A Gift For evening12: Hope Comes At Midnight, (Ginny/Pansy)
Author: flipflop_diva
Recipient: evening12
Title: Hope Comes At Midnight
Pairing: Ginny Weasley/Pansy Parkinson
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,166
Summary: New Year’s Eve is a time for parties and celebrations. This year, things are a little different for Ginny and Pansy.
Author's Notes: Thank you, Martine, for so many super fun prompts to work with! I tried to include as many of them as I could. I hope you enjoy! And to the Mods, thank you for your hard work and for being so incredibly patient with me! I’m so glad to participate in this fest once again. And to everyone out there, happy new year!
She heard the sound of footsteps behind her, but she didn’t turn to look away from the window. She wasn’t even looking at anything. It was too dark outside, and even the stars in the sky were barely visible through the fog.
She heard the footsteps stop behind her, heard the soft breathing of someone who didn’t know what exactly to say. She decided to speak instead.
“My parents have had a New Year’s Eve party every year since before I was born,” she said. “The house elves would decorate for weeks. They invited everyone who was anyone. There was dancing. Food. Fireworks.” She paused for a moment, remembering. “I hated those parties,” she said.
The feet stepped up beside her. She turned her head, but Ginny wasn’t looking at her. Instead, she too was staring out the same window Pansy had been staring through for the past hour, both of them now looking out into nothing but seeing everything.
“Fred and George always celebrated the new year with their newest inventions,” Ginny said, and Pansy could hear the wistfulness in her voice. Not like the bitterness that was in Pansy’s voice. “Mum would always get so mad, but Dad would cheer them on when Mum wasn’t looking.”
Ginny turned now to look at Pansy. “There’s not going to be any inventions this year,” she said, and now the wistfulness had turned sad. “I offered to help George make something, but …” She trailed off with a sigh.
“There isn’t any New Year’s Eve party this year,” Pansy said. “At least not at my old manor. Someone else probably had to take it over.” Probably the Malfoys, she didn’t say. Narcissa always loved to host. Pansy had always had a feeling she was slightly bothered by Pansy’s mum insisting New Year’s Eve be at their place.
Pansy felt a slight movement beside her, and then she felt fingers slip through hers.
“I’m sorry they aren’t here,” Ginny said.
“I’m sorry Fred isn’t here,” Pansy said.
Neither one of them said anything after that. What was there to say anyway?
•••
It was unexpected. That’s what everyone said.
“This is … unexpected,” Daphne Greengrass had said when Pansy told her she was going on a date with Ginny Weasley.
“That’s quite unexpected,” Draco Malfoy had said when Pansy told him she was dating the youngest Weasley.
“I did not expect that,” Pansy’s aunt - her mum’s sister - had said angrily when Pansy told her she was selling the manor and moving into a small flat in London with her girlfriend. Pansy had only shrugged in response.
“Too many memories here,” she’d told her aunt. She didn’t tell her that not all of them were good. She didn’t tell her that the nightmares of her parents’ deaths - deaths that came probably on the orders of Voldemort after her parents tried to make a run for it before the war ended - were too much to deal with.
Only Ginny knew that. And that in itself had been the most unexpected thing.
She had thought she was alone in her grief. No one was supposed to see her crying in the first floor Hogwarts bathroom after she heard the news. No one was supposed to have broken the charm she cast to lock the door. No one was supposed to stare at her in a shared moment of mourning, albeit for completely different people. No one was supposed to be there, let alone a Weasley.
Ginny Weasley, who she had spent years mocking and sneering at and making fun of behind her back. Ginny Weasley, who hated Pansy as much as Pansy hated her. Ginny Weasley, who led the rebellion that Pansy tried so hard to put down her seventh year at Hogwarts and Ginny’s sixth.
She wasn’t supposed to have been there, but there she had been, red-eyed just like Pansy, tears on her cheeks just like Pansy.
“I’m sorry,” she had said, and to this day, Pansy didn’t know if Ginny had been talking about interrupting her or about her parents’ deaths.
“It’s fine,” Pansy had said, because it was the best response she could give to whatever Ginny was trying to say. She had expected Ginny to turn around then and leave. But she hadn’t. Instead she had walked over to where Pansy was sitting on the floor against the wall and slid down beside her. They were almost touching as Ginny pulled her knees up and leaned forward, resting her forehead against them, trembling slightly.
