𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐃𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐓| 𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐨 𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐟𝐨𝐲✔️

𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄|𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐎𝐘 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐍𝐎 𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐈𝐂𝐄

MARA WILLIAMS

  The past  few days had crawled by at a snails pace. Each day blurring into the next, until all that was left was a monotonous beige line of parchment teachings, only greyed by the dull clouds that stalked the sun.
  There was still no sign of Percy, and I was beginning to loose hope of ever finding him again.

  There was one upside however, I hadn't seen the Slytherin boy since our last encounter. I prayed that Snape had allowed him to switch classes after all and that would be it, I would never have to see him again.

  Each potions lesson his seat remained painfully vacant.

In Herbology we helped Professor Sprout to repot her beloved Mandrakes, much to Harry and Ron's annoyance.

"What did you say?" Harry yelled for the fifth time, unable to hear anyone through the mandatory ear muffs Professor Sprout has given us.
"I said," Ron shouted back, "If I ever have to see another bloody Mandrake ever again I'm going to—" Ron stopped short as Professor Sprout passed behind him, eyeing his half-dead Mandrake in horror. Her face morphed into a picture of mortification, "Weasly!"

• • •

Another potions class, another empty seat. Another missing Slytherin.
What a tragedy, I thought sarcastically, as Snape droned on like some kind of pissed off fly in the back of my mind.
  As much as I wasn't protesting his absence, I wondered what exactly was keeping the vile boy away.

Daylight came and went, and I bid goodnight to the few in the common room before heading off to bed.

  Every night I closed my eyes, and every night I came face to face with him all over again. Grey stared into Green for what felt like hours, unmoving, undying, until I finally awoke.
  Each time he only spoke the words I had already heard, and every time it pained me just as much as the first. My healing wounds torn open each and every time the sun set.

I heard my own voice echo through the numbness of the night. "You know nothing." —But the speech was sharper than I had remembered and slurred by the heavy blanket of the unconscious.

  "Is that so?" He cocked his head, mere inches from me, but this time the distance seemed much further.  
  What seemed like miles of empty space crawled out between us as he drawled, "Maybe you should just go back to where you came from..." My skin erupted with electricity as he raised a hand, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. "—Oh wait, you can't."

  My fingers tingled with the urge to strike him, to hurt him. Badly.
  —And some nights I did. Some nights I gave in to that horrid beast within me that dwelled on violence and let loose on the boy, I raked my fingernails down his face and watched as the blood flowed down his pale skin, thick and red and beautiful, in a way.

  But if I did that was where the dream would end...    
  With bloody nails and feeling no better than I had beforehand. Revenge was a vicious cycle, and though I was undoubtedly my fathers daughter, I refused to let it consume me like it did him.

  Besides, as much as I told myself I couldn't stand the Slytherin boy, in my dreams was the only time I got to see him anymore. I was still entranced by the ghostly grey of his hauntingly pale eyes.
  They overflowed with untold secrets, tales of pain and forbidden love, of gain and loss and all consuming sorrow.
  —Just beyond the surface and begging to be spilled, and yet somehow they were still so achingly hollow, empty of the emotions that demanded to be felt.

Love didn't exist.
—At least not in his world.

To him, it was nothing but a foreign emotion locked deep beneath a marred heart.
Thorns of loss pulled tight until the once supple organ became taught and unrecognisable with the lies that flowed through his veins, tainting him black with the bitterness that consumed his being.