I wrote this sometime last year. . .it's really gen and really depressing, but I rather love it.

summary:between the falling white he can see the edges of the moon, so big he is sure that if he tried he could touch it.

title: close enough to touch

rating: g-pg

fandom: harry potter (pre-marauders' era)

Their voices are low and worried, muffled by the thick walls, and he frowns restlessly. It’s too early for bed, he had protested, but his mother wasn’t having it. He had been tucked in tightly and the lock clicking beneath the noise of the door shutting. Now his blankets lay scattered and forgotten, his ear pressed hard against the rough wood of his door. The curtains are thrown open, letting moonlight stream through his window. When he first saw it, he had smiled, liking the shadows it made dance across his wall.

His eyes flicker back to it now, moving slowly from the white light spreading across his floorboards to his window where the moon hangs pearl on velvet in the night sky. Sighing softly, he goes to his coat that is lying in a ball on the floor from where he had left it last night and slips it over his shoulders. It is warm but still damp with snow, pressing tightly to his skin through his pyjamas.

The window opens easily, sliding up without a noise and letting a few snowflakes drift in to land on his soft hair, melting a moment later. He puts one leg over the sill, then the other, dropping to the ground with a small, surprised noise catching in the back of his throat. He sits in the snow for a moment before rising heavily to his feet and shifting through the mounds until he is in the depths of the forest, dark trees canopying, endlessly reaching over the top of his head.

He smiles, wide against the cold, throwing his arms out to the snow and spinning the way only a child can, faster and faster until he falls to the ground with laughter in his stomach. His limbs are too tired to make a snow angel, soaked and sore and heavy while his head is still spinning. Opening his eyes, between the falling white he can see the edges of the moon, so big he is sure if he tried he could touch it. He is still tired, though, eyes falling shut of their own accord, arms stretching out for a moment before returning to his side, curling up beneath his head. Sleep covers him like the snow until he hears something, a low growl that finds its way inside of him, courses through his blood and forces him to sit up. Eyes stare out of the trees, two eyes, blue and green and laced with yellow, pupils dilated. Eyes stare out at him, searching through him, whispering wordlessly of his weakness.

It is all too quick, the lunge, the growl harshening as he falls backwards, crying out. It hurts, oh, it hurts, dark liquid spilling warmly over his body, staining his clothes and all he can think of is how angry his mother will be when she sees the state of him. He pushes out, feels fur tangle in his fingers, and he buries his head in its warmth as the pain escalates and tears fall down his cheeks without his approval, making him flush with shame. He is too old to cry, even when he hurts so much that he can’t breathe. He is a big boy and he shouldn’t be crying, but it doesn’t help when the warm creature lopes away and leaves him fallen in the pink-stained snow.

Before darkness slips in around him, he looks up to see the moon even closer than before and he reaches up a thin arm to touch it.

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He wakes up in a room where all the walls are painted white and the sheets that he is bundled in are too clean. His arms are clutched firmly around himself, so he can feel the bandages wrapped tight around his stomach. One hand is balled firmly in a fist.

His father moves to stand next to his bed, one large palm touching the feverish skin on his forehead. His mother is weeping in the corner, slow cries that creep through her body and force her forwards.

"What’s that you’ve got there, son?" he murmurs deeply, carefully taking his hand and undoing each finger until they can both see what lays there, a small grey tuft of fur. When he looks up, his father is standing straighter and his mother is collapsed and both of them are too far away for him to reach.