the beauty of the rain is how it falls
Kisses to thessamunga for the quick beta and to jrivka for the beta that she didn't do. Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, Ron/Harry/Ginny.
Rating: R
Summary: A vice like family, Ron thinks.
Disclaimer: Obviously not mine.
Notes: Incest, Harry/Ron/Ginny,
character death for plot advancement. Oops.
At the funeral, Ginny places herself snugly between Harry and Ron and holds onto their arms as though she’d like to squeeze herself into both of them and slink out of existence. The all-encompassing dread she’s been feeling lately only makes it worse.
Hermione doesn’t come because she is on vacation in Bali with her parents and they can’t grasp how important a schoolmate’s death is. They say: “We had a school friend that died over the summer; it’s less painful not to go.” They don’t understand that there is a hidden war occurring just where they can’t see it. They don’t understand that Hermione needs closure, because it just doesn’t seem quite real yet.
+
“Percy,” whispers Ginny that night, when she, Harry, and Ron have taken linens and blankets onto the lawn so that they can sleep under the stars and try to remember and forget all at the same time.
“I know,” Ron says, and strokes a freckled hand down through her hair. The strands slide over his fingers and match the dots along his skin. Auburn against sun burnt freckles.
It has been five days since Percy’s death and having never lost a relative, Ginny doesn’t know how the world is supposed to feel now. She isn’t sure what this means, to be here in the dark with Ron and Harry. With crickets chirping and tomorrow coming faster than the next day ever has. To Ginny, the days feel like they have sped up since Percy died. (Did Percy keep things balanced? She ponders. Was there something in him she never saw?)
In the dark next to her, Harry has curled up into a ball of boy. He doesn’t look at all 17. He looks, as is his way, like a small, frightened child. Harry, Ginny thinks, has been a small frightened child his whole life. Here is this boy they will all come to depend, and Harry hardly seems able to depend on himself. Ginny loves him for that, for his lack of morale and clumsy manner.
“Go to sleep, Gin,” Ron says softy from her left and puts a hand on her shoulder to pull her down into their nest of blankets on the grass. It’s lush and green; it springs under her bare palms. They’ve had so much rain this summer.
“Right,” she says. “I need to sleep.” And then as an afterthought: “Do you think Mum and Dad are sleeping?”
“No, they still have their candles going.”
Ginny can’t see their window from her place on the ground. “Oh,” she says, “do you think Mum is sad?”
“Yes, Ginny. Come on, you’re going to wake up Harry.”
Ginny realizes then that Harry has been asleep for some time. They’ve been out here for some time. She keeps losing track of the moments, and they still flit by so quickly.
“Will everything be alright in the morning?” She asks, feeling childish and stupid because Ron won’t know what to say and she knows this.
“I don’t know,” he says and tugs on her tank top. “Come here.”
She lies down and lets him wrap his long arms around her. It feels nice because he’s warm from being under the blankets and her shoulders are cold from sitting up in the air for so long. It feels nice because he’s Ron and he’s comforting and so much bigger than her. He’s built just like Percy was.
Next them, Harry stirs and his hair tumbles over his forehead and across his scar. Ginny smiles and feels Ron’s arms tighten around her waist. They are spooning, they haven’t done this since she was little and spent her time talking Ron’s ear off and lounging about his room like an annoying nymph.
“I love you, Ginny,” he says into her hair and it’s muffled and common-like it could come from any boy who happened to get his hands on her.
She falls asleep.
+
Ginny wakes up tangled in the blankets. It is still dark, but to the east the sky is on the edge of light. There is the soft sound of rustling skin, and Ginny pulls herself up on her elbows to look over at where Harry was lying when she fell asleep. He is not alone, but Ginny realizes that she is.
Ron’s arms are draped about Harry’s waist. Harry’s hands are knotted at the base of Ron’s neck, his fingers twirling slightly in the ruddy curls there, his lips press against Ron’s and Ginny closes her eyes.
Where does this leave her, she wonders.
+
A month ago, on a warmer evening than this one, in nearly the same place, Ginny told Harry that she loved him. She placed her head on his shoulder, her hair spilling across his chest, and whispered into his ear with her lips close to his skin.
He didn’t really say much, she remembers. He might have nodded in his resolute way, as though she was a task he had to accomplish or a particularly grueling Potions test, but he didn’t say much. He did kiss her, though.
