Disclaimer: I own nothing associated with Harry Potter. Except for my own torrid fantasies, of course.

A/N: This is dedicated to Alex Dobbins. I don't know why, but I feel as if, through writing this, it has helped me get over you.

Just in Passing

She glances up as he passes and almost pauses – almost.

She blinks and moves on, shoving her thoughts aside.

It’s always like this. She knows the exact time and place that she passes him – after Transfiguration on the 3rd floor on Thursdays.

She doesn’t know why she remembers this fact. She just does.

It began a week or two after school started. One day she saw him in the hall, just like usual. But for some reason, on this particular day, she actually looked.

It was nothing special, really. He was walking with some people from his house… not really talking with them, just walking. And in passing – for just a split second – she caught his eyes.

She remembers feeling a slight twinge in her stomach – she wondered about it for a while, but by the next day, it was pushed out of her mind and forgotten.

It was a bit of a shock to her that next Thursday after Transfiguration on the 3rd floor to feel an unexpected jump in her stomach when she caught sight of him…

Now every Thursday, almost on instinct, when she knows he is near, she looks up – and really looks.

Sometimes his eyes pass over her entirely… yet other times, for a brief moment, he looks – and really looks – back.

Gray meets brown. Her world stills. And in that stillness, she doesn’t think. She doesn’t have to. Because in a moment, she’ll move on – after all, it is just in passing.