As I See You, Or Scars As Windows to the Past, a harry potter fanfic | FanFiction Her fingers traced against the curve of my prominent collarbones, a fire so hot it felt cold branding my skin with the fierceness of her affection, but even this could not compare to the touch of her delicate, mercurial eyes. Eyes that looked at me with the pain of a lance through the heart, that made me feel alive In a way only death could.
''You are so beautiful," she whispered, and rage bubbled on the already boiling terrain of my heart, for how could such a vision of perfect beauty ever find in me nothing but disgust, how could eyes so familiar with the perfection of polished marble ever see beauty in the derelict walls of a building charred by hateful fire. How could the divine silk of her softness delight in the splinters that constituted me.
How could her pride stand in the face of such indelible proof of failure and shame?
My eyes must have hardened with my thoughts, for her fiery finger jumped in a twinkle to my tight lips, silencing words unspoken, clearing my mind away from anything but divinity. Her eyes changed colour faster than ever had I seen them, and I could no longer fool myself in tricks of light, she was not merely divine in look, but in substance, and I felt offended on her behalf, for such an avatar of purity to mar herself, even if only the tip of her finger, with not only the mud of mortality, but that of mine, that carried death on my wake from birth.
My body a warning for anyone foolish enough to try and get close to me.
Her eyes shifted to the testimony of my shame, the carvings on the perishable and putrid wood that made me, and I closed my eyes, the pain of her hardening face already too much in my mind for me to risk looking at it directly.
I should let her destroy me finally, so that, maybe, my redemption could come in the wake of it, even if I knew that the pieces that she tore from me would never be able to fit together ever again, jagged edges ripped by painful hope.
I could feel the burning traces of her over me, but I was not strong enough to gather if it was her touch or her unrelenting, judging gaze. The heat of it made the difference between us clear, and my very essence curled in shame and pain, for how could I have pretended to be something more than I was to garner the burning gaze of a being that I adored, knowing that my very presence was an affront to everything she was. Everything she embodied.
Deceiver. Liar. Seducer.
The familiar, hateful voice of my aunt invaded my mind, bending my spine with each imagined word, but then I could not help but laugh as the last one was uttered. Seducer, she said, as if I could ever manage. I was the moth snared by the light of the moon, pretending such light was a lamp, so that my presence was justified.
But when the lamp shade was lifted there was no doubt. Encased in delicate, ornate metal, the true beauty laid in the light inside, the lamp a mere container for glory even brighter than the hands of any man could compose, her nature wild and changing, bright and unshapable. Free and holding power that could not be made to obey.
And yet it complied with me.
But as the fire of her sketched over ripped canvas, painting a picture that I could never be, and despairing at the comparison between what she had thought of me, and the despicable reality in front of her. I supposed for her it would be hard to understand the nature of people that was nothing like her, whose substance itself was so far from mundane that words lacked in my inadequate tongue to even utter the roughest painting of.
I felt scorched, boiled to the point of melting, unshapen, all but for the parts of me that carried the mark of what I was. The line on my arm that denoted carelessness, and the bump on the other that showed lack of thought. The spots on my hands that denoted gracelessness. The sores on my fingertips that showed selfishness. The mark on my soul that showed death prowling in my shadows. Her sight saw all my mistakes on the scars they had left, but worst of all, I could feel her touch, her sight, on the wounds that were not visible to anyone but me.
As her flames burned over the empty, selfish part of my soul that endangered time and time again everyone around me, and the thought struck me with such strength that my lungs hurt.
'Flesh of a- a follower.'
Not even under the blaze of her truth scavenging gaze could I utter the word servant, even if it was how I had treated all of those that had suffered for me.
For the slim hope of a desire fulfilled; the hole that was haphazardly filled by the shredded pieces of the soul that had died for my continued desire of a life I was not worthy of, the ripped, flayed pieces where the life of him, of another one that dared love such an accursed being as me laid, a smile on the face that was snuffed because of my cowardice and egocentrism. Meaningless.
Sirius deserved so much more than being the bandages over my life, the balm over wounds lesser than his own.
I felt tears on my eyes as the pain another had endured when I should have instead was laid on the burning cone of her holy sight, where the ravings of a dying man far kinder and worthier than I could ever be extended yet again the curse that was the master of death's presence in this suffering world.
Dumbledore should not have had to lay his life for my own to endure, not when my own was so much lesser than his own.
My shame consumed me as judgement surely came upon the centre of me. The point on my chest that screamed of my terrible hubris. To be so self-serving as to scorn the embrace of fair death, to reject the just arms of Thanatos for a chance at something I did not deserve while uncaring of the cost.
I should not have come back to carry my pain to her life, to make her try and mend a broken soul.
I had felt pain in my life, but never had I felt such a thing. I was not dead from it on the spot only because death surely knew not to show his face in the presence of such luminescence, not regarding the indelible shadow of my presence.
No shadow could ever touch her.
Her finger pushed my jaw up, making my eyes level with her, a single whisper opened the doors to my pain.
"Mon Coeur."
A waft of cinnamon brushed me, and I was hers.
My heart broke when I saw her. Kaleidoscope eyes shining in the way I had fallen for, hair floating around her with a wind that did not touch anyone else, pale skin that glowed pearlescent, blinding, painful.
But not more painful than how she looked at me, with a face so full of compassion and care that it was all I could not to scream.
"I can feel you," she said, "I can feel you 'ere," she touched her chest, and then mine, "And I can feel you 'ere," she touched her forehead, and then leaned forwards until I felt her lips brush my forehead, my temples, my nose, my lips. "I can feel you, 'Arry, I know what you feel, I know what you think. I see it in your eyes, in your face, in your mind.'
Her lips came down upon mine again, honeyed, warm, soft, delicate and lethanous.
I lost track of time, I existed nowhere, and I would not have been aware of anything else where not for her roaming fingers, and how they found every little scar, every little spot, and with her careful touch I recalled every single moment of shame and pain in my life, every little failure.
The memories were muted by her heavenly kisses, her soft caress, her intoxicating warmth, her tantalizing warmth.
"I can feel you," She whispered, her body shifting closer until I could not remember the cold of the world, "I can feel you, and I will not stop until you can see what I feel when I look at you. You are beautiful."
"But Fleur, I- my sca-"
She kissed me again and we fell into the bed, my back against a soft mattress that felt uncomfortable when compared to her atop me.
"I 'ave enough beauty for the two of us mon coeur." She lifted herself, letting her hands run from my shoulders to my hips. "Every little scar I feel, every little imperfection… You are beautiful in a way I'll never be. People will see us together and not see you, but that will be their loss. And in a way, I am glad."
Her smile was sad as she looked at me, a finger circling a branched, charred scar on my chest, testament of the impossible, of surviving once more.
"I do not want anyone else to see you as I do, but at the same time I want everyone to know you as you are, to know 'ow much you are worth."
She leant down again and kissed me. My hands went to her naked back and caressed her, trembling, inadequate.
"I'm selfish."
And I could not tell if it was her to speak or me, I could not care for anything but the comfort of her hands on mine, of hers on me. I could not even tell which were her own and which were mine.
I cried as we met, I cried tears of pain, of joy, of triumph and of shame.
I will not stop until you see yourself as I do, I will not stop until you love yourself as I love you, she said back to me.