"Heart beats fast

Colors and promises

How to be brave

How can I love when I'm afraid to fall

But watching you stand alone

All of my doubt suddenly goes away somehow."

-A Thousand Years, Christina Perri.

Roxanne Weasley has always loved too much for her own good.

She's fourteen when she meets Dominique - really meets her.

Of course she's met her before - but she's never spent a lot of time with her, because contrary to what people would think when they look at her, she is actually quite shy.

"Hi Dominique," she says, sitting on the ground next to her. "Why are you out here, all alone?"

She's sitting on the grass, her fingers twiddling the grass blades. "This is my special spot, you know? I always come out here."

"Oh," Roxanne replies. "Why?"

Dominique looks at her, a grin spilling onto her face. "Come here tomorrow morning, at five."

The next day, Roxanne is there at exactly five in the morning, wide awake with curiosity.

The hill is a field of pearls. Each blade of grass is laced with diamond dew drops. The sky is dark but pink is beginning to peek over the horizon.

And in the middle of it all is Dominique, her blonde hair blowing gently around her like a golden halo.

"I've never showed anyone this place before," Dominique admits. "It's really important to me. I think it's like my second home."

Roxanne doesn't reply, still staring at the sky, where the sun is beginning to rise.

"It's beautiful," she whispers, awestruck.

"I know," Dominique says. Roxanne stares at her, and though she might not have known it then, that moment is when she falls in love with Dominique Weasley.

Roxanne is back the next morning, to find Dominique already there.

"I didn't think you'd come again," Dominique says.

"I had to," Roxanne says, sitting on the wet grass. "It's too beautiful to miss."

Dominique doesn't talk anymore. She just watches the rising sun, and Roxanne silently realizes that for all the energy and vibrancy she exudes, she's really just an insecure little girl watching the world, from the outside looking in.

Roxanne comes every morning, without fail. Dominique is always waiting for her-

Until one day she's not.

And Roxanne can't stop the rising fear in the pit of her stomach, that something is wrong because this is Dominique's special spot and she's always here.

She shows up a few minutes later, gasping that Louis had woken up and she had to lie to sneak out.

Roxanne sighs in relief, but inside, she is in turmoil. The fear she just felt was unreal. Roxanne silently asks herself why she was so scared. Is she coming to see the sunrise, or Dominique?

She answers her question when she realizes that she's staring at Dominique and not at the sky.

(But it's not like they're all that different. Dominique is a star, and she burns.)

Roxanne wishes she could understand what was going wrong with her.

Ever since her mornings spent with Dominique, all she could think about is her; the way she stands, the way she smiles, the way she brushes her hair behind her ear, the way everything she does is blithe perfection.

School begins and she's still in almost every one of Roxanne's thoughts.

They barely even see each other anymore; Roxanne is a fourth-year Hufflepuff and Dominique is a sixth-year Ravenclaw. Their time together is limited to short hellos in the corridors.

Roxanne can't take it anymore. She doesn't know why she wants to see Dominique so badly, but if she does, she will.

So she sends a letter to her, telling her to meet her at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

A long time ago, her father brought her down to the Forbidden Forest to explore.

He brought her to a meadow in the middle of the forest. While the wildflowers swayed gently in the breeze, he told her about Late Uncle Fred.

She remembers that the air tasted bittersweet. She thinks Dominique would like it there.

"Roxanne, why did you want to come here?" Dominique asks.

Roxanne grabs her hand. "No time for questions. Just follow me."

They reach the meadow and Dominique falls in love.

"It's beautiful," she declares, spreading her arms out. She begins to spin, like a little ballerina. "This is living!"

Roxanne can't tear her eyes away as Dominique begins to twirl faster and faster, so fast that it's a wonder how her feet can keep going.

It's eerie and beautiful all at the same time and Roxanne can't believe that someone can just be so perfect.

"I love it," she declares, her feet coming to a stop. "It's like the field at home."

And then she looks at Roxanne, her eyes shining with happiness and starlight and a little of something else, and Roxanne swears that Dominique is the most beautiful person to have ever graced the Earth.

"Thank you," she whispers, and gazing at her, Roxanne silently agrees.

Roxanne loves her.

It's a fact. She can't deny it. Dominique is just absolutely perfect in every single way.

She loves her with all her heart and thinks that it's not nearly enough.

Roxanne once read that loving unrequitedly is the hardest thing a heart can do; now she understands.

