We Shine Like Stars. (Fic, GW/LL, SS/HP, NC17 -- 3/7)
Title: We Shine Like Stars 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, Part 2a,
~* Harpies, Headlines, and Getting Airborn *~
Time is like a blanket on my face: I try to be here just like you.
“Hey Gin,” Ron said over the squeal of the workshed door. “I brought you some pudding. It’s plum tarts, and I know they’re your-“
“Thanks.” Ginny snarled, scrubbing at her mud-caked shin pads. “Now go away please.”
He didn’t, of course. Ginny bit back a curse as he nudged her boots off the end of the bench, and sat down beside her. Then she rubbed the saddle soap in harder, and commenced to ignore him for all she was worth. She was not going to talk about it! She just was not!
“You’ll want to eat them before they get cold,” he said after a moment.
Ginny flung the rag at the wall and whirled. Ron’s gaze didn’t flinch as she grabbed the nearest tart from the plate and shoved half of it into her mouth in one go. She nearly choked, eyes watering as the filling scalded her tongue, but she fiercely willed the urge down and chewed it to bits.
“Vere,” she mumbled savagely, then shoved the other half into her mouth as well. “Haffy?”
Ron rolled his eyes and set the plate on his knee so he could search his pockets. “Oh, for pity’s sake… Here,” he said and pushed a handkerchief at her. “There’s jam on your nose.” Worse yet, he sat there and watched in silence while Ginny scrubbed it, and the aggravating wetness at her eyes, away. She took a long, shuddering breath, trying to cool her singed tongue. She could hear the clank of dishes through the open kitchen window, but the wireless hum nearly drowned it out. Mum was probably still in there, crying under cover of her housekeeping.
Damn it! Ginny sat upright, flipped her hair over her shoulder, and reached for her shinguard again. “You don’t have to hover.” She tried her best not to sound grudging. “I’m not going to fall apart or anything.”
“I know,” he said, edging Dad’s box of phone and wireless pieces to the edge of the upper bench so he could set the plate aside. “I didn’t come to check up on you.” At Ginny’s disbelieving snort, he spread his hands in emphatic innocence. “I didn’t! I know you can take care of yourself. I just came out to tell you; about that contract-“
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Ginny rounded on him. “Can’t you people give it a rest?! It was a stupid idea! It’s selfish, and it’s childish, and I should grow up and stop playing silly games, and I should have known better than to even bring the stupid bloody contract home with me! I KNOW THAT, ALL RIGHT?!”
“I think you should sign it.”
“I KNOW! I BLOODY WELL-” Ginny flung her shinguard at the bench, then stopped, blinking. “Wait. I should? What?”
He grinned at her in just that aggravating way he always used to do whenever he got to go off with Harry and Hermione and leave her behind because she was too little and couldn’t keep up, and MERLIN, but she hated that grin. Only there was something different about it this time. Something that stopped her going for her wand and hexing every freckle on his face into flames.
“You ought to sign it,” he said again, slower this time. “It’s only a reserve position, and the pay’s no great shakes, but it’s a ground level position on a pro team, Gin! How many seventh year students get an offer like that one?” Wordless and stunned, Ginny nodded and let herself sink down to the bench again. “Sure, it’ll be a lot of work," he went on, "and with training camp and away games you’ll be gone a lot, but it’s no worse than now, with you being away at Hogwarts, is it?”
She shook her head. “Not… not really, I guess. But mum’s really-“
He shook his head and caught her hand from its vague wave toward the kitchen. “Gin, don’t you remember what she was like the summer after my sixth year? When she did everything except lock me, Harry and Hermione into different trunks to try and keep us under wraps?” She nodded, and by degrees, relaxed her fingers so they curled around his broad, strong Keeper’s hand. “You know she gets like this whenever one of us steps outside of her game plan. You’re too young to remember the bloody row over Charlie going off to Romania, but I know you recall how she was when Fr-“ he swallowed, looked down. “When the twins left Hogwarts early.”
Ginny gave his fingers a squeeze but let the slip pass. He was right, after all - the telling off they’d gotten after they’d tried to raid the Prophecy Room at the Ministry of Magic had been epic. “It’s not the same though,” she ventured after a moment. “She’s always let you boys be boys, and she nags you, but she doesn’t strangle you the way she-“
“Gin, she had six boys because she wanted you!” Ron said, giving her hand an exasperated shake. “You’re her favorite, and you have been since the day the Midwitch told her you were going to be a girl! That kind of thing comes with its downside, yeah, but don’t pretend you haven’t milked it for all you could get, when it suited you, because I bloody well have watched you do it!” Like when Mum had given Ron ten times worse a twisting over the Ministry thing on account of his having let Ginny come along into harm’s way… He didn’t need to say it; they both knew what he meant.
“But you just said I should go against all her…” Ginny shook her hand loose and sketched a vague, labyrinthine tangle in the air. “And now you’re telling me to suck it up because getting smothered comes with the territory?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” he agreed. And damn it all, she couldn’t even go off on him, because she knew what he meant by it, and he was sort of right.
She gave her muddy boot a kick and sighed. “And what about Harry?” she asked. Because if they were going to rip the mess open and poke at its guts, then she supposed they’d better do it properly. “Mum’s not the only one who expects me to marry him, have babies, a crup, two kneazles, and a white picket fence.”
Ron made an extremely rude noise.
“What?” she protested. “Not a week goes by that there isn’t some rot or other in the papers, or on the wireless, or pasted in the bloody shop windows, for Merlin’s sake! Even Hermione’s on me constantly about 'have we set a date yet,' and 'what kind of ring do I want,' and all that rot! And you should see what a circus it turns into whenever Harry and I try to find a moment to ourselves! You’d think we were-“
He stopped her with a hand upraised and a rather dainty wince. “I’d rather not think what you were, if it’s all the same,” he told her.
She snickered, a little more helplessly than she’d meant to, but it felt good to finally get it out. “Anyway,” she went on, “it’s not that I don’t want to be with Harry. You know that, don’t you?”
