Unctuous

I. The Beginning

She came with flushed cheeks and an annoyed air about her.

"He's so...," she starts, shaking her head, her hair flying this way and that, "...relentless," she finishes, sounding as if she were asking me a question.

"In love," I answer, feeling the pang in my heart but ignoring it because she'd smile again and set my heart racing.

"He doesn't know a thing about love. All he knows is what he sees and Quidditch and what sets a girl off - a stupid girl, at least."

"Are you implying that you're a stupid girl? You are, after all, what one would call 'set off,'" I reply quickly, knowing that she'd bite her tongue in anger and reluctance to have said anything at all.

"I'm not stupid," she mutters darkly, turning her violent eyes upon my own. "Just...oh, why does he have to be so forward?! Love, he calls it. Truer than true, he says. Everlasting and undeniable, he swears! What about me? My feelings? Does he not understand that love is between two, not one?"

And the question cuts my insides and pains my heart and I look at her, breathless and wild and her eyes searching and pleading for answers.

"Love is love," I say quietly. "and cannot always be between two as one could hope. Sometimes, you're left alone in your love."

She stares at me as if she doesn't know me. Her eyes are wide and small and closed all at once. "I don't believe that." Her voice is almost a whisper. "Love is grown between people. Like a flower," she says, her eyes brightening, dulling, smiling, "that needs both water and light. Without one, it can't grow. But with both, it blossoms and it's beautiful."

And I stare at her because she's standing before me, her cheeks flushed, her eyes dancing, and she's dreaming of a love that many can shine, but she cannot water.

"James doesn't love me," she sighs, closing her eyes and pausing. "He loves the idea of me. Of us. Of an imaginary future. And I don't love him." She's convicted and convinced.

"I love you," I say before I can stop myself and her eyes open and settle upon my own.

"I don't believe that either."

And my heart breaks and I smile an awful smile and say, "But of course not. You're not a stupid girl."

II. The Middle

He watches her and I watch her and she's but a lily pad floating away.

His eyes are following her every movement and she's ignoring the fact that he even exists. "Look at me," he commands, whispering to himself.

I allow a smile to grace my lips and look to her in time to see her look back at me. She smiles a familiar smile and beckons me and I can feel the holes from his glares but I go regardless.

"I've decided," she says with a curious light in her eyes.

"You have?" I ask and her smile is growing.

"I have decided that I can't decide what is love and what isn't. Perhaps he does love me. More likely he doesn't. No matter, I don't love him. However you love me too. I believe that." She stares at me now, seriously, wonderingly.

And I am silent. My heart is beating to a beat I haven't heard before. Her eyes are shining and I can see her words, floating in her eyes. I know it before she says it.

"But I don't love you. And I'm sorry for that, Pete." She's sincere and she's honest and she's all the reasons why I do indeed love her. She's watching me and she smiles. "But you knew that, didn't you? That I didn't love you? You've always known the things even I don't know - especially about myself."

And she's right, but she's wrong. And I tell her so.

"You do love James, Lily."

And her smile drops and her eyes narrow and she bites her tongue and I smile. "I know that you love him and could never love me. You are, after all, a flower that yearns for light and grows towards it."

She swallows and stares and gasps for air. "No," she says forcefully. And she's angry and sad because she's realized that she has been, always, always, has been a stupid girl that James Potter could always set off and she's miserable. "I don't love him."

I laugh a humorless laugh and I'm empty. I look over my shoulder and still he sits there, staring at her, glaring at me. "You only say that because you believe that admitting it is losing." She flinches and she swears and she stares at me.

"You love me enough to know me better than myself," she spits out.

"It's not love, it's common sense." And she laughs darkly, shaking her head.

"Common, common, oh aren't you bold. You act as if you know everything but you don't know a thing! You're alone and you're weak and I don't love you a bit, but I know you better than yourself because it's as common as common gets!" She's lashing out at me and I didn't expect anything less.

I smile an awful smile and her eyes are blazing. "How weak are you, Lily Evans? How alone are you? So dependent on yourself, you might think, but really there's no one else. Just James and I. But no, you can't come down to us, you can't come to us because you're better, aren't you? You're better than the star quidditch player, and you're better than a lowly rat."

"Don't do that Peter. Don't you say that. I'm no better than you, if not beneath you." She's quick to replenish me, to make it better. She could never say no, could never deny me. "I...I'm sorry." She's silent and so am I.

"But of course you are," I finally say. She sighs and licks her lips and it takes wonders to stop my heart before it goes.

"I don't believe I love him, really."

"But you do."

"Perhaps."

"But you can't love me?"

It's out before I can control it and my heart stops and she looks at me and I'm hurting before she answers.

"I could never love you, Peter."

And I take a deep breath, smile an awful smile, and reply: "But of course not."

III. The End

He stands before me and I am afraid and alone and weak. She, too, knew me better than I knew myself.

"Where is the boy?"

Perhaps she knew. She always knew. She couldn't possibly love me, because she could always see this, see what I could be.

"Tell me!"

And in all my fear, my loneliness, my bitterness, I do. I had lost and she would never win. She had always been a stupid girl.