#nox.plotdrop015

[noxtms]

DATE : 8th of may, 2023. WITH THANKS : to mozzie @ofmccnlight​, who contributed the final third ( & to who i owe my life ) ! 

I.   HERMIONE GETS OFF THE BUS AROUND THE CORNER from her parents house. it's late enough that she probably could've risked apparating, but the last time she'd thought that she'd been distracted by something at work and tripped on the landing ; her neighbour had been out watering his begonias in preparation for the 'sunny spell' in their forecast and she nearly jumped out of her skin when he straightened up behind their shared fence and called out to say good evening. it was a narrow miss, almost ruinous, and though she was resolved to never have a repeat, she wasn't confident in her ability to be altogether present following memorial weekend. too many feelings were dredged up over those hellish few days, and even the bus ride was a solemn, distracted affair - forehead pressed against cool glass and eyes pressed tightly shut, hermione let the muted hustle and bustle of the late night crowd wash over her and very nearly missed her stop.

she's disappointed but not surprised to find that the council still haven't fixed the streetlight that sits directly in front of her semi detached. she takes a moment beneath it to adjust the strap of her overnight bag one final time and stare up at the flickering bulb - briefly entertaining, not for the first time, the idea of simply using magic to do their work for them - and then shakes herself from looming reverie and sets off down the drive. magic, as mrs weasley has often chastised in her presence, is not a fix all ; a LOT of her life in the past few years has been spent accepting these things she just cannot or should not change, and the council will send someone round soon.

probably.

no sign of her neighbour, so she probably didn't have to go through the pains of catching a muggle bus from the leaky cauldron - she sighs at the thought and crouches to retrieve the spare key her parents had kept in one of those silly faux rocks, her own still with the other neighbour trusted to care for crookshanks the past few evenings. she was a nice girl, similar in age but lacking the same sort of life experience that had caused the perpetual bags beneath hermione's eyes. when she'd dropped the key over the road to her, she'd offered to get her a good deal on a sleep mask from the avon like company that she'd signed up to recently, telling her that it would 'clear them right up' ; she'd bit her tongue and told her 'thanks again', managing to rush out the door before saying anything too critical. she'd probably have to do the same when she called round the next morning, but that was definitely a problem for tomorrow and for now, hermione was happy to trust in a good nights sleep in her own bed. 

she straightened up, plastic rock in hand, and set about sliding the little compartment open as she turned to face her door and, suddenly, froze. no need for the key ; she drops the rock back to the ground, hoists her bag further up on her shoulder and pulls out her wand from her back pocket, no longer caring who sees her doing it. with just the streetlight to illuminate the front of her house, it hadn't been immediately noticeable to hermione that the door was hanging just slightly ajar and naturally, her first thought isn't that the newly minted avon girl simply forgot to pull it closed the way she'd told her. she doesn't have that luxury. 

her heartbeat pounding in her ears, hermione forces herself to take one step at a time and approach the door. it's her worst nightmare come true, the very reason that her parents still think they're living their dream in southern australia ; the idea that her muggle existence, here, her childhood home, that it's all been found out and…- she pushes it open with her foot, wand raised and ready, and then there is a FRIGHTFUL yowl and she jumps, violently, only just managing to hold out her arms to catch him as her ginger cat launches himself at her, full force. 

"oh, crookshanks-" she surveys the initial damage, the shattered glass of a hallway mirror and the contents of a drawer that have been spilled across the carpet, clutching him to her but keeping her wand high, "oh, silly boy. what happened?" 

II.   she almost misses him. wakes too late in the morning & gets stuck in the entrance hall saying her goodbyes to the wix she won't see again until the next memorial ; she never really unpacked and she's been ready to go since the remembrance ceremony wrapped up the night before, but GINNY knows how it would look if she was one of the first to go. visceral discomfort is boxed, residual anger is bottled, everlasting grief is locked away - memorial weekends are perpetually marked by the sacrifices that she has to make for the sake of her friends and family, but it never gets any easier. she's usually ready to blow, about now, but she manages to extract herself before disaster strikes and sets off down the trail before anyone tries to call her back again. so one minded is her focus on escaping the castle grounds that ginny doesn't realize that he's making the same trek alone until he's almost at the hog flanked gates. it's a split second decision - she glances behind her, quickly, establishes that there's no one to witness it, and then she breaks into a bit of a mad dash. she doesn't call out to grab draco's attention, but she does manage to reach him before he apparates or sticks out his wand arm for the knight bus with only minimal breathlessness, which she considers a win. 

quizzical, he turns at the sound of heavy footfall & ginny comes to a halt that she tries to make look natural. 

