HARRY POTTER ONESHOTS

two slow dancers

There was a great distance between the both of them, even though they were chest to chest. He wanted to say something, anything, but he didn't know if it would help at all.

He was a married man, he shouldn't be doing this. He shouldn't be staring into her eyes like he did all those years ago when he was fifteen. He was much older now, wiser, but he seemed to go back to his teenage way of thinking in that moment.

I'll deal with it later.

He'll deal with it later, when he's not face to face with her, hands around her waist. When there's not a soft piano melody coming from Merlin-knows-where across the room.

The rest of the students seemed to have disappeared, along with the rest of the teachers. It's almost as if they knew it was their cue to go and leave the two of them alone. Making up for lost time. Making up for what could have been.

And the ground has been slowly pulling us back down
You see it on both our skin
We get a few years and then it wants us back

The two of them had noticeably aged, lines from aging adorning their faces. But the type of love that came with youth still seemed to be lingering somewhere in the middle of there.

He wanted to make up for lost time, he wanted to apologize. He wanted to not have let all of his emotions consume him when he was sixteen, that made him do bad decisions, that made him distance himself from her.

That made him fall in love with someone else.

But everything was different now, every second bringing them one step closer to death and pulling the two of them down. But in this moment it seemed that everything around them had paused, like time was giving them a few more minutes to catch up.

Even if 'catching up' was just being held in each others arms. Maybe the act of being held by one another felt so rare that time really did stop all around them. They live in a magical world, it wouldn't be the most shocking thing in the world if they did.

Y/N wanted to part. Her feet were getting tired, and she felt a wave of emotions wash over her. She remembered a promise she made to herself one night while staring at herself in the mirror. She would never talk to Harry Potter again, no matter what.

And here she was, years and years older, breaking a promise she thought could never be broken. She apologized to her former self in her head, not wanting to make a big deal out of it.

But seventeen year old Y/N would understand, she hoped.

Even though her feet were tired, and she wanted to break away from his grasp, she didn't. Because she knew that once she left him, she would never be able to have him back like this. Time would go back to how it always moved and Y/N would be left alone while Harry went back to his wife.

His wife. It was funny thinking about it. Because there was a time when she was younger that thought that spot would be for her, Y/N L/N. But instead it was saved for Ginny.

It would be a hundred times easier
If we were young again
But as it is
And it is

As the two of them continued their dance, she felt even more of an urge to part from him. At the beginning of this she felt almost giddy. The alcohol masking her sadness that the boy caused her as some sort of happiness.

The dance became more and more bad. Continuously stepping on each others feet and getting too close for comfort. She thought it could be as easy as it was to dance with him when she was young. But it wasn't as easy, nothing could be that easy ever again.

But it was how it had to be. Time had taken an advantage of them and now they were making up for lost time with a silly dance that really didn't have to happen. She should've just turned back around when he came up to her, but she didn't want to. She probably couldn't even force herself to walk away from him in that moment he tapped her shoulder.

But she had regained some sort of sobriety and carefully pushed him off of her.

To think that we could stay the same
To think that we could stay the same
To think that we could stay the same
But we're two slow dancers, last ones out
We're two slow dancers, last ones out
Two slow dancers, last ones out

It was funny of her to think that when he grabbed her hand that it could be same as when they were fifteen. But they were much older now, and they should know better.

They both had a life without each other, there was no way of going back to the past. There was no way of patching up holes. There was just no way to fix what happened. There was no way to go back to how they were.

When she stepped away from him, she realized how empty the room was. Everyone had left the two of them alone. The only was left. This hurt even more. She wasn't able to disappear in a crowd. She had to walk back with him staring right through her.

"Harry, are you ready to go home now?" Ginny walked into the room, the light from outside coming across her figure. Y/N didn't know how she could've forgotten. If teachers had a family back at home they could invite them before everyone went back home for winter break.

"Yeah." And just like that, he left with Ginny. Just like the battle of Hogwarts. She sighed, holding herself in her arms, because there was nobody left to hold her.