Intermezzo

Disclaimer: They belong to JKR, I’m only playing.

A/N: Stefy has this beautiful HHr artwork here (WARNING: kiddies, stay away) http://gallery.portkey.org/galleryView.php?viewEntry=534&id=534&random=9DJ2we5ePc8bP7ihPl3qG03C8S67Pq82jl3Xw3GdQ8PnZD1ja1XW0ARIzQsT35g9 which made my muse sit up and take notice. Hence the following little thing.

Mind you, it’s PG13 for certain implications in relation to what’s…uh…depicted in the artwork.

Thanks muchly to miconic, the loffly beta.

Oh, also, I’m apologizing from the bottom of my heart to everyone who’s left reviews to my stories but hasn’t been replied. I truly am sorry, it hasn’t been for lack of trying. Your words, as always, mean such a lot to me; kind or critical, every thought’s welcome. So, I’m sorry, and thank you!

*

Intermezzo.

"I love you as one must love, in despair."

(Mlle de Lespinasse
in A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments
by Roland Barthes)


*

She moans and rises, his face finds her neck, warm and salty and sweet. She shifts, he settles. Reality is borne along on sweat and sighs. They both tremble. Pause, breathe and move again. He whispers in a voice like a cobweb in the wind, she responds as if touched by lightning. Her eyes spill gold. He runs a finger down her cheek and lips and reaches between their joined bodies, drowning. I--I--he begins. Love--love you, she completes. Night in its starred bed shudders with moonlight. The room spins. For one endless moment the idea of ever being two separate, self-contained human beings seems ludicrous.

Beyond his arms’ length, beyond the curve of her back, there is no world.

Spent, they settle around each other. He closes his eyes, a hand on her hip. She rubs a palm over his slick skin. He’s still inside her, locked by their entangled legs.

Muggle London, never asleep, rattles with scattered voices, wheels, wind. All that’s visible from the window is the dark network of antennae, masts of a fleet of earthbound ships.

"Harry?" she whispers. "What’s the matter? You’re distracted today."

He swallows and opens his eyes. Her eyes look bigger than usual, a faint frown blooming on her forehead to mar the satiated flush on her cheeks. Peace, almost at hand, but never quite within reach. He resists the urge to touch her lips again, to begin again his endless pursuit of unsullied peace.

"I’ve been thinking," he breathes, closing his eyes. She shifts, wincing at her hair being tugged under his elbow. He gathers the damp strands up with one hand and sweeps them away, fingers lingering. Light flickers in the glass of water on the bedside table. She waits, a hand curled over his heart.

"We should go away, Hermione."

Her hand comes up to her face, over his eyelids. He opens them.

"What do you mean?"

He takes a deep breath. His hand tightens on her hip. "I’m tired. I’m so tired of all of this, of--"

"Being a hero?" she says softly. He swallows and looks away. But there’s nowhere else to look; she fills his world.

"It shouldn’t be this hard. Life shouldn’t be this hard. I wake up every day thinking that I might not be alive at the end of the day. Or that you might not be." Once upon a time, she would have protested, but now she knows better.

"I spend all my day wondering if you’re safe," he continues. "Or trying to keep myself safe so that--so that you won’t be left alone." His hand runs slowly up her back, tangling in her hair. "And I know you do too, you do the same."

A late bus rumbles past the window. Its lit up windows make a procession of square shadows on the old walls. Wood clatters in the floor below, the sound of Tom stacking up chairs for the night.

"But we’re happy, aren’t we, Harry?"

He looks at her for a moment and inches forward, gently pulling her head towards him until their noses are touching. "Yes, we are." He smiles briefly against her lips. "But doesn’t it feel like a halfway house to you? We’re happy, but only if we don’t think about tomorrow." His hand kneads her scalp. "Look at us, we have a house, but we’re never there. We have the chance to make a family, but we make love in the Leaky Cauldron. We have friends, but we hardly ever see them because we’re too busy--" He flails for words. "Making the world a safe place for them to live?" She finishes for him. He sighs and presses his forehead against hers. "I love you, but I can’t shake the feeling that every moment with you is the last I’ll ever have."

