Haunted

21 | flimsy heart

When Hazel approached the training room door, she did so with bated breath and a ferociously beating heart. And when she managed to gather the courage to prod it open, her palm flat against the smooth wood grain, she was just as unsurprised as she was shocked to find the room empty. She stood there in the doorway for a moment, inspecting. No Malfoy by the chest of wands. No Malfoy pacing along the back wall. No Malfoy sitting in the center of the floor in his usual position. No Malfoy at all.

She heaved a great sigh and entered the room, sitting with her back against the mirrored wall, her legs stretched out in front of her. She tapped her sneakers on the ground, waiting. And she waited, and waited, and waited.

After ten minutes, it was clear he wasn't coming. Part of her hadn't expected him to. The other part of her knew intrinsically he wouldn't. But all of her hoped he would.

She picked herself up off the ground, casting a glance at herself in the mirror before she turned to leave. She looked herself over; this pitiful girl waiting for a man who was not coming. She hated herself a little for how badly she hoped he'd appear behind her. How she'd see the training room door open in the reflection and she'd whip her head around to see him striding through the entrance, full of apologies for his tardiness.

Only it was her who needed to apologize.

She'd crossed a line. Granted, it had never been explicitly drawn, but that was no excuse. She'd pushed and pushed, well beyond the point where he was obviously uncomfortable, hoping to shatter the wall that he'd erected to distance himself from her. To distance his feelings from her view. In the end, she'd shattered something else. His trust in her? His willingness to be around her, to train her? His respect for her? She wasn't sure which of the options was the truth, but her guilt ate away at her all the same.

It was an uncomfortable feeling. The guilt nauseated her, like she'd eaten something rotten. It was true that the rotten thing was inside of her... but it wasn't food.

She wished for some way to go back in time, to reverse what she'd done. But taking it back wasn't possible. The only way to salvage what had broken was to attempt its repair.

Apologizing.

The issue? She couldn't apologize to Malfoy if he was never in her vicinity for long enough for her to get the chance. They'd had a healing lesson with Pansy that day, who she couldn't stop eyeing for multiple reasons.

One: Pansy was beautiful. Hazel wasn't bisexual but she also wasn't blind. But this was not important.

Two: She couldn't stop imagining Malfoy and Pansy together. Like that. Had he kissed her the way he'd kissed Hazel in her dream? Had he touched her? Had Pansy's hands, the hands that she used to demonstrate a basic healing spell, touched him? Hazel felt ill at the thought.

And three: In the hours since she'd offended Malfoy, had he found time to bring up her question about mental illness healing to Pansy? Was he even still planning on doing such a thing now that she'd damaged what was between them? (What was between them?) Had he left the training room and gone immediately to Pansy's bed? Told her all about what had happened? Was every glance of Pansy's in Hazel's direction filled with more meaning than she let on?

Yet again, she had trouble focusing. There were too many questions swirling around in her mind for her to think straight. Thankfully, with her skill at healing, this preoccupation only resulted in an average performance as opposed to her usual extraordinary work. Even with her head far in the stratosphere, she was still more competent than Buck. (Poor Buck.)

She'd hoped to corner Malfoy during a mealtime, but he only showed up for one, and even that visit was short. He didn't glance in her direction, just piling a plate high with steak and potatoes and then exiting the room with a speed she couldn't hope to keep up with.