Harry Potter; Fic; Control Yourself (Take Only What You Need); Ginny/Multiple; NC-17
OH HAI GUYS.
Sorry about the accidental hiatus, WORK WENT CRAZY. But look, HP people, I wasn't kidding! I wrote fest fic! femmefest has now cycled through to reveals, so I thought I'd put the two fics I wrote for them up now :D This is the first.
Title: Control Yourself (Take Only What You Need)
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Ginny/Luna, Ginny/Pansy (one sided Ginny/Fleur and Ginny/Hermione, and background Harry/Ginny)
Author's Note: Written as a femmefest pinch hit for olgameisterfunk.
Summary: It has been a long time since anyone asked Ginny Weasley what she wanted.
first
The summer after the war is sticky and sweltering, and Harry is too busy for Ginny. She doesn't blame him--there are loose ends to tie up, citizens to comfort, fallen heros to mourn. She cries herself to sleep a lot that summer, thinking of little Teddy's unending wail in Andromeda's suddenly empty house, thinking of Fred's face, frozen in that eternal rictus of a smile.
But Ginny doesn't weep in public; she is not like her mother, she is not like the women she sees clutching each other in the street. She doesn't need Harry's shoulder any more than she needed his magic when the Carrows were terrorizing her school. She learned at 15 what it meant to be visible, to be vibrant, and she learned at 16 what it meant to be strong. Now, approaching 17 at last, she spends long weeks at Shell Cottage and learns what it means to be herself.
Still--
"I miss him," she says to Fleur, one evening by the fire. Baby Victoire is pressed against the older woman's breast, sucking single-mindedly away at her dinner, and Fleur looks worse than she ever has. Heavy circles under her eyes betray her lack of sleep and her hair is tied loosely anywhere she can put it. Ginny helps when she can, but the baby seems determined to cry enough for the both of them. She is up at all hours, and it is taking its toll on her mother.
She is still, by a long shot, the most beautiful woman Ginny has ever seen. In some ways, she's more incredible like this--she looks human.
"It eez natural," she murmurs, adjusting Victoire carefully. "Your 'arry, my Bill. Off doing whatever it ez zhey do. Of course ve miss zhem." She sighs, and brushes the hair out of her face again. "But," she adds, sternly, "ve mustn't let eet bring us down, no? Zhere is no point in wallowing."
Ginny smiles at her, and Fleur smiles back; Ginny remembers hating her, thinking her vapid, impossible, fake. It seems ridiculous now.
"C'est la vie, right?" Ginny says. Her accent is terrible, and Fleur laughs outright, snorting with it, an uncomplicated, unhidden thing. Ginny imagines modeling herself off of this version of her sister-in-law, adopting this utter comfort in her own beauty. She's no Veela, but she could do it--she's learned harder lessons, over the years.
And then Fleur takes the baby from her breast and that is uncomplicated and unhidden too. Fleur is fully aware of her own body and her own sexuality, and she's French, so she doesn't worry about things like this. In the three weeks she's spent here this summer, Ginny has seen more of Fleur than she'd ever have wanted to, before.
Now she can't get enough. She stares at the thing, imperfectly rounded, red where Victoire has gummed it. Fleur laughs again, seeing her stare, and Ginny blushes.
"You English," she chides, "so afraid of zee body. Eet is just a breast."
"I know," Ginny mutters, glancing away sullenly as Fleur tucks herself back in. "Sorry."
She's not apologizing an hour later, tucked into her borrowed bed at last, fingering herself with wild, raw abandon as she thinks about her brother's wife. She's not the kind of woman who sobs on the street and she's not going to be the kind of woman who wallows in her own grief, and if she can't cry herself to sleep, she might as well do something else. Fleur's hair is long and messy in her mind's eye, caught between Ginny's fingers, and her breasts are full and uneven and glorious under her. She grinds into the mattress and imagines Fleur's hands replacing her own, slipping inside of her, teaching her to be comfortable with more than just herself.
second
When James is five and Albus is four and Lily is two, when Rose is learning to read and Hugo's just started walking, Ginny curls up with a glass of wine on Hermione's couch and wishes she could stop time. She is exhausted, exhausted like she's never been in her life, exhausted like she could die from it. It's the kids, in between and underfoot and swatting at each other; it's Harry each night, pushing harder than he needs to by half. It's the never-ending grind of non-profit work, trying to raise money that nobody has for causes no one seems to care about and it's dinner on the table every night and it's the cleaning spells her mother was always so good at that she herself can't seem to manage--
"Hey," Hermione says. "You okay?" Ginny glances up and is startled to realize her eyes have filled with tears; she blinks them back and laughs to cover them up.