To her consternation, Ron did not at once agree. “Ginny, you don’t know what you want.” He forestalled her protest with a hand on her shoulder and a grave look. “Listen to me, okay? Just listen for a moment, because I’m not just in here because you’re my sister. Harry’s my best mate, and even when he makes me completely mental, I have never, ever wanted to see him get hurt…” he waited for her nod, and once Ginny grudgingly gave it, went on.
“You don’t know what you want, because you can’t know what you want, because Mum’s still trying to yank you into line whenever you try and figure it out. And Harry doesn’t know what he wants either, because ever since he came to school, he’s had to be, and do, whatever the rest of the world wanted him to, see?”
“Well yes, but we waited for each other all last year!”
“And now both of you want something to show for all the waiting,” he agreed. “I can understand that, but here’s the thing, Gin: it isn’t just you two, is it?”
And there, of course, Ginny had to look away.
“Luna fits into it somehow, and no, I don’t want you to tell me just exactly how, because that isn’t my business, and I am absolutely not going to imagine my baby sister getting up to mischief with a skinny blonde- OW!”
“Enough of that, if you please,” Ginny said as he rubbed his shin. “Luna has plenty of curves, she just doesn’t much like tight clothing.” It really was kind of fun to watch him turn colours when she said such things.
“As I was saying before you so rudely tried to break my leg,” Ron soldiered on, “Luna’s a factor, and to be honest, even if Snape had really died in the shack, I still don’t think Harry would have… well… you see… Harry’s not quite as as…” he looked down, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, let’s just say you learn a lot about a bloke when you share a dorm room and showers with him for six years, if you follow?”
Ginny thought about the hectic flush of skin revealed in the glittering twilight; hair like pouring ink, like hoarfrost knotted tight around white knuckles, fiercely gripping; gasping, half-worded pleas, in a gloom that smelled of time inexorable; the desperate, beatific look Harry had turned to sky after Snape’s lips had drifted away from his. The memory came with a pang of longing, envy, and strangely, pride as well, that a boy who loved her - really loved her, -- could still be free to find such joy in her sight. Could still want to reach for her when morning came, and sunlight replaced the silver beams across his face.
Well… what could she do, but nod?
“Sorry, Gin,” Misreading her expression, Ron tried to be comforting. “It’s really nothing against you, but it was pretty obvious to me from as far back as fourth year. I think if Diggory or Oliver Wood had crooked a finger at Harry back then, you might not have got your chance at all.”
She huffed a laugh. “That just proves he fancies Quidditch players!” But then, in the spirit of honesty, she had to add, “And greasy, sarcastic bastards.”
Beside her, Ron sighed and shook his head. “I know. It’s bizarre, but… well, that’s why I think you and Harry need to have some time, and some space, before you let the whole world turn your lives into some kind of a public franchise, you know?”
Ginny gave him a sidelong look. “Your girlfriend doesn’t seem to hold to that line of reasoning,” she observed. “What am I meant to tell her when she starts nifflering after me?”
He shrugged. “Get her talking about arithmancy. That always works for me. By the time she winds down it’ll be either dinner time, or bedtime, and either way, she’ll have forgot what she got wound up over in the first place.”
“Or I could get her complaining about you,” Ginny answered with a laugh. “She can go on just as long with that yarn, after all.”
Ron’s answering grin was not the least bit ashamed. “She'll come around eventually, just like Mum will. Hermione doesn’t much like to be wrong, but it’s got to happen sometime or other. Kind of like me being right, huh?” He reached out, and pulled Ginny sidelong into a bony, awkward, brotherly smotherly hug that bobbled her head from side to side on her shoulders. It was hard, dizzying, perfect, and over as soon as it had begun.
“It’s your life, Gin,” Ron told her, standing before she’d recovered herself enough to elbow him a good one in the ribs. “It’s not Mum’s or Dad’s, it’s not Snape’s or Lovegood’s, it’s not Hermione’s, it’s not some reporter’s, and it’s not even Harry’s. It’s yours. You should live it for a while before you go tie it down to somebody else’s idea of what ought to be done.”
“Even if it’s Harry’s?”
“Especially if it’s Harry’s. He gets the stupidest ideas sometimes!” Then Ron stole one of her tarts, tipped her a wink, and left Ginny to get on with cleaning her gear.
And for once, Ginny felt no urge, as he walked away, to add any final words. For once Stinky Ronnie had her dead to rights.
~* Gargoyles, Goggles, and Dancing Shoes *~
“Who do you think he’ll ask to the ball?” Ginny mused, chin in hand, elbow resting on the gargoyle’s broken horn.
“Hmm?” Luna, who had been examining the clouds through a pair of goggles she had transfigured from a rose quartz sphere, (Ginny suspected Professor Trelawney would be wondering where it had got to, but she wasn’t about to accuse) rolled over, peering to follow the line of Ginny’s gaze. Harry was in the fountain court, tense and handsome as he faced down the Hufflepuff champion and a crowd of his housemates.
“Oh, probably Chang,” Luna shrugged, then turned to peer at a scrap of lichen just by her fingers. “They are dating, you know.”
Ice water in her face couldn’t have shocked Ginny more. Harry, dating that skinny, snotty little know-it-all, Chang? Impossible! She was on the point of saying so, when the brunette herself appeared in the courtyard, all smiles, and why should she not be if she was dating Harry Potter! Feeling a little sick, and a lot as though she might cry, Ginny pushed off the gargoyle and reached for her broom.
“Oh, you meant Harry Potter, didn’t you?” Luna’s calm, unaccusing voice pulled her tantrum up short. She hadn’t moved from her sprawl along the rainspout’s wings, but her attention seemed to have wandered away from the lichen and fixed on the courtyard at last.
Ginny grit her teeth. “Of course I meant-“ She blinked, then blushed as Chang stood up on tiptoe next to Diggory, kissing his cheek while Harry turned away. Oh. Oops. She settled back down again and tried not to be unnerved by how the pink, bulging goggles made Luna’s eyes seem like runny eggs with lavender and black yolks. “So who do you think Harry Potter will ask to the Yule Ball?” she clarified.
