For teddylupin-snape.
Everything that we could have been and more.
It's him; you don't see how you could have ever thought differently.
He's always been there, right next to you, but you never noticed until it was too late.
You were young and naive and determined to prove everybody (mostly yourself, though) that you weren't another mediocre wizard, just like the others. You saw him, but you didn't actually look. The brushes in the corridors, the ones that would give you unexplained chills; you didn't know why, you would blame it on the wind.
And the fact that you were just not good enough.
You would smile and nod and say everything was okay, but it wasn't. You weren't sure what was happening to you, why you were feeling this way.
Then you graduated, and he had a steady girlfriend and you felt a sense of jealousy; but you were still oblivious then. You, with the scars ripping open again and again and everything he'd sacrificed for you - he didn't need to sacrifice any more.
You were still young, and the war was at it's climax. It was dangerous, and you told yourself over and over that you couldn't, even though you wanted to just hold him - once would be enough, just once and you'd be content.
.
.
.
.
The rain was continuous and never-ending - you wished there was a switch that would let you turn off the drop, drop, drop. But there wasn't, so you stood on the balcony of Grimmauld Place, overlooking the shriveled small, and fenced in backyard, and thinking of Lily and James and how it was the worst possible time to start a family.
"Moony, you're soaked." You turn around to see him standing on the balcony with you, and you wonder how he's so quiet and when he got there. His hair is wet, and plastered to his forehead, and his eyes are shadowed with black, but otherwise he looks content - grinning at you with that irresistible grin you've grown to love so much.
Of course, you never said anything about that smile.
"Could say the same for yourself, Padfoot," You reply, quietly, leaning against the wrought-iron balcony, still lost in your thoughts.
He leans right next to you, and the silence isn't awkward - it's comforting, really.
You feel like leaning back into him, closing the few inches that were in between him and you. But you don't, because you always think of the repercussions.
Instead you whisper, barely audible, "Thank you."
"For what?" he whispers back.
"Everything."