Black Ocean (HP)
By now, I'm definitely missing the outside. I haven't got out of my house for three days, and I'm sure I must be as pale as a ghost by now. Oh well, I'm relaxing, at least. I bought Constantine yesterday, and I watched it this morning and fell in love with it all over again. *sigh* I'd really love to buy the comics... And c'mon people, go and tell me our most favorite FAKE memory!
Actually, I got the idea for the fic from the same meme, from beautifulphrase's and mine's sweetest, most beautiful, invented memory. So, dedicated to her, for giving me the plot bunnies. Hope you like it! Also, crossposted at hp_pg.
Title: Black Ocean
Fandom/Characters: HP, the Trio
Rating: PG
Word Count: 778
Warning: Kind of but not really a continuation of Afterwards, but you don't have to read it to understand it.
Summary: After the war, the Trio goes to Liverpool in search of meaning.
They go to Liverpool after the war, free at last of the evil threat that had almost consumed them, and so full of dreams they honestly hadn’t thought they’d live long enough to pursue. The Prophet is still going strong though, and even as the three of them stroll down the Muggle streets there is always someone in robes going out of his or her way to say shake the hands of the heroes of the Wizarding world.
So they hide in alleys, keep a low profile as the boys humor Hermione and go along with her to museums; as they get lost in the crowd in a soccer game (Ron is sincerely confused over the lack of flying players, but the energy and passion of the public is something he can relate to); as they eat fish and chip in dingy restaurants.
They go to the pier the day before they have to go back home, with a bottle of cheap rum they can’t yet drink by the Muggle law hidden in Ron’s weary backpack. The sky is tinted steel gray with the impending rain, lonely lightening in the shape of Harry’s scar making the clouds alight with deep purple every few minutes.
The wood is cold and slightly damp under Harry’s fingers as he checks for the driest spot to sit in. Ron tells him to stop being picky, and Harry gets a splinter in his index finger. Hermione laughs at Harry’s high pitched yelp, but gets her wand out and heals his finger with a muttered incantation nevertheless. Harry resigns himself to end up with a wet backside as he sits next to Ron, sucking his finger into his mouth mostly out of habit than actual pain.
Three pairs of legs dangle off the edge of the pier, and Hermione’s feet, the closest to one of the pillars, rests on top of a nest of the corpses of ancient oysters, almost invisible crabs walking sideways on the ruins of their own shell made Atlantis. The ocean looks almost black, only ornamented with the lightning bolt’s reflection; oddly calm and too dark to fathom, as if for waiting for the storm also.
Ron takes out the bottle, and he takes a long swig before passing it to Harry, who grimaces as he swallows. Hermione sniffs cautiously at the bottle in her turn, and at the boys’ scoffs she finally rolls her eyes and drinks, her lips set in the gesture that Harry has learned to identify as either boys are weird or this is pointless. As it is, right now it’s probably both.
Three hours later, They’re all laying on their backs on the termite infested dark wood, the empty rum bottle rolling somewhere close, up and down the pier in tune with the waves. Harry feels too drunk; too intoxicated by this moment, the fact that they’re still alive after all they’ve been through. Ron and Hermione look as drunk as he is, none of them good drinkers, and Hermione laughs softly before saying And what about that one? while pointing at the clouds, doesn’t it look just like a Hippogriff?
Ron laughs harder than her, and in a moment of weakness says It looks more like a rabbit to me… He blushes, and the other two tease him merciless. Their cloud gazing is bittersweet; a reminder of Luna with her eyes closed in an independent ward in St. Mungos’s, fate unknown. They all think of her as Harry points to a particularly ugly Snape-shaped cloud, and they all think of this innocent game as a get well card, the trip Hermione will whisper into her ear the next week.
A drop falls on one of Harry’s lenses, the one he had broken in the Last Battle, if he remembers correctly, and they help each other off the ground, laughing too much and falling down even more. The bottle is hidden once again in Ron’s bag, and they grab the others tightly partly to keep from falling to the bottomless waters, and partly to reassure themselves the others are still there, alive, not pale and unmoving six feet under.
(They still have dreams about that, but none of them tells the others.)
They walk together to the end of the pier, and as their feet touch concrete once again, Harry turns his head to stare back, over Ron’s arm on his shoulder and Hermione’s wild hair, and as he feels the warmth of his most important people next to him, he can feel all of his fears, anxieties, heartaches; drowning in the black water of the endless ocean.
