- clenching - it hurt but i ignore it.

he's acting different, isn't he? i hear malfoy whisper, he thinks himself discrete but he's never been able to manage.

i know, he's more quiet - i'd like to permanently silence eleanor rosier but alas her blood is needed.

he's always quiet.

and he can hear you, my calm disposition heads fast as i look up from my essay. their eyes turn to marble as well as their statures.

rosier frowns - gives me that i'm so sorry look - is it that berkley girl? i know you two were close, but tom... she was a mudblood, wasn't she?

you would've laughed at that statement - close - you knew better.

define close, please? i stare at her, resolute and daunting - the ink pouring out.

she retreats into herself - well you two spent an awful lot of time together, i just thought... well the school thought-

i was her tutor, nothing more nothing less. mind your tongue, miss rosier. you don't want the wrong people to see it wagging.

my book snaps shut - screaming - rosier looks as if she might cry - i hold back the sinister grin that threatens to arise from the notion.

malfoy is quiet - keeping to himself - like usual. he learnt his lesson long ago.

departing from the great hall - the taps of my shoes click along the stones in a pattern of one - two - one - two - one - three - four.

you're walking next to me.

i grip the spine tighter - pretending it was yours. if only i could've had more time to rip out your pages.

tutor? really, that's the best you could manage?

i don't want to talk to you - i technically was, if you look at it from another perspective.

if i recall it correctly, i was the one teaching you.

i'd hardly call what you were doing as teaching.

you wound me, thomas.

my iris' slate to the side in a darkening glare but you just grin.

i've no effect on you anymore - what's the point?

my place on this lonely rock is to bend and warp those around me - this is my reality - you aren't adhering to my code.

oh look at that, you muse, you're angry.

you can read me now - like one of your silly little books - i hate it.

the death i gave you provided you with an extra card in your deck - diana, you're cheating.

warm wind blows between us but i can't feel it - you make the air stale - bitter - biting - cold.

stuck in the middle ground of life and hereafter.

you're giving me a taste of what demise will be like - thank you for informing me to avoid it at all cost.

you walk in front of me then - float i should say - halting me because i don't want to go through you.

you stare - throat bending - bruises still collected and they'll remain there forever more.

what is it? my voice came out lower than expected - the waves making your form ripple.

this isn't real death.

my brow furrows, what do you mean?

i lied, you whisper, i don't know more about death than you.

my mouth opens - closes - you continue.

i don't, this - you gesture to yourself - isn't death. not really, i'm still in the world of the living so how would i know?

you're still dead.

you huff through your nose - a sign you're frustrated - i try not to smile.

you don't listen. you never listen.

you never voice yourself correctly, it looked like you wanted to punch me.

you don't understand, do you? you never will. i don't know about death tom, i only know about dying.

are they not the same?

you look sad now, diana. properly so, the kind that weighs one down - feet dragging - burdens on the shoulders - eyes hallow - the ink in your eyes is gone.

no, they're not.