drvconian

[drvconian]

New Year's Day

It’s still dark outside when you wake up, the stars twinkling in the night sky. The world is quiet, the streets lit up only by the streetlamps that line them. Leftover decorations and litter sprinkle the ground, alongside the mist that makes the grass sparkle underneath the moonlight.

You haven’t gotten out of bed yet. The air is cold, and your bed is warm. It invites you to settle back into it, but there’s a restlessness that keeps you awake. You have no want to sleep, and so you move and place your feet on the floor, wincing a little bit at how cold the ground is. The heater is usually on during the day, but you turn it off at night because Draco is used to sleeping in the cold. It gave you an incentive to use him for warmth, so you didn’t mind.

You slip your feet into your slippers and push yourself into a standing position. You turn to look down at Draco, still peacefully asleep in the bed. The sheets are dark and made of silk, which seemed like a ridiculous purchase to you whenever he insisted you buy them, but now you like them. You enjoyed sliding into bed and feeling the softness against your skin, plus your hair felt softer. Draco looked at ease whenever he slept, and that was the biggest benefit of it all. Maybe it reminded him of how he slept growing up – or he read about the benefits of them along the years. You did not know, and you did not care. It made him happy.

That was how you and Draco lived… You were more focused on trying to make life comfortable again. Life hadn’t felt normal since, and it most likely never would. It was a fact you spent the better part of the year trying to face. You had lost friends, and others had lost family. Draco had lost his sense of family: they weren’t dead, but it was close. His father was imprisoned, and there was a distance between Narcissa and Draco that hadn’t been there before. He wouldn’t speak on it, and you wouldn’t force him to. It was his choice. 

His blond hair was messed up, not slicked back like it usually was. He was curled up slightly, with his head resting on the inside of his arm. His mouth hung open slightly, and if you listened close enough, you could hear the small snores you had come to adore. You used to lie awake listening to them after the war… just to be sure he was still living. Softly, you reach out and brush his hair out of his face. He doesn’t stir.

After everything, he had trouble sleeping. He would randomly wake up through the night, shaking and pale. You’d hold him, talking to him quietly or humming some lullaby from years past. He once, in a whisper, confessed that your touch calmed something in him. You were a hand that couldn’t hurt. Some things still bled like open wounds. Others were barely starting to scab over. Though he always found a way of reminding you of how much you were helping. Even if he didn’t realize it, him trusting you enough to be vulnerable and not flinch from your hand was significant.

You retreat, quietly making your way out of your room after slipping your wand into your pocket. When the door is shut behind you, you’re met with the wreckage of the previous night. Glitter covers the floor, gold and black and silver. You sigh internally, already wanting to be back in the comfort of your bed. You did not want to deal with this mess so early.

You and Draco had the biggest place out of your friends, so the majority of celebrations were held at your flat. You were happy to host events and make food for them, but you also dreaded the next day: clean-up time. Since the celebration had run so late, you didn’t have any help on cleaning up. Having a dirty place stressed you out, so it really wasn’t a surprise that you were up early to clean it.

It was around 5 am on January 1st. Everyone had left a few hours earlier after the clock had struck midnight and kisses were exchanged between sweethearts, and prolonged hugs between friends. It was the first you and Draco had been able to share it together, and kissing him at midnight felt like a dream. Surrounded by your friends, and people you were still trying to connect with… the night had felt like pure bliss. You had all gone up to the roof and watched the fireworks, sharing drinks and talking.

There was a makeshift photo booth set up alongside one of the walls, with cheap Muggle decorations and too much glitter that you knew would drive you mad when you had to clean it up. Seeing your friends enjoy it made it all worth it, though. The photos that came out of it would be passed around for generations to come: the one after the war. A fresh start. A new year. That had been the purpose of the party, a good night to hopefully welcome in a good year.

The floor is a mess, covered in spilled drinks and glitter and other things you, if you were being honest, weren’t completely sure of the origin. A lot had happened during the night, with your friends getting drunk, loud music playing, people having to yell to hear one another. It was a great night, but now you had to clean up the evidence. That was the downside of being the host.

Everything was worth it, in the end. You hadn’t seen Draco smile so wide while surrounded by so many people in a long time: he hadn’t been able to see his friends for a while, so having an occasion where he could sit back, relax and drink while catching up had seemed to cheer him up despite all the worrying over the party he did in the first place. Hosting social events seemed like second nature to him from the start, but watching him host the actual event was something you could get used to. Draco has unlimited charisma, and while he wasn’t overly liked by the crowd, you felt like they at least could walk away from the party with a few compliments toward him. He constantly made sure the drinks and ice were refilled, and he encouraged the guests to not be stingy when it came to the snack table. He had splurged a little bit on the food, even though it wasn’t a full-course meal, and instead was finger food so people could eat while mingling.

You were one of the people that had drank the least out of your friends, having no intention of blacking out. Draco had limited his drinking too, though he had more than you did, which is why you let him sleep while you dealt with the mess. A few stragglers at the end of the night had tried to help and clean up a little, but you forced them to leave and closed the door on them – you weren’t going to make a guest clean up. That was something you and Draco could agree on.