Luna shrugged but didn’t look down. Her wide, strange eyes were fixed on Ginny’s hair with an intensity that was even more alarming than Luna’s usual mild strangeness. Slowly, carefully, Luna put out a hand toward Ginny’s shoulder, as though she meant to catch a butterfly unawares, though a furtive glance showed Ginny only her own hair, spun out over her jumper in a great, ginger drift. Then Luna’s fingertip skated the air just above the strands, so close, so careful that Ginny was hard pressed to quell the urge to shiver. It almost tickled.
“What are you doing?” she managed to ask.
“You’re…” those fingers, pale with the cold and height, made another pass, this time just grazing Ginny’s brow, catching and smoothing a few strands. “It’s so beautiful,” Luna murmured, “The colour in this light. I don’t know what to call it-“
Blushing, but pleased, Ginny flipped the mess back and grinned. “Red, Lovegood, it’s called ‘Red’. You must’ve breathed in too much of Trelawney’s ‘special’ incense when you nicked that scrying ball!
“Her balls never work,” Luna replied, still distracted, even when Ginny snorted at the joke. “I made these perspectacles from an orb Papa sent me. It’s from Atlantis… or maybe Mexico, I forget which. He says he thinks the mineral might have the ability to reveal magical anotheryms and paradoxical metaforms.”
“Metaforms, huh?” Ginny smirked, and chewed a calloused thumb as she watched Diggory call after Harry then jog away from his girlfriend to stop him just shy of the corridor. “They easier to spot than Nargles, then?”
“Course not, silly,” Luna replied, moving the goggles to her hairline, like a headband made of leather and pink glass. “You can’t see Nargles at all. That’s the point of them.” She smiled so broadly at Ginny’s answering giggle, that it was hard to tell whether the retort had been serious at all - but then again, it was often hard to tell that with Luna.
“But they might reveal Hallows with the right enchantment, and anyway, I doubt Harry’s thought about it much,” she went on.
“What, Nargles?”
“No, silly. The Yule Ball.” A pale, graceful hand waved at the courtyard below, where Harry was turning away from his conversation with Diggory. “He doesn’t seem much like the dancing sort to me.”
Now she gave it some thought, Ginny had to admit that Harry didn’t. She’d been acting just like a silly girly girl again, thinking it. Harry Potter had much more important things to think about. Things like the Triwizard tests, and Death Eaters, and beastly old Snape’s beastly old temper. Why would he care a bit for the grotty old dance, or a girl who wasn’t even in his same year, and who he probably never thought of except when he tripped over her books in the common room…
She dropped her chin back into her hand, utterly bored with the Hufflepuffs and lone Ravenclaw that remained in the courtyard. “Neville Longbottom asked me to go,” she said. “He’s in Harry’s year, you know.”
“Oh yes! I was admiring his puffapods in Herbology,” Luna replied, her voice catching a little as she rolled back over and pulled her rose coloured goggles down over her eyes. “What did you tell him?”
“Told him I didn’t know.” Ginny admitted, squirming a little at the memory of how he’d tried not to look disappointed. “But I suppose I should tell him yes. I mean, it’s not like any other boy is likely to ask me…”
She heard Luna’s hair rustle and decided not to look over. Guilt and disappointment were bad enough without the disturbing, wobbly egg eyes on top of it. After a long moment though, she felt Luna’s fingers brush her forehead again, and she smiled, relaxing into the touch that was so freely offered by her strange, fey friend.
“Nobody’s asked me, either,” Luna said eventually, “but that’s all right. I’m sure there’ll be other balls for us both.”
~* Apples, Pears, and Girls Worth Watching *~
“B…C…D…” Stem pinched tight in two fingers, Ginny twisted the apple slowly, carefully with the other hand. (Last until H,) she commanded the stem, (don’t you break early too!) “E…F…” Excited now, she shifted her grip farther around, straining to make this twist a really, really big one. “H!” she declared triumphantly, though she had to give the tight-bound stem a yank to get it to pop free. “I’ll marry a man whose name begins with H!”
But Luna didn’t answer, nor did she look round when Ginny jostled her arm. “Hey,” she complained, giving another nudge, “you spot a Nargle then?”
“I don’t think so,” Luna mused, leaning back to peer down over the top stair perch as it swiveled through the empty air from the East gallery to the South. Alarmed, Ginny let go her apple stem and caught the back of her friend’s robe, along with a handful of curling yellow hair -- hopefully enough to forestall a tumble to the hallway five floors below. But Luna noticed neither the grip nor the block of granite that would soon be where her head was and kept leaning farther and farther to keep her target in view. Ginny was bracing herself to yank when Luna sat upright, flushed, rumpled and pink, grabbed Ginny’s elbow, and whispered, “Come on!”
Ginny let herself be swept along with the mysterious vision, stemless apple forgotten in her hand as they ran headlong toward the trophy room. Luna ducked behind the door as they drew near and pressed warm fingers to Ginny’s lips when she caught up and opened them to ask why.
“They’re back again,” she leaned close, her whisper soft as a sugar quill. “They went into the fountain courtyard!”
“Who did?” Ginny laughed and let her friend lead her into the stuffy close between the heavy drapes and the wall.
“Them…” Luna replied, leaning into the window alcove and peering down. So of course, Ginny had to look too. Then she squinted her eyes and looked harder. Two of the Beauxbatons girls were perched side by side on the fountain’s ledge, leaning close, and smiling as though they shared a secret. One was tall, with grey eyes, creamy skin, and faun brown hair swept up in a clip with an elegance that made Ginny want to grind her teeth. The other was petite and blonde, her eyes wide and blue, her face sweetly perfect as any china doll’s, but with a curvy figure that Ginny just knew she herself would never have.
Petals from the pear tree drifted around them in the lazy breeze, and the blonde said something that made the brunette blush and laugh.
“So what?” Ginny cut a glance at Luna, who was staring raptly down at the pair. “They got grunyips infesting their pointy hats or something?”
Luna didn’t so much as glance away. “I don’t think so. Grunyips rarely appear in temperatures above freezing and never in the sunlight.” She stretched over the casement to flip the catch over and push the window open. Suddenly the sound of laughter and the scent of pear blossoms was all around them. “Anyway, they don’t seem the grunyip type.”
