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She was infuriating. She was a conundrum and exasperating and everything he had been taught to despise in the world. And yet.
Yet she came back for every shift. Argued him on every point, fought him at every juncture. She challenged him, she goaded him, she made him almost reconsider the ideals he had held since childhood. Almost.
She was infuriating, and alluring all at once.
–
There was a stillness to the morning when he woke. The muted light in the dungeons, the splay of her hair across his shoulder. The gentle breaths puffed across the skin of his neck as her chest rose and fell in time. His arm was looped around her shoulders, wrist dangling off the edge of the bed. Her nightshirt was soft against the skin of his arm. She began to stir, almost imperceptibly, breaths drawn in more quickly, a shift here, an adjustment there.
“We can stay in bed, if you’d like?” He offered, voice hushed amongst the quiet of the early morning.
“Just a little bit longer,” she murmured. He didn’t think she was all the way awake, more so dipping her toes in the idea of wakefulness.
He curled his hand around her shoulder, and let his eyes flutter closed. There would be time to deal with everything later, for now, he could just be.
–
He missed the way her hair smelled, even if he didn’t want to admit that to himself quite yet. Its softness under his fingers, the way it adamantly fought any idea of taming it. The curl that found its way to the middle of her forehead when she was stressed or overworked. The tendrils that gathered at the nape of her neck when she wore the rest up in a bun, delicate to the touch and overwhelmingly called to him to wrap them around his fingers like delicate little brown rings. He would never tell her of course, but when she would lay against him and he would find himself with her hair in his face, the overwhelming softness of it all made him feel safe, made him feel protected. There were precious few things in the world that made him feel like that, but here she was, doing so without even knowing it.
–
If she ever spoke to him again, it would be a miracle. And he didn’t believe in those. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t done it in the end, hadn’t had it in him to kill the older man, but he had let them in, he had started it. And she had known, known for months that there was something he had been trusted– ordered, to do. He had to do it, he had no way out. He couldn’t choose between her and his family, he couldn’t begin to, not when he didn’t know if she would have still been there after, waiting for him rather than the harried escape that was foisted upon him at the last moment. There was nothing to be done except for hope, and he rarely allowed himself such a luxury anymore.
–
He couldn’t sleep. The tent was perfectly comfortable, the sleeping bag an upgrade from the cold ground he had been sleeping on for weeks. It was leagues above what he could have even begun to hope for, finding her here, feeling her soft touch again. It was more than he could have dreamed of, even in the worst moments. But still, he couldn’t sleep. There was too much to be said between them, between all of them. Too many assumptions made, too many grudges held. He would never be able to be worthy in their eyes, never be able to win over the trust that she had so desperately wanted between them. They would leave him out there if they could, if he hadn’t become a liability with his knowledge of where they were, what they had with them. They wouldn’t accept him, the burden he was, with their knowledge of what he had done, what he had tried to do.
But, Gods help him, seeing her had felt like rain after a drought. Seeing her, knowing it was truly her and not another boggart, knowing it was her, solid flesh and bone, holding him up, holding him close. The dig of her nails in his back, the grounding feeling of her heartbeat against his. It was worth it then, those bleak weeks in the Forest of Dean, just to hold her again, feel her warmth against his skin. Seeing her had been worth it, even if she no longer loved him back.
–
It was never going to get easier. The stares, the casual hatred that was thrown his way every waking moment of the day he stayed in this house. The curses and hexes that stung his feet and hands when they landed on target, the worse ones that landed on his left arm, burning anew with pain. There were moments when he felt like he could breathe, when he was wrapped up in her and they could spare a moment to hide from the world, from the war. But the weeks drew on and she became more and more restless. He knew he couldn’t keep her in the house for long, but impersonating his aunt had been the last straw. He cared more for her safety than his, and he would be damned all over again if his cowardice would let her go out there when he could stand in her place. The plan was better, more infallible with him playing a role, rather than leave it up to her to impersonate a person she never even met; the best role he had always played was himself. What else could he have done, but stand there and watch her risk her life, yet again, for justice, for the cause . If he could have run with her, he would have. He would have taken her far away from this bloody war, somewhere warm and safe and not England. He would take her far, far away from this house and the horrors outside, but he knew she wouldn’t go. She would rather be there, fighting with her friends, than anywhere else, and he knew that. Accepting it was a different matter entirely.
“Are you ready?”
Her voice slipped in from the doorway, startling him from his thoughts.
He puffed up, drawing himself to his full height. He gave her his best unimpressed stare, though she would see through him in a heartbeat. The clothes fit poorly, but there was magic to fix that. Still, it felt good to be dressed up again, to pretend for a little while.
“As I can be.”
–
She had left and while he couldn’t follow, he couldn’t stay either. He couldn’t handle it. He had tried to be the hero they wanted and it still hadn’t been enough. But the den of snakes that had welcomed him, had made him feel, at least for a little while, that maybe things weren’t absolute shit. There were games, too much firewhiskey, and not enough to do, but it could have been worse. He no longer counted the bodies that left the room when he entered it; he didn’t have to. He had friends again, even if only for a little while. And when in a war, one had to savor the little things.
–
He knew he would never make a tree bloom like that again. Produce fruit so real and ripe that tasting them felt like summer on his tongue. Summer and happiness, tangy and sweet. He knew spells would never come as easily, or as powerful. Never feel so much like an extension of his very being as they did with the wand. He knew he hadn’t savoured it in the brief moments that he’d had it. At first, he worried that the only reason he had been able to cast the Patronus had been due to the wand. That he never again would conjure the silver dolphin that leapt so gracefully through the air without its help. He could still, days after he’d forfeited the wand’s power. It took more effort than it had in the past (the soft scent of shea butter and coconut, the warmth of a body pressed against him in the morning, flying with arms tucked around his waist), but it was worth it. It hadn’t all been the wand, the wand had just provided an extra push.
–
It was chaos. Chaos and blood and the screams of those dying and those holding ones lost.
His hands shook as he murmured the countercurse, desperately hoping to stop the bleeding, at least until they could take her to a safe place. His hands shook and his wand slipped in his grip and he hoped, gods forgive him he hoped, for this girl, for all of them, just to see the morning.
–
Later, after the battle had ended, after the dead had been laid out to be buried and the tears had finally stopped, after the afternoon Sun hung heavy in the sky and began to dip down towards Earth, he held her in his arms and listened to the stillness.