Cleaning up the mess wouldn’t be too difficult, especially with the aid of magic that you were allowed to do on your own now that you were of age and graduated from Hogwarts. It would take a little while to scrub the glitter out of the carpets, as everything couldn’t be done with magic, but you could vanish the bulk of the trash.

You pull your wand out from your pocket, and begin making your way around the room, quietly whispering “evanesco” every now and then. You kept your footsteps light, and avoided anything on the floor that you might possibly slip or get stuck in. Everything had seemed so perfect a couple of hours ago, when there was still a buzz in your system and you were surrounded by people that made you happy… Now, it was sort of disgusting how much trash and mess was spread around your apartment.

Maybe it was a good thing Draco was asleep – he might have thrown a fit if he saw your apartment in this state.

You spend about thirty minutes just vanishing trash, and periodically stopping to scrub at something on a surface or on the floor. You get carried away when you find a stack of pictures your friends had taken, dressed in the Muggle decorations you had gotten from one of those party supply stores. They had been a big hit within your group, and had gotten plenty of use throughout the night… if the stains on them were any indication. You open a drawer and place the pictures in there so they don’t accidentally get thrown away or vanished, making a mental note to come back and look at them later.

It’s so quiet that, compared to earlier, it feels sort of wrong, like there’s meant to be some gigantic party happening inside of your apartment. You miss the company, the smells, the light, the noise. You remember standing by the door, barefoot and tired, swaying as you held the door open for the people leaving. The last to go had been your and Draco’s close friends. Begrudging goodbyes and a “we’ll see you soon, right?” whispered into your shoulder as you embraced. When you had closed the door after the final person left, you stood there and looked around at your flat: it was a mess, and the music was still playing, but it was quieter than before. Draco stood across from you, idling, staring at something on the wall, looking tired. His hair was sticking up in the back, assumedly from where he had run his hands through it and messed with the gel. His shoulders slumped forward slightly, and just like you, he was swaying. You both were, at least, tipsy and exhausted from everything you did that day.

You had spent the better part of the day decorating for the party, and making sure the catering was accounted for. You had spent hours hanging up streamers, putting up banners and decorations, and blowing up balloons. It had been fun, watching Draco try to wrap his head around how he wanted everything to look (you must have moved the “Happy New Year’s” banner about five times before he was happy with it). You were happy for his opinion in the end, as you thought everything looked perfect. Your guests seemed like they enjoyed it too, with various comments on the decor and the atmosphere. Draco was practically glowing while receiving all the praise.

After everyone had left, he grabbed your hand and led you to the bedroom, a small, yet tired smile on his face. The bed was made, the room smelled lovely (unlike the rest of your flat), and your pajamas were laid out already. You looked at him, wondering when he had made the time to do this while you had both been so busy. You melt as you watch him pick up his own pajamas and walk away to change into them: black and silver silk pajamas, his favorite, and oddly on theme. He had gotten you both matching silk pajamas, though yours were in your favorite colors. He had given them to you on Christmas, wrapped in a box, topped with a bow. You had hugged him tightly and changed into them immediately, spending the rest of Christmas in matching pajamas, cuddled together on your couch as you watched the snow fall past your windows.

It was still snowing, though it was harder to see due to the fact that it was dark outside. You put down the broom you had picked up somewhere along the way and make your way over to the window, mesmerized by its beauty. The streets were quiet, and sometimes a piece of confetti or a streamer would blow past, evidence of other celebrations that had happened alongside your own. You wondered if the street had always been this quiet, or if the intense music of your own party drowned out the noise of other celebrations. The music had been quite loud.

You place a hand against the glass and the cold is relaxing against your fingertips, despite the way it makes you wince when you first feel it. The inside of your flat is warm, though sometimes you can still feel the coldness from outside, particularly near the front door and the windows.

You’re pulled out of your reverie when you feel a presence by your side, the corners of your mouth lifting in pleasant surprise when you notice a familiar set of grey eyes. You turn to him immediately, “I hope I didn’t wake you.” Your voice is quiet, though not quiet enough to be counted as a whisper. Draco looks tired, his eyes still squinting slightly, but he smiles back at you.

“You missing from our bed did wake me up.” He looks out the window as well, watching the snow. “Cleaning could have waited for the morning.”

You nod at his words, following his eyes to the window. The world outside seemed to be asleep itself, quiet and dark. None of the other flats had their lights on. “Perhaps.”

“I cannot say I am surprised.” His smile is fond as he says this, and his hand raises to hold the one you have pressed to the window. “I knew what you were up to as soon as I woke up alone.”

“I didn’t want to-”

“You didn’t want to wake me up, I know.” He pries your fingers from the window so that you may intertwine yours, the warmth of his hand cancelling out the coldness of the window. “You must know I want to help you.”

“I do.” You turn completely to him, your intertwined fingers joining you together. Your smile is soft as you gaze at him: his hair is messed up, unruly and spiked up. There are bags under his eyes and his blinks are slow. He’s tired, yet he’s here, standing with you. “But I also know you need your beauty sleep.”

He rolls his eyes at that, his grip tightening slightly. “You need as much rest as you can get, too. It didn’t need to be cleaned the moment everyone stepped out of the place.” He looks back towards your bedroom, a sense of longing coming from him.