"Sorry," she says, "allergies, I think. That time of year."
Hermione, always too smart for her own good, gives her a knowing look but says nothing. She looks almost as tired as Ginny feels, and, horribly, that is a greater comfort than any other she's come across. That frizzy hair, barely held in place, the runs in her pantyhose she hasn't noticed--Hermione is a study in carefully averted disaster, and it makes Ginny feel less like jumping off of a cliff. She knows, on some level, that it's wrong to take comfort in someone else's mess, but she herself is so close to the edge that she doesn't really care.
What she should care about--what she does care about--is how much she wants to ignore Al's cries of pain and James's disturbingly evil cackle and Lily's insistent poking at her leg. She wants to ignore them, just for a minute, and bury a hand in that frizz, see what it feels like. She wants to do what she knows her brother does, when the kids are asleep and Hermione's finished whatever work she can and they retire to the bedroom.
She wants to touch, and be touched. Just to see.
Instead she looks away and lifts Lily into her arms and yells at James and checks over the skinned knee Al is really only claiming he has. She pours herself back into the life she has built around her, and does not think of Hermione's hands caressing her aching muscles, the tender flesh around her heart.
third
The woman on the street isn't anyone familiar until she turns around, lets Ginny see her face; until then she's just a gorgeous specimen of backside, wrapped in jeans so impossibly tight that they make Ginny's breath catch. Her hair, long and loosely curled, slips down her back in half-assed ringlets. It's dark against her green shirt, nearly black, and Ginny can't help but think of what it would be like to catch her by it and whip her 'round, what it would be like to kiss her.
Then she turns and she's Pansy Parkinson, and Ginny is so badly startled she shrieks and drops her shopping.
"Weasley," Pansy says, raising an eyebrow. "Have I been gone from England that long? Try not to have a heart attack, I'm not planning on partaking of any evil while I'm here."
"Oh, shove off," Ginny snaps, flushing and trying to hide it. "You just surprised me, I'm not scared of you. Don't flatter yourself."
Pansy laughs humorlessly. "Flatter myself," she murmurs, "right."
She leans in, picks up the bags at Ginny's feet, and stands. She's too close--her breasts brush ever-so-slightly against Ginny as she moves, and Ginny can feel her face heating.
"Let's get a drink," Pansy says.
And Ginny wants to accept--wants to accept more than she really should--but it doesn't make sense. "Why?"
Pansy sighs. "I've been in London for two days. Aside from Draco, everyone who's seen me has reacted just like you did--and not because they're surprised."
Ginny blinks at her and Pansy tries to smile, but it's more of grimace.
"They all remember me," she says bitterly, "for a stupid thing I said when I was 17. And I'd like to talk to someone who isn't scared of me. Change of pace, you know."
"Bet it wouldn't be bad to be seen with Harry Potter's wife either," Ginny mutters, and Pansy smiles brilliantly at her.
"Smart," she says, "and correct. Do me a favor, Weasley."
"It's Potter now," Ginny says, but when Pansy beckons her into the bar, she follows.
--
They have a drink.
They have a second drink.
They have a third drink, and the late-afternoon haze has fallen into early evening, and Ginny is beginning to worry about self control. Pansy is funny, spinning tales of her years abroad, and she's beautiful--too beautiful. Ginny is having trouble concentrating on anything other than the curve of her cleavage, that pert, gorgeous arse, so she excuses herself to the bathroom.
When Pansy comes in after her, she knows she is fucked.
"Weasley," Pansy hisses, pushing Ginny into the white tiled wall, "I could have sworn you were checking me out back there."
"You were mistaken," Ginny snaps desperately. Pansy just smirks, her lips still coated in that dark, dark lipstick.
"I don't think I was," she murmurs against Ginny's neck. "I think you want--"
"I'm married!" Ginny cries, her last defense, and Pansy sighs.
