Ideal Illusions

11/27/03- Muchas gracias Nitya!

His Temptation

His eyes roamed over the vast scenery. One whose grand field was filled with plush grass. The stalks reaching waist height, ones whose brush would tickle his skin. That would make him rush past them just to feel them gracefully caress his legs.

His fingers curled under the ledge of the balcony. The granite stones were cool under his touch. Though the effect made no difference to him, his fingers were already numb from the Scottish winds that would breeze past him. The breezes that would wrap around him, as if testing his resistance.

If anything the challenge arose a need to prove that he could withstand the delicate pain. He could cope with its tantalizing lures.

After all, what was a pitiful wind compared to his whirlwind of emotions?

His body stretched up toward the black abyss. To the sky whose moon was barely shown. The clouds shielding the feature as if he wasn’t worthy of seeing its luminous characteristic.

He closes his eyes just to reminisce. To wander deep into the depths of his mind. As these were the perfect moments to do that. Since they were vacant, in need of a rush of thoughts. The kind that would rapidly slip in and out of his mind, without the merit of a second glance.

After all, recently all the thoughts were too much alike for his liking. They would bring out that alternate voice of his out. In which he would vainly argue against. Against the inevitable, something that he dearly did not want to acknowledge.

But what exactly was he trying to prevent?

Her realization that he felt that way about her? The disgust that would mark her face? The rejection that would be blatantly obvious in her stance?

His sigh carried out and joined the furious winds that dimmed in frenzy. As if they were sympathetic towards his cause. As if they actually knew where his thoughts were carrying him. As if they pitied him.

He gritted his teeth and almost wished that a storm would come out. He wanted the weather to show him how much it cared for him. How much it knew how he felt.

He wanted the thunder to call out to him. He wanted the rain to pour around him, just so something would. Just so something would comfort him. And if the weather was the one to do the job, then so be it.

A prickling feeling then washed over him. The tiny hairs encompassed around his body rose in expectation. He held his breath and awaited the mysterious intruder.

The person who interrupted his thoughts on her. Thankfully, he turned around to face the stranger. Just so his thoughts would change. So he would have a temporary reprieve from her.

His hopes were rapidly dashed as he locked eyes with the stranger. His want, his need, was rejected all over again. No mercy was being shown to him.

Since it seemed that fate had deliberately brought her here. Brought her only to tease him. To mock his pleading of the alleviation he craved.

“Harry?”

He wanted her to leave. He wanted her presence to not be next to him. But at the same time his insides clenched together, wanting for her to be closer . . .

“How did you find me?” His voice betrayed nothing. It was cold and no emotion flickered around his pronunciation.

At least something was on his side. Something was going his way.

“Marauder’s Map.”

Those two words made him mentally curse his stupidity of leaving that out.

“Why,” her voice cracked, “are you out here Harry? It’s too chilly and you might catch something.”

She crossed her arms hunched over a bit, trying fruitlessly to warm her body.

He turned his back on her. His body position was denying her any response.

He didn’t want to look at her and cave in to his obsession. To run over to her and cover her with his body…

“Are you ignoring me Harry? Why are you acting so childish…so closed off?” She paused for a while as if searching for an answer to his attitude herself. “Is this about what happened Harry? What happened last year?”

Hs lips pursed at her accusation. Did she not know when she was not wanted? Did she actually dare come out here and to speak of him about that event?

“Shut up Hermione. Go away and bother someone else.”

He clamped his lips together so nothing else would come out. So his fury wouldn’t consume him.

He heard her feet patter on the stone floor. The clicking of the heels was heard closer.

“Harry why are we like this? What happened to us?”

He honestly had no clue on how to answer her question. What did she want him to do? Confess that his thoughts revolved around that idea? The idea of both of them sharing those more than friendly feelings?

“Nothing has happened.” He responded with this simple statement.

After all it was slightly on the honest side. Nothing had happened between them. But to him…oh so much had changed. His receiving end of their relationship was craving something else than beside the usual accompany of his best friend.

“If nothing has happened then why do I feel this rift between us? Why can you not turn and face me?”

Her hand rested on his shoulder. Her small porcelain hand. The one he wished to hold against his own palm.

“Harry look at me.” Her pleading voice got lost in the furious winds that had recently picked up. Yet he still heard it, he heard her desperation.

His body without the consent of his mind, pivoted around. His tired eyes gazed at her flushed face.

“Tell me Hermione…How?”

“How?” She repeated.

“How do I get rid of this?” He gestured between them. Her eyes followed his movements in puzzlement.

“How can I let go of these constant problems?”

The shifting winds played around with her bushy tendrils of hair. They flitted around her face like a veil.

His gut churned involuntarily.

“Harry, Voldemort is not something you can let go of. It is something you have to fight against.”

He let out a barking laugh. His hands clutched at his sides as his maniacal laughter echoed around the small closure.

“Hermione you misunderstand me. I am not talking about Voldemort. My problems are not on him.”

He watched her shake her head in bafflement. “Then who else would cause this? What possibly could have made you out to be like this?”

“You.”

Her _expression showed how addled she was by his proclamation. Her figure stood erect and stared at him in a way that demanded an explanation.

His feet carried him to her. The distance was closed between them in seconds. His hand in pure temptation lifted and brushed across her cheek. So lightly that his fingers could barely recall even touching her perfect skin.

“You. It has always been you. And I hate you for it.”

She stepped back as if she had been slapped.

“I hate you for making me feel these emotions. I hate you for not letting me think about anything else. I hate the way that your previous actions have made me live in the past. I hate the way I have to watch you be with someone else. I hate the way I experienced jealousy because of it. I hate the way I am acting now. I hate you because I can’t get rid of this conflict. I hate you because I don’t want to let go of these feelings. I hate you because I don’t think I ever will.”

Her body flinched at every sentence he yelled out loud. Her body then dropped to the ground as if she didn’t have the energy to stand.

He stood still awaiting something…some response from her.

He had to quench every feeling of instinct in him that cried out for him to gather her in his arms. To rock her body against his and tell her he didn’t mean it.

But he did.

The problem wasn’t what she said. The problem wasn’t what she did.

The problem was what she caused.

The pure conflict revolved around making him change so much into some foreign person he had no clue that he was. The clashing involved how he constantly tried to dissolve these feelings. Make them out to be something they weren’t. The problem was that he couldn’t cut them off if this conflict between them was only imposed on him.

And in the end he couldn’t and didn’t want to let go of these raw emotions.

“No it isn’t about me. It cannot be me.” Her voice trembled.

Her head lifted and her tangled hair was uncovered by the playing winds. Her hands pushed against the stone floor.

“How can it not be about you?”

She bit her lip.

“Is that so hard to believe? That I feel this way? Now Hermione tell me what is your solution then? What can I do?”

He could see the teardrops forming in the corners of her eyes. She closed them to try to prevent the tears to cascade down her prominent cheeks.

He crouched down across from her and took both of her shaking hands into his own.

“I don’t know . . . ”

His heart felt the already open wound become bigger. The blood would make him choke. The blood from this painful wound would drip down his arms.

And when the fluid dropped in her hand then would she see. Would she see what she caused.

His hands let go off her. His body then stood up and he stared down at her. At her chapped lips, her widened eyes, her tear streaked cheek . . .

“That is what I thought . . .”

He left her to the dangerous winds. To the moon that gleamed opaque behind the thin clouds.