Ficlet: Explorations
Title: Explorations
Characters: Ginny/Millicent
Summary: Sometimes courage and cunning are two sides of the same Galleon.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1600
Notes: Written in response to
writcraft’s prompt Ginny/Millicent, growing attraction, after the war, exploring sexuality for
woldy’s 2012 Informal HP Femslash Exchange. Happy holidays, writcraft!
I’d like to say that I’d moved on and didn’t even recognize her. After all, I had new friends now, a new home, a new life. And just because the Chosen One had chosen Ginny Weasley didn’t mean that I was obligated to remember her. Or care about her. Or feel as curious about her as I did.
It was a quiet Tuesday just before Mardi Gras, and I was pamphleting at a small cafe near the university. I had almost finished, and I very nearly didn’t walk all the way to the back, where a single young woman was hunched over a half-finished latte and a map of Cardiff. A tourist, charting her afternoon. She’d go back to wherever she’d come from as soon as she’d taken a few pictures, most likely.
But something about her ginger hair drew me toward her, and when she looked up, I wasn’t surprised to see Ginny Weasley.
“Hi,” she said, wrinkling her forehead in confusion. “I know you.”
For a moment, I froze; I hadn’t seen another witch in more than five years. “I don’t think you do,” I said carefully. “Interested in equal rights?” I held out my pamphlet, and she took it. With her left hand, I noticed; the right was in a light splint. “Mardi Gras is Cardiff’s diversity festival. The main event is this Saturday.”
“Millicent Bulstrode!” She beamed. “I knew it. It’s been ages. Ginny Weasley. From Hogwarts?”
There was something so transparent about her happiness at seeing me again that I couldn’t walk away. I took a deep breath and reminded myself: I wasn’t hiding from anything. I had nothing to be ashamed of.
“Of course. How are you?”
Ginny smiled. I’d forgotten how lovely her smile was. “I’m lost. Even small Muggles cities will confuse a witch, I’m learning. How are you?”
She gestured toward the chair across from her, and I sat awkwardly, feeling tongue-tied. I’d left before my parents went on trial at the Wizangamot, but she’d seen the same stories in the newspapers that I had, I’m sure. Then again, perhaps she didn’t care. That’s what Pansy said. In the end, the only ones who cared were the witches and wizards who went to Azkaban and those they left behind. Everyone else moved on.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Good,” Ginny said. “I always wondered what happened to you.” Behind her riot of summer freckles, her expression was hard to read. She chewed at her lip and stared at me, and I was unable to meet her eyes for very long.
“What happened?” I asked, looking down at her injured hand. “Quidditch?”
“You won’t believe me, but I flew right at the largest member of the Chudley Cannons.” She smiled wryly. “I was angry. And stupid.”
I could imagine.
“I broke my hand in four places,” she said. “They healed it at St Mungo’s, but the Harpies say I’m off for three weeks now, lest I hurt it again.” She nodded at her map. “I thought I’d see a bit of Wales. I’ve lived here for four years and hardly know anything about it. Harry was meant to come with me, but he’s in London.”
She wasn’t wearing a ring, but Pansy had told me of the engagement. “Wales is lovely, very beautiful,” I said, squirming at my own stilted words.
“You’ve lived here for a while?”
“I went to university here,” I said. “Now I’m starting an MA course in a few weeks. A graduate degree. Critical and Cultural Theory.”
She looked confused, so I shrugged. “Not the kind of thing Hogwarts offered. Mostly reading and writing.”
“What will you do with that?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “I just wanted it. I like reading about why Muggles do things.”
“You just...” she paused. “Wanted it?” She frowned. “Do you often just do the things you want to do?”
Pansy had asked that many times: why do you think you can leave us and do whatever you want? Don’t you realize you’re needed back here?
“Should I be doing something else?” I asked, more sharply than I’d intended. “My family have already paid their debts. I don’t see why I need to ask your forgiveness again and again. It’s not selfish to leave a place where I'm hated.”
Ginny’s eyes widened. “No, no, that’s not what I meant at all,” she said. “It’s just that I never get to do what I want. It sounds wonderful. This business with my hand, I’d never have traveled, otherwise.”
I could feel the heat rising in my face. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t think the wizarding world hates you, Millicent,” she said quietly.