"What," she asks, pulling away just enough to meet Ginny's eyes, "does that have to do with--"
And Ginny shoves her off and runs, out of the bathroom and out of the bar, not stopping to pay her tab or get her shopping. She runs until she reaches the corner and logic takes over and she remembers she has a wand--then she Apparates, landing in her own kitchen.
"Hey, love," Harry says. He doesn't look up from the Prophet, doesn't notice that she's flushed and breathing hard, and maybe this is why Ginny finds herself fantasizing about women. Maybe this is why Ginny brings herself off on her own, but hasn't enjoyed sleeping with Harry in years.
Maybe this is why Ginny goes out to do some shopping and nearly commits adultery instead.
"Hi," she says, "I'm just going to--" and she runs upstairs and turns on the shower. She strips quickly and hops into the spray and only then, safe with the sound of the water covering her, does she shove three fingers into her cunt, moaning Pansy's name. She brings herself off viciously, almost punishingly, three times before the water runs cold.
When the packages she left behind at the bar show up a week later, Ginny traces the handwriting on the attached card with her pinky, wondering.
Weasley,
I hope you know that the indignity of being disappointed by the likes of you is considerably worse than suffering the disdain of Wizarding London. You are a vicious tease, never let anyone tell you different.
Still, I thought you might like your things back. I'll drop you an Owl the next time I'm in town--I look forward to finding out if your ridiculous priorities have changed by then.
-P
fourth
Luna has her shoes off.
Ginny knows she should be thinking about other things--about lawyers, about the fundraiser she's running next week, about why one of her oldest and, admittedly, strangest friends has Apparated her to a lake in Wales--but she can't.
Because Luna has her shoes off, and her pants rolled up to her ankles, and her long, lean calves are submerged in the water. Ginny thinks of running her fingers along them, and is choked with the sudden realization that she could, if she wanted to. That there is no obligation stopping her.
"How are you doing?" Luna says, and Ginny glances away from those legs and meets Luna's gaze.
"How do you mean?"
"Well," Luna says, "some women go mad during a divorce."
Ginny smiles. "Luna," she returns, "don't you think you'd be able to tell if I'd gone mad?"
Luna cocks her head. "I don't think people go mad," she says, eventually. "There's madness in everyone, after all. It's all about how much you let people see."
"So you think I should start telling everyone about the Nargles living on his side of the bed, do you?"
Luna's face crinkles up into a smile; the lines around her eyes that hadn't shown up until Rolf died deepen in amusement. "You don't believe in Nargles," she says, leaning back into the grass.
I think I am going mad, Ginny wants to say, whether or not I was mad already. Is madness wanting to kiss that stripe of skin your shirt's not covering? Can I blame the Nargles for that?
Instead she laughs, glancing at Luna with hooded eyes. "You've always said I don't have to believe in them for them to believe in me."
"Too right," Luna agrees. She props herself on one arm. "What about the children?"
"What about them?"
"Are they--" Luna waves a hand and glances up at the clouds, and Ginny gets her point.
She sighs. "Lily said she's seen it coming for years," she admits, quietly, "and Albus is just glad we were together for his wedding. James..."
"Poor boy. You'd think he'd have learned to stop blaming himself for everything by now. Though I suppose it's a hard lesson to learn."
Ginny starts. "No," she said, "he's--he's furious and--oh."
"He's the oldest. It's not your fault he inherited Harry's complexes."
"Fuck," Ginny mutters. “It’s a mess. I keep telling myself Teddy will sort him out, but--"
Luna sits up and stares right at her. "Hey," she says, softly, "he's an adult. They are all adults. You can't live your whole life trying to give them what they want."
"I know that," Ginny snaps, "I just--"
"What do you want?"
"What do you mean? For supper? In the settlement? What?"
"No," Luna says, "in your life. What do you want?”
"I--" Ginny says. She is surprised to find she doesn't know.
She is even more surprised to find Luna cupping her cheek, looking at her with soft, understanding eyes. "For example," she offers, her voice light, floating, "you're thinking about having sex with me right now. How long has that been going on?"
And Ginny wants to deny it, but instead she finds herself saying "With you in particular, or...?"
Luna laughs, a soft, sweet sound. "See?" she murmurs against Ginny's lips. "Everyone's a little bit mad."
When Luna closes in, presses their mouths together, Ginny feels something in her spark alive. She returns the kiss furiously, pouring all the passion she knows into it, and before she can think she's got her hands under Luna's shirt, is pressing her against the grass.
