Membership fic: Lovebirds
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Title: Lovebirds
Author: Anonymous
Words: 1,880
Rating: G
Summary: Looking back on her cream-and-canary-yellow wedding dress, Ginny would think that perhaps it was fate. But at the time she could barely convince herself to laugh.
“Oy, lovebirds, would you mind picking up Boomslang skin while you’re out?” George Weasley called to Harry and Ginny as they left for Diagon Alley to pick up robes for their imminent wedding. “I need it for some things I’m trying out at the shop.”
Ginny shouted “Sure thing!” as she slammed the door behind them.
“You’d think that nickname would lose its appeal eventually,” Harry mused. “I mean, if anything, Ron and Hermione are more… clingy… than we are.” Ginny laughed merrily and grabbed his arm, shaking her head.
George and Ron had settled on the nickname “lovebirds” for Harry and Ginny four years ago, just after the final battle, when everyone had been dealing with the aftermath. Back then, they spent hours just sitting next to each other, hands held, silent, perched on the garden fence. Neither of them had wanted to say much about the war back then, but both of them were terrified of dealing with the memories alone. So they just sat, silent.
But slowly, they thawed out, and one day Harry looked down at Ginny and said “I’m sorry,” and she looked up at him and said “You should be,” and he said “Are we okay?”
“Yes,” she answered, and they were, and from then on they hardly acted like lovebirds - sitting together on a perch for hours - and instead behaved like, well, themselves: two teenagers struck with the beginnings of an epic love, but not so besotted that they couldn’t laugh at themselves.
Somehow, even years later, when Ron and Hermione were, apparently, only just discovering the joys of the public display of affection, Harry and Ginny were the ‘lovebirds’ and no other couple even had a nickname.
“You should take it as a compliment,” Ginny told Harry, wrapping her arm around his waist as they entered Madam Malkin’s, quoting back something Hermione told her, to justify the nickname. “Lovebirds are called ‘inseperables’ in several languages: they’re just pointing out that even Lord Voldemort couldn’t keep us apart.”
Harry didn’t seem too impressed by Ginny’s knowledge. She guessed that he, too, had heard Hermione’s speech at some point. “It’s still, I don’t know,” he mumbled, “annoying.” Ginny laughed, refusing to let Harry’s frustration bring her down, and practically skipped to the back of the shop where special orders were kept.
The robes were an exquisite, elegant affair of cream-colored silk embroidered with sunshine-yellow daisies, fitting snugly at her waist and flaring out marvelously at the hip, accentuating her lean frame, coming halfway down her shins so she wouldn’t have to worry about tripping on the hem (although graceful as a bird in the air, she was also graceful as a bird on the ground: that is to say, she preferred to fly). Madam Malkin slipped into the fitting room with her to help her wrestle into the robes; last time, they had caught on Ginny’s shoulders and alterations had to be made immediately.
It turned out, not much wrestling was needed. The robes slipped over Ginny’s head easily, and she gasped as she looked at herself in the mirror. Madam Malkin grinned. “I look… elegant,” Ginny said.
“Of course you do,” Madam Malkin answered promptly. “You’re a bride.”
Ginny snorted, thinking about growing up one of the boys with six older brothers. “Bride perhaps, but elegant?” Madam Malkin just chuckled and pushed Ginny out of the room.
“Let the lucky boy see,” she chided, not noticing that “elegant” Ginny almost tripped over her own two feet, erupting into the showroom floor. When Ginny regained her balance, she looked embarrassedly at the carpet, not daring to think who had seen her.
“Ginny?” Harry was apparently as dumbstruck as she was at the dress. She blushed even hotter, screwing one bare foot into the floor. “We need to get you a pair of shoes,” he said.
She snapped her head up, embarrassment gone. He was holding the robes for the rest of the wedding party, beaming at her, green eyes sparkling with, joy? Mirth? Something. “We need to get a pair of shoes?” She repeated. “That’s all you have to say?” She glanced around for Madam Malkin, as if to tell her that they certainly shouldn’t have let Harry see her, since he was not going to be appreciative, but the old bat was helping other customers. She glared at Harry some more instead.
