Here We Go Again
Chapter 37: Say Something
POV: Al and Nia
There were two people at the end of the dormitory, pretending to fold towels the muggle way, with their eyes zeroed in on my back. I could feel the intensity with which they watched me, the tension they created because of it. They attempted to hide their wariness with useless chatter amongst each other, but just because I was ignoring them didn't make me deaf.
I continued tossing some of my possessions carelessly behind my back, their clattering mixing with Malfoy and Zabini's conversation.
"That graduation speech was really something," Zabini said with fake interest, "Coral McLaggen stole the hearts of the families present."
"That was before three mysterious streakers ruined her speech," chimed Malfoy. "But did you see the look on McLaggen's face? She knows it was the Daft Trio that was running stark naked through the field. Whoever Potter, Freddie, and Louis paid to sit in the ceremony as them to divert the attention from their streaking is going to get it good from McGonagall."
As Zabini was replying to Malfoy on the matter that occurred that morning, my hands stopped their careless tossing of objects when they reached a picture-frame before I chucked it in the rubbish pile.
It was a magical photograph: The background was so vivid, so bright and blooming, that I could pass it as a scene from a muggle film. The skies were the lightest shade of blue, illuminated by the rays of sun that were so sacred and rare in this part of the world. The wind was swooshing in the photograph, but somehow I could feel it on my skin; I was positive that it was cool, but it mixed in perfectly with the warmth falling from above. The wind made the trees in the scene ruffle their leaves; some fell and scattered or flew across the large field. And at the center of that perfect scene was a couple.
The couple ran through the middle of the photograph: a bloke chased a girl at the gentle speed of the wind. Both had large smiles on their faces, their chests vibrated with laughter that made their cheeks red. Out of nowhere, like how they randomly appeared on the photograph, the bloke reaches the girl and carefully knocks her onto the grassy ground.
The girl laughs heartily as the dark-haired bloke jumps onto her. The action looks aggressive, but the giant grin on the blonde girl's face assures whomever looks at the photograph that it was all a part of their game. The bloke wiggles his fingers in her face before he proceeds to trace them at the sides of her stomach. He then tickles her; her cheeks go red and she's torn between laughing hysterically and attempting to wiggle herself free.
Giving up as they roll, not once but twice, onto the same position, they stare at one another. They gaze into each others eyes, a clash of the brightest blue, like the ocean, and the deepest green, like treasured emeralds. The blonde girl moves hands to his face, there is a gentle, beautiful smile on hers as she does so. They share another light chuckle before the boy lowers his head—their passionate gaze still holding for a few more seconds.
The wind blows and a bird is seen flying over the Black Lake, but the attention should only be upon the couple. Their lips meet, and its simple, but somehow vital. It is so soft and honest, that one can see the love radiate from the pair of them. It's a moment that felt like a lifetime, but in the photograph, it's less than a second, for the beautiful scene repeats itself all over again and the couple is once again running through the field.
"Emily took that picture," Malfoy broke my reminiscing by appearing beside me. I jumped at his sudden intrusion, but also away from the hand he put on my shoulder as a means for comfort. "Louis and Freddie put their sickles together to get her that camera for her birthday since they were appalled by the muggle one she carried around."
I didn't say anything in return to Malfoy. Instead, I scanned the picture in my hands once more before I headed for the end of my bed where my trunk was; with a deep breath, I willed myself not to look at it anymore before dropping it (much carefully than I'd been handling my other things) inside my trunk.
"She gave it to you for Christmas," added Zabini. "I know because I was patiently waiting for Emily to show me how to wrap Roxy's gift while she did yours. It was a perfect idea at the time, wasn't it?"
I grabbed a stack of letters that I received throughout my Sixth Year from my relatives and tossed them onto the rubbish pile. "It was a good thing I chose to open Emily's gift the morning of the Christmas party."
At the sudden sound of my voice, Malfoy and Zabini shared an unexpected look. They had been waiting days to hear me talk, I know, and so far they had failed on their mission.
"I had a giant smile on my face because I remembered the moment of the photograph," I spoke again before either of them could ask the question that I knew was coming, "it was the first week of Nia and I as a couple. I put it inside my trunk to bring back to Hogwarts immediately so there could be no chance of forgetting it. However, if I would've opened Emily's gift that night, I would have tossed it aside and left it to gather dust in my bedroom."
The blokes looked confused.
