We Shine Like Stars. (Fic, GW/LL, SS/HP, NC17 -- 5/7)
Title: We Shine Like Stars 5
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, Part 3, Part 4,
~* Trial by Ordeal *~
We are the only ones right now that are celebrating: And we are joining hands right now
We are the only ones right now that are suffocating: We are the dying ones right now
“Busy,” Harry called through the door.
The same word, written in fiery letters over the lintel to the Head Auror’s office, flashed, irritably red. Ginny ignored the warning, but Snape caught her wrist as she moved to knock again.
“Are you mad, girl?” he hissed. “He says he is busy! Interrupting him now could be dangerou-“
“He’s an Auror, not a Potions researcher,” Ginny replied with a grin. “And he's shut up in his office with his secretary already gone for the day. The busiest he could legitimately be, is if he’s fiddling about with paperwork. My galleons are on him revising the duty roster for the fifth time this week, where he thinks nobody will notice that he's trying not to mope over you.”
Snape’s brow clouded at that, but Ginny saw the pale, sharp eyes flick toward the door, saw the muscle in the ill-shaven jaw twitch, and had no pity. “He’s not too busy for you, Severus, nor for me.” And with that she rapped sharply with her free hand.
Behind the door came a muffled curse, then Harry shouted, “I said I’m busy! Go away please!” Snape let go her wrist as though she’d burned him, but Ginny was a better Seeker than that. She caught his arm before the slippery Slytherin could back out of range.
“Harry, how much does a standard Ministry-issue office door cost these days?” Ginny called back. “Is there enough in the quarterly budget to replace this one?”
The sigh Harry gave was barely audible through the wood, but it broke her heart a little. Ginny slid her grip down from Severus’ elbow to his hand, twining their fingers to stop either of them balling into fists as Harry’s lock-ward clicked free, and the door swung open.
Harry was at his desk as Ginny pushed the door back and tugged Snape - who was more stunned than reluctant, -- into the Head Auror’s office. Of course, Snape hadn’t had the last six months to become used to the weight Harry had lost; the sleepless purple smudges that his glasses couldn’t hide; how his hair, once irrepressible and wild, now lay limp and flat with neglect.
When Jamie had been in his first, constantly needy months, Ginny, Luna, and Harry’d hardly had time to eat regularly, let alone bathe or do laundry. With Harry, though, it had been far more than baby-shock, and it still made Ginny wince inside to think how long it had taken them... well...her to spot the depression for what it was.
These days, she sent Harry to work in clean, pressed robes, and she had elves from the commissary deliver food to him at regular intervals, but shy of nagging, she couldn’t make him eat it. And Ginny had taken an oath to herself the day she’d moved out of the Burrow and into her own flat; she was not going to mother, smother, or nag anybody - she wasn’t ever going to be mistaken for the other red-headed firestorm of a Weasley woman.
Which made meddling like this a bit of a tricky thing, her conscience whispered. Still, something had to change, and from the lax chill of Snape’s fingers, Ginny could reasonably hope that he would take up the point of the charge for her, now he could see how bad things had gotten.
“Everything all right with Jamie?” Harry asked, head down to his paperwork and scribbling away. Even from here, Ginny could see his nails were bitten down to the quick.
“He’s at Luna’s place,” she replied, flip as she did not feel, “so it’s anybody’s guess, really, but I’m hoping for the best.”
“Your session okay” Still, he didn’t look up. Snape’s fingers started to curl against hers, then shocked straight, and twisted free. Ginny let him go, feeling his warmth as he stepped close behind her shoulder. His white fingers curled over the chairback at her side, as though he was leaning on it for support... or for restraint.
“I skipped it today,” she said, and at last, Harry looked up. When he spotted Snape at her side, he went so still it seemed he'd stopped breathing.
He’ll never look at me like that, she whispered to herself in the ringing silence that followed. He loves me. He does. But I do not have the power to do that to him… the quill made a tick-fwump as it slipped from Harry’s fingers. Thank Merlin!
Snape swallowed. It probably wouldn’t have seemed like a rifle-shot in any other room, but it was enough to make them all jump. And that was enough to shake Harry out of whatever spell of anguish had fallen over him.
“What are you-“ his lips shaped the words of dry air, then he licked his lips and tried again. “What are you doing here?”
