Pairing: Fred/Oliver.

Rating: PG-13.

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. Characters owned by J.K. Rowling.

Summary: Quidditch nights.

There are some nights when it never gets dark, when the moon hangs full and bright and low, too laden with its stolen light to escape over the rooftops, when the forest sparkles with fireflies and will-o-wisps, so that when you look out the tower window over the treetops, it looks like you're looking down at the sky, all full of stars.

Fred is watching, because he's too hot and Ben Donnelly is snoring and he can't sleep. It's not often that he's the only one awake; their year is full of pranksters and rebels and boys who would eschew sleep altogether if their bodies were capable of it. But tonight is tired, subdued, and everyone knows that the sooner you go to sleep, the sooner it will be morning and the day, this awful day, will be over.

So Fred in his faded striped pyjamas leans on his elbows against the windowsill and watches the night that won't get dark.

Something moves, floating lazily through the long shadows of the Quidditch pitch below-flicker of movement, echo of moonlight. Slow circles, the fluttering of dark robes and the dark reflection on the grass of a boy and a broomstick. Fred knows it is Wood. Nobody but Wood has any reason to fly the pitch in the middle of the night like he's in mourning.

Fred leaves the window, the dormitory, the tower, hopes that when he reaches the ground, Wood will still be there. Maybe it is something in the night that makes him want to share it with someone. Or maybe it's the deliberate, melancholy turns of Wood's broomstick, and the way he sits up so straight and tall and proud when he flies.

He stands on the edge of the pitch for a long time, along the offside line, and the grass is damp with dew and soft beneath his bare feet. His pyjama bottoms are too short, and the grass is a little too long and tickles his ankles. He crosses his arms over his chest. His sleeves are too short as well, and a pointed angle of freckled skin juts out from a hole in the elbow. Fred has never bothered much with what his pyjamas look like. Fred learned long ago that he had to find pride elsewhere, or do without it entirely.

Oliver catches sight of him, on his way back, and he hovers for a while, a few feet away, watching Fred watch him. He notices how pale Fred's skin is in the moonlight and how all the freckles stand out on his cheeks, how his short red hair sticks up in places and how his pyjamas are too small and pull in all the wrong places. He wonders how he knows it's Fred and not George, and when the twins became so familiar to him that he can place one with a look, in the dark.

"I couldn't sleep," he says.

"I know," Fred answers. "I saw you flying." He unfolds his arms and tries to tug the hem of his sleeve down over his wrist. He has bony wrists, Oliver notes, almost delicate if you look at how long his hands are. He lands, but keeps both hands around his broom handle, because it's comforting.

Fred thinks that something about Oliver Wood in the moonlight is not comforting at all. It's not that he hasn't noticed before how perfect Wood's body is, how his muscles are just the right proportion and his arms and legs fit together in just the right way, how all his features are the right size for his face and how expressive his eyes are. He has. He just noticed it a different way, before. And 'I want to be that' kind of way. This is different, but he can't quite put his finger on how or why. He finds himself wondering if Wood has bony elbows like Fred does, but he doesn't know how to ask.

"You can't take it so hard," he says instead, and it comes out awkward and preachy, and he thinks what a fool he must look to be lecturing his Quidditch team captain, the best Keeper Gryffindor has had in years, about how to feel when they lost a match to Ravenclaw. Even if it was an important match, even if it means that all Slytherin has to do is beat Hufflepuff again and they'll have the Cup.

"Of course I can," says Wood, and he has that grin, that cheeky lopsided grin that the other teams' Chasers always hate, and even if it's only his mouth and doesn't quite match with his eyes and his voice, at least it's a grin. And it's that grin, and Fred wonders how he never realised it was so incredible before, and he smiles back, goofily, with his too-big lips and too-pale face and his red hair going in all directions.

And Oliver thinks there's something crazy about this boy, standing barefoot in the grass in the moonlight, grinning at him like they're sharing some kind of secret, and maybe they are really because it's just that kind of night. And he's glad that Fred saw him, and came to talk to him and smile at him like that, just when he'd been really reveling in self-recrimination and feeling lonely and sorry for himself. There's something in the pull of those too-small pyjamas with the hole in the elbow that tells Oliver he's being ridiculous, that he's being too serious again, because he's always being told how he does that much too often. And maybe crazy is contagious, or maybe it's just that kind of night, because he lets go of his broomstick and steps forward and kisses Fred right on the mouth, right on that wide silly grin.

Fred doesn't know what to do at first. He's not sure if he's supposed to breathe or turn his head or open his mouth or close his eyes. He's relieved when Wood shows him, cups Fred's chin in his hands and tilts his head just enough that their noses don't collide, slips his tongue between Fred's lips-firm, dryer and stronger than he imagined a tongue would be, but then this is Wood and everybody knows everything about him is perfect. He keeps his eyes open and hopes it's all right, because he wants to see Wood's face, wants to hold and capture and drown in those hazel eyes and know that all of this is real.

But it must be real, because when he imagines kissing it's never this awkward, or this perfect, his imagination never quite supplies the scent of broomstick oil and soap and wet grass, or the dull taste of someone else's mouth, or the very tangible, insistent way a tongue probes into the depths of your mouth. He's never imagined kissing Wood, anyway, not before tonight, but now he wonders if he'll ever imagine kissing anyone else. He doesn't know what to do with his hands, and they dangle useless at his sides until Wood takes his hands and moves them gently around his waist. Fred presses his fingers into the small of Wood's back, and Wood slides his palms up Fred's sides and his back and into his hair, and then they're standing so close their chests touch.

And Oliver thinks there's something delicious and intoxicating in Fred's awkward innocence, in his gangliness and angles and boyishness. He smells like different kinds of soap-the cheap bars of it in the dorm showers, the tart fresh scent of shampoo, the duskiness of the detergent the house-elves wash the students' laundry in. He tastes a bit like berries and sugar, and beneath that the crispness of toothpaste, and Oliver decides he's been sneaking candies into bed. It's been a long time since Oliver snuck candy, and he claims some of it for himself now, licks the remnants from the walls of Fred's mouth. He wonders what he's going to say when this is over, if there is an explanation or an excuse for what he's doing. He kisses the corner of Fred's lips and wonders if it matters.

And then the shadows change, and the moon hovers behind the tallest part of the tower, and the damp grass turns cold against Fred's feet. And Oliver pulls away, and Fred is looking at him like he's not sure what to do next, and he probably isn't really. And Oliver drapes his arm around Fred's shoulders, because he looks cold, and because he's not ready to think about all this yet. And he says, "We should go in now," and Fred just nods, and they walk back up to the dorms like that, and he just fits into Oliver's arm so perfectly. And Oliver kisses him goodnight when they come to his door, and looks at him with something that might be a promise or might be a secret. Fred's not sure which.

And he isn't sure it matters, but he gets out his tin of broomstick oil and takes a good long whiff before he goes back to bed anyway.