We Shine Like Stars. (Fic, GW/LL, SS/HP, NC17 -- 2a/7)
Title: We Shine Like Stars 2.a
Author: Cluegirl
Type: Fiction
Length: Novella -- words.
Main character or Pairing: Ginny/Luna, with a side of Harry/Snape.
Rating: NC17
Canon compliancy: Shooting for canon compliance. If you squint.
Disclaimer: All HP characters are the sole intellectual property of JKRowling, whom I am not. Therefore, I make no profit from this use.
Warnings: Graphic descriptions of childbirth, but aside from that, it's pretty vanilla.
Summary: Harry is not the only one who must struggle for a sense of self against the expectations of others; Ginny's dreams are heavily mortgaged too. It takes a brush with tragedy to alert her to the very real possibility of losing all, if she does not take matters into her own hands.
Cards Drawn: The Empress, the Ace of Swords reversed, and Strength.
Card Interpretation: The Empress -- satisfaction, a competent woman spinning the future from the present.
The Ace of Swords, reversed -- Words, or the threat of them, used to destroy. A silence that is destructive. A refusal, or inability to speak up when words are needed
Strength -- Power, energy, a calm and soothing conviction. Fearlessness.
Author Notes: Thanks to the League of Extraordinary Betae: Jenna_Thorn, emessann, amanuensis1, and kaiz. And also, my plot doctor, the ever-patient aquila_dominus. The title of the song, and the verses used at the chapter heads come from the song Bullet, by Covenant.
Part 1, Part 2
~* Angels of the Silences *~
Sunlight woke her, stroking warm and golden along her cheek, so that she dream-smiled, and took a deep breath, expecting to smell sleep-warmed linen and the ghost of Molly’s laundry soap. Instead, her dreams filled with damp leaves, dust, and the soft, woolen rot of timbers long neglected. That, and the parchment-pachouli-and-ginger scent of Luna’s skin.
Dreaming shattered, Ginny opened her eyes, and dazzled for a moment at the brilliant gold of the sun. Luna mumbled as Ginny flinched, but cuddled close into the curve of Ginny’s body without waking. Her hair tickled Ginny’s nose, lit brilliant gold in the same sunlight that heated Ginny’s cheek…
Sunlight?
Ginny turned to look behind her and gasped. One whole wall of the shack had collapsed outward, taking a goodly bit of the roof along with it. The staircase on which they had lurked the night before was a twisted ruin, the upper hallway hanging like a lopsided grin out over the remains. Luna’s goggles dangled from a spar of wood, both lenses cracked and milky with dust.
Shivering and fully awake now, Ginny sat up, careful not to pull Luna’s hair as she took stock. Someone had conjured a mattress beneath them - a new one, not the dusty mess from upstairs, and while there were no sheets or pillows, they had both been covered with a black robe while they slept.
Ginny closed her eyes, took a deep breath to still the nervy trembling in her belly. None of it had been a dream. All of it had been real.
A drift of voices from behind the standing half of the cottage distracted her before she could descend any farther into hysterics. The words were muffled and indistinct, the tones low and intense, but it was clear from the tenor pitch and baritone replies who was out there in the late morning sun.
I won’t listen, Ginny told herself sternly as she slipped from the makeshift bed. It isn’t my business what they say to each other… Only there was such tension in those voices, and though they weren’t actively shouting, how could she possibly forget how horrible Snape had always been to Harry before? And what if Snape had only said what he had when he’d been a ghost in order to get what he wanted? He was a Slytherin, and who knew how far he would go to get his way - it could all have been a lie, and if it was, then Harry would need someone to watch his back now…
And then she found herself at the window, peering through the shattered slats for a glimpse she still was not certain she ought to be stealing. There was Harry, in the dappled shade of the chestnut tree, rubbing the back of his neck, as though he could calm the blush staining his skin. She squinted as his collar shifted. Were those finger-bruises on his neck?
Oh.
Now she was blushing too. And oddly, uncomfortably aroused as the glimpse of Harry’s marked throat stirred half-forgotten dreams of two figures moving together in the darkness as though all the parts fit perfectly, of whispers more passionate than screams, of strange scents that tainted the gloom with fear and desperation and raw, animal lust.
Shaking it off, she resolutely turned her attention to Snape, who as usual, had sought the deeper shade, beside the old tree’s trunk. “Oh!” she gasped, then clapped a hand over her mouth. His hair! Gone were the ink-black locks, stringy with oil and neglect - Snape’s hair had gone shock-white, though it still hung lank and greasy about his face. Even his eyes seemed to have bleached away their intense blackness, though, as he cut a sharp glance at Ginny’s lookout, it was clear their power hadn’t faded at all.