"You smell like bad champagne and rotten lemons," Luna tells her, tracing the veins in Ginny's neck with her tongue. "Did you know?"
"I didn't, actually," Ginny replies, and she slips down to lift up Luna's skirt.
She knows--well, she knows a lot of things. That what she should be doing a week after being chucked by her husband of twenty-two years is crying, or pounding a pint of ice cream, or trying to murder Draco Malfoy for stealing him away. That this lake is public property and anyone could come by and see her like this, take a photo, run it in the paper. That her children would be horrified, that her mother would be horrified, that just because her husband turned out to be gay doesn't mean she has to--
"It has been a long fucking time since anyone's asked me what I wanted," Ginny mumbles indistinctly, and dives.
Luna's not wearing underwear. She probably has what she considers a good reason--Erumpet breeding grounds or necessary air circulation or freedom to do this--whatever the reason, Ginny is grateful. She laps at Luna's soft flesh, the swollen bulge of her clit, the warm, wet place beneath it. It tastes like she has always imagined it might.
Above her, Luna is gasping and writhing, spitting nonsensical invectives. "Circe's bollocks," she says at one point, and Ginny laughs and pulls back.
"Circe didn't have bollocks," she tells Luna. "I think you mean Helios."
"Accuracy is not my primary concern at a time like this," Luna chides gently.
"Right."
Ginny resumes her previous activity, taking her time, exploring. When Luna's thighs tense against her cheeks she automatically freezes, preparing herself for the harsh explosion of salty, bitter release. It doesn't come; Luna just whimpers, a long, low whine, and relaxes utterly. She pulls Ginny up against her chest and cradles her, both of them shaking for different reasons.
"You're very good at that," she offers.
Ginny bites her lip. Her face is nestled between Luna's small, pert breasts; with the promise of reciprocation is pooling in her groin, she considers the kind of person she has spent years trying to be. Ginny the wife, Ginny the mother. Ginny the self-champion. Ginny the controlled, confident woman.
The thing is, Luna’s never given a shit about any of it.
"I've been thinking about it for a long time," she admits, and when Luna's chest begins to shake softly in laughter, Ginny lets herself smile.
Sorry about the accidental hiatus, WORK WENT CRAZY. But look, HP people, I wasn't kidding! I wrote fest fic! femmefest has now cycled through to reveals, so I thought I'd put the two fics I wrote for them up now :D This is the first.
Title: Control Yourself (Take Only What You Need)
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Ginny/Luna, Ginny/Pansy (one sided Ginny/Fleur and Ginny/Hermione, and background Harry/Ginny)
Author's Note: Written as a femmefest pinch hit for olgameisterfunk.
Summary: It has been a long time since anyone asked Ginny Weasley what she wanted.
first
The summer after the war is sticky and sweltering, and Harry is too busy for Ginny. She doesn't blame him--there are loose ends to tie up, citizens to comfort, fallen heros to mourn. She cries herself to sleep a lot that summer, thinking of little Teddy's unending wail in Andromeda's suddenly empty house, thinking of Fred's face, frozen in that eternal rictus of a smile.
But Ginny doesn't weep in public; she is not like her mother, she is not like the women she sees clutching each other in the street. She doesn't need Harry's shoulder any more than she needed his magic when the Carrows were terrorizing her school. She learned at 15 what it meant to be visible, to be vibrant, and she learned at 16 what it meant to be strong. Now, approaching 17 at last, she spends long weeks at Shell Cottage and learns what it means to be herself.
Still--
"I miss him," she says to Fleur, one evening by the fire. Baby Victoire is pressed against the older woman's breast, sucking single-mindedly away at her dinner, and Fleur looks worse than she ever has. Heavy circles under her eyes betray her lack of sleep and her hair is tied loosely anywhere she can put it. Ginny helps when she can, but the baby seems determined to cry enough for the both of them. She is up at all hours, and it is taking its toll on her mother.
She is still, by a long shot, the most beautiful woman Ginny has ever seen. In some ways, she's more incredible like this--she looks human.
"It eez natural," she murmurs, adjusting Victoire carefully. "Your 'arry, my Bill. Off doing whatever it ez zhey do. Of course ve miss zhem." She sighs, and brushes the hair out of her face again. "But," she adds, sternly, "ve mustn't let eet bring us down, no? Zhere is no point in wallowing."