"That night I made up my mind about De la Cruz and Nia," I clarified, my right hand balling in a fist at the automatic anger and resentment and disgust I felt for myself. "It was the night I began to lose everything, except I didn't even notice because I was too busy marveling in De la Cruz."
Just as I let those words go, I felt the self-inflicted wounds in my heart reopen and leak out all the precious love I had for Nia.
"I know why you two are glued to my side," I quickly said again, "and you know you don't have to be, right? I'm okay."
Zabini looked unsure and Malfoy scoffed.
"Mate, you're not okay. I know this, Zabini knows this, you knows this, everyone knows this," Malfoy argued. "We just want to be here for you, that's all. We know it's rough."
"Rough?" It was my turn to scoff. "Nia went out on a date with some Seventh Year Hufflepuff, and he snogged her in the middle of the Great Hall before heading to his table this morning—rough doesn't begin to cut it, mate. But," I continued, not giving either of my friends chance to reply, "there is nothing I can do, is there? I can't just fucking cry and kick and expect things to fix themselves for me. I made this happen. Nia wouldn't be giving another bloke the time of day if I hadn't given some girl the attention that belonged to her."
Malfoy scratched the back of his blonde head, sharing another brief look with Zabini before deciding to speak. "As much as I don't deny the fact that you're in this mess by your own shitty doing," he said carefully, as if he was playing roulette with his words and they were aimed at my heart, "we can all see how much you love Harper."
"You've always loved Nia," supplied Zabini, "even if you lost sight of that for a moment. But Malfoy's right, you willingly hurt her and there is no forgetting that. However, that doesn't erase the fact that you're also hurting, mate. And that's something Malfoy don't want for you."
"You have to let this go now," finished Malfoy, "for your own good. You made a mistake, accept it, forgive yourself, and move on. She is."
I picked up my modern copy of Quidditch Through the Ages and threw it angrily inside my trunk. "I can't," I said through my teeth, "I can't get over it because I can't get over her. I will never get over her. If I have to go through life suffering because of what I did, then that's just how my life goes. I love her too much to let her go."
"But she let you go," muttered Zabini. "How can you fight for something that is no longer yours?"
Malfoy punched our friend on the arm immediately after he said what he did, and though I wanted to curse Zabini's teeth in for saying what he had, I couldn't deny the fact that he spoke with the truth.
I was afraid that the anger living inside of me would come out and attack, because I no longer had control on what my self-fury decided to destroy, I headed for the door of the dormitory to escape its walls...
You know when you have done something so wrong your head doesn't stop reminding you of it? Like it has taken it upon itself to constantly whisper in your ear all the faults that you've committed, never letting you escape? Sort of like a beeping, muggle alarm clock that wakes you up every five minutes even after you've pressed the 'off' button so many fucking times but it won't stop, it just continues flashing red signals that prevent you from escaping reality in your dreams?
Well, that's how the conscience mind works, isn't it? You do something wrong, something you knew from the very moment would bring major consequences but you said 'fuck all' and did it anyway? But why? Why do something that's only going to screw your life up? Is the middle worth risking the end?
Answer: no. It isn't worth it.
I suppose I'm the living example of that. I decided to play with someone else's emotions and I ended up breaking not just her heart but mine as well. It was a gamble, I see that now, and I was foolish enough to believe I can win the game without even losing a sickle. I lost my world instead.
"Stop." There was soft giggles echoing at the end of the hall I was walking on.
I couldn't identify the girl that kept giggling because she spoke in murmurs, but then I heard the bloke she was clearly chime in and all doubt went out the window. I turned the corridor to see Emily and James.
Emily had her back against the wall with my brother pressed onto her. His lips were attached to the crook of her neck, his left hand clutching her waist tightly, and Merlin only knew what he was doing with his right because I couldn't see it.
"Oi!" I shouted as soon as James found more space to kill in order to have his body line up with Emily's. "Don't you have a bit of decency? This is a very public corridor."
"Al!" bellowed Emily with wide, emerald eyes. Her cheeks flushed pink in embarrassment as she shoved James away from her. She pulled her back from against the wall and began to tug at her blouse to fix it from the wrinkled mess James left it in.
James banged his forehead repeatedly on the wall before he turned to face me. Once he did, the brown in his gaze burned with hatred for a long second. Clearly he was upset for my intruding.
"You're one to talk about decency," he snarled at me, crossing his arms angrily over his chest.
