utopianbabie & stiletto
Title: The Morning of a War
Author: utopianbabie
Pairing: Luna/Millicent
Challenge: "The story of a woman on the morning of a war" - Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Easily
Fifth year and the atmosphere was heavy - Luna could feel it creeping along behind the carriages as they sped the students towards the castle; the Thestrals' gait held a kind of urgency that was quite new. She watched their wings flap and looked around, noticing others notice. Each year she noticed that more people could see them, and she knew with a curious certainty that one day they’d all be able to.
Millicent could see them too, although nobody knew this but Luna. She saw Millicent looking at the start of Luna’s second year, and when Millicent saw that she’d seen that’s when it started; Millicent’s eyes were a battle ground and focused on her.
“Loony Luna Lovegood,” Millicent’s friends would sing, “You’re back for another year?”
“I thought you might have gone off to join the circus!
“Yeah, the freak show!”
And then the usual laughter, Millicent’s included. But her eyes, they stayed the same.
Every year, the battle ground.
Luna looked sideways to the next carriage and saw Millicent staring back - Luna’s body lurched with shock, things had changed this year. This year Millicent’s eyes roamed Luna’s body.
This year her eyes had war in them.
Title: Losers.
Author: Greenie // stiletto
Rating: R
Summary: For hp_remix. Luna knows Millicent knows Luna knows, but she still doesn’t tell.
Fifth year and the atmosphere was heavy. All around her, the Slytherins were tensing themselves for what they knew was to come, what they had been told to expect. It was like drawing in a lungful of icy air - and holding it. Everyone was afraid to let it out lest they make a sound, and attract the attention of one of the enemy, who always had their nose to the ground. Watching. Waiting.
She hated being a Slytherin, sometimes. Of course, she was made for it, the map of her body and the map of her personality both reflected cruelty, ambition, and brutal honesty. She was who she was who she was and she shouldn’t have had to be afraid.
Millicent was, though, of course. Everyone was. Except Malfoy - but Malfoy was an idiot. A lucky idiot who always had his father’s wealth to back them up. Millicent wasn’t jealous - far from it, she was as old and purebred and rich as most of the house - but she despised the way he carried himself, as though it didn’t matter what they threw at him, Daddy would always be there a shield to deflect it all.
“I spent five years toughening myself up,” she said to Nott one dreamy evening. The sky had been turning sunset pink, and the wisps of mist already rising from the ground had swirled around their ankles as they sat by the lake, smoking and lobbing in stones. It was a night for Romance, not profanity… but Millicent had never been a romantic. “Five years. Why can’t he do the fucking same?”
Nott had just shrugged, then, and Millicent shrugged now. She hated the weak. They were so damned lazy, always expecting someone else to reach up and grab that Snitch for them. But Millicent Bulstrode planned to do all her grabbing herself, thankyou very much. Her Pa had shown her how to live without money and House Elves, though the Bulstrodes had both.
If Millicent hated the weak, then she really hated Luna Lovegood. Not only was she weak, she was fucking self-righteous about it too; as though she was better than other people because that fat head of hers was filled with useless knowledge. All the stupid shit she thought up shouldn’t get her anywhere in the outside world - and yet look at Dumbledore, look at Trelawney, look at Lovegood’s fucking father.
Millicent watched her, and discovered that Loony knew her secret. About her mother. She’d seen her looking at the freaky invisible horsethings, and now she knew; probably had it all worked out. For a little while Millicent had done nothing, waiting patiently like a spider hungry for a meal.
But Lovegood wasn’t stupid. She watched Millicent watching her, and Millicent balled her fists up in rage because the little slut was probably thinking how she and her friends were just Slytherins, just stupid little Slytherins, and so of course it was all right to look out the window of the carriage as though none of them were there. Of course it was all right to think “Millicent killed her mother” and so what if she did? It wasn’t like the bitch hadn’t had it coming for years and years.
She was so afraid Loony Lovegood would open her mouth and then everyone would know. Malfoy would know, and he’d give that look that said in more than words how fucking superior he was to her, how much better he was because he had a Daddy and a Mummy and both of them were willing to shower down on him whatever the fuck he wanted.
But how to stop Lovegood saying anything? Millicent was a Slytherin, there was no honour involved in holding your tongue for someone from an ‘evil’ house.
"Loony Luna Lovegood" Millicent’s friends would sing, "You’re back for another year?"
"I thought you might have gone off to join the circus!"
"Yeah, the freak show!"
And then the usual laughter, Millicent’s included.
Strike before they strike you, her Pa had told her, and he was right.
