For Those Who Yearn

 

 

V

The wind rifles through his hair as he escapes through the window, tucking the broomstick between his knees. The night is unforgiving. Its harsh cold shakes his bones and freezes the air as he inhales. Pulling the hood of his cloak around himself tighter, he casts the Disillusionment Charm wordlessly as he flies away from The Burrow and is sucked into the darkness. Don’t look back, the reasonable side of him whispers through the air, shivers clamber along the grooves of his spine, grasp his ribcage and he can’t help it.

 

As if forced by the Imperius curse, his head whips around almost like he’s been pulled by a cord of wind to the window he shouldn’t have left open, the pale expanse of her back tinted blue, shaded by the sky. He can almost see the bitter air creeping towards her, slipping along the lines of her body, across her breast, her neck. The broomstick slows his speed and turns sideways; he knows that if he wakes her up, if her apple-burned cheeks flash in his direction, his stomach will plummet to earth and he won’t be able to keep travelling in the right direction.

 

You have to go, the voice says to him again, more quietly but with a heightened sense of urgency he can’t ignore. Tightening his hold on the broomstick, he pulls his wand out of the pocket of his jeans and points it at the window. “Propinquis.” The word winds out of his mouth desperately.

 

The shutters bang shut quickly, bouncing off the sill on impact and settling slowly with an audibly painful creak. He swallows his stomach, pushing it back down into his body, and disappears.

 

I

“Why are you here?” the question falls between them like a brick. She winces. Don’t leave. She doesn’t want things to be like this now. He doesn’t deserve cruelty, not from her.

 

“I don’t know,” he says, standing awkwardly by her window, his Firebolt grasped tightly, knuckles blue with effort. “I’m sorry…” Voice trailing off, he shakes his head and turns to leave. The shutters creak under the weight of his hand and a draft immediately sneaks between the cracks and flutters around her hair. 

 

“I didn’t mean it like that.” She tries to keep the desperation from creeping into her voice. Her breath comes in bursts; she strides over to the window sill purposefully and hesitates.

 

“I wanted to see you,” he breathes, taking a hand away from the shutters and turning to face her. “I needed…”

 

She covers his mouth with hers, silencing him. She knows what he needs.

 

II

 

She lies on her naked stomach, elbow tucked under her cheeks, fired like she’s been standing by a furnace. Her other arm holds him, fingers dawdling up and down the slopes of his cheekbone and cradling the curve of his jaw in her fingertips. He grasps her hand tightly and brings it to his lips, kissing each languidly.

 

“What was it like, being a Muggle?” she asks in a whisper, afraid that questions about the present will intrude upon the world they’ve constructed in the past hour and morph it into the world that kept them apart. He has only come back to her for a brief moment in time: when the sun turns the horizon purple he won’t be lying next to her any more.

 

“I wasn’t a very good one,” he replies with a little smile and a small chuckle. “I never got to go to the cinema or the shopping centres but I did go to the zoo once.”

 

“What’s the zoo?” She’s never heard of one before.

 

With a smile, he reaches a hand behind her neck, trailing fingers along the base of her spine. “I’ll take you sometime.” He rolls onto his back, pulling her close so she sprawls across his chest. His fingers run through her hair and she can’t help hugging his warm chest tightly, thinking in the back of her head that just maybe if she holds tight enough, he’ll forgot that when he leaves the room the weight of the world will clamber back onto his shoulders, that he’ll forget he is supposed to play the hero and stay. That he’ll stay.

 

III

 

He leans down and kisses her neck, feeling like his heart is broken open, leaking out of his body. He wants to tell her everything that’s pouring out, that when he sniffed Amortentia she was hidden inside the fumes, that he thinks of her always, that he wishes he could spend every lunch hour by the lake as they used too.

 

“My mum had red hair,” he whispers into her ear.

 

“Hagrid showed me a picture once.” She reaches for his hand, entwining their fingers slowly. “When I was in fourth year and still had that silly crush on you. He said, ‘The Potter men are suckers for redheads, Ginny, don’t worry. He’ll figure it out soon enough.’” Her voice rumbles in a low, gravelling register; she giggles at her own impression.

 

“I love you.” He doesn’t know how the words escape from his lips, but they shoot out. The silence sudden silence befalling them causes him to shift uncomfortably.

 

“I know,” she replies after a beat and sits up, allowing the blanket to slip away. She places two hands on his bare shoulder and kisses his collarbone lightly. “I love you.”

 

His lips find the inside of her wrist and he pulls her to him, cradling her body against his own. “If I could, I would never leave this room.”

 

“I will always be here.”

 

 

IV

She wakes up alone.

 

This was coming and she knew it, yet the realization hits her at an agonizingly slow pace. Lonely hands trail over the empty sheets next to her as empty eyes stray to the place against her bureau where the broomstick leaned. She buries her face in the pillow, blinking against the burning behind her eyelids and trickling wetness on her cheeks.

 

All she can do now is wonder what he is doing, why Dumbledore sent Harry and Hermione and Ron on a mission so important, so dangerous, that is has kept them away for so many months. Once again, she is kept out of it. She doesn’t want to be: she wants to be on the road with him, fighting next to him. Yet somehow, she knows where she doesn’t belong.

 

After last night, she thinks it’s possible that if she left him now—if she fought or died or got lost or taken, if she lost her memory or was driven insane—he might just fall apart with her.

 

“I love you.”

 

The words hit her like ice. Even though he has the weight of the world on his shoulders, she has the weight of Harry Potter on hers and right now, it feels like he’s just a little bit heavier.

 

 

 

 

 

A/N I did invent the spell Propinquis, which is a freestyle on one of the Latin words for close.

 

I would like to especially thank Gwynne for the careful edits. Her attention to my pronoun troubles is unparalleled. She is an amazing beta. She does great work.

 

Hehe.

 

Oh the cheek on me!

 

But seriously, thanks so much!