FIC - (Harry Potter, George/Luna) 1/1
Title: Catch Your Breath
Rating: pg-13
Word Count: 3,040
Summary: I have felt the same as you...
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Author’s Note: This has sat on my hard drive for two years (and two computers, too, come to think of it). Many thanks to abvj for finally pushing me to post this, and to k4writer02 for helping me tinker with this so long ago (miss you dear!). Warning, this might have some triggers for assault.
The Burrow had been magically stretched to accommodate weary travelers from all over. Percy was back, Charlie was finally able to come home and Fleur liked being near Mum during her pregnancy. Mum had taken in practically every war orphan she could get her hands on after the battle for Hogwarts. There was Harry and Hermione, of course, Luna Lovegood (after all, she's lived over the hill from us her entire life, Mum had said) and so many others that George did not even know. He almost felt like he was back at school, living in the dormitories. Mum needed the distraction, though. They all did.
The house was crammed full, and was almost maddening to George, who only wanted quiet. He wanted to just sit and stew. To drink himself into oblivion until he could imagine Fred sitting across from him as they replayed the events of the battle, and wiping their brows that they had both come out of it all more or less unscathed (of course, he still only had one ear).
However, there was no quiet to be had and no privacy either to get as stinking drunk as he wanted to get. Going back to the four-room flat he shared with Fred in London...that was completely out of the question. Besides, his mother would probably tie him to the front gate and slap a no-apparition charm on him to keep him put.
One thing was for sure, in those first few weeks after the battle, with all the chaos at the Burrow - hormones and sex were running rampant in his family and there was either too much going on for his mother to take any control or his siblings had just gotten that good at evading her. He'd already walked in on Harry and Ginny (three times), but somehow he couldn't find it in his heart to beat the snot out of the boy who'd saved the world, even if he was shagging his baby sister. Charlie was something of a celebrity now, and managed to sneak a different girl into the Burrow on a nightly basis, and Fleur and Bill couldn't seem to keep their hands off one another. Pregnancy hormones, so it seemed.
Even Percy and Penelope Clearwater had taken up with each other once again. Walking in on them in the garden shed had truly been one of the most horrifying experiences of his life…and he'd had his ear cursed off by a mad wizard while flying on a broomstick.
He was trying to sleep in the old room in the attic that he was supposed to be sharing with Harry and Ron, but Harry had snuck off somewhere with Ginny and Hermione had snuck into bed with Ron and Ron was trying (unsuccessfully, it seemed) to convince her to go past third base (so he'd heard they say in the States). He'd heard "No Ron…” “Please, luv…” “No, Ron…” “Please…" just one too many times when he finally popped up from his bed, earning a horrified shriek from Hermione and a "Bloody hell,George!" from Ron.
He sighed, keeping his head turned to afford Hermione some modesty as he saw her dive for her shirt from the corner of his eye.
"No hard feelings, little brother, but I simply can't take just lay there any more listening to you whine. Enjoy yourselves,” he said on his way out the door, in search of a quieter resting place. His old room, the one he had shared with Fred was out of the question, and besides, Charlie was entertaining two female guests in there, he believed. Walking straight past that familiar door, he eased open the door of Ginny's childhood bedroom, hoping that she and Harry had taken their trysting somewhere else for the night. (They could be quite loud, and Mum would only be tolerant for so long.)
As luck would have it, his sister and her boyfriend were not there, but the room wasn't completely empty either. Luna Lovegood was curled up on one of the campbeds he had been asked to set up when they all got back to the Burrow. She was supposed to be sharing this room with Ginny, Hermione, and Susan Bones, but she was the only occupant that night. With the other girls gone, there was no need for her to sleep on the floor. He thought to move her to the bed - she was so small, more like a child of twelve than seventeen, and it was no trouble to lift her up.
She barely stirred when he touched her, but when he laid her down again in Ginny's narrow bed, tucking her slim legs beneath the sheets, her large grey eyes fluttered open and she said, no surprise at all in her voice, "Oh. Hullo, George."
