Loveless (dramione)

9- A Weird Experience

She closed her eyes harder.

And she slept there, until sunrise.

***

A little after:

Theo was woken up by whispering but when he opened his eyes he saw everyone fast asleep.

He looked around him. Pansy slept on the edge of the courtyard, Blaise and Ginny a few meters away. He got up and stretched, then went the opposite way, met with a smaller version of the main courtyard. He saw a bench but didn't bother and just stood in the middle the courtyard.

He was so tired. Physically and mentally. He missed his mother. He missed it all. He pulled up his sleeve slowly. Slashes were shown all over. His skin slowly healed with each time he entered the portal, and he hated it. He didn't want the pain to go away, he wanted it to stay, he didn't want to feel normal, he didn't like it. He hated looking at it, how disgusting it was. He just wanted to get rid of it. Was it too much to ask? Blaise was so unbothered by it, and sometimes he wished he was like Blaise.

He felt a light tap on his shoulder. "Hello." She smiled at him, with her lovely smile he seemed to notice more and more every time she did. He looked her up and down simply, and put his hands in his pockets.

"What do you want?"

"Well-Well I just wanted to check up on you." She smiled and her hands rested in front of her.

"You've checked up on me, you can go now." He said trying to get rid of her but she didn't back down. He turned around and expected her to leave.

"No I haven't, don't be silly." She said walking in front of him, smiling faintly up at him. She tried putting her hand to his head but he caught it.

"What are you doing?" He said a bit harsh. She frowned a bit.

"Who's upset you? You're usually so fun and bright?" She asked, pulling her hand away slowly. She gave him a confused look. "You're about to upset me, if you don't stop talking." He retaliated.

He had expected her to maybe frown, cry, or at least run off by she stayed and she still smiled. Why did she smile? He glared at her.

"Stop smiling!" He demanded in a whisper, stepping close to her. She took a step towards him.

"No! I know you want to smile back!" She giggled playfully at him. She looked up at him, and waited for his face to change into a smile, or at least a laugh. He didn't.

He pushed past her and went to the bench and sat down. She followed and sat near him but there was still space. Her body faced towards him.

"So? What are you thinking about?" She shyly spoke to him, playing with her fingers. He turned his back to her.

"Just thinking about how I want to push you off the bench." He said. He still expected her to get up, expected a sudden movement behind him but he didn't feel it. She still stayed.

He huffed and turned around abruptly, startling her. "What's wrong with you? Why can't you go away and leave!" He demanded right to her face. She leaned back nervously and he was satisfied at her reaction, and turned his back around again.

"I'm thinking about my mother again, of course," She paused and looked up the moon, playing with her pendant. His eyes widened slightly. He didn't turn, but listened to her instead.

"..how I miss her." She continued sighing. He ever so slowly turned his body towards her, and she hadn't noticed him looking at her, admiring her beauty. "I must have done something terrible for it to happen to me." She sighed softly.

She turned to him slowly and they looked at each other. She looked down at her hands in her lap. "It's so bad of me, but I wish everyday that my father turned the wand on anyone else but her. At least he is in a cell, far away from her." She breathed. She finally made eye contact with him. He looked at her contemplating.

"But what can you do? Absolutely nothing about it." She finished and gave a sad smile.

"You could have done something about it, but you didn't, because you probably didn't have the courage to." He said harshly to her and she looked up at him. She didn't give him an angry look. It was a look of understanding.

"Killing someone isn't courageous," She took a deep breath. "it's cowardly." She finished. He opened his mouth but she decided to say more. "I didn't kill him, and now he's suffering in a cell. If I killed him, he wouldn't suffer anymore, he wouldn't live with guilt, if he had any, and I'd end locked up forever. You'd end up locked up forever."

His hand tightened around the hand rail of the bench. Was he angry that she was trying to teach him what she didn't know? Or was he angry that what she was saying was exactly correct, and it made absolute sense?

"What would be the point? I want to live my life and see? I am living it. I've simply moved on-"

"-How can you move on, without avenging her?" He demanded.

She smiled and sighed. "Theo, you don't understand. She is avenged. And I didn't even have to kill anyone to achieve it."

"You can't say that killing someone for someone else isn't avenging someone!" He got up and turned to her. She got up and put her hands on his shoulders.

"It isn't. It only causes guilt and regret." She said up to him. He brought his hand to her face and moved her hair out of her face.

"You don't know what I've had to do. My mother had been through so much- so much! That you don't even-"

"Was it worth it?-"

"Yes!" He told her, his hand moved to the nape of her neck.

"Was it worth it for you to come home to your mother and you telling her what you did?" She whispered.

"H-How on Earth would you know what even happened?" He demanded.

"Because I know how you feel, I went through it, I went through having a terrible father. I'm willing to tell you what happened if it helps." She offered kindly.

"You're just willing to say yours?"

"I've wanted to say it out loud forever, and what better moment than now? It's good to. I've never told anyone as I have no one to speak to." She took his hand and sat them down on the bench again. She didn't let go of his hand and he didn't mind. She held on to it tightly whenever it got to bits that were bad while she spoke. Theo was hypnotised by her. Curse her kindness and beauty.

He slowly slid his fingers into hers, towards the end of her story. She finished and looked up at him.

"You don't have to comment on it." She smiled faintly and rubbing his hand with her thumb.

"It's short. My mother and father seemed to love each other, but my father had tortured her, making her crazy time and time again, and I never noticed, and I deserve all the pain I get for not noticing." He took a shaky breath. "And when the war was over, and he seemed to have gotten away with it, so I killed him." He said quietly. He nervously turned to her for her reaction, only to find her already looking up at him.

"The Ministry thought he'd died fighting for Voldemort." He told her. She slowly took his other hand and held them both in front of her.

"So you were here, thinking over it all?" She spoke softly to him and he nodded.

"From now on," She said leaning in, and he did too. "don't think about the past, move on to better things, because Merlin knows you deserve it-" She had gotten cut off by Theo's lips, on hers.