Never Second Best

After Sirius died, I thought I'd lost you for good.

You were inconsolable when we got back to Hogwarts, didn't speak to Hermione or me for days, screamed when you thought no one could hear you, cried when you thought no one could see you. It was like a part of you had fallen through the Veil, too. I couldn't help but wonder if it was worth it to hope that you'd ever be whole again.

"Don't be an arse," Bill said to me when I made some comment that summer about your sulking. "You don't know what it's like to lose somebody close to you like that. But trust me, you will."

Of course I would. Hell, it would've been stupid and selfish of me to think that my family, still nine strong in those days, would come out of the war in tact. But until I found out for myself what grief felt like, I'd have to do my best to understand yours.

It was damn hard, though. When the Advance Guard brought you back to Grimmauld Place in mid-July, your mood hadn't improved much. We shared a room that summer, just like we'd done the summer before, but you still barely spoke a word to me. Lupin said you'd come around in your own time; hell, even he was beginning to make his triumphant return to the world of the living for the first time since Sirius' death. But you didn't seem to be making any kind of progress, and I was damn near ready to start grieving for you.

You'd slip out of the bedroom at around midnight every night. You never took your Invisibility Cloak with you, which I thought was bloody stupid because my mother would've gone mental if she'd found you out of bed at that hour, but I realized that probably wasn't one of your greater concerns.

I didn't follow you at first, because that would've seemed a tad impolite, but one night curiosity finally got the better of me. I waited a minute or so after you'd left the room, then nicked the Invisibility Cloak from your trunk and followed after you. It wasn't difficult at all; the light of your Lumos spell led the way as you wandered down the corridor and up to the third floor.

You paused when you reached the door at the end of the hall--Sirius' old room. For a moment, you just stood there, running your hands over the woodwork, like if you stroked it the proper way Sirius might be standing behind the door when you opened it. I bit down hard on my lip and hoped you wouldn't hear me breathing mere inches behind you, but finally you opened the door and entered the room.

I followed.

You didn't linger very long, only long enough to nod to Buckbeak, who bowed to you lazily from the spot he'd claimed in the corner, and then you headed out to the terrace. I watched you from the doorway. There were three chairs set up around a small patio table, but you stretched out on the hard marble and turned your eyes skyward, searching. I thought I knew what you were searching for--Sirius. Not the man, but the star. I wondered if you knew the star couldn't be seen in the summer months but somehow knew that wouldn't have mattered to you, wouldn't have stopped you from searching.

You were crying, I realized. You whispered something to yourself, and even though I couldn't hear the words, it sounded sad enough to make me want to cry, too.

You sniffled a little and then, without turning your eyes away from the stars, said aloud, "I know you're there, Ron."

Even if you had been looking my way, you wouldn't have seen the flush of embarrassment on my face until I let the Invisibility Cloak fall to my feet. As inclined as I might have been to breaking rules, I'd never learned to gracefully handle the act of being caught.

"What do you want?" you muttered with such indifference that it hurt.

I sighed heavily before answering. "For things to be the way they were," I said. "But they won't, will they?"

I stepped out onto the terrace, and you sniffled again, and I had the sudden urge to lay down beside you on the cold marble and gather you up in my arms and let you sob long and hard with your face buried in my pajama shirt.

Instead, I trailed my eyes over your shuddering form, clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth, and repeated the words, "Will they?"

"Of course not, you prat," you whispered. "Why the hell do you think I'm crying?"

~ * / / / / / ~ * ~ * ~

I think Hermione understood.

I mean, how many times can your boyfriend of nine months reject your sexual advances without it looking suspicious? Thank Merlin she didn't make me say the things I should have said to her--I love you, of course I love you! But not like you want me to. I can't do that. And I can't help wishing that when I kiss you, your mouth wasn't so soft and sweet and delicate, or that when I touch you I was touching something harder, firmer, something without the parts that are there and with a few that aren't. And she didn't make me say the word...any of the words...gay, queer, homosexual, fag, poof, nancy, shirtlifter, fairy, queen, nelly...and for that I was beyond grateful.

Instead, she sat me down in the Common Room one April evening and held my hand and said to me, "I don't think I'm what you need."

And as much as I wanted to be sorry, she was right.

Nothing changed between us after that, surprisingly. She and I were still friends, probably better friends than we'd ever been, because we were seventeen years old and were finally above squabbling the way we'd done when we were younger. There was a simple, happy understanding between the two of us. Any other girl in her position might've outted me to everyone within a hundred miles. But not Hermione. Hermione didn't tell a soul.

I didn't, either. Not even you.

And even at night, lying in bed, drapes loose around the big four poster, one hand down the front of my shorts, I always made a point to cast a Silencing Charm.