Ginny sighed and chewed a hangnail. The blonde was plucking something off the other girl’s collar. “Well, then why are we…” the question went dry and stuck to her tongue as the brunette’s blouse fell suddenly open, revealing delicate lace over modest, but well-shaped breasts. She grasped her classmate’s face in both hands and pulled the blonde up to her for what looked like a ravaging kiss.
There was something in Ginny that knew she shouldn’t be watching this. It was private, the way the cool, pale thigh peeked out from under that skirt as a hand searched beneath it; the way long fingers clasped in sleek hair, and pulled the arrangement awry; the way rouged lips caught and smeared against each other, and varnished nails dragged lacy underthings out of the way. But there was another part of her that, just like Luna, was leaning over as far as she could - much farther than was either prudent or safe, most likely, -- to keep the pair in sight.
The brunette slipped from the wall, pressing her friend’s knees apart to kneel between them. Both hands disappeared into the shadowed space beneath the blonde’s skirt, and then the china-doll girl threw back her head and made a sound that was halfway between a sob and a yelp. Ginny felt Luna's startled twitch beside her. For a moment, they shared a startled glance, trying not to giggle aloud, then the blonde girl made that noise again - urgent, desperate, almost like she was hurt, but not as though she wanted the other to stop, -- and they had to look.
The brunette, hair fallen down in ringlets over her smooth shoulders, had burrowed her face between the blonde’s thighs and was… doing something there. Something that made the fair girl’s pale skin flush hectic and pink from her slender throat, to her rosy, peaked nipples. Ginny couldn’t remember seeing any girl’s nipples except her own. Her knees were pink as well, curling tightly around the brunette’s chest, one shoe adrift in the grass, one stocking slipped free of its garter, to sag in shimmering disarray around the girl’s ankle.
Ginny felt Luna’s fingers entwine with hers on the windowsill and remembered to breathe. The blonde, gasping and shaking, was leaning so far back, her hair trailed in the fountain - perhaps the other girl’s grip on her waist was the only thing keeping her from tumbling right in. Luna’s breath stirred fast against Ginny’s cheek, the smell of pear blossoms mingling madly with the warm, musky smell of soap, skin, and apples… and another scent as well, spicy, salty, strangely buttery and smooth… perhaps Luna’s plimpy earrings were going off…
She leaned closer to sniff, and Luna turned with a gasp, her chin just grazing Ginny’s lips as she jerked back out of the way. Not too far though, for their fingers were still tangled sweatily on the window, legs pressed knee to thigh, skirts bunched in between, so she could feel the other girl trembling just the tiniest bit. Or maybe it was her, because Luna was smiling, blinking her summery eyes as though sleepy, not frightened, and so perhaps it was only Ginny’s heart that was hammering louder than thunder in her breast.
Outside, a girl wailed something in French. Inside, Ginny held her breath, and tried not to think too hard about not bumping her nose into Luna’s. Maybe if she just leaned her head a bit to the side…
The trophy room door slammed open, rattling glass in all the casements. Ginny couldn’t choke back a panicked yelp as she tore loose and scrambled for distance.
“-bloody detention for it!” Ron’s voice, unmistakable in full rant, echoed off the stones. The window, unsupported, bounced closed as Ginny whirled to put the wall to her back. “And on a Saturday, as well, the greasy bas-”
“Ronald!” Hermione scolded, bustling in behind him, hair a riot and arms full of books. “You just can’t talk that way to a professor, and not be - Ginny!”
“What?” Ron said it at the same time she did, but he sounded more confused, and less like he’d been kicked in the knee. “What does Ginny have to do with - Ginny!” he glared as he suddenly spotted her. “Hey, what are you doing spying on me, runt?”
There. Perfect. A flush of anger was just the thing to get her feet square on the ground. Ginny flipped her hair over her shoulder and crossed her arms. “Spy on you? You’re not that interesting, Ronnie. Anyhow, I was here first, so why don’t you just shove off?”
“Oi!” Ron whirled on her, and in a moment, it would have been on - wands rather than fists, not because Ginny couldn’t dish it, but because Mum had had a closed-door telling off with Ron the last time they’d got caught grappling in the field behind the Burrow, and he hadn’t been able to look Ginny in the face for a week after. But then Miss Hermione Busybody put herself square between, and tsked at them both.
“Ron, you don’t have time for this,” she said, shifting her books to one hip, to point him back the way they’d come. “If you want to get your lunch before detention, you’d best get to the Great Hall now, don’t you think?”
He sneered, and Ginny seriously thought of telling him how much he looked like Snape when he made that face, but a sharp glance from Hermione made her think better of it. She didn’t want a telling-off either. Then Ron stormed off, muttering, and Hermione’s face went all motherly-patient as she turned back from watching him go. Ginny just knew what was coming next - could practically recite it all along with her, from the dozens of times she’d heard it from Mum. Just try harder to get along, why don’t you? You needn’t goad him, you know, you know, you know how hard it is for your brothers, your father works so hard, expect more from our young lady, blah de blah de blah.
So she did what always worked with Mum: distraction.
She put on her best guileless smile and tried not to glance at Luna's curious stare from around the draperies. “Say, Hermione, d’you think you could help me with my History of Magic essay? It’s not due for another week, but old Binns really didn’t go into the Duel of Nimue and Morgause too well…”
“Oh, of course I will,” she replied, still mothering, but not quite so bent on a lecture. “You know you mustn’t refer to the 11th century literature for any of that, don’t you? I mean it’s all ripping good as far as stories go, but the Muggles who wrote it all down got such an awful lot of it mixed up; you just can’t rely on them…”
Ginny, who hadn’t any idea what Hermione was on about, let herself be chivvied out of the trophy room, managing to share a glance of apology with Luna, who was still mostly concealed in the draperies as they passed. Golden haired and smiling, Luna merely waved, an apple stem pinched between finger and thumb, the red-gold fruit sitting round and snug in the palm of her other hand.