Emily elbowed her boyfriend in the ribs. "Don't mind us, Al, we were just leaving."
"To hell we aren't!" James protested. "Em, we need our five minutes of alone time."
"That'll be another day, then," his girlfriend replied as she grabbed his hand. "Now, come on. I've got books I need to return to the library."
I continued down my path with a smirk as James' whined now echoed around the hall, soon followed by his protests. Although I was pleased to have ruined a heated moment for James (because that's something brothers do to one another), I couldn't ignore the knot in my throat. It wasn't one of sentimentality, for one, but more of jealousy. I never thought there would ever come a time in my life where I'd be jealous of James, but that was currently how I felt. I've been sticking to him, Freddie, and Louis more than usual as of late, and in those times I always see James with Emily. He's a prat for all intent and purposes, that's true, but when he's with her, when his fingers are laced through hers, or he is simply gazing at her as she breathes next to him...There's something beautiful and wonderful in that.
I was jealous of my brother and his undying loyalty for the girl he adored more than himself.
As I processed that, I made another turn down a different hall and stumbled upon another discovery. This time it came when a broomstick closet suddenly opened with a wide swing and it spewed out two bodies from inside.
"Freddie?"
Grinning at me as I gawked at him, my redhead cousin was quick to jump onto his feet—correction, he first had to roll off the body beneath him before standing up. "Hiya, Al," he said nonchalantly as he dust himself off, then cracking his knuckles as his grin remained on his face. "Lovely day for a walk, isn't it?"
"You crushed my back, you git!" Pushing herself up on her palms, the girl who had been inside the closet with Freddie turned her head to the left and her eyes narrowed dangerously in our direction as she pushed her brown hair away from her face. "You better hope I'm not covered in bruises, Weasley."
My eyes were quick to register her swollen lips and her pale neck smothered in unflattering, red marks.
"Evanna?" I continued to gape, this time with vomit surely crawling its way up my throat as I made myself known.
"Oh, hey, Potter," she acknowledged me carelessly as Freddie then helped her off the ground in one swoop of his right arm. She slapped his hands away as they tried to fix her dress. "We have to stop reclining on these old doors, Freds. We are going to end up breaking some limbs next time."
"Wouldn't be the first time," said Freddie. "I broke my wrist last time when a statute's sword fell, remember?"
Although she hadn't want his assistance to fix her unkempt state, Evanna stepped closer to my cousin to adjust his hoodie with a soft smile on her face. "Sorry about that," she muttered as if they were alone.
"Refrain from touching each other!" I said loudly, once again reminding them of the fact that I was still present. "I will end up scratching my eyes out! Or, at least give me a few moments to adjust to this news."
"What news?" asked Evanna with a raise brow.
I bent slightly down to give me a moment to breathe. What the hell was up with me stumbling upon all these heated people today?
"You two," I scoffed, "as a couple. How long has this been going on for, anyway?"
"Couple?" repeated Evanna with a snort. "Who's a couple?"
"You and Freddie, obviously," I snapped.
"We are not a couple, Potter—we're not!" she insisted as she caught me rolling my eyes in disbelief at her. "We are just snogging occasionally. It's not serious. We are just two acquaintances that happened to snuggle up together one cold, winter night."
I rolled my eyes again. As much as Freddie was a knobhead most of the time, he was old-fashioned. There was no way he did 'causal relationships' with anyone. Hell, the poor bloke hadn't been able to find a girl in so long because of it. Evanna Nott might think she's fooling me, but I knew better.
"So, you've been together since the holidays? That's cool, I suppose."
"We are not together!" she informed me quite harshly again.
"Right," I said, "Well, be nice to my cousin, then, Nott, or you're going to get a gang of upset women bashing your head in. People think that the men in our family are protective, the women are worse. And you, Freddie," I continued before Evanna could say anything to that, "be good to her, okay. The bloody girl is mental, but she has a great heart and deserves the best. You both do."
Evanna and Freddie shared a quizzical look.
"This thing with Harper really did a number on you, didn't it?" Nott called after me just as I had decided to move past them and continue on to wherever my feet wanted to take me. I stopped for a moment when she continued to speak. "Try apologizing now, Potter. You've given her time and space, but the only thing you haven't done is given her a proper apology. Maybe then broken bonds can be amended."
"The school year is practically done with," chimed Freddie, "what do you have to lose?"