But then fifth year rolled up and things were different. The school holidays weren’t the same-old, same-old; they were marked in sharp colours and sunlight through the clouds. He was back, her Pa said. He was back and Millicent would pay - because it had been Millicent who killed her mother, not he, Millicent who had finally swung that metal pipe; first to shut her up and then again and again because she liked the smell of the blood, the feel of it slippery on the metal between her fingers, and her Pa hadn’t screamed or stopped her or anything just laughed and laughed…
So Millicent looked across at Luna and Luna looked back at her and everything had just been child’s play compared to this. It was like standing on the edge of a precipice looking into the abyss.
There was frost in Luna Lovegood’s eyes, and not for the first time this year, Millicent was afraid.
Fear meant everything. The weeks went by and Millicent learned to respect Umbridge; underneath her sweet demeanour was cold steel, like a sword wrapped in lace. Millicent understood this. Millicent understood the fear Umbridge instilled in her when she glided too close, too close, and her toadish face wrinkled into a smirk.
Millicent did not understand Luna.
“Inquisitional squad,” she’d said loudly at the stairs to the Ravenclaw girls dorm. Umbridge thought one of them had been making trouble, and had sent her pet snakes to investigate. Malfoy wouldn’t stop polishing his gleaming silver badge.
Luna Lovegood had come up the stairs in a plain white nightie, looking for all the world as if it was perfectly natural to be awoken at two o’clock in the morning. “Are we having a tea party?” she asked.
Millicent’s wand was out before anyone else had a chance to move. “Don’t mock us, Lovegood,” she said throatily. Malfoy had the arrogance to push down the tip of her wand until it was pointed at the floor, almost impatiently. Millicent’s breath was a quick hiss - he was protecting her. She’d probably tell him everything, everything.
Luna Lovegood could read minds, there was no doubt about that.
A few of the third year girls got detentions, and they were all sent back to Slytherin. There was an aching between her legs that she didn’t quite know how to quench.
Millicent pushed Loony into the girl’s bathroom at the first possible opportunity - the normal one for once, because usually Luna wouldn’t be caught dead in the public bathrooms. Millicent and her friends had followed Luna once, to see where she ended up going and she’s spend hours sitting on the badly-plumbed toilets in the broken girl’s bathroom, talking to a ghost - of all things! Loony, loony, loony. They’d teased her about it for weeks, but Millicent wanted to take it further.
She shoved her through the swinging door and into a cubicle, sitting her one the closed lid of the toilet seat. Luna looked around in distaste.
“Yes?” she said snobbishly, as though this place, where Millicent and the older girls had smoked and told dirty jokes since second year, was below her.
“You think you’re so fuckin’ good, don’t ya?” Millicent asked her in a dark voice, and drew back her fist and delivered her best left hook before Loony could reply. Luna looked shocked as though she’d never been punched before. Probably she hadn’t even been in a fight before, thought Millicent with contempt.
“You and your hair,” she pulled it, “and your fucking clothes,” she ripped at them, “and the way you read books all the time and gaze up into people’s eyes when they ask you a question like they’re not your betters.”
Luna said nothing, just let herself be slapped and pulled around as somehow her clothing began to come off, piece by piece.
“Slut,” Millicent said, one hand palming roughly at her breast. “Filthy little whore.”
“I know what you want,” said Luna, arching up into the rough touch, her nipple hardening even as she smiled a secret smile and pretended as though this was normal. “I know what you are.”
Millicent froze. “You don’t know nothing about me,” she managed to rasp out, a tremor in her left hand, a spasm in her foot. “It wasn’t. I-“
Then Luna kissed her, chaste and soft and saccharine sweet. “This is what you want, isn’t it.” she stated -not a question, just a fact. Millicent let out a small gasp of relief, and her trembling hands clenched at her sides.
“You bitch,” she spat, and turned and walked out - because at least if she walked away now and left The Loon standing there confused and hurt, tears pricking her eyes… at least then, Millicent was the victor.
And she forgot about the incident (or she told herself he had as she ground Theodore practically to dust beneath her in the creaky curtained bed) and she moved on with her life and returned to hating Malfoy and hating Potter and hating everyone, anyone who was born with a six-inch silver spoon in their mouth.
Until one day, Loony crept up on her quiet as a shadow. “You lost,” she said, and Millicent wanted to tell her that no, she had won, she was still winning - but Luna held the Daily Prophet in her petite hand and Millicent snatches it away, glancing over the article. Her Pa was in Azkaban. Her Pa was in Azkaban for the murder of her mother, forties to the Dark Lord (fucking Malfoy snr and his fucking runaway mouth) and for all sorts of crimes she knew he didn’t commit. “You lost the battle… and you’ll lose the war.”
Millicent thinks of how she’s been hanging around Potter of late, and wonders which war she’s referring to.
“People don’t read our newspaper much,” Luna says conversationally, and Millicent stares at her because this little slip of a Ravenclaw has been holding a grudge and a secret, all this time.
“You knew,” she whispered.
“I know everything,” Luna whispered back, and danced away, leaving Millicent standing in the empty corridor with a newspaper fluttering from her hand.