Because if you were, in fact, still awake, how could I ever have explained to you why it was your name I was crying out as I came?

~ * / / / / / ~ * ~ * ~

Somebody thought it'd be a good idea to give Malfoy an Apparating License.

Somebody was wrong.

When he Apparated into the Gryffindor Common Room on the night before the start of Fall Term of our Seventh Year, he managed to crash into an end table and knock over a vase. It was a surprise nobody else heard the commotion.

I heard it, though.

Of course, at the time I had no idea it was Malfoy. I'd been on the edge of sleep, dreading the beginning of this new year like every other student at Hogwarts (save Hermione, of course), when the resounding crash came. I lay there for a long while, debating over whether or not to investigate, and then finally climbed out of my bed when I glanced over saw that you weren't in your.

"Dammit, Draco!" I heard you hiss from the Common Room below. "Wake the entire bloody school, why don't you?"

Malfoy? I thought to myself. In the Common Room? It could have meant trouble. But then I realized you'd called him "Draco"--not "Malfoy"--and that kind of familiarity had to mean something different altogether, didn't it?

I hid myself behind a bookcase near the banister and watched the scene in the Common Room play out.

"Sorry 'bout that," said Malfoy, who took a moment to assess the damage he'd done. "It was an ugly vase, anyway. I'd say I did you Gryffindors a favor."

You didn't look amused, and that made me feel a little better about things, but then you walked up behind Malfoy, who was still studying the broken vase, and put your hands on his shoulders. He turned his head a little, just enough so that his eyes met yours, and gave a weak smile.

"What's wrong?" you whispered. "When you owled me and told me to meet you down here, it sounded urgent."

Malfoy sighed and turned around properly then. The way you looked at him, as if whatever he was about to say would be the most important thing in the world, made me more jealous than I cared to admit.

"I told my father," Malfoy said quietly, eyes downcast. "He'd been going on and on all summer about how proud he was that I'd be taking the Dark Mark on my birthday and how happy the Dark Lord would be and...and finally I couldn't take it any longer. I told him I wasn't taking the Dark Mark, no matter what he said. I told him I didn't want it."

I couldn't fucking believe the words I thought he was saying, but my surprise didn't come close to equaling yours. You stood there gawking at him for almost a full minute before saying anything.

"Wh...what did he do?" you finally managed to stammer out, moving closer to Malfoy. I didn't like the proximity between the two of you. It was too intimate, and it made me anxious and angry and scared, and what the hell was he doing in the Gryffindor Common Room?

Malfoy rolled up his left sleeve. On the inside of his forearm was a scabbed-over, crudely carved skull, with what looked to be the beginnings of a snake slithering out of it.

"Didn't even bother with magic," he muttered, his voice a little shaky. "Just held me down and tried to carve it into my arm himself with a fucking Muggle knife. Simmy--she's one of our house elves--stopped him before he could finish, and she took me back to my room and healed the wound as best she could and bandaged me up. The knife went pretty deep...probably would've bled to death if...."

He broke off there, and then instantly, as if by magic, started to weep. If it had been anybody else, I would've felt horrible. But this was Draco Malfoy, and no matter what sob story he might've come crashing into the room with, I didn't trust the bastard for a moment.

But you did. In fact, you'd begun to cry as well, and you wrapped your arms around him and held him to you....

...And then, before I knew what was happening, you were naked and sprawled on your stomach beneath him on the sofa in the middle of the Common Room. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything but stand there and watch, both horrified and sickly fascinated by what was happening.

Malfoy was fucking you.

And yet, my first rational thought was of Cho Chang. I thought of the kiss under the mistletoe you'd told me about in Fifth Year. I thought of how you couldn't understand a damn thing she'd ever said to you. I thought of how you hadn't bothered with a girlfriend since then. I thought of how much sense it all made now.

I thought of a lot of things.

But mostly, I thought of the injustice of this entire situation. To think you would let Malfoy of all people, the prick who'd done nothing but make trouble for us since we'd arrived at Hogwarts, be the one to strip you down and bury himself inside of you.... I was the one that loved you, that really loved you, although I'd never told you that. I was not allowed to have you, and he was. Not even a thickheaded twit like me could miss the pure poetic irony in that.

And when I couldn't take any more and had finally summoned the strength to turn around and go back to the bedroom, there was only one thought left to think:

Fuck Hermione and her damned S.P.E.W.

If house elves saved the lives of scum like Malfoy, then the lot of them deserved to be annihilated.

~ * / / / / / ~ * ~ * ~

That next winter was a nightmare. Or, at least, it felt like one.

