Halloween Gift for Sugar_screw
Gift for: sugar_screw
From: iselima
Title: An Unwilling Ghost and the Smell of Apples
Characters: Ginny, Hermione, Luna, Pansy
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Characters belong to JK Rowling and her affiliates.
Summary: A Halloween visit to the Shrieking Shack and a nightly picknick...
Notes: Dear sugar_screw, I struggled with your prompts, which seemed rather American for a drabble playing out in Scotland :-). Please forgive me for this and for my poor, inexperienced, authorship. Nevertheless I hope there's something to like for you!
They'd been shooed out of the Shrieking Shack by the ghost of Severus Snape - “leave the firewhisky behind, thank you!”
Unexpectedly, Pansy Parkinson had also arrived to make offerings to Snape, following them when they'd left. They stood together, outside the reach of the Whomping Willow, ready to Apparate.
Ginny wasn't happy: would bully Parkinson leave Luna alone? Yet, they hadn't met for three years and somehow Parkinson seemed changed. Luna didn't object, and Ginny was resigned. Then the four of them left for their Halloween picnic at the old apple orchard near Hogsmeade.
In the bleak moonlight, the shadows of the crooked branches of the apple trees looked like Acromantulas trying to catch prey. Ginny shivered and chewed her bloody raspberry pie.
The heady smell of overripe apples made her light in her head and when she felt breathing in her neck, she nearly shrieked. It was Pansy, whispering: “Isn't she magnificent?”
“Hermione?”
“No, you fool, Luna! A Fairy in the moonlight. Look!”
But Ginny suddenly only had eyes for Hermione.
Dear Know-it-All Hermione!
If it wasn't for Ron and Harry, Ginny could barely stop herself from moving over, to find out if Hermione longed to kiss her, too...