Ginny made a note to ask her later what letter she had got to before it had broken.
Part 4
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, Part 2a,
~* Harpies, Headlines, and Getting Airborn *~
Time is like a blanket on my face: I try to be here just like you.
“Hey Gin,” Ron said over the squeal of the workshed door. “I brought you some pudding. It’s plum tarts, and I know they’re your-“
“Thanks.” Ginny snarled, scrubbing at her mud-caked shin pads. “Now go away please.”
He didn’t, of course. Ginny bit back a curse as he nudged her boots off the end of the bench, and sat down beside her. Then she rubbed the saddle soap in harder, and commenced to ignore him for all she was worth. She was not going to talk about it! She just was not!
“You’ll want to eat them before they get cold,” he said after a moment.
Ginny flung the rag at the wall and whirled. Ron’s gaze didn’t flinch as she grabbed the nearest tart from the plate and shoved half of it into her mouth in one go. She nearly choked, eyes watering as the filling scalded her tongue, but she fiercely willed the urge down and chewed it to bits.
“Vere,” she mumbled savagely, then shoved the other half into her mouth as well. “Haffy?”
Ron rolled his eyes and set the plate on his knee so he could search his pockets. “Oh, for pity’s sake… Here,” he said and pushed a handkerchief at her. “There’s jam on your nose.” Worse yet, he sat there and watched in silence while Ginny scrubbed it, and the aggravating wetness at her eyes, away. She took a long, shuddering breath, trying to cool her singed tongue. She could hear the clank of dishes through the open kitchen window, but the wireless hum nearly drowned it out. Mum was probably still in there, crying under cover of her housekeeping.
Damn it! Ginny sat upright, flipped her hair over her shoulder, and reached for her shinguard again. “You don’t have to hover.” She tried her best not to sound grudging. “I’m not going to fall apart or anything.”
“I know,” he said, edging Dad’s box of phone and wireless pieces to the edge of the upper bench so he could set the plate aside. “I didn’t come to check up on you.” At Ginny’s disbelieving snort, he spread his hands in emphatic innocence. “I didn’t! I know you can take care of yourself. I just came out to tell you; about that contract-“
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Ginny rounded on him. “Can’t you people give it a rest?! It was a stupid idea! It’s selfish, and it’s childish, and I should grow up and stop playing silly games, and I should have known better than to even bring the stupid bloody contract home with me! I KNOW THAT, ALL RIGHT?!”
“I think you should sign it.”
“I KNOW! I BLOODY WELL-” Ginny flung her shinguard at the bench, then stopped, blinking. “Wait. I should? What?”
He grinned at her in just that aggravating way he always used to do whenever he got to go off with Harry and Hermione and leave her behind because she was too little and couldn’t keep up, and MERLIN, but she hated that grin. Only there was something different about it this time. Something that stopped her going for her wand and hexing every freckle on his face into flames.
“You ought to sign it,” he said again, slower this time. “It’s only a reserve position, and the pay’s no great shakes, but it’s a ground level position on a pro team, Gin! How many seventh year students get an offer like that one?” Wordless and stunned, Ginny nodded and let herself sink down to the bench again. “Sure, it’ll be a lot of work," he went on, "and with training camp and away games you’ll be gone a lot, but it’s no worse than now, with you being away at Hogwarts, is it?”
She shook her head. “Not… not really, I guess. But mum’s really-“
He shook his head and caught her hand from its vague wave toward the kitchen. “Gin, don’t you remember what she was like the summer after my sixth year? When she did everything except lock me, Harry and Hermione into different trunks to try and keep us under wraps?” She nodded, and by degrees, relaxed her fingers so they curled around his broad, strong Keeper’s hand. “You know she gets like this whenever one of us steps outside of her game plan. You’re too young to remember the bloody row over Charlie going off to Romania, but I know you recall how she was when Fr-“ he swallowed, looked down. “When the twins left Hogwarts early.”
Ginny gave his fingers a squeeze but let the slip pass. He was right, after all - the telling off they’d gotten after they’d tried to raid the Prophecy Room at the Ministry of Magic had been epic. “It’s not the same though,” she ventured after a moment. “She’s always let you boys be boys, and she nags you, but she doesn’t strangle you the way she-“
“Gin, she had six boys because she wanted you!” Ron said, giving her hand an exasperated shake. “You’re her favorite, and you have been since the day the Midwitch told her you were going to be a girl! That kind of thing comes with its downside, yeah, but don’t pretend you haven’t milked it for all you could get, when it suited you, because I bloody well have watched you do it!” Like when Mum had given Ron ten times worse a twisting over the Ministry thing on account of his having let Ginny come along into harm’s way… He didn’t need to say it; they both knew what he meant.
“But you just said I should go against all her…” Ginny shook her hand loose and sketched a vague, labyrinthine tangle in the air. “And now you’re telling me to suck it up because getting smothered comes with the territory?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” he agreed. And damn it all, she couldn’t even go off on him, because she knew what he meant by it, and he was sort of right.
She gave her muddy boot a kick and sighed. “And what about Harry?” she asked. Because if they were going to rip the mess open and poke at its guts, then she supposed they’d better do it properly. “Mum’s not the only one who expects me to marry him, have babies, a crup, two kneazles, and a white picket fence.”
Ron made an extremely rude noise.
“What?” she protested. “Not a week goes by that there isn’t some rot or other in the papers, or on the wireless, or pasted in the bloody shop windows, for Merlin’s sake! Even Hermione’s on me constantly about 'have we set a date yet,' and 'what kind of ring do I want,' and all that rot! And you should see what a circus it turns into whenever Harry and I try to find a moment to ourselves! You’d think we were-“
He stopped her with a hand upraised and a rather dainty wince. “I’d rather not think what you were, if it’s all the same,” he told her.
She snickered, a little more helplessly than she’d meant to, but it felt good to finally get it out. “Anyway,” she went on, “it’s not that I don’t want to be with Harry. You know that, don’t you?”