She eased back from the window, and sternly commanded her knees to behave. She wasn’t trying to sneak into Potions class late, she was just looking out for Harry. That was all. She took a deep breath, and looked through again.
“I … I don’t really want to. Go, I mean,” Harry was saying. “It’s going to be a circus, most likely, and I’m… not really used to people much anymore.”
Snape’s smirk had also survived his brief uncarnation, it seemed. “Then do what needs doing, and leave when you’ve done. Celebrities may pitch tantrums and storm away when they grow weary of their worshippers, after all.”
“I doubt it’ll be all that easy though. Especially the Aurors. I doubt there’s anybody in the Ministry that’s still got any real authority over them. Who they’ll listen to, or who can be trusted.” Harry grimaced. “I think I’m going to have to talk to the press.”
Snape nodded, and brushed irritably at a wispy tickle of hair on his cheek. “I shall be tried in the press no matter what the Auror corp or any provisional government attempts,” he said, his strange, pale eyes intent on Harry’s fidgeting. “And you ought to remember what the press is like when it goes unfed - if you hope to avoid murdering some reporter or other in the coming weeks, you had better cultivate their good opinion from the start. After you’ve spoken to the Order, tell Minerva you wish to set up a press meeting, and give her the date. The old busybody will cheerfully hash out the rest.”
“It’ll still take time…” Harry sighed, and peered away through the trees, to where Hogwarts’ Astronomy Tower was only just visible. “I’m af…” He chewed off the words, then glanced at Snape again. “Will you wait? Please? I mean, after everything I can understand why you wouldn’t want to, with everything that’s happened, and… all that’ll probably still happen, but I just… I don’t know what to…” a vague wave of his hand took in the shack, and suddenly the blush was back. “do…” he finished lamely.
At that, Snape smiled - a real smile, not twisted with bitterness, or irony-stained. It was a gentle thing, quiet and quick, and so completely new on that face that Ginny could not be certain it had really happened. Then he left the shadows to take hold of Harry’s arm.
“Just… whatever else happens, or… doesn’t happen… Please be here when I come back?” Harry asked, staring at the white fingers as they curled around his sleeve.
“Look at me,” Snape said, and caught his chin. “What you said about courage is true. Whatever else is to come, you will never be able to say that I am a coward.” And with that, Snape kissed him.
“Oh dear…” said Luna’s mournful voice behind her.
Ginny turned, heart in her mouth, tripping over excuses for her spying, but Luna was on her knees at the edge of the mattress, pieces of broken wood in one hand, and shards of black stone in the other. “They’re ruined,” she sighed, spreading what was left of the wand and stone on her skirt. “I suppose that spell was just too much…”
Ginny smiled, blinked away the haunting wetness at her eyes, and decided not to mention the ruin of Luna’s goggles just yet. “It doesn’t matter,” she said and knelt to take Luna into her arms and kiss her as soundly as she had been longing to do since the moment she’d caught sight of that curling, golden hair in the Room of Requirement.
Luna made a soft, surprised noise but curled at once into her arms and answered the wordless declaration with equal fervor. When at length they slowed, and finally broke apart enough to sip the air through damp, heated lips, gravity had carried them down to sprawl once more. Ginny half-covered Luna’s slighter form, legs entwined, one arm braced to lessen her weight, but still enough to pin her firmly, possessively down.
Luna’s hand stroked the small of her back, just where her blouse had pulled loose from her trousers, the contact as reassuring as it was maddeningly erotic. Then Luna smiled, and the sun caught fire in her blue eyes. “You don’t have to, you know,” she breathed as Ginny leaned down to kiss and lick the hollow of her throat.
“Want to,” Ginny mumbled, unwilling to give up the salty skin. “God, I want to…” She pushed Luna’s jumper up over her belly, and reached beneath.
“Mmmm, that’s nice…” Luna encouraged her with a roll of her hips. “Choose though, I meant -- you don’t have to choose. Not right now, at least.”
Ginny pulled back, alarmed to feel the blood burn in her cheeks. “I… what?”
Luna gave a smile, knowing, sad, and sweet, and stroked her hair from her brow. “I've shared you with Harry for years now, Ginny. I don't mind it."
Somehow, that didn’t help the blush at all. Ginny pushed up to her knees, straightening her clothes with frustrated tugs while she scrambled for the words to explain. "Luna, when I thought I'd lost you...” her voice broke. She swallowed hard and tried again. “When I thought...” Oh, blast it all, why couldn’t she get this right?