“You weren’t there when my house burned,” I said.
She closed her eyes at that. “No, I wasn’t. I’m sorry to hear that.”
I stood up. “Look, we could walk, couldn’t we? Didn’t you say you wanted to see the city?”
*
There’s something about traveling that changes a person, isn’t there? Mum and Dad have never been very keen on travel, apart from that trip to Egypt we took when I was twelve. They’re homebodies; home makes them more of who they are. That’s why Bill lived in Egypt and Charlie in Romania and why Ron spent a year learning to surf in Australia; you can’t even see who you are until you’ve been away.
I think that’s why that late summer afternoon suddenly seemed so exciting to me, as I walked through Cardiff with someone I’d hardly thought of since school: I suddenly saw myself through Millicent’s eyes. Not the stolid, dowdy Slytherin Millicent, whose parents had been in Azkaban and whose school friends were still trying to put their lives back together, but the serious university student Millicent, to whom Cardiff seemed as small as Hogsmeade, who did things because she wanted to and who seemed so much older than anyone I knew.
Millicent found me fascinating. I wasn’t sure why, but I could feel her eyes on me as walked.
We passed the university, then the National Museum and the City Hall and the Court House. We walked along an impregnable stone wall that ran as far as the eye could see, ancient and out-of-place in this city of busy streets and large buildings. “Would you like to go to the castle?” Millicent asked. “It’s something almost everyone does while visiting.”
“It looks a bit like Hogwarts,” I said.
“Let’s skip it, then,” Millicent said.
Millicent handed pamphlets to passers by and occasionally stopped in a shop to ask if she could leave one.
“What’s this event you’re advertising?” I asked as she taped a pamphlet to the side of a telephone booth.
“Something I’ve been working on with a group at the university” she said. “I’m an organizer.”
“What’s LGBT? I’m awful with languages. There are never any vowels, are there?”
Millicent slipped her pamphlets and her tape into her bag and looked at me oddly, as if she were measuring me. “It’s not Welsh.”
“It’s not?”
“It stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender,” she said slowly. “Have you heard any those words before?”
I didn’t think I had, but from the way my heart was racing, I knew what they meant.
“I’m a lesbian,” Millicent said. “I like women, rather than men.”
“That’s a Muggle thing, isn’t it?” I asked. The words were out of my mouth before I could think.
“Not exactly,” Millicent said, amused. “The word, maybe.”
I studied her features. Is that why she looked older, now? Less sad, less awkward? “How did you know?” I asked. "That you were a lesbian?"
“The sorting hat said so,” she said, and she must have seen something too trusting in my face, because she laughed at me. “Silly! How do you know you like wizards?”
“I don’t.”
“You don’t like wizards?”
“I don’t know that I do. I’ve never tried anything else.” It was true. I’d never known any witches who liked other witches. I’d never thought of women that way before. It occurred to me that Millicent had been thinking about me that way all afternoon.
Millicent gave me that same look, as if she were sizing me up. “You should try, then. You don’t know, till you have.”
“Is that how you knew? You tried?”
“That was part of it.”
Almost without thinking, I leaned in and brushed my lips against hers.
Millicent drew back, flushed, a half-smile playing on her lips. “You did warn me you tend to rush in.” She nodded at my splint.
“Did you like that?” I asked.
“Did you?”
“I did.” It wasn't quite a kiss, but it had been enough to let me know I wanted more.
“I’m glad," she said. "But that’s the last time, because I don’t kiss girls who have boyfriends at home.”
Harry. At home. I’d almost forgotten about both.
We parted ways shortly afterward. Millicent scribbled her address on the back of one of her pamphlets.
“I’m sure someone can help you post a letter, if you ever need to,” she said.
“I can post my own letters!”
She ignored that. “I almost didn’t approach you earlier, at the cafe,” she said. “I’m glad I did.”
“I’m glad, too,” I said. “If you ever--”
She cut me off with a firm shake of her head. “If you ever,” she said, passing her address to me. “It’s up to you, now.”
She watched me enter the hotel and waved as the door closed behind me. I don't believe I'd ever felt more beautiful or more desirable or more alone.
This entry was originally posted at http://magnetic-pole.dreamwidth.org/45520.html. It has
comments.
