In the Bleak Midwinter

In The Bleak Midwinter

December. It's cold outside; the air prickles against my cheeks and drives ice into my lungs. Even Ron is finally forced to concede that it's too cold for Quidditch practice, and lets us go with a reminder to practise over the holidays so that we can beat Slytherin in the New Year. He desperately wants to win the Cup in this, our last year at Hogwarts.

The team scatters, most heading back towards the castle and the beckoning warmth of the common room fire. I take a different route. The lake froze over entirely a few days ago, and I like to absorb its cold beauty and imagine all the creatures living beneath that icy layer. I always wonder how they survive.

Our final year, and all sorts of things are coming to an end.

I sense your presence long before I hear the crunch of your footprints etching into the frozen grass, or Pansy's adoring giggle. Even over this distance I can feel your eyes on me, your gaze piercing more deeply than the bite of the winter wind.

Against my better judgement, I look round to where I know you will be. Sure enough, there you are, hand-in-hand with your fiancée. A romantic winter stroll around the frozen lake.

Our eyes meet for just a moment before we both look away. You whisper something in Pansy's ear, no doubt insulting me, and she giggles again, glancing over at me.

I turn my back on you both and head for the castle, glancing briefly at my watch. You're going to be late meeting me again.

~*~

You slip silently into the cupboard where I have been waiting for you, swiftly shutting the door behind you to leave us in the gloom. All I can make out is the dim gleam of your hair, a fraction paler than the surrounding darkness, as you reach for me, pulling me against you, lips seeking mine.

Your lips are slightly swollen and I can taste the sickening strawberry of her lip gloss.

I want to break the kiss, want to break your heart the way mine is breaking now, want to break you, and me, and her, and everything. But there is no way for either of us to stop this. I know I will never be free of you. So instead I bite down, hard, until the tang of your blood scours away the taste of her.

You moan, but press harder against me, encouraging me, permitting me to ravage your mouth, desperation consuming me. Hands clenched in my hair betray your own desperation, and allow me to believe that you want me to banish her lingering traces as much as I need to do so. That realisation is what finally calms me, gentles me, eases my pain enough for me to pull back for air.

Your lips feather lovingly across my cheeks, and it is only when you kiss me again, and I taste salt mingling with the blood, that I understand that I am crying.

~*~

I watch you out of the corner of my eye from across the Great Hall. You're tired this morning, though I doubt anyone else can read you well enough to recognise the signs. Too tired to find an adequate excuse to avoid holding Pansy's hand. Too tired to keep the haunted resignation from your eyes as they meet mine. Too tired to force yourself to sneer and look away immediately, though we both know you should.

I'm tired too.

~*~

There are times when I think, We can't carry on like this.

It's the truth, of course. Things can't - won't - continue in this way for much longer. Soon you will turn seventeen, and your father will expect you to take up the position he has groomed you for since birth. And that will force you to choose which path our lives will take.

If you choose to follow your father's wishes... In the frozen grey twilight of dawn, slipping back into my bed, careful not to waken the snoring lump that is Ron, I can imagine what life will be like all too clearly.

Pale, pug-nosed children, and a black Mark on your arm. Meeting you in Muggle pubs and on battlefields. Casting the Killing Curse on the Auror you hadn't noticed creeping up behind you. Biting the finger that normally bears your wedding band, until it is so swollen that you need to cast healing spells before you can force her ring back on as we part.

No, things will not continue in this way for much longer. But the thought does not bring me hope.

~*~

So tired. Today of all days I do not want to have to fight you. Ron seems to have other ideas, though, and you have no choice but to meet his insults with your own. Eagerly expectant eyes are on us, and I cannot afford to remain on the sidelines for long, lest our onlookers grow suspicious. The stakes in this game we are playing are too high. Neither of us can afford to back out now, no matter how tired we are.

Arguing with you is a sick, twisted balancing act these days, both of us unwilling to break eye contact, trying desperately to convey a dozen contradictory messages at once, hateful words and masked faces and eyes begging for forgiveness. We both reach for insults hurtful enough to appease our audience, while trying to avoid inflicting wounds that would cut too deep. We know each other's vulnerabilities too well now, know exactly which blows would cause the most damage. When possible, we try to stick to paper cuts and flesh wounds, injuries that can be kissed better later on, when we come together in the darkness. We do not always succeed.

No teachers have yet appeared to provide us with an excuse to stop, today. Ron, who is normally incapable of really hurting you for the simple reason that he doesn't really know you, musters an insult which strikes deeper than he realises. The momentary flicker of pain in your eyes makes me want to reach for you, comfort you, stop this argument before it goes too far and causes irreparable damage, but it is already too late. You mask your flash of vulnerability in the same way that you always do, by lashing out at me. And this is no flesh wound.

For a moment everything seems to stutter to a halt, and I cannot breathe. Only your eyes betray the extent to which you have been shaken by crossing the line we had managed to avoid until now, pain, shock, fear and anger warring with regret. Then Snape steps between us and severs the connection. I barely notice the points deducted from Gryffindor as I flee.

~*~

You take a far greater risk than usual by grabbing my arm as I rush blindly towards Gryffindor Tower and pulling me into an empty classroom.

Dangerous - it's broad daylight, anyone could have seen you grab me, and you must have ditched Pansy almost immediately to have caught up with me so quickly, she'll be suspicious... But you're reaching for me and whispering I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry again and again. And I crumble into your arms, bury my face into your neck, and stop trying to fight back my tears.

~*~

Hermione once told me that loving Ron made her happier than she had ever been before. That she hadn't meant to upset me by trying to set me up with Ginny, she just wanted me to find someone who would make me happy, too. Hannah had just broken up with her boyfriend, perhaps I should invite her to Hogsmeade one weekend, if Ginny wasn't my type?

It's rare for me to know with such utter certainty that Hermione is wrong about something. But she's wrong to assume that love automatically equates to happiness. And she's wrong to imagine that love will somehow heal me, take all the pain away and make my life better in some indefinable way.

Loving you doesn't make me happy. Being forced to watch Pansy hanging all over you, faint traces of her perfume clinging to you even when you escape to meet me; fighting each other in the corridors because to stop doing so would attract attention that we cannot afford; kissing you in the darkness and knowing I may never have an opportunity to kiss you in the light; crying out at the sensation of you inside me, constantly aware that you have the power to cause me pain or pleasure in ways no one else can; knowing that soon you will be forced to choose, and that your choice could be the death of you, and me, and us - no, loving you has brought me pain, not happiness.

It is cold comfort to me that this can be nothing less than love, or we would both have found a way to walk away from this pain long ago.

~*~

We can't carry on like this. But there are times when I have hope for us.

When you flinch almost imperceptibly as Pansy latches on to you unexpectedly on the way out of the Potions classroom. When you shoulder me aside after yet another screaming match in the hallways, and our hands meet and clasp for just a moment. When we come together in the darkness of one of our many hiding spots, desperate and shaking and mergingfusingmelting into each other until I can believe that we are so deeply entangled that no one will succeed in ripping us apart this time.

The depth of the pain assures me that this is love, and gives me hope that, when the time comes for you to choose, you will choose to flee to me.