DISCLAIMER: It ain't mine.
A/N: A strange ficlet written in ten minutes.
I watch Harry as he sleeps, peaceful enough, I suppose, rolling a bit over our bed, his eyes flickering from time to time- but still so goddamn bloody innocent. At least when he sleeps.
And when he sleeps is the time I know him best- when he's awake, we have to keep up our façade- we have to hide from each other, darker times, stricter measures we're told. So every kiss is a stolen one in corridors and every night is just another accident- every 'I love you' isn't allowed. And I wonder... if we're supposed to be fighting to save a world where we're allowed to love- why does the Order tell him that he's not allowed to learn what he's fighting for? Why is the look in my eyes when I see him contraband?
Ron and Hermione... when something bad happens, they're allowed to be together, hold on- don't let go- you've got me. They say. Harry just crumbles beneath the new weight on his shoulders, and all I can do is take a hand under the table and watch as he falls apart. And he does- perhaps I'm the only one who sees his eyes as they turn black, perhaps I'm the only one who's ever felt every muscle in his body tense as it hits him face on, but I know... He can smile at me all he wants too, I don't give a bloody damn, I know what's going on. He's unhappy. I should know.
I'm his wife.
Yes. His wife. He's only eighteen, but he has only a few days of certainty left. By Thursday there's a good chance he'll be dead. I'm seventeen. We were married three months ago- my seventeenth birthday. My seventeenth bloody birthday. He didn't ask; I did. Slowly, surely, not a demand, a question- a hope, perhaps that someday... someday we'd be able to tell everyone about this... not just that it had happened but that we...
There aren't words.
Dumbledore officiated... he's one of the few who believes we're allowed. I think Ron knows- I'm his sister, Harry's his best mate. I know Hermione does, she's the only person ever to have caught us. She told us with brutal certainty that we had to stop this... it wasn't right... that was our wedding night. She looks at us oddly from time to time, but I think she might believe we did end it- Harry told her that and she's a bit of sense left.
Harry will leave me in the morning, maybe forever. He'll lead the forces that are going to divert Voldemort from the castle- he's only been here two days, Dumbledore arranged it so we could say goodbye. I wouldn't, couldn't, say goodbye forever. So he brought me to the Room of Requirement, we had our wedding night here, our first kiss... it has a lot of history for us. So I said the words I refused to say in kisses and touches, and Harry said them the same way. He told me to go to sleep, that he'd be gone when I woke, but I couldn't- I had to watch him for, perhaps the last time.
Tomorrow Hermione, assistant professor, will be in charge of the seventh years, she'll treat me as if I've never met Harry. She says we were never as close as she and Ron were too him... because she believes what Harry and I say. We share the bond made through his saving my life and that's that. Or that's all we've ever told her. Ron... he I think knows that that's the farthest from the truth we could reach without tripping our ways into fantasy, but he doesn't tell her that, just to leave us alone when we ask- that we need each other sometimes, as friends. She fights it sometimes, I think, Harry's like a brother to her, and she and I have become like sisters- she doesn't want me hurt, and she doesn't want Harry with the blame of another death on his shoulders.
I never gave a damn.
I would have died for a second with him. I will die for the past year with him if he doesn't live through the next week and I know it. But I don't care. And I never have. If he dies, there won't be a point at all... in anything. So if I don't do it first, I'll let Tom help me with death- he's rather good at it, as I remember, it barely hurts. It's like going to sleep after a long day.
The scars run thick over his bare, exposed back, most of them are from a battle six weeks ago. He was whipped during the few minutes he was in captivity- to within an inch of his life. I held his hand in the Hospital Wing when he was brought here to be healed. Dumbledore got us permission. We'd only been married a month and a half and he was nearer to dead than he'd ever been before.
She couldn't even put him to sleep as she went about her business with his back- he couldn't be helpless with Tom and his Death Eaters so close... He shouldn't be sleeping now, he told me not to let him, but I can't help it... he's been living off Pepper-Up Potion for months at a time and this is probably his first sleep since the last time I saw him. I can't help but let him sleep tonight.
He deserves it.