Prince and the Pauper

Chapter Forty-Three

"This feels...strange." I mumbled as I zipped my red dress up the back as far as I could reach. Harry smiled softly as he waltzed over in his smart black dress pants and his favorite baby blue button up shirt, that also just so happened to be my favorite too.
"We've had our life thrown upside down so many times now, and we've been forced to run with it. Tonight," Harry paused his explanation to  press a gentle kiss to my bare shoulder and pull the zipper up the rest of the way,
"is about us. Only us. And it will go our way for once. Forget about the jury making their verdict for tonight, forget Dante, and focus solely on us."  He said as he spun me around gently to face him. His smile grew, his dimple adding to his beautiful smile even more.
"You look breathtaking." He whispered delicately by the shell of my ear, and goosebumps spread on my bare arms as his lips kissed just below my earlobe, and my hands instinctively gripped at his biceps.
"Keep touching me like that and I would have gotten dressed up for nothing." I purred by his ear, and his smile turned to his delicious smirk.
"Undressing you is a favorite activity of mine." He breathed in my scent as he pulled me in impossibly close, our hips pressed together."
"I've noticed." I giggled as he spun me back around and pressed himself tightly to my back, and I let my head roll back to rest on his shoulder as his arms held me at my hips.
"And when we get back home tonight," his hands wandered up over my chest to grip my chin and turn it back so he could lean forward and capture my bottom lip between his teeth, "I will show you just how much I love it, and then some." He promised and I moaned making him chuckle deeply.
"Come on now, trouble." He teased, grabbing my hand and pulling me towards the door, me staggering behind trying to catch my breath.

~*~*~*~

"Trust me, I've got you." Harry encouraged me as his hands curled around my shoulder from behind. His hot breath tickled against the shell of my ear, and his front pressed to my back as he tried to urge me forward.
"A few more steps." He promised, and I could hear the smile in his voice. Cautiously my feet shuffled forward, my hands spread out in front of me, testing to see if there were any obstacles in my way.
"You can take your blindfold off now." Harry whispered, and  I wasted no time in yanking off the velvet blindfold. My eyes squinted and blinked a few times as they adjusted to the sudden light, and then everything swam into focus. Harry stood before me looking dashingly handsome, and we were in...
"We've been here before.." I trailed off, struggling to recognize it all. The marble floor beneath us made something spark in my mind, a strong sense of deja-vu. But the bright lights only shone on the center of the room where Harry and I stood, the rest of the room was still in the dark. Clearly a spotlight was aimed on us, and the rest was deliberately kept in the shadows.
"Yes, we have." Harry grinned, his eyes glistening with excitement.
"This floor..." my eyes closed, and very faintly somewhere in my mind I could hear slow and classical music from a memory.
"Music?" I questioned, and Harry released a very soft laugh, pulling me in closer. Our hips flushed and his head bowed to kiss along my neck.
"Think baby." He urged. It was almost there. On the tip of my tongue. A taste, sweet and bubbly.
"Champagne..." My head lifted and my eyes locked with Harry.
"Adlington Hall." I nearly groaned at how obvious it seemed. Harry beamed as I finally figured it out, and my arms were encouraged around his neck, his own hands finding my waist as he began to make us sway.
"Yes. This is where we first danced. Where I first knew that I wasn't just crazy about you, but I was in love with you. Where you finally stopped running from the truth and you realized that you love me too." I looked up into his dazzling emerald eyes and smiled.
"It was hard to resist, you look too damn good in a suit." I grinned, and Harry laughed softly, nuzzling the crook of my neck as we swayed on the floor. Then what appeared to be magic, but knowing Harry it was most likely somebody he had hired to pull it off, music floated through the hall. The same song we first danced to.
"Mahler." Harry answered the question in my head as to what classical piece we were swaying to. "Adagietto Sympony five." My brows raised tastefully, his knowledge proving somewhat alluring.
"Fancy." I whispered mockingly and Harry laughed. We waltzed around the ballroom, Harry taking the lead perfectly of course, me staggering in his steps. Evidently our playful lessons he taught me on lazy Sunday evenings showed I had made some progress.
"It's a beautiful piece." I confessed lightly, and Harry hummed in approval.
"It is. It tells a story you know." Harry mused, and I looked at him questiongly.
"What story?"
"Well," Harry licked his lips, "whatever you interrpret it to be really. But to me?" We spun around and his arm extended allowing me to twirl outward, and the spin back into his arms, "It starts off slow, like the beginning of a relationship. Something sweet yet subtle is in the air. Then, suddenly and very quickly, it picks up pace. It's fast and passionate and all consuming. It becomes quite intense." My back is pressed firmly to his front and his arms are wrapped tightly arouny my body, my arms clinging to his that entice me, and it is clear we are now swaying to our own intimate little dance now.
"Things get rough, but the two lovers are holding on, determined to break through.  They run with it, dance with it, make it their own song. Things calm down, unknown still lingers in the border but they know they can make it because they survived the worst." Harry speaks in my ear.
"And then?" I whisper, knowing this isn't  just the music he is talking about. The 'lovers' isn't metaphorical. He is talking about us, our story, and I was desperate to hear the end.
"Then," he whispers, "perhaps the most intense part comes along, but it's also the sweetest. It's nearing the end. But it's a beautiful end. Passionate and exciting till the very last second. It's...the end but it's also forshadowing their beginning." Gently yet urgrengtly Harry turns me in his hold, and we're inches apart, our lips brushing but not kissing.
"We've danced through so much Devonne." Harry whispered. "It was loud, it was beautiful, exhausting, but there is nobody else in this entire world I would rather dance till I collapse with. And I think it's time, as scary as it is, that we stop dancing to the tune the world throws at us. It's time we make our own. So this is me," I watched him enthralled and yet slightly confused as he took a deep breath and got down on one knee. My eyes widened and my heart sped up, beating like a drum in my ears.  
"Harry."I whisper, my voice thick with emotion.
"This is me collapsing from that exhausting song we were forced to dance to, and asking you to create our own." A small black box it retrieved from his pocket and a hoarse whimper leaves my throat.
"Devonne Abel, I love you." Tears swell in his eyes and mine, and his voice is husky, "I always have, and I always will. I promise to take care of you, and Geordie. To protect you from all harm, to love you till my last breath, and to show you everyday how much I treasure you. To forget my trust-fundie background and your troubled background," he laughed through our private joke and so did I, "and all I ask in return is that you say yes. Yes to me, to this ring, and yes to our forever." His voice cracked and my heart jerked with so much emotion that I fell to my knees in front of him.
"Devonne Abel," Harry whispered my name again, "will you marry me?" Tears leak from my eyes and a sound mixed between a laugh and a sob left my throat as I smile and nod my head frantically.
"Yes!" I cried and Harry releases a breath that sounded like he had been holding in for an entirety. His large hands grab my left hand, and with a little effort due to my shaking, a beautiful sparkling ring is pushed onto my wedding ring finger. Then his hands are on my face and pressing our lips together in a hungry frenzy, as we kneel there on the floor, wrapped up in each other's arms, knowing that this indeed is the end of our individual lives, but the beginning our ours together.


A/N: No this is not the final chapter! A few more to go, but just letting you know it doesn't end here leaving you all like 'wtf nooo!' :P x