By Dawn's Early Light

By dawns' early light, I could just barely make out his sandy hued freckles, his pouting pink lips, I could only scarcely decipher the outline of his lanky frame against the thin summer sheets, their bold, brass colours subdued and darkened in the faint illumination the night provided.

His steady breathing penetrated the air, displacing it, despite its being so thick with sleep and dreams waiting to be caught in hollow hearts.

I shifted, taking a calculatedly soft step forward in the Gryffindor boy's seventh year dorms. In my hand, was a white rose, deftly stolen from the purple tinted vase in Professor Snape's "secret stores", and an off-white leaf of parchment, creased and even more prone to being ripped because I had folded it, opened it up to read it again and again, all the while worrying my lip and tapping my foot against the floor.

I had half a mind to call the whole thing off, climb into bed, sleep, wake up the next morning and do things that normal eighteen year old boys did, like laugh with their friends, engage in friendly banter over a breakfast table full of childhood delights like homemade sausages and pancakes and porridge, "just the way mum used to make it."

And although each and every one of us hid behind a well crafted, automated façade, this is what took place morning after morning. We took refuge at that breakfast table, clinging to those last few wisps, that last essence, the final worn strings of childhood that were being snatched away from us so cruelly.

I craved for it most, not having had any childhood to speak of, what with what with my loving family at privet drive and trying to be killed more times than I care to remember. What I yearned, hungered, thirsted for more than anything, was a chance at a normal life.

But no, I couldn't, I wouldn't.

Now was the time for that famous Gryffindor courage to shine through this grim outlook, I thought to myself, willing my feet to move...and staying in that same spot.

I amused myself with thoughts of how we had become friends, that very first day on the Hogwarts Express, when I was nervous and fidgety and he bustled into my train compartment, all red hair and joy and nerves and a smudge on his face and purity of the sweetest kind.

There was this...this force that compelled me, this emotion, this feeling, this thing that constrained me to this spot, unmoving, the reason I was standing there, staring at him as his chest rose and fell gently, imagining all sorts of things I could do to his body, his lips, his.... well. It was only subsequent, inevitable.

All of our little adventures, and our big ones, our joys, our pains, our fights, our make ups, our laughter, our very tears. Memories to cherish, to forget, to throw away, to store away only to be brought back years down the line.

I relished the last few warm fuzzy days of mirth and folly and hideous clamour we had had and....pulled myself back to the cold dank reality of how to leave, without leaving a part of my heart behind. Which, in itself, was unavoidable, anyway.

I had a job to do. Death Eaters to exterminate, a Dark Lord to kill, a world to save. A love to proclaim.

All that jazz.

And so I sucked it in and moved closer (although so much farther away and oh, how it hurt), wincing as my heavy boots caused the old floorboards to creak in blatant protest. It didn't matter, really; Ron was an undeniably heavy sleeper, and it normally took all four of us to wake him up in the morning. Well. It was soon to be three.

With a breath ragged and worn and thick from misuse, I leaned down slowly, painfully so, and pressed my lips against his, softly, gently, brushing chapped lips against cracked...

Our first kiss. Last one, too. Perfect irony.

I didn't move, not an inch, not a muscle although my lips trembled and my heart tattooed relentlessly against my ribcage and my head pounded and my stomach churned and my eyes stung.

Then, cautiously, I coaxed his motionless mouth open, only to run my tongue, quivering and large and awkward over his bottom lip, hoping, praying he didn't wake but secretly wishing he would and talk me out of this heroic act of perhaps stupidity.

His breath was sour and stale and stagnant and offensively warm against my face, steaming my glasses, and the chin that awkwardly bumped mine was rough with stubble. A small pimple adorned his nose as I brushed against it, the only thing to accompany those freckles and then a soft snore brought me back to me, my senses.

And so with a final whisper of incoherent sweetness, boyish love, adoration, lust, you name it, I dropped the letter on his bedside with the flower and backed away, brushing his soft cheek with my knuckles but only for a moment, because any longer, and I wouldn't have left at all.

I still think of him sometimes when the thoughts of the insatiable media with their invasive questions for the Man Who Survived, or current affairs, or even my wife and her loving adoration that I really don't deserve have come and gone. It hasn't been easy, not having talked to him or seen him since That Day. But I have lived. Barely. Scarcely. I've clung to life by threads, but still, I survived.

And it tears me up inside that he didn't too. He read it, though. The letter. Even told me so, and kissed me too, in the dim, half hearted light of a hidden-away tavern while the stench of rotting things and mulled wine flooded the place and his eyes were brightest and his hands large and clumsy and perfect. The night before Voldemort murdered him.

Bittersweet realisations are always the most tangible...they're the ones I hate the most...

But he'll always have that special place in my heart.

By dawn's early light, I, Harry James Potter, fell in love with one Ronald Bilius Weasley.