"Hullo, Luna. Did I wake you?"
"No, I woke myself. I thought I was dreaming." She looked about the room. "Where are the other girls?"
He couldn't speak for Susan, but it seemed obvious that the summer at the Burrow had turned into a regular shag-fest for the rest of the teenagers. He couldn't bring himself to say this to Luna though, so he just said, "I don't know. My room was overcrowded so I was hoping to catch a kip in here."
She sat up in bed, smoothing the blanket over her lap. The gesture was both childlike and utterly feminine at the same time. "This house is very crowded. Your mother has taken in so many."
He nodded, unsure of what else to say. "Well…If you don't mind, I thought I'd try to lay down here. I won't bother you, see, I don't snore or anything."
"Are you tired, George?"
He was settling himself on the campbed where she had been lying; it was still warm from her. "No, not really I guess."
"We can talk for a bit, if you'd like."
If he'd like.
It seemed everyone had pulled him aside, telling him he could talk to them if he wanted to. Everyone was acting like it was his loss, his alone, like Ron and Bill and the rest hadn't also lost a brother and Mum and Dad a son. All so very concerned for him.
But Luna didn't seem to be asking in that way. She was a quiet sort of girl, with those oddly enormous eyes that seemed to take in everything. He'd never really talked to her much outside of DA meetings during seventh year. And back then, she hadn't been his first choice of partner to practice patronus charms and stunning spells.
"Well…sure. That'd be all right." He sat up to face her, drawing his knees up to his chest and resting his forearms across them.
She nodded, still pointedly staring. "What would you like to talk about?"
He shrugged. "Errr….I dunno. How are you?"
She was quiet for a moment. And then she said, without any emotion at all in her voice, "I miss my father."
George bit his lip against his reply, which was quite nearly I'm sorry. If there was any phrase he'd wanted to hear less in the past few weeks, it was that one, everyone apologizing for the fact that Fred was no longer sitting next to him. It occurred to him how funny it was that it's the first thing that wants to slip out of his own mouth when a person mentions a loss.
Luna tilted her head to the side. "You don't have to say anything. I know. I know you miss your brother."
How succinctly, how simply this woman-child put it. He missed his brother. He missed his other half.
"I do," he said very softly after a moment.
She was still looking at him without any emotion flickering across her face. The moonlight streaming in through the window highlighted her elfin face. Everything about her was small and delicate, except for those grey eyes of hers. "Are Ron and Hermione having sex in your bedroom?"
He was quite sure that he was stunned for a good long moment. He nearly asked her what she meant, but he feared he might get a soliloquy on the breeding habits of the nargle for his trouble. "Um…No, no they're not, though not for lack of my little brother trying." He himself tried for a casual, friendly smile, but felt that he failed miserably.
Luna took this in quite stoically, giving a small nod. "And Ginny? She's having sex with
Harry?"
Less shocking the second time around. "Most likely, yes."
"Where?"
"I don't really care to know."
"Oh." She paused again. "I never have, you know." George would have guessed that. But, as his mother had raised him to be a gentleman (at least with nice girls like Luna), he politely kept his mouth shut. Once again she smoothed a hand over the now completely wrinkle free blankets across her legs. And George noticed what she was wearing. One of his own old school shirts, the sleeves rolled up several times, and the shoulder seams hung somewhere close to her elbows. He had been fairly wiry in his school days but the old shirt swam on her. (He knew it was his rather than Fred's, because there was the faint remnant of an inkstain along the collar that no amount of scourgifying had been able to release.)
"You're wearing my shirt," he said, dumbly.
"Oh." She looked down at herself, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle over her abdomen. "I liked the way it smelled. Very clean. Would you like it back?"
He wondered if he'd said yes, if she'd just unbutton it right then and there and hand it over. "No, that's okay, you can keep it."
"Thank you." Luna turned her head, looking out the window. "Have you ever, George?"
"Have I ever what?"
"Had sex?"
