Don't you see? (SAMANTHA BLACK)

[Harry Potter]

Harry was sitting in the bleachers at the Quidditch Pitch, his head in his hands as his breathing became more rugged and shattered. It was freezing in the cold, winter air but something about the pain of the weather made him stay glued to his seat. Rain drizzled softly around him as it was pushed and pulled by the growing wind; specks of water sat timidly on his glasses but Harry didn’t bother to wipe it off. Sitting silently, Harry’s breathing was the loudest noise, cutting across the silence like a sharp knife. Running his fingers harshly through his hair, Harry sighed deeply.

Emotions running rife in his body; Harry couldn’t decide what was worse—the fact that Ron and Hermione weren’t talking so he was left all alone, trying to run between his best friends or the fact he was completely head over heels with two different girls. Grunting to himself, Harry took his glasses off and wiped them clean on his school robes and looked into the distance. Despite being Ron’s little sister, which made her completely off limits, Harry was falling hard and fast for beautiful, fiery Ginny Weasley. To him, she was brave, fiercely loyal, independent and utterly gorgeous. She was smart and witty and everything he liked about girls. Thinking about her brought a jittery feeling to his stomach and for a moment, Harry thought he was going to sick but soon the feeling passed, replaced by energetic butterflies, crashing against his ribcage. He behaved like this even when he wasn’t in her presence, so when he was, the feeling becomes magnified to outrageous levels. He knew he shouldn’t like that about his best friend’s sister but he did and he couldn’t stop it—it wasn’t like turning off a light switch. And then there was, of course, Samantha Black.

A whole other story, Sam had been one of his closest friends since childhood—she had been the only ray of light in a horrific world where he lived alone in Privet Drive with the torturous Dursleys. She had been the one he would run to if he ever got the chance to leave the house and she was the one who had always been up for a game of hide-and-seek. Harry had been astonished when he’d met her on the train to Hogwarts and in another sense, he had been relieved; he was going to Hogwarts with his best friend. They were both sorted into Gryffindor and everything felt right—but Harry swayed towards being friends with Ron and Hermione and Sam had wandered, finding her own friends. However, ever year returning to Privet Drive, a unity had formed again between the two friends. Things had been different this year, though. Harry had been grounded and pretty much under house-arrest, which meant he hadn’t seen Sam much.

This had greatly affected their friendship because he knew he was getting feelings for her so he’d been avoiding her and whether he was imagining it or not, he thought Sam was avoiding him too.

Standing up, Harry was overpowered with emotion. He had to restrain himself from punching the wall—he couldn’t bear what was happening to him. He wanted to have an easy life but it seemed that whether he was fighting beasts, taking part in awful challenges, watching people die or having girl problems, Harry Potter could not have a simple life. For that, he resented Voldemort even more—sometimes it even stretched to hating Dumbledore; the man didn’t seem to understand the amount of pressure he sometimes put on Harry—nobody seemed to realise that Harry wasn’t a fully trained wizard. He couldn’t even Apparate yet. Looking up at the darkening sky, Harry sunk back into his seat and thought about Sirius; how much he would love to write to him and tell him what’s going on in his life. Sirius had been there, always, for any little problem that Harry experienced and with him gone, Harry felt somewhat lost.

That topic brought him back to Sam. Sirius had been her father and now he was dead, pretty much due to Harry. Mentally he scolded himself for being so selfish as to think he was the only person to experience pain and loss from Sirius’ death. A stinging pain came to his eyes but Harry quickly repressed the feeling and swallowed back tears—he wasn’t going to cry over spilt potion.

As he looked up, Harry saw a figure walking down towards the bleachers. A figure that very much looked like Samantha Black.

[Samantha Black]

As she made her way towards the frozen Quidditch pitch, Samantha tried to clear her mind, obliterating all her swirling sombre thoughts. The daylight’s weather was unsettlingly raw, with a brutally cold rain and a blanket of thick, wet snow coating the ground, slowing down her pace. Yet none of it seemed capable of making her ignore the upsetting pain that had developed in her chest after her father’s decease. The outside weather matched perfectly well the way she was feeling inside, and that only had for effect to amplify her morosity. Digging her free hand inside the left pocket of her warmest school robe, she pulled out a knitted hat, which she stuffed carelessly on her head, rather nervous about the fact that the biting conditions may cause her ears to freeze and fall off her head.

Her thoughts shifted back to the previous night, when in a total moment of panic, she had woken up in the dead of night, and taken out the letters she had received merely months ago, announcing her father’s death. The nicest one was from Remus Lupin, her godfather, telling her she was welcome in his home at any possible time. Lupin hadn’t expected her to cope as well as she seemingly did with the news, yet it was only on the outside that she looked relaxed and calm. The inside of her which had used to be a burning fire,was now nothing but ashes. That letter was the kindest one she had received, yet also the one that had brought her closest to tears, which would seem hard to believe for anyone close to the girl knew that Samantha Black never cried. The effect hadn’t lasted quite a while, though, for the following note was most disturbing, its sender being the Minister of Magic himself, stating that ‘Justice had been done’ and that ‘Sirius Black deserved far worse than death’. Samantha had kept that very letter, although what seemed most suggestive was to burn it, in reminder never to trust the Ministry, for they were all fools if they hadn’t realized how they falsely had attributed the blame onto an innocent man, for what resembled most an uncommitted crime.

Samantha’s feminine fingers casually stroked the polished oak wood handle of her broomstick, which she carried effortlessly, her being ideally strong thanks to the many years she had spent in Privet Drive as a slave for her supposedly caring uncle. She stepped onto the frosted Pitch, and her gaze moved instantaneously towards the body sitting on the wooden bleachers, recognizing the impossible-to-tame ebony hair she had so frequently tried to flatten, immediately identifying the person as Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, or however you might want to call the boy who had once been Samantha’s best friend and the one whom her heart was reluctantly faithful to. Sam didn’t exactly know what brought her to crush so hard and definely on Harry. It might’ve been the fact that his courage was boundless, or the fact that he never gave up hope. Or maybe it was because they were alike, in so many different ways. Yet the attraction she held towards him didn’t seem to be reciprocated by the boy who, to Sam’s disappointment, appeared to be infatuated with the winsome and fearless Ginny Weasley.

Harry and Sam, who had once been inseparable, scarcely even spoke anymore. They usually would spend the summer together, which made the months in the Muggle world less difficult for both of them, yet for some unknown reason, it had felt as though the boy refused to go outside, and she was forced to spend two entire months with Dudley Dursley, who carried an exasperating fancy for the girl. The return to Hogwarts was even more difficult, for the girl. While bearing the death of her father and the idea that both her parents were dead, and that she was currently alone, she had to face the fact that Harry utterly ignored her, acting infuriatingly secretive with his new two best friends Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger.
Samantha then knew what it felt like to be alone in the world.

Weeks later, though, her sorrow turned into anger. How he could possibly have the nerve to turn his back on her, especially at this very turn of her life, she did not know. So it wasn’t with particular surprise that after a glance at the boy, and after acknowledging his presence in the Quidditch Pitch, she looked away, and continued walking in the opposite direction in which he was sitting, not going to change her mind on the her late-afternoon practice, even if it came to be the end of the world.

And for the first time, she tried as hard as she could to forget he was there.


(OMG, Ames, you don't know how BAD I love you, right now!)