Valentine's

They were alone, and they were together.

It was wrong and it was sad and it was death and it was life. She looked into his eyes and saw silver echoes of her future with him; echoes of gray and cold. A life of formality and lies and a russet-haired princess crowned with silver-colored steel, with a prince as cold as ice who took her dancing in the rain and made her laugh. He would buy her black and white robes and she would wear them, sometimes, for him. But her favorite color was red.

"You're very black and white," she had told him. They were lying on the ground, next to each other.

"I am very black," he corrected her.

"You need more color," she told him as she turned her head so she could look at him. "Red. Bright red with leather pants."

He had raised an eyebrow at her, then. "Leather pants?"

She had grinned. "You need me," she had said smugly. "Without me, you would have no amusement in life."

"No one to laugh at," he added dryly. She smiled but shook her head, and her voice was surprisingly sincere.

"No. No one to make you laugh."

It was like that. Everything between them was like that. It was secret meetings between classes and stolen kisses and notes she left him, slipped in the pockets of his robes that he would pull out, silly little things that made him smile and think about her. Things that could never be, a love that was impossible and yet they reveled in it. He would buy her robes and jewelry and she would slip him notes and make him laugh and give him his other half. It didn't make sense.

But it was there.

He had bought her a red dress, once, a dress in a vivid scarlet, the kind she liked; it hung off her shoulders to reveal her milky white skin that he would leave trails of kisses on. The top was just low enough and just high enough with red trim, and the skirt hung just right with beaded edges in white pearls and it swirled when she twirled around, just the way she liked it.

"It's a Valentine's Day present," he had said when she asked him why. "You have to wear it on Valentine's Day."

Her eyes had sparkled. "All day?" she had asked. "Even to classes?"

"Yes," he had said with mock solemnity. "Even to classes."

She had. She had gotten up an hour early to fix the dress and her hair and makeup, wearing white gloves past her elbow, her hair pinned back with white heart pins that matched it, and he had carried her books to every class for her, as part of the bargain. It had made him late, but he didn't care. And he would pause at the doorway, give her a quick kiss goodbye, and she would smile that mysterious smile. Only later would he find the note she had slipped in his pocket, a scrap of a poem written in red ink and sealed in the shape of a heart.

They had gone dancing, that night, about midnight, after all the decorations of gaud and glamor were gone, after all the students were in bed and everyone was gone. He had led her down the stairs to the Great Hall with her hand on his elbow, both dressed up in their best, her still wearing the dress, him in his formal wear. He had used his wand to move the tables and lit the candles, and conjured music, just for her, and they danced, past midnight, past morning as the enchanted sky overhead had faded into the real blackness after the moon had set, after he had blown out the candled, and there were only stars. Then he had held her in his arms and kissed her, and she kissed him back, and that was their first real kiss.

She had laid her head on his chest as they danced, and he had held her closely, circling slowly on the dance floor, smelling the scent of her; cinammon and sugar and peppermint. And the kiss had tasted like peppermint, and after that they had kissed again under the stars until they had had to stop, afraid of each other and what would happen between them.

But they were in love.

Neither of them quite knew what love was, besides some vague fairytale notion, and the sparks between them were frightening and alive and nothing a storybook could produce--it was too real for love, too real for the picture they had drawn it out to be. Love was not gentle, love was not happy, it wasn't a fuzzy-edged picture of beauty and candlelit dinners and princess and princes who lived happily ever after. Love was a cruel, sneaky thread, pulling people down, binding them, opening them up and cutting their heart, a hot red flame that burned at her heart and made her want more.

They had sat at the teacher's table, in the two frontmost seats, and she had giggled and said wasn't this thrillling, and he had answered dryly that she should try some Slytherin-variety fun if she found this thrilling. And she had laughed and stood up and led him out on the dance floor, and then she conjured up some music that he had never heard--some silliness from a Muggle artist, Frank Sinatra, on a CD that spun in the air and played a Valentine's song as they danced across the floor under sparkling stars in a velvet-black enchanted sky.

my little Valentine
sweet, comic Valentine
you make my smile
in my heart

Finally, the music faded to nothingness, and they stood alone under the bright stars. They were still in dance-position, his hand on her waist and her hand on his arm, and they stared at each other, silent. He kissed her once; tenderly, briefly, and she clung to him as he pulled away, but he distangled himself from her gently.

"No," he said, and it was the first time she had heard that emotion in his voice. "Please don't."

And she had understood then; understood that she was the world to him just as he was the world to her, and that it was wrong not just because of families, because of Houses, things that all seemed as lines drawn in the sand; it was wrong because she could not live the life he was going to live, and she would have to if she married him. And she pulled herself away from him and nodded, her cheeks wet. He reached up and caught a tear on his finger, and that made her smile, and he smiled for her--and things were right.

"Happy Valentine's Day," he whispered in the dark, and they hugged each other, holding one another until the stars faded.