Disclaimer: Mine. Mwahahaha! ;) The quote in the middle is from W.B. Yeats' He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven. The rest is JKR's.
A/N: This was written for nelliedarlin's Quotation Challenge on LJ. I wrote it with Harry/Ginny in mind, but I suppose you could adjust it to fit your shipping preferences. Sorry, Dee. ;)
She watches him. It's a game she plays, a game that she has perfected over the past ten years.
It's a game of cat and mouse. The only trouble is that the mouse has never been caught. She watches him, but she never gets close enough to touch him, to capture him. It's a game she plays all by herself.
Someday, she tells herself. Someday she will catch him. Someday she will win this game.
It's a difficult game, one with many complicated rules and regulations, but she is an expert. She has spent days, months, years perfecting her strategy. Someday she will strike, and with victory will come the end of her loneliness, the beginning of something new.
It seems a strange game for a woman like her to play. She is a woman who knows who she is, who knows what she is about. She is strong, powerful, bold, passionate.
She is in love.
It is no longer the puppy love of her childhood, no longer the simple infatuation that once drove her actions and thoughts. It is a deep, abiding love, one that has endured much pain and heartache, one that will endure the test of time.
She loves him, and that will never change.
So she plays the game, watching him, waiting for the day when the time is right. Waiting for the day when he loves her too.
She will wait for him. She believes that day will come and she will wait forever until it does. Time has no meaning for her – every day is one day closer to him, one day closer to the fulfillment of hope.
She watches him. He sees it, and it thrills him and terrifies him at the same time. He has no idea how to respond, no idea how to take that step towards the one thing he desperately needs and desperately fears.
It seems a strange reaction from a man like him. He is a man who has faced death and emerged victorious. He is brave, confident, powerful.
He is in love.
It isn't something he expected. Love doesn't come easily to those who have witnessed the horrors he has, but there is something about her, something that calls to him, something that he longs for like water in the desert. She is the missing fragment of his shattered heart, the one piece that completes the intricate puzzle of his life.
He loves her, and that will never change.
So he watches her as she watches him, unknowingly playing her game, waiting for the day when he has the courage to face her.
She writes to him, hoping that the words on paper will give power to her heart. She writes what she cannot say, what has been weighing her down since the day she met him. There is hope in the words. There is courage beyond what she knew she possessed and fear of what it may mean in the end.
She stands before him, holding out her heart in the form of tear-stained parchment. She does not speak, cannot speak, until she knows.
Until it begins or ends.
I have spread my dreams under your feet.
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
He reads the words, unable to speak, unable to breathe. He wonders what she means, what it means, what the racing of his heart means as it echoes in his ears. He wants to believe, but fear overwhelms him. It cannot mean what he wants it to mean, what he needs it to mean.
But when he looks up, he sees forever in her eyes.
Forever is exactly what he is looking for.
She smiles against his lips, delighted at the outcome of her game. Now there is a new game to play, a new adventure to embark upon.
She can't wait to begin.
FIN