“Do you want to go back to bed?”

He doesn’t answer as he looks back at you, but he steps back. You step forward, being dragged along by his hand. You don’t resist, letting him drag you back to bed. You flick the light switch on your way out, the lights turning out and casting you both in darkness. The moon lights up the room as you step out of it, and back into the familiarity of your bedroom. The bed isn’t made, the blankets messed up from where Draco had gotten out of it. He stops when you’re both in front of the bed, and you shake your head slightly at him.

You are tired, you have to admit, you’d barely slept at all before you had gotten up to clean. The allure of Draco and your warm bed are tempting you, and it doesn’t take too long for you to give in. You let him lead you the rest of the way into bed.

You’re curled up into his side, with an arm slung lazily over him as you press a kiss into his cheek. This is how you spent most of your nights, intertwined and comforted. He kisses your forehead, running a hand up and down your back. The bed is warm and the sun hasn’t even begun to make its way into the sky. Everything is quiet, and as you settle in for the morning, you listen to Draco breathe.

“Can I tell you something?” He asks into the silence, and you move your head up to look at him.

You smile up at him, a bigger smile than you’re sure is warranted at around 6 am, and nod. “Anything,” you whisper, “anything you want, anytime.”

He’s quiet for a little while, and you begin to wonder if he’ll speak at all. You know he’s still awake because his hand is still stroking your back, but he makes no move to talk. You don’t push him, opting to embrace his warmth and his presence.

He takes a deep breath and that brings your attention back to him.

“I love you.”

Your heart stops, or maybe it stutters, in your chest. You’re suddenly wide awake, and you feel his hand stop moving. You push yourself up to look at him fully, your eyes wide as you look down at where he still lays. He’s looking right back at you, his eyes reflecting the moonlight that hits the back of your head. He looks beautiful like this, staring up at you as if you’re a diamond among the stars in the sky. You press down on his chest, right where his heart is. “I love you too.”

He sits up too, and his smile is radiant. His hand moves to hold your hand over his heart, and then he moves forward to kiss you. His other hand holds your face, and when you pull back, his eyes are almost closed, yet he’s still looking at you with apparent fondness. He repeats it.

“I love you.”

Word Count: 2939

[drvconian]

thank you so much <3

How You Get the Girl ...

“I just don’t know what I did.” Ron complains, leaning into the back of the couch in the Common Room, his eyes closed and his eyebrows pinched. It’s late, almost everyone else has gone to bed, which is why he speaks quietly to you: it makes you feel like you’re sharing a secret, which you technically are, but everything feels more special when it’s just Ron and you.

You like Hermione and Harry just fine, but when you all got together as a group, it always felt that he preferred them more, especially Hermione. You could understand why: she was smart and pretty, both things you envied about her. Your jealousy wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t seem like you caught Ron staring at her all the bloody time.

You shake your head, smiling softly over at him. “Girls are fragile, Ron. You can’t be as brutish as you are with your brothers or Harry.” You laugh quietly, “what kind of girl would take that as a compliment anyway?”

“I dunno.” He replies, rolling his eyes. “I would, though.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“Well, you gotta help me then.”

You widen your eyes at him, clearly taken aback at his request. “You want me to help you get with Hermione?”

Ron moves in closer, nodding his head slightly. “You have to. You’re one of my closest friends, I dunno who else to go to with this.”

Your heart beats hard in your chest, you have no idea how to feel. The sentiment is nice, that he trusts you enough to ask for your advice on how to impress the girl he fancies. On the other hand, it hurts to know that he even fancies another girl (even though you knew) and that he expects you to help him. You want to say no and try to convince him that Hermione and him would never work out, so you surprise yourself when… “okay, Ron. I’ll help you.”

...

A knock on your door drags you out of your reverie. You close the book in your lap and place it on the table beside you, and unfold your legs. They’re stiff from how long you’ve been sitting on your couch, and you wince slightly. You stand up and make your way over to the door, opening it slightly to peek at whoever it could be.

“Ron?”

He’s standing in your doorway, hunched over in his jacket. He’s soaking wet, his hair dripping onto his face and his jacket a shade darker than it’s supposed to be. He looks miserable standing there, but his face brightens when he sees you. “You answered.”

You nod before opening the door wider, “are you insane? Come inside before you catch a cold.”

He steps inside, brushing against you, and stands barely in the doorway. The water on his clothes drips down onto your floor, and you quickly close the door behind the two of you. You open up a closet close to the door and pull down a towel, handing it over to him so he can dry off. You watch him, the air between the two of you thickening.

“It’s been a long six months.” He begins, peeking out at you from beneath the towel that he’s drying his hair off with. You watch him, worrying your bottom lip. You don’t know what to say, you hadn’t seen him since your final, chaotic days at Hogwarts – even then, you hadn’t seen him for a long time before then. He hadn’t contacted you at all. He takes a deep breath. “I was too afraid to tell you what I wanted. I’ve always been too scared of that.”

...

“Tell her something cheesy like… I want you for worse or for better. It’ll help defuse the tension since she’s upset with you. It’s sort of cute, and it’ll help lead into you telling her you like her.”