To her consternation, Ron did not at once agree. “Ginny, you don’t know what you want.” He forestalled her protest with a hand on her shoulder and a grave look. “Listen to me, okay? Just listen for a moment, because I’m not just in here because you’re my sister. Harry’s my best mate, and even when he makes me completely mental, I have never, ever wanted to see him get hurt…” he waited for her nod, and once Ginny grudgingly gave it, went on.
“You don’t know what you want, because you can’t know what you want, because Mum’s still trying to yank you into line whenever you try and figure it out. And Harry doesn’t know what he wants either, because ever since he came to school, he’s had to be, and do, whatever the rest of the world wanted him to, see?”
“Well yes, but we waited for each other all last year!”
“And now both of you want something to show for all the waiting,” he agreed. “I can understand that, but here’s the thing, Gin: it isn’t just you two, is it?”
And there, of course, Ginny had to look away.
“Luna fits into it somehow, and no, I don’t want you to tell me just exactly how, because that isn’t my business, and I am absolutely not going to imagine my baby sister getting up to mischief with a skinny blonde- OW!”
“Enough of that, if you please,” Ginny said as he rubbed his shin. “Luna has plenty of curves, she just doesn’t much like tight clothing.” It really was kind of fun to watch him turn colours when she said such things.
“As I was saying before you so rudely tried to break my leg,” Ron soldiered on, “Luna’s a factor, and to be honest, even if Snape had really died in the shack, I still don’t think Harry would have… well… you see… Harry’s not quite as as…” he looked down, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, let’s just say you learn a lot about a bloke when you share a dorm room and showers with him for six years, if you follow?”
Ginny thought about the hectic flush of skin revealed in the glittering twilight; hair like pouring ink, like hoarfrost knotted tight around white knuckles, fiercely gripping; gasping, half-worded pleas, in a gloom that smelled of time inexorable; the desperate, beatific look Harry had turned to sky after Snape’s lips had drifted away from his. The memory came with a pang of longing, envy, and strangely, pride as well, that a boy who loved her - really loved her, -- could still be free to find such joy in her sight. Could still want to reach for her when morning came, and sunlight replaced the silver beams across his face.
Well… what could she do, but nod?
“Sorry, Gin,” Misreading her expression, Ron tried to be comforting. “It’s really nothing against you, but it was pretty obvious to me from as far back as fourth year. I think if Diggory or Oliver Wood had crooked a finger at Harry back then, you might not have got your chance at all.”
She huffed a laugh. “That just proves he fancies Quidditch players!” But then, in the spirit of honesty, she had to add, “And greasy, sarcastic bastards.”
Beside her, Ron sighed and shook his head. “I know. It’s bizarre, but… well, that’s why I think you and Harry need to have some time, and some space, before you let the whole world turn your lives into some kind of a public franchise, you know?”
Ginny gave him a sidelong look. “Your girlfriend doesn’t seem to hold to that line of reasoning,” she observed. “What am I meant to tell her when she starts nifflering after me?”
He shrugged. “Get her talking about arithmancy. That always works for me. By the time she winds down it’ll be either dinner time, or bedtime, and either way, she’ll have forgot what she got wound up over in the first place.”
“Or I could get her complaining about you,” Ginny answered with a laugh. “She can go on just as long with that yarn, after all.”
Ron’s answering grin was not the least bit ashamed. “She'll come around eventually, just like Mum will. Hermione doesn’t much like to be wrong, but it’s got to happen sometime or other. Kind of like me being right, huh?” He reached out, and pulled Ginny sidelong into a bony, awkward, brotherly smotherly hug that bobbled her head from side to side on her shoulders. It was hard, dizzying, perfect, and over as soon as it had begun.
“It’s your life, Gin,” Ron told her, standing before she’d recovered herself enough to elbow him a good one in the ribs. “It’s not Mum’s or Dad’s, it’s not Snape’s or Lovegood’s, it’s not Hermione’s, it’s not some reporter’s, and it’s not even Harry’s. It’s yours. You should live it for a while before you go tie it down to somebody else’s idea of what ought to be done.”
“Even if it’s Harry’s?”
“Especially if it’s Harry’s. He gets the stupidest ideas sometimes!” Then Ron stole one of her tarts, tipped her a wink, and left Ginny to get on with cleaning her gear.
And for once, Ginny felt no urge, as he walked away, to add any final words. For once Stinky Ronnie had her dead to rights.
~* Gargoyles, Goggles, and Dancing Shoes *~
“Who do you think he’ll ask to the ball?” Ginny mused, chin in hand, elbow resting on the gargoyle’s broken horn.
“Hmm?” Luna, who had been examining the clouds through a pair of goggles she had transfigured from a rose quartz sphere, (Ginny suspected Professor Trelawney would be wondering where it had got to, but she wasn’t about to accuse) rolled over, peering to follow the line of Ginny’s gaze. Harry was in the fountain court, tense and handsome as he faced down the Hufflepuff champion and a crowd of his housemates.
“Oh, probably Chang,” Luna shrugged, then turned to peer at a scrap of lichen just by her fingers. “They are dating, you know.”
Ice water in her face couldn’t have shocked Ginny more. Harry, dating that skinny, snotty little know-it-all, Chang? Impossible! She was on the point of saying so, when the brunette herself appeared in the courtyard, all smiles, and why should she not be if she was dating Harry Potter! Feeling a little sick, and a lot as though she might cry, Ginny pushed off the gargoyle and reached for her broom.
“Oh, you meant Harry Potter, didn’t you?” Luna’s calm, unaccusing voice pulled her tantrum up short. She hadn’t moved from her sprawl along the rainspout’s wings, but her attention seemed to have wandered away from the lichen and fixed on the courtyard at last.
Ginny grit her teeth. “Of course I meant-“ She blinked, then blushed as Chang stood up on tiptoe next to Diggory, kissing his cheek while Harry turned away. Oh. Oops. She settled back down again and tried not to be unnerved by how the pink, bulging goggles made Luna’s eyes seem like runny eggs with lavender and black yolks. “So who do you think Harry Potter will ask to the Yule Ball?” she clarified.