She remembers his glasses bumping into her forehead, and their lips hitting at the wrong angle. Awkward and odd, like Harry himself. She remembers grasping a handful of his hair into her fist and marveling at how coarse it was. Coarse, thick and messy.
It wasn’t a very long kiss, but there were more after it and it was long enough for Harry to slide a hand up her stomach and toward the contours of her chest. She knows no one even blinked an eye when they both came in flushed; she fussing with her skirt in the kitchen. In the twilight, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had let Harry Potter fondle their little girl.
+
Ginny bites her lip before she speaks, and Ron sighs loudly into Harry’s mouth. She debates calling them both by their middle names. Harry doesn’t have one, she knows this, but everyone says it might as well be James.
Instead she starts to cry.
Both boys turn sharply at her first sob before she even sheds tears. Harry drops his hands from Ron’s neck and wipes hastily at his lips. Ron just stares.
“Ginny-” he starts to say, and she shakes her head at him as if to say “Please, no. Don’t make it worse.”
So Harry speaks instead.
“He was here,” he says and Ron looks affronted, even sad.
“But…” Ginny glances from her brother to Harry and realizes that Ron loves Harry like she does-in a desperate, earth-shattering sort of way-in a way that makes person ready to sacrifice oneself to a group armed Death Eaters.
“He was here and you were sleeping.”
“Isn’t that sort of selfish, Harry?” Ron asks, his voice breaking on the words.
“What is selfish anyway?” Ginny says. Ron looks at her and his eyes are bluer than they were yesterday. Bluer than they’ve ever been.
“Selfish is never saying you’re sorry,” says Harry quietly.
Ron and Ginny both look at him. Harry, their conquering hero. Harry who hasn’t really conquered anything useful. Harry who has only succeeded in conquering them both.
“What?” Ginny bites her lower lip.
“I’m sorry,” Harry says, and she knows he doesn’t mean it. He doesn’t know how to mean it, but it will do.
“Okay,” Ron says, and fixes the blankets around their bodies. He spreads them out and makes the three of them a bed.
“Will you kiss me?” Harry tilts his head at her.
“Yes,” Ginny says and goes to him, pressing her body against his and knowing he can feel all of her through her nightclothes. That he can smell the grass in her hair and the damp earth on her skin. She curls her hands into his hair where they belong and kisses him. He rests his hands on the waist of her sleep-shorts.
+
Ron fixes the blankets and he watches them, eyes gleaming and gleaning what he can from them. When they break apart he stares at Ginny.
“Will you kiss me?” He asks.
For a moment she stares stupidly at him, her lips red and glistening. He can see she is thinking about it. She is weighing it in her mind- the morality of it and the surrealism of everything the days have offered lately-he can tell. He can see when she decides that it probably doesn’t matter either way anymore.
So he kisses her.
Ron leans over the blankets and pulls his little sister to him. He kisses her with fervor and passion and panic. He pours more jealousy into that kiss than he knew he had. He kisses her and leaves marks on her waist from where his fingers hold her like a vice. A vice like family, he thinks.
Next to them, while they battle in saliva already shared, Harry turns paler than the morning light.
+
Dudley used to tell him about redheads like he was some sort of expert. Mostly he just enjoyed trying to make Harry blush.
“Stay away from fire-crotches,” he’d say, fat chins wobbling with each disgusting word. “They’re vicious when it comes to sex.”
Harry would stare dumbly at him till Dudley would ask if he was brain damaged or would wander off to find something better to do.
Now Harry thinks Dudley might be right, because Ron looks like he might kill Ginny if he doesn’t devour her first. There was something that drew him to the Weasleys in the first place; Harry thinks it must have been the hair.
+
Kissing Ron is natural and throbbing. Like kissing a pincushion and marveling at how right it feels despite the pain. They’ve never done this before; Ginny wonders at how shocking that is. Ron takes one of his hands off her waist and shoves it roughly into her sleep-shorts.
Harry makes a sound like a dying man and Ginny imagines that his eyes are rolling into the back of his head. She kisses Ron harder, squeezes his hand between her thighs.
+
“Thank you,” Ron says, when they stop kissing and his fingers are damp from where they rubbed against Ginny’s clit and slipped inside of her.
Ginny nods.
Harry’s eyes are lidded with something akin to lust and she settles against his side. The sun is really rising now and they need to go inside soon, or Molly Weasley will come and call them in.
Ron puts his head on Ginny’s stomach, she strokes his hair. Harry takes Ron’s hand and kisses the back of Ginny’s neck. There is to argument, but there is no end. Harry, Ginny thinks, is exactly what selfish is.