When Dad and Bill were killed in battle, I could barely feel a thing. The Order mourned their loss, and I just sat around, staring into space more often than I had any right to. If my mother or anyone ever reprimanded me for doing so, I was too oblivious to hear them.

And you were just as apathetic about things. Hell, you didn't even flinch when Snape announced that Malfoy had been forced by Voldemort to take the Dark Mark on his birthday in January. You'd known it was going to happen before the report came, anyway. After all, he was still fucking you, wasn't he?

What I remember happening the next morning might've been a dream. In fact, I think I preferred to think of it that way.

Sometime after my father and brother had been killed, you'd abandoned your little twin bed in our room at Grimmauld Place and had started climbing into mine at night. Maybe it was to comfort me, I don't know, or maybe you were afraid of the thought that you or I or any of us could be the next to go.

At any rate, the morning after the report about Malfoy had come, I remember waking to the feeling of a hand stroking my cock. I couldn't see anything when I opened my eyes--just blinding sunlight and a flash of white bedsheet. I knew it was you, though. The sound of your breathing, and the heat of it against my ear, were unmistakable.

"What are you doing?" I muttered, fighting the urge to arch up into your hand.

"Your morning stiffy was positively begging for help," you whispered, and then I had to look at you, because I'd never heard anything so ludicrous in all my life. But you simply smiled, shrugged and added, "It asked nicely."

I was too tired and too stupid and wanted this too much to point out how ridiculous the statement was. I could do nothing, in fact, except whimper and, just as I would've done had it been my own hand between my legs, cry out your name as I came.

When I'd finished, you rolled over so that one of your legs was draped over one of mine, and the fingers that had been wrapped around me were now slithering beneath my T-shirt, gently stroking my bare stomach. Your lips grazed my neck, then worked their way up over my Adam's apple, my chin, and then you kissed my mouth, and it was everything I'd wished Hermione's kisses could have been--hot, wet, hard, demanding. The problem with Hermione was that she'd kissed like a girl and, well....

You kissed like a man.

And it would've been so bloody perfect, except that when you pulled away, you brought your lips to my ear and whispered, "I love you."

I don't know what snapped inside of me--maybe I was only beginning to realize the absurdity of the situation, or maybe I thought you'd have rather been saying it to Malfoy--but something did snap, and before I could stop myself, I slammed my fist into your face.

I knew then that it wasn't a dream at all.

You held one hand cupped beneath your nose, but by that time blood had already splattered all over the white sheets. I was a little amazed, because you didn't cry. I'd never seen anyone get hit in the nose and not cry. But you didn't.

In fact, you didn't do anything at all, just climbed off the bed and stood there, looking down at me. Not gawking, not leering, just looking. Indifferent, as always. And then you moved to the door, but stopped and turned to look at me before leaving, and shrugged.

"Wow," you muttered half-heartedly. "Not as awkward as I thought it might be."

~ * / / / / / ~ * ~ * ~

"I can't believe he's dead."

"Who?"

Hermione just shrugged. "Malfoy," she sighed. "I mean, I know he wasn't a nice guy...treated me like shit.... Hell, he treated all of us like shit. And he was a Death Eater to boot. But, you know...nobody deserves that."

"Some people do," I said, brushing careful fingers through her mess of hair.

I don't know how strongly I believed that, though. After all, he'd been killed for hesitating to kill you, and by his own father, no less. Yeah, he was a prick. Yeah, he was a Death Eater. But maybe Hermione was right. Maybe he hadn't deserved it.

"It just goes to show...."

I glanced down at the head cradled in my lap. "What's that?"

"It's scary," said Hermione, rolling over to look up at me. "Things don't happen to people because they deserve them. They just...happen. There's no karma, no fate, no destiny. Nothing. Life is, for the most part, just one big chain of coincidences. Not even war can change that."

"You think so?"

It was a dumb question. I knew so.

"Probably," she sighed as she sat up. "But what can you do, right?"

"Right."

What could I do? Nothing. I knew that. Hermione was right; no outside force was controlling the events that shaped my life...any of our lives. Maybe that was the scary thing. And if no one had control, and if nothing on earth was predestined, then all was....

"Chaos."

"What did you say?" Hermione whispered.

I shook my head to clear the thought. "Nothing."

Hermione studied me for a long moment, then nodded and crawled toward the end of the tent. I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of snaps being unfastened....

"I'm going to sleep." A soft rustling marked her exit through the open flap of canvas. "I'll see you in the morning, Ron."

"Night."

I didn't open my eyes again until the sound of her footsteps outside disappeared altogether. I was surrounded by total darkness, but that was just as well. In darkness, I couldn't see the walls of this measly seven-by-four foot tent. In darkness, I couldn't see the silhouettes of the rubble that once had been Godric's Hollow.

