A/N: So, I wrote this little drabble on Tumblr back on 20 July 2016. For whatever reason, I never posted it over here (oops!), so here it is, a drabble small enough to be the author's note before a complicated fic :) Hope you enjoy!

#13 - Careful

If there was one thing he knew, right now, that he wasn't supposed to do, it was to get too close.

Bill had figured things out a bit better than he'd have liked, and the words between them, though brief, had frustrated him more than he had been already.

Tell her.

Bullshit.

He'd come too close, the next day, at the wedding, after dancing with her, holding her hands… He could have done it. For the first time in his life, he reckoned it would have been possible to open his mouth and say the words to explain to her how he felt.

But hell had broken open, and then they were here, at Grimmauld Place, and he was hunched on the sofa with his head in his hands, and she was reassuring him about his family… and he wanted to kiss her. He settled for a gripping hug instead, fist clenched too tight in the back of her jumper to be considered strictly friendly. But he stopped analysing for long enough to do it and let her go.

It could be more. It could be, and he'd be free of wondering, wandering, uncertainty. But could he do it? If he had that, her- if he didn't wake nights thinking of the future, if the future was only now and didn't need to wait for later… Could he keep going?

She gave him glances that made his heart beat faster, tiny touches when no words could be found, a knitted brow when his worries became her own. The world was small, really, because it was just the three of them. And an increasing fraction of that themwas becoming a glowing beacon, a light in the darkest of times.

If the light was too bright… He knew the truth, and he fought it every day. Bill was wrong. Even a part of his own heart was wrong.

If she loved him - God, if he could be so lucky - he had to keep himself from knowing it, from hearing actual words spoken back when shadows surrounded them. Someday, when the world was large again, when the sun shined overhead and he could allow himself to notice…

But now, he bit his tongue. He held his breath. He smiled back at her, but he forced himself to look away. Toward the present. Putting the future behind him. Never letting go completely. Careful.