Disclaimer: These characters and their world belong to J.K. Rowling.
Author's Notes: This is horrifically poemy -- it's only pretending to be prose -- yet, it wouldn't let me write it any other way!
o.o.o.o
He had been her first kiss, and she his, long before the days of James. It had been a brief thing, the insanity of only a moment, when she'd been so angry and beautiful that he couldn't help himself. And after he'd finished, he was sure she'd never looked more beautiful than that instant before she'd slapped him, when her eyes were still glassy and her lips were still parted and her breath was still missing. Then, though his cheek hurt and his eyes burned and he didn't know why, he'd laughed because he had taken her breath away. He was sure, always sure, even after they were married, that James never left her breathless the way he had.
He thought it made him special too. For the longest time, it was the single greatest thing that assured him he didn't completely live in James's shadow. He had felt a little bad, though, just occasionally.
Very often in the great deal of past that had gone on since then, he'd found himself wishing it had never happened, and praying he wouldn't ever forget a single bit of it. He never told James of it, even though he got guilt stabs in his heart sometimes, knowing he should. He liked to think he cared about James too much to say it, but deep down inside he knew this one small thing was all about Lily.
Lily, he was fairly sure, had let James know about it roughly a year into their relationship; James had certainly glared at him fiercely enough that one day in October, and Lily'd certainly looked anxious and relieved enough that whole week for nothing but that to have happened.
He wished she'd kept it secret. He'd wanted to let it stay just between the two of them...
It was never spoken of, that stolen perfect kiss, but sometimes he would find James glaring at him and he'd know the other man was thinking of it. He wondered, once every few times he spent an evening with them, what it felt like to know that someone else had taken that moment from the woman you loved; someone you could never truly hate properly for it, someone who knew what it meant to you but didn't truly regret it no matter how your feelings could bleed into your voice, into your actions. Someone you loved, too.
Even more he wondered, in the dark and the silence with his eyes closed before he falls asleep at night, whether she hated him for it. Whether she lay awake some times in the early hours of morning, thinking about him and wishing he'd never dared, just the way he'd wish sometimes. Did she wish it, then wonder how much she really meant it? (He always knew he'd rather never see her again than mean such sacrilege. Always always always and this is how a man in love still breaths, in and out taste of her name on his lips darling Lily so perfect but James rushing fast behind it.)
Did she ever think of him and just wonder?
Her eyes, when he'd watch her, show him nothing. They're green and they're clear and they're bright, but they have nothing to say to him. Like the rest of her, Lily's eyes are always full of James. Sometimes, he doesn't think she really ever sees him.
He waits the years out, and sees their child. He loves it, and knows the world is better for its presence, but he still can't help but feel that maybe, maybe, maybe he would have liked the world better the other way round.
It's a lie, a glorious lie, that he tells himself when he wakes up alone every morning. He cries because he's lonely but he'll never let anyone make it otherwise because he doesn't want it fixed. He lives in solitude but he's happy as he's ever been, because he hasn't lost them.
Harry's hair is black and fine and soft and wonderful, his voice still a gurgle in the back of his throat. He's a tiny thing, a precious gift she spent her whole life building up to. Lily's voice, soothing and gentle as it never was when she spoke to him, whispers in the curl of his little baby ear. Her lips kiss the fuzz of dark hair he inherited from James. Just then he knows she loves so much that she would-- could-- will-- die for Harry, as he already knew she would die for her husband. He's not sure, still not sure, has never been sure how she feels about him.
He doesn't want her to die for anything, especially something so expendable as he is.
When he leaves that night, there's a feeling beating in his breast, pressing close and holding him steady, the way she does when he lets his mind wander that far. He knows without question that for her, he would die for them all. He decided long ago.
It's cold and it's dark when he finds them; he's dead and she's dead but it doesn't stop him. He misses them already and he knows he will never stop. If he lingers over Lily, he swears he cannot help it. In death her face is cold and beautiful, and angry and scared, and there's nothing he can do but remember that night years ago. The feel of their lips pressed together and their hearts beating in time for what could only have been a second, but felt like eternity to his confused and broken heart.
If he crouches at her side a few heartbeats the longest, he can't be blamed.
If he cries a little harder over her vacant, staring eyes, he needs it.
There's an ache in his chest as he goes; it's not new, just bigger now. Lily was his first kiss, she was his last kiss, she was his only kiss. He was her first kiss, and he wishes to God he'd been her last.