Then there’s freedom, and possibly, a future.
Actually, I got the idea for the fic from the same meme, from beautifulphrase's and mine's sweetest, most beautiful, invented memory. So, dedicated to her, for giving me the plot bunnies. Hope you like it! Also, crossposted at hp_pg.
Title: Black Ocean
Fandom/Characters: HP, the Trio
Rating: PG
Word Count: 778
Warning: Kind of but not really a continuation of Afterwards, but you don't have to read it to understand it.
Summary: After the war, the Trio goes to Liverpool in search of meaning.
They go to Liverpool after the war, free at last of the evil threat that had almost consumed them, and so full of dreams they honestly hadn’t thought they’d live long enough to pursue. The Prophet is still going strong though, and even as the three of them stroll down the Muggle streets there is always someone in robes going out of his or her way to say shake the hands of the heroes of the Wizarding world.
So they hide in alleys, keep a low profile as the boys humor Hermione and go along with her to museums; as they get lost in the crowd in a soccer game (Ron is sincerely confused over the lack of flying players, but the energy and passion of the public is something he can relate to); as they eat fish and chip in dingy restaurants.
They go to the pier the day before they have to go back home, with a bottle of cheap rum they can’t yet drink by the Muggle law hidden in Ron’s weary backpack. The sky is tinted steel gray with the impending rain, lonely lightening in the shape of Harry’s scar making the clouds alight with deep purple every few minutes.
The wood is cold and slightly damp under Harry’s fingers as he checks for the driest spot to sit in. Ron tells him to stop being picky, and Harry gets a splinter in his index finger. Hermione laughs at Harry’s high pitched yelp, but gets her wand out and heals his finger with a muttered incantation nevertheless. Harry resigns himself to end up with a wet backside as he sits next to Ron, sucking his finger into his mouth mostly out of habit than actual pain.
Three pairs of legs dangle off the edge of the pier, and Hermione’s feet, the closest to one of the pillars, rests on top of a nest of the corpses of ancient oysters, almost invisible crabs walking sideways on the ruins of their own shell made Atlantis. The ocean looks almost black, only ornamented with the lightning bolt’s reflection; oddly calm and too dark to fathom, as if for waiting for the storm also.
Ron takes out the bottle, and he takes a long swig before passing it to Harry, who grimaces as he swallows. Hermione sniffs cautiously at the bottle in her turn, and at the boys’ scoffs she finally rolls her eyes and drinks, her lips set in the gesture that Harry has learned to identify as either boys are weird or this is pointless. As it is, right now it’s probably both.
Three hours later, They’re all laying on their backs on the termite infested dark wood, the empty rum bottle rolling somewhere close, up and down the pier in tune with the waves. Harry feels too drunk; too intoxicated by this moment, the fact that they’re still alive after all they’ve been through. Ron and Hermione look as drunk as he is, none of them good drinkers, and Hermione laughs softly before saying And what about that one? while pointing at the clouds, doesn’t it look just like a Hippogriff?
Ron laughs harder than her, and in a moment of weakness says It looks more like a rabbit to me… He blushes, and the other two tease him merciless. Their cloud gazing is bittersweet; a reminder of Luna with her eyes closed in an independent ward in St. Mungos’s, fate unknown. They all think of her as Harry points to a particularly ugly Snape-shaped cloud, and they all think of this innocent game as a get well card, the trip Hermione will whisper into her ear the next week.
A drop falls on one of Harry’s lenses, the one he had broken in the Last Battle, if he remembers correctly, and they help each other off the ground, laughing too much and falling down even more. The bottle is hidden once again in Ron’s bag, and they grab the others tightly partly to keep from falling to the bottomless waters, and partly to reassure themselves the others are still there, alive, not pale and unmoving six feet under.
(They still have dreams about that, but none of them tells the others.)
They walk together to the end of the pier, and as their feet touch concrete once again, Harry turns his head to stare back, over Ron’s arm on his shoulder and Hermione’s wild hair, and as he feels the warmth of his most important people next to him, he can feel all of his fears, anxieties, heartaches; drowning in the black water of the endless ocean.
Then there’s freedom, and possibly, a future.