A/N: The song is "Brothers on a Hotel Bed," by Death Cab for Cutie.
She wasn't mine to take.
I met Katie Bell in my third year at Hogwarts, when she was a first year who came to quidditch practice every morning and begged to be put on the team. No matter how many times I told her first years weren't allowed to play quidditch, she tagged along after me—in the halls, in my classes; she even followed me into the bathroom once. I had no choice but to let her join in her second year. She was better than I had anticipated; the scrawny dark haired girl could fly, and fly well.
I realized how I felt about her the day she turned sixteen. It was late May, the year we won the Quidditch cup—my last year at Hogwarts. Everyone else had gone to bed, and the common room was a disaster from the huge party the Weasley twins had thrown for her. We were laid out amongst the mess of cake and streamers, and I looked over as she told me her biggest secret—him. Not me, but him. I guess I had always assumed Katie had had a crush on me. After all, we told each other everything, and she had followed me around since she was a messy-haired eleven-year-old. I had always thought it was a cute crush, one that would go away after time, and paid it no attention. But now I realized it wasn't me, but someone else. And I knew that I had fallen in love with her sometime along the way.
She wasn't mine to take.
/You may tire of me
As our December sun is setting/
But I took her, anyway. We're married now, having aged together, and if I look over to my left, Katie's sleeping in our bed, the moonlight shining on her now silver hair. We are at the end of our lives, each of us. It's difficult for me to remember that I was once tall, fit, dark-haired, and Witch Weekly's Bachelor of the Month for a year running, let alone the man that Katie Bell had married. I'm sure it's even more difficult for her. She is used to me now, after the initial hesitation. I know that she loves me, but I know that part of her will never be completely mine. And I can see that, now, as the winter of our lives sets in. She often becomes distant, even drawn. And I can't reach her.
/I'm not who I used to be
No longer easy on the eyes,
These wrinkles masterfully disguise
The youthful boy who looked your way & saw
Something he was not looking for—
Both a beginning and an end/
I move over carefully so as to not wake my sleeping bride, and sit at the table in our small flat, reflecting. I often wonder how our lives would have turned out if he had not died. I know, almost as I still know in my mind how to save a goal, that we would not be here together. I was her second choice, and I always would be.
She wasn't mine to take.
She was Fred Weasley's. I watched her with him after her admission to me that she fancied him. And after I graduated, I exchanged letters and visited her. I comforted her and held her through her tears the year he took Angelina Johnson to the Yule Ball, and the year he dated her afterwards. I took her to see him after he and his twin brother had escaped the school on the back of my own broomstick. I watched her examine with every detail the many products that filled the shelves of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes the day that it opened. I tried to share in her joy the day he first kissed her. I was the only one who knew about their plan to run away together after the war ended.
/On the back of a motor bike
Your arms outstretched trying to take flight
Leaving everything behind/
I was the one who had to physically restrain her the night Fred died from throwing herself on his body. Her arms were stretched out, reaching for him blindly, desperately, and I was strangely reminded of a distant memory, something I thought I had forgotten.
It was after everyone had graduated, and we took a trip to the ocean. I watched her with him as he picked her up and put her behind him on the back of Hagrid's motor bike. I don't think he had asked to borrow it, just taken it. It was the way he was. It was the way she was, too.
I had never seen her so happy, the sunlight reflecting off her dark hair and light eyes as he started up the engine and took off down the beach. Her arms were spread as far as they could go, and she was laughing as they finally lifted off.
"Oliver, I'm in love," she had whispered to me later that night when I took her home.
She wasn't mine to take.
She never was.
/But even at our swiftest speed
We couldn't break from the concrete
In the city where we still reside/
I spent years patiently waiting beside her, waiting for the day she could move on. Maybe not entirely, but I kept faith that one day I could make her see me the way I saw her. I wanted so desperately to be the first person that made her smile again.
I took her out by the seashore, driving through muggle streets on a rented motorbike from a shop in a small town. "Fly, Oli, make it fly!" she yelled in my ear, laughing. I couldn't. But I had asked her that night to marry me, and given her a simple ring, which she accepted with a smile and a tear.
And we have spent years together, raising children and moving on with our lives. She came to all of my quidditch matches, and supported me when I had to retire. When I watched her with our two daughters, I didn't think I had ever known what love was until that moment. And I have spent every year falling more in love with her, as she grows more and more distant.
It makes me hurt inside at times, but on the whole I've come to accept it. It's the price one pays for taking something that isn't theirs to take.
/And I have learned
That even landlocked lovers yearn for the sea
Like navy men/
I give her space when she gets like this. I have no other choice.
I love her. She's my girl.
/'Cause now we say good night
From our own separate sides
Like brothers on a hotel bed/
I spend some more time up thinking on my life before I decide to go to bed. Slowly, I creep into my side of the bed and watch my love sleep. She has a slight smile on her wrinkled face, but I know it isn't me she's dreaming of. But I'm alright with that. I just want her to be happy. I love her. She is my beginning and my end. My one true love. My girl. So I'm content to kiss her on the forehead as she sleeps, and then to turn over to my own side of the bed before I drift to sleep.
/Like brothers on a hotel bed/
She wasn't mine to take. She never was.
But I did, anyway.
Those who love have no choice.