For a redhead, he'd always been damned proud of himself that he didn't blush easily. Percy and Ron were horrible blushers and Charlie, Bill and Ginny tended to go red in the face when they lost their temper (a trait inherited from Mum). But himself and Fred, they'd always been far too light-hearted. A new experience for him, post-life without Fred. "Um, yes. Yes, I have."
She looked down at herself again and once more smoothed a hand over imaginary wrinkles in the blankets. "I…I've not ever kissed anyone." He was startled by the slight waver in her voice. For any odd thing that had ever come out of her mouth, Luna never appeared the least self-conscious. "I would like to, I think."
She lifted her gaze and looked him right in the eye. It must have been very late at night because it took him a good long while to catch on.
She was asking him.
"Oh," he said, his voice barely audible, but he couldn't move off the ground.
"Would you like for me to come sit next to you?" She pushed back the blankets and dropped silently back down to the campbed next to him, shoulder to shoulder without waiting for a reply. Well, actually her shoulder came a clean couple of inches below his own, which served to make him feel rather old and awkward.
Once seated, she seemed to lose any forwardness that she had gained up to that point. She was quiet and still for a long time, and then she spoke again. “There’s only ever been one boy who seemed…interested.” George was fervently wishing that he’d just said he was too tired to talk - much less kiss or wherever she was going with this. It was quite well known that Neville had a crush on her - too bad it had never worked out between them. “Well… person, anyway. Greyback.”
It was not at all what he was expecting, and he felt a dull throb of sickness in the pit of his stomach. A few days after it was all over, in one rare, quiet moment, his youngest brother fell apart on him completely, seemingly hit by everything all at once. Through it all, all of the fear and the horror, the worst thing Ron had gone through over the course of the past year was enduring Fenrir Greyback’s threats against Hermione. He’d said that the worst thing a man could go through (and so strange to think of Ickle Ronnie talking of being a man) was to just think of the woman he loved being violated. It was the one time he’d been able to be of any use or comfort to anyone in the past few weeks, listening to Ron.
And Luna Lovegood was certainly not to George as Hermione was to Ron, but any young girl, held in that house…. “He…He hurt you, Luna?” He was crouching down, so his head would be level with hers.
“Well, no…not hurt,” she shook her head, pale hair rippling over her shoulders. “He…He called me a tasty morsel quite a bit, which seemed very funny to him.” George breathed a small sigh of relief. “And sometimes, he would come down to the cellar very late at night…At least, I think it was late at night, and he would…sort of lie on top of me and rub himself around and grunt a bit. I pretended to be sleeping.” Her voice was as serene and thoughtful as ever, but George could see revulsion roll through her like poison. He closed his eyes and swallowed his own bitter anger of what this world had come to. This sweet girl, who had never harmed anyone, lost and alone. Himself, without his other half.
“So…I think I would like to kiss a boy,” she continued, her voice even quieter, even smaller than before. “I would just like it to be…normal.” He swallowed hard. "Do you think we could...Could I kiss you, and then...do nothing?" George's eyes felt like they might bug out of his head. "I mean...I don't think I'd want to do more than that."
George was appalled. Not at her, of course not. For her. He thought of his baby sister, sitting right next to Luna on the train when she was taken off to Malfoy Manor and his blood boiled. But he just nodded. He didn’t want to kiss her. It just didn’t seem right, and he didn’t want the responsibility of fixing things for her, when he couldn’t even fix himself. “Okay, I’m ready now.” She turned her head towards him, eyes closed and lips puckered in a most exaggerated fashion.
The whole situation was so absurd, but George didn’t think there’d be a tactful way to get out of it now, not without causing any more damage to her, so instead he tried to stall.
“Well, this isn’t very comfortable, why don’t we stand up?” The situation was equally awkward when they got to their feet, and she stood a good foot shorter than him. “Well…er,” he stuttered. George had, of course, kissed short girls before, had kissed girls of every size and shape, but he was twenty years old and it had been many years since he’d tried to maneuver a girl’s first kiss without feeling like blundering baboon. He certainly hoped he’d improved since age eleven.