They come to the Forbidden Forest every evening, to dance under the night sky to the rhythm of their heartbeat until they can't dance one more step.

"I never want to grow up," Dominique tells her, lying in the grass. "I want to stay like this always."

Roxanne glances at her. She's bathed in starlight, looking like the moon herself. She seems to be an impossibility from another world - from Neverland.

"So do I," Roxanne admits.

"Right here, right now. If I could freeze any moment, it would be right now." Her arms are flying across the sky, as if she can stop time with her own bare hands. "Right now, with you."

She looks at Roxanne with so much sincerity in her eyes that it hurts; but Roxanne can't tear her eyes away.

"Dom," she shakily begins. Maybe it's the air, or the night, or Dom, or something else, but she has to know how she feels. "Do you think that falling in love means growing up?"

Dominique sighs, shifting her head so she's looking at the truthful stars. "Honestly, Roxy, I used to think that was the case."

This is it. Everything is going in slow-motion; this is the end. She feels her heart breaking, bursting into thousands of tiny fragments-

"I used to think that but I think now-" Dominique looks at her and everything is back-to-speed, her heart shattering and it hurts so much that Roxanne can't breathe. "I think now that true love is really just finding a person that you don't have to grow up for."

Roxanne lets her words sink in; she wants to be that person for Dom, wants to be that person so bad that she would make her heart and break it all over again just for Dom to love her like how she loves her.

"I think I've found that person," Roxanne tells her. "But it's wrong and I'm scared to tell them because I don't want to lose them-"

"Tell them," Dominique interrupts. "If they're worth it, they'll love you back."

But you don't understand, Roxanne despaired. It's you, it's always been you, and I'm far too deep now to be rejected and I think I might have a heart attack with how much I love you-

And suddenly she can't breathe and she is having a heart attack because Dominique is kissing her, and it feels so good and sets off fireworks in her stomach.

She tastes like dreams coming true.

"Roxy." Dominique cups her face with her hands and looks her in the eye. "You're the only person who doesn't need me to grow up, who sees past my Veela face. I want to have a forever with you."

It's all Roxanne could ever want. She can't put what she's feeling into words, so she settles for just kissing Dominique again, and hoping her actions can convey what her words never could.

"We shouldn't be doing this," Roxanne says.

"I know," Dominique replies. "But we are."

And that is enough.

And for a few months, it is enough, to just forget everything and exist together.

But then spring comes, and everything comes crashing down.

"What the-" Roxanne breaks away from Dominique to see Lysander, staring at the two of them with a look of pure disgust on his face.

"I knew you were up to something. I saw you sneaking out of the castle every night," he says, pointedly looking at Roxanne. "Making out with your cousin? Really?"

"Lysander," Roxanne growls. "Get the fuck out."

He stares at her. "I thought better of you. You're gay - fine. But gay for your cousin? That's just wrong on so many levels."

"Lysander." And this time it's more than just a warning; you seriously might kill him if he dares to speak one more word-

"Lysander, just don't tell anyone," Dominique bursts, and you stare at her in shock.

"Dom," you whisper, but she keeps pleading with Lysander, who keeps smugly shaking his head.

"Please," she says, and breaks down. "Please don't tell anyone." She puts her head on Roxanne's shoulder and cries freely, and Roxanne knows that if a child breaks, it's much harder to put them back together.

"Lysander!" she yells, and grabs for her wand because, fuck, anyone who makes Dominique cry is going to pay by her hand.

"No, Roxy!" Dominique grabs her hand and Roxanne can't go against Dom. She slumps, defeated.

"Lysander, I'm begging you," Roxanne says one last time, glancing at Dom, who is sniffling on her shoulder. "Don't tell a soul. I'll pay you-"

"You know I'm not going to do what you say, right?" Lysander interrupts. "People like you should be punished."

"Freaks," he spits, turning on his heel, sprinting in the other direction, probably to tell McGonagall.

"It's all over now," Dominique says, and Roxanne can't think of any way to escape.

They were caught, and now they must pay the price.

"Roxanne, I am very disappointed in you." Professor McGonagall paces in front of the two girls. "Sneaking out after hours? Doing Merlin knows what?"

Roxanne flushes a deep red, her head bowed down in shame.

"And Dominique!" She looks at her, and Dominique cringes. "I expected much better of you!"

She shakes her head. Roxanne can almost feel the smugness that Lysander is emitting in the back of the room.

