#DH missing moment

[startanewdream]

I've always wanted to write a scene of mutual agreement and support (friendship is a strong word) between Ginny and Romilda Vane, so here's around 1600 words of something that might have happened during Year 7.

*****

They wait until after dinner to round on her.

Ginny is mildly surprised; she'd guessed they would question her as soon as she got off the train, but perhaps they thought that Snape's speech—not the Headmaster's, she'd never consider him so—might terrify her enough to make her betray everything she has ever believed on. If so, they were very mistaken; seeing Snape in the middle of the staff table, with Death Eaters by his side, only infused her Gryffindor spirit.

"Weasley," calls Alecto Carrow. She has a mind to pretend to ignore her, but the mass of students climbing the stairs seems to freeze with that call, and Ginny has no choice but to answer it, all eyes on her as she walks to Alecto Carrow.

"Yes, Professor." She puts as much spite in that word as she can. Neville and Luna suddenly materialize next to her, and Ginny almost wishes they would stay away, as if there is any protection to be found this year.

Alecto looks her up and down. "That's it?" Her voice is mocking. "That's Potter's girlfriend?"

By her side, Crabble and Goyle nod; their gazes are not as unappreciative as Alecto's. With a shudder, Ginny thinks she will favour disdain any day.

"I thought Potter had better taste."

She buries her nails into her palm. Don't answer, she tells herself, and tries to keep a look of disinterest.

"Where is your boyfriend?"

Her rehearsed answer comes in a bored tone. "I would know if I had any." It feels more than ever that everyone is staring at her.

Alecto doesn't seem convinced, nor do her cronies.

"They were dating," says Goyle, in a whisper that everyone can hear. "Everyone saw it, they were snogging all around the place."

"It's what happens when you are dating someone," snaps Ginny. "We've broken up." She hesitates for a tiny beat. "He dumped me."

This time her rehearsed line doesn't sound credible, despite being the truth. Everyone's gaze seems to burn, evaluating her answer, and, for a moment, Ginny waits for someone to question this, to raise the absurdity of her words: they were in love. As Goyle had noted, anyone could see how they felt about each other; Harry had been beaming the whole time they were together, all those few weeks of sunshine and happiness and hope. Harry wouldn't just dump her—

And then Alecto Carrow laughs.

"I guess Potter already got what he was after, then?" She mocks. "Blood traitors aren't a good value if..."

"Perhaps the girl is lying," another voice pops in, and Ginny turns to see Amycus Carrow joining his sister. His gaze upon her makes Ginny shiver; she remembers all too well duelling him. "Perhaps she knows more than she's letting on—"

"I wouldn't think so," Luna says, her voice as dreaming as ever. "If she knew, she wouldn't be here."

"Harry always kept his secrets," Neville adds, crossing his arms.

Amycus and Alecto share a look before Amycus takes a step forward.

"I will be the judge of that. If we have Potter's precious girlfriend—"

"I am not even his girlfriend anymore!"

It doesn't seem to matter, though. Terror floods her, not so much for herself; there isn't anything that she can share with them, but if somehow Harry finds out that they've got her—their breakup will be for nothing—he is too stupid and too noble to do something reckless—

Amycus grabs her arm; Ginny dives her hand into her pocket, but before she can take out her wand, many things happen. Professor McGonagall appears, Neville points his wand at Amycus, and Romilda Vane laughs nervously.

"Please," she says. "Weasley was his girlfriend, so what?”

That makes everyone draw their eyes to her. Romilda tosses her hair out of her face, seemingly enjoying the attention, but Ginny can see a thin layer of sweat breaking through the girl's careful makeup.

"Harry was always smiling at me, flirting unashamedly, even when he was dating her. I wasn’t the only one either. Everyone knew he wasn't good business. A ladies' man, that one."

Ginny blinks; she is not alone. The year before, when Harry was at the height of his popularity at Hogwarts, everyone's favourite Chosen One, he had drawn many eyes. Ginny had found it bothersome, but she could understand what everyone was seeing: that gorgeous young man with messy dark hair and green eyes, tall and fit, with the added benefit of seeming oblivious to his own charm, almost shy. It had been endearing.

That also was one of the reasons why, when Harry and Ginny started dating, everyone wanted to talk about it. It had been huge news for Hogwarts' standard.

There was no way anyone would believe that Romilda was telling the truth.

"Potter never had any other girlfriend," Crabbe mumbles.

Romilda laughs derisively. "I wasn't his girlfriend, haven't you heard what I just said? He just liked to flirt." She nudges her friend. "Do you remember, Lisa? I told you Harry never took his eyes off me."

Lisa looks terrified, but she nods. "Yes," she confirms in a small voice. "And you—you shared chocolate once."

"Harry dated Cho," someone from the Ravenclaw crowd says, and there's a murmur of agreement.

"I went with Harry to a Christmas party last year," notes Luna. She skips the part where they went as friends.

"I think I saw him snogging a girl behind the greenhouses," Hannah Abbott says.

At her side, a boy nods. "I saw something in the library once."

People start adding comments, their voices mingling in a cacophony. The weirdest part is that Ginny knows no one is lying; people are telling about the times they saw Harry with a girl — only she was this girl, this only girl, but no one specifies that.

"Quiet, quiet!" Alecto sounds annoyed. She looks at Crabbe and Goyle. "Is this true?"

They shrug, lost.

"I saw Potter with Chang at Madam Puddifoot's," Pansy Parkinson confirms, distasteful. "And he went with Loony Lovegood to Slughorn's party."

"That would be Professor Slughorn, Miss Parkinson," chides Professor McGonagall, taking a definite step ahead and placing herself between the Carrows and Ginny. She raises her arm and, almost without a second glance, lowers Neville's still extended arm. "I do not see why a student's romantic life is under scrutiny at this hour of the night, especially a student who is not even here at the moment, but the others have class tomorrow morning."

"This is more important than classes," Amycus spats.

"I remind you this is still a school," Professor McGonagall says coldly.

Amycus' answer is cut by a bored voice. "What is this?" Snape walks, easily opening his way between the students gathered at the door.

"We are trying to interrogate the Weasley girl," Alecto says. "To find out the whereabouts of Potter. She was his girlfriend."

Snape rolls his eyes. "You heard the others. Potter was a lover-boy; that is not surprising considering how his father behaved with his fans." He regards Ginny coldly. "Weasley is not special. I doubted Potter ever shared anything more than a snog with her."

There's an underlying truth in his words that stung her, but before she can react, Snape is already addressing Professor McGonagall.

"Take your students to bed, Minerva. It would not be advisable to be out of the bed at this hour."

Professor McGonagall, who had been frowning at Snape as if trying to figure out something, bristles; there's nothing but repulse in her eyes as she nods.

"Of course, Severus." She turns to Ginny and the others. "Go to the Common Room, now."

