Golden Nights

WrittenfortheTitleChallengebylowi… thanksforthegreatprompt!

I had always much preferred winter to summer. Everyone always said I was strange about that, but it had always seemed perfectly rational to me. Anyway, the thing that I liked about winter wasn't really the pouring rain or the biting cold or snow or the wind, or any of that. What I liked was how it got dark so early, and how you could feel so toasty and warm inside, looking outside and seeing passers-by shiver.

And evenings at the Potters' were even better in winter, because Ginny always insisted on lighting the fire as soon as it got to November. It was so nice, having the room so golden, so warm, so cosy when outside everything was black and cold.

When I was little, half the time on these evening, I would have been playing with Victoire in the snow, or the rain, or just the cold. When James was old enough, he joined us… and then Albus had gotten big enough to play… and then, Rose had gotten over her desire to stay close to Hermione and came and played with us.

We hadn't really known what we had gotten ourselves into, letting Rose play, because while she was normally so gentle and quiet, when she was given a stick to use as a sword and told that there was a dragon, there had been no restraining her. She'd only be about 4, the first time we'd played, but I was nearly 12. I'd been the biggest, so I was in charge.

Of course, that was the last time I ever got to be in charge of Rose.

She had such a mind of her own. Not like Lily, even, who was so strong and lively and contrary – no, Rose was different, even then. She was strong in a way that was half quiet, but half completely and totally mental. All I remember thinking about her at the time was that she was wicked.

As we both got older, our opinions of each other didn't actually really change. All the while she was at Hogwarts – and I was at St Mungo's, working as a healer – dating Victoire - we both got older and more mature – but she was still that girl with a spirit to match her fiery red hair. I'm sure that to her I was still the boy with the mad hair and the mad ideas.

I remember that it was one of those winter nights at the Potters' that Rose and I had ended up alone for the first time in absolutely ages. By this point, Rose had left Hogwarts, and had just started working at the Ministry, an Auror just like her dad. Victoire and I had long since broken up. Everyone had long since gone to bed, but neither Rose or I had wanted to, so we had started a game of chess. And she had started beating me.

"You really are terrible at this," she told me plainly, looking actually a little amused at how badly I was doing.

"No," I corrected her indignantly. "I'm fine at it. You're just annoying brilliant."

The only way Rose had responded to this was by snorting as she took yet another of my pieces.

"I'm not even kidding," I mumbled to myself. "You're bloody good."

This time, she didn't snort, but instead smiled to herself.

I felt proud of myself, for a minute, having made her smile.MaybeImadeherfeelniceaboutherself, I said to myself, and couldn't help but grin myself at the thought. It was only a minute later that I realised that that wasn't what had made her smile.

"Checkmate," she said proudly, plonking her bishop straight in front of my king.

I started to laugh, as Rose giggled herself and put the pieces back into the box, in the neat way that she did everything. "I cannot believe it," I said, through my laughs. "Rose, it took you about 10 seconds to beat me."

"Live with it," she said, grinning even wider.

"I don't want to," I replied, whining a little on purpose, getting up to start helping her with the pieces. "Rooooose…"

"You have to."

"I don't want to."

"You have to!"

"But I really, really don't want to!"

By this point, the two of us were both giggling furiously, neither of us knowing exactly what was so funny, and neither of us caring. Somehow, I had ended up standing up only a few inches away from her, her brown eyes looking into my blue ones.

And then, for some reason, maybe only to see if she was as good at romance as she was at chess, I leaned in and kissed her. For a second, nothing, but then she had started kissing me back, and it was at that moment that I realised that there were to be many golden nights like this to come.