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It's like this: you open your mouth, and you breathe in ash. You were born in a state of war, in a torn house, and you tell yourself that it should have made you resistant, better, at least, but it hasn't. You're still weak, a little boy with a scar on his forehead and hands that reach for nothing. You are so pitiful it makes you want to run, shed the burden. You're like a snail, you realize: you wear your house on your back, your burden is your house, and you can't lose it no matter how fast you run.
One night you dreamt you were lightning; it was one of the nights when you weren't a stag instead, your hooves drumming on the damp ground. You struck, hard as diamond, and everything around you bent, and the shavings from the bolts dotted the inky sky with stars. The forest fills you with strange heady dreams but when you wake up sweating there is a body besides you. You don't question it. She holds you until you stop shivering, doesn't tell you what a mess you are, what a poor savior you make.
In a way you're grateful that wizards do not seem to know Jesus, because if they did they would disqualify you from the messiah race in a blink. Hermione laughs when you say that, still dazed from sleep. In the forest it's hard to say what time it is. Ron is still gone but she's here and every morning you expect to see her gone too, the embers from the fire still red and her footsteps leading out. But she doesn't leave.
You count your blessings.
Over time you realize that no kindness is equal to hers. You still feel unsure, sometimes, that she will stay by your side; but when you tell her that she punches your arm and says, "Of course," suddenly fierce, her mouth a tight and beautiful line across her face. Your nights quiet down, and the pain dulls to an insistent ache: instead of the fire-hot pole in your stomach it's only the dull edge of a blade ransacking your insides.
She reads by the fire, frowning a little, her nose wrinkled to keep her glasses up. Her hair is messy but she still smiles and she never complains, and sometimes you think that she ought to be in your place, ought to be the one saving the world because then the world would have a chance. You don't tell her that. You wouldn't wish your fate on anyone.
Ron loved her, you knew that, you've always known that because he's always loved her. But you realize that you love her too, and when this hits you you shirk from it guiltily. You remember Ginny's face when you told her you were going away and she was stoic and brave and you didn't love her. But this girl you love, you love like survival, like breathing, and it's a betrayal to so many things you don't understand how it can feel so evident. She tells you to stop dreaming and think, Harry, think. She tells you you will win this war, no matter what happens, no matter who dies.
She gives you your hope, but sometimes you wonder who gives her hers.
She knows you so entirely and believes in you with such unflinching faith that it seems doubtful she would not know you love her, but she doesn't say and so you don't say either. Are there even words for it? I love you would be feeble and devoid of truth; you can't imagine saying to her the words worn down by thousands of tongues to express something so entirely new. So you don't talk, you let it grow inside you like the plants you used to let Neville tell you about, the ones that are this deep, verdant green, whose flowers bloom only after exposition to the soft springtime sun. You try to remember what color they were, but the war took color from you, among other things.
Still, you do not give up, because this is what it is - love for her is color, companionship, flowers and the ability to breathe underwater. For her you feel like you can take one more step and even win this godforsaken war. (The truth is this: you will not win this war out of selflessness. If you do win it, you will win it for someone, because you are little and selfish and weak. You are not David. The stones you throw do not kill giants.)
When you reach the edge of the forest, you sit on a rock and watch the sun set fire to the crowns of a hundred trees on the other side of the lake. You tug her hand, and she slides down besides you, nestling comfortably against your flank. You want to be a puzzle piece so you can belong by her side.
"I love you," you let slip as soon as you open your mouth. You hadn't meant to say it, but it was stuck under your tongue.
She looks at you, her eyes wide and brown. She looks tired. "I know," she says with a smile.
She's the one who kisses you, and you're surprised because she caught you at your most subdued, when your love was a patient trickling and a simmer but not that roiling cloud that sometimes clogs your chest. Her lips are chapped and she tastes like the poor lunch you had, like a very specific brand of desperation that belongs only to her.
She makes you breathless. You lie beside her on the humid grass. The rocks hurt your back. She takes your hand and squeezes it so hard your bones ache.
The sky is made of velvet, rich and deeply blue, indifferent to all the suffering going on below. You let your rage stir sleepily inside you. The radio crackles and you cry, thinking of her collecting firewood in the forest, the scars on her ankles, your lost friends, the people who died when you weren't looking. You cry. You know that coming back, even if you win the war, will mean bowing your head to dozens of graves, and just like that your rage subsides into weariness. For the thousandth time you think about not coming back and because this is not a choice you can make you cry instead, all the tears you have for all the sadness in your heart.
In the night, she climbs over you and kisses you. Her mouth is determined and her body is tight, compact and womanly. You hold her and she holds you and you let her talk about it after, because this is what she needs, but language is a distant buzz and instead of listening you look at her hands, her beautiful, white, long-fingered hands. When she's finished talking you kiss her knuckles, one by one. You can't tell her it'll be okay, but she lies with the certainty of a preacher. You swallow her fingers and kiss over the scars. The moon shines eerily over you, drooping like a sad pilgrim on one side of the horizon.
"If the war ever ends..." she starts one day, her mouth shiny and red. It rained last night and this morning you walked in the damp woods, your feet sloshing with every step.
You kiss her so she can't say more. Jinx, you do not say, but you can't quash the fear, the horrible foreboding that if she says one more word the war will never end.
You walk in silence, then. She tips in your arms and you kiss until you're both drunk, incapable to think straight.
It's like this: you open your mouth, and she's right there against your lips, swallowing your darkness.