And she casts a warning glance at Ginny, who runs to meddle between the other Gryffindor students climbing up the stairs. Her heart doesn't stop beating painfully until she enters the Common Room, and only then she looks back; the Carrows aren't in sight. She doubts this is the last time they will try to question her, but for now, she can breathe easily and give Neville a feeble smile when he looks at her.

"We will watch your back," he whispers.

"It will be fine," she says, with a confidence she doesn't feel. Nothing about her experience at Hogwarts so far gives her any faith that things will turn out well.

And then she catches a mop of black hair.

"Romilda," she calls. Romilda pauses on her way to the stairs.

"Yeah?"

Ginny waits until they are alone to whisper: "Thank you."

Romilda nods. There’s a moment of silence, during which Romilda eyes the stairs as if considering fleeing the scene before she asks: "Did he really break up with you?"

Ginny gulps. "Yeah."

"Oh, I thought—"

"No, it was true."

She waits for some remark; Romilda was truly determined to get Harry the year before, and she had pestered Ginny when she was dating Harry.

"He never actually flirted with me," Romilda says in a rushed whisper. "And you were special to him, I—I spent a lot of time watching him and trying to get his attention, but he never glanced at me... because he was too busy ogling at you."

Warmth spreads inside Ginny; she cannot help her smile. "Harry didn't ogle."

"Yes, all the time. He had it hard for you. Still has, I'd bet." Romilda smiles awkwardly. "Not very womanizer of him."

Ginny's eyes wide. "About that—if anyone finds out that you were exaggerating—"

"I'll talk to my friends. No one is going to say anything."

"I know. I trust you." They look at each other; it suddenly occurs to Ginny that Romilda has no idea, not really, of what could happen if anyone suspects her lie. Romilda never faced a Death Eater. Ginny hopes she never does. "It will be fine."

It's the same thing she told Neville before, but now there's a promise in her voice.

Romilda nods one last time. "Night, Ginny."

"Night, Romilda."

[ashotofogdensoldfirewhiskey]

Can you write something hinny that includes the phrase “you are everything to me” or something in that vein of romantic confessionals?

This turned out a big angstier/sadder than you might've hoped, but here it is anyway <3

It wasn’t a very happy birthday, all things considered. 

There had been cake - chocolate. Presents - more than usual. Singing - respectably on-key. Guests - so many that they’d spilled out into the yard. All the typical ingredients for an excellent party. 

But.

Mum had been crying when she’d frosted the cake. 

Ginny had received a new broomstick (Harry), a lovely necklace (her parents), expensive French perfume (Bill and Fleur); a particularly good haul, even for seventeen. And yet, she’d swallowed the lump in her throat when, rather than a customary box of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes products, she’d opened new Quidditch boots. Happy seventeenth, from George, the card had said. Just George.

Their plucky rendition of Happy Birthday sounded hollow without Fred shrieking an off-key upper harmony. Mum had always said he ruined it, all those years of birthdays with seven kids. Now, without it, the song seemed broken beyond repair. But, asking them not to sing it at all had seemed worse, somehow. 

Mum and Dad and Bill and Fleur and Charlie and Percy and Audrey and George and Ron and Hermione and Harry and Kingsley and Hagrid and Luna and Neville and Hannah and Andromeda and Teddy and…

No Fred. No Lupin. No Tonks. No Collin. Their absence was glaring. A dementor that sucked all the happiness from the room. 

She’d put on a brave face through it all. Eaten the cake even though it tasted like tears, thanked them all for the gifts that had broken her heart, cheekily conducted a song that she’d rather never hear again, tried to breathe around the gaping chasm her brother had left behind. 

Not a very happy birthday, at all. But they’re trying to make it one, and perhaps eventually the trying will work. 

One has to hope. 

For now, the firewhiskey will have to supplement. 

Ginny is pleasantly buzzed by the time the non-family guests have gone. Mum is busying herself in the kitchen, trying unsuccessfully to hide a new bout of tears. Her father and brothers - sans George - are all lazing around the den, half heartedly listening to the wireless - Wasps vs. Tornados. George had gone up to bed an hour ago, but Ginny couldn’t blame him. Hermione, Percy, and Fleur are talking about the Beauxbatons exam curriculum, something Ginny wants exactly zero part in.

One person, she notices, is conspicuously absent. 

She finds him out on the swing in the garden, looking out over the orchard, a glass of what appears to be firewhiskey in his hand. 

She allows herself a moment just to look at him - disheveled hair and handsome face and sharp jaw. She knows, logically, that Harry is safe now, and yet she can’t quite quell the old instinct to drink him in. One last look at him, like she might never get another, like she’ll have to cling onto this one, ration it out to recall when she needs to. 

It’s stupid, anyway. The memory of him had never been even close to the real thing, but in that long year apart she’d never stopped trying to remember the exact shape of his eyes, the way he had a dimple in his left cheek when he smirked at her, the way his hands were solid and sure and so good at making her feel things she’d never–

“Gin?”

He notices her standing there, and offers her a half-smile through the darkness. She can just make out the glint of his eyes behind his specs. 

“Thought you’d left,” she says, aiming for teasing but ending up somewhere just shy of it. “Alright if I join you out here?”

“Of course,” he says, as though offended she’d even asked. “Plenty of room.”

There is, but she snuggles up next to him anyway, her added weight causing them to sway gently on the swing. He drops an arm over her shoulder, and a kiss to her temple, and pulls her up against him. The vague thrum of anxiety that had plagued her all day seems to quiet under the warm weight of his touch. 

“Happy birthday,” Harry says. He’d said it earlier, with everyone, but she likes hearing it again, just for her. 

Ginny hums. “Yeah, I suppose. Mum’s crying again, and George went up to bed ages ago. Dead grim in there. Dunno why Mum insisted we do this whole party when it’s made her so bloody miserable, I’d have been alright with a normal dinner.”

“It’s your seventeenth, though,” Harry points out. “Suppose she wanted it to be special. It should be special.”

“Well, we put on a good show of it, anyway,” Ginny says, reaching over and snatching the glass of firewhisky from Harry’s grip and stealing a gulp. She relishes the burn of it. 

Harry lets out a small breath of a laugh, pinches at her side for her thievery, but he lets her do it anyway. He tugs the glass back out of her grip once she’s finished and takes another gulp himself. 

“It’s what we’ve got to do though, isn’t it?” Harry says suddenly. “Pretend it’s alright until it is.”

“Doesn’t seem like it’ll ever be alright, really,” Ginny says cynically, snuggling deeper into Harry’s embrace. “Or at least, it’ll never be the way it was.”

“No,” Harry agrees, and he sounds more serious than she wants him to. 

God, what is wrong with her? She used to be better at this: lightening the mood with a joke or some good banter, fighting off the gloom. She doesn’t want to sit out here on her seventeenth birthday with her boyfriend and talk about death.

After a minute, she can sense Harry is searching for words. She leans back so that she can look up at his face, and finds he’s staring straight ahead, chewing on something. He seems to be on the precipice of speech, but then he takes another gulp of his drink. 

“What is it?” Ginny breathes. 

