Through An Artist's Eyes

padfoot_puppyeyes

Rating: PG13
Genres: Drama
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 7
Published: 09/05/2009
Last Updated: 09/05/2009
Status: completed

ONESHOT A week has passed since the final battle and everyone's relaxed...everyone but Gryffindor's resident artist. Dean has sketched Harry Potter numerous times before, but this time, he just can't seem to figure out what's changed about Harry's face. Looking at Harry from another person's perspective.

Chapters

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AN- As an artist myself, I know that sometimes when we get really good at drawing a specific person, we tend to notice little details that change about them when no one else does. I can't help applying that knowledge to Harry Potter, so I came up with this. Hope you guys like it. Read `n review please! And please don't be offended by my beginning- I'm quoting an artistic guy-friend there.

Now, I'm not gay, by any means. Not that there's anything wrong with that—I've a few friends who are, and that's all right. It's just that I'm totally and completely devoted to women, and I always will be.

But I draw people. Partly for fun, partly because I'm good at it, and partly because, as I said, I'm completely and totally devoted to women, and you'd be surprised how many of them I catch due to one good sketch. It's also an excellent excuse to study the female anatomy.

When I'm not doing my drawings to try and nab a girlfriend, I pick up on a few things. It happens, after sketching the same faces and figures for a long period of time. You start to notice details that others write off, and changes that some people wouldn't see.

That's why I kept drawing him. Because as much as all of us went through changes, none of us went through all of the changes he did.

And staring at him, now, I felt the urge to draw again.

“Hey Dean,” I jumped about a foot in the air as Ginny wove through the room. As quickly as I moved my eyes away from him to study her face, her own eyes turned to try and see what I had been staring at. “Are you thinking of another sketch?”

Sometimes, I think that's the entire reason Ginny's dating me again. Because he turned her down and won't look at her again, and she can at least get pictures of him from me. All the same, I nodded and stared down at the beginnings of the lines that were so familiar.

Ginny noticed my mood. “What's wrong?” she asked me, her voice softening as she bent over to study my art.

Even the view down her top couldn't lift my spirits. Maybe I'm not as straight as I thought. That view ought to fix everything.

“Something's… off about it,” I tried to explain, frustrated when even the words didn't come out right. “Something's different. Something I'm missing.”

I'd been trying, since Harry had defeated Voldemort, to get that something onto paper. To capture that simple change with charcoal so I could end my fascination with the enigma that was Harry Potter.

At least if I had to be fascinated with a boy, he was a good one to be fascinated with.

“Maybe it's the angle,” Ginny offered, frowning as she too noticed the strange new quality of the sketch. I shook my head, perturbed. I wondered if the glances she kept sneaking at him were to compare my sketch, or in the hopes that he would be caught looking back. It made me feel marginally better to see that regardless, he didn't take his eyes of Hermione. He hadn't since Voldemort's defeat.

I felt even better when I saw him take Hermione's hand in his own. In spite of knowing that it was killing Ginny to see him move on with another girl, I knew my girlfriend was staying my own. It was a comforting thought, for the most part. A small portion of me didn't want a girlfriend who had so much interest with someone else.

I turned back to study him the way she was doing. He'd changed a lot over the years, from the scrawny boy I had drawn who looked like a toothpick to the Chosen One that the Prophet had been celebrating. He'd gotten wrinkles that the rest of us didn't have, and scars on his hands and arms that I saw and sketched but couldn't explain. I examined him again, looking for any new mark or wrinkle that I had missed before.

No such luck.

The biggest changes he'd gone through though, the whole reason I really continued to draw him in the first place, was the changes in his face. Harry had one of those faces that told anyone who glanced at him exactly what he was feeling or thinking at the time. As an artist, I liked trying to pick subject matter that made other people feel something.

He'd gone from elation in his first year to bitterness in his third. I'd seen his face morph in concern, anger, scorn and determination. It had taken me forever to figure out the last change that had taken place, when I saw him just a bit before the battle. Acceptance. Harry seemed to have accepted his lot in life, his destiny, or whatever it was that had made him face Voldemort to save the magical world.

Ginny shifted her weight next to me, dropping her books on the floor beside her and sharing a library table with me. We were supposed to be studying for finals, but I had to figure the answer to this out before I could bother trying to memorize anything.

I turned to my girlfriend to see her bite her lower lip and look away. I felt a little guilty for my earlier thoughts of satisfaction. Regardless of how bitter I was that Ginny loved Harry, Ginny was still hurt.

“You okay?” I asked her softly, relieved when she nodded and straightened herself up a little.

“I will be.” She answered softly, turning to look at him. “I don't think it would've worked out anyways. I couldn't understand him, not the way she can.”

“You're not mad at him?” I knew the moment I said it that she'd get defensive of him. Even if she didn't love him, she'd always be that way. It was how most people were about Harry, the Weasley family especially.

I was right. Her face set into a defensive frown as she replied, “How could I be? He's finally happy. He deserves that.”

I turned and saw that she was right, and it finally clicked.

The wrinkles couldn't be erased, and the scars on his hand and arms and forehead wouldn't heal. But there was definitely a carefree quality about him and the way he smiled now. His head was held high, his shoulders back. As we watched, his entire face broke into a smile. I wondered if I had ever even drawn him smiling like that.

It was the biggest change I ever saw on Harry Potters face. He was finally happy, and Ginny was right- if anyone deserved it, it as him.

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