(no subject)
I couldn't resist writing this. This is...well. It's my emotional response to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows II. Because I always wanted to go to Hogwarts, really.
Title: this place is the beat of my heart
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG
Warnings: character death.
Word Count: 767
Summary: During the battle for Hogwarts, the castle herself does what she can.
AN: The movie had a profound emotional effect on me. I wept for everyone but, mostly, I think, I wept for Hogwarts.
This place needs me here to start
this place is the beat of my heart
oh, my heart
Once upon a time, in the beginning (as the Muggle stories go), she remembers how the sky went out for Cedric Diggory. Now, it feels like that must have been the beginning of what this is the end of, this night when everything is one fire, the sky and her, and they are dying, they are dying on the bridges and the battlements, when she would have always kept them safe.
Trapped in silence, fire overhead and in her belly, too, the castle wishes she could scream. Helena Ravenclaw wasn't the only one that Tom Riddle lied to. In her mortal, the castle remembers the trail of his fingers and the brush of his lips when he leaned close to stuff a secret name between her stones. And she loved him, oh she loved him, even then, even now, even long after he cared the heart right out of her with his hate.
No. The Grey Lady was not the only one that he betrayed.
But then there was Harry, wasn't there? Oh, Harry. Brave, beautiful, stupid Harry Potter who she loved. Harry, who she told secrets to. Harry, who reminded her of Tom Riddle but was always, at his heart, the boy who lived in her.
Enough. Enough now.
She is far from powerless here, even in the face of him, even with her carefully set defenses filtering down around her like ashy snow.
She steels herself for battle. She stands at the backs of all of those who are fighting, Hermione and Ron, Ginny Weasley with her grief and her mother's fire, Neville Longbottom, who was never anywhere other than where he was supposed to be and Minerva, dear Minerva, who's hair is still as red as beaten rose gold in her own dreams. She stands. She will not fall, though it hurt her. She is with every single one of them through the long, violent, hurting watches of the night.
As it was. As it should always have been.
Mostly, though, she catches the ones who fall. Remus and Tonks, still stinking of new life...Colin Creevey, barely more than new life himself. She tucks away Fred Weasley alongside Severus Snape in the place reserved for her most dear. She leaves Goyle's bones where they will never be found because nobody will ever think to ask for them and, when Hagrid comes carrying dear Harry in his arms she is not fooled, not for a moment, not for a second, but the rain pours down in the Great Hall, all the same.
She looks at him, curled up tight like a seed, for a very long time. In the distance, far distant, it seems to her that she can hear the sound of trains.
Do not keep him, she murmurs. Send him back. The world is not done with him, yet. And he is not done with the world.
She thinks that, maybe, of all people, Albus Dumbledore would understand.
During the final battle, she turns her face away. She settles for shrinking, pulling in wings and corridors until she is smaller than she was before, and doors lead only to where they ought to. She cradles them at the heart of her. She counts her losses, and her blessings, too.
(Imagine: imagine that, on a staircase, Neville pauses, for a moment. A girl passes him. He doesn't recognise her; her black hair is twisted back from her face and her eyes are a muddled colour which, in that moment, seems to him most like gold. He is weary and battle-stained, tireder than he has been in his life and, earlier, Luna Lovegood gave him a single, perfect kiss on the cheek. For the first time (and, perhaps, the only time), Neville knows that Gryffindor deserves him. And it is a feeling that will be with him for his entire life. The girl does not kiss his cheek, but she smiles. She wishes him long life. More luck than his parents.
Imagine that).
By the time she looks up, Harry Potter is standing there and the sun is rising.
She is in tatters but not ruins.
There is a hole in the roof of the Great Hall which lets in the blue sky and the good air. The quiet after the war which is not quiet at all but sounds like mending and making do.
The castle knows that she will be new again.
And they will be hers forever, these boys and girls who also lived.
Title: this place is the beat of my heart
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG
Warnings: character death.
Word Count: 767
Summary: During the battle for Hogwarts, the castle herself does what she can.
AN: The movie had a profound emotional effect on me. I wept for everyone but, mostly, I think, I wept for Hogwarts.
This place needs me here to start
this place is the beat of my heart
oh, my heart
Once upon a time, in the beginning (as the Muggle stories go), she remembers how the sky went out for Cedric Diggory. Now, it feels like that must have been the beginning of what this is the end of, this night when everything is one fire, the sky and her, and they are dying, they are dying on the bridges and the battlements, when she would have always kept them safe.
Trapped in silence, fire overhead and in her belly, too, the castle wishes she could scream. Helena Ravenclaw wasn't the only one that Tom Riddle lied to. In her mortal, the castle remembers the trail of his fingers and the brush of his lips when he leaned close to stuff a secret name between her stones. And she loved him, oh she loved him, even then, even now, even long after he cared the heart right out of her with his hate.
No. The Grey Lady was not the only one that he betrayed.
But then there was Harry, wasn't there? Oh, Harry. Brave, beautiful, stupid Harry Potter who she loved. Harry, who she told secrets to. Harry, who reminded her of Tom Riddle but was always, at his heart, the boy who lived in her.
Enough. Enough now.
She is far from powerless here, even in the face of him, even with her carefully set defenses filtering down around her like ashy snow.
She steels herself for battle. She stands at the backs of all of those who are fighting, Hermione and Ron, Ginny Weasley with her grief and her mother's fire, Neville Longbottom, who was never anywhere other than where he was supposed to be and Minerva, dear Minerva, who's hair is still as red as beaten rose gold in her own dreams. She stands. She will not fall, though it hurt her. She is with every single one of them through the long, violent, hurting watches of the night.
As it was. As it should always have been.
Mostly, though, she catches the ones who fall. Remus and Tonks, still stinking of new life...Colin Creevey, barely more than new life himself. She tucks away Fred Weasley alongside Severus Snape in the place reserved for her most dear. She leaves Goyle's bones where they will never be found because nobody will ever think to ask for them and, when Hagrid comes carrying dear Harry in his arms she is not fooled, not for a moment, not for a second, but the rain pours down in the Great Hall, all the same.
She looks at him, curled up tight like a seed, for a very long time. In the distance, far distant, it seems to her that she can hear the sound of trains.
Do not keep him, she murmurs. Send him back. The world is not done with him, yet. And he is not done with the world.
She thinks that, maybe, of all people, Albus Dumbledore would understand.
During the final battle, she turns her face away. She settles for shrinking, pulling in wings and corridors until she is smaller than she was before, and doors lead only to where they ought to. She cradles them at the heart of her. She counts her losses, and her blessings, too.
(Imagine: imagine that, on a staircase, Neville pauses, for a moment. A girl passes him. He doesn't recognise her; her black hair is twisted back from her face and her eyes are a muddled colour which, in that moment, seems to him most like gold. He is weary and battle-stained, tireder than he has been in his life and, earlier, Luna Lovegood gave him a single, perfect kiss on the cheek. For the first time (and, perhaps, the only time), Neville knows that Gryffindor deserves him. And it is a feeling that will be with him for his entire life. The girl does not kiss his cheek, but she smiles. She wishes him long life. More luck than his parents.
Imagine that).
By the time she looks up, Harry Potter is standing there and the sun is rising.
She is in tatters but not ruins.
There is a hole in the roof of the Great Hall which lets in the blue sky and the good air. The quiet after the war which is not quiet at all but sounds like mending and making do.
The castle knows that she will be new again.
And they will be hers forever, these boys and girls who also lived.