The feeling of having something so close yet so far. The one of longing for something that is right in front of your eyes and almost within your grasp, yet the effort of reaching for it seems unending. A feeling that Silas and you knew all too well, one you had become accustomed to since that night in your 5th year, after half a decade of being friends when you finally realized your relationship did not end at the bounds of platonic love.

The constant lingering reminder of how you could never have the thing you oh so wanted. His parents, deranged about blood purity, willing to go as far as making their children marry their literal cousins just for the sake of the bloodline, and yours, well-known ‘blood-traitors’, who could not bear the discrimination towards those whose ancestry did not solely belong to the world of magic.

The war between these two sides was already bad as it is, causing an interfamily dispute was most definitely the last thing any of you needed. Sure, Silas had run away from the house that had never been home, but the strings that attached him to his family were hard ones to break.

As if that wasn't enough, you both were part of the marauders. Friend group dynamics are already fragile as it is. Adding a romantic entanglement between two of the members would only add pressure to the easily shattered glass.

So the pair of you would have to conform with stealing glances and smiles every now and then, a slight crack for the mutual affection to escape through your eyes ever so often.

Like in your current situation, sitting in the common room, chatting with your respective friends, sat in front of one another, silence as the mutual understanding of a love that would never bloom the way it should.

Maybe, in a world of poets and writers, this would be beautifully tragic.