Pansy had thought about telling her to get out. Or about getting out herself. She also considered casting some sort of hex. After all, she hated the girl beside her. The girl who was grieving for her brother just as Pansy was grieving for her parents. The girl who was somehow making her feel less alone, in an awkward uncomfortable sort of fashion.
But her wand was just out of reach. And her eyes were stinging with tears. And everything felt like so much effort - too much effort.
So in the end she decided it wasn’t worth the hassle and instead she leaned her head back, closed her eyes, let the tears drip down her cheeks and decided not to care about Ginny Weasley, even as the girl sniffed slightly beside her.
•••
That should have been the end of it. She should have gotten up, some unknown amount of hours later, walked out of that bathroom and to the Slytherin common room and never looked back, never thought about Ginny Weasley again, unless she had the unfortunate luck to run into her some day far, far, far in the future.
But that wasn’t the end of it, because as she got up, some unknown amount of hours later, and walked to the bathroom door, Ginny’s pained, tear-filled voice stopped her.
“I have a bottle of Firewhisky hidden in my room,” she said.
Pansy had turned just in time to see Ginny wiping tears off her cheeks.
“I wouldn’t step foot in the Gryffindor common room if my life depended on it.”
That’s what she wanted to say. That’s what was on the tip of her tongue.
“Meet me by the front doors in an hour,” Ginny said when Pansy didn’t actually say anything.
“Okay,” Pansy found herself saying. And then an hour later, she found herself by the front doors, greeting Ginny Weasley as if she was someone she actually liked, and an hour after that, she found herself sitting by the edge of the Forbidden Forest, hidden from view from anyone else who might be wandering by, helping Ginny drain a bottle of Firewhisky. And they were talking, words pouring out just as the Firewhisky was pouring down their throats.
Stories about Pansy’s parents. Stories about Ginny’s brother. Worries about what came next. About how they were supposed to go on. About how they were supposed to pretend the war hadn’t permanently changed them forever.
They talked long into the night, until the sun started to come up, and then they slept, out there on the lawn, curled up together. And when they woke up, Ginny smiled at Pansy.
“I have another bottle of Firewhisky,” she said. “Ten o’clock tonight by the front door?”
Pansy’s head was killing her. Her vision was blurred. She felt sadder than she had ever felt in her life.
“Why not?” she said, and little did either one of them know but that was the beginning. The beginning of a friendship, then the beginning of a friendship with benefits and then finally the beginning of a relationship. Which led them here, to a New Year’s Eve, standing together on the top floor of The Burrow, looking out a window into the blackness, even as the rest of the family and Harry Potter and Hermione Granger spent the night chatting and laughing floors below them.
•••
“I wish I could be like them,” Pansy said as a ring of laughter from down below reached their ears. She had turned back to the window, tried again to pretend she could see something out of it.
“We’ll get there,” Ginny said, and she sounded more confident than Pansy could remember feeling in a long time.
"I miss them so much," Pansy said, before adding. "I didn't even like them half the time."
"I think that makes it worse," Ginny said.
Pansy nodded. "Thank you for being here," she said, and she wasn't sure if she meant here specifically as in the top floor of The Burrow or here in general as in by her side.
Ginny didn't seem to need clarification. "There's nowhere I'd rather be."
Ginny lifted their entwined hands upward. Pansy felt Ginny's lips kiss her knuckles tenderly. A warm sensation spread through her body.
"I love you," Ginny said, and Pansy stilled. The warmth turned to heat. Neither one of them had said that before.
"You don't have to ..." Ginny started.
"I love you too," Pansy said, and she felt rather than saw the smile spread across her girlfriend's face. She turned her body toward Ginny, started to lean in, but of course …
"Ginny! Pansy!" A voice interrupted, calling up to them.
Ron.
"You have to see this!" he shouted, and they kept their hands clasped as they headed down the stairs.
•••
They hadn’t been able to see it from upstairs, but the snow that had evaded them all winter so far had finally started to fall. Tiny white flakes were coming down from the sky, dotting the roof and the tops of Molly’s shrubs. All the other Weasley children, plus Harry and Hermione, were already outside, running around and laughing as they stared upward into the sky.
Pansy turned to Ginny in time to see her turn her face upward, a smile across it, a laugh bubbling out of her mouth. She looked beautiful, her red hair slowly turning white, her hands lifted above her head as she started to twirl, a dance all of her own.
The heat that Pansy had been feeling upstairs seemed to intensify, seemed to warm her whole body. And a feeling she hadn’t felt for what seemed like ages started to grow inside her.