Ginny smiles at her, and Fleur smiles back; Ginny remembers hating her, thinking her vapid, impossible, fake. It seems ridiculous now.
"C'est la vie, right?" Ginny says. Her accent is terrible, and Fleur laughs outright, snorting with it, an uncomplicated, unhidden thing. Ginny imagines modeling herself off of this version of her sister-in-law, adopting this utter comfort in her own beauty. She's no Veela, but she could do it--she's learned harder lessons, over the years.
And then Fleur takes the baby from her breast and that is uncomplicated and unhidden too. Fleur is fully aware of her own body and her own sexuality, and she's French, so she doesn't worry about things like this. In the three weeks she's spent here this summer, Ginny has seen more of Fleur than she'd ever have wanted to, before.
Now she can't get enough. She stares at the thing, imperfectly rounded, red where Victoire has gummed it. Fleur laughs again, seeing her stare, and Ginny blushes.
"You English," she chides, "so afraid of zee body. Eet is just a breast."
"I know," Ginny mutters, glancing away sullenly as Fleur tucks herself back in. "Sorry."
She's not apologizing an hour later, tucked into her borrowed bed at last, fingering herself with wild, raw abandon as she thinks about her brother's wife. She's not the kind of woman who sobs on the street and she's not going to be the kind of woman who wallows in her own grief, and if she can't cry herself to sleep, she might as well do something else. Fleur's hair is long and messy in her mind's eye, caught between Ginny's fingers, and her breasts are full and uneven and glorious under her. She grinds into the mattress and imagines Fleur's hands replacing her own, slipping inside of her, teaching her to be comfortable with more than just herself.
second
When James is five and Albus is four and Lily is two, when Rose is learning to read and Hugo's just started walking, Ginny curls up with a glass of wine on Hermione's couch and wishes she could stop time. She is exhausted, exhausted like she's never been in her life, exhausted like she could die from it. It's the kids, in between and underfoot and swatting at each other; it's Harry each night, pushing harder than he needs to by half. It's the never-ending grind of non-profit work, trying to raise money that nobody has for causes no one seems to care about and it's dinner on the table every night and it's the cleaning spells her mother was always so good at that she herself can't seem to manage--
"Hey," Hermione says. "You okay?" Ginny glances up and is startled to realize her eyes have filled with tears; she blinks them back and laughs to cover them up.
"Sorry," she says, "allergies, I think. That time of year."
Hermione, always too smart for her own good, gives her a knowing look but says nothing. She looks almost as tired as Ginny feels, and, horribly, that is a greater comfort than any other she's come across. That frizzy hair, barely held in place, the runs in her pantyhose she hasn't noticed--Hermione is a study in carefully averted disaster, and it makes Ginny feel less like jumping off of a cliff. She knows, on some level, that it's wrong to take comfort in someone else's mess, but she herself is so close to the edge that she doesn't really care.
What she should care about--what she does care about--is how much she wants to ignore Al's cries of pain and James's disturbingly evil cackle and Lily's insistent poking at her leg. She wants to ignore them, just for a minute, and bury a hand in that frizz, see what it feels like. She wants to do what she knows her brother does, when the kids are asleep and Hermione's finished whatever work she can and they retire to the bedroom.
She wants to touch, and be touched. Just to see.
Instead she looks away and lifts Lily into her arms and yells at James and checks over the skinned knee Al is really only claiming he has. She pours herself back into the life she has built around her, and does not think of Hermione's hands caressing her aching muscles, the tender flesh around her heart.
third
The woman on the street isn't anyone familiar until she turns around, lets Ginny see her face; until then she's just a gorgeous specimen of backside, wrapped in jeans so impossibly tight that they make Ginny's breath catch. Her hair, long and loosely curled, slips down her back in half-assed ringlets. It's dark against her green shirt, nearly black, and Ginny can't help but think of what it would be like to catch her by it and whip her 'round, what it would be like to kiss her.
Then she turns and she's Pansy Parkinson, and Ginny is so badly startled she shrieks and drops her shopping.
"Weasley," Pansy says, raising an eyebrow. "Have I been gone from England that long? Try not to have a heart attack, I'm not planning on partaking of any evil while I'm here."
