He's hovering so high above the ground that the details of the landscape below him blurs into a single entity. It occurs to him that this is the first time he's ever really taken note of this phenomenon, despite having spent most of his life on a broom since before he could even walk. It's the stillness that strikes him now, that changes a familiar scene to something that is somehow other. He has always associated being on a broom with motion, with startling turns and swoops that should make his stomach drop out from under him but has always had a strangely calming effect. Flying is physical, primal, instinctive-flying is him.
From this distance, the wildness around him is a tangled knot, twisting and turning, and he thinks of bushy brown hair and honey brown eyes and ink stained fingertips curled gently around a quill. He thinks of how much has happened since those quiet moments of youth. He thinks of recent newspaper articles filled with tales of glory and daring and victory, he thinks of rows of books stacked at least ten high surrounding a tiny creature he can barely make out through the cracks, he thinks of himself playing quidditch in Bulgaria as she fought for her life and her friends. And he muses quietly-Would it have made a difference if he had been there fighting beside her?
He remembers the first time she saw him, and although he knows he didn't see her then, if he searches deep in his memory he can almost imagine her sharp eyes on him as he performs a Wronski Feint and throws Ireland's seeker off of his tracks. He can almost imagine that she is cheering him on as his tan hand closes firmly around the snitch and the crowd goes wild. Almost.
He knows she was surprised when he approached her the first time, in a rare moment away from the giggling girls that followed him everywhere. The look of suspicion as he gently shifted one of her stacks of books from the chair beside her to the table makes his eyes crinkle gently at the memory. His voice cracked on hello, and he felt her soften towards his obvious awkwardness. He remembers the look of shock on her face when he asked her to the ball and the feeling of triumph that swept through him when he realized-he was the first to really see her. He had a chance to sweep her away before the silly boys in her school even knew what they had lost. She was warm and soft in his arms as he twirled her around on the dance floor. He couldn't manage words-and oh, how he tried!-but dancing was like flying and he felt a moment of victory at her open smile as he spun her around. The smile directed at him.
Now, sitting on his broom so high above the world, the moment seems bittersweet. He pulls a small, elegant card from the depths of his robes and his fingers run gently across its surface. He remembers the game he played as she unknowingly watched him from high in the stands. He remembered the joy as his hand closed securely around the snitch. And he remembers the hollowness of that victory. The words on the card stare blankly up at him:
Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger
request the honour of your presence at their marriage
Wednesday, the twenty second of August
two thousand
at half after five o'clock
at The Burrow.
He may have caught the snitch, but Ireland won the game.