Murphy's Law
By Alba

RATING: PG-13

FANDOM: Harry Potter

SPOILERS: None.

SUMMARY: Slash (James Potter / Lucius Malfoy). Don't see this one very often, do ya?

DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

DEDICATION: Kris, as always for her drive-by-beta.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Written for the contrelamontre challenge to write: Write a story that conveys a strong sense of jealousy, without using the word as such (or one that belongs to the same word family). Other forbidden words are envy and the likes.... Written in about 25 minutes.

*****

Murphy's Law

I thought this year couldn't get any worse.

I saw them this morning in the Great Hall and I felt an ache deep in my chest. They're the most unlikely couple in the whole damn school, and somehow... Slytherin and Gryffindor. They're mismatched in so many ways, but...

They were so beautiful together. I know it's corny and not exactly man-like to think so, but they were. The way his green eyes lit up when he spotted his boyfriend across the room. The way his boyfriend smiled, corners of his own eyes - gray-blue this time - crinkling with pleasure.

And they way they looked at each other... it hurt so much to see the love in those matching smiles that it took my breath away. What do I need breath for? I think I gave mine to him the very first time I laid eyes on him, and he, ever clueless, never gave it back.

He doesn't know. He doesn't know that I love him, that I would give anything to have it be me he smiles at like that. He's never realized what the very sight of him does to me when I see him in the hallways between classes. He doesn't have a clue what he does to me just by *being*.

And now he never will. The one thing I wanted above all others has become the one thing I will never have.

I watched them. How could I not? I even smiled when my housemates talked to me and joked with me like nothing is wrong? What does it matter how fake the smile was? He's happy. What else matters in his little world?

I just wish, despite everything, he would have seen me standing there.

/END