𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸, harry potter

˗ˋ 86

CHAPTER EIGHTY SIX
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-: fifth year :-

── IN WHICH THINGS
ARE CONSIDERED

. . .

The meetings went on as the weeks went by, and Harry found himself thinking of them constantly replaying them in his mind as he sat in Umbridge's lessons, careful not to think too hard, lest he be reminded of the conversation of Aviana that entirely confused him and left her silent and completely indifferent, speaking up only when matters concerned her, and substantially less often him, and popping up periodically in his life only to reassert and remind everyone that in fact, they were dating... or shagging or snogging in quiet corridors. Whatever it was. 

However it became certainly more evident that she had grown all too complacent and quiet in other areas of her life, staring down at her breakfast dully, stirring the spoon slowly and not drinking it, working with Harry in lessons with a considerable lack of ability to talk to him, and when she was around her friends she looked downright miserable. Or Harry thought she did.

She so often wore that expression of complete nothingness that left one before her with the impression that they were not held in her regards at all, and she was simply bored of their presence. Still, she was just as angered as ever, bickering with Zacharias Smith and glaring at Cho and ensuring that Malfoy was just as confused about what she was doing with her life as ever. Still, she got more detentions from Umbridge that she didn't attend and still, arguments were commonplace and yet the only true difference to her was that she didn't talk to him, and every time Harry saw her it left a dull thudding in her chest of disappointment and annoyance with himself that he had pushed it all too far. 

Everything, even Aviana herself, had told him that she was a more than private person. What she allowed everyone else to see was a choice; she made particular choices and presented herself in a consistent way to uphold her standing in the school; and everything else was internalised until it was utter nothingness and although Harry couldn't help but think that it was a stupid thing to do it was what she had done the entirety of her life and who was he to think that he could comment on it or approach her to change it. 

And yet Harry thought he could do something about, that he could understand and notice something and say anything to her about it. He was wrong, of course, and it confused him. He couldn't write to Sirius anymore because of the threat of his letters being searched and revealing Sirius's hiding place and he couldn't talk to Ron because everything he said was garbled nonsense from some advice book he had seen in the library once with Dean and he couldn't talk to Hermione because she would humph and say that it should have been expected. 

But he searched helplessly for something to say and do and found that his mistake lay solely in his approach. His own dancing-around the subject left things unclear, and reminded him of something so painful but true; they weren't dating, never were, and simultaneously, that seemed to remind Aviana of the very same fact. 

And she wouldn't talk to anyone about it, because that wasn't what she did. She got angry and she didn't tell people things and she had allowed herself to willingly forget the reality of their situation and fall into the lull of happiness.

Harry had made his own mistake in letting her leave, instead of sitting down and actually saying something about how he felt and reassuring her that the supposedly false pretence of jealousy  was okay because he had found himself thinking of her constantly, trying to find any chance to return to that comfortable place of trust and everything else that had filled the gap between the Hogsmeade meeting and the first time the D.A came together. 

He understood what he had done, and he knew he needed to be more direct with her and yet he hadn't. And he hadn't even considered the logistics of the thing. 

Because really, truly, it all came down to a singular question. 

Why him?

Aviana had done the same thing with Adrian Pucey the year before, but this time - even though he was still at the school - she had chosen him. Certainly it came with the added bonus of annoying Umbridge but Harry was sure that if Umbridge had caught her snogging anyone in a corridor before her detention then it would have pissed her off. 

Everything about her was so confusing and yet Harry couldn't help but try and figure it out. If he had told her of his feelings and she had rejected him then things would have been clearer and he could have stopped the fake-dating before something like this happened, but he hadn't and now he sat around miserable and missing what had been. 

Instead he had pushed too far past her limits and knocked down anything that had built up between them. It had to be her choice to do something, even if he caught her glancing at him every so often in a way that he couldn't explain, or if they were kissing in another hallway or in a corner of the courtyard or working together in lesson. 

Things needed to be done on her terms, and as much as Harry would try and will the courage to actually talk to her about things it just wouldn't come and he was left wondering. 

But he wouldn't need to wait so long, although the weeks seemed to have felt like years and the feeling in his stomach hardly ever went away.

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