The Most Difficult Thing, PG
r_becca guilted me into posting. Sooooooooooo, here.
Title: The Most Difficult Thing
Rating: PG
Summary: Three days after Voldemort's defeat, in the dead of the night, Ginny goes to the boys' dormitory.
Word Count: 1,724
Notes/Warnings: Three guesses as to the pairing.
She has been aching for him for years-every word from his mouth, every awkward gesture, every angry look has crippled her, left her hoping for something that never comes. She has been aching for him for years, and wanting to go to him for years, and wanting to hold him close and whisper in his ear and touch his face and kiss him until he forgets who he is.
And so, after all these years, it is easy to do it-crazily, ridiculously easy to climb the stairs to the boys’ dormitory in the dead of the night. She doesn’t really care anymore if anyone catches her: Voldemort has been gone for almost three days, and everyone is still insane with disbelief, and it is normal to reach out in the corridor and touch someone you don’t even know, just to make sure they’re really alive. In this environment, all Ginny knows she will get if someone sees her is a wistful, happy nod-no reprimands, no shrieks, no disdain. No one cares about anything anymore, too busy caring about everything.
She is barefoot and the stone steps are cold against her feet. She stubs her toe twice, and when she arrives at the door to the seventh year dorm, it still hurts.
The room is quiet-only he and Dean are here, snoring softly, while the others find broom closets and secret passages to remember how to be real again. Ginny understands. The past few days have been like a terrible and wonderful dream; even she, who knows what happened and why because she helped, feels blurry around the edges. Every sense is amplified a thousand times-colors are brighter, sounds are louder-and yet it all feels very distant, like someone else is moving her body and she is just along for the ride.
She crosses to his bed quickly and pulls open the curtains. He is flat on his back, staring at the canopy above him. He turns his head, very slowly, to look at her, and when his pale green eyes travel over her face and body, she feels like he is dissecting her. And yet, strangely enough, she trusts him-trusts him to pull out her heart and replace it exactly where it was before.
Well. Not exactly where it was. But close enough that she will be able to survive.
“I knew you would come,” he says matter-of-factly, and, though she doesn’t know why, this comment makes her heart break and her eyes water. She had, she supposed, always wanted to be stronger than this; she had always had to be stronger than this, and now she’s afraid she doesn’t have any power over herself. It’s a terrible thought. Ever since she was eleven years old and killed roosters to write with their blood, she has been terrified of letting any man control her like that-and yet it seems, now, that she is right back where she started, ready and willing to do anything for another black-haired man.
“I-“ she says, and clamps her mouth shut, not knowing where to begin. He stretches his long, skinny arm out to her, beckoning. She sits, pulling the covers up over her lap, and suddenly she is wondering how did the Hogwarts beds get so small? They have always been enormous, and yet she feels clearly the heat from his body radiating into her.
“Are you all right?” he asks. She nods and relaxes a little, smiling at him and laying down. He hesitates, then moves closer to her, and oh God oh God he is lying right next to her. “I knew you would come,” he says again, “but I was still afraid you wouldn’t. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes.” She was afraid she wouldn’t come, either, and yet it was inevitable. One look her way before he went upstairs, and when she crawled into her own bed it was cold and lonely, and then she had finally understood.
The years of sorrow seemed interminable when she was in the middle of them, and yet now they all seem worth it-they all were building up to this, they must have been. Whether or not he understands what is now so clear to her is immaterial; it doesn’t matter if he says “yes” or “no” tonight. What matters now is this-the sound of his breath, the warmth of his body, the connection she feels.
She has learned, slowly but surely, to live in the present-not the future, not the past-but the beautiful, ever-changing present, that is hers endlessly, whether or not she wants it.
She realizes, suddenly, startlingly, that she does have a choice here. She made that choice long ago; and though she perhaps didn’t understand it entirely then, it was her choice and is still her choice, years later. And she can change it, now, if she wants to, and yet, if she thinks about it, there is really nothing else she would choose.
“I feel silly,” she says to fill up the silence. Under the covers, their feet bump once, twice, and then stay linked together.
“Why?” He turns onto his side, and his face is very close.
“I think I came here tonight expecting… something,” she says.
“What something?” he asks, his eyes flitting over her features. His hand settles on the curve of her jaw, and she doesn’t know how to breathe.
“That’s the thing,” she says, laughing shakily. “I don’t know anymore.”
He smiles. His thumb moves along her chin, not quite touching her lip but getting there.
“I’m glad you came,” he tells her, and though she knows he wanted her to come, she is still a little stunned by his words. “I like being with you.”
What is there to say to that? She scours her mind for words, and can find none, and so she just nods a little. He shakes his head, as though to clear his mind, and pulls back.
“No one wants to talk to me,” he admits, looking straight ahead.
