If I had more time and inclination, this would probably be longer, and beta read and all that good stuff. The truth is I never planned on writing Potterfic (though I'm an avid reader), and this is more than likely just a one off. I had an urge, and so I indulged it. Let me know what you think.
Phoenix
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Looking back, it was inevitable that I would fall in love with one of them. It was that freshness of the moment, that second when you are so new and young and the mysteries of life and youth are secrets revealed clearly for a small length of time. So fleeting and yet the centre of it feels like forever.
It should have been Harry. That's the way a classic romance would have gone. The young hero, and his bookworm best friend; mousy at first, but then a brilliant late-bloomer. But the truth, as it so often does, mocks that tired myth, erases it as flattered fancy. Harry didn't need to love me, he didn't need to be bound so quickly to another heart - bound as he was then, to a destiny so overwhelming. Harry needed a family, strong and true and not subject to the often fickle winds of love and desire.
And I didn't need to lose myself in another solitary soul. Harry and I have an understanding that goes beyond words. We recognize parts of ourselves in one another. It is the basis of the truest friendship I have ever known. But it would have made for a disastrous love affair. Disastrous in a quiet, simple way, in which we each would have descended further into ourselves, but not each other.
What I needed was fresh air to clear away the cobwebs of a young head already full of unanswerable questions. I needed to embrace the immediacy and the vibrancy of being alive. I needed to learn that for all of life's complexities, there are simple truths that ring loud and clear, and that discovering them in their simplicity is the true key to happiness.
Of all the things Ron Weasely has taught me, the most important is about the power of the moment. The power and fire of being here now.
Our first kiss was like that. By the fire in the Griffindor common room, a moment like so many others, made crystal and eternal when he suddenly turned to me and touched his lips to mine.
I remember fearing, in our seventh year, that the dark struggles with Voldemort would quench Ron's spirit. Our fear for Harry was so great then, and I remember seeing it in Ron's eyes, knowing that if something happened to Harry it would destroy them both, that it would kill the essential part of Ron that I loved so dearly.
There is a twinkle in his eyes now; those eyes that have changed so little, really, since they first met mine. He's looking over our daughter's shoulder, at a photo that is achingly familiar. Two boys and a girl, young and gangly, with wide smiles and teeth shining, arms slung carelessly over one another's shoulders.
My husband raises his eyes to mine, with an unspoken question. Which one? I find my shoulders rising in a shrug, but as I look down again at the photographed trio, I notice one of the boys, with a rather impish look on his face, stealing glances at my daughter as she smiles and waves.
Ron sees it too, and he winks elaborately. And I feel something shift and settle, in the very heart of my being, as I put my arms around the man I love.
Phoenix
******************************************************************************
Looking back, it was inevitable that I would fall in love with one of them. It was that freshness of the moment, that second when you are so new and young and the mysteries of life and youth are secrets revealed clearly for a small length of time. So fleeting and yet the centre of it feels like forever.
It should have been Harry. That's the way a classic romance would have gone. The young hero, and his bookworm best friend; mousy at first, but then a brilliant late-bloomer. But the truth, as it so often does, mocks that tired myth, erases it as flattered fancy. Harry didn't need to love me, he didn't need to be bound so quickly to another heart - bound as he was then, to a destiny so overwhelming. Harry needed a family, strong and true and not subject to the often fickle winds of love and desire.
And I didn't need to lose myself in another solitary soul. Harry and I have an understanding that goes beyond words. We recognize parts of ourselves in one another. It is the basis of the truest friendship I have ever known. But it would have made for a disastrous love affair. Disastrous in a quiet, simple way, in which we each would have descended further into ourselves, but not each other.
What I needed was fresh air to clear away the cobwebs of a young head already full of unanswerable questions. I needed to embrace the immediacy and the vibrancy of being alive. I needed to learn that for all of life's complexities, there are simple truths that ring loud and clear, and that discovering them in their simplicity is the true key to happiness.
Of all the things Ron Weasely has taught me, the most important is about the power of the moment. The power and fire of being here now.
Our first kiss was like that. By the fire in the Griffindor common room, a moment like so many others, made crystal and eternal when he suddenly turned to me and touched his lips to mine.
I remember fearing, in our seventh year, that the dark struggles with Voldemort would quench Ron's spirit. Our fear for Harry was so great then, and I remember seeing it in Ron's eyes, knowing that if something happened to Harry it would destroy them both, that it would kill the essential part of Ron that I loved so dearly.
There is a twinkle in his eyes now; those eyes that have changed so little, really, since they first met mine. He's looking over our daughter's shoulder, at a photo that is achingly familiar. Two boys and a girl, young and gangly, with wide smiles and teeth shining, arms slung carelessly over one another's shoulders.
My husband raises his eyes to mine, with an unspoken question. Which one? I find my shoulders rising in a shrug, but as I look down again at the photographed trio, I notice one of the boys, with a rather impish look on his face, stealing glances at my daughter as she smiles and waves.
Ron sees it too, and he winks elaborately. And I feel something shift and settle, in the very heart of my being, as I put my arms around the man I love.