Characters: Ginny/Millicent
Summary: Sometimes courage and cunning are two sides of the same Galleon.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1600
Notes: Written in response to
writcraft’s prompt Ginny/Millicent, growing attraction, after the war, exploring sexuality for
woldy’s 2012 Informal HP Femslash Exchange. Happy holidays, writcraft!
I’d like to say that I’d moved on and didn’t even recognize her. After all, I had new friends now, a new home, a new life. And just because the Chosen One had chosen Ginny Weasley didn’t mean that I was obligated to remember her. Or care about her. Or feel as curious about her as I did.
It was a quiet Tuesday just before Mardi Gras, and I was pamphleting at a small cafe near the university. I had almost finished, and I very nearly didn’t walk all the way to the back, where a single young woman was hunched over a half-finished latte and a map of Cardiff. A tourist, charting her afternoon. She’d go back to wherever she’d come from as soon as she’d taken a few pictures, most likely.
But something about her ginger hair drew me toward her, and when she looked up, I wasn’t surprised to see Ginny Weasley.
“Hi,” she said, wrinkling her forehead in confusion. “I know you.”
For a moment, I froze; I hadn’t seen another witch in more than five years. “I don’t think you do,” I said carefully. “Interested in equal rights?” I held out my pamphlet, and she took it. With her left hand, I noticed; the right was in a light splint. “Mardi Gras is Cardiff’s diversity festival. The main event is this Saturday.”
“Millicent Bulstrode!” She beamed. “I knew it. It’s been ages. Ginny Weasley. From Hogwarts?”
There was something so transparent about her happiness at seeing me again that I couldn’t walk away. I took a deep breath and reminded myself: I wasn’t hiding from anything. I had nothing to be ashamed of.
“Of course. How are you?”
Ginny smiled. I’d forgotten how lovely her smile was. “I’m lost. Even small Muggles cities will confuse a witch, I’m learning. How are you?”
She gestured toward the chair across from her, and I sat awkwardly, feeling tongue-tied. I’d left before my parents went on trial at the Wizangamot, but she’d seen the same stories in the newspapers that I had, I’m sure. Then again, perhaps she didn’t care. That’s what Pansy said. In the end, the only ones who cared were the witches and wizards who went to Azkaban and those they left behind. Everyone else moved on.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Good,” Ginny said. “I always wondered what happened to you.” Behind her riot of summer freckles, her expression was hard to read. She chewed at her lip and stared at me, and I was unable to meet her eyes for very long.
“What happened?” I asked, looking down at her injured hand. “Quidditch?”
“You won’t believe me, but I flew right at the largest member of the Chudley Cannons.” She smiled wryly. “I was angry. And stupid.”
I could imagine.
“I broke my hand in four places,” she said. “They healed it at St Mungo’s, but the Harpies say I’m off for three weeks now, lest I hurt it again.” She nodded at her map. “I thought I’d see a bit of Wales. I’ve lived here for four years and hardly know anything about it. Harry was meant to come with me, but he’s in London.”
She wasn’t wearing a ring, but Pansy had told me of the engagement. “Wales is lovely, very beautiful,” I said, squirming at my own stilted words.
“You’ve lived here for a while?”
“I went to university here,” I said. “Now I’m starting an MA course in a few weeks. A graduate degree. Critical and Cultural Theory.”
She looked confused, so I shrugged. “Not the kind of thing Hogwarts offered. Mostly reading and writing.”
“What will you do with that?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “I just wanted it. I like reading about why Muggles do things.”
“You just...” she paused. “Wanted it?” She frowned. “Do you often just do the things you want to do?”
Pansy had asked that many times: why do you think you can leave us and do whatever you want? Don’t you realize you’re needed back here?
“Should I be doing something else?” I asked, more sharply than I’d intended. “My family have already paid their debts. I don’t see why I need to ask your forgiveness again and again. It’s not selfish to leave a place where I'm hated.”
Ginny’s eyes widened. “No, no, that’s not what I meant at all,” she said. “It’s just that I never get to do what I want. It sounds wonderful. This business with my hand, I’d never have traveled, otherwise.”
I could feel the heat rising in my face. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t think the wizarding world hates you, Millicent,” she said quietly.
