Borders

A/N: I never write in present tense, but I opened a document to type "The world stopped" and accidentally put "The world stops." I stared at it for a few minutes, with my thumb hovering over the backspace, and then… I just kept going like that. I'm pretty sure this was meant to be present tense...

As an aside, I was inspired to write this fic-bit by Frida Sundemo's beautiful song "Dead." I highly recommend giving it a listen!

Don't let it be the last time you hold me.
Don't let me cross a border out of your land.
Don't let it be the last time I see you when I close my eyes.
I would die for you. I would follow through.
Rip my heart in two… I would die for you.

The world stops.

The chaos around them fades, a distant buzzing in their ears, no more than a small distraction. Smoke and dust cloud their vision, but she doesn't need that anyway. She closes her eyes instead. He smells of ash and sweat and blood… and him. Her fingers curl until her nails cut into his skin. He doesn't flinch. He holds her tighter.

This is what it feels like. So many times, she'd thought of this, imagined, in those brief moments of embrace, what it would be like to hold on for longer… forever. Now, his arms are wrapped around her, their bodies pressed so tight together that the heat from him might have been too much. She never cared for summer, her thick hair causing her neck to sweat. But now, being here...

It's not too much. She only wants more, but the frantic moment won't allow her to comprehend… In an abstract way, she wants to feel his skin. His face is in her hair, pressed to the top of her head. She reaches up, wraps her hand around the back of his neck.

Mostly, she just doesn't want to say goodbye.

When she kissed him before, it wasn't with thoughts of endings or last chances, despite his words afterward. Now or never, but even then, she hadn't been thinking of never.

But now, if-

He's nervous, but so many other things pile against it as he lifts his head, her neck bending back to meet his eyes. And then, the shyness is gone. She can't see it anymore, though she longs for it nearly as much as she longs for what he does next…

He touches the tip of his nose to hers first. And then his hand is in her hair, and his parted lips are meeting hers. It's too gentle. It feels too separate from the pounding of her heart and the burning behind tightly closed eyelids. She clings to his jumper and kisses him back, and she can feel his body change, reacting to her.

But it can't last. It must be fleeting, because they are waiting. Because the world might still end, and them with it. So when he parts from her now, it finally feels like never.

But she can't let it. So she turns away.

Five minutes.

They were supposed to be separated for only five minutes, her at the top of the stairs, keeping the few people who hadn't made it safely back to the Great Hall yet on the level above, while he repaired a dangerously crumbling chunk on the level below. But the whole second section, from the middle landing to the third floor, had given way.

Now, it's been a quarter of an hour since she's heard his voice. She stands by the top of the ruined stairs, arms wrapped tight around her oddly frail frame. She's still not quite used to the feeling of her hipbones digging into denim.

She regrets half a dozen things before she can stop her wayward thoughts. She hears her own voice echoing as she called for him to come back, months ago now. But more than that, she hears the biting way she spoke to him the year before. When things had been easier, she'd spoken without thought. She'd let him out of her life.

"Hermione!" he calls, in a scratchy, far-away sort of voice. Her head whips around, and he's there, at the other end of the corridor, ashy and still tear-stained and looking so much stronger than she feels. She sighs her relief, but he can't hear her, still too far away.

She wipes her eyes, only then realising she'd been crying.

"Alright?" he asks, with a sudden note of concern, a metre away from her now.

Instead of responding, she throws her arms around him, forgetting to be afraid or nervous. Forgetting she ever was.

He holds her back, breathing against the top of her head.

"You were gone too long," she shivers.

"M'fine," he barely whispers, and she smiles, closing her eyes as she recalls the previous summer, waiting when he'd missed his portkey with Tonks… her fear over losing him, and his awkward reassurance when he'd finally arrived.

She pulls back now but takes his hand, and he looks down at her with such seriousness her heart briefly stops.

"We won't do that again," he says roughly, clutching her hand even tighter. "We'll stay together."

"I-" she stutters, ready to confess to him exactly what she feels, how important this is. But once she's done that, she's not sure she'll be able to keep fighting. She'll be ready to lie down and stop, to close her eyes and forget. But she can't do that. Not yet.

So she manages a small smile and nods up at him, stepping just enough closer to get lost in his shadow.

"Thank you."