I See You

*Mona's Point of View

I woke up in someone's arms, and for a few minutes I couldn't drudge up the energy to care. He was warm and he held me in a way that made me bite my lip hard. I felt like death warmed up, but I could still feel my body heating up, my breath getting shorter.

I opened my eyes and found myself looking down into Scorpius Malfoy's face. I felt a second of panic, worried that I'd something terrible, but - no, we had our clothes on - and I think I would've remembered if we'd done anything. Plus, we were in the common room. Hard to do anything like that in a place so public.

I had my head on the arm of the couch and Scorpius had his arms around me, his head resting at the hollow of my throat. My leg was flung over his waist and he looked utterly peaceful. Not angry. Not guarded.

So I just let myself be held for a while and had to admit that the closeness was nice. Really nice.

Scorpius moaned softly and shifted. . . and something hard pressed against my thigh. My eyes popped wide and I suddenly had the mad urge to laugh.

His eyes opened - I felt his lashes flutter against my throat - and he tightened his grip, pulling me even closer than before. I resisted, but I don't think he was really awake yet and a low, very manly rumbling sound came from deep in his throat. I admit it, I panicked a little.

"Scorpius! Stop. I want to -" He jerked as though he'd been jabbed with a cattle prod and fell back off the sofa, pulling me down with him. I stumbled away and tried to straighten my dress.

He squinted his eyes open and really looked at me. His hair was sticking up like he’d slept in a bush and his tuxedo was twisted, but he still looked good. Better than good.

"You don't look happy." he observed.

"Look, I'm not... Well, I mean... I have to go." He sat up and called my name, but I was already pelting it upstairs, making it all the way to the dormitory without falling - a miracle. I stripped the dress off and climbed into bed, cringing.

Oh my God. Scorpius Malfoy. You just spent the night with Scorpius Malfoy. Your arch-nemesis? I groaned and covered my eyes, deciding not to think about it until I'd had some sleep. It took much longer than it should've, but eventually I drifted off into a dreamless slumber.

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I stumbled down to the Great Hall for dinner, feeling like I had crazed drummers going off in my head. Every step made it worse. I'd go ask Madam Pompfrey for a cure, but that would mean telling her I was hung-over – I didn’t need a lecture, so I'd just have to eat and hope it went away. Soon.

I hadn't forgotten about Malfoy, but I hadn't expected to literally run into him in the corridor. Literally, as in I nearly fell over. As soon as I realised who he was I tried to move round him, but he held me back by grabbing my arm. I jerked free with a bit of effort.

"Mona..." He sounded irritated. I craned my head back to find myself staring into narrowed grey eyes. He looked irritated.

"Leave me alone, Malfoy." I said, because I couldn't think of anything else to say. It was sort of a knee-jerk response, thoughtless. He swore loudly, and before I could make any move to stop him, he had me pinned against the wall. My spine met with the bumpy stone wall, but I didn’t move, glaring up as the nearby sconce danced its flickering candlelight across the tight muscles in his clenched jaw.

"What is your problem Mona? You know there's no reason to be angry. And yet here you are. Angry with me."

"Don't be an asshole, Malfoy. I just want you to leave me alone."

"Why?" He demanded. Irrationally, I was suddenly angry.

"Because you're an arrogant, egotistical bastard, that's why, and because I've never liked you. Now let go!" He backed away as if he'd been burnt, and the look of hurt on his face... I immediately wished I could take it back. Without a word he turned and walked away from me down the corridor.

"Scorpius!" I sighed and rubbed my temples, feeling like the most awful person in the world. Infuriated with myself, I kicked the wall and turned and limped back down to bed. I'd somehow lost my appetite.

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Scorpius avoided me like the plague for the next fortnight, and no matter how hard I tried I could never seem to find him on his own. Eventually I decided to take serious measures. We may not have been friends, but I couldn’t deny now that I felt some kind of connection to him, felt comfortable around him, and he'd stayed with me when I'd asked him to. Hell, now we'd even slept together like the rumors said.

He deserved better than having me shout nasty things at him.

So I asked around for when the next practice was and showed up in the changing rooms after I knew everybody had left. Scorpius always stayed the latest in there. I don't know exactly how I knew this, but I did.

I pushed open the door, squinting through the steam billowing from the shower room and sat down on the long bench his bag was on. I tried to think of something to say as the light flicked about from the wind whistling through the cracks of the chilly wooden hut. I didn't have to wait long.

He came out with a long white towel around his waist, and was ruffling his hair with his fingers. He didn't see me until he was almost upon me.

"Merlin!" He shouted, jumping back. "What the fuck Mona?"

"Sorry!" I squeaked, sounding nothing like myself as I stood. "I came to apologise."

He'd recovered his composure very quickly and grunted noncommittally as he knelt down to get a fresh pair of jogging bottoms from his duffel. His yanked them out as if they’d done him grievous harm and then stood there holding them, staring at the coat hangers in front of him as if he could block my presence with willpower alone.

I unflinchingly placed my hand on his bare back, making him look up at me. I couldn't hold his gaze long - the emotion in his eyes wasn't one he usually had when he was looking at me. And suddenly I couldn't stand it.

"I'm really sorry for freaking out and saying those horrible things to you. You didn't deserve it." He just stared down at me in silence. "Please forgive me?"

I'd known when I came down here that what I was doing was probably wrong - I had the nasty feeling that this path might be the one to his demise. But the truth was that I really had no idea, and I didn't want to lose him for something that might never happen.

". . . Scorpius?"

"Yeah, Mona. I forgive you. I already did that two weeks ago." I frowned.

"Then wha -"

"I don't know if I can take it anymore, Mona. Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting for you? You haven't really got the faintest clue how I feel about you, and it's not because I haven't told you-" Suddenly intense, he took my face in both his shower-hot palms and stared down at me with burning grey eyes. "-it's because you're not listening."

He was right. I never had. Partly because I flat out couldn't believe him, partly because I couldn't bring myself to confront the visions I'd had of him, and of us. Even the ones that had never happened.

"I don't even know how to be intimate with someone, mentally or physically. I just - I can't handle being close to people. Don't you understand?" It was stupid to ask. How could he? But I saw in his eyes that he did. I think he even understood what I wasn't saying. When you got close to people, all sorts of things happened. Sure, there were good things. But what if they died, they cheated on you, betrayed you? When you’re a Seer it’s ten times worse, because you see it before it happens, and you’ll never even be sure it will come to be.

If I had to deal with that I'd go mad before I reached my 25th birthday. I'd read up on seers; they didn't always stay sane long.

Scorpius still hadn't released me.

"So, what? If you don't have anything you can't lose anything? That's bullshit, Mona. You're missing out; on life, friends, love - all of it." There was need in his eyes; I could see it plain as day. I shocked myself by wanting to give in to that need, but I couldn't. An image of him in my arms lying in the road as his blood pooled around me... and I couldn't.

I reached up and gently removed his fingers from my face.

"I came here because I didn't want you to be mad at me." He turned away from me.

"It's alright Mona. Just go." Like the coward I was, I turned and left him.