“Nothing,” Harry says quickly. “It’s stupid.”

“No, it’s not,” Ginny says firmly. She can’t imagine ever finding anything he has to tell her stupid. 

He looks down to meet her eye, and god. He makes her feel too much, like her heart is overbrimming and spilling out over her bones. 

“I just…” he struggles. He seems to find his words. “I was just thinking that I’m really glad I chose to live so that I could be here at your shite birthday party.”

“Oh, thanks,” Ginny snorts before the entirety of his words strike her. “I really appreciate–” She cuts herself off and sits up straight. “Hang on. What do you mean, ‘chose to live’?”

Harry averts his eye and takes another sip of firewhiskey. 

The question hangs in the evening air, and as the silence swells, Ginny realizes she isn’t sure that she wants to hear the answer. 

They’d spent weeks, filling each other in about the last year in dribs and drabs. She doesn’t yet have the full picture of all he’d been through, of all that had happened, but she doesn’t begrudge him. There are sore spots in her own past she’d rather not press – not yet, not just now – things she hasn’t been able to find the words to say to him yet. 

She reckons the same is true for him, too. She’d never wanted to press him, but it had not escaped her notice there is a gaping hole in her understanding of what had transpired in May: Harry, dead in Hagrid’s arms. 

He’d gone into the forest to die, and he’d come out alive. That’s all she knows, and frankly it’s all she’d mustered up the courage to ask. There seem to be too many painful doors to open down that particular avenue, things like why didn’t you say goodbye and did you know you’d come back and were you scared and I thought you were dead and I felt like I was too. 

They hadn’t touched it, and yet Harry seemed to be offering it to her, now. 

“What do you mean?” she says more softly, more bravely. “You chose to live?”

And so he tells her. Slowly, and stilted, but his hand is warm in hers. Snape’s memories. Learning that he had to die. The long walk into the forest. Finding Voldemort. 

“...I closed my eyes and I thought of you,” Harry says, like it’s just some part of the story, like he’s not breaking her heart and stitching it back together in one with these words. “So that you’d be the last thing I saw, and then he did it. Avada Kedavra. And I was gone.”

He presses a hand to his chest, and Ginny can picture the green light striking him there. She can’t fathom any of it, how difficult it must’ve been for him to walk to his own execution, how scared he must have been, how he could possibly still be sitting, living and breathing, beside her now. She grips his hand so tightly that it’s a wonder he has any feeling in it at all. 

Harry shifts uncomfortably, and his words are awkward now. “I still don’t know if any of it was real, or if it was just something I imagined while I was… wherever I was. But I… I spoke with Dumbledore. Or… I imagined I did, I dunno. About a lot of things, but mainly that I could choose to go, you know, on. Or I could go back and live again, if I wanted.”

He explains of the protection his mother’s love had left him with, that had tethered him to life despite the Killing Curse to his chest. 

Harry’s grip on her hand tightens, and he turns to meet her eyes fully for the first time since he began speaking. He wipes his other hand wearily over his face, and sighs. “I’m sorry, I’m a bit drunk. This is… it’s your birthday. I didn’t mean to–”

“Harry,” Ginny interrupts gently. “Go on.”

Harry inhales, bracing himself against the memory. “I knew if I chose to come back, I’d be coming back to the war, and Voldemort, and everyone I loved dying. And for a minute the thought of just… leaving it all behind, being at peace with my parents, and Sirius, and Lupin…”

Ginny can imagine how strong of a pull that must’ve been. She grips him harder, as though he’s facing the choice again at this moment and she might be able to tether him to her with her fingers.

“But then I thought of you, and the life I wanted – I want, with you. And I knew I had to come back, even if it meant dealing with all of the shite that came with it.”

Just like with the rest of it, he doesn’t seem to realize that he’s said anything of any particular import, but the words burrow under her skin and make a home there, painful and vulnerable and hopeful. 

“I’m sorry,” Harry says anxiously, interrupting himself as he looks at her expression. “Shit, Ginny, I didn’t–”

Ginny realizes she has tears streaming down her cheeks. She wipes them away impatiently. 

“--shit timing, it’s all a bit heavy for your birthday, isn’t it?” Harry babbles. “I just said it because I know today was dead grim, and you’re right, things will probably never be the same. But I just kept thinking that I’m so glad we’ll get to do it all again next year and for the first time that doesn’t seem like–”

She cuts off his anxious babbling with a kiss, hard and searing, and she holds his chin in her hands, precious, appreciating how very close she came to rationing memories of him for the rest of her life. 

She pulls away, her head still spinning with all that she’d told her. She needed to think about it, ask more questions about Snape and Voldemort and Horcruxes and blood magic. But most pressingly: “Let me see if I’ve got this right. You’re telling me that I’m the last thing you thought of when you went to die, and the reason you decided to live?”

Harry stares at her. “Well, when you put it like that– I suppose, yeah. Yes.”

Ginny shakes her head slowly, helplessly. “Harry.”

“I love you,” Harry says, like this is all the explanation that’s needed, because perhaps it is. He’s said this to her every day for weeks, but this is the first time she truly appreciates that love is a verb; that he’s not describing a state of being but rather something he’s actively doing: loving her. 

“I’m not always the best with words–” Harry continues, and Ginny nearly chokes. “--but you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and it’s not even a competition, really. You’re everything. I didn’t mean to put pressure on you, or anything, I realize now how that all sounded and–”

“I love you, too,” Ginny says fiercely, ignoring any out he’s offering her, like she’d want one. “And I want to talk about the rest of it, all of it. I can’t believe you had to– I don’t even want to think about–” Ginny shakes her head. “You haven’t put any pressure on me, other than I don’t know how I’m meant to respond to that in a way that measures up–”

“No, you don’t–”

“But I love you,” Ginny presses on. “So much. And that’s what I want with you too, all of it, everything. I always have. I’m… so glad you came back because I don’t know what I’d have done if–”

“Gin–”

Ginny kisses him again, desperate. Harry says he’s the one who’s no good with words but Ginny has never been less articulate in her life. Instead she tries to pour the contents of her heart into the fingers she runs through his hair, the grip of her hands over his chest where his heart beats reassuringly beneath his warm skin, the press of her lips against his. 

She pulls back, eyes wet, breathing heavily. Harry’s looking at her with that soft wonder that he sometimes gets, an expression she might understand a bit better now. “That was the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard, but if you ever try to go off alone and die again, I will kill you myself. Don’t you ever do that again, alright?”

Harry grins. “Alright. I think I can manage that.”

“Good.”

A grin spreads across Ginny’s face, and now they’re just two grinning idiots on a swing who want to spend forever together, and for the first time there isn’t any glaring obstacle in the way of it. She allows herself to picture it - a nice cozy home to share, a wedding, kids with messy hair and green eyes, a life that might grow around the grief in her chest. 

She settles back into his arms, snug against him, miraculously alive and hers. She loves him so much it has nowhere to go. 