Luna shrugged but didn’t look down. Her wide, strange eyes were fixed on Ginny’s hair with an intensity that was even more alarming than Luna’s usual mild strangeness. Slowly, carefully, Luna put out a hand toward Ginny’s shoulder, as though she meant to catch a butterfly unawares, though a furtive glance showed Ginny only her own hair, spun out over her jumper in a great, ginger drift. Then Luna’s fingertip skated the air just above the strands, so close, so careful that Ginny was hard pressed to quell the urge to shiver. It almost tickled.
“What are you doing?” she managed to ask.
“You’re…” those fingers, pale with the cold and height, made another pass, this time just grazing Ginny’s brow, catching and smoothing a few strands. “It’s so beautiful,” Luna murmured, “The colour in this light. I don’t know what to call it-“
Blushing, but pleased, Ginny flipped the mess back and grinned. “Red, Lovegood, it’s called ‘Red’. You must’ve breathed in too much of Trelawney’s ‘special’ incense when you nicked that scrying ball!
“Her balls never work,” Luna replied, still distracted, even when Ginny snorted at the joke. “I made these perspectacles from an orb Papa sent me. It’s from Atlantis… or maybe Mexico, I forget which. He says he thinks the mineral might have the ability to reveal magical anotheryms and paradoxical metaforms.”
“Metaforms, huh?” Ginny smirked, and chewed a calloused thumb as she watched Diggory call after Harry then jog away from his girlfriend to stop him just shy of the corridor. “They easier to spot than Nargles, then?”
“Course not, silly,” Luna replied, moving the goggles to her hairline, like a headband made of leather and pink glass. “You can’t see Nargles at all. That’s the point of them.” She smiled so broadly at Ginny’s answering giggle, that it was hard to tell whether the retort had been serious at all - but then again, it was often hard to tell that with Luna.
“But they might reveal Hallows with the right enchantment, and anyway, I doubt Harry’s thought about it much,” she went on.
“What, Nargles?”
“No, silly. The Yule Ball.” A pale, graceful hand waved at the courtyard below, where Harry was turning away from his conversation with Diggory. “He doesn’t seem much like the dancing sort to me.”
Now she gave it some thought, Ginny had to admit that Harry didn’t. She’d been acting just like a silly girly girl again, thinking it. Harry Potter had much more important things to think about. Things like the Triwizard tests, and Death Eaters, and beastly old Snape’s beastly old temper. Why would he care a bit for the grotty old dance, or a girl who wasn’t even in his same year, and who he probably never thought of except when he tripped over her books in the common room…
She dropped her chin back into her hand, utterly bored with the Hufflepuffs and lone Ravenclaw that remained in the courtyard. “Neville Longbottom asked me to go,” she said. “He’s in Harry’s year, you know.”
“Oh yes! I was admiring his puffapods in Herbology,” Luna replied, her voice catching a little as she rolled back over and pulled her rose coloured goggles down over her eyes. “What did you tell him?”
“Told him I didn’t know.” Ginny admitted, squirming a little at the memory of how he’d tried not to look disappointed. “But I suppose I should tell him yes. I mean, it’s not like any other boy is likely to ask me…”
She heard Luna’s hair rustle and decided not to look over. Guilt and disappointment were bad enough without the disturbing, wobbly egg eyes on top of it. After a long moment though, she felt Luna’s fingers brush her forehead again, and she smiled, relaxing into the touch that was so freely offered by her strange, fey friend.
“Nobody’s asked me, either,” Luna said eventually, “but that’s all right. I’m sure there’ll be other balls for us both.”
~* Apples, Pears, and Girls Worth Watching *~
“B…C…D…” Stem pinched tight in two fingers, Ginny twisted the apple slowly, carefully with the other hand. (Last until H,) she commanded the stem, (don’t you break early too!) “E…F…” Excited now, she shifted her grip farther around, straining to make this twist a really, really big one. “H!” she declared triumphantly, though she had to give the tight-bound stem a yank to get it to pop free. “I’ll marry a man whose name begins with H!”
But Luna didn’t answer, nor did she look round when Ginny jostled her arm. “Hey,” she complained, giving another nudge, “you spot a Nargle then?”
“I don’t think so,” Luna mused, leaning back to peer down over the top stair perch as it swiveled through the empty air from the East gallery to the South. Alarmed, Ginny let go her apple stem and caught the back of her friend’s robe, along with a handful of curling yellow hair -- hopefully enough to forestall a tumble to the hallway five floors below. But Luna noticed neither the grip nor the block of granite that would soon be where her head was and kept leaning farther and farther to keep her target in view. Ginny was bracing herself to yank when Luna sat upright, flushed, rumpled and pink, grabbed Ginny’s elbow, and whispered, “Come on!”
Ginny let herself be swept along with the mysterious vision, stemless apple forgotten in her hand as they ran headlong toward the trophy room. Luna ducked behind the door as they drew near and pressed warm fingers to Ginny’s lips when she caught up and opened them to ask why.
“They’re back again,” she leaned close, her whisper soft as a sugar quill. “They went into the fountain courtyard!”
“Who did?” Ginny laughed and let her friend lead her into the stuffy close between the heavy drapes and the wall.
“Them…” Luna replied, leaning into the window alcove and peering down. So of course, Ginny had to look too. Then she squinted her eyes and looked harder. Two of the Beauxbatons girls were perched side by side on the fountain’s ledge, leaning close, and smiling as though they shared a secret. One was tall, with grey eyes, creamy skin, and faun brown hair swept up in a clip with an elegance that made Ginny want to grind her teeth. The other was petite and blonde, her eyes wide and blue, her face sweetly perfect as any china doll’s, but with a curvy figure that Ginny just knew she herself would never have.
Petals from the pear tree drifted around them in the lazy breeze, and the blonde said something that made the brunette blush and laugh.
“So what?” Ginny cut a glance at Luna, who was staring raptly down at the pair. “They got grunyips infesting their pointy hats or something?”
Luna didn’t so much as glance away. “I don’t think so. Grunyips rarely appear in temperatures above freezing and never in the sunlight.” She stretched over the casement to flip the catch over and push the window open. Suddenly the sound of laughter and the scent of pear blossoms was all around them. “Anyway, they don’t seem the grunyip type.”
