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Some secrets are not really secret: fluttering eyelashes, side-glances and a meaningful giggle, heads together and a whispered did you hear? Secret dreams that aren't really secret. It keeps them up late, play-acting, princesses turning into brides-to-be. It's going to be lovely, the wedding, right, and the dress, oh, the dress. Did you hear?
Not yet, she thinks, not ever.
Alice is going to paint the roses red, she said she could, for the red queen: all bloody for this bloody wedding. Little girls, big dreams and the prince and the princess in a faraway fantasyland. Everyone's happy and she's all smiles, the Cheshire cat, the distorted reflection in a cracked looking-glass. And Alice is going to paint the roses red, did you hear?
You're going mad, Ginny says. Not ever, not likely.
Harry wakes every night and "I'm sorry, didn't mean to," and keeps scrubbing the not-blood from his not-hands, squatting in a moonbeam like an evanescent ghost. "I'm sorry, didn't mean to," he grins and she's back to the dreamless realityland. "It's all right, love, come back to bed." Alice is going to paint them, red, red, red. With an apologetic grin.
Some secrets are not really secret, Hermione knows. Blood on your lips, your tired face. Our triumph, his dead body. Avada Kedavra me, a long time ago. Blood and your lips on my tired face. What a shame we won. Secret dreams that keep girls up at night, all smiles and feelin' good, are we? Yes, she shouts, oh, yes, yes, yes, Ron.
Paint them red.
They sat in the Owlery, in the night, and it was their secret and their dream, fire-breathing but not dangerous, just bodies touching and oh, Ginny, we can't. They fell, through war and solitude and through a tight black hole, not breathing, not-beings. Daylight isn't so secret anymore, play-acting the happy brides-to-be, all smiles and bashful side-glances and my dress, my lovely white dress.
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