In an attempt to feel more natural, George pulled her closer by the shoulders and slid one hand to the small of her narrow back, the other hand threading through her hair to gently angle her head upwards. She was soft and malleable under his touch, posing as easily as a doll. Her eyes were wide, unblinking, and George felt that she was holding her breath. “Close your eyes please,” he instructed, his own voice somehow deeper than it normally sounded. He lowered his face towards hers, rubbing small circles on her back, and finding himself rocking the both of them back and forth, ever so slightly until she was breathing regularly and finally touched his forehead to hers. Her skin was so warm.
He meant to only brush his lips against hers swiftly, and just enough to chase away a bit of the ghost that Fenrir Greyback had left behind, but he was unprepared for how sweet she tasted. Cinnamon and vanilla all in one, sort of how he imagined fairy dust would taste (if there were such a thing as fairy dust). It was never a thought that had occurred to him before, but she had the sort of bee-stung lips that seemed to be sculpted just for kissing. His tongue ran along the edge of her bottom lip and she parted her mouth, and he heard his groan, primal, breaking the silence.
When she shyly flicked her tongue against his, desire surged through him, hot and sudden and fierce, and he roughly shoved her away, holding her shoulders at arms’ length, as he felt his own restraint snap. She slumped forward for a moment, a bit weakly, and alarm ran through him when he realized that for the past few moments, brief though they might have been, Fred was not the foremost person on his mind. A guilty, terrifying thought indeed.
“Right, so…I guess that’s that.” His voice sounded strange to him, out of breath and almost strangled.
“George?” Luna sounded out of breath, too. “I feel funny…a bit dizzy.”
“You’re just tired,” he said gruffly, dragging the campbed over to the corner in the room that was furthest away from the real bed (the small, narrow bed Ginny had slept on since she was a baby, that looked inexplicably inviting at the moment). “Go to sleep, Luna.”
“Good night, George.” Her voice was dreamier than ever, soft and sleepy and he did his best to ignore the way it washed around him like flute’s music.
“Good night, Luna.”
“George?”
He paused. “Hmm?”
“Thank you for kissing me.”
<<<333
Rating: pg-13
Word Count: 3,040
Summary: I have felt the same as you...
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Author’s Note: This has sat on my hard drive for two years (and two computers, too, come to think of it). Many thanks to abvj for finally pushing me to post this, and to k4writer02 for helping me tinker with this so long ago (miss you dear!). Warning, this might have some triggers for assault.
The Burrow had been magically stretched to accommodate weary travelers from all over. Percy was back, Charlie was finally able to come home and Fleur liked being near Mum during her pregnancy. Mum had taken in practically every war orphan she could get her hands on after the battle for Hogwarts. There was Harry and Hermione, of course, Luna Lovegood (after all, she's lived over the hill from us her entire life, Mum had said) and so many others that George did not even know. He almost felt like he was back at school, living in the dormitories. Mum needed the distraction, though. They all did.
The house was crammed full, and was almost maddening to George, who only wanted quiet. He wanted to just sit and stew. To drink himself into oblivion until he could imagine Fred sitting across from him as they replayed the events of the battle, and wiping their brows that they had both come out of it all more or less unscathed (of course, he still only had one ear).
However, there was no quiet to be had and no privacy either to get as stinking drunk as he wanted to get. Going back to the four-room flat he shared with Fred in London...that was completely out of the question. Besides, his mother would probably tie him to the front gate and slap a no-apparition charm on him to keep him put.
One thing was for sure, in those first few weeks after the battle, with all the chaos at the Burrow - hormones and sex were running rampant in his family and there was either too much going on for his mother to take any control or his siblings had just gotten that good at evading her. He'd already walked in on Harry and Ginny (three times), but somehow he couldn't find it in his heart to beat the snot out of the boy who'd saved the world, even if he was shagging his baby sister. Charlie was something of a celebrity now, and managed to sneak a different girl into the Burrow on a nightly basis, and Fleur and Bill couldn't seem to keep their hands off one another. Pregnancy hormones, so it seemed.