“I am sorry your birthday was shite, though,” Harry says. 

“It wasn’t,” Ginny says, and she means it.

[ryanwrites05]

June 18 - Luna

@hinnymicrofic

He stepped out of the warmth of Shell Cottage, breathing in the sea air. It was salty, humid, and oddly calming. He’d like to spend more time by the sea, he thought, if he survived the war.

Anytime he thought of life after the war, and he allowed himself to imagine he survived, as improbable as that would be, his thoughts strayed to her. Praying to any god that would listen for her safety.

The war could have him. Demanded him, really. But it couldn’t have her.

He pushed his hands into his pockets and mentally chewed on the plans they had been making. He would put his friends in danger yet again. Breaking in to Gringotts was impossible Griphook said - a suicide mission.

Griphook didn’t know the half of it. He’d lost count of how many times he had almost died at this point. Didn’t want to think about how many more close calls he would have before the prophecy was fulfilled, one way or the other.

As he sat down on a large rock overlooking the cliff and looked out to the sea, his mind wandered back to her. What was she doing, now that she was tucked away at Muriel’s? Probably hating it, needing to do something. Was she too thinking about him?

“May I sit?”, Luna’s airy voice called out from behind him, breaking him away from Ginny’s comfort. He nodded. She sat down next to him on the rock and gave him a small smile. “Thank you again for rescuing us. It was rather awful there.”

The mention of Malfoy Manor brought back terrible memories - Ron’s panic, Hermione’s screams, and holding Dobby’s lifeless body. He couldn’t talk about it, not yet - maybe not ever, so he nodded instead.

They sat there in companionable silence for a few moments, and it reminded him again of her. How she would always let him have space to think - to be. Not the Chosen One, but just Harry. She never knew everything, his promise to Dumbledore forced him to keep so much from her. Merlin, he missed her.

“She misses you too, you know.” Luna said, still looking out at the sea, the light of dusk dimming the distant view of the waves. His eyes shot to her, and she smiled warmly back at him.

“She always says you tend to brood a lot. you are rather moody at times, but I know the truth.”

He just blinked at her.

She smiled. “It’s harder than that, isn’t it? People who’ve lost loved ones like we have…you never really lose that sense of loneliness that follows it. It makes you cling to the ones you still have more tightly.”

“Yeah,” he mumbled. He hated to think about it, to think about how many more they would lose before the end.

He looked back at the sea. The sky had turned even more darkish grey, and he thought that rather fit.

He sighed and allowed his head to drop to his hands. Noticing she was wearing a thin yellow and purple jumper, he took off his jacket and gave it to her. As she put it on, he thought it odd her wearing something so plain.

“Thanks, Luna. I…I miss her, too. She always knew just what to say. How to make things better.”

He breathed out a long sigh. “It hurts not having her close.”

He wasn’t sure why he was saying all this. Perhaps because it was Luna, and she always did understand this side of him.

Luna turned and her wide eyes were unusually determined. “You will again.”

[seriouslysam8]

April Prompt #14: Hope for @hinnymicrofic

Ginny’s limbs trembled as she walked down the long corridor towards Gryffindor tower. Everything hurt. Her mind was numb. She just wanted to go home.

Her breath hitched in her throat when she saw the wanted poster of Harry stuck to the wall. Reaching out, her fingers touched his cheek and her heart twisted. She would give anything to have five more minutes with him.

“They asked about you,” Ginny whispered, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes. “I told them we broke up. I lied and said you were a wanker and a git. I told them I hated you,” her voice cracked at the last two words. “I just wanted it to stop.”

With her free hand, she wiped the tears off her face. Her entire body quaked with a sob as she leaned against the wall, her face mere centimeters away from Harry’s.

“I hope I get to see you again,” Ginny spoke in a soft voice, her fingers lingering on his lips. “If even just to say goodbye. We didn’t get to say a proper goodbye. And now I don’t know where you are or what you’re doing and I just miss you, Harry. I miss you so much.”

Ginny sniffed, her hand falling from the picture.

“I’m going to start back up the D.A.,” she continued, standing up straight. “If you’re going to fight, so am I. If I’m going to be tortured for no reason, I might as well give them a reason.”

Ginny pressed her fingers to her lips before she touched Harry’s lips on the poster. She would see him again. They would fight and they would win.

And she would be reunited with Harry once more. They would be happy once more.

Ginny needed to cling to that hope or else she wouldn’t be able to survive the year.

[voldemorts-tap-shoes]

Submission #2 for the red/lover era of @cruelsummer-ficfest

Afterglow

-

I lived like an island

punished you with silence

-

Fighting with a true love is boxing with no gloves

Chemistry 'til it blows up, 'til there's no us

-

It’s the silence, more than anything else, that tells Ron how thoroughly he fucked things up with Hermione.

Merlin, is there anything he wouldn’t give right now to hear her call him an arse for leaving? Or for one of those snide little comments she used to make when he was with Lavender last year, not directly to him but most certainly meant for his ears?

Hell, he’d take the birds right about now.

He deserves it—this and any other brand of punishment her heart desires along the road to forgiveness—and he knows this, and he’ll gladly suffer through it as long as there is light at the end of the tunnel. But as it stands between them currently, he’s staring into an inky black hole of a relationship without so much as a flicker of hope.

Ron doesn’t have a shift on watch tonight, but he’s not sleeping either, poring over strategy with Harry while Hermione sits outside. Harry ought to be sleeping, too, while he can, and he’s the only one Hermione admonishes when she comes inside and finds the two of them, glancing right past Ron as if he isn’t even there on the way to her bunk.

He’s tried his best over the past three weeks to maintain a normal rapport with her on his end, even though he’s gotten nothing in return. So when he casually states that he’s going out to sit with Harry and continue what they were working on, he’s sure he imagines the soft “don’t go��� from Hermione’s direction.

But if he isn’t imagining it…

-

I'm the one who burned us down

But it's not what I meant

-

“What?”

Hermione rolls over with a huff and spits the words at him. “Don’t. Go.”

He takes a hesitant step towards her. “I—”

But before he can put together any sort of coherent response, Hermione continues, “It’s a simple enough request, Ron, or I thought it was when I said it the first time, before you left, and I don’t suppose you learned anything at all on your little sabbatical if you still don’t understand it.”

She flops back onto her other side, facing the tent wall and leaving far more room on the outside edge of the bed than was there just a moment ago. Plenty of room for a second person. Way too much to be accidental.

Surely she doesn’t…she couldn’t mean…

This is either going to be the best or worst decision he ever made.

Ron toes his shoes off beneath her bunk and carefully lifts the covers to slip underneath. He knows damn well she’s not sleeping yet, but she doesn’t make any acknowledgment of him climbing into bed with her. If this wasn’t the right answer, he’s fairly certain she would choose hexing him into oblivion over the silent treatment, so he assumes he’s on the right track. Now that he’s here, though, he’s not sure what to do next.