Ginny sighed and chewed a hangnail. The blonde was plucking something off the other girl’s collar. “Well, then why are we…” the question went dry and stuck to her tongue as the brunette’s blouse fell suddenly open, revealing delicate lace over modest, but well-shaped breasts. She grasped her classmate’s face in both hands and pulled the blonde up to her for what looked like a ravaging kiss.
There was something in Ginny that knew she shouldn’t be watching this. It was private, the way the cool, pale thigh peeked out from under that skirt as a hand searched beneath it; the way long fingers clasped in sleek hair, and pulled the arrangement awry; the way rouged lips caught and smeared against each other, and varnished nails dragged lacy underthings out of the way. But there was another part of her that, just like Luna, was leaning over as far as she could - much farther than was either prudent or safe, most likely, -- to keep the pair in sight.
The brunette slipped from the wall, pressing her friend’s knees apart to kneel between them. Both hands disappeared into the shadowed space beneath the blonde’s skirt, and then the china-doll girl threw back her head and made a sound that was halfway between a sob and a yelp. Ginny felt Luna's startled twitch beside her. For a moment, they shared a startled glance, trying not to giggle aloud, then the blonde girl made that noise again - urgent, desperate, almost like she was hurt, but not as though she wanted the other to stop, -- and they had to look.
The brunette, hair fallen down in ringlets over her smooth shoulders, had burrowed her face between the blonde’s thighs and was… doing something there. Something that made the fair girl’s pale skin flush hectic and pink from her slender throat, to her rosy, peaked nipples. Ginny couldn’t remember seeing any girl’s nipples except her own. Her knees were pink as well, curling tightly around the brunette’s chest, one shoe adrift in the grass, one stocking slipped free of its garter, to sag in shimmering disarray around the girl’s ankle.
Ginny felt Luna’s fingers entwine with hers on the windowsill and remembered to breathe. The blonde, gasping and shaking, was leaning so far back, her hair trailed in the fountain - perhaps the other girl’s grip on her waist was the only thing keeping her from tumbling right in. Luna’s breath stirred fast against Ginny’s cheek, the smell of pear blossoms mingling madly with the warm, musky smell of soap, skin, and apples… and another scent as well, spicy, salty, strangely buttery and smooth… perhaps Luna’s plimpy earrings were going off…
She leaned closer to sniff, and Luna turned with a gasp, her chin just grazing Ginny’s lips as she jerked back out of the way. Not too far though, for their fingers were still tangled sweatily on the window, legs pressed knee to thigh, skirts bunched in between, so she could feel the other girl trembling just the tiniest bit. Or maybe it was her, because Luna was smiling, blinking her summery eyes as though sleepy, not frightened, and so perhaps it was only Ginny’s heart that was hammering louder than thunder in her breast.
Outside, a girl wailed something in French. Inside, Ginny held her breath, and tried not to think too hard about not bumping her nose into Luna’s. Maybe if she just leaned her head a bit to the side…
The trophy room door slammed open, rattling glass in all the casements. Ginny couldn’t choke back a panicked yelp as she tore loose and scrambled for distance.
“-bloody detention for it!” Ron’s voice, unmistakable in full rant, echoed off the stones. The window, unsupported, bounced closed as Ginny whirled to put the wall to her back. “And on a Saturday, as well, the greasy bas-”
“Ronald!” Hermione scolded, bustling in behind him, hair a riot and arms full of books. “You just can’t talk that way to a professor, and not be - Ginny!”
“What?” Ron said it at the same time she did, but he sounded more confused, and less like he’d been kicked in the knee. “What does Ginny have to do with - Ginny!” he glared as he suddenly spotted her. “Hey, what are you doing spying on me, runt?”
There. Perfect. A flush of anger was just the thing to get her feet square on the ground. Ginny flipped her hair over her shoulder and crossed her arms. “Spy on you? You’re not that interesting, Ronnie. Anyhow, I was here first, so why don’t you just shove off?”
“Oi!” Ron whirled on her, and in a moment, it would have been on - wands rather than fists, not because Ginny couldn’t dish it, but because Mum had had a closed-door telling off with Ron the last time they’d got caught grappling in the field behind the Burrow, and he hadn’t been able to look Ginny in the face for a week after. But then Miss Hermione Busybody put herself square between, and tsked at them both.
“Ron, you don’t have time for this,” she said, shifting her books to one hip, to point him back the way they’d come. “If you want to get your lunch before detention, you’d best get to the Great Hall now, don’t you think?”
He sneered, and Ginny seriously thought of telling him how much he looked like Snape when he made that face, but a sharp glance from Hermione made her think better of it. She didn’t want a telling-off either. Then Ron stormed off, muttering, and Hermione’s face went all motherly-patient as she turned back from watching him go. Ginny just knew what was coming next - could practically recite it all along with her, from the dozens of times she’d heard it from Mum. Just try harder to get along, why don’t you? You needn’t goad him, you know, you know, you know how hard it is for your brothers, your father works so hard, expect more from our young lady, blah de blah de blah.
So she did what always worked with Mum: distraction.
She put on her best guileless smile and tried not to glance at Luna's curious stare from around the draperies. “Say, Hermione, d’you think you could help me with my History of Magic essay? It’s not due for another week, but old Binns really didn’t go into the Duel of Nimue and Morgause too well…”
“Oh, of course I will,” she replied, still mothering, but not quite so bent on a lecture. “You know you mustn’t refer to the 11th century literature for any of that, don’t you? I mean it’s all ripping good as far as stories go, but the Muggles who wrote it all down got such an awful lot of it mixed up; you just can’t rely on them…”
Ginny, who hadn’t any idea what Hermione was on about, let herself be chivvied out of the trophy room, managing to share a glance of apology with Luna, who was still mostly concealed in the draperies as they passed. Golden haired and smiling, Luna merely waved, an apple stem pinched between finger and thumb, the red-gold fruit sitting round and snug in the palm of her other hand.
Ginny made a note to ask her later what letter she had got to before it had broken.
Part 4