She wound a fist in her hair, bracing herself with the slight pain. “I love you, all right?” she finally managed. “I didn’t realize it because I’m a bit of an idiot about seeing what’s been right in front of me all along, but I have!” The words were a revelation to her, even as they spilled from her lips, but her breast rang with the truth of them, and Ginny didn’t once think of damming them up, now they’d finally begun to flow. “I don’t know when I began to - maybe when you blew up Pluto to keep that Death Eater off me in the Department of Mysteries, or maybe back when we used to play together in the bramble patch, but...” she heaved a great, bracing sigh, and reached for Luna’s hand. “I loved you before I knew I did, but I thought I wanted…” Embarassed, she dropped her gaze, watched their entwined fingers while she searched for the words.
“Harry was so…” Brave, lonely, handsome, tragic, noble, all I thought I wanted, But no, none of that was right. She took a deep breath and tried again. “I thought I’d have to be so… perfect to make him… Oh, damn it!” That wasn’t right either. It wasn’t about Harry! She leaned down close again, and sought Luna’s eyes beseechingly. “I always loved you though, and when I thought I’d lost you, it nearly destroyed me. Harry, I think I can do without. You, though…” Again the words failed her, and when Luna gathered her head down to lay on her smooth breast, Ginny yielded to the comfort with gratitude.
“And anyway,” she sniffed after a moment, “I'm not sure Harry loves me. Not after all that’s happened."
"Hush,” Luna commanded and stroked Ginny’s hair. “Of course he does. Anyone could see that.”
“Unless they saw how he kissed Snape just now.” Ginny muttered grudgingly and was immediately ashamed of herself.
“What does that have to do with anything?” protested Luna, releasing Ginny as she pulled back. “They’ve always cared so much about each other, it’s no surprise that there should be love behind it, but why should that change what Harry feels for you? All Harry and Professor Snape really know how to do with each other yet, is to fight, and that’s hardly sustainable, is it? Harry will need to love you right now just as much as he’ll need to love Snape.”
“But that’s…” protested Ginny, thinking of her parents’s single-minded devotion to each other. “That’s not how it’s meant to work!”
“It could, though,” Luna insisted, sitting up. “Arithmantically, Love is one of the unquantifiables, you know. It has no measure, and no sum, and can only be tracked by its effects on the figures around it. So why should it work any differently when it’s people instead of equations? Why should a person’s capacity for love be finite at all?” She gestured grandly, warming to her argument in a way Ginny had never seen in the easy-going girl before. “And why should Harry have to choose only one person to love? Why should you? Why should anyone have to shut off love just because it doesn’t come from the direction they expect?”
Having no answer to that, Ginny just shook her head.
Luna beamed. “Exactly! You know, I don’t think the Professor’s all that good at being in love, so I expect he’ll probably need some time to get comfortable with it. Harry’s going to have so much to set straight now, and there’s your family, and my father, and who knows what state the Quibbler will be in now-“
Ginny laughed, and nodded. “Utter chaos. You’re right.”
“So who says anybody has to decide anything right away?” Luna agreed, as though it were all no more complicated than that. “It’s impulsive, jumping to conclusions so quickly; it makes for sloppy research. I think we all need more time to collect and analyze the data before we could possibly make an informed choice on how to proceed."
“You are SUCH a Ravenclaw!” Ginny laughed, uncertain whether she was alarmed by the idea or enthralled by it. Whatever the sudden ferocity in her breast meant, though, Ginny firmly decided it could just wait for her to get around to sorting it out.
“And what does that have to do with anything either?” Luna challenged, locating her wand and tucking it behind her ear.
Ginny kissed her, and murmured, “Everything.”
But it was plain the moment had to pass. The day was marching onward, as the sun’s angle through the shattered roof proved, and they both knew there would be people worried when they were not where they were expected to be. Luna went first, Apparating to the post owlery in Hogsmeade, so she could let her father know that she was safe. He had, understandably, been more than usually protective of her since Christmas.
Ginny, not yet ready to face down the clamour of her family, lingered behind. For all Luna’s optimism, there was one thing, at least, that Ginny knew very well could not be put off - not without growing into something dark, angry, and suspicious. The day was just too bright and beautiful for such a grim neglect as that.
Snape was back under the tree when she made her way out of the Shrieking shack, apparently at ease in a chair that had clearly been transfigured from stray wreckage and fallen branches. His face was turned steadily toward Hogwarts.
Ginny watched him for a long, silent moment, until it occurred to her that he must realize she was there, and most likely, he was waiting to see what she was going to do. Strangely, it was almost kind of charming.
When she did leave the shelter of the eaves and made her way across the rubble, he glanced at her, offered a sober nod, and then went back to his silent reverie.
Not fooled, Ginny conjured a seat for herself beside him. "How are you feeling, Sir?" she asked and sat.
That won another glance, all eyebrow, but after a moment, he answered, "Better than I had any reason to hope. Thank you. Did you...” he gestured vaguely with the hand that had rested on his knee, “sleep well?"
