What I Am
by Silvia
I'm not aware of too many things
I know what I know, if you know what I mean
- Emma Bunton
"Born to lift things," mum said, "just look at those arms," and spooned him more pudding.
And then he woke up.
Goyle lifted the covers that had bunched up around his middle, griping tight at his lungs like a serpent but quieter (because it wasn't breathing). It didn't turn nobody to stone either, and so perhaps it wasn't much like a serpent at all, but that's what he'd thought, and he'd stick with it.
The covers were serpents and they were coming off.
He had to be sure about himself, because other people, father said, they wouldn't be. They would try to take what he was owed, and not give him any of it, because that was how they were. There was a better explanation, but he couldn't remember it, and Draco would know it, so later he would ask, and then he would remember better next time.
That simple.
There was rain outside the window and it was very loud. It smelled like mildew in his bed, so he spoke low, but not too low. Just right. "Is your bedding better?"
A grunt in the next bed and, "Better than what?" Crabbe was awake so Goyle would just climb in.
He was big all over, but fit into places well, and they'd never understood it, but Draco said it was a good thing, and it made Crabbe not complain so much when Goyle was like how he was right then.
"Small blessings," mum would have said, kissed him on the forehead with her small, hard mouth, but she was taking a trip to Alaska, always wanted to see the States, and she wouldn't be back for some time. Father's friends had come for her bags, charming them littler than little and stuffing them in a very big box, with bright silver latches. They were helping out, being fellow wizards, and said Goyle should try very hard to not even miss her. His studies were important.
It was funny, how Crabbe's mum took the same trip too. Funny, how much they were alike.
Maybe he wanted to do that thing Goyle wanted to do, and Goyle only had to ask. Only, they couldn't tell Draco, because his mum never took trips and smelled too strong, like a million lilacs stuffed up his nose, and Goyle wouldn't trust a boy with that mum to keep secrets. Not a mum that wiggles her way in everywhere.
A man's got to have his privacy.
"Be awake."
Crabbe grunted and said, crossly, that he was, like Goyle should have known that. But he could have been sleeping again. He did that sometimes -- Goyle would be talking and talking and Crabbe wouldn't hear any of it, and then he would try to say it all again but the words wouldn't work the same anymore.
"I'm coming in." The bed was just wide enough for the both of them if Crabbe would just suck in a little, "move," and a punch in the stomach, quick and sharpened with knuckles, made him do it.
"Ow," Crabbe spat, and Goyle told him to shut his mouth or he'd wake up everyone and they couldn't do the thing.
Then Crabbe was wanting to know what thing, and Goyle had forgotten that he hadn't told him, and some bit mad that Crabbe didn't know, and he shoved him a little and said, "silencio," and rolled over onto Crabbe with their bellys pressed together.
Crabbe blinked up at him, cheeks round and soft underneath the sweating insides of Goyle's hands when he put one on each side of Crabbe's face and said, "Here goes nothing," and put their mouths together.
Crabbe breathed very quickly and licked his lips, and it was sort of like he was licking Goyle's, and Goyle decided that yes, this was what he was born to do, besides all of the lifting and standing beside important people.
"What do you think?" Goyle said, sitting back, and Crabbe's hands made movements in the air that looked like very big loops and spikes, and he thought maybe that could be. Good? Until he thought, oh, and undid the silencing charm, and Crabbe punched him in the chin.
It hurt only a little, because he was hard to get to, but it made his cheeks feel puffy hot and he wanted to go back to his own bed.
He was pulling himself out, one foot at a time, searching for the floor with the tips of his toes, when Crabbe asked, ""Do you think Alaska's so pretty?" and he stopped to answer because they always answered each other, even when they were being stupid and mean and not wanting to do each other's things.
"No." He thought it was perfectly awful, and he would never want to go. If he were there, he'd come right back.
Crabbe watched him very closely, flat nose all drawn up in that deciding way he would get into, and said, "All right," and, "Don't. No," pulling at the back Goyle's knickers. It hurt more than a little and made Goyle kick him, but it made Goyle stay too, and they listened to the thunder together.