Together

Watching the rise and fall of Albus's chest in the shadows of her darkened bedroom, Rose had to stop herself from reaching out and running a hand over his cheek. He'd wake from that. Albus was the lightest sleeper she'd ever met; if her parents or brother were to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, they could wake him simply by closing the bathroom door across from Rose's room.

Instead, Rose took an agonizingly long time to roll over so she could just stare at his face and marvel at how much he looked like Uncle Harry, but somehow still reminded her of every other cousin with Weasley blood in their veins. With Albus, she was sure it was the hint of auburn in his dark hair. And then there was the way he smiled… Rose's lips curved at the thought of her cousin's open, cheery grin. Aunt Ginny smiled like that, so did Dad and her favorite uncle, Charlie.

Rose's smirk faded slowly. Even though she could picture Albus's smile in a heartbeat, her cousin didn't smile like that very much. He hadn't since they'd started Hogwarts and once they'd started this – relationship – he'd only given her that open grin two or three times in their most private moments together. He was scared, she knew.

People would be horrified if they knew what the children of the famous Golden Trio were doing behind closed doors. In fact, the Golden Trio themselves would be livid if they found Albus in her bed or Rose in his bed as they were now (her naked from the waist down and Albus without pants or shirt).

But what people didn't get was that it was hard to love somebody when you were the children of people who were revered like gods. The people out there, kids at Hogwarts, kids not at Hogwarts and even grownup adults lusted after their fame, their names, and their lives. Those people didn't want any of them for who they were; strangers just wanted the perks that came with being the boyfriend or girlfriend to the son or daughter of one of the members of the Golden Trio.

But Albus didn't.

He didn't want anything from her but her love and she'd been giving that to him for years – this was just a different (disgusting) form of it. Incapable of controlling her fingers any longer, Rose let them caress the man's jawline that was slowly defining itself in the round, boyish features of her cousin.

His eyes fluttered open in the dark to reveal the beautiful green Rose had coveted since she was a tiny girl. When she had been small, her favorite color was green, or it had been before her dad told her that it was the color of Slytherin. Once Rose knew what green meant, she chose to safely conform to her dad's hopes and learned to love all the hues of red and gold that resided around her.

(The ruby-red of her favorite scarf, her aged-yellow charm bracelet gifted to her by Mum, the crimson blush that came to Albus's cheeks when he was happy, a morning's saffron sun).

Yet even as Rose came to adore the shades of gold and red that belonged to her, green kept a precarious perch in her heart. It was the first color that had stirred something inside her that was bigger than herself and that feeling had only increased tenfold with the years and this new kind of love she shared with her cousin.

Awake now and wearing one of his rare – albeit tired – open and cheery smile on his lips, Albus beckoned her close.

Not hesitating to, Rose curled against his chest and splayed her fingers on his skin and felt for the hickeys she'd surely left there a little more than two or three hours ago. They were comfortable for a while in that soft silence, but Rose's fears began to get the better of her so late in the night and due to this, she asked:

"What happens if Dad or Mum catches us in bed together?"

Taking her fingers, Albus, at his sweetest, kissed them one at a time before he whispered, "Run away."

"I see," Rose said as she took her hand back. Here she had hoped he'd stay by her side if they were found out…

Moving, her cousin studied her closely with his green eyes and then asked, "What did you think we'd do if they caught us in bed? Pretend we snuck a bottle of firewhiskey and that this was all a very, very bad mistake?"

Heart beating against its cage, Rose couldn't hide her elation as she straddled Albus and began to place a flurry of kisses upon his face and neck. We! He had said we! Her cousin meant for them to run away together! Not just he alone.

"Oh Al," she breathed against his skin.

Confused, but pleased by her affection, Albus returned it equally and soon, they were back to where they had started in her bed tonight – limbs intertwined and lips fluttering against lips.

This is for The Incest Competition on Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges forum. However, this is more like practice for another story I hope to someday write…

What did you think? Was it interesting? Enjoyable?

Thanks so much for reading and please review!