Ginny blushed, and couldn’t help giggling. "Yeah. And...thanks. For the bed, I mean. That floor was pretty grotty."
“Potter's idea." He waved the thanks away, and while she didn’t believe his demurral, she decided not to call him on it and risk ruining the strange parity between them now.
"You tried to tell me, didn't you?" she ventured after a long moment of watching the birds flit about the chestnut tree's branches. "At New Year's, when you came to the Burrow for me."
His pale eyes cut briefly to her face, then away. "Don't be absurd."
"You did, though. You tried to warn me that he might…” She checked herself, and forced the truth out. “That he was going to die. And you tried to make me pull myself together so when it happened, it wouldn't…” kill me too. The words were too close, still, the shadow of that horrid despair not long-enough banished for her to quite dare speaking of it yet. "You were trying to teach me how to carry on without hope."
He didn’t reply for a long time, but Ginny was pretty sure his silence was not a rebuttal. At length, Snape sighed and steepled his fingers under his nose. "Hope is a luxury to which not all of us can afford to become accustomed."
The shame of it, really, was that he was probably right.
"I think I might be able to loan you some," she found herself murmuring, thinking of Luna's calm, blue gaze, and the way she always seemed to see the best way things could possibly work out. After a moment, Snape turned to meet her regard, and though his colourless eyes and hair were still a shock, there was something more open, more honest about his regard, something more frank and level that gave her courage to hold his gaze as she never had done before. "At least,” she added, “Until you get used to having your own."
His brow clouded, a gathering of storm as he searched her eyes. But after a moment, he snorted, and the threatening scowl eased into a smirk. "I am glad your eyes are brown, Miss Weasley."
"Oh?” She blinked, and touched her cheek self-consciously. “Er…why?"
"Because if you were to look at me so, with your red hair, and green eyes,” he said, still staring as though he meant to look straight through her head, “and say such a thing to me, I believe I should most likely hate you very deeply indeed."
"Oh,” she said, pretending those words hadn’t sent a chill down her spine. “Are you sure you don't hate me anyway?" she ventured, not because she expected a denial, but because she rather thought she had better know it if she had a true enemy in the man.
He snorted and turned back to watch the school’s towers again. "No, I do not.”
“Good,” she said. “Because I don’t hate you either. Bit of a surprise, really.”
A sardonic glance; “No doubt.” Then he sighed, and stretched out his long legs, propping them on a twist of tree root. “I am inclined, I suspect, to jealousy,” he told her. “Whatever else may befall us all now, I doubt my temperament will deviate from its accustomed course. Death does not seem to have changed me all that much.” Ginny wasn’t sure she agreed with him, but thought she might as well hold her tongue. If he noticed her smile, he didn’t comment. “However... it seems I have rather more optimism than usual,” he finished. “It is somewhat unsettling."
At that, Ginny had to laugh. "Yeah,” she agreed and rocked her chair back against the tree. “Harry has that effect on people. He makes them believe in miracles."
Snape gave that tiny flash of smile again and said, "I had noticed that, yes.” Then his face was serious once again, grim and weary, as though such unaccustomed faith exhausted him.
Through the trees, a flicker of red appeared, another, darker flash of movement just by him. Harry, Ginny thought, and her heart gave a lurch of hope.
“He is not alone,” Snape’s voice was wary, and he gathered his feet under him, as though he meant to leap up and Apparate away at once.
Ginny caught his arm. “It’s Ron,” she told him and tried to make her smile reassuring. “Look how close behind he’s flying. “Ronnie never lets Harry get too far away, if he can help it.” She cut a sly look at Snape and released his sleeve as he settled once more. “I should warn you, that’s not always easy to deal with.”
His snort was eloquent reply, and she supposed, snickering herself, that she ought to be glad he hadn’t told her to go teach her gran to suck eggs.
They watched the young men approach in silence for a few moments, then Snape gave a sigh, and turned a level stare on Ginny once again. “Do you believe,” he asked her, standing and offering his hand to help her up as well, “-that you can share him with the rest of the world... with me, and not hate me for it? Do you honestly believe this... arrangement your Miss Lovegood has dreamt up can succeed?"
Well… it was pretty clearly something Luna would have thought of, she had to admit. She took his hand and got to her feet, considering. Though they’d not yet spoken of what had happened, what had not, and what it might have meant, Ginny supposed Snape was sharp enough to have gleaned the heart of the matter aright. But how to answer him? Did she know enough to guess? Was hope enough to be going on with? And how deeply could fear undermine it if she didn’t watch out? The boys were nearly there, though. They were calling directions to one another over the treetops, and so there was no time to wind the question up into knots. It was nothing that could be discussed in front of Harry, and absolutely not in front of Ron!
Daring and determined, Ginny looped her arm through Snape’s, and offered up a weary, but cheeky grin. "It'll take a miracle."