He nods in a more attentive way than he ever had in class. Your stomach twists – you could sabotage this whole thing, yet you weren’t. Hermione was your friend just as much as Ron was your best friend. You weren’t cruel. You just happened to like Ron more than she probably did.

“And then maybe you can add in something like: I would wait forever. To show your dedication.”

“Dedication? I’m not looking to marry her!”

You roll your eyes. “That’s not what I meant! You’re just buttering her up, but you don’t have to say that if you don’t want to-”

“I’d only say that if I meant it.”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes again. How romantic. You feel a pang in your heart at that thought… at least he wanted to confess to Hermione.

“Okay, well, you hurt her, right? Admit that you did, and say that you want to fix it.”

...

“We were best friends, Ron. You could’ve told me anything, hell, you almost bloody did!” You cross your arms, conflicted on whether to laugh or be annoyed with him. “You told me way too much sometimes.”

He doesn’t smile or laugh the way he might’ve at the suggestive joke when he was younger. Something seems to settle within him, and he pulls the towel off of his head. He takes a slight step forward, and you feel the tension settle between the two of you. You rarely saw Ron this serious, though it seems to be a more permanent emotion during and after the war.

“I broke your heart.”

Everything around you stills. Your own heart stills. That was one truth you had kept to yourself throughout all those years, throughout all of his relationships. So many little fragments over the years had gathered until, just about half a year ago, it had finally shattered and he had walked away from you. Your chest feels tight as you wonder who could have told him.

“I want to put it back together.” He swallows, his words trembling just the slightest bit. “I know now that I will wait forever.”

...

You're sitting in the Great Hall as Ron eats lunch while you work on your homework. You’re focused on a particular list of ingredients for a potion when Ron speaks. “That stuff you told me worked, by the way. Thanks.”

“Oh. With Hermione? Good.” You force yourself to sound happy, even looking up to smile at Ron across the table.

“She forgave me, sort of. I don’t think she understood what I was really trying to say.”

You sigh, rolling up your parchment and setting it aside. You’d get back to it later. “You’re back to being just friends?”

He nods, “I couldn’t just outright tell her! She’d probably think I was joking or something.”

“You’re such an idiot.” You lean across the table so you can lower your voice. “You could bring up the ways you’ve subtly flirted with her. There’s that picture we took where you’re staring at her. You wouldn’t let her see it, remember? You could show it to her.” You settle back into your seat, reaching to unroll your parchment again.

“How do I explain why I didn’t just show her then?”

You pull your quill out of your ink, already returning to writing down another ingredient. “Tell her you lost your mind.”

...

You remember sitting on the Common Room couch, when one of those fragments joined the many others. When Ron first started fully showing interest in Hermione and you knew you had no chance with him. No, Ronald Weasley wouldn’t show up at your door and suddenly confess to you, when he and Hermione had finally found their happy ending sometime during the battle at Hogwarts. He couldn’t be saying that.

“Ron… what are you saying? Is everything okay?” You want to feel his forehead, to see if his cold has already set in and he didn’t realize what he was saying. Your heart is hammering inside of your chest.

“Don’t you remember how it used to be? We were always alone.” His voice becomes steadier as he talks and he grows closer to you, his eyes brightening. “We spent so many nights together, talking on the Common Room couch. It was always just us at lunch. We even went on walks just to talk.”

“That’s because, usually, Hermione and Harry were busy. We didn’t have a choice-”

“I did. I didn’t know it then, but I always had a choice and I always made it.” He’s standing in front of you, looking down at you with a look you know you’ve never seen before. You had known Ron since first year, and you knew almost every look and what it meant. You didn’t know this one.

“I was such an idiot. I am such an idiot. You’ve been in front of me this whole time, and I didn’t see it.”

...

It’s one of the rare moments where you somehow end up alone with Harry. You’re sitting in the library, waiting for Ron and Hermione to show up so you can start your study session together. You already have your parchment and ink out, along with several books on the table. Harry’s setup mimics yours, and you’re both leaned over the table.

The two of you don’t talk much, you’re both connected by your friendship with Ron. While you’ve become friends with Hermione, you and Harry are still more like strangers.

The sound of footsteps approaching causes you to look up from your books. You knew it was Ron, you didn’t have to be looking to know it was him whenever he was near. What you didn’t expect was for Hermione to be walking next to him. They sometimes entered together, having run into each other or they had been previously hanging out. The part you didn’t expect was their intertwined hands, and the large grins on their faces. Their rosy cheeks.

It happened.

Harry looks up from across you, and his face immediately splits into a grin. He’s happy for his friends, and you should be too. You mimic his smile, trying to mask the way your heart feels like it’s breaking. Ron looks victorious, like he’s just won the final Quidditch match of the season against Slytherin. All you can feel welling up inside of you is defeat, because this is your fault. You could have just denied him the help, and maybe it’d be you holding his hand and smiling.

Would Harry even be smiling like that if it was you?

...

“I want you.”

Eight years. Ninety-six months. Four thousand, three hundred and eighty days. That’s about the time you had known Ron. You had spent more than half of that wanting him. You had spent the latter half of that knowing it was never going to happen.