“You weren’t there when my house burned,” I said.
She closed her eyes at that. “No, I wasn’t. I’m sorry to hear that.”
I stood up. “Look, we could walk, couldn’t we? Didn’t you say you wanted to see the city?”
*
There’s something about traveling that changes a person, isn’t there? Mum and Dad have never been very keen on travel, apart from that trip to Egypt we took when I was twelve. They’re homebodies; home makes them more of who they are. That’s why Bill lived in Egypt and Charlie in Romania and why Ron spent a year learning to surf in Australia; you can’t even see who you are until you’ve been away.
I think that’s why that late summer afternoon suddenly seemed so exciting to me, as I walked through Cardiff with someone I’d hardly thought of since school: I suddenly saw myself through Millicent’s eyes. Not the stolid, dowdy Slytherin Millicent, whose parents had been in Azkaban and whose school friends were still trying to put their lives back together, but the serious university student Millicent, to whom Cardiff seemed as small as Hogsmeade, who did things because she wanted to and who seemed so much older than anyone I knew.
Millicent found me fascinating. I wasn’t sure why, but I could feel her eyes on me as walked.
We passed the university, then the National Museum and the City Hall and the Court House. We walked along an impregnable stone wall that ran as far as the eye could see, ancient and out-of-place in this city of busy streets and large buildings. “Would you like to go to the castle?” Millicent asked. “It’s something almost everyone does while visiting.”
“It looks a bit like Hogwarts,” I said.
“Let’s skip it, then,” Millicent said.
Millicent handed pamphlets to passers by and occasionally stopped in a shop to ask if she could leave one.
“What’s this event you’re advertising?” I asked as she taped a pamphlet to the side of a telephone booth.
“Something I’ve been working on with a group at the university” she said. “I’m an organizer.”
“What’s LGBT? I’m awful with languages. There are never any vowels, are there?”
Millicent slipped her pamphlets and her tape into her bag and looked at me oddly, as if she were measuring me. “It’s not Welsh.”
“It’s not?”
“It stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender,” she said slowly. “Have you heard any those words before?”
I didn’t think I had, but from the way my heart was racing, I knew what they meant.
“I’m a lesbian,” Millicent said. “I like women, rather than men.”
“That’s a Muggle thing, isn’t it?” I asked. The words were out of my mouth before I could think.
“Not exactly,” Millicent said, amused. “The word, maybe.”
I studied her features. Is that why she looked older, now? Less sad, less awkward? “How did you know?” I asked. "That you were a lesbian?"
“The sorting hat said so,” she said, and she must have seen something too trusting in my face, because she laughed at me. “Silly! How do you know you like wizards?”
“I don’t.”
“You don’t like wizards?”
“I don’t know that I do. I’ve never tried anything else.” It was true. I’d never known any witches who liked other witches. I’d never thought of women that way before. It occurred to me that Millicent had been thinking about me that way all afternoon.
Millicent gave me that same look, as if she were sizing me up. “You should try, then. You don’t know, till you have.”
“Is that how you knew? You tried?”
“That was part of it.”
Almost without thinking, I leaned in and brushed my lips against hers.
Millicent drew back, flushed, a half-smile playing on her lips. “You did warn me you tend to rush in.” She nodded at my splint.
“Did you like that?” I asked.
“Did you?”
“I did.” It wasn't quite a kiss, but it had been enough to let me know I wanted more.
“I’m glad," she said. "But that’s the last time, because I don’t kiss girls who have boyfriends at home.”
Harry. At home. I’d almost forgotten about both.
We parted ways shortly afterward. Millicent scribbled her address on the back of one of her pamphlets.
“I’m sure someone can help you post a letter, if you ever need to,” she said.
“I can post my own letters!”
She ignored that. “I almost didn’t approach you earlier, at the cafe,” she said. “I’m glad I did.”
“I’m glad, too,” I said. “If you ever--”
She cut me off with a firm shake of her head. “If you ever,” she said, passing her address to me. “It’s up to you, now.”
She watched me enter the hotel and waved as the door closed behind me. I don't believe I'd ever felt more beautiful or more desirable or more alone.
This entry was originally posted at http://magnetic-pole.dreamwidth.org/45520.html. It has
comments.