To part 3
Author: Cluegirl
Type: Fiction
Length: Novella -- words.
Main character or Pairing: Ginny/Luna, with a side of Harry/Snape.
Rating: NC17
Canon compliancy: Shooting for canon compliance. If you squint.
Disclaimer: All HP characters are the sole intellectual property of JKRowling, whom I am not. Therefore, I make no profit from this use.
Warnings: Graphic descriptions of childbirth, but aside from that, it's pretty vanilla.
Summary: Harry is not the only one who must struggle for a sense of self against the expectations of others; Ginny's dreams are heavily mortgaged too. It takes a brush with tragedy to alert her to the very real possibility of losing all, if she does not take matters into her own hands.
Cards Drawn: The Empress, the Ace of Swords reversed, and Strength.
Card Interpretation: The Empress -- satisfaction, a competent woman spinning the future from the present.
The Ace of Swords, reversed -- Words, or the threat of them, used to destroy. A silence that is destructive. A refusal, or inability to speak up when words are needed
Strength -- Power, energy, a calm and soothing conviction. Fearlessness.
Author Notes: Thanks to the League of Extraordinary Betae: Jenna_Thorn, emessann, amanuensis1, and kaiz. And also, my plot doctor, the ever-patient aquila_dominus. The title of the song, and the verses used at the chapter heads come from the song Bullet, by Covenant.
Part 1, Part 2
~* Angels of the Silences *~
Sunlight woke her, stroking warm and golden along her cheek, so that she dream-smiled, and took a deep breath, expecting to smell sleep-warmed linen and the ghost of Molly’s laundry soap. Instead, her dreams filled with damp leaves, dust, and the soft, woolen rot of timbers long neglected. That, and the parchment-pachouli-and-ginger scent of Luna’s skin.
Dreaming shattered, Ginny opened her eyes, and dazzled for a moment at the brilliant gold of the sun. Luna mumbled as Ginny flinched, but cuddled close into the curve of Ginny’s body without waking. Her hair tickled Ginny’s nose, lit brilliant gold in the same sunlight that heated Ginny’s cheek…
Sunlight?
Ginny turned to look behind her and gasped. One whole wall of the shack had collapsed outward, taking a goodly bit of the roof along with it. The staircase on which they had lurked the night before was a twisted ruin, the upper hallway hanging like a lopsided grin out over the remains. Luna’s goggles dangled from a spar of wood, both lenses cracked and milky with dust.
Shivering and fully awake now, Ginny sat up, careful not to pull Luna’s hair as she took stock. Someone had conjured a mattress beneath them - a new one, not the dusty mess from upstairs, and while there were no sheets or pillows, they had both been covered with a black robe while they slept.
Ginny closed her eyes, took a deep breath to still the nervy trembling in her belly. None of it had been a dream. All of it had been real.
A drift of voices from behind the standing half of the cottage distracted her before she could descend any farther into hysterics. The words were muffled and indistinct, the tones low and intense, but it was clear from the tenor pitch and baritone replies who was out there in the late morning sun.
I won’t listen, Ginny told herself sternly as she slipped from the makeshift bed. It isn’t my business what they say to each other… Only there was such tension in those voices, and though they weren’t actively shouting, how could she possibly forget how horrible Snape had always been to Harry before? And what if Snape had only said what he had when he’d been a ghost in order to get what he wanted? He was a Slytherin, and who knew how far he would go to get his way - it could all have been a lie, and if it was, then Harry would need someone to watch his back now…
And then she found herself at the window, peering through the shattered slats for a glimpse she still was not certain she ought to be stealing. There was Harry, in the dappled shade of the chestnut tree, rubbing the back of his neck, as though he could calm the blush staining his skin. She squinted as his collar shifted. Were those finger-bruises on his neck?
Oh.
Now she was blushing too. And oddly, uncomfortably aroused as the glimpse of Harry’s marked throat stirred half-forgotten dreams of two figures moving together in the darkness as though all the parts fit perfectly, of whispers more passionate than screams, of strange scents that tainted the gloom with fear and desperation and raw, animal lust.
Shaking it off, she resolutely turned her attention to Snape, who as usual, had sought the deeper shade, beside the old tree’s trunk. “Oh!” she gasped, then clapped a hand over her mouth. His hair! Gone were the ink-black locks, stringy with oil and neglect - Snape’s hair had gone shock-white, though it still hung lank and greasy about his face. Even his eyes seemed to have bleached away their intense blackness, though, as he cut a sharp glance at Ginny’s lookout, it was clear their power hadn’t faded at all.
She eased back from the window, and sternly commanded her knees to behave. She wasn’t trying to sneak into Potions class late, she was just looking out for Harry. That was all. She took a deep breath, and looked through again.