He was still grinning, and as he took the two steps to her, his grin only widened. “I think you’re the most beautiful girl in the world,” he said, “But I would probably think that no matter what dress you were wearing.” Ginny’s temper, embarrassment, everything evaporated. “It’s lovely,” he added as an afterthought, and they kissed, and everything was absolutely perfect. “And I wouldn’t mind going barefoot, but I think we should get some yellow shoes to match.”
Ginny laughed.
“Lovebirds!” Hermione shouted, “Did you have to choose yellow for your color? It looks horrid on everyone!”
“It looks lovely on Luna,” Ginny called back.
“It does not! Luna only thinks it does because she doesn’t know any better!” Hermione stalked into the room angrily. “I cannot believe that yellow looks good on you, Ginny Weasley!”
And then Hermione was confronted with Ginny, sitting at the table with Harry, enchanting the red-and-yellow ribbons on the programs to tie into intricate bows. Hermione’s mouth hung ajar. There was Ginny, in the dress for the rehearsal dinner, canary yellow with an eggshell sash, looking absolutely furious - but pulling off the color splendidly.
“You’re lucky I’m already using my wand right now,” Ginny hissed, and Hermione took a step back sheepishly. “We wanted to have Gryffindor colors for our wedding, which means red and gold, and since everyone knows that bridesmaids - and brides - don’t wear red, the color is yellow. Deal with it.”
Hermione stared at the floor, abashed as Ginny stormed from the room. After the redhead had left, Hermione chanced a look up at Harry. “I really blew that one, didn’t I?”
“I’d say,” he responded.
“Would charming the rest of the programs help?”
“It would start.”
Hermione sheepishly sat down across from Harry, pulled out her wand, and waved it in a rather complicated motion Harry had never seen. The programs, every one, began tying themselves perfectly. “What use is it,” Hermione mused with a sigh as she watched Ginny’s work being done, “Being the smartest witch in one’s year, if I can’t wear a yellow dress to my best friends’ wedding without looking like a jaundiced beaver?”
“Ron will still dance with you,” Harry answered.
“Ron will only dance because you’re forcing him,” Hermione snapped.
Harry shook his head. “Perhaps; but you’ll only wear yellow because we’re forcing you, and he’ll look a lot more ridiculous dancing than you will in a yellow dress.”
Hermione smiled, meekly. “Thanks, Harry,” she said. “Will you send my apologies to Ginny?” He nodded, and they fell into a companionable silence, watching the ribbons dance into knots before them. “I guess the only person who ever liked me for my looks alone was Viktor Krum,” she added at length. “And besides, bridesmaids are supposed to look rather off - if they didn’t, it would take attention away from the bride.”
Harry laughed.
“Er,” Ron cleared his throat. “I’ve known the lovebirds since before they knew each other. Harry was my first friend at Hogwarts, and my best friend, and if I told even half of the embarrassing stories I know about him, well, we’d be here all night and my little sister would kill me before I could even start on the embarrassing stuff I know about her. I was always rooting for the two of them; even back when Ginny was eleven and sticking her elbow in the butter dish in front of Harry. In fact, I introduced them when I rescued Harry from his horrid relatives before his second year. Don’t worry, they’re not invited.” A titter ran through the audience.
“Harry and I have been through more than most hundred-and-fifty-year-old wizards, and he’s saved my neck - everyone’s neck, really - more times than I can count. So I can say with confidence that he is the one person, the only person, who I would trust with my baby sister. And Ginny, well, she can get through to Harry when even I can’t, when even Hermione can’t, and that says a lot. So Ginny is the only girl for Harry. And while I could keep going on and on for a while about them, and what they mean to me, and how happy I am for them, I guess I’ll cut it short and just say - to the Lovebirds!”
“To the Lovebirds!” the audience shouted, and then someone started hitting their glass with their wand, and Harry and Ginny leaned in for a flamboyant kiss that was met with peals of laughter.
“Hey! Lovebirds!” George shouted over the din. “Time for the cake!” Harry and Ginny obediently got up and snuck around the outside of the garden to reach Ginny’s elder brother at his position by the desserts.