"hey," she says, lamely, "i didn't know you were here this weekend-... i didn't see you." 

he lifts a single shoulder in a lazy sort of shrug. "our circles don't overlap," he's distant, but that's to be expected. she doesn't think it's aimed at her, specifically. memorial weekend brings out a different side to all of them, really, and ginny isn't fool enough to think that he's always as open as she once found him ( nor as distrusting as she would need to be to consider it a falsehood ) but since then, it's been a lot harder for her to ignore the dark circles pressed beneath his eyes.

she's no longer sure where the initial instinct came from, and a little too willing to see it through to the end : "do you want to come back to mine?" she asks, and when she sees his next thought forming, adds, "just to… hang out. that's all. you can leave if it starts getting claustrophobic." 

his lips quirk at that, a tiny tease of the smile she's come to look for, and when she reaches out a hand - ginny knows he'll take it. 

they apparate onto her 'doorstep', though it can't really be called that. she's tried to dress it up a bit in the few years that she's been living there but there's only so much that she can do. a fresh lick of paint, a funny doormat that luna found funny but neville had gone beet red when he'd seen ( i see london, i see france… ), one potted plant that was slowly giving up on life - seven wix lived on the same floor as her and had put about the same amount of effort in, but ginny was suddenly quite conscious of how it looked to an outsiders eyes. a bit sad, probably. cheap, she thinks, and then she banishes the thought ; he knows who she is, by now, where she's come from & where she got to. she's not ashamed of either, and for all that almost fretting, all her worries about this sudden marrying between two worlds - the one where they are ill defined and this one, where he's… well, let in - he doesn't say anything except a dry, "your plants gone brown."

"yeah, well, i've been a bit busy to remember to water it-"

"for its entire lifetime, i presume…?"

"shut up," she tells him, sternly, rooting around in her bag for a moment until she finds her wand and tugs it free. she taps it against her door handle ( she can never find her key when she needs it ) and the lock gives a loud click as it moves out of place.

ginny turns her focus to him as she pushes through, keeping her wand in hand - just in case he feels the need to make any undue comments - and explains, "you might be unfamiliar with the concept, but this is a flat. they're a bit small, but they're very cosy. mine's probably a little messy, but i-" he breaks their gaze and looks over the top of her head, and it is the tiny widening of his eyes that forces ginny to turn and notice, for the first time, the elephant in the room.

this isn't her mess. the burrow, that had looked like this every once in a while, usually at the start of summer when everyone was back under the same roof and in the same state of disorganized unpacking - but she never would've been so careless. everything she owned that had once had a place had now found a new one on the floor. her mattress was shoved up against the wall ; drawers turned upside down ; the cushions on her sofa had been torn into, their down strewn across the chaos. she didn't have to peek around the corner to know that her kitchen was in much the same awful state - she could see that something had spilled on the tile, because it had crept dangerously close to the carpet in the doorway. 

she was speechless.

malfoy was not.

"merlin… do you actually live like this?" 

III.   a crack rings out through the stillness of ottery st. catchpole as LUNA LOVEGOOD stumbles into view out of nowhere . the speed in which she had thrown herself into the apparation prompts a forward momentum that continues even as the spell spits her out smack dab in the middle of her front garden , more than a few yards away from the front porch sheʻd been aiming for . no one is awake to witness the way she almost ends up ass over teakettle in the dirigible plums . the surrounding night is entirely silent barring the giggles that follow the blonde figure as it trips itʻs way through the garden plants , interrupting the quiet snores of the weeping flowers near the kitchen window. they shake their bell - shaped bulbs at her , tinkling softly and sleepily , in admonishment . she blows a raspberry at them . they pull back in reproach and donʻt bother trying to pass on anymore messages . it certainly wasnʻt they who raised her to have such manners . besides , they were sleepy . their night had been interrupted enough as is .

the idyllic garden life continues to sleep even as she noisily makes her way into the house , not even blinking as the front door gives way beneath her prodding hands . neither her nor xenophilius were ones to lock the door when an alohomora was a master key for anyone who really wanted it to be . besides , their home was an open one . all were welcome if they needed a place to sit and have tea with someone always willing to lend a listening ear .

she breezes through the entryway and into the kitchen , handbag landing on the floor with a thump after she aims for the coat rack and misses by a mile , nearly tripping on the various bits and bobs that are always scattered across the floor . she knocks into more than one end table or bookshelf , teeming with items that have a tendency to just spill over . the mess that she spies through her peripheral , blurry as it may be , seems par for the course .

through the doorway of the kitchen , she spies a light coming from beneath the door and goes about setting two mugs out on the counter . the teapot is an heirloom from her motherʻs grandmother and sits waiting , already full and already heated , for when she pours the two cups that have become more nightly ritual than it was originally intended . itʻs as practiced as the way she places the cover on the sugar container , more than used to the way that her father leaves things about in his forgetfulness . 

“ bit of a late night writing spree , then ? ” she calls to the light still on way later than it should be and is not surprised when she doesnʻt get an answer . this is how things go when heʻs deep into his writing binges . luna talks and talks and talks and her father resurfaces to hear her eventually . not immediately. but eventually , 

“ you know , you really arenʻt producing your best work when youʻre straining yourself by staying up so late , ” she scolds across the house , nudging loose parchments out of the way with her socked foot as she makes her way to the door and gently opens it with her hip 

“ so you might consider heading to bed after this cup — ”

the mug shatters moments after luna hastily shoves them onto the desk , uncaring as to where it is set and not even flinching when it lands too close to the edge and slips right off . 

xenophilius lies crumbled on the ground . heʻs bleeding profusely from a wound on his head .