“I … I don’t really want to. Go, I mean,” Harry was saying. “It’s going to be a circus, most likely, and I’m… not really used to people much anymore.”
Snape’s smirk had also survived his brief uncarnation, it seemed. “Then do what needs doing, and leave when you’ve done. Celebrities may pitch tantrums and storm away when they grow weary of their worshippers, after all.”
“I doubt it’ll be all that easy though. Especially the Aurors. I doubt there’s anybody in the Ministry that’s still got any real authority over them. Who they’ll listen to, or who can be trusted.” Harry grimaced. “I think I’m going to have to talk to the press.”
Snape nodded, and brushed irritably at a wispy tickle of hair on his cheek. “I shall be tried in the press no matter what the Auror corp or any provisional government attempts,” he said, his strange, pale eyes intent on Harry’s fidgeting. “And you ought to remember what the press is like when it goes unfed - if you hope to avoid murdering some reporter or other in the coming weeks, you had better cultivate their good opinion from the start. After you’ve spoken to the Order, tell Minerva you wish to set up a press meeting, and give her the date. The old busybody will cheerfully hash out the rest.”
“It’ll still take time…” Harry sighed, and peered away through the trees, to where Hogwarts’ Astronomy Tower was only just visible. “I’m af…” He chewed off the words, then glanced at Snape again. “Will you wait? Please? I mean, after everything I can understand why you wouldn’t want to, with everything that’s happened, and… all that’ll probably still happen, but I just… I don’t know what to…” a vague wave of his hand took in the shack, and suddenly the blush was back. “do…” he finished lamely.
At that, Snape smiled - a real smile, not twisted with bitterness, or irony-stained. It was a gentle thing, quiet and quick, and so completely new on that face that Ginny could not be certain it had really happened. Then he left the shadows to take hold of Harry’s arm.
“Just… whatever else happens, or… doesn’t happen… Please be here when I come back?” Harry asked, staring at the white fingers as they curled around his sleeve.
“Look at me,” Snape said, and caught his chin. “What you said about courage is true. Whatever else is to come, you will never be able to say that I am a coward.” And with that, Snape kissed him.
“Oh dear…” said Luna’s mournful voice behind her.
Ginny turned, heart in her mouth, tripping over excuses for her spying, but Luna was on her knees at the edge of the mattress, pieces of broken wood in one hand, and shards of black stone in the other. “They’re ruined,” she sighed, spreading what was left of the wand and stone on her skirt. “I suppose that spell was just too much…”
Ginny smiled, blinked away the haunting wetness at her eyes, and decided not to mention the ruin of Luna’s goggles just yet. “It doesn’t matter,” she said and knelt to take Luna into her arms and kiss her as soundly as she had been longing to do since the moment she’d caught sight of that curling, golden hair in the Room of Requirement.
Luna made a soft, surprised noise but curled at once into her arms and answered the wordless declaration with equal fervor. When at length they slowed, and finally broke apart enough to sip the air through damp, heated lips, gravity had carried them down to sprawl once more. Ginny half-covered Luna’s slighter form, legs entwined, one arm braced to lessen her weight, but still enough to pin her firmly, possessively down.
Luna’s hand stroked the small of her back, just where her blouse had pulled loose from her trousers, the contact as reassuring as it was maddeningly erotic. Then Luna smiled, and the sun caught fire in her blue eyes. “You don’t have to, you know,” she breathed as Ginny leaned down to kiss and lick the hollow of her throat.
“Want to,” Ginny mumbled, unwilling to give up the salty skin. “God, I want to…” She pushed Luna’s jumper up over her belly, and reached beneath.
“Mmmm, that’s nice…” Luna encouraged her with a roll of her hips. “Choose though, I meant -- you don’t have to choose. Not right now, at least.”
Ginny pulled back, alarmed to feel the blood burn in her cheeks. “I… what?”
Luna gave a smile, knowing, sad, and sweet, and stroked her hair from her brow. “I've shared you with Harry for years now, Ginny. I don't mind it."
Somehow, that didn’t help the blush at all. Ginny pushed up to her knees, straightening her clothes with frustrated tugs while she scrambled for the words to explain. "Luna, when I thought I'd lost you...” her voice broke. She swallowed hard and tried again. “When I thought...” Oh, blast it all, why couldn’t she get this right?
She wound a fist in her hair, bracing herself with the slight pain. “I love you, all right?” she finally managed. “I didn’t realize it because I’m a bit of an idiot about seeing what’s been right in front of me all along, but I have!” The words were a revelation to her, even as they spilled from her lips, but her breast rang with the truth of them, and Ginny didn’t once think of damming them up, now they’d finally begun to flow. “I don’t know when I began to - maybe when you blew up Pluto to keep that Death Eater off me in the Department of Mysteries, or maybe back when we used to play together in the bramble patch, but...” she heaved a great, bracing sigh, and reached for Luna’s hand. “I loved you before I knew I did, but I thought I wanted…” Embarassed, she dropped her gaze, watched their entwined fingers while she searched for the words.