Ginny could almost feel the air around Snape drawing in, hardening into armour. Oh, no you don’t, she growled in her heart. But aloud, she kept her voice bright, and forcibly friendly. “I asked Severus to come,” she said, stepping aside, removing herself entirely from the conduit of air between them, so saturated with emotion that it practically wavered in the light. “He has an important proposition to offer you.”
Oh, she hadn’t seen a glare like that since Potions classes in sixth year! “I have an-?” Snape’s fingernail scored the chairback as he clenched his fists. “You mean you have not asked his opinion about this insane idea of yours?!“
“Why would I do that?” Ginny grinned maliciously at Snape in return. “It’ll be between the two of you, really, won’t it? I’ll just be a tertiary part of the process. And anyway, I figure you have more than just that to discuss, so it’s not like you won't have time to get round to it.”
“Gin,” This time it was Harry’s voice that rang with warning. “What are you trying to pull here?”
“Your head out of your arse,” she replied, fixing him with a cheerful glare, “and my family back together. Jamie needs you, Harry. No,” she halted his protest with an upraised palm, “not this hollow pretence you try and hold up while you look for a reason to do more than go through the motions. He needs YOU. His father. For real.”
His green eyes flickered, first at Snape, then down at his desk, where the quill bled black all over the blotter. At least he had the grace not to deny it. “And you, need him.” She jerked a thumb at the looming column of frost-rimed black that was Severus Snape, and kept the ‘Merlin knows why,’ to herself. “And so I’ve brought the mountain to the miner, and I figure the rest is best left up to you two.” She cast a glance back at Snape, pleased to see that his brows had knit even harder, and fierce colour had risen into his cheeks.
“Yes,” he growled, eyes fierce and fixed on his prey as he stepped around the chair. “And now, Miss Weasley, I’d suggest you leave it so. Mr. Potter and I have much to discuss alone.”
“No,” Harry snapped in return, face bright and eyes glittering with the most fire he’d shown in months, “Whatever you have to say to me, you can say it in front of-“
“Sorry, Harry,” Ginny cut him off with a cheery wave as she turned to the door, “much as I’d love to sit back and watch this with some popcorn, I’m late fetching Jamie from Luna’s.” She turned back at the threshold, and grinned to see Harry’s attempt to maintain an angry, unintimidated stance while backing away from a stalking Severus Snape.
“Dinner will be at half seven,” Ginny added as she reached for the doorknob. “We can discuss the spell, and Luna's and my terms then. If you two don’t show up, I’ll send Kreacher here with your meals and orders to watch you both eat it, so try not to lose track of time, okay?”
Harry sent her only one glance - a wildly pleading thing, too full of conflicting emotions for a simple girl like her to puzzle out. So Ginny only smiled and wiggled her fingers at him. Then she shut the door.
“They won’t kill each other,” she told herself, fingers trailing over the grooves that spelled out Harry’s name in the wood. “They survived school, the basilisk, Death Eaters, Voldemort, and the Ministry. They can survive this.”
The door was pretty thick, actually. Either that, or it had muffling charms worked into the wood, because through it, Harry’s taut, angry babble was barely intelligible. Then it cut abruptly off.
Ginny cast a few lock wardings of her own on the door, and changed the flashing ‘busy’ sign to ‘Knock, and you’ll draw back a stump!’ Then after a moment’s consideration, made the fiery letters turn AK green, the harder to ignore.
Another sound drifted through from the office; this one wordless, and thick with desperation. Ginny bit her lip and quelled it under a silencing spell. Then layered a joy-buzzer charm over that, lest anybody try to take it down from the outside.
All the pictures on the wall rattled, two of them shaking loose and crashing to the carpet. Ginny decided it was most likely time to go. Luckily, Harry’s office rated a private floo at the secretary’s station, so she wouldn’t have to brave the gauntlet of the gossip-hungry Ministry in order to get out.
Finding the powder took a moment, during which three more pictures fell off the wall, but once Ginny managed to pry the silver badger’s head off and toss some powder in, the flames roared up gladly green.
“Office of the Quibbler,” Luna’s voice floated through the blaze, pierced through with giggling squeals. “How may I help you?”
Ginny sighed to feel the careful tension melt from around her heart at the sound. Her eyes prickled, and her hands ached to hold that laughing baby, even as her mind wondered what in the world Luna could be doing to get Jamie to giggle so. “Stop molesting that child, Chief Editor Lovegood,” she barked as she stepped through the flames. “He’s clearly in distress - Oh my God!”