She thought maybe it was happiness.
She was so busy watching Ginny, mesmerized by her every feature, that she didn’t see the snowball coming. Not until it had smacked into her side and was dripping its cold chill down her arm. She whirled around.
Hermione Granger stood across from her, arm still raised in the air, a look of horror across her face.
Pansy thought about snarling but she couldn’t. Not now. Instead she laughed.
“Don’t start something you can’t win, Granger!” she called, and she saw the relief visibly spread through Granger’s body as she laughed too. They both dove to the ground, scooping up snow, and letting it fly at each other. Beside Pansy, Ginny was still twirling around, red hair flying.
It was almost like a dream, Pansy thought, being there in that moment, loving a girl she once hated, having a snowball fight with another girl she had despised. If someone had told her a year ago this would be her life, she would have hexed that person with the worst spell she knew. She would have thought it sounded like torture. She never would have believed it would sound like hope.
“Ginny! Pansy!” Someone’s shout broke through her thoughts.
It was George.
“Over here! You’re on our team!” He and Charlie were over behind a set of tall shrubs, waving at the two of them.
“You guys are going to be so sorry!” Ron shouted at his brothers.
“Not a chance!” George yelled, as Pansy and Ginny took off running toward the boys, ducking down behind the shrubs, only to find huge piles of snow that Pansy suspected had come less from nature and more from magic.
But she didn’t have a chance to ask about it as snow balls were flying through the air, mixed with shrieks and laughter. Up above them all, a single firework lit up the sky, a sign that the new year was drawing near.
A new year. A new chance. A new opportunity - for hope, for love, for happiness.
Pansy smiled to herself as she ducked back down to gather more snow. Next to her, Ginny dropped down as well. Their eyes met, and in Ginny’s gaze, Pansy recognized the love she felt inside herself.
She leaned forward and Ginny did as well, their lips meeting in a kiss that made Pansy forget about any chill she might have been feeling from the frosty weather.
“We’ll celebrate later,” Ginny whispered with a smirk and a wink as she pulled back, and Pansy felt a different sort of heat curl in her belly.
“Happy New Year, Ginny,” she said softly.
“Happy New Year, Pansy,” Ginny answered, and simultaneously they stood up, side by side, and let the snowballs in their hands fly across the yard.
Recipient: evening12
Title: Hope Comes At Midnight
Pairing: Ginny Weasley/Pansy Parkinson
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,166
Summary: New Year’s Eve is a time for parties and celebrations. This year, things are a little different for Ginny and Pansy.
Author's Notes: Thank you, Martine, for so many super fun prompts to work with! I tried to include as many of them as I could. I hope you enjoy! And to the Mods, thank you for your hard work and for being so incredibly patient with me! I’m so glad to participate in this fest once again. And to everyone out there, happy new year!
She heard the sound of footsteps behind her, but she didn’t turn to look away from the window. She wasn’t even looking at anything. It was too dark outside, and even the stars in the sky were barely visible through the fog.
She heard the footsteps stop behind her, heard the soft breathing of someone who didn’t know what exactly to say. She decided to speak instead.
“My parents have had a New Year’s Eve party every year since before I was born,” she said. “The house elves would decorate for weeks. They invited everyone who was anyone. There was dancing. Food. Fireworks.” She paused for a moment, remembering. “I hated those parties,” she said.
The feet stepped up beside her. She turned her head, but Ginny wasn’t looking at her. Instead, she too was staring out the same window Pansy had been staring through for the past hour, both of them now looking out into nothing but seeing everything.
“Fred and George always celebrated the new year with their newest inventions,” Ginny said, and Pansy could hear the wistfulness in her voice. Not like the bitterness that was in Pansy’s voice. “Mum would always get so mad, but Dad would cheer them on when Mum wasn’t looking.”
Ginny turned now to look at Pansy. “There’s not going to be any inventions this year,” she said, and now the wistfulness had turned sad. “I offered to help George make something, but …” She trailed off with a sigh.
“There isn’t any New Year’s Eve party this year,” Pansy said. “At least not at my old manor. Someone else probably had to take it over.” Probably the Malfoys, she didn’t say. Narcissa always loved to host. Pansy had always had a feeling she was slightly bothered by Pansy’s mum insisting New Year’s Eve be at their place.
Pansy felt a slight movement beside her, and then she felt fingers slip through hers.
“I’m sorry they aren’t here,” Ginny said.