Even Percy and Penelope Clearwater had taken up with each other once again. Walking in on them in the garden shed had truly been one of the most horrifying experiences of his life…and he'd had his ear cursed off by a mad wizard while flying on a broomstick.
He was trying to sleep in the old room in the attic that he was supposed to be sharing with Harry and Ron, but Harry had snuck off somewhere with Ginny and Hermione had snuck into bed with Ron and Ron was trying (unsuccessfully, it seemed) to convince her to go past third base (so he'd heard they say in the States). He'd heard "No Ron…” “Please, luv…” “No, Ron…” “Please…" just one too many times when he finally popped up from his bed, earning a horrified shriek from Hermione and a "Bloody hell,George!" from Ron.
He sighed, keeping his head turned to afford Hermione some modesty as he saw her dive for her shirt from the corner of his eye.
"No hard feelings, little brother, but I simply can't take just lay there any more listening to you whine. Enjoy yourselves,” he said on his way out the door, in search of a quieter resting place. His old room, the one he had shared with Fred was out of the question, and besides, Charlie was entertaining two female guests in there, he believed. Walking straight past that familiar door, he eased open the door of Ginny's childhood bedroom, hoping that she and Harry had taken their trysting somewhere else for the night. (They could be quite loud, and Mum would only be tolerant for so long.)
As luck would have it, his sister and her boyfriend were not there, but the room wasn't completely empty either. Luna Lovegood was curled up on one of the campbeds he had been asked to set up when they all got back to the Burrow. She was supposed to be sharing this room with Ginny, Hermione, and Susan Bones, but she was the only occupant that night. With the other girls gone, there was no need for her to sleep on the floor. He thought to move her to the bed - she was so small, more like a child of twelve than seventeen, and it was no trouble to lift her up.
She barely stirred when he touched her, but when he laid her down again in Ginny's narrow bed, tucking her slim legs beneath the sheets, her large grey eyes fluttered open and she said, no surprise at all in her voice, "Oh. Hullo, George."
"Hullo, Luna. Did I wake you?"
"No, I woke myself. I thought I was dreaming." She looked about the room. "Where are the other girls?"
He couldn't speak for Susan, but it seemed obvious that the summer at the Burrow had turned into a regular shag-fest for the rest of the teenagers. He couldn't bring himself to say this to Luna though, so he just said, "I don't know. My room was overcrowded so I was hoping to catch a kip in here."
She sat up in bed, smoothing the blanket over her lap. The gesture was both childlike and utterly feminine at the same time. "This house is very crowded. Your mother has taken in so many."
He nodded, unsure of what else to say. "Well…If you don't mind, I thought I'd try to lay down here. I won't bother you, see, I don't snore or anything."
"Are you tired, George?"
He was settling himself on the campbed where she had been lying; it was still warm from her. "No, not really I guess."
"We can talk for a bit, if you'd like."
If he'd like.
It seemed everyone had pulled him aside, telling him he could talk to them if he wanted to. Everyone was acting like it was his loss, his alone, like Ron and Bill and the rest hadn't also lost a brother and Mum and Dad a son. All so very concerned for him.
But Luna didn't seem to be asking in that way. She was a quiet sort of girl, with those oddly enormous eyes that seemed to take in everything. He'd never really talked to her much outside of DA meetings during seventh year. And back then, she hadn't been his first choice of partner to practice patronus charms and stunning spells.
"Well…sure. That'd be all right." He sat up to face her, drawing his knees up to his chest and resting his forearms across them.
She nodded, still pointedly staring. "What would you like to talk about?"
He shrugged. "Errr….I dunno. How are you?"
She was quiet for a moment. And then she said, without any emotion at all in her voice, "I miss my father."
George bit his lip against his reply, which was quite nearly I'm sorry. If there was any phrase he'd wanted to hear less in the past few weeks, it was that one, everyone apologizing for the fact that Fred was no longer sitting next to him. It occurred to him how funny it was that it's the first thing that wants to slip out of his own mouth when a person mentions a loss.
Luna tilted her head to the side. "You don't have to say anything. I know. I know you miss your brother."
