Let It Be Deep

Let it Be Deep

If you wish to drown, do not torture yourself with shallow water. --Bulgarian proverb

*~*

He still writes to her, sometimes. It's a hard habit to break.

He tells her of the places his job - his life - takes him. He fills pages with Africa, huge skies and forests that are wild and green and endless. And Australia, where it's nearly impossible to spot a flying golden ball against the blazing sky - but he does, and he tells her that too, a victory on their sunburnt turf is victory indeed. It's good for him to practise his English this way, and he does it late in the night, his teammates out or asleep or otherwise engaged.

Places, people, things that worry him, things he doesn't understand. Things he just thinks she ought to know. He tells her and slides his words in a box, and never opens it again.

(What he doesn't say: that he always expected it to be this way, someday. That he knew it would happen. But he thought it would be the other one - not because of the fame, not because of the daring deeds, he just thought. And it was getting that wrong that frightened him into thinking he'd never known her at all.)

*~*

The last words he saw in her writing (it has been a long time since he looked at them, but he remembers them well) told him how wonderful it was to be done, to be at peace. And, We're getting a little house, Ron and I, and Harry and Ginny.

She is not careless. She puts commas and conjunctions exactly where she means to.

He did not wait for more formal words. He saw no need. I am glad for you, he wrote, and it is still not a lie. Good fortune, and long life.

He ends things his own way. Always.

*~*

He meant what he said by that lake - never before, never any other girl. A man's words are either everything, or they are nothing; when he speaks, it is truth. It is everything.

He could say those words again today. It has been years, five years, and there have been other girls - other women. But he could still say them, and he does not know. . . is she really this much to him, for now and forever? Or is it easier - safer - to keep her first in his heart than to leave her behind?

*~*

When life brings him back to England, the first time in several seasons, he does not once pick up a quill. She is too close here, he feels. He would have to form different sorts of sentences, and once given life and shape, he would not be able to pack them away. Instead he trains harder and harder, flies faster and faster, and when the day comes that he must challenge Harry Potter, he is ready.

It is a near thing, hard fought. They both have the talent, they both have the speed, but he has the experience. He wins.

He cannot help hoping she was there to see it. This is in his head from the moment his hand touches gold, and suddenly, as if his mind's chant were an incantation, she is there. She is standing in the doorway of the dim, dirty changing room, and this is how he knows she is real: she is not quite what he remembered, and not quite what he imagined she would be.

"Hi," she says.

"Hello." His voice is loud in the empty room, and cold, and short.

"Congratulations," she says.

"Thank you, Hermowninny." He does little better this time. "He is a good flier, your friend."

"Yes," she says, "he is."

She has crossed the room, and he can see her smile now; it is one he knows. She is nervous. She does not wish to appear so.

(He would like to be heartened by this, but is not. She is not going to tell him something he would like to hear; she has simply come to offer words of apology, and is worried about how they will be received.)

With her close, he can see many other things. She has grown not merely up, but too old - that is in her eyes. She is uneasy, yes, but she is also more comfortable in herself than she once was - that is in her shoulders, her spine, the lift of her head.

"Viktor. . ." It's nice that she pauses; it gives him a moment to enjoy this, hearing her say his name again. "The first thing I should say is, I'm sorry. I never meant -"

"It is accepted," he says quickly. "Do not explain, please."

She blinks. He has thrown her off her script, and he is not sorry.

"Oh," she says. "Okay. Well. I also wanted to say that Ron and I. . . we're not together anymore."

"I am sorry," he says, and at this, he is. He has never wished for her to be hurt.

"It's all right. It was. . . mutual." She gives a short laugh, humourless. "Very mutual. Still, I'm glad we tried. I would have always wondered, otherwise."

He nods. He understands this very well.

"I've thought about writing you. Since then. Because. . . because." Her hands are working, twisting - she is very nervous - and his heart speeds up. "We never - I never - really tried. Part of me was always. . ." she breaks off, gesturing out into the room, into the space beyond them.

After a silence, she says, "I can't change the past. At least -" she laughs a little, and this time she finds her private joke truly funny - "at least, not very easily, and it's probably a really bad idea. And I don't know anything about your life right now, but I. . . well. I was wondering."

There is too much to think. She may simply be lonely, he knows this. Lonely, and looking for someone to make her feel special - and the red-haired boy less so. But there could be more, and if there is, if there is still a warm place in her heart for him. . . could it ever become anything like the fire he holds for her?

Too much. He steps close to her, puts his hands on her shoulders, leans down.

He has kissed her before, of course, but always as a girl. On the cheek, and carefully on the lips, always aware of his role as elder, guider, protector. He kisses her as a woman now, and it is everything.

If he is to drown, let it be deep.

*~*