Ginny dropped her handbag at the sight of the gigantic cauldron where Luna’s desk used to be - and at Luna stirring her baby about it with an oversized wooden spoon. James Sirius Potter was bobbing like a fishing float in the steaming water, his fuzzy head swathed in a bubble-head charm, and his skin dappled with black that inched and flowed like clouds unraveling in the wind.
“We had an adventure with the printing ink today,” Luna said calmly, giving the bubble charm on Jamie’s head a wide berth with the spoon. “I’d thought that shelf was higher than he could reach, but apparently he was very motivated. Unless the Nargles helped him. Where’s Severus?”
“Ink…” Ginny breathed a sigh, and reached down to scrub a bit of headline off her son’s shoulder. Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to leave Jamie at Luna’s when the paper’s deadline was close. At least until Luna managed to hire some more staff to man the presses. Jamie cackled madly, rolled over in the bath, and tried to shove his blackened toe into his mouth.
“Severus?” Luna prodded.
Ginny took the spoon away, and leaned in to kiss Luna. “I left him in Harry’s office,” she said, giving Jamie a nudge to turn him face up again - not that it mattered to him, but it was easier on her nerves. “They might be talking it out, but my money’s on them shagging. Or possibly beating the tar out of each other.”
“Hmm. I can’t always tell the one from the other with those two,” Luna mused, still smiling from their kiss. She had a smudge of ink across her nose, and another just above her shirt collar, the size and shape of Jamie’s little hand.
“I think that’s the idea,” Ginny replied, undoing Luna’s buttons while the baby swatted at the steaming water and chortled to see it splash. “Boys and their silly war games.” She huffed, and leaned in to kiss the perfect swell of breast as Luna’s the work shirt slipped away under her fingers. The deep fold of Luna’s cleavage smelled of patchouli, sweat, and ink, and Ginny couldn’t resist putting out her tongue to taste. “Our games were always better.”
Luna shivered, and Ginny smiled to feel one small hand wind its way into her hair, as much a caress as a plea for more. “Except when you made me play the Dark Lord.”
“Mmmaybe,” she let go her grip on Luna’s hardening nipple to reply, but kept close, so the small, wrinkled bud brushed her lips with every word. “but you always liked ‘Inquisition’. Want to play now, Goodwife Lovegood? Shall I accuse you of Witchcraft and sentence you to the ducking stool?”
Luna giggled, her nipple bouncing wetly against Ginny’s cheek until she recaptured and nibbled it. “Oh, but I’ll have to counter-accuse, Goodwife Weasley,” Luna answered, tugging Ginny’s shirt over her head, “Because I think that lake there is big enough for the both of us to have a proper Trial By Ordeal…”
“Trial By Ordeal?” Ginny grinned, reaching for her flies. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”
Luna just chuckled, and shimmied out of her knickers, giving Ginny just the briefest glimpse of her pale, dimpled arse before hiking a knee up over the cauldron’s lip. Throat dry, Ginny pressed close, and used both hands to boost Luna up into the makeshift bath - and if her fingers trespassed more boldly than usual, the positively lambent smile Luna flashed over her shoulder held not a scrap of reprimand for it.
“Bet I can hold my breath the longest,” she offered, her eyes blue and hot as flames.
Ginny couldn’t suppress a shiver as she slid her own knee over the warmed iron lip. “Just, let’s try not to drown the baby, all right?”
~*Out of Sorts *~
They rode across the lake in tiny, fretful boats, walked with shadows linked up the steep, countless stairs, and through the older students to face the Sorting Hat.
When the ragged old thing perched on Luna's broom-yellow hair and crowed, "Ravenclaw!" Ginny had to bite her lip to stop it quivering. But Luna's robes changed colour, the neutral grey going such a deep, strong blue that it made her wide eyes take fire in the enchanted candlelight, and she didn't look the least bit upset as she drifted over to take her place at the table.
A pretty Asian girl leaned over to finger Luna's plimpy earrings, and Ginny had to look away, clutching the unexpected and secret gift her father had bought for her in Diagon Alley. The diary was smooth and warm in her hand, each page of clean, white paper rather than much-scraped parchment, so she knew for certain it was new. That made her treasure it all that much more, for not often in her life did Ginny get to own things that hadn't belonged to someone else first.
