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You start to cry after the war.
You tell Ron and Hermione that it's nothing, that it'll pass. You're just exhausted. It’s more than that, of course it is, but they don't question it. And you learn to hide the fact that you can still be found hunched over your kitchen sink after a party, fat tears rolling down your face, years after the war has passed.
He knows better.
He comes to you when you're in the kitchen. It's long past midnight, hours after the last Ministry gala. Somewhere in your flat, the calendar reads May 3rd.
The lights are off. You're making tea. Water boils loudly on the stove, its bubbles popping against the rim of the pot—gunshots in a quiet room. Blue-orange fire flickers underneath, too hot, too bright, illuminating you. Illuminating him, too.
He's quiet for you. He wants to say something. (Why don't you let me make it, instead?). He doesn't because he knows you don't want him to, don't need him to. (Come lay down with me). You like that. You like that he knows that. You like that he likes you in the dark. (Let me take care of you). You like him in the dark, too.
You think about using tea bags but you need to move, to do more, to get lost in the mindless routine of pour and stir and steep and strain. He helps. It's one less spoon for you to take, one less handle for you to grab, one less jar for you to open. All you do is pourstirsteepstrain
His arm is a steady warmth against your own. It's a comfort. Your head feels heavy, stuffed with cotton. You can feel it, whatever’s been brewing within you these past few days, in your throat, thick, like the tears hanging on the precipice of your lash line. But, he’s there. He’s warm. He’s a comfort.
There's a mug in your hands, now. Full, smooth ceramic that leaves your fingertips scorched. His lips are at the shell of your ear, his words a sharp whisper: “Tell me.”
They pierce you, more so than the steam under your nose, because sometimes you still can't believe that someone wants to know you like this. That someone wants you like this. That someone wants you. In the dark, too quiet, tea made but thoughts still brewing.
You can't answer him just yet, so you take a sip of tea instead. It scalds your taste buds. You take another sip, then another, until you can taste again, until all you can focus on is the warm trail it draws from your throat to the pit of your stomach. It’s bitter. Over-steeped. You usually take your tea sweet, but today is not a day for milk and sugar.
He turns to you, body sloping forward into your own, his molten-metal eyes a weight on your shoulders. You consider turning towards him. You turn off the stove, instead. Its fire putters out quickly, phantom heat the only reminder that it was ever there. It's not the only ghost in the room.
“Harry,” he says, insistent now, but his voice has no bite. You memorized his mouth back when you both were in school. You know it’s all sharp lines and gleaming teeth but, for you, it's turned soft.
You give in, finally, and crane your neck towards him. It’s somewhat of an ache, the muscles sore and unused, under stretched, unfamiliar with this kind of undiluted attention. It’s hard to meet his eyes, to surrender to his gaze, which always leaves you feeling flayed open. Can he see it, what you’re thinking? You’ve never been talkative, but when he looks at you like this, intent, as if he’s trying to soak you, all of you, in... you want to tell him.
You want to kiss him. You entertain the idea for a split-second and imagine inching forward until you're impossibly close. Close enough to feel his breaths like a balm on your skin, to feel the heat of him through the thin fabric of your shirt, to feel a strand of his hair fall into your eyes—as if it belongs to you. You imagine pressing forward. Your lips meeting his, his hands in your hair, on your skin. You almost do it. He’s so close. You want to leave traces of tea on his lips.
He asks you again, though, flashes his cream teeth around a voice like burnt sugar. And when he’s this close, you can’t resist. You bend your head towards his, and spill your thoughts—bitter, over-steeped—into the arch of his cheekbone. Your tears slosh over, slip over his skin, drip into his mouth. He swallows them whole. Your secrets, now his.