Under Rug Swept
3.
Since leaving school, you are always there for people – I watch you, as you give an encouraging word here, a comforting arm there, and I see the way you are there for Harry. It is not like Molly, who cooks his favourite meal, or presses his trousers and makes his bed. You are quietly there, quietly supportive, not saying a word, and yet saying everything he needs to hear.
Once, it was like that between us. When you give Harry a sleeping draught to stop his nightmares, and brush the hair out of his eyes, I see your face above me, and feel your hands on my brow. The sting of the healing compress on my ribs, and the soothing graze of your lips on my cheekbone.
It had been a bad moon. Once a year, the blue night – blue shadows, blue orb on the horizon. The thirteenth full moon in twelve months, and always the hardest, even with my potion. In the morning, you were there.
"Hold still," you told me in a no-nonsense voice. "You cracked your ribs on the desk." There wasn't much desk left – it had shattered when the wolf hit. The transformation had been exceptionally bad. "I've healed the ribs, but the bruising is… bad." You lifted something steaming from a bowl, and I felt my head spin with the smell – lavender, witch hazel, comfrey and lemon. And the sting as you laid it gently on my skin, wrapping my chest and securing it with a pin showing two glittering letters.
"'Mione," I managed. "Your Head Girl badge…"
"It will be alright." You told me firmly, and then smiled small. You were so beautiful. "You were late for class, you know. Professor McGonagall is covering for you." I groaned, and tried to sit up. My head spun, and you pushed me back. "You're saying in bed." You told me. And then you leaned down and kissed me.
You were so careful, so gentle. We had never done that before, never on the morning after a full moon, and I didn't think my body could possibly react… but as always, you drew responses from somewhere deep in my chest and stomach I never knew I could have, and as we moved together towards blissful release, tears pricked my eyes and I thought my love for you would burst from my body and leave its shell behind.
And afterwards, face, neck and chest mottled pink, you held my head up to help me drink the sleeping potion you brought, and as my eyelids grew heavy, I felt you kiss my cheek, breath still a little quick. I struggled to watch you dress for classes, but before you were out the door, I slept.
My eyes close now as I see you sitting by Harry's side, watching over him while he falls asleep. You don't seem to notice me, but it is always this way now. Hearing Ginny coming up the stairs with a tea tray, I move quickly away from the doorway and up the hall to my own room. As I begin to close the door once I am inside, I hear you say, "Ginny? I thought I heard something…" And I know that you did not realise it was me, and that I must always sneak about without you seeing me, if I am to respect your wishes for silence.