“No tricks?” Harry asked as they neared, and George grinned madly. Harry knew, at that moment, that something was going to happen - but what could he do? Not eat the cake?
No, he and Ginny just had to laugh along with everyone else.
“Beautiful dress, Gin, by the way,” George beamed. “Canary and cream - two of my favorite colors. And they suit you so well.”
Ginny glared at her brother. “If that cake turns me into a canary I will fly at your face and peck at your other ear until it is a bleeding stump and you are symmetrical.”
George just grinned wider. “You wouldn’t do that, sister dear,” he said with a laugh. “You love my dashing lopsidedness. And besides, you have my word: that cake will not turn you into a canary.”
Feeling his impending avian form, Harry grabbed Ginny’s hand and stepped up to the cake. He reached for the knife, and when he felt the reassuring warmth of her hand on top of his, he chanced a glance at her face. She was just as wary as he was, but he could tell from the set of her jaw that she was determined not to let on to any of the guests. He leaned on the knife just slightly, and it slid through the cake. Lift. Replace. Lean.
And then the cake was cut, and Ginny grabbed a spatula to lever their piece out of the whole, and then, almost wincing, Harry took a bit to match the bit in Ginny’s hand. “On three?” he whispered, and she nodded. “One, two, three.”
He heard a giggle as he chewed on the cake, and then he swallowed and the giggle grew into a titter, and the titter grew into a real laugh, and before he knew what was going on he had grown wings and was staring at an equally startled, and bird-shaped, Ginny.
“Are those canaries?” someone asked.
“No,” came the instant answer. “They’re not even yellow - they’re parrots.”
And staring at Ginny’s yellow-orange beak, emerald green plumage, and bright blue tail, Harry guessed that he knew exactly what kind of parrots they were.
“They’re lovebirds!” somebody shouted.
Everyone laughed.
Members, please vote on this story. It's simply a yes or no vote -- if the author gets 60%, we will offer membership in the community. If not, they will be invited to try again. Your vote will be confidential, but the percentage will show up in the little red voting bars. Any comments will be viewable only to the mods, and we will pass them on to the author.
Poll Membership vote #19
VOTING IS NOW CLOSED.
Title: Lovebirds
Author: Anonymous
Words: 1,880
Rating: G
Summary: Looking back on her cream-and-canary-yellow wedding dress, Ginny would think that perhaps it was fate. But at the time she could barely convince herself to laugh.
“Oy, lovebirds, would you mind picking up Boomslang skin while you’re out?” George Weasley called to Harry and Ginny as they left for Diagon Alley to pick up robes for their imminent wedding. “I need it for some things I’m trying out at the shop.”
Ginny shouted “Sure thing!” as she slammed the door behind them.
“You’d think that nickname would lose its appeal eventually,” Harry mused. “I mean, if anything, Ron and Hermione are more… clingy… than we are.” Ginny laughed merrily and grabbed his arm, shaking her head.
George and Ron had settled on the nickname “lovebirds” for Harry and Ginny four years ago, just after the final battle, when everyone had been dealing with the aftermath. Back then, they spent hours just sitting next to each other, hands held, silent, perched on the garden fence. Neither of them had wanted to say much about the war back then, but both of them were terrified of dealing with the memories alone. So they just sat, silent.
But slowly, they thawed out, and one day Harry looked down at Ginny and said “I’m sorry,” and she looked up at him and said “You should be,” and he said “Are we okay?”
“Yes,” she answered, and they were, and from then on they hardly acted like lovebirds - sitting together on a perch for hours - and instead behaved like, well, themselves: two teenagers struck with the beginnings of an epic love, but not so besotted that they couldn’t laugh at themselves.
Somehow, even years later, when Ron and Hermione were, apparently, only just discovering the joys of the public display of affection, Harry and Ginny were the ‘lovebirds’ and no other couple even had a nickname.
“You should take it as a compliment,” Ginny told Harry, wrapping her arm around his waist as they entered Madam Malkin’s, quoting back something Hermione told her, to justify the nickname. “Lovebirds are called ‘inseperables’ in several languages: they’re just pointing out that even Lord Voldemort couldn’t keep us apart.”
