(no subject)
Title: Pieces to a Puzzle
Pairing: Tonks/Cho/Ginny
Rating: R
Disclaimer: HP is not mine.
Note: Also posted at hp_girlslash.
Theme: Bloodlines
Summary: Ginny, Tonks, and Cho think about the blood that flows through their own veins and each other's, and what it means to them.
Ginny remembered skinning her knee when she was four by accident. She remembered it because her brother had been running in front of her when she had tripped and tumbled down the hill. She had cried out, more out of shock than actual pain, and he had turned around and raced back towards her, afraid that she had hurt herself badly.
She remembered the green grass-stain on her knee and how the dirt had stung in her wound, but most of all she remembered the cut itself: shallow, with a sort of pink tinge and the faintest traces of blood seeping toward the surface.
Years later, when she was making love to Tonks, the Metamorphagous's hair had turned bright red as she had come. It had startled Ginny so bad that she had fallen off the bed and landed a nasty crack to her head. It was the same shade of red as the blood that freckled the scratch marks on Cho's back when they slept together; it was crimson; it was the same shade of red as her skinned knee had been on that hill, thirteen years ago.
*
Tonks remembered asking her parents why they never spent the Holidays with her mother's relatives when she was eight.
She couldn't remember ever having seen them in person, but she had memorized every inch of their glossy photograph skin and perfect smiles. She had memorized ever strand of her aunts' gorgeous long hair. She used to like to imitate their hair until her father had caught her mother crying in the bathroom because of it, and he had asked her to stop.
Back then she hadn't known why it made her mother sad. It was only after she grew up that she learned the truth behind her mother's past, and realized the full weight of the answer her mother had given her to the question she had asked at age eight.
"They think we have bad blood," her mother had said, quietly.
"And do we?" asked Tonks, with all the subtlty of a eight-year-old.
"What do you think?" she had asked.
It took Tonks seventeen years to stumble across the answer to her mother's question
"No," she whispered against Ginny's neck, as her fingers entwined with Cho's long, dark hair. "I don't."
*
Cho remembered seeing Cedric's corpse at fifteen, splattered with blood from the scrapes he had picked up in the maze and bleeding from the rough tumble of travel using portkey.
They took his corpse away immediately, but she never forgot the way his eyes had stared unblinkingly at some invisible monster in front of him. Dumbledore explained the situation to everyone, but she still didn't understand what Cedric had seen in the moment of death.
A counselor her parents took her to helped her begin the long process of recovery. How he explained it to her was that every situation was connected to every other situation, like a puzzle was made up of a lot of different pieces. They might look like nothing by themselves, but if you put them together, the bigger picture becomes clear.
Cho took the year off from school and worked hard on putting the pieces together for nearly a year.
It was near the end of those twelve months that she began to glimpse the bigger picture: it was about racism. Not the type that you cannot hide, oh no. It was about a darker type of racism. One that did not rear its head in polite society. It was about so-called "purity," although Cho knew that was a lie. Cedric's blood looked like Ginny's blood did when she accidently bit her lip during dinner, and Ginny's blood looked just like Tonks's blood did when she got a paper cut and spent the next minute cussing at it.
Cho was beginning to see, but she still didn't understand and she thought she never would. Why should people marry for the sake of bloodlines, when it was only love that mattered? But she knew she was being foolish. After all, she had seen the way strangers looked at Ginny and Tonks and her when they went out in public, and she had heard the things they whispered behind their backs.
Cho sighed and turned over in the king size bed. As she snuggled deeper against Ginny, she felt Tonks reach out a hand and stroke her hair soothingly.
A few minutes later, she was lulled back into sleep, this time of a more peaceful nature.
Pairing: Tonks/Cho/Ginny
Rating: R
Disclaimer: HP is not mine.
Note: Also posted at hp_girlslash.
Theme: Bloodlines
Summary: Ginny, Tonks, and Cho think about the blood that flows through their own veins and each other's, and what it means to them.
Ginny remembered skinning her knee when she was four by accident. She remembered it because her brother had been running in front of her when she had tripped and tumbled down the hill. She had cried out, more out of shock than actual pain, and he had turned around and raced back towards her, afraid that she had hurt herself badly.
She remembered the green grass-stain on her knee and how the dirt had stung in her wound, but most of all she remembered the cut itself: shallow, with a sort of pink tinge and the faintest traces of blood seeping toward the surface.
Years later, when she was making love to Tonks, the Metamorphagous's hair had turned bright red as she had come. It had startled Ginny so bad that she had fallen off the bed and landed a nasty crack to her head. It was the same shade of red as the blood that freckled the scratch marks on Cho's back when they slept together; it was crimson; it was the same shade of red as her skinned knee had been on that hill, thirteen years ago.
*
Tonks remembered asking her parents why they never spent the Holidays with her mother's relatives when she was eight.
She couldn't remember ever having seen them in person, but she had memorized every inch of their glossy photograph skin and perfect smiles. She had memorized ever strand of her aunts' gorgeous long hair. She used to like to imitate their hair until her father had caught her mother crying in the bathroom because of it, and he had asked her to stop.
Back then she hadn't known why it made her mother sad. It was only after she grew up that she learned the truth behind her mother's past, and realized the full weight of the answer her mother had given her to the question she had asked at age eight.
"They think we have bad blood," her mother had said, quietly.
"And do we?" asked Tonks, with all the subtlty of a eight-year-old.
"What do you think?" she had asked.
It took Tonks seventeen years to stumble across the answer to her mother's question
"No," she whispered against Ginny's neck, as her fingers entwined with Cho's long, dark hair. "I don't."
*
Cho remembered seeing Cedric's corpse at fifteen, splattered with blood from the scrapes he had picked up in the maze and bleeding from the rough tumble of travel using portkey.
They took his corpse away immediately, but she never forgot the way his eyes had stared unblinkingly at some invisible monster in front of him. Dumbledore explained the situation to everyone, but she still didn't understand what Cedric had seen in the moment of death.
A counselor her parents took her to helped her begin the long process of recovery. How he explained it to her was that every situation was connected to every other situation, like a puzzle was made up of a lot of different pieces. They might look like nothing by themselves, but if you put them together, the bigger picture becomes clear.
Cho took the year off from school and worked hard on putting the pieces together for nearly a year.
It was near the end of those twelve months that she began to glimpse the bigger picture: it was about racism. Not the type that you cannot hide, oh no. It was about a darker type of racism. One that did not rear its head in polite society. It was about so-called "purity," although Cho knew that was a lie. Cedric's blood looked like Ginny's blood did when she accidently bit her lip during dinner, and Ginny's blood looked just like Tonks's blood did when she got a paper cut and spent the next minute cussing at it.
Cho was beginning to see, but she still didn't understand and she thought she never would. Why should people marry for the sake of bloodlines, when it was only love that mattered? But she knew she was being foolish. After all, she had seen the way strangers looked at Ginny and Tonks and her when they went out in public, and she had heard the things they whispered behind their backs.
Cho sighed and turned over in the king size bed. As she snuggled deeper against Ginny, she felt Tonks reach out a hand and stroke her hair soothingly.
A few minutes later, she was lulled back into sleep, this time of a more peaceful nature.