Here We Go Again

Past and Present Involvements

Here We Go Again

Chapter 25: Past and Present Involvements

POV: Albus

It was the first time in a long time that I was seeing something beautiful in the night sky. The stars, those points so far away, were finally twinkling bright; reminding me of why there was people who dedicated their lives to study them. The moon, oh the moon, was even more glorious across the midnight-blue sky than it has been for a while now.

"I'm happy," I murmured, releasing it to the atmosphere.

Eyes like the color of the clear, morning sky, found my green ones. "Why's that?"

I was captivated by the sight and by the soft words the ringed in my ears and caused warmth in my chest. Strange, that feeling; I had forgotten what it was like to feel my heart pound at the pace of the song it created for those blue eyes.

"Because I have you," I said, letting my heart speak rather than what had been taking me over the past couple of weeks. "I missed you."

There was silence from her lips, but her gaze said it all. Those bewitching orbs glazed over with tears and reflected off a hurt that I'd not seen in them before. Nia was not the kind to let her pain show, she was a fighter, but somehow now she was at the most vulnerable that I'd ever seen her. It tugged at my heart strings.

"I'm sorry I've been an arse and I haven't been paying attention to you. I've been a rubbish boyfriend and I don't know how you've been putting up with me. If I was you, I would have ditched me so long ago. But here you are."

We were laying together on pillows we stole from the Divination classroom in order to be comfortable when we came up to the Astronomy Tower to gaze at the night sky.

It was unexpected, our little date. I had woken up and somehow felt small. I couldn't really explain it if I tried, but I just knew that something was missing. I went throughout the day as I regularly did and I couldn't put my finger on it. I went to breakfast, talked to Malfoy and Zabini, went to my first three lessons, took a cigarette break, went to another lesson, had lunch, and went to Charms class. It was in that lesson that I realized, after hours, what it was that I was blindly searching for—Nia.

In a classroom divided by Gryffindors and Slytherins—all except for Rose and Scorpius, who sat together—Nia was faithfully beside Liam as I sat next to Zabini. I was watching her, smiling bright and looking absolutely beautiful. Her long, blonde hair was up in a messy ponytail, stray strands framing her face and exposing all her heavenly facial features. She was absolutely gorgeous, and I remembered why it was that blokes in the castle were in awe of her. That thought itself, including the way Liam was staring at her, like she was the realest thing in front of him, made me feel jealous and possessive.

She was my girlfriend.

I had started to sit at the Slytherin table during meal times, but on this night I decided to sit with the Gryffindors again. It surprised people, I saw it clearly when they stopped their conversations when I took a seat beside my girlfriend. She, alike those around her, froze for a moment to analyze me. There was a frown on her face and a guarded look in her eyes, but all I could do was smile at her. We didn't say a word to each other during dinner, only my ears listening to her voice as she spoke with Rose on how wonderful it was that Emily had awoken from her comatose state. Scorpius, who was sitting across with Rose, stared at me; suspicion in his gaze that was never spoken.

Nia was about to leave the table when I reached for her hand. She had looked at me, surprised and somewhat electrocuted by my touch. She tried to play it off, but I used that moment to ask her to stay with me. I smiled and looked at her like I'd been looking at her all day. It didn't take too long for her to return the smile and agree to escape the sea of students for a while.