Title: Tell Me I'm Never Lost
Summary: Hermione insists that she and Pansy are lost in the forest, but Pansy begs to differ. They just need to get over this next hill.
Characters/Pairings: Hermione/Pansy
Genre: Romance
Beta: None
Rating/Warnings: PG-13, for implied sexual acts
Medium: Fic
Word Count: 1,010
Can the Order post to Tumblr?: No thanks.
"We're lost," Hermione said, matter-of-factly, standing between two trees with her brow furrowed.
"We are not lost," Pansy insisted. "I never get lost."
"Then tell me why we're standing in the same patch of dirt we were in half an hour ago?"
Pansy hated it when Hermione was right about something, which was much too often for anyone's taste. Hermione had this stupidly smug look on her face and it made Pansy feel like a fool, which angered her. It was that same smug look of Hermione's that had caused Pansy to tease her mercilessly throughout their years of schooling. Nobody should be more arrogant or more knowledgable than Pansy Parkinson.
"I'll just use the Point Me spell to get us going again," Hermione said, reaching for her wand.
"Oh, no, you don't," Pansy snapped, grabbing at Hermione's wrist. "If anyone's using magic here, it'll be me. I am the expert, after all. My family's been using magic for centuries. How many of your relatives ever taught you a spell? Oh, yes, that's right: none of them."
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Really, Pansy? You're going to start this right here and now?"
Pansy sniffed loudly and ignored the question, scanning the tree line for some sign of where they ought to go. "It's just over this next hill," she said, forcing the utmost confidence into her voice. "I'm sure of it."
"Oh, well, if you're sure, then," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. "Let's cross over this next hill, then, shall we?"
Pansy set off with a long, steady stride, stepping over tree roots and darting through the shadows. It was nice to be in the woods, even if they were lost (which they weren't, Pansy reminded herself). The leaves of the trees rustled in the wind, and the sun's thin rays cast rippling streaks of warmth throughout the cool undertone of the forest. Soft blades of grass tickled Pansy's ankles as she walked, and the chirping of birds filled the air with song. Just behind her, Pansy could hear Hermione's footsteps and smell the faint scent of her hair, blown wild about her face in the breeze.
At the top of the hill, the two of them stopped, looking down into another identical valley of trees. "You see, we're lost," Hermione stated.
"No, we aren't! I refuse to believe we're lost. We've gone exactly where we needed to go," Pansy replied, nearly stamping her foot in frustration.
"Look, Pansy, clearly we didn't set the spell's parameters wide enough," Hermione said, starting off down the other side of the hill. Her brow furrowed again, this time as she lost herself in thought. "I was sure I'd calculated it to the point where we would be able to find it easily enough. I really should have brought the books with us, it would have been far simpler."
"It's always about books with you," Pansy complained, as she hurried to catch up. They walked aimlessly down the hill and through the valley, side by side. "I far prefer the subtle forms of magic, the intuition. I should be able to feel where we're going, and I do. We're not lost."
"Pansy, when are you going to admit that you're wrong?" Hermione demanded. "This is exactly what bothers me most about you, you never admit - "
They both felt it at the same time: a thunderous cloud of heat slamming into their bodies, accompanied by a darkening of the sky, the world cast in shadow around them. The trees shimmered and faded, the birds went silent, and Pansy gasped as she was engulfed in a sudden onslaught of sensation.
The softness of skin under her fingertips, the taste of desperation on her lips, the tearing of clothing as she pushes Hermione hard against a tree, her mouth closing over Hermione's in a searing kiss. Shivers of heat pulsating throughout her body, sweat pouring down her back, the urge to scream rising in the back of her throat. Bare skin on skin, limbs intertwined, clothing shed to the forest floor as they forget the world around them, as they meet in a passionate world of their own making, as they touch and taste and quiver and become one.
Pansy snapped back to reality to find that she was still fully clothed, she was still standing next to the trees, and she was still beside Hermione, who looked as dazed as Pansy felt. For a moment they stopped to breathe, to process the images and sensations that had overwhelmed them so suddenly. And then, in unison, they grinned broadly at one another.
"I suppose we aren't so lost after all," Hermione said, sounding slightly out of breath.
"I told you," Pansy said proudly, shaking her head. "I knew exactly where we were."
"Somehow I doubt that," Hermione replied. "Still, it hardly matters now, does it? We're here now. Care to make another memory?"
"I don't know," Pansy said slowly, smirking, swaying her hips. "The one we've got is pretty unbeatable at the moment."
"Oh, I think I could surprise you, Pansy," Hermione said, her expression shining with anticipation. "I've been reading some interesting new books."
"Yeah? Because I've been intuiting some things, myself," Pansy told her, as they drew closer, their eyes meeting in a heated stare.
Neither of them would ever bend to confess that the memory bond had been the other girl's idea; it was a trait they shared, and vexed one another with. However, neither of them could deny how well the spell worked, and how fantastic it felt to so vividly remember their previous rendezvous. The secret space in the forest belonged to them alone, and they had marked it so that they would be always drawn towards it, in order to share it again and again.
"Tell me I'm never lost, Hermione," Pansy hissed, with her fingers wrapped gently around Hermione's neck.
"Never," Hermione replied, just before their lips met, and Pansy did not know whether Hermione was denying the request or fulfilling it. She didn't much care either way.
*****
Title: Marks on Their Souls
Summary: They had to cling to whatever brought them relief, whatever soothed their panic and slowed the frantic pounding of their hearts, for any brief moment.
Characters/Pairings: Lily/Alice
Genre: Romance/Angst
Beta: None
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for implied sexual acts, infidelity.
Medium: Ficlet
Word Count: 452
Can the Order post to Tumblr?: No thanks.
