Harry Potter YOU SHOULD'VE KNOWN

Title: YOU SHOULD'VE KNOWN

Summary: When's your start and when's your end? DominiqueLysander

Author's Note: WHAT IS THIS I'M SUPPOSED TO BE WRITING MY COLLEGE ESSAY AND THIS FUCKING - Summary comes from O.A.V.I.P by the Maccabees.

/

Potions class, he's staring at the lines on her palms.

/

Always muddy, her eyes are. He notices this because she squints them in the sunlight when he's staring at her and the tree's leaves are blocking him from view. He notices this because she's got Nargles in her hair that he doesn't want to see.

He crushes berries between his fingers and paints her likeness in the bark of the trees. When she finds one, one hot Saturday, the juice has turned sour and her eyes open up so wide he can see the fertile soil that Egypt was born upon.

Lysander knows the first civilizations were not drawn to favorable agricultural locations, but rather, the way the women would dig their toes into the hot, smelly earth.

She rubs the juice into the bark and sticks her finger into her mouth. She looks disappointed after opening her eyes, spits into the remaining portrait. Lysander waits and then watches her face melt.

/

Divination class, he's staring at the lines on her palms.

/

Knees knocking when she's nervous, fingers crunched around the handle of the broomstick. Bullied into it by her cousins, people she doesn't detest, people she loves out of familial pride. Lysander knows a thing or two about familial pride. He doesn't know how it feels, but he knows many creatures have it.

She gets knocked off her broom by a Beater, breaks three ribs. She gets carried to the Hospital Wing. Her cousins flock around her. James bites his knuckles. Rose's eyes are red rimmed. Louis looks faint. They should've known. He knew.

He sends her a crystal ball. When he wakes up in the morning, there's a pile of glass by his bed.

/

She starts to wear long sleeve shirts to classes, pulling the sleeves over her hands.

/

Mouth taut, wrinkled forehead. Her grasp bruises him. She's wearing gloves, by this point.

"Tell me what you know," she demands, pushing him into the alcove of the hallway. The curtains get caught on her robes. They match her eyes – muddy blue. Her front teeth have a sliver of a gap between them. He's never been so close – never pushed past the tree's leaves – to see that.

She pulls off her gloves. He turns his head away. The leather would be soft on his skin, if she kept them on.

"I know what you are," she spits into his cheek. He decides not to wipe it from his face. "I know you know."

He twists to look at her. His spine cracks. Parts in her eyes soften. She knows now too.

"I'm sorry," he says. His voice comes out softer than he was expecting – velvet like. Her mouth fills with saliva.

"_No_."

He runs away.

/

She starts to keep her palms face up during classes.

/

She pushes him into the stone wall. Her whole body vibrates, her knees are quivering – but her eyes get clear and her mouth loosens and her palms are against his cheeks.

"No," she's muttering. "_No_."

He takes both her hands off his cheeks and into his own, careful to only touch the outsides.

"You have to be wrong this time," she says, shaking. "I know – I KNOW – but – you've been wrong before, right?"

She presses her mouth against his to block the answer. He can taste the berries in her mouth – sweet. His mouth feels sour by the time she pulls away.

She leans her forehead against his. Part of him wants to turn away, wants to stop being Lysander with the dark eyes and bright flash of hair. Her eyes are muddy when she turns them upward, squinting.

"Who are you?" she mummers – too close, too close. He can practically still feel her lips upon his.

"I – I'm."

"_You are_," she says, tears bubbling in her eyes. She leans her head against his chest now, fingers about his throat. "It's so faint."

"I'm sorry," he says, quietly. "I'm so so sorry."

"Why are you putting it off?"

He wasn't expecting this. He wasn't expecting her to be so beautiful. I'M SORRY, YOU'RE SO BEAUTIFUL. And bright. And muddy. And full of life. Made of bones that break and berries and temporary matter and fertile soil that made the most ancient civilizations thrive.

"It's always hard," he says, and feels like a coward.

"But you have to do it. It's your _job_. Occupation? Hobby?" Her words start to verge on frantic. Her mouth moves too fast.

He closes his eyes.

"How many?" she demands. "How many more like me?"

"I can't stop it," he says. This is the truest thing he's said to a girl like her. "I can't not."

She flashes her palms at him and he almost throws up.

"Do it," she begs. "I'VE ALWAYS KNOWN."

He kisses her. Berries on her tongue. They'll always be on her tongue – on every tongue of every girl like her and even the ones who differ. Sweet and then so sour he almost weeps.

"You have to do it," she says into his mouth. "You have to. It's what you were meant to do. Please."

"I love you," he says, quietly. "I love you so much."

"I'm sorry," she says, and this is when he grazes his fingers across the short lines on her palms.

/

Across the cafe, he watches the girl take a swig of her coffee. He can just barely see the map across her palms.

He wears gloves, by this point. Leather feels good on his skin and when he unwraps his wicked hands in the alleyway outside, he can almost hear the echo of a girl he had once loved.

/

Blonde hair across his own palms, bare of lines, "YOU SHOULD'VE KNOWN."

His heartbeat – faint, like she said – stays steady.


End file.

Harry Potter