In This Moment

I can’t run into the room. Not with the tears falling like they are. I hate it when I get like this. Too much butterbeer and then the tears fall and then it’s all over and I’m just a mess.

I don’t want Ron to know I still cry about Draco. He knows that it was a good thing we broke up, but what does he know? He’s in love with me and I’m in love with Draco and of course it’s a good thing for him and not for me.

Hermione just pats me on the shoulder when she catches me crying in her “I’m-a-girl-and-understand” way and I hate it because no one understands and I hate to be patronized.

I walk slowly into the room instead of run; maybe it’ll be more discreet but it isn’t. Ron looks up from the potions homework he is doing and I know he was waiting for me, I can tell. The way he had a look of expectation on his face when I walked through the door.

“Where have you been?” he asks from the bed. I walk to mine quickly and close the curtains. I just want to shut out the world, shut out Ron, and cry.

I can feel Ron open the curtains and crawl into bed beside me. He cradles me and rocks me and I cry. I hate myself in that moment. The butterbeer is making my head spin and making me even more empty than I am and I don’t know how that can happen since I am completely empty all the time.

I cling to Ron like he is my life support and absorb the warmth of his body into my own. I move closer and hold onto him tighter and he tightens his grip around me. We are so close that I can hear his heart beating and feel the rise and fall of his chest and smell the hint of soap on his skin.

I crawl up into his lap and put my head on his shoulder where my tears can cascade down his neck after they leave my eyes. They are so beautiful running down his neck leaving wet trails into the depths of his shirt. My sorrow finding its way into Ron’s being, being absorbed into his skin.

I lift my head slightly and stick out my tongue and run it along Ron’s tear streaked skin to taste my sorrow. He shudders underneath me and I can feel his body tense and his grip stiffen around me. I trail my tongue along his milky skin, enjoying the way it feels to have him tense around me.

I place my head back on Ron’s shoulder and cry again because this time I hate myself for something completely different than I did two minutes ago. Ron kisses my head softly and strokes my hair and I hate him too because if he didn’t stroke my hair like that and hold me so close and shudder when I licked him then I wouldn’t be feeling like I do.

I can’t fall in love with Ron in this moment because I know it won’t last. I’ll wake up tomorrow when the pain has ebbed and the drunkenness has worn away and I won’t love him anymore, I’ll still love Draco and only want Ron as my friend. But tonight, in this moment while I’m crying and I’m in his arms and my tears are streaking down his neck and fading into his clothes I do love him – want to love him.

I pull my head off his shoulder and look at him but the room is spinning and even though I know we’re both completely still it feels like we are moving a million miles an hour. He looks at me with hope and longing and fear in his eyes and I hate him and myself but I love him more than I hate him and hate myself enough to love him.

I slowly lean close to him and brush my lips against his so lightly. His breath catches and I love the sound so I do it again but this time a little harder. He tenses for a second but then he relaxes and wraps his arms around me so gently – nothing like Draco used to do – and kisses me. I can feel his entire soul and all the love he feels radiating from that one kiss. His tongue dances with mine and it’s beautiful and I want to dance with him until the end of time.

I lie back against my pillow and pull him down with me and he is lying on top of me. I was never supposed to be this close to Ron, never supposed to have his hips lined up with my own and feel his body heat mingling with mine. His tongue was never supposed to caress mine the way it does and he was never supposed to tangle his fingers in my hair like that.

I know I’m too hot and I have to get some air so I break the kiss for a minute to shed my robe and sweater and Ron mimics me and sheds his shirt and quickly casts a silencing spell around the bed so no one will be able to hear our screams in the night.

His mouth quickly finds mine again and they quickly take up a beautiful rhythm that should be reserved for some famous ballet because the movements are impeccable and the passion is just right and the form is perfect. I can feel his heart beating quickly against my bare chest and it’s funny to me that two skinny boys who weren’t supposed to be doing this are lying here and being this beautiful when neither one of them are anything to look twice at but together we are frame worthy.

Ron’s hands smoothly flow down my body and his fingers expertly remove my trousers and I am secretly wondering why he knows what he’s doing and who else he’s done this with and I’m jealous and want to rip out their eyes because no one can touch my Ron like this – but it shouldn’t matter because I don’t love him and it’s okay.

He rolls over for a second, leaving my body cold and exposed in the night air, all the blood flowing down to my groin which is impatiently waiting for Ron’s touch. After his trousers are discarded beside mine at the foot of the bed he rolls back on top of me and every nerve in my body explodes from the touch of one naked body to the other and I wonder why I had never wanted this before.

My brain tries desperately to remind me that I’m only pawning my sorrow and pain off onto Ron and I’m not in love with him while my heart disagrees and carves the initials RW into the walls in big letters so that I will never forget and my body cries out Ron’s name with every breath and wants to be taken because if I don’t feel Ron inside me I will simply die.

Ron is reading my mind because he moves slick fingers around in places my best friend should never be touching and all I want to do is cry out in ecstasy and so I whisper “please” very softly and I finally feel the pressure of Ron’s fingers. I am writhing underneath him this time – I am the one that is writhing and tensing and shuddering. I am succumbing to his every whim and wish and I love him.

The presence of his fingers is gone but it is replaced with something so much better and filling that I cry out. He moves slowly against me and with every thrust I know that he loves me more than life itself and he’d die for me and face Voldemort and the rest of the Death Eaters by himself if it would save me or if I asked him too. With every thrust he is mapping out our life together with a picket fence and two children and dogs and growing old on the front porch in rocking chairs. Every thrust seals our fate.

“I love you, Harry,” he whispers, still so slow and meaningful and beautiful. The words ricochet off my brain and I hate myself because I can’t fall in love with Ron. Tomorrow I will not love him but tonight I do and the only thing separating us is the skin covering our bodies.

“I love you, Ron,” I say and I mean it though I hate myself because he is so close and I can smell him and his hair smells faintly like strawberries and I love strawberries and his mouth tastes like licorice and I want to eat the licorice he was eating earlier. I touch my lips softly to his again and then I press harder because I have to make sure he’s real and not a dream.

I can still taste licorice and I can smell strawberries and it’s so tantalizingly slow and I love him with all my heart and I’m going to explode. “Ron!” I call out and bite his neck – hard. I want him for my own. He moves a little faster and I can feel him release himself inside of me and he lays his head on my chest and breathes. He is beautiful all sweaty and breaths and matted hair and milky skin and bones.

My fingers involuntarily find their way into his hair and start strolling through it lazily. And the pain and the sorrow are gone and I am happy and content. The warmth from his body is covering my own and his breath is in sync with my own and his sweat is mixing with mine and he is beautiful lying on top of me and spent.

He props himself up on his elbows and looks at me with a lazy smile and I look back, willing myself not to smile but I can’t help it. “I love you,” he says again and I just move my fingers to the base of his neck and pull him close to me and kiss him deeply, my heart telling him through my tongue that I love him too.

My brain is screaming at me and telling me that I won’t love him in the morning but in this moment I love him. He performs a simple cleaning spell and crawls up beside me and pulls the covers over the both of us. Ron is spooning behind me and it feels so nice to have someone stay after we’ve made love that I can’t help but intertwine my fingers in with his and kiss them one by one.

Ron snuggles close and kisses my neck and says “Good night” and I tell him the same and listen as his breathing evens while convincing myself that I don’t love Ron. I know in the morning I won’t love him, but in this moment I do.

~Fin.