Spellbind

7. "What With...One Thing Or Another." Pt. 1

"Didn't Viktor Krum attend that school?" I picked up the familiar voice of Crabbe.

I must have gotten lost in an obstruction of the image of remembering her eyes. I blinked, looked toward my hands, and loosened my grip.

"Oooh-" Her tone seemed mocking. "Draco in a fur cape."

"Oh-Come on Darling, like you wouldn't think I'd look good in their uniform."

I grit my teeth and without realizing I had stood, slammed my compartment door shut with a little bit of too much force. Heat raced across my cheeks, a twinge of shame in the pit of my stomach.

"Are you okay, brother?" Fred said calmly as he repaired the glass that shattered from the sliding door. His calmness only added to my embarrassment.

It was not like me to be so irritated. It was something about my tardiness, in finally returning her feelings toward me, and realizing I was too late, that angered me. How foolish I was to waste so much time trying to figure out how I felt, when it seems so clear now. How could I not have realized it sooner?

"Yes," my voice betrayed me, breaking as the anger simmered to melancholy.

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>>>>>

Before- before I knew she had moved on-I was so ready to return to Hogwarts. So impatient to see her and tell her, every emotion I struggled with when I thought of her. I hid in a niche in the cavernous entrance hall of the castle as Peeves, targeted students entering Hogwarts with red water balloons. For a short moment I wasn't thinking of her, my eyes cast around the large room, grinning at the unexpecting people hastily coming in. And then, as if on instinct, I found her, in the mass of black robes and dim lighting.

Has her smile always looked so...Spellbinding? I hadn't seen her since last year; she was standing next to Malfoy, laughing. Her lips stretched across her face so perfectly, the sight of her reminded me of one of those provocative muggle magazines Fred and I found in Charlie's room once. So perfect, so unreal, everything about those pictures were obviously altered in some way. But with her, she wasn't anything like those women, she was naturally beautiful.

She was lovely, it pained me to see her carrying on with someone else. My insides churned and jumbled up on each other; I inhaled, my breath skipping as it was forced into my lungs. If I told her anyway. If I had the courage Gryffindors were supposed to have, and tell her how I felt despite her having someone else. Would she forgive me? Would she understand I only distanced myself from her, because I was trying to sort out my feelings? That I didn't want to tell her I didn't know if I saw her as being nothing more than a friend; or not. That I didn't want to hurt her, if I didn't see her that way. But I in fact do. I do, and I know that now. So will that be enough? Will that be enough for her to forgive me for taking so long? Would my confession even mean anything to her now?

Surely, it wouldn't. Seeing how happy she looks...

My breath hitched again as I found her for a second time, from across the Great Hall. I'd never known the sensation of butterflies in one's stomach until now. Or at least I think that's what it was, my insides fluttered at the sight of her loveliness. My cheeks felt feverish and all I could see in that second was her. Was it possible for a person to get even more alluring each time you look at them? Somehow, something- everything- about them is more captivating than the last time you laid your eyes on them? Perhaps I was being melodramatic, but there was no denying, she was one of the prettiest girls in school. How foolish and blind I had been to have taken so long to notice...