Harry didn’t seem too impressed by Ginny’s knowledge. She guessed that he, too, had heard Hermione’s speech at some point. “It’s still, I don’t know,” he mumbled, “annoying.” Ginny laughed, refusing to let Harry’s frustration bring her down, and practically skipped to the back of the shop where special orders were kept.
The robes were an exquisite, elegant affair of cream-colored silk embroidered with sunshine-yellow daisies, fitting snugly at her waist and flaring out marvelously at the hip, accentuating her lean frame, coming halfway down her shins so she wouldn’t have to worry about tripping on the hem (although graceful as a bird in the air, she was also graceful as a bird on the ground: that is to say, she preferred to fly). Madam Malkin slipped into the fitting room with her to help her wrestle into the robes; last time, they had caught on Ginny’s shoulders and alterations had to be made immediately.
It turned out, not much wrestling was needed. The robes slipped over Ginny’s head easily, and she gasped as she looked at herself in the mirror. Madam Malkin grinned. “I look… elegant,” Ginny said.
“Of course you do,” Madam Malkin answered promptly. “You’re a bride.”
Ginny snorted, thinking about growing up one of the boys with six older brothers. “Bride perhaps, but elegant?” Madam Malkin just chuckled and pushed Ginny out of the room.
“Let the lucky boy see,” she chided, not noticing that “elegant” Ginny almost tripped over her own two feet, erupting into the showroom floor. When Ginny regained her balance, she looked embarrassedly at the carpet, not daring to think who had seen her.
“Ginny?” Harry was apparently as dumbstruck as she was at the dress. She blushed even hotter, screwing one bare foot into the floor. “We need to get you a pair of shoes,” he said.
She snapped her head up, embarrassment gone. He was holding the robes for the rest of the wedding party, beaming at her, green eyes sparkling with, joy? Mirth? Something. “We need to get a pair of shoes?” She repeated. “That’s all you have to say?” She glanced around for Madam Malkin, as if to tell her that they certainly shouldn’t have let Harry see her, since he was not going to be appreciative, but the old bat was helping other customers. She glared at Harry some more instead.
He was still grinning, and as he took the two steps to her, his grin only widened. “I think you’re the most beautiful girl in the world,” he said, “But I would probably think that no matter what dress you were wearing.” Ginny’s temper, embarrassment, everything evaporated. “It’s lovely,” he added as an afterthought, and they kissed, and everything was absolutely perfect. “And I wouldn’t mind going barefoot, but I think we should get some yellow shoes to match.”
Ginny laughed.
“Lovebirds!” Hermione shouted, “Did you have to choose yellow for your color? It looks horrid on everyone!”
“It looks lovely on Luna,” Ginny called back.
“It does not! Luna only thinks it does because she doesn’t know any better!” Hermione stalked into the room angrily. “I cannot believe that yellow looks good on you, Ginny Weasley!”
And then Hermione was confronted with Ginny, sitting at the table with Harry, enchanting the red-and-yellow ribbons on the programs to tie into intricate bows. Hermione’s mouth hung ajar. There was Ginny, in the dress for the rehearsal dinner, canary yellow with an eggshell sash, looking absolutely furious - but pulling off the color splendidly.
“You’re lucky I’m already using my wand right now,” Ginny hissed, and Hermione took a step back sheepishly. “We wanted to have Gryffindor colors for our wedding, which means red and gold, and since everyone knows that bridesmaids - and brides - don’t wear red, the color is yellow. Deal with it.”
Hermione stared at the floor, abashed as Ginny stormed from the room. After the redhead had left, Hermione chanced a look up at Harry. “I really blew that one, didn’t I?”
“I’d say,” he responded.
“Would charming the rest of the programs help?”
“It would start.”
Hermione sheepishly sat down across from Harry, pulled out her wand, and waved it in a rather complicated motion Harry had never seen. The programs, every one, began tying themselves perfectly. “What use is it,” Hermione mused with a sigh as she watched Ginny’s work being done, “Being the smartest witch in one’s year, if I can’t wear a yellow dress to my best friends’ wedding without looking like a jaundiced beaver?”
“Ron will still dance with you,” Harry answered.
“Ron will only dance because you’re forcing him,” Hermione snapped.