“I’m sorry Fred isn’t here,” Pansy said.
Neither one of them said anything after that. What was there to say anyway?
•••
It was unexpected. That’s what everyone said.
“This is … unexpected,” Daphne Greengrass had said when Pansy told her she was going on a date with Ginny Weasley.
“That’s quite unexpected,” Draco Malfoy had said when Pansy told him she was dating the youngest Weasley.
“I did not expect that,” Pansy’s aunt - her mum’s sister - had said angrily when Pansy told her she was selling the manor and moving into a small flat in London with her girlfriend. Pansy had only shrugged in response.
“Too many memories here,” she’d told her aunt. She didn’t tell her that not all of them were good. She didn’t tell her that the nightmares of her parents’ deaths - deaths that came probably on the orders of Voldemort after her parents tried to make a run for it before the war ended - were too much to deal with.
Only Ginny knew that. And that in itself had been the most unexpected thing.
She had thought she was alone in her grief. No one was supposed to see her crying in the first floor Hogwarts bathroom after she heard the news. No one was supposed to have broken the charm she cast to lock the door. No one was supposed to stare at her in a shared moment of mourning, albeit for completely different people. No one was supposed to be there, let alone a Weasley.
Ginny Weasley, who she had spent years mocking and sneering at and making fun of behind her back. Ginny Weasley, who hated Pansy as much as Pansy hated her. Ginny Weasley, who led the rebellion that Pansy tried so hard to put down her seventh year at Hogwarts and Ginny’s sixth.
She wasn’t supposed to have been there, but there she had been, red-eyed just like Pansy, tears on her cheeks just like Pansy.
“I’m sorry,” she had said, and to this day, Pansy didn’t know if Ginny had been talking about interrupting her or about her parents’ deaths.
“It’s fine,” Pansy had said, because it was the best response she could give to whatever Ginny was trying to say. She had expected Ginny to turn around then and leave. But she hadn’t. Instead she had walked over to where Pansy was sitting on the floor against the wall and slid down beside her. They were almost touching as Ginny pulled her knees up and leaned forward, resting her forehead against them, trembling slightly.
Pansy had thought about telling her to get out. Or about getting out herself. She also considered casting some sort of hex. After all, she hated the girl beside her. The girl who was grieving for her brother just as Pansy was grieving for her parents. The girl who was somehow making her feel less alone, in an awkward uncomfortable sort of fashion.
But her wand was just out of reach. And her eyes were stinging with tears. And everything felt like so much effort - too much effort.
So in the end she decided it wasn’t worth the hassle and instead she leaned her head back, closed her eyes, let the tears drip down her cheeks and decided not to care about Ginny Weasley, even as the girl sniffed slightly beside her.
•••
That should have been the end of it. She should have gotten up, some unknown amount of hours later, walked out of that bathroom and to the Slytherin common room and never looked back, never thought about Ginny Weasley again, unless she had the unfortunate luck to run into her some day far, far, far in the future.
But that wasn’t the end of it, because as she got up, some unknown amount of hours later, and walked to the bathroom door, Ginny’s pained, tear-filled voice stopped her.
“I have a bottle of Firewhisky hidden in my room,” she said.
Pansy had turned just in time to see Ginny wiping tears off her cheeks.
“I wouldn’t step foot in the Gryffindor common room if my life depended on it.”
That’s what she wanted to say. That’s what was on the tip of her tongue.
“Meet me by the front doors in an hour,” Ginny said when Pansy didn’t actually say anything.
“Okay,” Pansy found herself saying. And then an hour later, she found herself by the front doors, greeting Ginny Weasley as if she was someone she actually liked, and an hour after that, she found herself sitting by the edge of the Forbidden Forest, hidden from view from anyone else who might be wandering by, helping Ginny drain a bottle of Firewhisky. And they were talking, words pouring out just as the Firewhisky was pouring down their throats.
Stories about Pansy’s parents. Stories about Ginny’s brother. Worries about what came next. About how they were supposed to go on. About how they were supposed to pretend the war hadn’t permanently changed them forever.
They talked long into the night, until the sun started to come up, and then they slept, out there on the lawn, curled up together. And when they woke up, Ginny smiled at Pansy.
“I have another bottle of Firewhisky,” she said. “Ten o’clock tonight by the front door?”
Pansy’s head was killing her. Her vision was blurred. She felt sadder than she had ever felt in her life.