Fear closed in like a cloud of Dementors, sucking the life from their bones and reducing them to pillars of ash, smoky dusk lying about their shoulders at every turn. People kept dying and they buried the bodies, they buried the souls in the darkest corners of their hearts.
Nobody was safe, for they could vanish at any second, snatched up by the jaws of death and crushed into pieces before the eyes of their families. Death Eaters laughed and they bit them, sank their teeth into the flesh and spilled the blood upon the dirt, sacrifices to their lord.
They had to cling to whatever brought them relief, whatever soothed their panic and slowed the frantic pounding of their hearts, for any brief moment. Rules no longer mattered, commitment was a fantasy. What was commitment, when a life could be ended in the blink of an eye, in the flash of an Apparition? They couldn't chance it, they couldn't wait, they couldn't lose any opportunity.
"Have you ever wondered," Alice whispered, "what it would feel like to be with another woman? It'd be completely different, wouldn't it? It'd be gentler, maybe, or sweeter. We'd know where to touch, how to kiss. It'd be a whole other thing."
Standing at the edge of the abyss, with the large engulfing darkness stretching out before them, was the perfect time for experiments, for leaping into every whim, for trying and testing and breaking every law ever written. Lily closed the distance and pressed her lips against Alice Longbottom's lips, kissed her very best friend with all the fervor of a Gryffindor with nothing to lose.
Husbands slept in nearby beds but it didn't matter, they made love furiously beneath the sheets, finding that being with a woman was sweeter, but not much gentler at all. They left marks on one another; they left marks on their souls.
They were going to die anyway. They had dirty blood and Voldemort would spill it, he would punish them for their sins. James and Frank were kind, courageous men, and their wives adored them, they loved them so hard it felt as though their hearts jumped out of their chests with every glance in their direction. They were married and they were in love, so much in love, and yet they tasted one another and writhed with pleasure, with the comfort that comes of release in the arms of a friend.
Fear closed in like a cloud of Dementors, and they would do anything to escape it, to slip away into blinding sunlight and be free. They had to take beauty wherever they could find it, hold it in their fingers before the world was torn away.
*****
Title: They're So Intimate
Summary: "Some party," he said to her, shouting to be heard over the thumping roar of the music and the people around them.
Characters/Pairings: Zacharias/Astoria
Genre: Romance
Beta: None
Rating/Warnings: PG-13, for innuendo
Medium: Ficlet
Word Count: 592
Can the Order post to Tumblr?: No thanks.
Music was blaring at levels to wake the dead; Zacharias wouldn't have been surprised to see a group of Inferi at the party, shuffling along to the beat right alongside their living counterparts. It seemed like everywhere, people were dancing: on the stairs, on the balcony. There was even a disgustingly drunk woman dancing in the doorway to the loo, much to the queue's chagrin.
"Will you move your arse so somebody can have a piss, please?" The woman shrieked with laughter as some angry wizard grabbed her arm and yanked her out of the way.
"Things have gotten wildly out of control, haven't they?" Zach startled to hear a low voice in his ear; he looked round to see none other than the hostess of the party, the young Mrs. Malfoy. Astoria. Merlin, she looked gorgeous. Her face was flushed; clearly she'd also been partaking in the drink. But she didn't seem to be out of sorts at all. If there was one thing Astoria Malfoy was known for, it was her impeccable grace in all situations. She'd had that since Hogwarts, when she was still Astoria Greengrass. Zach would know.
"Some party," he said to her, shouting to be heard over the thumping roar of the music and the people around them. He leaned over the table, to speak into her ear. He could feel the heat rising off her body, and the faint tickle of a strand of her hair brushing against his skin. It sent a wave of goosebumps up his arm. "Was it really necessary to invite the entire wizarding community? Surely such a large party is murder on your nerves."
Astoria smiled slightly, just a quirk of the lips, really, but still somehow enough to convey the depths of her amusement, and to send a thrill through him. "Actually, no," she said, moving closer, erasing any distance between them at all. They sat side by side with their bodies pressed together, with Astoria's lips upon his ear and her hand in his lap. Zach sat very still and tried to concentrate on breathing, on comprehending her speech. "I like large parties," she said to him, her voice electrifying. "They're so intimate. Small parties, there isn't any privacy. Don't you agree?"
Casting a quick eye to their surroundings, Zach had to admit that she had a very good point, indeed. With the raucous dancing and the multitude of people surrounding them, nobody was looking in their direction. There was simply too much going on. Astoria could press her lips to Zach's neck and it was as though the two of them were all alone in the world. It was though they were meeting in the halls of Hogwarts again after hours, sneaking into deserted classrooms to explore one another. Good Slytherin girls didn't snog rebellious Hufflepuffs, and proper married Pureblooded wives didn't betray their husbands. But Astoria had never followed the rules. It drove Zacharias mad, with some combination of frustration and longing.
"You're a terrible human being," he said to her, as she drew her head back to meet his gaze, her smirk turning sultry as her fingers quested deeper within his robes. Zach gasped, and his eyes widened. "Why the fuck do I always want you so badly?"
Astoria laughed. "You can't resist a girl who knows what she wants, and takes it."
"I have always said that people should be free to do as they wish," he admitted with a grin. This time, he was the one who kissed her first.
*****
Title: Such Pleasure in Fantasies
Summary: What wouldn't she give for to make those fantasies come true, to give herself so completely as to fall apart with cries of ecstasy and not a single care in the world for who may witness it?
Characters/Pairings: Andromeda/Daphne
Genre: Romance
Beta: None
Rating/Warnings: R for implied sexual acts.
Medium: Ficlet
Word Count: 584
Can the Order post to Tumblr?: No thanks.
Read this one here 34 + 15 + 20 + 19 = 88 Points for Hufflepuff