbalance, that must have been muggle humour because I didn't find it to be particularly funny.

Four months into our Sixth year and things were still the same, I had thought on more than one occasion that I should have been acting the way she was, my father was desperately trying to get me to join team Voldemort had even tried to rope me in on a plan to kill Dumbledore and was sending me constant letters demanding I do as he said, the majority of my friends had disowned me because of my choice to stay out of it and my choice to stay with her but even all that seemed small in comparison to her being sad.

She hadn't gone home for Christmas and I wondered if she were fighting with her father but that seemed very out of character, she adored her father and from the way she described him, he adored her too.

One afternoon we sat in the library again, it was our safe space and venturing out often seemed like a waste of time. She lay with her feet curled up on her own chair and her head resting in my lap, her eyes were closed but I knew she was awake. I read to her because she claimed she was too tired to read herself and it had seemed like a normal request at the time. If I stopped reading or even paused for too long of a second she would let out a sound that was almost a hum but sort of half a sigh and it would be my cue to start reading again.

When I came to the end of the book, I closed the cover and placed it gently on the table. I waited for her hum, sigh but it didn't come and I wondered if she had really fallen asleep until she spoke.

"My dad is dying." She said, like it was an everyday sentence that could simply disappear like most words did, she didn't even open her eyes to say it. She rolled over slightly so her knees pointed up to the library's high ceiling and her closed eyes stared directly into my wide open ones.

"What?" I asked, it wasn't the smartest question or the best thing I could have said but I honestly didn't know how to handle the situation.

She opened her eyes then and there they were, those deep oceans that I could drown in. "My dad is dying." She repeated, a little slower and pronouncing her words more clearly like maybe I hadn't heard her properly the first time. What does one say to a girl who is more than your friend but less than anything else who has just told you her father is dying?

We had read plenty of books on plenty of different things but none had ever covered this situation.

"I'm sorry," I said, but I knew it wasn't right as soon as I had said it.

"It's not your fault," She told me, "It's cancer. He wouldn't let me come home for Christmas because he didn't want me to see him in the hospital." She closed her eyes once more and instinctively I took her cardigan covered hand and wove my finger through hers, resting them on her shirt covered stomach, like always she was cold, her fingers like ice in my own.

I think I knew then that I loved her, I'm sure I knew it before then but in that moment it became clearer than glass and even clearer that I couldn't tell her. For some reason I didn't think it would help, if anything it would make things worse for her, I didn't want to add the burden of my love for her to her already very heavy shoulders. For now I was content with being more than friends but less than anything else.

This didn't take me as long to write as I thought it was going too so here you go, three chapters in one night yay for me. Don't expect more I'm going to bed now. Seriously. Hope you enjoyed it though and please someone leave a review for me? I feel like I'm just kinda of floating in abyss at the moment, haha. ~RainbowVeins