"Every moment for the last five years?" she whispers.

He kisses the corner of her mouth, trying to keep the tremor away from his voice. "Every moment for the last five years."

She sighs deeply and fixes her eyes on a point over his shoulder. "So, what should we do?" Her fingers skim in the hollow of his collarbone.

"Let’s go away. Let’s go away and live as muggles. Somewhere far away from London, maybe near the sea."

"And what are we going to do?"

"Well, you can easily find work as a doctor with your muggle qualifications."

"And you?"

"I don’t know. I’ll do something." He ponders for a moment. "You know, I think somewhere near the seaside would be great, because then I can be a lifeguard or something."

She laughs. "Nice safe job."

"Well, it’s safer than being a--a policeman or something like that which is all I can do with my training."

"But Harry, you’ll be bored out of your skull!"

"Well, that’s the deal. We’ll try it for a year. If it doesn’t work out, we can come back."

She regards him for a moment, her lip between her teeth. "You really are serious, aren’t you?"

He takes a deep breath. "I am." He tightens his arm around her. "But only if you want to. Only if you think it’s the right thing for us."

Her heart turns at the look in his eyes, pleading but full of hope, framed by shadows. Over the years his face has become leaner and harder, like a man who grits his teeth through the day to keep himself in check, in control. But his messy hair has preserved his boyish appearance. Absently, she thinks she can see how people are puzzled by him, why they’re drawn to him despite themselves and yet never get close enough, poised as he is on the subtle incongruity of being neither wholly man nor boy, between power and sheer vulnerability. She runs her hand over his face. Without his glasses, the green of his eyes spill over, accentuating the fragility he hides so well. She brings her fingers up to his eyes as if to contain them, thinking with a familiar rush of warmth that he only takes his glasses off for her.

"One year of our lives can’t hurt, can it?" she whispers. Looking into his eyes, she thinks of her dingy laboratory in the basement of St Mungo’s, reeking of an impossible mixture of magical ingredients and the burnt smell of experimental spellwork against dark magic. Of nights spent alone there, trying not to think of his absence. Of the mornings when he staggers in, often bruised, beaten despite some small victory over a sliver of evil.

"Are you sure?" He looks incredulous. She brushes his hair back over his forehead.

"Yeah. It would be nice not to stink of toadspawn or mandrake for a while." He grins back tentatively. And not have to see you cut up or black-eyed or white with pain, she adds to herself. For once. Her heart glowing, she watches as his eyes slowly light up. He kisses her deeply through a smile.

"So, somewhere on the coast then?"

"Why not. Although…"

"What?"

"Well, I’m not sure how I feel about your career as a lifeguard."

"Why not?"

"Oh, you know how those hunky lifeguards are."

"How?"

"Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about!"

"I don’t! I swear--"

"They’re female magnets, you git. If I have to deal with a caboodle of girls hounding after you, that won’t be much of a break from my life right now, would it?"

"Fine. What should I do then?"

"Hmm, I don’t know. I’m sure there are less glamorous muggle career options."

"Yeah, but that’s not going to solve the problem."

"Why not?"

"I’ll still be a hunk."

"Oh you!"

*

Morning descended on the city with the sun hidden deep in its belly. Crows dragged the grey air above the busy roads like pieces of drenched paper waste. The network of antennae-masts glistened, marking lives forever bound to their own course. He awoke first and got themselves coffee and breakfast from Tom’s kitchen. She sat up on the bed and sipped the dark brew, staring out the window, her head on his shoulder. They showered. She ironed his shirt. He zipped up her skirt. Half an hour later, they walked downstairs hand in hand. She kissed him and held on for a moment, then Apparated, her mind already away among her formulae and incantations and ingredients. He watched her as she disappeared, then Apparated himself. At the Ministry, as he walked through the bustling corridor to the Auror’s division, he glanced at the enchanted sky outside swaddled by an unbroken stretch of clouds. Here and there, light struck through, but not enough to rent the smothering mass.

They never spoke of that night again.

***