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
He had been sitting beside me for more than an hour. In that hour he remained nervous—and with good reason. Last time he was alone with me in my dormitory I tried to have my way with him like I was some sort of desperate slag. In truth, I was desperate (though never a slag) because I needed him to fill up the crevices inside of me that kept bleeding for that one person I could no longer have.
With a sigh, I raised the sheets of my bed to unearth myself from them so that I could find his eyes. They were blank; distant because I had been ignoring him for a while. When he finally did focus on my blue eyes, his cheeks went pink.
"I'm not going to try and sleep with you again, Liam," I told him bluntly, making more of his embarrassment tint his face. "I suppose I should apologize for that."
He shook his head. "Don't."
"I'm not—I would've been the best thing that ever would happened to you, you know. Look at me, mate, I'm fit."
"You're beautiful," he agreed passively.
I sighed again when I caught disappointment flickering in his brown eyes. I pulled myself into a sitting position, pressing my back against the headboard of my four-poster. "Look," I began, "I know why you're here, Liam. You shouldn't be, though. Everything is fine."
"You get snogged by that Hufflepuff in the middle of breakfast and you're going to tell me everything is fine?" he huffed. "You've been hiding ever since—and it's been three days. Part of me wanted to go hex that bloke."
"Killian would kill you, Liam," I told him seriously, "so don't go off thinking you can defend my honor. Besides, in this relationship, I'm the one that defends your honor, remember?"
He opened his mouth to say something, but quickly stopped himself. Instead, he took a deep breath before saying, "Are you sure you're making the right choice here, Nia?"
"I'm not marrying Killian," I say instantly, "we just went out twice. Sure, I was caught off guard with the surprise snog he gave me, but he isn't a terrible bloke. He's actually quite suave. Besides...Maybe what I need is to date around to forget everything."
"Running away from your problems isn't going to help heal your wounds. Dating random blokes isn't going to fix your broken heart."
I turned to him, reaching for Liam's hand. He stared oddly at me, a little frightened, but
then I said, "I told my parents about Beauxbatons."
He frowned at the fact that I disregarded his previous comment. "What about Beauxbatons?"
"The Headmistress has been corresponding with Madame Maxime, the Headmistress of Beauxbatons Academy, about transferring me in next year. I have impeccable grades, I'm motivated, and I applied for a scholarship there last month that McGonagall assures me I'll win. Mum doesn't think it's a good idea, but Dad loves it. I'm sure that if we go to France this summer to speak to Madame Maxime then they'll both agree on letting me finish my schooling there."
Liam's confusion did not decrease, but it somehow gained incredulity. His face lit up with ire. "Are you not listening to me?" he growled, pulling his hand away from me. "I just told you that you can't run away from your problems, and now you're telling me that you've been working on going to France for school? When the hell were you going to tell me this, Nia?"
"When it was certain I can get accepted," I said simply.
"I'm your best friend! How about you stop acting like I've done you wrong and stop pushing me out of your life? How about you listen to me for once?"
"Because I can't!" I stood from my bed with the rush of my anger. "Because you want me to face my demons, Liam! Your advice is to face this, to walk into class, into the Great Hall, or stay standing when he is around, but I can't do it! I can't face him! It is better for me to go away so that I can get better! Because I can't get better with him near me, Liam! He's killing me—he killed me! Don't you get it? I can't breathe when he's near! I'm suffocating, always suffocating, and I can't be here! If that means leaving Hogwarts, if that means leaving you, then I'm going to do that!"
I was panting. My hands were shaking at my sides. My heart was beating at an incredible speed, as if I'd run a mile without end, and it wasn't because of my shouting. Though it was broken and mutilated, whatever was left of my heart only twisted and beat the way it currently was for one person.
He was standing by the door of my dormitory with his green eyes glittering with unshed tears. There was an ocean of misery, pain, self-loathing, and desperation in them that made my knees shake because I knew that was how my eyes looked, too.
"If I could," Al barely managed in a whimper, "I would take it all back..."
Without a second thought, I launched myself back onto my four-poster and I gripped Liam with all of my tight. "Tell him to go away," I begged my best friend as I hid my face in his chest. "Liam, tell him to go!"
I expected Liam to tell the Slytherin Potter to fuck off straight to hell. I expected Liam's hands to hold me tight, protectively, and cradle me until I stopped feeling so overwhelmed, but that didn't happen. His hands didn't hold me, they pushed me away from him.