It takes him only a moment to notice that her shoulders are shaking with silent sobs, and the realization dissolves his lingering hesitation. He places his hand gently against her side, and when she doesn’t protest his touch, wraps his arm all the way around to pull her close.

Her hand finds his resting against her stomach, and she laces their fingers together. When she composes herself enough to speak, her words rip Ron’s heart in two. “You hurt me.”

He knows she’s sick of hearing I’m sorry, even though he is, and he’s not sure she’s ready for I love you, even though he does. So he snuggles closer, holds her tighter, and just says, “I know.”

-

I don't wanna do, I don't wanna do this to you

I don't wanna lose, I don't wanna lose this with you

-

He can’t say how much time passes—it might have been five minutes or an hour, he only knows it’s not long enough—before she untangles their hands and rolls to her back, staring up at the bunk above them with eyes that are now dry but bloodshot. The movement lands his hand on her hip and she doesn’t push him away so he leaves it.

Hermione gives a tiny shake of her head and bites her lip before she whispers, “I don’t know how we come back from this, Ron.”

It’s not unexpected, but her statement still hits him like a punch in the gut. He doesn’t know how to make up for leaving either, or how long it will take, or even if she cares enough to let him try. He only knows he wants to. And if she wants that too, he’ll do whatever it takes to make things right again.

“Do you want to, though?” Ron’s heart is nearly beating out of his chest as he watches her tug her bottom lip between her teeth again. “Do you want to get back to where we were?”

Never mind that where they were is a mysterious place that they had never really defined, and could just as easily have been best friends and nothing more as anything else. Just being friends with Hermione is never really going to be enough, but he’ll take that over nothing in a heartbeat.

“No,” she sighs. Her answer takes all the breath out of him, but before he has a chance to spiral, Hermione rotates again, turning to face him and bringing her body nearly flush with his. “Merlin’s pants, Ron, is that really all you want? To go back to the way things were?”

-

Tell me that you're still mine

Tell me that we'll be just fine

Even when I lose my mind

-

Tell me that it's not my fault

Tell me that I'm all you want

Even when I break your heart

-

The mood changes in an instant, and Ron can’t help but chuckle at the incredulous look on Hermione’s face. “No,” he admits. “That’s not all I want.”

“Okay. What do you want?”

“I think you know.”

“Do I?”

She quirks an eyebrow at him, making a good show at their old teasing repartee, but her trembling bottom lip gives away her real feelings. He sees the doubt in her eyes, built up over years of his denial; recognizes it because she’s done the same to him. But if he doesn’t tell her the truth now, there might not be another opportunity.

“Yeah.” His voice comes out a husky whisper, and drops further when Hermione shifts right up against him and brushes her fingertips against his stubbly cheek. “Yeah, I think you do.”

Their lips meet for one glorious second before Hermione’s hand is on his chest with a gentle push and she’s shaking her head again. “I can’t,” she says, and he feels both their hearts breaking with the words. “Not yet.”

It’s not what he wants to hear, of course, but at least not yet is the flicker of hope he needs to keep going. He can work with not yet.

“It’s okay. I get it. I’ll just—” He doesn’t get more than an inch away from her before she’s tugging at his jumper, rooting him to the spot.

“I know it’s not fair to ask, but…stay with me?”

She’s looking up at him with those big brown eyes, and honestly, he doesn’t know how he ever walked away from her, horcrux or no.

“Of course. Anything you want.”

We’ll get through this, Ron tells himself as they settle in for the night, Hermione curled up against his side like she was made to fit there. It’ll be okay.

When he wakes up in the morning to the orange glow of sunrise creeping through the canvas walls and Hermione still in his arms, he actually believes it.

-

This ultraviolet morning light below

Tells me this love is worth the fight, oh

-

It's all me, just don't go

Meet me in the afterglow

-

[thenicestthingiveseen]

prompt 30: goodbye (ver. 2)

this one is canon compliant and i know people love canon compliant fics so i thought i’d give you guys one on the last day of april’s prompts. [182 words]

written for @hinnymicrofic​

Her body ached as she trudged up the stairs to her room. Her dress was ruined, but she could get her mum to fix that later. Speaking of her mum, she probably should have had her look at her wrist before she left the back garden, but she wanted to be alone. She stopped by the bathroom to wipe the remaining makeup off her face. Her face in the mirror caught her by surprise. She looked haunted, almost like she did her first year. As she scrubbed the makeup off her face, she could see the beginnings of a bruise on her left cheek from where one of the Death Eaters slapped her around trying to get answers. 

She returned to her room quietly; slipping off her tattered bridesmaid dress and shrugging on the closest clothes she could find. 

After everything she had endured in the last two hours, as she lay in bed all she could think was: I didn’t even get to say goodbye. 

And that hurt worse than the bruise on her face or the twinge in her wrist. 

[takeariskao3]

Freeze

written for @hinnymicrofic 🧡

The crunch of frost under her feet is the only sound besides the whistle of wind through the trees. The sun threatens the grey horizon but besides Ginny’s ceaseless pacing, the December morning remains undisturbed. Not even the gnomes are awake yet.

She continues along the path as if her feet are carrying her purposefully towards some end destination.

They aren’t, of course.

There’s nowhere for her to go besides around in circles. Her parents’s strict instructions to stay inside the boundary of the wards isn’t worth testing. Plus, she doesn’t think a lap around the orchard would help at this point anyway. She’d freeze for one thing. And flying had lost most of its thrill when all it did was remind her that she had no one left to fly with.

She may have tried for an escape up the hill to see the Lovegood house in the distance, but … Luna isn’t there.

The echo of her cries as she gets snatched from the train haunt Ginny’s nightmares.

Guilt and despair linger in her stomach, and she’s tried so many times to turn it into something resembling rage or purpose. But all she gets is loneliness.

People keep getting taken from her. Ripped from her life recurrently and without warning. Her friends, her brother, her boyfriend. The last sixth months have been marked, not by time, but by how much she has lost.

And now, she can’t help but wonder how much more she might lose.

[greenhousethree]

Exodus

A Deathly Hallows Missing Moment

It’s a strange thing, sifting through the things that make up your life, deciding what you could leave behind and still be the person you were.

Written for @thethreebroomsticksfic Weasley Fest, October 16th: Molly Weasley.

[adenei]

The Moment I Knew

Submission #1 for Era 3 (Red/Lover) of @cruelsummer-ficfest

Ship: Romione

Song: The Moment I Knew (Red)

Read on AO3

You should be here.

Tears stream down Hermione’s face as she tends to Harry. She’s not sure how long she’s been awake, but there’s no way she can sleep until she can be certain he’s okay. Between making sure he’s breathing, tending to his wounds from the wreckage and fighting against Nagini, and keeping her distance every time he has a night terror, she’s exhausted.

But what can she do? There’s no one to split the load with. It’s just Harry and Hermione. Ron’s still gone. Another choked sob escapes her lips as the constant reminders of his absence still shake her to her very core. And she spends another sleepless night wondering if she’ll ever see him again.

