Vor Dammerung

Vor Dämmerung

One night.

One night can change things.

It had been lessons in games of chess and flirtation every night for a week, now- before she had to miss a chess game one evening, and asked me to meet her later- without the chessboard. Harry and Hermione knew something was up, I think, when I kept pacing through the Common Room and staring at my reflection in all the mirrors.

Was it a date?

I didn't know. I knew we had something, but I didn't know if we were dating. I knew that I wanted to. I knew that she liked me. I knew that we disagreed on some much else- if we took it beyond kissing, to an actual relationship, something with emotion and connection and getting to know one another mentally, how long would it last? How far could it go?

I didn't know.

Pansy and I met in an empty classroom again- the Care for Magical Creatures room that hadn't been used since Hagrid took the job. I wondered if she might've had somewhere else in mind at first, but the Astronomy Tower was too cold, now that the first December frost seemed permanently hard and glittering on the grounds. Snow would be here in a week at most, or I'd kiss Malfoy.

I was not, I assured myself, actually going to kiss Malfoy. The snow would come. If it didn't.... I'd kiss Pansy. So what if I planned on doing that anyway?

She was waiting there when I arrived, wearing a dress and a cardigan instead of robes. I was surprised- the line between Muggle and wizarding clothes is pretty hazy sometimes, but for a Slytherin, this was definitely pushing it.

I was also cursing myself- I was in my normal robes. I should've been in the ones Fred and George bought me last year, maybe, or something a little classier and les worn. Because this was a date. Her eyes told me that, even if her dress hadn't already.

We kissed hello quickly, keeping our lips closed- if we didn't, we wouldn't stop kissing for a good ten minutes at least, if our chess post-games were any indication.

We sat on top of the teacher's desk, side by side. I wanted to say something, to start talking, to keep finding out what we were and what we wanted. In more detail than just 'each other, rather madly'- we had that one figured out already, thank you very much.

"So," I said, feeling about as brilliant and socially adept as if I were a horklump.

"You're wondering," she said.

"Yeah."

"About us?"

"Yeah."

"What are you wondering about?" she asked. Her voice was quiet- worried, even.

"If we- are we- dammit."

I took a deep breath. "I know that we're seeing each other, but is that the same as going out?" The words felt heavy and awkward as I said them, but I pushed ahead. "And do we both want to be? And if we do, do we keep it like this- secret, behind closed doors- or do we let people know?"

"Thank Merlin," she said, even more faintly- though now she sounded relieved. "I though you were going to say you wanted to- to stop."

"Never." I said. "Well, not unless there's a reason to. Is there?"

"Do you want us to be going out?" she asked, letting her fingers play their way up my spine, though my robes, sending gooseflesh and chills rippling across my back.

"Yes."

"Then you should ask me out on a date." Her voice had regained its cool, concise rhythm, and I relaxed a little.

"Do you want to go out somewhere?"

"Where?"

"The Three Broomsticks?"

"No."

"No?"

"I don't- I don't want everybody to see us."

I pulled away from her hand.

"Are you ashamed of me? Ron Weasley, the poor Muggle-lover, the Gryffindor?"

"I- no."

"Then why not?"

She didn't answer.

"Why can't you be seen with me?" There was something in my voice, some heat of anger or panic, and she winced at it.

We were on opposite corners of the desk now, staring at one another across it, as the moonlight spilled through the window and across the room, drawing a shining line across the desktop that divided us.

"I'm scared," she said, shrinking back as though she was deflated.

"Of what? What people will think? What they'll say when they know?"

"What they'll do," she said. "Not just what they'll call us- either of us, both of us, whatever. Bollocks to them," she said- fiercely, though the words seemed strangely unfamiliar in her mouth. I had seen her sneer at others for years, insult them, treat them with contempt- but other than calling Hermione a Mudblood, I had never heard her say even the mildest of dirty language. It was as though she was above that. Though that seemed to be another facet of her- there was pansy the girl, whom I spent my evenings with, and Pansy the Slytherin, the Rich, the Cold. I wondered how she could be both at once.

"I don't want to hear the Slytherins insult you- I don't want to know what Draco will do," she said. "And I don't want Potter and Granger to... to say something."

"They won't like it," I told her, "but they wouldn't insult you, or us."

"I don't want them to talk you out of it." She said. "I don't want them to tell you that you're mad, because I think you might be and I don't want you to realize it. I don't want you to come to your senses."

"What?"

"Ron, I- I've said more horrible, spiteful things to you than anyone but Gra- but Hermione. I even meant a lot of them. You're... you're like a storybook knight to me, saving me, courting me- but I'm a scullery maid disguised as a princess, not the other way around like in fairy tales."

"I'm not a knight," I said, taken aback- blushing, feeling as though I was, in fact, a knight, and I could slay dragons- without Charlie's help, even. I wasn't- I was the squire, the sidekick. Best Supporting Actor, like in one of Hermione's Muggle moveys- not the lead. "I've got a temper."

"You don't get mad unless you're provoked. And even then, or even when you break the rules, you're... honorable."

"I called you a Slytherin cow once," I ventured, thought why I was trying to convince her was suddenly beyond me.

"That's not it."

"Nobody's going to convince me that I shouldn't be with you. I don't want to hide."

"Not the Three Broomsticks," she said, softly, as if she didn't know whether or not she still ought to be objecting. I was tired of seeing her worried- I wanted that teasing, whip-thin smile on her face again. I wanted those eyes to glitter at me like some hard, dark pair of jewels.

"Go to the Yule Ball with me, then. We'll have almost three weeks to get ready for it."

"Kiss me and I will."

I kissed her. Neither of us seemed sure of anything, least of all what we were doing now, and our lips stayed closed for long seconds, just feeling the softness and warmth of one another as we drew closer again. Then her lips opened to mine.

We didn't talk again for a while- everything was heat and breathlessness and locked mouths and shifting hands.

For every question we had answered, at least one other reared its head. Both the ones we'd mentioned and the ones I'd kept to myself- I was sure she had some of those as well.

But we knew what we were now- I was hers, and she was mine. We had more than a truce to snog and play chess during- that was something. It was a step.

We had arrived late, after midnight. We kissed more. We talked about inconsequential thing to each other, because we felt we could now- because even if it was just between us and no one else, there was something acknowledged, something official. We talked about class. We talked about whether or not Professor Flitwick lived a secret life as a Casanova- the rumors had gone around for years. We laughed. We held each other. We kissed again.

I was going out with Pansy Parkinson.

I hadn't been so happy since- when? What? Since before the Triwizard Tournament, to be sure.

I hadn't been so confused ever.

The moon had set and the sky was paling into violet when we left, but it was still well before dawn. Hours before dawn.

A voice from somewhere in my memory spoke, though I couldn't place it.

"The spirits have done it all in just one night!"

They had.

I only wished I knew just what they'd done, and if it was a blessing or a curse.