“Harry was so…” Brave, lonely, handsome, tragic, noble, all I thought I wanted, But no, none of that was right. She took a deep breath and tried again. “I thought I’d have to be so… perfect to make him… Oh, damn it!” That wasn’t right either. It wasn’t about Harry! She leaned down close again, and sought Luna’s eyes beseechingly. “I always loved you though, and when I thought I’d lost you, it nearly destroyed me. Harry, I think I can do without. You, though…” Again the words failed her, and when Luna gathered her head down to lay on her smooth breast, Ginny yielded to the comfort with gratitude.
“And anyway,” she sniffed after a moment, “I'm not sure Harry loves me. Not after all that’s happened."
"Hush,” Luna commanded and stroked Ginny’s hair. “Of course he does. Anyone could see that.”
“Unless they saw how he kissed Snape just now.” Ginny muttered grudgingly and was immediately ashamed of herself.
“What does that have to do with anything?” protested Luna, releasing Ginny as she pulled back. “They’ve always cared so much about each other, it’s no surprise that there should be love behind it, but why should that change what Harry feels for you? All Harry and Professor Snape really know how to do with each other yet, is to fight, and that’s hardly sustainable, is it? Harry will need to love you right now just as much as he’ll need to love Snape.”
“But that’s…” protested Ginny, thinking of her parents’s single-minded devotion to each other. “That’s not how it’s meant to work!”
“It could, though,” Luna insisted, sitting up. “Arithmantically, Love is one of the unquantifiables, you know. It has no measure, and no sum, and can only be tracked by its effects on the figures around it. So why should it work any differently when it’s people instead of equations? Why should a person’s capacity for love be finite at all?” She gestured grandly, warming to her argument in a way Ginny had never seen in the easy-going girl before. “And why should Harry have to choose only one person to love? Why should you? Why should anyone have to shut off love just because it doesn’t come from the direction they expect?”
Having no answer to that, Ginny just shook her head.
Luna beamed. “Exactly! You know, I don’t think the Professor’s all that good at being in love, so I expect he’ll probably need some time to get comfortable with it. Harry’s going to have so much to set straight now, and there’s your family, and my father, and who knows what state the Quibbler will be in now-“
Ginny laughed, and nodded. “Utter chaos. You’re right.”
“So who says anybody has to decide anything right away?” Luna agreed, as though it were all no more complicated than that. “It’s impulsive, jumping to conclusions so quickly; it makes for sloppy research. I think we all need more time to collect and analyze the data before we could possibly make an informed choice on how to proceed."
“You are SUCH a Ravenclaw!” Ginny laughed, uncertain whether she was alarmed by the idea or enthralled by it. Whatever the sudden ferocity in her breast meant, though, Ginny firmly decided it could just wait for her to get around to sorting it out.
“And what does that have to do with anything either?” Luna challenged, locating her wand and tucking it behind her ear.
Ginny kissed her, and murmured, “Everything.”
But it was plain the moment had to pass. The day was marching onward, as the sun’s angle through the shattered roof proved, and they both knew there would be people worried when they were not where they were expected to be. Luna went first, Apparating to the post owlery in Hogsmeade, so she could let her father know that she was safe. He had, understandably, been more than usually protective of her since Christmas.
Ginny, not yet ready to face down the clamour of her family, lingered behind. For all Luna’s optimism, there was one thing, at least, that Ginny knew very well could not be put off - not without growing into something dark, angry, and suspicious. The day was just too bright and beautiful for such a grim neglect as that.
Snape was back under the tree when she made her way out of the Shrieking shack, apparently at ease in a chair that had clearly been transfigured from stray wreckage and fallen branches. His face was turned steadily toward Hogwarts.
Ginny watched him for a long, silent moment, until it occurred to her that he must realize she was there, and most likely, he was waiting to see what she was going to do. Strangely, it was almost kind of charming.
When she did leave the shelter of the eaves and made her way across the rubble, he glanced at her, offered a sober nod, and then went back to his silent reverie.
Not fooled, Ginny conjured a seat for herself beside him. "How are you feeling, Sir?" she asked and sat.
That won another glance, all eyebrow, but after a moment, he answered, "Better than I had any reason to hope. Thank you. Did you...” he gestured vaguely with the hand that had rested on his knee, “sleep well?"
Ginny blushed, and couldn’t help giggling. "Yeah. And...thanks. For the bed, I mean. That floor was pretty grotty."
