They say I am too young, that I don't know what love is yet, what life is, or even who I am. That's not true. Those people have never been me; they can't speak for me.

I know who I am; I'm Ron Weasley. I'm six foot four, a hundred and fifty pounds. I play Quidditch, a keeper on my house team for three years. I'm twenty-one, and as my ex-girlfriend and current best friend, Hermione, describes me "young, dumb and full of crap."

I know what life is. I know what it's like to wake every morning, to leave for an unknown place, knowing you might not ever come back. I know what it is to fight for your life, your love and your country, to kill at your leader's bidding. I know what it's like to risk your life for the life of a stranger, to sacrifice your pride for victory. To deny whom you love, so that you might be a part of this victory; that I know all too well.

I know too what love is. Love is more than just those four tiny letters dashed upon a page, more than just something jotted down and sold as a greeting card. Love is anything. Love is everything. Love is the only thing.

I love Harry with all my heart. I'd cut off my right arm without a thought to it, to save him from a paper cut. I'd snap every bone I have to save him from a sprained ankle. I'd jump off a cliff to break his fall.

Tears in those deep green eyes rip me apart. A single drop could drown my soul. His smile lights up a room, making even the most horrible day worthwhile. He radiates so much love, so much passion. No photograph could ever hope to display his beauty.

People say I should leave him, to go away and make myself into someone I'm not. They say I should be straight, honest and married to a good woman, with three children by age twenty-one.

I don't want to live like that. I don't want all that. Children aren't to be taken lightly, mass-produced like cars in a factory. Marriage should be between two people who love each other, not two strangers who marry because they were drunk and got knocked up.

Yes, women are beautiful, in every sense of the word. Each is unique, in mind, in body, in heart and in soul. They are Goddesses, smelling of lavender oil. Women are many things, but not the keepers of my heart.

My heart does not lie in the breast of a woman, instead pinned to my lover's sleeve. He loves me, and I him.

Lying on my bed, it is clear to me he does. He won't let me fall asleep, instead spending the night awake together, tightly pressed into my tiny bed, bodies lined up perfectly, not inches from each other. We haven't the room to be far apart. Just lying there with him is better than having sex with anyone else. I feel that way, and he feels it too.

"I won't let you sleep because I want to spend every moment with you," he whispers into my ear. "Stay awake with me."

I am tired, but love him so. "I'll stay awake as long as you are."

Harry smiles. "And will you dream of me in your sleep?"

"Of course, Harry. Even awake, I dream of you."