You said you’d be here.

Hermione closes her eyes as yet another tear slips through. Harry’s keeping watch and she’s finally able to get some much needed sleep. Except she can’t.

She’s too afraid that something is going to happen. There’s only two of them. Just like it has been for the last month. If something were to happen, she would never forgive herself.

He said he’d be here.

They promised each other they’d stand by Harry no matter what. She can’t remember how many times they’d spoken about it at the Burrow last summer. Even at Grimmauld Place, he said they’d get through this together. Together.

Over and over again, she tries not to fall apart. She tries not to think of him. Of all the things they could have been, and the sinking feeling grows. Her mind is at war. Conflicting thoughts of anger and grief play on repeat when she can’t distract herself with a book. She’s been over the same scenarios in her head hundreds of times, yet they still play out. Tantalizing her with thoughts of how things could be different if he were still here. But he’s not.

As her eyelids finally droop from exhaustion, a happier image plays in her mind. One of a fantastical reunion—a reunion she knows will only happen in her wildest dreams.

And it was like slow motion.

“Hermione! Hermione, come quick!”

Jolting awake, she throws the covers off her body and runs to the tent flap,  burstint through. Defenseless, she looks around for Harry in the early light of dawn, the cold air stinging her cheeks.

“What’s wrong? What happened? Are you alright?” 

Her head whips from left to right, searching for danger or threats. And that’s when she sees him.

“More than alright, actually.” Harry speaks, but his words are drowned out by the buzzing in her ears.

This has to be a dream. She can’t possibly be awake. The likelihood of him ever finding them again was so small and yet…

Frozen, she stands there in one of his old Christmas sweaters and lingering hints of the perfume he gifted her fifth year—the only two things she still has to keep him close to her. Though perhaps now, she won’t need them. Assuming he’s not a mirage.

Their eyes lock and he offers her a sheepish grin. But it’s her favorite. The way one side of his mouth raises slightly higher than the other makes her weak in the knees. And before she knows it, she’s running toward him, forgetting that Harry’s around and that she doesn’t have a wand to protect herself in case this is all a trap. 

But she doesn’t care. Because if this is Ron and he’s back, there’s only one thing she wants.

She flings her arms around him to break her stride and he gladly catches her. It’s unmistakably him. She knows. Deep down she knows. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers in her ear. “I’m so sorry. I never should have left. I should have been here.”

She could say I know or I told you so, but she doesn’t. She simply holds on tight. Tears fall yet again, but this time they’re because she’s happy. The stars have aligned and she’s just so happy.

And that was the moment she knew.

[whinlatter]

hope (harry/ginny) | a microfic

for @hinnymicrofic day 14 | prompt: hope (slightly nsfw!)

They lug their trunks across the Burrow’s yard in sweaty, stony silence. ‘Beautiful evening,’ her mother remarks, as her children clamber back over the threshold of the rickety old house. ‘I do hope we get more of this lovely sunshine.’ 

Stupid thing to say, she thinks, stupid thing to hope for. There's a wishbone out drying on the kitchen window sill. Wonders if her mother plans to waste it wishing for more good weather in the middle of a war.

Dinner is shepherd’s pie - her old favourite, a Molly classic, and yet it tastes like dust, like ash, like nothing. ‘I know you’ve had a tricky time, dear,’ her mother says gently. She stiffens, glares at Ron, traitor, but then - ‘what with your exams being cancelled - and right when you’d done all that work -’ so she's safe, then, goes back to moving mash potato around her plate. ‘Made of real shepherds,’ her dad says, weak smile, trying his best. She gulps down her mouthful and excuses herself, slams the bedroom door shut, finds she's shaking.

Lying on her back on her bed, staring at the sunset’s stains on the ceiling, the only sound the late summer birdsong out of the open window. Quiet, too quiet, for a house this full. Downstairs, the kitchen’s all whispers. Every now and then she hears an unfamiliar footstep creak on the landing, strangers on the staircase. Headquarters, now. The war’s come home, and it’s using their loo.

She’d got her hopes up, that's the thing. First mistake, stupid. He’d been telling the story of Ron’s camp-bed collapsing in on him that time, lying back on his elbows under their tree with his hair ragged, handsome. She’d laughed, see, and said well, maybe this summer we’ll spare you the indignity of the campbed and being dense, he’d said well Fred and George’s room was nice if you don’t mind the smell of soot. She’d rolled her eyes, said Potter can you really not notice when a girl’s trying to get you into her bed. He’d gone red, then, stammered a bit, but it was all over his face: the wonder, the want. Your mum will go ballistic, he’d muttered, but he’d said will not would, and his hand had toyed with her hip, fingertips trailed her thigh. He’d wanted it too. He’d thought they’d have it, thought they'd get the summer, at least. 

We could’ve had ages, he’d said. Months, years, maybe. Stupid, stupidest thing, hope. No use for it.

It’d have been cramped. He’d have had to sneak down from Ron’s room, under the cloak. She’d have shown him her Harpies poster, now this is what a proper team looks like, Potter, worn her nice pyjamas, the ones with the shorts, asked him to take them off. Cleared a space for his glasses on the bedside table. He'd have slept on the right, nearest the door, ever on guard, and stroked her cheek with his knuckles, looked at her that way, like she’s precious. It would have been like that time they’d fallen asleep under their tree, heads together - the time she’d slipped up, let herself imagine it: two bodies in a bed in a house with a garden, laughter, little people running around who’d look a bit like them both. 

Stupid, stupid thing. Grips the bedspread in both fists, banishes it: all of it, all the hope. File away that future, bury it. Kill your darlings, push them out to sea.

Knock at the door. Ron, with two cups of tea and a half-empty box of Caramel Kappas. ‘Thought you might want some company,’ he mutters, sheepish, sitting on the bed. She sighs, no fight in her, and so brother and sister sit, sipping, in birdsonged silence. 

‘How are you doing?’ he asks. She means to snap - how do you think I’m doing - but takes one look at him and finds she’s fresh out of spite. ‘You’re going away with him, aren’t you?’ she says, instead. Ron nods, and it’s awful, all ache, terrible, gaping grief, all this filling in the blanks of everything that she’s losing. 

‘I just hoped,’ she says, eventually, eyes on her knees, ‘we’d have more time. I know - I know it was stupid.’

That’s all of it, really, isn’t it: her great failing, uttered aloud. Crumples, then, beside her big brother, and cries, heaping earth on all the hope as they lower it into the grave. Stupid thing, useless thing.

She thinks about the wishbone downstairs on the window sill. Thinks how stupid, how stupid it is, for something to die, and someone to make wishes out of its bones.

A/N: did not intend to write this, blame @brightlybound for this one - turns out gentle demands for a ginny's pov companion piece to yesterday’s fic will absolutely work on me, also Twenty-Two Days remains the h/g dual pov love story of all time for me so wanted to do a tribute. enjoy/sorry! back to regular writing now i swear!

now up on AO3 here | ask me anything

[startanewdream]

A small Harry and Minerva moment, set after the final battle, in honour of Minerva's birthday.