In the east, the sun rises.
End.
Rating: R
Summary: A vice like family, Ron thinks.
Disclaimer: Obviously not mine.
Notes: Incest, Harry/Ron/Ginny,
character death for plot advancement. Oops.
At the funeral, Ginny places herself snugly between Harry and Ron and holds onto their arms as though she’d like to squeeze herself into both of them and slink out of existence. The all-encompassing dread she’s been feeling lately only makes it worse.
Hermione doesn’t come because she is on vacation in Bali with her parents and they can’t grasp how important a schoolmate’s death is. They say: “We had a school friend that died over the summer; it’s less painful not to go.” They don’t understand that there is a hidden war occurring just where they can’t see it. They don’t understand that Hermione needs closure, because it just doesn’t seem quite real yet.
+
“Percy,” whispers Ginny that night, when she, Harry, and Ron have taken linens and blankets onto the lawn so that they can sleep under the stars and try to remember and forget all at the same time.
“I know,” Ron says, and strokes a freckled hand down through her hair. The strands slide over his fingers and match the dots along his skin. Auburn against sun burnt freckles.
It has been five days since Percy’s death and having never lost a relative, Ginny doesn’t know how the world is supposed to feel now. She isn’t sure what this means, to be here in the dark with Ron and Harry. With crickets chirping and tomorrow coming faster than the next day ever has. To Ginny, the days feel like they have sped up since Percy died. (Did Percy keep things balanced? She ponders. Was there something in him she never saw?)
In the dark next to her, Harry has curled up into a ball of boy. He doesn’t look at all 17. He looks, as is his way, like a small, frightened child. Harry, Ginny thinks, has been a small frightened child his whole life. Here is this boy they will all come to depend, and Harry hardly seems able to depend on himself. Ginny loves him for that, for his lack of morale and clumsy manner.
“Go to sleep, Gin,” Ron says softy from her left and puts a hand on her shoulder to pull her down into their nest of blankets on the grass. It’s lush and green; it springs under her bare palms. They’ve had so much rain this summer.
“Right,” she says. “I need to sleep.” And then as an afterthought: “Do you think Mum and Dad are sleeping?”
“No, they still have their candles going.”
Ginny can’t see their window from her place on the ground. “Oh,” she says, “do you think Mum is sad?”
“Yes, Ginny. Come on, you’re going to wake up Harry.”
Ginny realizes then that Harry has been asleep for some time. They’ve been out here for some time. She keeps losing track of the moments, and they still flit by so quickly.
“Will everything be alright in the morning?” She asks, feeling childish and stupid because Ron won’t know what to say and she knows this.
“I don’t know,” he says and tugs on her tank top. “Come here.”
She lies down and lets him wrap his long arms around her. It feels nice because he’s warm from being under the blankets and her shoulders are cold from sitting up in the air for so long. It feels nice because he’s Ron and he’s comforting and so much bigger than her. He’s built just like Percy was.
Next them, Harry stirs and his hair tumbles over his forehead and across his scar. Ginny smiles and feels Ron’s arms tighten around her waist. They are spooning, they haven’t done this since she was little and spent her time talking Ron’s ear off and lounging about his room like an annoying nymph.
“I love you, Ginny,” he says into her hair and it’s muffled and common-like it could come from any boy who happened to get his hands on her.
She falls asleep.
+
Ginny wakes up tangled in the blankets. It is still dark, but to the east the sky is on the edge of light. There is the soft sound of rustling skin, and Ginny pulls herself up on her elbows to look over at where Harry was lying when she fell asleep. He is not alone, but Ginny realizes that she is.
Ron’s arms are draped about Harry’s waist. Harry’s hands are knotted at the base of Ron’s neck, his fingers twirling slightly in the ruddy curls there, his lips press against Ron’s and Ginny closes her eyes.
Where does this leave her, she wonders.
+
A month ago, on a warmer evening than this one, in nearly the same place, Ginny told Harry that she loved him. She placed her head on his shoulder, her hair spilling across his chest, and whispered into his ear with her lips close to his skin.
He didn’t really say much, she remembers. He might have nodded in his resolute way, as though she was a task he had to accomplish or a particularly grueling Potions test, but he didn’t say much. He did kiss her, though.
She remembers his glasses bumping into her forehead, and their lips hitting at the wrong angle. Awkward and odd, like Harry himself. She remembers grasping a handful of his hair into her fist and marveling at how coarse it was. Coarse, thick and messy.