"Oh, shove off," Ginny snaps, flushing and trying to hide it. "You just surprised me, I'm not scared of you. Don't flatter yourself."
Pansy laughs humorlessly. "Flatter myself," she murmurs, "right."
She leans in, picks up the bags at Ginny's feet, and stands. She's too close--her breasts brush ever-so-slightly against Ginny as she moves, and Ginny can feel her face heating.
"Let's get a drink," Pansy says.
And Ginny wants to accept--wants to accept more than she really should--but it doesn't make sense. "Why?"
Pansy sighs. "I've been in London for two days. Aside from Draco, everyone who's seen me has reacted just like you did--and not because they're surprised."
Ginny blinks at her and Pansy tries to smile, but it's more of grimace.
"They all remember me," she says bitterly, "for a stupid thing I said when I was 17. And I'd like to talk to someone who isn't scared of me. Change of pace, you know."
"Bet it wouldn't be bad to be seen with Harry Potter's wife either," Ginny mutters, and Pansy smiles brilliantly at her.
"Smart," she says, "and correct. Do me a favor, Weasley."
"It's Potter now," Ginny says, but when Pansy beckons her into the bar, she follows.
--
They have a drink.
They have a second drink.
They have a third drink, and the late-afternoon haze has fallen into early evening, and Ginny is beginning to worry about self control. Pansy is funny, spinning tales of her years abroad, and she's beautiful--too beautiful. Ginny is having trouble concentrating on anything other than the curve of her cleavage, that pert, gorgeous arse, so she excuses herself to the bathroom.
When Pansy comes in after her, she knows she is fucked.
"Weasley," Pansy hisses, pushing Ginny into the white tiled wall, "I could have sworn you were checking me out back there."
"You were mistaken," Ginny snaps desperately. Pansy just smirks, her lips still coated in that dark, dark lipstick.
"I don't think I was," she murmurs against Ginny's neck. "I think you want--"
"I'm married!" Ginny cries, her last defense, and Pansy sighs.
"What," she asks, pulling away just enough to meet Ginny's eyes, "does that have to do with--"
And Ginny shoves her off and runs, out of the bathroom and out of the bar, not stopping to pay her tab or get her shopping. She runs until she reaches the corner and logic takes over and she remembers she has a wand--then she Apparates, landing in her own kitchen.
"Hey, love," Harry says. He doesn't look up from the Prophet, doesn't notice that she's flushed and breathing hard, and maybe this is why Ginny finds herself fantasizing about women. Maybe this is why Ginny brings herself off on her own, but hasn't enjoyed sleeping with Harry in years.
Maybe this is why Ginny goes out to do some shopping and nearly commits adultery instead.
"Hi," she says, "I'm just going to--" and she runs upstairs and turns on the shower. She strips quickly and hops into the spray and only then, safe with the sound of the water covering her, does she shove three fingers into her cunt, moaning Pansy's name. She brings herself off viciously, almost punishingly, three times before the water runs cold.
When the packages she left behind at the bar show up a week later, Ginny traces the handwriting on the attached card with her pinky, wondering.
Weasley,
I hope you know that the indignity of being disappointed by the likes of you is considerably worse than suffering the disdain of Wizarding London. You are a vicious tease, never let anyone tell you different.
Still, I thought you might like your things back. I'll drop you an Owl the next time I'm in town--I look forward to finding out if your ridiculous priorities have changed by then.
-P
fourth
Luna has her shoes off.
Ginny knows she should be thinking about other things--about lawyers, about the fundraiser she's running next week, about why one of her oldest and, admittedly, strangest friends has Apparated her to a lake in Wales--but she can't.
Because Luna has her shoes off, and her pants rolled up to her ankles, and her long, lean calves are submerged in the water. Ginny thinks of running her fingers along them, and is choked with the sudden realization that she could, if she wanted to. That there is no obligation stopping her.
"How are you doing?" Luna says, and Ginny glances away from those legs and meets Luna's gaze.
"How do you mean?"
"Well," Luna says, "some women go mad during a divorce."
Ginny smiles. "Luna," she returns, "don't you think you'd be able to tell if I'd gone mad?"
Luna cocks her head. "I don't think people go mad," she says, eventually. "There's madness in everyone, after all. It's all about how much you let people see."
"So you think I should start telling everyone about the Nargles living on his side of the bed, do you?"