*****

"I am not coming back," Harry blurts out. Next to him, Minerva's only reaction is a flicker on her spell: for a moment, the broken chairs of the Transfiguration classroom get extra pairs of legs that make them look like spiders.

When the chairs go back to normal, she turns to Harry with an impassive look.

"I imagined so."

Harry blinks. "You did? You never mentioned anything."

Minerva shares his surprise. "It was not my place to say anything. You are of age now."

"So all this time I've been helping here at Hogwarts, you just knew and went along with it?"

"Would it please you if I say I do not agree with your decision?"

"Yes, actually."

There's a hint of a smile on Minerva's lips. "I think you should come back to school."

"Oh." Harry looks down at his feet before moving to fix the bricks on the wall. Despite what he just told her, it's undeniable that this was not what Harry wanted to hear. "You think I am not ready?"

He sounds young. It's difficult to match this adult Harry — nearly eighteen-year-old, tall like his father, and spotting too many scars for his age — with the eleven-year-old who was sorted into her House, but that's the memory that resurfaces: Harry is eleven and he was caught out of his bed at night, losing 50 points to Gryffindor. He'd looked upset at the idea of being a disappointment.

That's how he looks now.

"You are of age," she repeats, her voice more tender than she allows herself around him, lest she betrays her soft spot for him. Harry's eyes are hungry as he turns to face her. "You faced more than any exam could measure — you faced things that cannot be measured." She thinks about the unconfirmed tales of a sacrifice and master of death, and it's not easy to match this with a boy worried about homework and deadlines. "From an educational point of view, I believe your time at Hogwarts has concluded."

Harry watches her. "But?" He guesses.

She allows herself a little smile. "But education is not all Hogwarts has to offer." She remembers seeing that scrawny kid laughing as he first took flight on a school broomstick; three friends sitting outside on a winter afternoon, bundling up next to a warm blue fire and sharing tales; a boy and his girlfriend, walking hand-in-hand through the halls, oblivious to any gossip. "I would be glad if you returned only to enjoy your Seventh Year as a common student. No threat. No drama. Just school."

"Just school," he repeats, his gaze far away now as if he could see it. Then Harry blinks. "Hermione and Ginny are coming back. Ron is not, though."

Minerva nods. She won't say it, but sometimes she wonders if the fact that Ron Weasley isn't returning isn't what's weighing most on Harry. Inseparable like brothers. Like father, like son.

"Do you think my parents would be okay with it?"

This time, the question baffles her; she's glad she wasn't transforming anything because it might have been disastrous.

"I do not believe I am qualified to answer this, Harry," she says.

"Ah, it's just —" He holds the back of his head, ruffling his hair, unaware that this was what James did when he was embarrassed. "You are one of the last people that knew them."

And this, as far as Minerva is concerned, is a terrible thing. James and Lily would be only thirty-eight if they were alive. She has lived now nearly four times what they did; how is it that there are now so few people that knew them?

Harry looks young once again. She knows he's made up his mind — and like Lily, he's adamant once he's decided something —, so this need for validation isn't what she associates with the young man she saw standing up to Voldemort one month ago.

But for all his deeds, Harry is just a boy who grew up longing for his parents — parents who had loved him fiercely, she knows. She doubts Harry might ever do anything that James and Lily wouldn't support — God knows Minerva supports him, and she isn't even his relative — but she also thinks they would insist that Harry return to his final year.

Seventh Year. That had been the year when James and Lily were Head Boy and Head Girl, and the future had looked promising to both. That had been the year when they had started dating; when the darkness of the war hadn't yet tinted their lives. When they had been the happiest. How could they not want the same for Harry?

But that's not what she tells him. "Yes," she lies calmly. "James and Lily would approve it."

Harry breathes easily. "Thanks." He moves to fix another desk, not noticing how, a long time ago, someone carved JP+LE in the wood.

Harry's spellwork is good. He might enjoy some refinement, but she doubts he will be fixing desks in his future job, so instead of commenting on it, she just lets it slide.

"Of course," she notes with a hint of humour, "if you came back, it would not have been all fun. I would have high expectations for you."

"Quidditch?" Harry guesses. "I'd say that Gryffindor is safe in Ginny's hands."

"I enjoy the Quidditch trophy in my office," she agrees. "But alas I was thinking about another responsibility. A Head Boy badge would suit you." Harry's eyes widen; she is once more sorry for not insisting harder with Albus that Harry should have been made prefect. "As it did your parents."

Harry smiles. "I would enjoy that."

"There are tons of paperwork, I might warn you — though not unlike being an Auror." Harry chuckles. "But either way, Harry, your parents would have been proud."

As I am proud of you, she thinks.

[ashotofogdensoldfirewhiskey]

April 19: Believe

Day 19 @hinnymicrofic

“Are we honestly supposed to believe you don’t know where they–”

“Shut up, Smith,” Ginny growls, the panic rising in her throat. “Or are you really as thick as you look?”

The train is crowded; anybody could have overheard them. A child of a Death Eater, or a gossipy Ministry employee, anyone who could snap their fingers and descend horror on the Burrow, on her parents, her family. 

She’s never liked Zacharias Smith, but now she’s considering maiming him.

He has the decency to look abashed, but Ginny is past caring. What sort of explanation does he think he’s owed, anyway? Just because he showed up to some DA meetings so that he could pass his fucking DADA OWL? He can piss off.  

He lowers his voice. “You’re the one who’s thick if you think anyone is going to believe that you don’t know where Harry and Hermione are. And Ron, sick with spattergroit?”

She’s about to hex him, but he continues. “I’m not the worst person who’s going to ask. I’d come up with a better story, if I were you.”

The words are sharp and jagged on her tongue. “Harry ditched me. I couldn’t care less where he is.”

We could have had ages… months… years, maybe… 

Smith scoffs, clearly affronted. “With the way you two were carrying on? Please, spare me the cock-and-bull story. You won’t tell me, fine. But no one is going to believe that shite.”

It’s been like something out of something else’s life, these last few weeks with you…

He turns his back, and Ginny fantasizes about turning him to jelly as he walks away. Before she can act on it, she can feel a steady hand on her arm.

“He’s a git,” Neville says firmly, closing their compartment door. “Not worth it.”

Rather than debate the merits of teaching that weasel a lesson, Ginny sighs. “He’s a git with a point though. Worse than the likes of him are going to ask me about them. Probably you lot, as well.”

Neville looks grim, Luna thoughtful.

“I suppose it is difficult to think Harry would ditch you like that,” Luna muses.

“He did ditch me,” Ginny snarls. “You know that.”

Neville stares down at his shoes, but Luna remains serene. “Yes, but not really though, did he?”

“He did,” Ginny insists. “And you’d better help me convince them he never gave a shite about me.”

Neville grimaces. “Harry’s not like that though, is he? People won’t think–”

“He got what he wanted,” Ginny says harshly, wanting to startle them with it. “And he left.”