In darkness, I couldn't see the tears that stained your face when you crawled in and stretched out next to me.

But I could hear you, and I could smell you. Fuck...I could even taste you, no matter how crazy that might sound. I could taste your sweat and the dust on your clothes and the ash embedded in your hair and a thousand other marks left by the evening's battle. Were you proud to wear those marks? Is that why you never bothered to wash them away? I didn't care, no matter how gruesome or fetid they might have been, because they were a part of you.

"You don't mind, do you?" you whispered. I shook my head to say that no, I didn't mind, but realized you couldn't see it. That didn't matter, though, because you took my silence for acquiescence and slung an arm over my chest.

"Rough night?" I whispered, and you actually laughed.

"Could say that," you mumbled, snuggling closer. "But isn't it always?"

"Guess so."

Neither of us said anything after that. I wish that had been because we needed some sort of silent communion with one another, but that wasn't the case. No, you didn't say anything because you were too busy working your mouth across my shoulder and over my collarbone, and I didn't say anything because I was fucking speechless.

And hard.

You had to have felt it, your leg pressed as it was against my groin. In fact, I'm almost sure you felt it. Your fingers gripped my bicep and then trailed down the length of my arm, and you grabbed my hand and pulled it to your stomach, guiding it down beneath the elastic of your shorts.

"You know you want it," you purred in my ear, and I swear to God, it was that morning in my bed all over again, and I was a breath away from punching you just like I'd done then.

"What do I want?" I hissed. "Your dick, now that your boyfriend's not around to suck it anymore?"

You froze...fucking closed up...and for the first time in all the years I'd known you, I think you might have been even more unsure of yourself than I'd ever been. That thought did nothing to put me at ease.

"Malfoy was never my boyfriend," you said softly.

"I don't care what he was, Harry!" I gasped. "I'm not his fucking understudy! I've played second fiddle to you for seven years and never said a word, but I'll be damned if I'm going to play second fiddle to some fucking prick of a Death Eater that got himself killed, just so you don't have to feel so bad about it!"

It was your turn to be stricken speechless. About damn time, if you asked me. You pulled my hand away from your groin and placed it on my chest, but you didn't let go. Instead, your hand lingered there and, because I was either too desperate for affection to be cruel or too exhausted to care, I didn't shrug it off.

We could sleep for the time being.

And in the morning, the world would fall apart.

~ * / / / / / ~ * ~ * ~

It was like the beginning, a world without form and without shape and without light. I could feel it all around, as smoke sifted, as dust settled, as millions upon millions of molecules of air crackled around me with reverberations of magic and...hope.

It wasn't like the beginning; it was the beginning.

"He's over here!" I heard somebody shout, but I knew they weren't talking about me.

My eyes, when I opened them, were heavy and stinging from a thousand flecks of ash and soot. How long had I been unconscious? A minute? An hour? Hell, it felt like an eternity. My legs felt paralyzed--probably some aftereffect of the Cruciatus Curse--but I knew they'd be working again in no time.

In the meanwhile, I would just lay there and wait, wait for someone to come and bring me conformation of what I could feel already.

And you did.

You were just a shadow at first, standing in the doorway of what once had been a lovely cottage in the heart of Godric's Hollow, surveying the remains of a long-abandoned parlor.

"George!" you cried out, and I turned my eyes to the corner and saw my twin brothers huddled amongst the rubble. "Is he okay?"

George nodded. "Yeah," he answered between gasps. "It was...just a...Stunning...Spell.... You go...take care of...Ron.... I'll get Fred...to the Medical Tent."

With some difficulty, he rose to his feet, then lifted Fred bodily from the floor and lugged him out of the house.

Your gaze fell upon me then, and in the half-light I could see a smile stretch across your face, green eyes glittering brighter than they should've.

"Ron," you sighed, and I nodded.

You were on your knees beside me in a matter of seconds, and you gathered me up and stretched me out across your lap and ran trembling fingers over my face. You opened your mouth as if you were about to speak, but what would you have told me? That Voldemort was dead? That a lot of people were dead? That the war was over? Those were all things I knew already.

So instead, you simply said, "Fuck."

It wasn't a kiss, what followed, more or less just a gentle brush of mouth against mouth, something infinitely sweeter and more fitting than any kiss might've been at that moment. And all those things I'd imagined tasting the night before--sweat, dust, ash--were palpable now on your lips, and so was the taste of your tears.

Or mine.

Or both.

I don't think I'd ever cried in front of you before.

"Ron, I want you to know something," you whispered. "You were never, ever second best. Never! Do you hear me?"

I heard.

And what's more, I think I finally believed.

FIN