Harry shook his head. “Perhaps; but you’ll only wear yellow because we’re forcing you, and he’ll look a lot more ridiculous dancing than you will in a yellow dress.”
Hermione smiled, meekly. “Thanks, Harry,” she said. “Will you send my apologies to Ginny?” He nodded, and they fell into a companionable silence, watching the ribbons dance into knots before them. “I guess the only person who ever liked me for my looks alone was Viktor Krum,” she added at length. “And besides, bridesmaids are supposed to look rather off - if they didn’t, it would take attention away from the bride.”
Harry laughed.
“Er,” Ron cleared his throat. “I’ve known the lovebirds since before they knew each other. Harry was my first friend at Hogwarts, and my best friend, and if I told even half of the embarrassing stories I know about him, well, we’d be here all night and my little sister would kill me before I could even start on the embarrassing stuff I know about her. I was always rooting for the two of them; even back when Ginny was eleven and sticking her elbow in the butter dish in front of Harry. In fact, I introduced them when I rescued Harry from his horrid relatives before his second year. Don’t worry, they’re not invited.” A titter ran through the audience.
“Harry and I have been through more than most hundred-and-fifty-year-old wizards, and he’s saved my neck - everyone’s neck, really - more times than I can count. So I can say with confidence that he is the one person, the only person, who I would trust with my baby sister. And Ginny, well, she can get through to Harry when even I can’t, when even Hermione can’t, and that says a lot. So Ginny is the only girl for Harry. And while I could keep going on and on for a while about them, and what they mean to me, and how happy I am for them, I guess I’ll cut it short and just say - to the Lovebirds!”
“To the Lovebirds!” the audience shouted, and then someone started hitting their glass with their wand, and Harry and Ginny leaned in for a flamboyant kiss that was met with peals of laughter.
“Hey! Lovebirds!” George shouted over the din. “Time for the cake!” Harry and Ginny obediently got up and snuck around the outside of the garden to reach Ginny’s elder brother at his position by the desserts.
“No tricks?” Harry asked as they neared, and George grinned madly. Harry knew, at that moment, that something was going to happen - but what could he do? Not eat the cake?
No, he and Ginny just had to laugh along with everyone else.
“Beautiful dress, Gin, by the way,” George beamed. “Canary and cream - two of my favorite colors. And they suit you so well.”
Ginny glared at her brother. “If that cake turns me into a canary I will fly at your face and peck at your other ear until it is a bleeding stump and you are symmetrical.”
George just grinned wider. “You wouldn’t do that, sister dear,” he said with a laugh. “You love my dashing lopsidedness. And besides, you have my word: that cake will not turn you into a canary.”
Feeling his impending avian form, Harry grabbed Ginny’s hand and stepped up to the cake. He reached for the knife, and when he felt the reassuring warmth of her hand on top of his, he chanced a glance at her face. She was just as wary as he was, but he could tell from the set of her jaw that she was determined not to let on to any of the guests. He leaned on the knife just slightly, and it slid through the cake. Lift. Replace. Lean.
And then the cake was cut, and Ginny grabbed a spatula to lever their piece out of the whole, and then, almost wincing, Harry took a bit to match the bit in Ginny’s hand. “On three?” he whispered, and she nodded. “One, two, three.”
He heard a giggle as he chewed on the cake, and then he swallowed and the giggle grew into a titter, and the titter grew into a real laugh, and before he knew what was going on he had grown wings and was staring at an equally startled, and bird-shaped, Ginny.
“Are those canaries?” someone asked.
“No,” came the instant answer. “They’re not even yellow - they’re parrots.”
And staring at Ginny’s yellow-orange beak, emerald green plumage, and bright blue tail, Harry guessed that he knew exactly what kind of parrots they were.
“They’re lovebirds!” somebody shouted.
Everyone laughed.
Members, please vote on this story. It's simply a yes or no vote -- if the author gets 60%, we will offer membership in the community. If not, they will be invited to try again. Your vote will be confidential, but the percentage will show up in the little red voting bars. Any comments will be viewable only to the mods, and we will pass them on to the author.
Poll Membership vote #19
VOTING IS NOW CLOSED.