a/n: Response to Static Lull's "may perpetual", which fuels me with the desire to write, despite the fact that I have no time and I'm in the middle of an application for higher learning. Kel can write a HP fic like nobody's business.
whole town underwater
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You say, "I never got a chance to miss you."
(because we were never close to begin with)
You're standing with your spine too straight against the hole of the door, and he's giving you that look, the one that means that he wants to hurt you but isn't going to. The one that means that he's sick and tired of you, but will keep you around anyways.
Opposites don't attract. You think of Ginny throwing bottles and hexes at Dean after their forty-second quarrel and that one time that George told you about, how in their third year, Hermione and Ron didn't speak for months.
You bite your lip straight through the skin and look him over. His face is slightly paler now, the muscles gone weaker with the strain of war and hurt and retirement. He doesn't play Quidditch much anymore; he says he doesn't miss it, and the way his face contorts makes you (almost) believe him.
He looks you squarely in the eye and sighs, this puffy, disgusting old-man-with-long-socks sigh. "Don't talk nonsense, Lee." He says this the way that McGonagall would if you still showed up to Hogwarts, the disapproving oh-you-know-better tone.
The muscles in your face jerk uncertainly. "I'm trying to say that it's nice to see you."
Oliver gives that old-man sigh again. He motions you in and mumbles incoherently at the frowning woman that you can just barely see in the background, her knitting fingers gone still on the curve of her stomach. Oliver introduces her as The Wife and barely flinches when she pinches him and asks you if you feel like having some tea.
The Wife is busying herself with the kettle while the two of you make awkward conversation in the setting room. You're toying with The Wife's leftover yarn with the heel of your foot and just starting to wonder what to do with your hands when Oliver lunges halfway out of the chair to clasp your shoulders.
He mumbles furiously into your pullover, "I missed you. Not much, but enough."
(I miss George and Fred and Katie and being a team and fighting and yelling so loudly I thought I'd go mute. I miss that, and I missed you because you came along with it.)
Oliver's breaking twenty-seven now, but he still has the familiar baby smell that he never quite grew out of. He smells of a damp sweetness and comfort, and you close your eyes against it. You reach for him cautiously and think of George, Fred, and Katie wrapping their arms around him after winning games and losing games, their cheekbones pressing sharply against his, their torso melded together.
You hold him with everything you've got and say, "Yeah. I know."