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The Color Red

Nighttime was the time for sleep, and dreams, and the gentle breathing of your lover lying in bed next to you. You watch her sleep, feeling no inkling of fatigue yourself.

"I'm tired," you had told her only a few hours ago as you climbed in bed.

She had just smiled at you, kissed you and turned off the light as she crawled into bed next to you. But now, as she slumbers peacefully only a few inches from you, you feel not so tired after all. Her red hair is splayed around her head on the pillow like a halo of fire. You want to reach out and run your fingers through it; you have already memorized the way that it feels, but you can't seem to keep your hands away from it, even when she is awake. However, not wanting to wake her, you restrain yourself.

You know that you love her hair because looking at it's vibrant color, running your fingers through it, makes you feel alive; the color red to you symbolizes burning anger and passion…and now love, and all things that are good in the world, everything full of life. But you know that her hair is vibrant and alive, because she is so alive. And you want to crawl inside her and stay there forever, because no one has ever made you feel the way that she does.

Growing up in a huge Manor, things were always boring and polite and cold, and never alive. There was never anything in your home that was red. Your father had called it the color of the cowardly Gryffindors; your mother had just called it tacky. So you sneered at the color red, because it was Gryffindor, and it was tacky.

But now, now the color red is your favorite color, just like everything about her is your favorite thing. You love sunsets not because of their beauty, but because she loves them. You love long talks about nothing, not because you like to spill your soul, but because she does. You love the color red because it's the color of her hair. Red is the color that stains her cheeks after you compliment her, or after a particularly passionate kiss.

Red is also the color that stains her cheeks when she becomes angry with you. You think she looks adorable when she's pointing her wand at you, threatening your life, her face almost as red as her tresses…but of course you would never tell her this.

You love the rest of the Weasley clan, not because you are a rebel who wants his father's ill-wishes, but because she loves them. They may not feel the same way about you, but who the hell cares? Besides, they all have that red hair…

You are interrupted from your musings about the color red by a small hand, reaching for yours. You look fondly upon your wife, to find her hand seeking yours in her sleep. You move yours closer, and hers instinctively clasps yours, twining your fingers together.

The sun is rising, bringing with it a new day. The wedding band on Ginny Malfoy's slender finger glints softly in the dappled, early morning light that is pouring through the curtains hanging from your bedroom window. She is stirring now, beginning to wake.

She looks up at you, sitting there, holding her hand, through sleepy, half-closed eyes. She smiles, and yawns. She crawls over to you, closing the mere inches that separated you, and you enfold her in your arms.

"Good morning, love," you whisper softly into her ear. "Sleep well?"

She just nods and yawns again, causing her cascade of hair to move about her face. And then you can't help yourself anymore, and you twine your fingers in it, kissing the top of her head delicately. For a minute you feel like telling her that you stayed up the whole night, just watching her sleep, watching the rise and fall of her chest, and hearing her soft sighs as she dreamt.

But you would rather keep that secret to yourself for now.

Oh, God, how you love the color red...