It has been a long time since they have last met. There has been a lot of painful death, and a dangerous war in the interim. He isn't sure if she will recognise him, even, after all these years. And yet, there are tears in her eyes as she realises who he is.
It has been a cruel time, a time when they needed each other the most, but they could not have even communicated across the barriers that divided them. But they are here now, and he hopes it is enough. She doesn't know how to react, he notices, and in truth, neither does he, so he simply asks if she will go to a quiet cafe with him, almost as if he were a schoolboy again. He wants to be, really, and perhaps this is his chance. As they sit across each other, laughing at old jokes and joyful memories, he wishes he had done it years ago, when he had the chance. Perhaps he would have had a happier life, if he had. Instead, he had run away from his feelings, and she had pushed hers away.
It seems so petty now, all the things they had fought over, as children. He remembered the day she told him he was a freak too, the day she stopped talking to him, on her eleventh birthday. It had hurt her more than it hurt him, he realises. She had not been shunning him, no. She simply wanted to be like him, and had failed. This failure had stung her too hard, to even want to look at him. He should have fixed it then, instead of trying to turn his feeling to Lily and failing. He didn't, so he will try again, now.
He looks at her, and notices she has scars too. Not physical ones, perhaps, but her face tells him that she has suffered at the hands of a cruel master too. He knows she will never tell him about it, so he doesn't ask. Instead, he reached his hand across the small table to brush her hair away. She flinches slightly at his touch, and he regrets it for a moment, before she smiles at him, blushing shyly. He hasn't felt this happy in a long time, and by the looks of it, neither has she, so he is glad he can give her this moment.
They sit there for a rather long time, and after it has been a few hours, she finally seems to muster up the courage to ask him about the War. He doesn't tell her everything, even though a part of him wants to. No, he simply tells her that it was long, but there was one light that kept him fighting through it. Her.
This little interlude of happiness might never come again, he knows, but right now, he doesn't care. Right now, it is enough for both of them.
Notes: I started writing this for TGS, but well, it didn't work out. I might as well submit it and enter it in the Christmas Character Challenge on HPFC.