Never had you expected that during your ninth year of friendship, he would tell you the thing you had wished for all that time. The thing you had hidden in journals or in daydreams you were ashamed of. You had spent years making up crushes and having Ron try to help you the way you helped with Hermione.

“But you- you and Hermione… I can’t-”

“Hermione and I broke up a while ago. She said she knew from the beginning that we wouldn’t last.” You wince at that, but it doesn’t seem to faze him. He’s smiling down at you. “She said she knew who I would end up with.”

Oh.

“It’s been obvious this whole time, hasn’t it? That it was you?”

Oh.

“I mean, even Harry saw it. After ‘Mione and I split, we all had dinner and he told me that I was a blind idiot for not noticing sooner.” He laughs slightly, “he also made me realize how much I’ve hurt you over the years.”

You don’t know what to say. You’ve wished for this moment practically your whole life, and now that it’s here, you’re lost. In your mind, you would end up with someone your parents’ set you up with and you’d live your version of a mediocre happy ever after. You’d spend the rest of your life with the knowledge that Ron loved someone else and he had and would never love you.

You’re staring up at him. You had stared up at him so many times before, but never like this. Never with him confessing to you. Never with him smiling at you so tenderly and so happily. Never with so much affection.

Softly, he brushes a strand of hair away from your face. You reach your hand up and rest it on his wrist. The two of you stay like that for a moment.

Your voice is quiet when you finally speak. “Do you mean it?”

His eyes never leave yours as he nods his head. You wrap your arms around his neck and his arms wrap around your waist. You want to weep into him but also scream with joy: you’ve never felt this happy.

You pull away slightly to look at him. “It’s always been you, Ron. For worse or for better. Slug puking or Quidditch winning. It’s you.”

He pulls you close again, his head resting on top of yours. You press your head to his chest and listen to his heartbeat.

It’s beating just as fast as yours.

...

You listen to the birds chirp as you walk down the street. It’s slightly windy, but the heat from the sun keeps whatever chill the wind carries away. There’s the faint smell of flowers coming from the flower vendor just down the street, next to the diner where you’re supposed to be grabbing lunch from.

You’re not very familiar with this part of town. It’s not near your flat, and you had to Apparate to get there.

You pull open the door to the diner, and a bell chimes to alert the people inside of your presence. Muggles. You smile slightly at the gesture, and make your way inside. You look around, before you spot a pair of brown hair and glasses.

Harry spots you first and his face breaks into a smile. At this, Hermione turns around and greets you with a smile too. Harry stands up out of the booth and pulls Ron, who has been holding your hand this whole entire time, into a hug. Hermione stands up and pulls you into a side hug. It’s a little awkward, but maybe you’ll get more comfortable with each other someday.

Everyone is smiling as you slide into the booth beside Hermione. She picks up the menu and hands it to you, “I have to recommend the cheeseburger…”

Word Count: 2270

[drvconian]

How You Get the Girl ...

“I just don’t know what I did.” Ron complains, leaning into the back of the couch in the Common Room, his eyes closed and his eyebrows pinched. It’s late, almost everyone else has gone to bed, which is why he speaks quietly to you: it makes you feel like you’re sharing a secret, which you technically are, but everything feels more special when it’s just Ron and you.

You like Hermione and Harry just fine, but when you all got together as a group, it always felt that he preferred them more, especially Hermione. You could understand why: she was smart and pretty, both things you envied about her. Your jealousy wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t seem like you caught Ron staring at her all the bloody time.

You shake your head, smiling softly over at him. “Girls are fragile, Ron. You can’t be as brutish as you are with your brothers or Harry.” You laugh quietly, “what kind of girl would take that as a compliment anyway?”

“I dunno.” He replies, rolling his eyes. “I would, though.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“Well, you gotta help me then.”

You widen your eyes at him, clearly taken aback at his request. “You want me to help you get with Hermione?”

Ron moves in closer, nodding his head slightly. “You have to. You’re one of my closest friends, I dunno who else to go to with this.”

Your heart beats hard in your chest, you have no idea how to feel. The sentiment is nice, that he trusts you enough to ask for your advice on how to impress the girl he fancies. On the other hand, it hurts to know that he even fancies another girl (even though you knew) and that he expects you to help him. You want to say no and try to convince him that Hermione and him would never work out, so you surprise yourself when… “okay, Ron. I’ll help you.”

...

A knock on your door drags you out of your reverie. You close the book in your lap and place it on the table beside you, and unfold your legs. They’re stiff from how long you’ve been sitting on your couch, and you wince slightly. You stand up and make your way over to the door, opening it slightly to peek at whoever it could be.

“Ron?”

He’s standing in your doorway, hunched over in his jacket. He’s soaking wet, his hair dripping onto his face and his jacket a shade darker than it’s supposed to be. He looks miserable standing there, but his face brightens when he sees you. “You answered.”

You nod before opening the door wider, “are you insane? Come inside before you catch a cold.”

He steps inside, brushing against you, and stands barely in the doorway. The water on his clothes drips down onto your floor, and you quickly close the door behind the two of you. You open up a closet close to the door and pull down a towel, handing it over to him so he can dry off. You watch him, the air between the two of you thickening.

