Dear Bright Eyes| Colin Creevey

twenty- four| rip

"I hated you, you know."

Vi whispered against the warm, soft skin of Colin's neck. Her lips were a hair's breadth from his pulse, she felt it's throbs in the air between them. It was tanned, almost golden, from standing in the sun too long. So different from hers.

"Really? I was trying my hardest to make you like me."

Colin ended the embrace to look down on her face. His cheeks are sticky with tears but his smile was wide and bright even in the gloom of the shed.

And Vi doesn't know how to hold herself down or think of reasons, all the reasons, as to not to kiss Colin Creevey right here in the dark. She bit at her tongue, unsure of the unfamiliar feeling blossoming in her chest. It was like small sparks, glowing but not burning. Pleasant but alarming.

Colin wiped his face with the collar of his shirt, eyes and hair peeking, nose and mouth hidden as he cleared away the remnants of the tragic story from his skin. The skin that Vi was only so ever eager to touch. "But why?" His voice muffled by the thin fabric.

"Because you're too easy to love."

He opened his mouth perhaps to contradict or to laugh but Vi spoke first. "I hated that there are people in this world like you and I'm not one. Why is that?"

Her breaths were lead against her lungs. "Maybe I was dealt the wrong set of cards, is that it?"

"Would you like to tell me all about it, Vi? Because I want to know more about you. I want to know all about you."

Vi bit her lip and looked down. Just how much is she willing to lose? Just how much does she have left? She has nothing. Nothing except maybe...

Colin peered from her lap, trying to make eye contact with her. "We can always pretend like we are drinking tea in a summer parlor with jam and crumpets. What do you say, Vi?"

"I'm a monster."

The word was ugly against her raw lips.

"A bastard. A killer. A traitor."

Colin was silent.

"Everyone who tried to help me ended up dead either by my hands or by my friends' hands. I helped Voldemort spread fear, when they started hunting muggleborns for sport I was there, when they started feasting on the dead boys and girls who were not able to board the train to Hogwarts I was there and now I was about to help another dictator start an army of vampires by letting him into Hogwarts."

"Did you?" Colin's voice was hard.

"No," it was a sob. "No, I didn't. I would never. But I'm so scared."

Vi's throat hurt, strained from keeping in the tears. If she let one tear spill she doesn't know if she will be able to stop.

"I did not drink the blood of the innocent for sustenance, I drank it for power and influence. I was ruthless. Selfish. I didn't deserve to eat in the same table, sleep in the same room, write in the same desk, breathe in the same—"

"Breathe in the same—"

"Breathe in the same—"

She can't finish the sentence as the floodgates have opened and she can't stop crying. Colin wasn't there anymore and it was just her again and the dark. The dark, the cold and the pain. Alone.

No matter how hard she pressed her hands against her eyes the tears didn't stop and no matter how hard she wished that she would just disappear with every beating break of her heart, she didn't and time continued in its monotonous flow.