She took a moment to be profoundly grateful that her father knew her so well, and then it was her turn to go up. Her brothers whooped as the Hat shouted "Gryffindor!" and Ginny walked to their table without looking back. The House of the Lion was where she belonged, apparently, just like all her brothers, just like Mum and Dad when they’d gone to Hogwarts. Weasleys were Gryffindors, Mummy had always said, and she was no different. It had been silly to expect anything else.
~* The Agony of Cheer *~
Ginny wasn’t lost, but she rather wished she could have been.
It would have been less humiliating than where she found herself now; smothered under blankets, family, and cheering charms in the Hogwarts Infirmary, pretending to sleep while Mum scolded Ronnie and Percy and the Twins for not keeping closer watch on her. Pretending to sleep because the floor kept stubbornly refusing to open up and swallow her whole. Pretending to sleep so Madam Pomfrey might possibly order the ruddy awful lot of them to go away and leave her alone.
Alone. She stifled a giggle in her pillow. Only she could manage to feel alone for a year, and still never have a moment’s privacy! There was never a moment when there weren’t other people around; students, teachers, ghosts, Filch and Hagrid, all of whom only noticed an invisible firstie like her when she was in their way, or where she wasn’t meant to be. Like lurking around Ravenclaw Tower, or trying to find a bramble patch near the Forbidden Forest, where someone might look for Nargles, away from the frowning, silent crowds of Ravenclaws that always seemed to stick so close together. But Ginny never did find one, and her classes and homework hadn’t given her much time to search. And it had just seemed easier to turn to the diary when she felt lonely…
Tears stung her eyes, but the stupid charm whisked them away with a tingle. She should never have used the thing. She ought to have burned it, taken it to the Headmaster, ripped it to tiny bits, not trusted it… not imagined it was a closer, more constant friend than she’d ever had. She turned her face to the wall, fist clenched against her mouth so the others wouldn’t see her grin. She was the biggest, awfullest, stupidest fool in the world, and she couldn’t even wish she was dead, because then You-Know-Who would have won, and Harry Potter would be dead too.
Oh, that stupid charm!
Ginny was still fighting off the urge to giggle, when she felt a brush, light as a moth’s wing, along the back of her hand, and opened her eyes with a gasp. There sat Luna in her pajamas and dressing robe, her fair brow knit with concern as she leaned close - it had been a curl of her yellow hair that had slithered down across Ginny’s bunched knuckles.
“It’s awful, isn’t it?” she whispered earnestly.
Ginny cut a hasty glance at the hallway, and heaved a great sigh to see the privacy curtain was drawn to, and apparently someone had cast a silencing spell - either that, or her family had gone somewhere else to argue. The charm turned her relief into a snicker, but small enough that she could hide it behind her hand. A few threads of golden hair came along, twisted in Ginny’s fingers, but aside from a little tilt of her head when they pulled loose, Luna didn’t seem to notice.
“They did it to me too, after my mum died,” she went on, slipping down from the chair to kneel beside the bed. “I found something that helps though. Here…” and reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a bundle of parchment wrapped around a great, purple onion.
Ginny leaned back, a frown fighting its way through the charm only by way of startlement. “Ick,” she whispered as Luna fetched out a penknife and cut deeply into the thing, “Luna, I can’t eat tha-“
“It’s not for eating, silly,” her smile was warm and knowing, and not even a little bit pitying, and Ginny had to bite her lip against a laugh, because apparently, not even tears of relief were allowed. “Here; hold it by your nose, and breathe in,” Ginny flinched back again, but Luna just held the onion still on her pillow, its wound bleeding milky, pungent tears. “Then just let it all come out,” she whispered, “it’s not quite the same, but it’s close…”
Trembling, Ginny sat up a little, and eased back to let Luna slip onto the bed alongside her, legs brushing hallway-cool and duvet-hot between them. Ginny struggled to breathe, to keep quiet, to think of which of the million things she longed to blurt out should come first. Then Luna pressed the onion into her hand, leaned close, and wrapped Ginny in a hug that was neither bony-guilty-cold, nor bosomy-clutchy-smothering, but exactly, precisely the right size.
She couldn’t suppress the yelp of laughter then. A moment later, when her first gasp made her eyes swim with the harsh scent of onion, Ginny stopped trying to suppress anything. She just leaned into Luna’s perfect embrace, and held on tight while she shook with helpless, desperate laughter -- stinging eyes clenched, onion tears streaming.
