Lover of the Light

Control, Her Control

Lover of the Light

Chapter Six: Control, Her Control

"You're doing it again."

Blinking away from a fixed point a few feet away from her library table, Hermione found a pair of almost black eyes staring at her with a hint of amusement, but also a lot of surprising sympathy.

"Doing what?" She replied, clearing her throat casually as she began to stack the various sheets of parchment that she had scattered around her into a neat pile.

Parvati Patil raised a dark eyebrow at her fellow Gryffindor. "You know, you might not be the typical girl, Hermione, but you still act exactly like any other heartbroken girl would." She was looking right at the brunette's face and she nodded back to the direction the latter had been gawking at with no discreteness at all. "Why don't you just talk to him? It's been a week. I doubt that whatever it is that happened between you two caused a riff in your friendship that you can't even go over and scold him about his studying habits."

"I don't know what you're on about," whispered Hermione, her chin raised high and her shoulders squared off as she continued to stack her notes that were already perfectly gathered; all while dodging the girl's eyes.

"So you've not been crying for the past few days in the middle of the night for him, then? So you haven't been wandering around by yourself, hiding out in the dormitory for the past week?" Parvati snorted. "Alright, we can pretend all you want to, then."

Looking up from her schoolwork, Hermione met her roommate's eyes for the first time since the other girl sat down, invading her much needed solitary moment. She didn't really know what was up with Parvati, her being surprisingly attentive and friendly since the school year started. Though they had shared a dormitory since First Year, they've never been what someone would call friends; especially because Parvati was everything Hermione found annoying in typical girls their age. Lately, however, the other girl had simmered down with her gossiping and superficial ways, focusing on her schoolwork and staying close to her Ravenclaw sister Padma and some Gryffindors.

And maybe it was because Parvati was a girl, because she was changing and being a decent human-being, that the brunette let out a breath that suggested her surrender to the other girl's attempt of a friendship. "I'm giving him his space," she said in a low voice. "I thought that...During the war we...we kissed and I just...We can't be together. I thought we would, eventually, you know, but he's lost himself after the war that there's not a hope that we will ever be able to pick up where we left off." She paused for a bit, her chest aching, and very broken-heartedly she said, "there's not a chance he'll love me still."

At the clear hurt in her fellow Gryffindor's face, Parvati reached over and placed her hand over the one Hermione had on the tabletop. "Everybody handles their grieving in different ways, Hermione."

"And Ron's loss of Fred turned to anger." The brunette nodded, showing that she agreed with the girl's statement. "I understand that, Parvati, I really do, but..."

"But he's not going to fight for you," the dark-skinned girl finished. "He has to deal with his grieving, and he's letting you go while he does so. That's why you're heartbroken, then? Because what you've been waiting for for years, what you felt, wasn't worth the fight for him?"

Hermione breathed in, her eyes stinging with tears all of a sudden. That sounded selfish, didn't it? Ron was grieving for his dead brother, and there she was, crying because their meant-to-be fairytale ending was easily shattered and it easily became a thing of the past. It was a selfish thing to feel, but she couldn't help it; their love was not supposed to be so easily brushed aside like it hadn't been building up and waiting for the perfect moment to explode and wrap them in golden lights. But the perfect moment never arrived, nor was it going to.