Author: utopianbabie
Pairing: Luna/Millicent
Challenge: "The story of a woman on the morning of a war" - Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Easily
Fifth year and the atmosphere was heavy - Luna could feel it creeping along behind the carriages as they sped the students towards the castle; the Thestrals' gait held a kind of urgency that was quite new. She watched their wings flap and looked around, noticing others notice. Each year she noticed that more people could see them, and she knew with a curious certainty that one day they’d all be able to.
Millicent could see them too, although nobody knew this but Luna. She saw Millicent looking at the start of Luna’s second year, and when Millicent saw that she’d seen that’s when it started; Millicent’s eyes were a battle ground and focused on her.
“Loony Luna Lovegood,” Millicent’s friends would sing, “You’re back for another year?”
“I thought you might have gone off to join the circus!
“Yeah, the freak show!”
And then the usual laughter, Millicent’s included. But her eyes, they stayed the same.
Every year, the battle ground.
Luna looked sideways to the next carriage and saw Millicent staring back - Luna’s body lurched with shock, things had changed this year. This year Millicent’s eyes roamed Luna’s body.
This year her eyes had war in them.
Title: Losers.
Author: Greenie // stiletto
Rating: R
Summary: For hp_remix. Luna knows Millicent knows Luna knows, but she still doesn’t tell.
Fifth year and the atmosphere was heavy. All around her, the Slytherins were tensing themselves for what they knew was to come, what they had been told to expect. It was like drawing in a lungful of icy air - and holding it. Everyone was afraid to let it out lest they make a sound, and attract the attention of one of the enemy, who always had their nose to the ground. Watching. Waiting.
She hated being a Slytherin, sometimes. Of course, she was made for it, the map of her body and the map of her personality both reflected cruelty, ambition, and brutal honesty. She was who she was who she was and she shouldn’t have had to be afraid.
Millicent was, though, of course. Everyone was. Except Malfoy - but Malfoy was an idiot. A lucky idiot who always had his father’s wealth to back them up. Millicent wasn’t jealous - far from it, she was as old and purebred and rich as most of the house - but she despised the way he carried himself, as though it didn’t matter what they threw at him, Daddy would always be there a shield to deflect it all.
“I spent five years toughening myself up,” she said to Nott one dreamy evening. The sky had been turning sunset pink, and the wisps of mist already rising from the ground had swirled around their ankles as they sat by the lake, smoking and lobbing in stones. It was a night for Romance, not profanity… but Millicent had never been a romantic. “Five years. Why can’t he do the fucking same?”
Nott had just shrugged, then, and Millicent shrugged now. She hated the weak. They were so damned lazy, always expecting someone else to reach up and grab that Snitch for them. But Millicent Bulstrode planned to do all her grabbing herself, thankyou very much. Her Pa had shown her how to live without money and House Elves, though the Bulstrodes had both.
If Millicent hated the weak, then she really hated Luna Lovegood. Not only was she weak, she was fucking self-righteous about it too; as though she was better than other people because that fat head of hers was filled with useless knowledge. All the stupid shit she thought up shouldn’t get her anywhere in the outside world - and yet look at Dumbledore, look at Trelawney, look at Lovegood’s fucking father.
Millicent watched her, and discovered that Loony knew her secret. About her mother. She’d seen her looking at the freaky invisible horsethings, and now she knew; probably had it all worked out. For a little while Millicent had done nothing, waiting patiently like a spider hungry for a meal.
But Lovegood wasn’t stupid. She watched Millicent watching her, and Millicent balled her fists up in rage because the little slut was probably thinking how she and her friends were just Slytherins, just stupid little Slytherins, and so of course it was all right to look out the window of the carriage as though none of them were there. Of course it was all right to think “Millicent killed her mother” and so what if she did? It wasn’t like the bitch hadn’t had it coming for years and years.
She was so afraid Loony Lovegood would open her mouth and then everyone would know. Malfoy would know, and he’d give that look that said in more than words how fucking superior he was to her, how much better he was because he had a Daddy and a Mummy and both of them were willing to shower down on him whatever the fuck he wanted.
But how to stop Lovegood saying anything? Millicent was a Slytherin, there was no honour involved in holding your tongue for someone from an ‘evil’ house.
"Loony Luna Lovegood" Millicent’s friends would sing, "You’re back for another year?"
"I thought you might have gone off to join the circus!"
"Yeah, the freak show!"
And then the usual laughter, Millicent’s included.
Strike before they strike you, her Pa had told her, and he was right.