Part 6
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, Part 3, Part 4,
~* Trial by Ordeal *~
We are the only ones right now that are celebrating: And we are joining hands right now
We are the only ones right now that are suffocating: We are the dying ones right now
“Busy,” Harry called through the door.
The same word, written in fiery letters over the lintel to the Head Auror’s office, flashed, irritably red. Ginny ignored the warning, but Snape caught her wrist as she moved to knock again.
“Are you mad, girl?” he hissed. “He says he is busy! Interrupting him now could be dangerou-“
“He’s an Auror, not a Potions researcher,” Ginny replied with a grin. “And he's shut up in his office with his secretary already gone for the day. The busiest he could legitimately be, is if he’s fiddling about with paperwork. My galleons are on him revising the duty roster for the fifth time this week, where he thinks nobody will notice that he's trying not to mope over you.”
Snape’s brow clouded at that, but Ginny saw the pale, sharp eyes flick toward the door, saw the muscle in the ill-shaven jaw twitch, and had no pity. “He’s not too busy for you, Severus, nor for me.” And with that she rapped sharply with her free hand.
Behind the door came a muffled curse, then Harry shouted, “I said I’m busy! Go away please!” Snape let go her wrist as though she’d burned him, but Ginny was a better Seeker than that. She caught his arm before the slippery Slytherin could back out of range.
“Harry, how much does a standard Ministry-issue office door cost these days?” Ginny called back. “Is there enough in the quarterly budget to replace this one?”
The sigh Harry gave was barely audible through the wood, but it broke her heart a little. Ginny slid her grip down from Severus’ elbow to his hand, twining their fingers to stop either of them balling into fists as Harry’s lock-ward clicked free, and the door swung open.
Harry was at his desk as Ginny pushed the door back and tugged Snape - who was more stunned than reluctant, -- into the Head Auror’s office. Of course, Snape hadn’t had the last six months to become used to the weight Harry had lost; the sleepless purple smudges that his glasses couldn’t hide; how his hair, once irrepressible and wild, now lay limp and flat with neglect.
When Jamie had been in his first, constantly needy months, Ginny, Luna, and Harry’d hardly had time to eat regularly, let alone bathe or do laundry. With Harry, though, it had been far more than baby-shock, and it still made Ginny wince inside to think how long it had taken them... well...her to spot the depression for what it was.
These days, she sent Harry to work in clean, pressed robes, and she had elves from the commissary deliver food to him at regular intervals, but shy of nagging, she couldn’t make him eat it. And Ginny had taken an oath to herself the day she’d moved out of the Burrow and into her own flat; she was not going to mother, smother, or nag anybody - she wasn’t ever going to be mistaken for the other red-headed firestorm of a Weasley woman.
Which made meddling like this a bit of a tricky thing, her conscience whispered. Still, something had to change, and from the lax chill of Snape’s fingers, Ginny could reasonably hope that he would take up the point of the charge for her, now he could see how bad things had gotten.
“Everything all right with Jamie?” Harry asked, head down to his paperwork and scribbling away. Even from here, Ginny could see his nails were bitten down to the quick.
“He’s at Luna’s place,” she replied, flip as she did not feel, “so it’s anybody’s guess, really, but I’m hoping for the best.”
“Your session okay” Still, he didn’t look up. Snape’s fingers started to curl against hers, then shocked straight, and twisted free. Ginny let him go, feeling his warmth as he stepped close behind her shoulder. His white fingers curled over the chairback at her side, as though he was leaning on it for support... or for restraint.
“I skipped it today,” she said, and at last, Harry looked up. When he spotted Snape at her side, he went so still it seemed he'd stopped breathing.
He’ll never look at me like that, she whispered to herself in the ringing silence that followed. He loves me. He does. But I do not have the power to do that to him… the quill made a tick-fwump as it slipped from Harry’s fingers. Thank Merlin!
Snape swallowed. It probably wouldn’t have seemed like a rifle-shot in any other room, but it was enough to make them all jump. And that was enough to shake Harry out of whatever spell of anguish had fallen over him.
“What are you-“ his lips shaped the words of dry air, then he licked his lips and tried again. “What are you doing here?”