Neville looks unhappy, but then nods, acquiescing. Luna, however, gives her a searching look. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

Ginny closes her eyes; perhaps her eyelids can shield her from the onslaught of memories accosting her. Harry, waiting outside of her lessons; Harry, mucking about in the library studying for Divination; Harry, kissing her furiously against a wall, looking at her like she's the sun.

Harry, walking away from her. 

“I have to believe that,” Ginny says, opening her eyes and gritting her teeth. “So they will, too.”

[ryanwrites05]

This Is For You

Prompt: Nov. 11 - Scarf

@hinnymicrofic

The biting cold wind whipped around her atop the Astronomy Tower, her mane of red hair flowing across her face. She pulled the red and gold scarf closer around her.

His scarf.

She wore it like armor. The one weakness she allowed herself in a place surrounded by enemies.

No one knew it was his. She knicked it from his trunk - something of his she could have before they disappeared.

Looking out at the frozen Black Lake, she breathed deeply - settling herself.

She would come here to think often, to be alone. No one seemed to come up here, or at least not on nights like this. Which was why she liked it so much, or so far as anything could be liked in the middle of a war.

She felt more than saw Luna step up next to her.

“I thought I would find you here,” Luna said quietly.

Ginny glanced at her. Her blonde hair whipped around, but her face was set, her silvery-blue eyes determined.

“He would be proud of you, you know,” Luna said, barely above a whisper. Even in the solitude of the tower neither dared to say his name.

“I miss him,” she said. She hadn’t actually said the words, or dared to admit their veracity, in what felt like months, or maybe a lifetime.

Neither spoke for some time. And maybe that was what she liked about Luna the most, how she understood this side of her - allowed her to admit something as dangerous as that.

“We have a way into Snape’s office?”

“Yes, Neville is ready when we are,” Luna replied, her determined face fixed again.

“And we are sure we have a way to get the sword out?”

“Neville will get it to Aberforth, through the Room of Requirement,” Luna said.

“Good.”

It was a good plan. The carefully-laid distractions, enough chaos to buy them time to sneak in and out quickly. But it required precision timing. If something went wrong…well, she knew what specific brand of torture likely awaited.

She breathed the frigid air and let it fill her lungs. “Okay, let’s go.”

Luna gave a stiff nod and turned toward the door down the stairs, and to almost certain danger.

Necessary danger. Because above everything else, a message had to be sent. They would not take this horror lying down.

She let her eyes linger a second longer on the birch tree near the shore of the lake.

“Wherever you are, this is for you.”

[hpseeker99]

Harry: Go big or go home! Ron and Hermione: We are begging you, just this one time, go home! Harry, jumping on a dragon: Imma go big

[sliebman10]

Footsteps

(Parvati/Lavender, 159 words, @sapphicmicrofics)

It was their turn to stay in the Room of Requirement, while the others left for dinner. Lavender joined Parvati on the floor against the wall. 

“I hate this part,” Lavender said, resting her head on Parvati’s shoulder.

“This is the part you hate?” Parvati said. She was in a bad mood, having gotten on the wrong side of Alecto Carrow in class this afternoon. Lavender ran her hand through Parvati’s hair. 

“This is temporary, right?” she said. “It has to be,” she said, more to herself.

They both heard footsteps approaching and pulled out their wands. As far as they knew, the Carrows still hadn’t figured out the existence of the students’ sanctuary. 

The footsteps died away. The girls slumped against each other. “I can’t take this much longer,” Parvati murmured.

“Do you want to go home?” Lavender asked, wide eyed. 

“No…I don’t. I don’t know what I want,” Parvati said, tearfully. “I want things back to normal.” 

[voldemorts-tap-shoes]

Hello! Have you thought about writing You’r Losing Me, for Romione?

Hi anon! Thanks for the inspo, I hope you enjoy this!

@cruelsummer-ficfest micro fic mayhem! Can’t believe we are already in the last era ❤️

You’re Losing Me

The tent flap hasn’t fully settled behind Ron when Hermione gives a frantic wave of her wand to lower the shield charm and darts out after him into the rain. He can’t be serious. He can’t really mean to leave. But Merlin help her, she’s got to stop him before he gets too far. Just in case.

He’s outright ignoring every desperate call of his name that rips out of her throat as she chases him, and he isn’t slowing down. She’s practically running to keep up with him. Hell, maybe she should just let him go. Their past is riddled with gashes, wounds they’ve inflicted on each other over the years, but this might be the final blow.

No. It can’t be. She can’t let it. Her heart stopped when Ron walked out of the tent, and she’s not sure it will ever start up again if he doesn’t come back with her.

“Ron, please just stop and listen to me!”

“You don’t understand.” He hurls the words over his shoulder at her, still moving at a speed that has her gasping for breath, and she latches onto the response.

“You’re right, I don’t. Tell me.”

He stops abruptly, but not to talk to her. Hermione feels the subtle shift in the air as they cross out of the wards, and Ron pulls his wand from his pocket. She recognizes his motion just in time and flings the spell at him. “Expelliarmus!”

Ron’s face contorts with more anger than she’s ever seen on him as he turns to face her. “Give. Me. My. Wand.”

Hermione takes a breath and clenches her hand around both their wands. “No.”

“If you don’t—”

“If I do, you’ll leave.”

“Yeah, well, that’s my fucking choice, isn’t it? Give me my wand, Hermione.”

They stare at each other for a long moment, neither one willing to back down, until Hermione finally sighs. If he wants to leave, why should she stop him? She’ll figure out how to pick up the pieces without him, rising like a phoenix from the ashes like she’s done too many times before. But not before she takes one more shot.

“Fine.” She holds out his wand, and he takes a step toward her. “But you should know, it’s not just the mission you’re giving up on. If you leave, you’re losing me.”

It’s the only card she has left to play, the only thing that might change his mind. They’ve tiptoed closer to honesty about their feelings for each other, but despite three months crammed together in a tent, they’re still just dancing around it. If she’s going to tell him, it has to be now. If he leaves anyway, there’s nothing else she could have done.

Ron scoffs as he takes his wand, but he doesn’t immediately raise it again to disapparate, and Hermione holds onto the glimmer of hope. “What am I losing, Hermione?” There’s hesitation in his voice now, and his blue eyes search hers for an answer. “Can’t fucking lose something you never had.”

“You have me,” Hermione whispers. “I’m all yours if you want me. But you have to come back.” She takes a step to close the remaining distance between them and grabs onto the edges of his coat with both hands. “Please, please come back.”

His fingers circle her wrists, and for a moment she’s sure he’s going to pry her hands from his coat and leave her there, soaked to the bone and without a pulse. Lifeless, without him.

But then he presses his forehead to hers, and her heart is beating again. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“You’ll come back?” Ron nods, and his nose brushes hers with the motion. Hermione sighs in relief, letting her hands drift up to wrap her arms around his neck. “Then you’re not losing me.”