"And you!" Now she is angrily staring at Lysander. Roxanne turns and watches in satisfaction. "These two would have been caught anyways. Why were you wandering the grounds after hours?"

Lysander's face pales. "I-I just wanted to get them back inside."

"That changes nothing. What they do is of no importance to you," the Professor says firmly. "Twenty points from Ravenclaw."

"But-"

"No buts! And you will be having a detention tomorrow evening with me." She glares at him, before dismissing him with her hand.

He shoots a look of hatred at Roxanne before walking out the door; Roxanne honestly doesn't care.

McGonagall's face softens slightly. "Roxanne, Dominique, you're both young girls. You must not have known what you're doing is wrong-"

She's already done listening.

"No!" Roxanne stands up, overturning her chair. "We're not doing anything wrong!"

"Roxanne, sit down!" The order is clear; she sits back down, still angry. "Love is fine, whatever the gender, but I'm afraid that loving your cousin is a very serious issue."

Dominique is mute, staring at the floor. Roxanne has never felt more alone.

"I'm not saying it because I find it disgusting," she clarifies. "I think it's fine to love whoever you want, unlike many others. However, loving within your family has consequences because of the shared gene pool-"

"Professor-" Roxanne chokes, and then she curses herself internally as she starts to cry.

"Oh, dear." McGonagall moves around her desk and hugs her, and Roxanne has never loved a teacher more.

"I'll leave you two to make your own choices," she finally decides. "Just don't break any school rules."

She ushers the two of them out, telling them to get some sleep before morning.

As soon as McGonagall shuts the door, Roxanne turns on Dominique.

"Why didn't you try to help me?" she says, sounding more like a shout.

"I-I didn't want to get in trouble-"

"Oh, so now you're suddenly the goody-two-shoes?" Roxanne yells, her temper flaring. "After all this, you're saying you don't want to get into trouble? Then why did you love me in the first place?"

"Roxy, I-"

"Don't call me that!" Roxanne roughly pushes past Dominique. "If you really loved me, then you would have stuck up for me like I did for you!"

She looks over her shoulder at the girl she used to love. "Why can't you just grow the fuck up!"

Roxanne walks away, her heart cracking a little more with each step.

(It splits at the tenth step; she looks over her shoulder and Dominique is nowhere to be found.)

She's already regretting what she did as she climbs into bed.

Dominique knows that Roxanne has a temper; her mum had always said to not let her anger get the best of her. She gets mad and loses everything.

What took months to build up was all destroyed in a second, thanks to her.

Roxanne has never hated herself more.

The next morning Dominique avoids her gaze and Roxanne accidentally snaps her quill with her trembling hands.

(She feels just as broken as her quill.)

They leave school feeling completely and utterly broken.

Roxanne can't think straight anymore.

There's nothing left for her now. Dominique was (is) her everything, and she lost her.

Her world is crumbling down, one pillar at a time. It's all crashing down on her, and the weight of the sky is too much for a fifteen year old to hold.

It is never the same after that.

She tries to patch it up; she really did. The first morning of summer, she comes to the hill with a strong resolve to fix everything before it's too late.

Dominique is there, as hauntingly beautiful as ever.

She looks at Roxanne, and her eyes are a pair of knives that slice Roxanne in half.

She runs away, unable to face Dominique and the hurt registering across her face.

The rest of the summer passes by with Roxanne visiting the hill in the evening to avoid the stony eyes of Dominique.

School begins again and it's Dominique's last year and Roxanne is just a time-bomb that Dominique lit the fuse for.

She watches her. Every moment she is still thinking of her-

And what hurts the most is that it seems like Dominique is moving on, that Dominique has forgotten about her-

That Dominique has gone and grown up.

And she has. Her hair is shiny and braided all pretty and she plasters on these winning smiles and giggles and wears make-up and is the center of attention.

She is no longer the happy, wonderful, curious Dominique that Roxanne fell in love with.

Roxanne tells herself that and and thinks she should move on when Dominique so clearly has but for some reason her heart just won't budge.

Her mum had once told her that you only get true love once - it's up to you whether you keep it or not.

"Did you get true love, Mum?" she had asked, and her mother froze, a smile quickly forming on her face.

"Of course, dear," she told her, and goes and hugs her father when he enters the room a few minutes later.

(Later in the middle of the night she woke up to the sounds of her mother crying and calling for her Late Uncle Fred.)

Dominique is a different person now and Roxanne still loves her.

It can only mean one thing.

