Last Time
A/N: My first try at a second-person one-shot fanfic, with some angst? This just sort of spewed from my mind, so it may be nothing more than some garbled up nonsense. Inspired by Pantz's "Monster," so this is to whom the story goes to. You are truly a gifted writer!
Disclaimer: Nope, don't own nothing. I mean, anything.
Every time you pull back the pieces of your shattered "Gryffindor" courage (Hah!) from your last rejection, you have one thought in your mind as you walk up to her.
This is going to be the last time I do this.
Not a very typical thought for your situation. Then again, you were never very typical, were you? Maybe that's what all of your friends saw in you, the nonconforming you. And although your peers think only the highest of you, the marauding idols meant to be at the top of the social ladder, you mused once that you four only had the strongest bonds of friendship simply because of being different from the rest, the rest of them.
Sirius was the real renegade, the rebel blown clear off the family tree, a deviant beacon of good looks and loud laughter and mischievous sparkles that sprung from a family of darkness and evil. Remus was the real outcast of society, the boy who never knew how to really be normal, because being a Dark creature doesn't spell out normal in this warring world. Peter was the exception to the four, and sometimes you pitied him because of that. He looks up to the other three of you like a little boy admires his older brothers. And among the four already unusual, he was still an odd one out.
The fact that the four of you were somehow different, breaking the mold, so to speak, bound you four to each other.
Sometimes your mind likes to wander like this, but then you catch sight of her.
She's sitting at her usual spot, at the corner of the table by the window with the best view of the Hogwarts grounds. She has that wonderfully thoughtful look on her face, the one that makes you want to be erudite, so that you can have the most intelligent conversations with her. That is, if she would ever let you.
Mechanically, the thought comes,
This is going to be the last time I do this.
It's like some sort of mantra, rolling over and over around in that head of yours. That head that she declares is so big, so blown-up with arrogance and "prattiness," if that ever be a word.
You sometimes wonder how those eleven words came to be your broken record, chanting at you from the inside. Maybe it's because Sirius jokes that she's bad for your health because she sparks this passion in you (read: you're obsessed with her). But you don't think he's joking sometimes. He's just afraid, like you're afraid. Because maybe being like brothers, you like to think of them as, to Sirius and Remus and Peter isn't strong enough for a craze like yours for this one fiery girl. But then again, you reason with yourself that it's impossible, because you four are connected by your very souls.
So maybe that's it. It's the fear. Maybe fear is why you tell yourself you have to quit doing this, quit this addiction. It may kill one of the most important things in your life. Because she isn't worth losing those three people with whom you share your everything. She isn't, she can't be, worth tearing apart the greatest friends you have ever known and will ever know. So your mind screams,
This is going to be the last time I do this.
Or maybe you think it because you order yourself to not do this anymore, because you're sick of it. Because you don't think you can stand this anymore, don't think you can stand the constant refusals. Don't think you can stand to see how she doesn't see you for what you want her to see, don't think you can stand to show her the worst of you, because that's all she can see. You don't think you can stand to see how she doesn't even think you're being so desperate, so sincere when you do this every time, every time since fifth year, because although this whole fiasco started in third year, you've come to realize that you really want this, this one chance to be with her and to win her over. There's only so much one's heart can take, you think. And every time you manage to stumble around and blindly gather the broken bits of your heart and then decide to do it all over again, you think,
This is going to be the last time I do this.
Or maybe it's some subconscious hope inside you that you don't know you have. Some kind of burning dream, like a child's innocent wish for a broom for his birthday, that maybe this will be the last time. It will be the last time not because you decide it is, but because she makes it the last time. And maybe that hope you don't know you had inside of you is part of the reason you say,
This is going to be the last time I do this.
But you don't see that something's different this time. You don't notice that your feet are quietly and (hopefully) subtly stumbling instead of strutting or attempting to strut. You don't even know that you aren't wearing your radiating, lopsided grin. No, you don your own nervous countenance. Your eyes suddenly lock with hers, but now you're staring at the floor, now at your trainers, now at the table that she's sitting at in the library. (Where else would she be on a Saturday morning?) Maybe somewhere on that table you even carved L.E., because you've done it to practically every single table you've ever sat at.
Most importantly, you don't catch that look in her eyes. It's changed.
It's been one whole year (to the day?) since you've done this. It has taken one whole year (yes, you remember faintly, to the day) to pull together those fractions of your heart from the last rejection, to bind them up again and recharge them with courage from some unknown source, because Merlin knows that you've only been placed in Gryffindor because you didn't fit the other houses. It was one whole year ago, to the day; that's how long it took to bind your heart whole again. And all you can think is,
This is going to be the last time I do this.
"Hey—hey, Lily?"
You somehow swallow as you say the words, making your speech strained into some sort of jumble. Your voice is quiet, but maybe that's just because it's the library. Or maybe that's just what you think.
Maybe this is all just what you think. But reality has a funny way of being contorted and twisted when someone thinks the way you do.
You suddenly realize your stomach has swallowed the rest of your question. No! It can't be happening! You've come all this way.
You recklessly throw yourself into a blind effort…to look up. And into her beautifully captivating eyes. They're sparkling with a smile you didn't know could be directed at you.
It hits you. And you realize that she is the reason you do this. Every single time. She is the source of your greatest courage, your deepest fear, and your driving force. She is your enigma, your fire, your answer. It hits you and you suddenly find the rest of your question.
"Will—will you go to Hogsmeade with me? This weekend?"
You don't know it yet, but this is going to be the last time you do this.
Finis
A/N: I actually was quite pleased with this when I first posted it, but upon scrutiny, I realized the ideas do not flow. Like, at all. But review, please! Pretty please with chocolate syrup and whipped cream and a cherry on top? And if you do review, please try to criticize at least one thing. (Shouldn't be too hard!) Thanks for reading, anyhow!
.mische.