A year.
It had been a year since he had seen her, and as corny and sappy as it sounded, he had missed her more then he could ever put into words.
It wasn't just the kissing and the holding that he had missed. He had missed waking up in the morning and seeing her walk downstairs with bed-head and smeared makeup. Even if he wasn't technically "with her" just having her around, just having her near him, within a close proximity of him made him a little more comforted and a little less scared.
He was so close to just running and hugging her when he had seen her in the Room of Requirement, and if the situation wasn't so harsh he would have chuckled at the way she got jealous when Cho suggested she come with him.
He had missed her jealously and her laugh and the scent of her hair and the way her cheeks looked flushed after she came back from the Quidditch pitch and her kisses and the way her arms felt around him during their routine good-night goodbye.
So he made up his mind, he was going up to her room, and he was going to see her. And he was going to kiss her again, and love her again, and talk to her again, and cry with her for the first time.
He found himself in front of her door, standing there, in the middle of the night, waiting to build up the courage enough to knock. It couldn't possibly be that hard, just to knock. But apparently, it was, because he was having a bloody hard time with it.
But after repeating to himself, be a man, over and over in his head, almost like a mantra, he knocked on the door, and when she opened it, his breath caught in his chest.
Her gorgeous red hair was messed up, just like he remembered it, and her bright brown eyes were aglow with a million different emotions, just as he knew his own were. His heartbeat sped up to a million beats a minute and his breathing rate increased and he could feel his body reacting to being within five feet from her.
She stood there in the doorway for a few moments before giving him a soft smile, stepping aside, and opening the door to him.
"I think maybe you should come in."