Dominique is dating boys for the first time in her life.

This can only mean that she has completely moved on; and it hurts more than Roxanne could have believed possible.

She supposes she must have still been hanging on to a sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe, Dominique would come to her the same girl she used to be and tell her she still loved her and set everything right.

Now that she knows it isn't so, that Dominique has really grown up and become a proper lady, she can't take it anymore.

A girl's heart can only take so much.

Dominique leaves school in a flurry of giggles and kisses and Henry McLaggen.

Roxanne leaves school in a whirlwind of heartbreaks and tears and hollow emptiness.

The next two years come and go in a blur for Roxanne - honestly, nothing matters anymore. Dominique was a spark, and now that she's gone, it's like her whole life has no more meaning.

But she's gone and there's no use staying stuck in the past, so she gets herself an internship at the Ministry and moves out into her own flat with Rose.

Dominique is like her own guilty shadow; she follows Roxanne wherever she goes. Roxanne can never get rid of her; the nagging feeling of how she caused the whole break-up, followed by the horrible numbness of a heart that will never love again.

A few years later Dominique and Henry announce that they're getting married.

For the first time since her fifth year, Roxanne cries.

The day is June 14. She's glowing in her pearly white dress, and Roxanne tries her hardest to not let the cutting pain she's in show on her face.

Henry watches her walk towards him with pride; Roxanne would love to hex him.

Dominique is smiling her special smile, the one she only used to show to Roxanne.

Roxanne looks away. She can't be here, she just can't-

"If anyone objects to this marriage, speak now, or forever hold your peace."

Roxanne sharply inhales. This is her last chance, the only chance she'll ever have for the rest of her life. She could fix it, maybe-

But no. Dominique is in love and will never love Roxanne again. She can't change that.

All she can do is forever hold her peace and hope that one day, she can fall out of love with Dominique Wea-McLaggen.

A year later she meets Kenton Wood and convinces herself that she's found freedom from her in him.

(But she knows she hasn't, because it's nothing like what she felt for Dominique.)

She knows now that Dominique was her one and only.

She had her, and then she let her get away.

They could have had it all.

We could have had it all.

Years later she is sitting at the window-seat, all alone in the house, since Kenton had taken the kids out to a Quidditch match.

She still feels just as alone as ever.

There is a Weasley-Potter re-union a few months later. Roxanne sees all her cousins and their spouses and their children-

And she sees the one person she was hoping to avoid.

"Dominique," she says, but it comes out more like a breathless whisper because seeing her, still as beautiful as ever, makes the pain all too real.

"Roxanne." She nods and someone calls for her and she eagerly runs away.

Dominique McLaggen is the exact prim adult the old Dominique Weasley never wanted to become.

Roxanne can't believe that she was the one who had ruined her.

At eighty-two, Roxanne dies of a heart attack.

It is ironic. Before, she thought she'd die of loving too much.

Instead, she dies of having no love at all.

If our love is tragedy, why are you my remedy?

If our love's insanity, why are you my clarity?

-Clarity, Zedd.

A/N: Oh man. This fic is like my baby. I love it.

Also, the part where Dominique is dancing under the stars and says, "This is living!" was borrowed (shamelessly stolen) from Anna's (colorful swirls) story Eternal, which is way better than this.

Done for:

Apprentice Competition - Round 3 (Using the prompts freedom, "You know I'm not going to, right?", Clarity by Zedd, impossibility, and the Forbidden Forest.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry - Final Exam, Year One (Using the prompts RoxanneDominique, 2024, Forbidden Forest, caught, Heart Attack by Demi Lovato, "Heart beats fast Colors and promises How to be brave How can I love when I'm afraid To fall But watching you stand alone All of my doubt Suddenly goes away somehow." A thousand years, Christina Perri, and frightened.

House Cup Competition - Round One (Using the prompts relieved, heartbeat, "That changes nothing." and broken quill.

All Sorts of Love Competition - Angsty Love

Ravishing Romance Competition - Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy

Different Genre Competition - Angst

HP Potions Competition - Amortentia

Fantastic Beasts Challenge - Unicorn

Fanfiction School of Imagination and Creativity - Math Assessment 3

Harry Potter Femmeslash Project - For the theme Angst with the prompt dewdrops.

Pairing Diversity Boot Camp - Roxanne/Dominique - Prompt #46: merry-go-round (because you know, she keeps being in love with dom after all this time and okay i'll stop.)