“Why not?” she said, and little did either one of them know but that was the beginning. The beginning of a friendship, then the beginning of a friendship with benefits and then finally the beginning of a relationship. Which led them here, to a New Year’s Eve, standing together on the top floor of The Burrow, looking out a window into the blackness, even as the rest of the family and Harry Potter and Hermione Granger spent the night chatting and laughing floors below them.
•••
“I wish I could be like them,” Pansy said as a ring of laughter from down below reached their ears. She had turned back to the window, tried again to pretend she could see something out of it.
“We’ll get there,” Ginny said, and she sounded more confident than Pansy could remember feeling in a long time.
"I miss them so much," Pansy said, before adding. "I didn't even like them half the time."
"I think that makes it worse," Ginny said.
Pansy nodded. "Thank you for being here," she said, and she wasn't sure if she meant here specifically as in the top floor of The Burrow or here in general as in by her side.
Ginny didn't seem to need clarification. "There's nowhere I'd rather be."
Ginny lifted their entwined hands upward. Pansy felt Ginny's lips kiss her knuckles tenderly. A warm sensation spread through her body.
"I love you," Ginny said, and Pansy stilled. The warmth turned to heat. Neither one of them had said that before.
"You don't have to ..." Ginny started.
"I love you too," Pansy said, and she felt rather than saw the smile spread across her girlfriend's face. She turned her body toward Ginny, started to lean in, but of course …
"Ginny! Pansy!" A voice interrupted, calling up to them.
Ron.
"You have to see this!" he shouted, and they kept their hands clasped as they headed down the stairs.
•••
They hadn’t been able to see it from upstairs, but the snow that had evaded them all winter so far had finally started to fall. Tiny white flakes were coming down from the sky, dotting the roof and the tops of Molly’s shrubs. All the other Weasley children, plus Harry and Hermione, were already outside, running around and laughing as they stared upward into the sky.
Pansy turned to Ginny in time to see her turn her face upward, a smile across it, a laugh bubbling out of her mouth. She looked beautiful, her red hair slowly turning white, her hands lifted above her head as she started to twirl, a dance all of her own.
The heat that Pansy had been feeling upstairs seemed to intensify, seemed to warm her whole body. And a feeling she hadn’t felt for what seemed like ages started to grow inside her.
She thought maybe it was happiness.
She was so busy watching Ginny, mesmerized by her every feature, that she didn’t see the snowball coming. Not until it had smacked into her side and was dripping its cold chill down her arm. She whirled around.
Hermione Granger stood across from her, arm still raised in the air, a look of horror across her face.
Pansy thought about snarling but she couldn’t. Not now. Instead she laughed.
“Don’t start something you can’t win, Granger!” she called, and she saw the relief visibly spread through Granger’s body as she laughed too. They both dove to the ground, scooping up snow, and letting it fly at each other. Beside Pansy, Ginny was still twirling around, red hair flying.
It was almost like a dream, Pansy thought, being there in that moment, loving a girl she once hated, having a snowball fight with another girl she had despised. If someone had told her a year ago this would be her life, she would have hexed that person with the worst spell she knew. She would have thought it sounded like torture. She never would have believed it would sound like hope.
“Ginny! Pansy!” Someone’s shout broke through her thoughts.
It was George.
“Over here! You’re on our team!” He and Charlie were over behind a set of tall shrubs, waving at the two of them.
“You guys are going to be so sorry!” Ron shouted at his brothers.
“Not a chance!” George yelled, as Pansy and Ginny took off running toward the boys, ducking down behind the shrubs, only to find huge piles of snow that Pansy suspected had come less from nature and more from magic.
But she didn’t have a chance to ask about it as snow balls were flying through the air, mixed with shrieks and laughter. Up above them all, a single firework lit up the sky, a sign that the new year was drawing near.
A new year. A new chance. A new opportunity - for hope, for love, for happiness.
Pansy smiled to herself as she ducked back down to gather more snow. Next to her, Ginny dropped down as well. Their eyes met, and in Ginny’s gaze, Pansy recognized the love she felt inside herself.
She leaned forward and Ginny did as well, their lips meeting in a kiss that made Pansy forget about any chill she might have been feeling from the frosty weather.
“We’ll celebrate later,” Ginny whispered with a smirk and a wink as she pulled back, and Pansy felt a different sort of heat curl in her belly.
“Happy New Year, Ginny,” she said softly.
“Happy New Year, Pansy,” Ginny answered, and simultaneously they stood up, side by side, and let the snowballs in their hands fly across the yard.