Ginny could almost feel the air around Snape drawing in, hardening into armour. Oh, no you don’t, she growled in her heart. But aloud, she kept her voice bright, and forcibly friendly. “I asked Severus to come,” she said, stepping aside, removing herself entirely from the conduit of air between them, so saturated with emotion that it practically wavered in the light. “He has an important proposition to offer you.”
Oh, she hadn’t seen a glare like that since Potions classes in sixth year! “I have an-?” Snape’s fingernail scored the chairback as he clenched his fists. “You mean you have not asked his opinion about this insane idea of yours?!“
“Why would I do that?” Ginny grinned maliciously at Snape in return. “It’ll be between the two of you, really, won’t it? I’ll just be a tertiary part of the process. And anyway, I figure you have more than just that to discuss, so it’s not like you won't have time to get round to it.”
“Gin,” This time it was Harry’s voice that rang with warning. “What are you trying to pull here?”
“Your head out of your arse,” she replied, fixing him with a cheerful glare, “and my family back together. Jamie needs you, Harry. No,” she halted his protest with an upraised palm, “not this hollow pretence you try and hold up while you look for a reason to do more than go through the motions. He needs YOU. His father. For real.”
His green eyes flickered, first at Snape, then down at his desk, where the quill bled black all over the blotter. At least he had the grace not to deny it. “And you, need him.” She jerked a thumb at the looming column of frost-rimed black that was Severus Snape, and kept the ‘Merlin knows why,’ to herself. “And so I’ve brought the mountain to the miner, and I figure the rest is best left up to you two.” She cast a glance back at Snape, pleased to see that his brows had knit even harder, and fierce colour had risen into his cheeks.
“Yes,” he growled, eyes fierce and fixed on his prey as he stepped around the chair. “And now, Miss Weasley, I’d suggest you leave it so. Mr. Potter and I have much to discuss alone.”
“No,” Harry snapped in return, face bright and eyes glittering with the most fire he’d shown in months, “Whatever you have to say to me, you can say it in front of-“
“Sorry, Harry,” Ginny cut him off with a cheery wave as she turned to the door, “much as I’d love to sit back and watch this with some popcorn, I’m late fetching Jamie from Luna’s.” She turned back at the threshold, and grinned to see Harry’s attempt to maintain an angry, unintimidated stance while backing away from a stalking Severus Snape.
“Dinner will be at half seven,” Ginny added as she reached for the doorknob. “We can discuss the spell, and Luna's and my terms then. If you two don’t show up, I’ll send Kreacher here with your meals and orders to watch you both eat it, so try not to lose track of time, okay?”
Harry sent her only one glance - a wildly pleading thing, too full of conflicting emotions for a simple girl like her to puzzle out. So Ginny only smiled and wiggled her fingers at him. Then she shut the door.
“They won’t kill each other,” she told herself, fingers trailing over the grooves that spelled out Harry’s name in the wood. “They survived school, the basilisk, Death Eaters, Voldemort, and the Ministry. They can survive this.”
The door was pretty thick, actually. Either that, or it had muffling charms worked into the wood, because through it, Harry’s taut, angry babble was barely intelligible. Then it cut abruptly off.
Ginny cast a few lock wardings of her own on the door, and changed the flashing ‘busy’ sign to ‘Knock, and you’ll draw back a stump!’ Then after a moment’s consideration, made the fiery letters turn AK green, the harder to ignore.
Another sound drifted through from the office; this one wordless, and thick with desperation. Ginny bit her lip and quelled it under a silencing spell. Then layered a joy-buzzer charm over that, lest anybody try to take it down from the outside.
All the pictures on the wall rattled, two of them shaking loose and crashing to the carpet. Ginny decided it was most likely time to go. Luckily, Harry’s office rated a private floo at the secretary’s station, so she wouldn’t have to brave the gauntlet of the gossip-hungry Ministry in order to get out.
Finding the powder took a moment, during which three more pictures fell off the wall, but once Ginny managed to pry the silver badger’s head off and toss some powder in, the flames roared up gladly green.
“Office of the Quibbler,” Luna’s voice floated through the blaze, pierced through with giggling squeals. “How may I help you?”
Ginny sighed to feel the careful tension melt from around her heart at the sound. Her eyes prickled, and her hands ached to hold that laughing baby, even as her mind wondered what in the world Luna could be doing to get Jamie to giggle so. “Stop molesting that child, Chief Editor Lovegood,” she barked as she stepped through the flames. “He’s clearly in distress - Oh my God!”