How succinctly, how simply this woman-child put it. He missed his brother. He missed his other half.
"I do," he said very softly after a moment.
She was still looking at him without any emotion flickering across her face. The moonlight streaming in through the window highlighted her elfin face. Everything about her was small and delicate, except for those grey eyes of hers. "Are Ron and Hermione having sex in your bedroom?"
He was quite sure that he was stunned for a good long moment. He nearly asked her what she meant, but he feared he might get a soliloquy on the breeding habits of the nargle for his trouble. "Um…No, no they're not, though not for lack of my little brother trying." He himself tried for a casual, friendly smile, but felt that he failed miserably.
Luna took this in quite stoically, giving a small nod. "And Ginny? She's having sex with
Harry?"
Less shocking the second time around. "Most likely, yes."
"Where?"
"I don't really care to know."
"Oh." She paused again. "I never have, you know." George would have guessed that. But, as his mother had raised him to be a gentleman (at least with nice girls like Luna), he politely kept his mouth shut. Once again she smoothed a hand over the now completely wrinkle free blankets across her legs. And George noticed what she was wearing. One of his own old school shirts, the sleeves rolled up several times, and the shoulder seams hung somewhere close to her elbows. He had been fairly wiry in his school days but the old shirt swam on her. (He knew it was his rather than Fred's, because there was the faint remnant of an inkstain along the collar that no amount of scourgifying had been able to release.)
"You're wearing my shirt," he said, dumbly.
"Oh." She looked down at herself, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle over her abdomen. "I liked the way it smelled. Very clean. Would you like it back?"
He wondered if he'd said yes, if she'd just unbutton it right then and there and hand it over. "No, that's okay, you can keep it."
"Thank you." Luna turned her head, looking out the window. "Have you ever, George?"
"Have I ever what?"
"Had sex?"
For a redhead, he'd always been damned proud of himself that he didn't blush easily. Percy and Ron were horrible blushers and Charlie, Bill and Ginny tended to go red in the face when they lost their temper (a trait inherited from Mum). But himself and Fred, they'd always been far too light-hearted. A new experience for him, post-life without Fred. "Um, yes. Yes, I have."
She looked down at herself again and once more smoothed a hand over imaginary wrinkles in the blankets. "I…I've not ever kissed anyone." He was startled by the slight waver in her voice. For any odd thing that had ever come out of her mouth, Luna never appeared the least self-conscious. "I would like to, I think."
She lifted her gaze and looked him right in the eye. It must have been very late at night because it took him a good long while to catch on.
She was asking him.
"Oh," he said, his voice barely audible, but he couldn't move off the ground.
"Would you like for me to come sit next to you?" She pushed back the blankets and dropped silently back down to the campbed next to him, shoulder to shoulder without waiting for a reply. Well, actually her shoulder came a clean couple of inches below his own, which served to make him feel rather old and awkward.
Once seated, she seemed to lose any forwardness that she had gained up to that point. She was quiet and still for a long time, and then she spoke again. “There’s only ever been one boy who seemed…interested.” George was fervently wishing that he’d just said he was too tired to talk - much less kiss or wherever she was going with this. It was quite well known that Neville had a crush on her - too bad it had never worked out between them. “Well… person, anyway. Greyback.”
It was not at all what he was expecting, and he felt a dull throb of sickness in the pit of his stomach. A few days after it was all over, in one rare, quiet moment, his youngest brother fell apart on him completely, seemingly hit by everything all at once. Through it all, all of the fear and the horror, the worst thing Ron had gone through over the course of the past year was enduring Fenrir Greyback’s threats against Hermione. He’d said that the worst thing a man could go through (and so strange to think of Ickle Ronnie talking of being a man) was to just think of the woman he loved being violated. It was the one time he’d been able to be of any use or comfort to anyone in the past few weeks, listening to Ron.
And Luna Lovegood was certainly not to George as Hermione was to Ron, but any young girl, held in that house…. “He…He hurt you, Luna?” He was crouching down, so his head would be level with hers.