“It’s been a long six months.” He begins, peeking out at you from beneath the towel that he’s drying his hair off with. You watch him, worrying your bottom lip. You don’t know what to say, you hadn’t seen him since your final, chaotic days at Hogwarts – even then, you hadn’t seen him for a long time before then. He hadn’t contacted you at all. He takes a deep breath. “I was too afraid to tell you what I wanted. I’ve always been too scared of that.”

...

“Tell her something cheesy like… I want you for worse or for better. It’ll help defuse the tension since she’s upset with you. It’s sort of cute, and it’ll help lead into you telling her you like her.”

He nods in a more attentive way than he ever had in class. Your stomach twists – you could sabotage this whole thing, yet you weren’t. Hermione was your friend just as much as Ron was your best friend. You weren’t cruel. You just happened to like Ron more than she probably did.

“And then maybe you can add in something like: I would wait forever. To show your dedication.”

“Dedication? I’m not looking to marry her!”

You roll your eyes. “That’s not what I meant! You’re just buttering her up, but you don’t have to say that if you don’t want to-”

“I’d only say that if I meant it.”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes again. How romantic. You feel a pang in your heart at that thought… at least he wanted to confess to Hermione.

“Okay, well, you hurt her, right? Admit that you did, and say that you want to fix it.”

...

“We were best friends, Ron. You could’ve told me anything, hell, you almost bloody did!” You cross your arms, conflicted on whether to laugh or be annoyed with him. “You told me way too much sometimes.”

He doesn’t smile or laugh the way he might’ve at the suggestive joke when he was younger. Something seems to settle within him, and he pulls the towel off of his head. He takes a slight step forward, and you feel the tension settle between the two of you. You rarely saw Ron this serious, though it seems to be a more permanent emotion during and after the war.

“I broke your heart.”

Everything around you stills. Your own heart stills. That was one truth you had kept to yourself throughout all those years, throughout all of his relationships. So many little fragments over the years had gathered until, just about half a year ago, it had finally shattered and he had walked away from you. Your chest feels tight as you wonder who could have told him.

“I want to put it back together.” He swallows, his words trembling just the slightest bit. “I know now that I will wait forever.”

...

You're sitting in the Great Hall as Ron eats lunch while you work on your homework. You’re focused on a particular list of ingredients for a potion when Ron speaks. “That stuff you told me worked, by the way. Thanks.”

“Oh. With Hermione? Good.” You force yourself to sound happy, even looking up to smile at Ron across the table.

“She forgave me, sort of. I don’t think she understood what I was really trying to say.”

You sigh, rolling up your parchment and setting it aside. You’d get back to it later. “You’re back to being just friends?”

He nods, “I couldn’t just outright tell her! She’d probably think I was joking or something.”

“You’re such an idiot.” You lean across the table so you can lower your voice. “You could bring up the ways you’ve subtly flirted with her. There’s that picture we took where you’re staring at her. You wouldn’t let her see it, remember? You could show it to her.” You settle back into your seat, reaching to unroll your parchment again.

“How do I explain why I didn’t just show her then?”

You pull your quill out of your ink, already returning to writing down another ingredient. “Tell her you lost your mind.”

...

You remember sitting on the Common Room couch, when one of those fragments joined the many others. When Ron first started fully showing interest in Hermione and you knew you had no chance with him. No, Ronald Weasley wouldn’t show up at your door and suddenly confess to you, when he and Hermione had finally found their happy ending sometime during the battle at Hogwarts. He couldn’t be saying that.

“Ron… what are you saying? Is everything okay?” You want to feel his forehead, to see if his cold has already set in and he didn’t realize what he was saying. Your heart is hammering inside of your chest.

“Don’t you remember how it used to be? We were always alone.” His voice becomes steadier as he talks and he grows closer to you, his eyes brightening. “We spent so many nights together, talking on the Common Room couch. It was always just us at lunch. We even went on walks just to talk.”

“That’s because, usually, Hermione and Harry were busy. We didn’t have a choice-”

“I did. I didn’t know it then, but I always had a choice and I always made it.” He’s standing in front of you, looking down at you with a look you know you’ve never seen before. You had known Ron since first year, and you knew almost every look and what it meant. You didn’t know this one.

“I was such an idiot. I am such an idiot. You’ve been in front of me this whole time, and I didn’t see it.”

...

It’s one of the rare moments where you somehow end up alone with Harry. You’re sitting in the library, waiting for Ron and Hermione to show up so you can start your study session together. You already have your parchment and ink out, along with several books on the table. Harry’s setup mimics yours, and you’re both leaned over the table.

The two of you don’t talk much, you’re both connected by your friendship with Ron. While you’ve become friends with Hermione, you and Harry are still more like strangers.

The sound of footsteps approaching causes you to look up from your books. You knew it was Ron, you didn’t have to be looking to know it was him whenever he was near. What you didn’t expect was for Hermione to be walking next to him. They sometimes entered together, having run into each other or they had been previously hanging out. The part you didn’t expect was their intertwined hands, and the large grins on their faces. Their rosy cheeks.

It happened.