Luna's face crinkles up into a smile; the lines around her eyes that hadn't shown up until Rolf died deepen in amusement. "You don't believe in Nargles," she says, leaning back into the grass.
I think I am going mad, Ginny wants to say, whether or not I was mad already. Is madness wanting to kiss that stripe of skin your shirt's not covering? Can I blame the Nargles for that?
Instead she laughs, glancing at Luna with hooded eyes. "You've always said I don't have to believe in them for them to believe in me."
"Too right," Luna agrees. She props herself on one arm. "What about the children?"
"What about them?"
"Are they--" Luna waves a hand and glances up at the clouds, and Ginny gets her point.
She sighs. "Lily said she's seen it coming for years," she admits, quietly, "and Albus is just glad we were together for his wedding. James..."
"Poor boy. You'd think he'd have learned to stop blaming himself for everything by now. Though I suppose it's a hard lesson to learn."
Ginny starts. "No," she said, "he's--he's furious and--oh."
"He's the oldest. It's not your fault he inherited Harry's complexes."
"Fuck," Ginny mutters. “It’s a mess. I keep telling myself Teddy will sort him out, but--"
Luna sits up and stares right at her. "Hey," she says, softly, "he's an adult. They are all adults. You can't live your whole life trying to give them what they want."
"I know that," Ginny snaps, "I just--"
"What do you want?"
"What do you mean? For supper? In the settlement? What?"
"No," Luna says, "in your life. What do you want?”
"I--" Ginny says. She is surprised to find she doesn't know.
She is even more surprised to find Luna cupping her cheek, looking at her with soft, understanding eyes. "For example," she offers, her voice light, floating, "you're thinking about having sex with me right now. How long has that been going on?"
And Ginny wants to deny it, but instead she finds herself saying "With you in particular, or...?"
Luna laughs, a soft, sweet sound. "See?" she murmurs against Ginny's lips. "Everyone's a little bit mad."
When Luna closes in, presses their mouths together, Ginny feels something in her spark alive. She returns the kiss furiously, pouring all the passion she knows into it, and before she can think she's got her hands under Luna's shirt, is pressing her against the grass.
"You smell like bad champagne and rotten lemons," Luna tells her, tracing the veins in Ginny's neck with her tongue. "Did you know?"
"I didn't, actually," Ginny replies, and she slips down to lift up Luna's skirt.
She knows--well, she knows a lot of things. That what she should be doing a week after being chucked by her husband of twenty-two years is crying, or pounding a pint of ice cream, or trying to murder Draco Malfoy for stealing him away. That this lake is public property and anyone could come by and see her like this, take a photo, run it in the paper. That her children would be horrified, that her mother would be horrified, that just because her husband turned out to be gay doesn't mean she has to--
"It has been a long fucking time since anyone's asked me what I wanted," Ginny mumbles indistinctly, and dives.
Luna's not wearing underwear. She probably has what she considers a good reason--Erumpet breeding grounds or necessary air circulation or freedom to do this--whatever the reason, Ginny is grateful. She laps at Luna's soft flesh, the swollen bulge of her clit, the warm, wet place beneath it. It tastes like she has always imagined it might.
Above her, Luna is gasping and writhing, spitting nonsensical invectives. "Circe's bollocks," she says at one point, and Ginny laughs and pulls back.
"Circe didn't have bollocks," she tells Luna. "I think you mean Helios."
"Accuracy is not my primary concern at a time like this," Luna chides gently.
"Right."
Ginny resumes her previous activity, taking her time, exploring. When Luna's thighs tense against her cheeks she automatically freezes, preparing herself for the harsh explosion of salty, bitter release. It doesn't come; Luna just whimpers, a long, low whine, and relaxes utterly. She pulls Ginny up against her chest and cradles her, both of them shaking for different reasons.
"You're very good at that," she offers.
Ginny bites her lip. Her face is nestled between Luna's small, pert breasts; with the promise of reciprocation is pooling in her groin, she considers the kind of person she has spent years trying to be. Ginny the wife, Ginny the mother. Ginny the self-champion. Ginny the controlled, confident woman.
The thing is, Luna’s never given a shit about any of it.
"I've been thinking about it for a long time," she admits, and when Luna's chest begins to shake softly in laughter, Ginny lets herself smile.