“Well, no…not hurt,” she shook her head, pale hair rippling over her shoulders. “He…He called me a tasty morsel quite a bit, which seemed very funny to him.” George breathed a small sigh of relief. “And sometimes, he would come down to the cellar very late at night…At least, I think it was late at night, and he would…sort of lie on top of me and rub himself around and grunt a bit. I pretended to be sleeping.” Her voice was as serene and thoughtful as ever, but George could see revulsion roll through her like poison. He closed his eyes and swallowed his own bitter anger of what this world had come to. This sweet girl, who had never harmed anyone, lost and alone. Himself, without his other half.
“So…I think I would like to kiss a boy,” she continued, her voice even quieter, even smaller than before. “I would just like it to be…normal.” He swallowed hard. "Do you think we could...Could I kiss you, and then...do nothing?" George's eyes felt like they might bug out of his head. "I mean...I don't think I'd want to do more than that."
George was appalled. Not at her, of course not. For her. He thought of his baby sister, sitting right next to Luna on the train when she was taken off to Malfoy Manor and his blood boiled. But he just nodded. He didn’t want to kiss her. It just didn’t seem right, and he didn’t want the responsibility of fixing things for her, when he couldn’t even fix himself. “Okay, I’m ready now.” She turned her head towards him, eyes closed and lips puckered in a most exaggerated fashion.
The whole situation was so absurd, but George didn’t think there’d be a tactful way to get out of it now, not without causing any more damage to her, so instead he tried to stall.
“Well, this isn’t very comfortable, why don’t we stand up?” The situation was equally awkward when they got to their feet, and she stood a good foot shorter than him. “Well…er,” he stuttered. George had, of course, kissed short girls before, had kissed girls of every size and shape, but he was twenty years old and it had been many years since he’d tried to maneuver a girl’s first kiss without feeling like blundering baboon. He certainly hoped he’d improved since age eleven.
In an attempt to feel more natural, George pulled her closer by the shoulders and slid one hand to the small of her narrow back, the other hand threading through her hair to gently angle her head upwards. She was soft and malleable under his touch, posing as easily as a doll. Her eyes were wide, unblinking, and George felt that she was holding her breath. “Close your eyes please,” he instructed, his own voice somehow deeper than it normally sounded. He lowered his face towards hers, rubbing small circles on her back, and finding himself rocking the both of them back and forth, ever so slightly until she was breathing regularly and finally touched his forehead to hers. Her skin was so warm.
He meant to only brush his lips against hers swiftly, and just enough to chase away a bit of the ghost that Fenrir Greyback had left behind, but he was unprepared for how sweet she tasted. Cinnamon and vanilla all in one, sort of how he imagined fairy dust would taste (if there were such a thing as fairy dust). It was never a thought that had occurred to him before, but she had the sort of bee-stung lips that seemed to be sculpted just for kissing. His tongue ran along the edge of her bottom lip and she parted her mouth, and he heard his groan, primal, breaking the silence.
When she shyly flicked her tongue against his, desire surged through him, hot and sudden and fierce, and he roughly shoved her away, holding her shoulders at arms’ length, as he felt his own restraint snap. She slumped forward for a moment, a bit weakly, and alarm ran through him when he realized that for the past few moments, brief though they might have been, Fred was not the foremost person on his mind. A guilty, terrifying thought indeed.
“Right, so…I guess that’s that.” His voice sounded strange to him, out of breath and almost strangled.
“George?” Luna sounded out of breath, too. “I feel funny…a bit dizzy.”
“You’re just tired,” he said gruffly, dragging the campbed over to the corner in the room that was furthest away from the real bed (the small, narrow bed Ginny had slept on since she was a baby, that looked inexplicably inviting at the moment). “Go to sleep, Luna.”
“Good night, George.” Her voice was dreamier than ever, soft and sleepy and he did his best to ignore the way it washed around him like flute’s music.
“Good night, Luna.”
“George?”
He paused. “Hmm?”
“Thank you for kissing me.”
<<<333