A red and gold tie slips between fingers and falls to the ground.
Buttons, buttons, buttons are everywhere. They separate from their holes and join the tie on the floor, along with the rest of their shirts.
He hoists her up into his arms and then lays her down on his bed. Her arms remain locked around his neck. Her hair is splayed out like a mermaid, but not the creatures he knows to be in the lake, the ones from Muggle fairy tales who fell in love with mortal men and became spirits of the sea.
Lips find lips and hearts beat louder. He feels his blood running through his body, because he is alive, alive, alive but at the same time he might as well be dead to rest of the world for all they understand it.
His hand slides over her rib cage in search of her heart because his is in her palm and he wants more than anything to hold hers too. Her hands move to make him look at her and he stares straight into the endless green. His breath leaves him as her eyes declare it, mine, mine, mine.
She is everything, the sun might burn out and the earth might shake and he will be blind and deaf to it because all the world has darkened and she is his only light. He wants to turn himself off because it is too much for his soul to take. He closes his eyes and buries himself in her neck.
Words. She says something, maybe his name, and soon they are kissing again. More fabric slides away from their bodies and soon they are touching and gasping and it is so, so cold but so, so warm.
He finds her hand and holds it. He keeps holding it, whether he is touching her (he is) or taking a moment to try to regain his breath (he can't). He grasps it as they unite in fire, in ice, in everything and nothing and for a minute, he swears the world stops around them. Every atom around them is frozen, moving only when pushed by the force of their bond.
Nothing is between them. They have exceeded the boundaries of flesh and bones. Still, they attempt to strain closer, pushing and panting and grasping with blind eyes. They reach their breaking points and feel the intensity of their passion overwhelm them.
They separate and James wants to cry. He doesn't know why, just that he love, love, loves her and he is seventeen and doesn't know if he should be feeling this way but nothing has ruined him so completely as having her in his life in his life, in his heart, in his bed. No one ever explained this part of love to him. No one told him that magic went beyond transfiguring desks into cats and that magic was holding her hand in his and kissing her eyelashes. He wants to offer her everything and it terrifies him that all she wants is him. But it is a good kind of fear.
They lie quietly for a while, and just breathe. They are in darkness, but James sees stars.