A/N: I wrote another version of this short a long time ago, it stemmed from a quote from "The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants". I wasn't very happy with the other version so I spruced it up quite a bit, and resubmited it. I hope you enjoy!
I guess you assumed that the moment Harry defeated Voldemort once and for all, we would fall back into eachother's awaiting arms. I guess you assumed right. At first that's exactly how it happened. He needed someone to support him, and I just needed him. At first, it was amazing, for every tear he cried, we shared a hundred kisses. For every sigh I uttered softly into his ear, he proclaimed his love to me. Though, I guess I should have guessed that things couldn't go that well for that long. Good things don't last that long, at least in my research. Sometimes people ruin good things on purpose because they're too afraid of what would happen to them when the good things eventually stopped. It's much easier to face bad things if you know that you're the one that caused them in the first place.
So as the shock and terror, and emotional turmoil all begain to fade away, so did our love. Eventually we just became familliar friends who weren't really in love anymore but hated to end the familliar. Eventually towards the beginning of fall in his seventh year, I finally realized that something had to be done. I couldn't live like this. Harry either had to love me or leave me. I couldn't just be his friend with a title. I had to be the title. I know he wouldn't adknowledge it, or fix it on his own. He's too stubborn, he always has been. Which oddly enough is one of his qualities that I find the most endearing.
Though, come to think of it, I'm too stubborn too. I kept putting the problem off for weeks, and weeks. All the while thinking that he may fix the problem for me, so that I wouldn't have to deal with it. That day never came. So, I chose my own day. A day in the falll, as the last few leaves clung to their branches in the forbidden forest. The sun was sinking earlier, and earlier by each passing day. And on one of those passing days, I decided it was time to meet my fate.
The blazing sun singing it's last few notes of sunlight on the ending day, blinded me as I made my way down the castle's steps into the grounds. From where I stood I could already see him. Floating above the Quidditch pitch looking as if he hadn't a problem in the world. I wish I could feel like that. But there he is, all my problems, and all of my solutions too. As I finally found my way to the Quidditch pitch I decided that it was time I make my preseence known.
"Harry, I think we should talk." I called out so that he could hear me from where he was high in the atmosphere. He came for solitary practice, or maybe just to think about the things that were bothering him. I like to think that he was thinking of me up there, like I was thinking of him down here. I guess he must have heard me, because he slowly made his descent down to where I was. As his softly made contact with the ground, he walked towards me as I approached him, with his broom held in one hand as it gently trailed behind him making soft indentations in the grass.
"That's probably not a bad idea." Harry said softly as he gave me a look that I think he reserves only for me. That look that says "I'm sorry things aren't going as I planned. But I just don't know how to make things right. Won't you show me the way?" At least that's what I like to think it means. A soft laugh escapes my lips as I try to imagine him saying these words out loud in a whining voice. In the real world Harry slowly made his way to the case of Quidditch balls to put back the golden snitch. As he opened the case, I saw a way to explain everything I was feeling. I took my chance, and reached for one of the bright red quaffles from within.
"You see this quaffle?" I asked without really wanting an answer, as Harry looked a little surprised, and just a tad confused wondering what kind of point I could possibly be trying to make with a quaffle in my hand.
"This quaffle is just like us. Or I should say, it's just like we were when we first started out. Shiny, new, beautiful, round we made a complete circle." I said with no hint that I was yet finished with my little speech. I then did something that surprised even myself. I took a good look at the quaffle, raised my arm, arched my arm behind my back and threw it as hard as I could into the ground some ten feet away. If Harry had any qualms about my conversational methods yet, he hadn't mentioned them. I quickly moved to retrieve the ball, as to finish my thoughts. I picked it up, covered in dust it was, marring it's once pristine surface.
"Now this quaffle is just like us. Dirty, imperfect, but it's still round. It still makes a complete circle." I said as I brushed the quaffle against my robes trying to remove the dirt and grime from it.
"But see, us just like this quaffle, we can be fixed. We can be dusted off, and cleaned, and renewed. And we too can be perfect, and beautiful, and whole once more. Us like this ball, I loved. I loved us when we were shiny and new just like this quaffle. But I love us dusty too. I love us with our imperfections, and drawbacks. Because Harry, you and me will always be able to be fixed. There is never going to be a problem big enough for us not to be able to dust ourselves off and be us again. Nothing. I won't let it happen. Will you?" I asked finishing my little monologue brushing my red hair out of my face that was now being battered by the wind.
"I won't." He said softly as he intertwined his arm with the crook of my elbow and lead me to the Giant Squid's nesting place. And as we sat and talked for hours on end about everything, and nothing at all. He told me about his fears, and how he felt when he realized there were problems between us, but had no idea how to fix them. I knew that's what he meant with that look of his. I just knew it. Just like I know that if ever again we get dusty, and dirty with our little imperfections, there is nothing we can't do to fix that.