Harry looks up from across you, and his face immediately splits into a grin. He’s happy for his friends, and you should be too. You mimic his smile, trying to mask the way your heart feels like it’s breaking. Ron looks victorious, like he’s just won the final Quidditch match of the season against Slytherin. All you can feel welling up inside of you is defeat, because this is your fault. You could have just denied him the help, and maybe it’d be you holding his hand and smiling.

Would Harry even be smiling like that if it was you?

...

“I want you.”

Eight years. Ninety-six months. Four thousand, three hundred and eighty days. That’s about the time you had known Ron. You had spent more than half of that wanting him. You had spent the latter half of that knowing it was never going to happen.

Never had you expected that during your ninth year of friendship, he would tell you the thing you had wished for all that time. The thing you had hidden in journals or in daydreams you were ashamed of. You had spent years making up crushes and having Ron try to help you the way you helped with Hermione.

“But you- you and Hermione… I can’t-”

“Hermione and I broke up a while ago. She said she knew from the beginning that we wouldn’t last.” You wince at that, but it doesn’t seem to faze him. He’s smiling down at you. “She said she knew who I would end up with.”

Oh.

“It’s been obvious this whole time, hasn’t it? That it was you?”

Oh.

“I mean, even Harry saw it. After ‘Mione and I split, we all had dinner and he told me that I was a blind idiot for not noticing sooner.” He laughs slightly, “he also made me realize how much I’ve hurt you over the years.”

You don’t know what to say. You’ve wished for this moment practically your whole life, and now that it’s here, you’re lost. In your mind, you would end up with someone your parents’ set you up with and you’d live your version of a mediocre happy ever after. You’d spend the rest of your life with the knowledge that Ron loved someone else and he had and would never love you.

You’re staring up at him. You had stared up at him so many times before, but never like this. Never with him confessing to you. Never with him smiling at you so tenderly and so happily. Never with so much affection.

Softly, he brushes a strand of hair away from your face. You reach your hand up and rest it on his wrist. The two of you stay like that for a moment.

Your voice is quiet when you finally speak. “Do you mean it?”

His eyes never leave yours as he nods his head. You wrap your arms around his neck and his arms wrap around your waist. You want to weep into him but also scream with joy: you’ve never felt this happy.

You pull away slightly to look at him. “It’s always been you, Ron. For worse or for better. Slug puking or Quidditch winning. It’s you.”

He pulls you close again, his head resting on top of yours. You press your head to his chest and listen to his heartbeat.

It’s beating just as fast as yours.

...

You listen to the birds chirp as you walk down the street. It’s slightly windy, but the heat from the sun keeps whatever chill the wind carries away. There’s the faint smell of flowers coming from the flower vendor just down the street, next to the diner where you’re supposed to be grabbing lunch from.

You’re not very familiar with this part of town. It’s not near your flat, and you had to Apparate to get there.

You pull open the door to the diner, and a bell chimes to alert the people inside of your presence. Muggles. You smile slightly at the gesture, and make your way inside. You look around, before you spot a pair of brown hair and glasses.

Harry spots you first and his face breaks into a smile. At this, Hermione turns around and greets you with a smile too. Harry stands up out of the booth and pulls Ron, who has been holding your hand this whole entire time, into a hug. Hermione stands up and pulls you into a side hug. It’s a little awkward, but maybe you’ll get more comfortable with each other someday.

Everyone is smiling as you slide into the booth beside Hermione. She picks up the menu and hands it to you, “I have to recommend the cheeseburger…”

Word Count: 2270

[drvconian]

i blew things out of proportion, now you're blue. put you in jail for something you didn't do.

You tried so hard not to care about him. You did everything in your power, from distancing yourself to drawing obscene things over pictures of him in an attempt to shake the feelings you had for him, of the memories where you held him in the highest regards. You wanted to destroy the thoughts of him, to turn him into nothing but dust and bones, a face you couldn’t even remember, no matter how many memories you shared with him.

You didn’t hate him, not even close, your heart still searched for him when you saw a couple kissing in the halls, or when you found yourself walking across the lawn of Hogwarts, like you had so many times with him. Your heart threatened to give in when you heard his voice, calling for his friends or making a joke you thought was stupid, but you’d have laughed anyway if you were still his. You missed him, in the nights you imagined talking to him until you fell asleep, and in the mornings you stared after him, wishing he’d turn around and take you back into his arms, saying those three magic words that had scared you away in the first place.

It was your fault, really, that the distance between the two of you had grown so much. He had given you his heart, his everything, and you had turned your back on him. You can still hear him, the way he said it so quietly into your ear, how warm he felt as he held you like you were the most delicate thing in the world. Ron had told you he loved you, and you ran away.

He had been patient after that, waiting for you to come to him, but you avoided him like he carried the plague and you were trying to stay safe. His hurt expression, when he finally was face to face with you, replays everyday in your mind. “Please talk to me.” He begged, his voice broken in a way you had never heard it, his eyes not letting yours go. Instead of opening up about the fear in your chest, of the way you felt for him, you did the unimaginable.

“I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

You had regretted the words the moment you said them, but it was too late, what were you supposed to do? Turn around and tell him it was all a joke? So, you walked past him and up into your dorm, trying to ignore the sounds of Ron calling after you as you closed the door.