Ginny dropped her handbag at the sight of the gigantic cauldron where Luna’s desk used to be - and at Luna stirring her baby about it with an oversized wooden spoon. James Sirius Potter was bobbing like a fishing float in the steaming water, his fuzzy head swathed in a bubble-head charm, and his skin dappled with black that inched and flowed like clouds unraveling in the wind.
“We had an adventure with the printing ink today,” Luna said calmly, giving the bubble charm on Jamie’s head a wide berth with the spoon. “I’d thought that shelf was higher than he could reach, but apparently he was very motivated. Unless the Nargles helped him. Where’s Severus?”
“Ink…” Ginny breathed a sigh, and reached down to scrub a bit of headline off her son’s shoulder. Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to leave Jamie at Luna’s when the paper’s deadline was close. At least until Luna managed to hire some more staff to man the presses. Jamie cackled madly, rolled over in the bath, and tried to shove his blackened toe into his mouth.
“Severus?” Luna prodded.
Ginny took the spoon away, and leaned in to kiss Luna. “I left him in Harry’s office,” she said, giving Jamie a nudge to turn him face up again - not that it mattered to him, but it was easier on her nerves. “They might be talking it out, but my money’s on them shagging. Or possibly beating the tar out of each other.”
“Hmm. I can’t always tell the one from the other with those two,” Luna mused, still smiling from their kiss. She had a smudge of ink across her nose, and another just above her shirt collar, the size and shape of Jamie’s little hand.
“I think that’s the idea,” Ginny replied, undoing Luna’s buttons while the baby swatted at the steaming water and chortled to see it splash. “Boys and their silly war games.” She huffed, and leaned in to kiss the perfect swell of breast as Luna’s the work shirt slipped away under her fingers. The deep fold of Luna’s cleavage smelled of patchouli, sweat, and ink, and Ginny couldn’t resist putting out her tongue to taste. “Our games were always better.”
Luna shivered, and Ginny smiled to feel one small hand wind its way into her hair, as much a caress as a plea for more. “Except when you made me play the Dark Lord.”
“Mmmaybe,” she let go her grip on Luna’s hardening nipple to reply, but kept close, so the small, wrinkled bud brushed her lips with every word. “but you always liked ‘Inquisition’. Want to play now, Goodwife Lovegood? Shall I accuse you of Witchcraft and sentence you to the ducking stool?”
Luna giggled, her nipple bouncing wetly against Ginny’s cheek until she recaptured and nibbled it. “Oh, but I’ll have to counter-accuse, Goodwife Weasley,” Luna answered, tugging Ginny’s shirt over her head, “Because I think that lake there is big enough for the both of us to have a proper Trial By Ordeal…”
“Trial By Ordeal?” Ginny grinned, reaching for her flies. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”
Luna just chuckled, and shimmied out of her knickers, giving Ginny just the briefest glimpse of her pale, dimpled arse before hiking a knee up over the cauldron’s lip. Throat dry, Ginny pressed close, and used both hands to boost Luna up into the makeshift bath - and if her fingers trespassed more boldly than usual, the positively lambent smile Luna flashed over her shoulder held not a scrap of reprimand for it.
“Bet I can hold my breath the longest,” she offered, her eyes blue and hot as flames.
Ginny couldn’t suppress a shiver as she slid her own knee over the warmed iron lip. “Just, let’s try not to drown the baby, all right?”
~*Out of Sorts *~
They rode across the lake in tiny, fretful boats, walked with shadows linked up the steep, countless stairs, and through the older students to face the Sorting Hat.
When the ragged old thing perched on Luna's broom-yellow hair and crowed, "Ravenclaw!" Ginny had to bite her lip to stop it quivering. But Luna's robes changed colour, the neutral grey going such a deep, strong blue that it made her wide eyes take fire in the enchanted candlelight, and she didn't look the least bit upset as she drifted over to take her place at the table.
A pretty Asian girl leaned over to finger Luna's plimpy earrings, and Ginny had to look away, clutching the unexpected and secret gift her father had bought for her in Diagon Alley. The diary was smooth and warm in her hand, each page of clean, white paper rather than much-scraped parchment, so she knew for certain it was new. That made her treasure it all that much more, for not often in her life did Ginny get to own things that hadn't belonged to someone else first.