But then fifth year rolled up and things were different. The school holidays weren’t the same-old, same-old; they were marked in sharp colours and sunlight through the clouds. He was back, her Pa said. He was back and Millicent would pay - because it had been Millicent who killed her mother, not he, Millicent who had finally swung that metal pipe; first to shut her up and then again and again because she liked the smell of the blood, the feel of it slippery on the metal between her fingers, and her Pa hadn’t screamed or stopped her or anything just laughed and laughed…
So Millicent looked across at Luna and Luna looked back at her and everything had just been child’s play compared to this. It was like standing on the edge of a precipice looking into the abyss.
There was frost in Luna Lovegood’s eyes, and not for the first time this year, Millicent was afraid.
Fear meant everything. The weeks went by and Millicent learned to respect Umbridge; underneath her sweet demeanour was cold steel, like a sword wrapped in lace. Millicent understood this. Millicent understood the fear Umbridge instilled in her when she glided too close, too close, and her toadish face wrinkled into a smirk.
Millicent did not understand Luna.
“Inquisitional squad,” she’d said loudly at the stairs to the Ravenclaw girls dorm. Umbridge thought one of them had been making trouble, and had sent her pet snakes to investigate. Malfoy wouldn’t stop polishing his gleaming silver badge.
Luna Lovegood had come up the stairs in a plain white nightie, looking for all the world as if it was perfectly natural to be awoken at two o’clock in the morning. “Are we having a tea party?” she asked.
Millicent’s wand was out before anyone else had a chance to move. “Don’t mock us, Lovegood,” she said throatily. Malfoy had the arrogance to push down the tip of her wand until it was pointed at the floor, almost impatiently. Millicent’s breath was a quick hiss - he was protecting her. She’d probably tell him everything, everything.
Luna Lovegood could read minds, there was no doubt about that.
A few of the third year girls got detentions, and they were all sent back to Slytherin. There was an aching between her legs that she didn’t quite know how to quench.
Millicent pushed Loony into the girl’s bathroom at the first possible opportunity - the normal one for once, because usually Luna wouldn’t be caught dead in the public bathrooms. Millicent and her friends had followed Luna once, to see where she ended up going and she’s spend hours sitting on the badly-plumbed toilets in the broken girl’s bathroom, talking to a ghost - of all things! Loony, loony, loony. They’d teased her about it for weeks, but Millicent wanted to take it further.
She shoved her through the swinging door and into a cubicle, sitting her one the closed lid of the toilet seat. Luna looked around in distaste.
“Yes?” she said snobbishly, as though this place, where Millicent and the older girls had smoked and told dirty jokes since second year, was below her.
“You think you’re so fuckin’ good, don’t ya?” Millicent asked her in a dark voice, and drew back her fist and delivered her best left hook before Loony could reply. Luna looked shocked as though she’d never been punched before. Probably she hadn’t even been in a fight before, thought Millicent with contempt.
“You and your hair,” she pulled it, “and your fucking clothes,” she ripped at them, “and the way you read books all the time and gaze up into people’s eyes when they ask you a question like they’re not your betters.”
Luna said nothing, just let herself be slapped and pulled around as somehow her clothing began to come off, piece by piece.
“Slut,” Millicent said, one hand palming roughly at her breast. “Filthy little whore.”
“I know what you want,” said Luna, arching up into the rough touch, her nipple hardening even as she smiled a secret smile and pretended as though this was normal. “I know what you are.”
Millicent froze. “You don’t know nothing about me,” she managed to rasp out, a tremor in her left hand, a spasm in her foot. “It wasn’t. I-“
Then Luna kissed her, chaste and soft and saccharine sweet. “This is what you want, isn’t it.” she stated -not a question, just a fact. Millicent let out a small gasp of relief, and her trembling hands clenched at her sides.
“You bitch,” she spat, and turned and walked out - because at least if she walked away now and left The Loon standing there confused and hurt, tears pricking her eyes… at least then, Millicent was the victor.
And she forgot about the incident (or she told herself he had as she ground Theodore practically to dust beneath her in the creaky curtained bed) and she moved on with her life and returned to hating Malfoy and hating Potter and hating everyone, anyone who was born with a six-inch silver spoon in their mouth.
Until one day, Loony crept up on her quiet as a shadow. “You lost,” she said, and Millicent wanted to tell her that no, she had won, she was still winning - but Luna held the Daily Prophet in her petite hand and Millicent snatches it away, glancing over the article. Her Pa was in Azkaban. Her Pa was in Azkaban for the murder of her mother, forties to the Dark Lord (fucking Malfoy snr and his fucking runaway mouth) and for all sorts of crimes she knew he didn’t commit. “You lost the battle… and you’ll lose the war.”
Millicent thinks of how she’s been hanging around Potter of late, and wonders which war she’s referring to.
“People don’t read our newspaper much,” Luna says conversationally, and Millicent stares at her because this little slip of a Ravenclaw has been holding a grudge and a secret, all this time.
“You knew,” she whispered.
“I know everything,” Luna whispered back, and danced away, leaving Millicent standing in the empty corridor with a newspaper fluttering from her hand.