It wasn’t a very long kiss, but there were more after it and it was long enough for Harry to slide a hand up her stomach and toward the contours of her chest. She knows no one even blinked an eye when they both came in flushed; she fussing with her skirt in the kitchen. In the twilight, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had let Harry Potter fondle their little girl.
+
Ginny bites her lip before she speaks, and Ron sighs loudly into Harry’s mouth. She debates calling them both by their middle names. Harry doesn’t have one, she knows this, but everyone says it might as well be James.
Instead she starts to cry.
Both boys turn sharply at her first sob before she even sheds tears. Harry drops his hands from Ron’s neck and wipes hastily at his lips. Ron just stares.
“Ginny-” he starts to say, and she shakes her head at him as if to say “Please, no. Don’t make it worse.”
So Harry speaks instead.
“He was here,” he says and Ron looks affronted, even sad.
“But…” Ginny glances from her brother to Harry and realizes that Ron loves Harry like she does-in a desperate, earth-shattering sort of way-in a way that makes person ready to sacrifice oneself to a group armed Death Eaters.
“He was here and you were sleeping.”
“Isn’t that sort of selfish, Harry?” Ron asks, his voice breaking on the words.
“What is selfish anyway?” Ginny says. Ron looks at her and his eyes are bluer than they were yesterday. Bluer than they’ve ever been.
“Selfish is never saying you’re sorry,” says Harry quietly.
Ron and Ginny both look at him. Harry, their conquering hero. Harry who hasn’t really conquered anything useful. Harry who has only succeeded in conquering them both.
“What?” Ginny bites her lower lip.
“I’m sorry,” Harry says, and she knows he doesn’t mean it. He doesn’t know how to mean it, but it will do.
“Okay,” Ron says, and fixes the blankets around their bodies. He spreads them out and makes the three of them a bed.
“Will you kiss me?” Harry tilts his head at her.
“Yes,” Ginny says and goes to him, pressing her body against his and knowing he can feel all of her through her nightclothes. That he can smell the grass in her hair and the damp earth on her skin. She curls her hands into his hair where they belong and kisses him. He rests his hands on the waist of her sleep-shorts.
+
Ron fixes the blankets and he watches them, eyes gleaming and gleaning what he can from them. When they break apart he stares at Ginny.
“Will you kiss me?” He asks.
For a moment she stares stupidly at him, her lips red and glistening. He can see she is thinking about it. She is weighing it in her mind- the morality of it and the surrealism of everything the days have offered lately-he can tell. He can see when she decides that it probably doesn’t matter either way anymore.
So he kisses her.
Ron leans over the blankets and pulls his little sister to him. He kisses her with fervor and passion and panic. He pours more jealousy into that kiss than he knew he had. He kisses her and leaves marks on her waist from where his fingers hold her like a vice. A vice like family, he thinks.
Next to them, while they battle in saliva already shared, Harry turns paler than the morning light.
+
Dudley used to tell him about redheads like he was some sort of expert. Mostly he just enjoyed trying to make Harry blush.
“Stay away from fire-crotches,” he’d say, fat chins wobbling with each disgusting word. “They’re vicious when it comes to sex.”
Harry would stare dumbly at him till Dudley would ask if he was brain damaged or would wander off to find something better to do.
Now Harry thinks Dudley might be right, because Ron looks like he might kill Ginny if he doesn’t devour her first. There was something that drew him to the Weasleys in the first place; Harry thinks it must have been the hair.
+
Kissing Ron is natural and throbbing. Like kissing a pincushion and marveling at how right it feels despite the pain. They’ve never done this before; Ginny wonders at how shocking that is. Ron takes one of his hands off her waist and shoves it roughly into her sleep-shorts.
Harry makes a sound like a dying man and Ginny imagines that his eyes are rolling into the back of his head. She kisses Ron harder, squeezes his hand between her thighs.
+
“Thank you,” Ron says, when they stop kissing and his fingers are damp from where they rubbed against Ginny’s clit and slipped inside of her.
Ginny nods.
Harry’s eyes are lidded with something akin to lust and she settles against his side. The sun is really rising now and they need to go inside soon, or Molly Weasley will come and call them in.
Ron puts his head on Ginny’s stomach, she strokes his hair. Harry takes Ron’s hand and kisses the back of Ginny’s neck. There is to argument, but there is no end. Harry, Ginny thinks, is exactly what selfish is.
In the east, the sun rises.
End.