She took a moment to be profoundly grateful that her father knew her so well, and then it was her turn to go up. Her brothers whooped as the Hat shouted "Gryffindor!" and Ginny walked to their table without looking back. The House of the Lion was where she belonged, apparently, just like all her brothers, just like Mum and Dad when they’d gone to Hogwarts. Weasleys were Gryffindors, Mummy had always said, and she was no different. It had been silly to expect anything else.
~* The Agony of Cheer *~
Ginny wasn’t lost, but she rather wished she could have been.
It would have been less humiliating than where she found herself now; smothered under blankets, family, and cheering charms in the Hogwarts Infirmary, pretending to sleep while Mum scolded Ronnie and Percy and the Twins for not keeping closer watch on her. Pretending to sleep because the floor kept stubbornly refusing to open up and swallow her whole. Pretending to sleep so Madam Pomfrey might possibly order the ruddy awful lot of them to go away and leave her alone.
Alone. She stifled a giggle in her pillow. Only she could manage to feel alone for a year, and still never have a moment’s privacy! There was never a moment when there weren’t other people around; students, teachers, ghosts, Filch and Hagrid, all of whom only noticed an invisible firstie like her when she was in their way, or where she wasn’t meant to be. Like lurking around Ravenclaw Tower, or trying to find a bramble patch near the Forbidden Forest, where someone might look for Nargles, away from the frowning, silent crowds of Ravenclaws that always seemed to stick so close together. But Ginny never did find one, and her classes and homework hadn’t given her much time to search. And it had just seemed easier to turn to the diary when she felt lonely…
Tears stung her eyes, but the stupid charm whisked them away with a tingle. She should never have used the thing. She ought to have burned it, taken it to the Headmaster, ripped it to tiny bits, not trusted it… not imagined it was a closer, more constant friend than she’d ever had. She turned her face to the wall, fist clenched against her mouth so the others wouldn’t see her grin. She was the biggest, awfullest, stupidest fool in the world, and she couldn’t even wish she was dead, because then You-Know-Who would have won, and Harry Potter would be dead too.
Oh, that stupid charm!
Ginny was still fighting off the urge to giggle, when she felt a brush, light as a moth’s wing, along the back of her hand, and opened her eyes with a gasp. There sat Luna in her pajamas and dressing robe, her fair brow knit with concern as she leaned close - it had been a curl of her yellow hair that had slithered down across Ginny’s bunched knuckles.
“It’s awful, isn’t it?” she whispered earnestly.
Ginny cut a hasty glance at the hallway, and heaved a great sigh to see the privacy curtain was drawn to, and apparently someone had cast a silencing spell - either that, or her family had gone somewhere else to argue. The charm turned her relief into a snicker, but small enough that she could hide it behind her hand. A few threads of golden hair came along, twisted in Ginny’s fingers, but aside from a little tilt of her head when they pulled loose, Luna didn’t seem to notice.
“They did it to me too, after my mum died,” she went on, slipping down from the chair to kneel beside the bed. “I found something that helps though. Here…” and reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a bundle of parchment wrapped around a great, purple onion.
Ginny leaned back, a frown fighting its way through the charm only by way of startlement. “Ick,” she whispered as Luna fetched out a penknife and cut deeply into the thing, “Luna, I can’t eat tha-“
“It’s not for eating, silly,” her smile was warm and knowing, and not even a little bit pitying, and Ginny had to bite her lip against a laugh, because apparently, not even tears of relief were allowed. “Here; hold it by your nose, and breathe in,” Ginny flinched back again, but Luna just held the onion still on her pillow, its wound bleeding milky, pungent tears. “Then just let it all come out,” she whispered, “it’s not quite the same, but it’s close…”
Trembling, Ginny sat up a little, and eased back to let Luna slip onto the bed alongside her, legs brushing hallway-cool and duvet-hot between them. Ginny struggled to breathe, to keep quiet, to think of which of the million things she longed to blurt out should come first. Then Luna pressed the onion into her hand, leaned close, and wrapped Ginny in a hug that was neither bony-guilty-cold, nor bosomy-clutchy-smothering, but exactly, precisely the right size.
She couldn’t suppress the yelp of laughter then. A moment later, when her first gasp made her eyes swim with the harsh scent of onion, Ginny stopped trying to suppress anything. She just leaned into Luna’s perfect embrace, and held on tight while she shook with helpless, desperate laughter -- stinging eyes clenched, onion tears streaming.
Part 6