"Nia, I let Al in," confessed the only boy in the world who hadn't broken my heart until that moment. "You need to talk to him, okay. You need this."
If I was quick enough to register what he had just said to me, I was sure I would have slapped Liam across the face without a second thought. But he had moved. Liam scooted off my bed to stand on his feet.
I could hear the silence thicken with every step Liam took out of my dormitory. The door shut behind him and my back tensed.
How had this happened to me? How had I become a girl who was so scared of her emotions, so scared of that boy with the green eyes, that I coward away? I was Nia Harper—people coward away from me. He coward away from me—at least, that's what I once believed. I once thought that he valued me, that he took me seriously, that he knew just how important I was, but it was all a misinterpretation on my end. He hid his wand behind him from the start of our relationship, waiting for the perfect moment to bring it forth and cast a killing hex to my heart.
"I wanted to say I'm sorry," I heard him so close behind me, "and now I realize that apologizing might be one of the dumbest things to do now. Saying sorry won't fix anything, will it? Telling you that I'm a twat, that I made a mistake, that I didn't want to hurt you, that I regret it, that I'm dying inside, that I miss you, that I love—an apology won't fix your heart, will it?"
Tears began to make the way down my cheeks in a fast and furious path. My body started shaking again with my sobs, with my misery, and I wanted nothing more for him to disappear. I wanted him to backtrack; for time to move backwards so that Liam and him would never come up with the idea that it was okay for Al to be here this very moment.
He exhaled and he took a step forward. "If this is the only chance I get to say it, then I want you to know that I love you, Nia." His voice was hoarse, rough, and I knew that he was already shedding those tears he held captive previously. "I love you with all my heart, but I don't deserve you. I don't deserve your forgiveness, and I'm starting to come to terms with that. I wish...I wish I could take it back, so that you'd never have to feel this way, but I can't. I can't and I'm sorry."
"I loved you," I managed to squeak out through my own crying. I took a deep breath and willed myself to turn to him. The sight of him sent me sobbing again. "I loved you, Al, and you destroyed everything."
There was a long, silent moment when all we did was gaze at one another. Tears continued to fall down both our cheeks, but somehow they were ignored. They were so automatic now; I was so used to feeling them wet my cheeks and decorate my eyelashes that I no longer processed them. All I could do was stare at Al; to drink him in.
I avoided looking at him all this time, ever since that night in his bedroom when his father was in hospital. I saw his face every day in my tortured dreams, but they didn't really live up to expectation. Al was gorgeous. He was a boy with such delicate features, but the brightest emerald eyes in the history of the world. And I'd always been obsessed with them—they were the color of home for so long, that after he was gone, after I cut him out, nothing ever compared.
"Don't leave Hogwarts because of me," he broke the silence. "Your friends are here, Liam is here...I'm the one that should go. No one wants me around now, you know. I suppose I deserve it, though. I can just go to Durmstrang. Viktor Krum is a powerful alumni, and I'm sure if Aunt Hermione asked him to pull a few strings I'd get right in. You deserve to be here, in Hogwarts...And I'm not getting in the way of that."
Before I could even process what he said, Al added, "but tell me you want me to disappear, Nia. Tell me you want me to go, and I swear that I will. Just tell me. Tell me you hate me, tell me you can't forgive me, and I'll march on. But if there is the slightest chance that I can get you to forgive me, that I can get you to even be in my life again, then I'll work day and night for it."
I told myself so many times before that I wanted him gone. I convinced myself that if he were to disappear, if I were never to see his face again, then maybe I could get back to being who I used to be. That's the reason why I went behind everyone's back to get transferred to Beauxbatons, because I wanted to escape him. But now we were both offering the chance to walk away from one another—really walk away, without ever looking back. And there was a part of me that knew that maybe it was possible to survive this way. Maybe we could both toss in the towel and just start fresh.
But then there was another part of me that feared that. I was in love with Al since the moment I laid my eyes on him that fateful day on the Hogwarts Express. How, then, could I ever release those feelings? Could I really let him go?
"Don't go," I said.
I knew I deserved so much better, and I am not selling myself short. I knew that he had caused me unimaginable pain, but I love him. And if there was power in love, if it could fix everything, why couldn't it fix me? Why couldn't it fix us? He was broken just as I was, after all.
"Are you sure?" he breathed.
I was sure. Just as I was sure that love always finds its way back, even in the broken road of a mending heart.