The next few weeks consisted of you giving back his things, jackets you had stolen and little trinkets he had given to you, things you had once held close and cherished now felt like fire as you held them. Your friends pulled out every old trick of getting over a boy they knew, from eating snacks while insulting him, to spending every moment doing something so you didn’t have the time to think about him. It didn’t work, even when you were busy, his words found their way into your head and threatened to unravel your whole being, begging you to go to him and beg for him to take you back.

He wouldn’t, even if you did. You hadn’t ended a relationship that was already failing, you had suddenly dropped him out of nowhere after he had given you his heart. He wouldn’t be able to forgive you for a long time, you knew that by the glares his friends would give you when he couldn’t see, or the awful rumors that spread around the Gryffindor Common Room before your friends put an end to them.

You felt awful in every way, like you were lost, but the familiar ground you had once known had been destroyed before your very own eyes. You had destroyed it, and the solid foundation you had walked upon for the last year was no longer supporting you, and with every step you took, it crumbled beneath you.

And when it finally gave away, and you fell through, you had nowhere to land.

Ron had always held your hand across the most uneven of lands, but now he was no longer there to help you face the things you feared.

He had even tried to help when the thing you feared was the thing he felt.

[drvconian]

Morning in the Common Room

"Harry," she whispers softly, her hand moving to stroke his hair. His head shifts in her lap in recognition of her words. "Wouldn't you rather sleep in your dorm?" She half wanted him to say no, of course, but she also craved the softness of her bed and the darkness of the dorms compared to the Common Room.

Harry, who had been asleep for about an hour on her lap, shakes his head. He cuddles closer into her legs, a yawn leaving his mouth as he falls back into the peaceful sleep she had woken him from. She smiles at this, rolling her eyes because it wasn't comfortable sleeping sitting up, but she would do a lot of unimaginable and uncomfortable things for the boy in her lap. He deserved it, after all, when he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.

She goes back to stroking his hair, closing her eyes and resting her head on the back of the couch, letting the combined warmth of the fire and Harry lull her to sleep.

When she wakes again, Harry is sat beside her, fiddling with the end of her blanket while he reads over a parchment, his bottom lip pulled between his teeth. She didn't remember falling asleep under a blanket, but she assumes Harry put it over her when he woke up. "Good morning," her voice is quiet in the stillness of the Common Room, she doesn't know what time it is and she doesn't want to speak too loudly.

Harry turns to her, setting his parchment down on the table in front of them. "Good morning." He says back, a small smile forming on his face, "sorry about falling asleep on you, can't imagine sleeping like that was comfortable."

She shakes her head, "no need to say sorry, Harry. I would do it every night if you wished." His cheeks color at her words, and she finds herself staring at how pretty Harry is in the early morning light. His eyes shine a mixture of green and blue, and his hair is even more messed up than it usually is. His glasses sit on his nose, previously discarded so he could sleep, but Harry had such poor vision that he needed to put them on the moment he woke up: she had tried putting them on once, when Harry had dozed off in the library, and had been surprised when she couldn't see a thing at all. If Harry could see through them, shouldn't she be able to as well? What a peculiar thing glasses were.

Harry had also taken to staring at her, he did it quite often, though she hadn't really noticed until a few months before she decided she wanted to confess his feelings to him. It seemed that every time she wanted to look at Harry, he would already be looking at her, making it an awkward encounter instead of a pining state. Now, she was free to stare at him all she wanted, as he had been her boyfriend for about two months now (to which she claimed herself the luckiest girl in the school, because it was no secret that Harry was wanted by at least half the student body).

The space between them is filled with silence until Harry breaks it. "You look pretty," he says quickly, "this morning." He pauses before shaking his head, "not that you don't look pretty all the time, it's just…" he trails off, and her lips quirk up into a smile, because Harry had never been the best at delivering compliments where it didn't sound rather awkward. That's why she liked him, though, it made her feel like his intentions with her were genuine compared to some of the guys that walked the halls, only getting with girls because it made them feel desired and powerful.

Harry was a great guy. "Thank you," she responds, scooting closer to her so she can throw the blanket over him as well. "You're pretty too." She replies in a teasing manner, but she believes it. He doesn't protest at being called 'pretty', but she does note the pink tinge that covers his cheeks as he finally looks away from her and into the dying embers of the fire.

"Thanks," he mutters out before he opens his mouth in a big yawn, the tiredness from the night before when he climbed into her lap returning. She feels quite tired herself, and with them both under the blanket, she finds herself finding it hard to stay awake.

Harry turns himself to where he can lay his head on her shoulder, his eyes falling closed. Her head lays upon his, her hand finding his to hold under the blanket before she lets herself fall asleep as well.

thank you for reading! uhm this is my first time posting something like this so i'm quite nervous but !! i hope you enjoyed it, and if you'd like to see more ?? i'd be happy to provide :)

have a good day everyone! <3

also would it be better if these were more gender neutral? this wasn't originally meant to be put here but since there wasn't a name, i decided to post it here and try it out but yeah.. if these would be better gender neutral, let me know!