Helium | Harry J. Potter

28

A/N
Fair warning: This is gonna HURT

HARRY's POV

Tonk and Remus left the day after Christmas, leaving Alura, Stefan, and I cleaning up all the wrapping paper.

Sirius is still in his bedroom. Probably taking a nap, who knows. Stefan is a clean freak. He's even getting on to us for putting the rubbish in the rubbish bin wrong. How can you put rubbish away wrong?

"No, that's not how you do it," Stefan groans and walks over to where Alura is.

The living room is spotless, and I don't even know why we're here. Stefan is doing everything anyway.

"Can we just leave?" I asked him.

"Go ahead. I think this living room is getting messier anyway." He looks around the spotless room with his hands on his hips.

Alura lets out a sigh of relief and began going upstairs. I followed behind because I do not want to be stuck in the living room with Clean-Freak Stefan.

As soon as we reach the top, she stops short. I almost crashed into her back, but I quickly stopped.

"We need to talk," she said without turning around.

I knew that we were going to have to talk at some point.

"Sure."

We go into Alura's room so no one interrupts us like Tonks did on Christmas Eve. We take a seat at her bay window, watching the snow fall outside.

"Alura, I'm sorry."

"You keep saying that but you did it again. You don't mean it," she retorted.

She's right. I don't mean that apology one bit. I'm not sorry for being addicted to the happiness and peace I feel when I'm with her. If there's anything I'm sorry for, it's for letting her go so easily.

"Tell me." I look at her, but she's already looking at me. "Tell me that you feel nothing for me. Look me in the eye and say it. If I believe you, I'll leave you alone forever."

I wish I hadn't just said that.

Alura looks back outside at the snow. "I can't," she whispered so softly, I could hardly hear her. "What are we supposed to do, Harry? We are terrible for each other. We can't just kiss each other and forget our past. It's not okay."

I scoot up closer to her. "Why can't we?"

She turns back to me, making our faces inches apart. If I were acting on my impulse, I would kiss her right now. I'd shut her up and take her doubts away, but that's not how this works.

"Why can't we, Alura?" I repeated softly.

ALURA's POV

I'm not doing what I'm about to do for myself. It's for him. I need to shut him down, let him move on. I still don't fully trust him either. There are so many words that should never be repeated that have been said between us. We have too much history.

I look him straight in the eyes. "I don't feel anything for you, Harry."

Harry knows me better than anyone, despite hating each other for years, so he probably won't buy this.