“Potter's idea." He waved the thanks away, and while she didn’t believe his demurral, she decided not to call him on it and risk ruining the strange parity between them now.
"You tried to tell me, didn't you?" she ventured after a long moment of watching the birds flit about the chestnut tree's branches. "At New Year's, when you came to the Burrow for me."
His pale eyes cut briefly to her face, then away. "Don't be absurd."
"You did, though. You tried to warn me that he might…” She checked herself, and forced the truth out. “That he was going to die. And you tried to make me pull myself together so when it happened, it wouldn't…” kill me too. The words were too close, still, the shadow of that horrid despair not long-enough banished for her to quite dare speaking of it yet. "You were trying to teach me how to carry on without hope."
He didn’t reply for a long time, but Ginny was pretty sure his silence was not a rebuttal. At length, Snape sighed and steepled his fingers under his nose. "Hope is a luxury to which not all of us can afford to become accustomed."
The shame of it, really, was that he was probably right.
"I think I might be able to loan you some," she found herself murmuring, thinking of Luna's calm, blue gaze, and the way she always seemed to see the best way things could possibly work out. After a moment, Snape turned to meet her regard, and though his colourless eyes and hair were still a shock, there was something more open, more honest about his regard, something more frank and level that gave her courage to hold his gaze as she never had done before. "At least,” she added, “Until you get used to having your own."
His brow clouded, a gathering of storm as he searched her eyes. But after a moment, he snorted, and the threatening scowl eased into a smirk. "I am glad your eyes are brown, Miss Weasley."
"Oh?” She blinked, and touched her cheek self-consciously. “Er…why?"
"Because if you were to look at me so, with your red hair, and green eyes,” he said, still staring as though he meant to look straight through her head, “and say such a thing to me, I believe I should most likely hate you very deeply indeed."
"Oh,” she said, pretending those words hadn’t sent a chill down her spine. “Are you sure you don't hate me anyway?" she ventured, not because she expected a denial, but because she rather thought she had better know it if she had a true enemy in the man.
He snorted and turned back to watch the school’s towers again. "No, I do not.”
“Good,” she said. “Because I don’t hate you either. Bit of a surprise, really.”
A sardonic glance; “No doubt.” Then he sighed, and stretched out his long legs, propping them on a twist of tree root. “I am inclined, I suspect, to jealousy,” he told her. “Whatever else may befall us all now, I doubt my temperament will deviate from its accustomed course. Death does not seem to have changed me all that much.” Ginny wasn’t sure she agreed with him, but thought she might as well hold her tongue. If he noticed her smile, he didn’t comment. “However... it seems I have rather more optimism than usual,” he finished. “It is somewhat unsettling."
At that, Ginny had to laugh. "Yeah,” she agreed and rocked her chair back against the tree. “Harry has that effect on people. He makes them believe in miracles."
Snape gave that tiny flash of smile again and said, "I had noticed that, yes.” Then his face was serious once again, grim and weary, as though such unaccustomed faith exhausted him.
Through the trees, a flicker of red appeared, another, darker flash of movement just by him. Harry, Ginny thought, and her heart gave a lurch of hope.
“He is not alone,” Snape’s voice was wary, and he gathered his feet under him, as though he meant to leap up and Apparate away at once.
Ginny caught his arm. “It’s Ron,” she told him and tried to make her smile reassuring. “Look how close behind he’s flying. “Ronnie never lets Harry get too far away, if he can help it.” She cut a sly look at Snape and released his sleeve as he settled once more. “I should warn you, that’s not always easy to deal with.”
His snort was eloquent reply, and she supposed, snickering herself, that she ought to be glad he hadn’t told her to go teach her gran to suck eggs.
They watched the young men approach in silence for a few moments, then Snape gave a sigh, and turned a level stare on Ginny once again. “Do you believe,” he asked her, standing and offering his hand to help her up as well, “-that you can share him with the rest of the world... with me, and not hate me for it? Do you honestly believe this... arrangement your Miss Lovegood has dreamt up can succeed?"
Well… it was pretty clearly something Luna would have thought of, she had to admit. She took his hand and got to her feet, considering. Though they’d not yet spoken of what had happened, what had not, and what it might have meant, Ginny supposed Snape was sharp enough to have gleaned the heart of the matter aright. But how to answer him? Did she know enough to guess? Was hope enough to be going on with? And how deeply could fear undermine it if she didn’t watch out? The boys were nearly there, though. They were calling directions to one another over the treetops, and so there was no time to wind the question up into knots. It was nothing that could be discussed in front of Harry, and absolutely not in front of Ron!
Daring and determined, Ginny looped her arm through Snape’s, and offered up a weary, but cheeky grin. "It'll take a miracle."
To part 3