“Everyone wants to talk to you,” she says, pushing herself up a little. “I mean, you defeated Voldemort, right?”
“No, I mean, people want to talk to me, but they don’t want to talk to me,” he explains. “It’s like I’m not a real person anymore-I’m just a stupid bloke with a scar who cast a spell at the right time. Jolly good, then; now we can all forget about everyone else.”
“That’s not quite fair,” she tells him. “I think a lot of people are remembering everyone else.”
“I don’t want everyone who died to be forgotten because I have good reflexes!” he says too loudly. She looks at him, half-crossly, half-sympathetic, and says his name softly and soothingly, touching his warm shoulder. He flinches.
“Don’t do that,” he says. “Yell at me.”
“What?” Her hand stills on his neck. His pulse thumps beneath her fingers.
“I need you to yell at me,” he says desperately. “I don’t like eggshells, and people walking on them. You’re the only one that ever yells at me and means it, and isn’t just angry.”
She doesn’t want to yell at him, but his eyes reflect the same desperation she has often felt all bottled up inside her, and so she compromises, wrapping her arms around him tightly and pulling him very close to her, so that his jaw slides against her cheekbone.
“You’re a prat,” she says into his ear, and he shudders, and she thinks he might be sobbing, and so she begins to cry as well, for all the terrors and ghosts and horrors that pushed a seventeen-year-old to crying into her arms. She presses him to her for what seems like hours, until the pillow is soaked through with their tears, and the memories of all the dead are shoved to the back of her mind in favor of the feel of his body pressed against hers.
And then it is strange, because what she thought would be the most difficult thing is somehow not so difficult, and his mouth is on the corner of her jaw, and then at the corner of her mouth, and then there is nothing but the pressure of his chapped lips on hers, and his teeth scraping her bottom lip gently, and his tongue touching hers softly, impossibly, and her back arching up against him.
He pulls away after what could have been seconds or minutes and his cheeks are still wet with his tears and hers. She smiles at him, and he smiles back. She murmurs his name again.
“Hm?” he asks, eyes on her mouth. She puts her hand to his cheek, and he looks at her eyes, then.
“You know Voldemort died that day,” she whispers.
“I know,” he replies, squinting, confused.
“I mean-Voldemort died that day, but you-you’re still here. And you can’t pretend not to be, even if you want to-he can’t win this,” she says with conviction. “I know you can’t forget it, but you should… you should let it go, or you should try to.”
“Let it go,” he repeats, his voice wondering. She prepares herself for him rolling away, yelling at her, getting angry at her, and she misses him already.
And yet all he does is nod, and she realizes how much she underestimated him. He is only seventeen years old, but he is no more a boy than she is a girl, and she knows completely, with amazing certainty, that if he can kill Voldemort, he can kill his memory of Voldemort. Hope fills her chest; she feels weightless.
He touches her neck as though it is a precious thing, and moves his thumb along her eyebrow. She swallows.
“Let it go,” he says again, then pauses for a minute and sighs. “All right,” he whispers, though he seems as though he can't quite believe what he's saying. “All right.”
And whether or not he believes it, she thinks that everything is possible here, with the rumpled bedsheets and the moonlight on their faces and the strange look in his eyes. She knows as his hand moves to her waist that nothing is ever going to be perfect, but if this is what imperfection is, then she will take it all, every last piece.
Title: The Most Difficult Thing
Rating: PG
Summary: Three days after Voldemort's defeat, in the dead of the night, Ginny goes to the boys' dormitory.
Word Count: 1,724
Notes/Warnings: Three guesses as to the pairing.
She has been aching for him for years-every word from his mouth, every awkward gesture, every angry look has crippled her, left her hoping for something that never comes. She has been aching for him for years, and wanting to go to him for years, and wanting to hold him close and whisper in his ear and touch his face and kiss him until he forgets who he is.
And so, after all these years, it is easy to do it-crazily, ridiculously easy to climb the stairs to the boys’ dormitory in the dead of the night. She doesn’t really care anymore if anyone catches her: Voldemort has been gone for almost three days, and everyone is still insane with disbelief, and it is normal to reach out in the corridor and touch someone you don’t even know, just to make sure they’re really alive. In this environment, all Ginny knows she will get if someone sees her is a wistful, happy nod-no reprimands, no shrieks, no disdain. No one cares about anything anymore, too busy caring about everything.
She is barefoot and the stone steps are cold against her feet. She stubs her toe twice, and when she arrives at the door to the seventh year dorm, it still hurts.
The room is quiet-only he and Dean are here, snoring softly, while the others find broom closets and secret passages to remember how to be real again. Ginny understands. The past few days have been like a terrible and wonderful dream; even she, who knows what happened and why because she helped, feels blurry around the edges. Every sense is amplified a thousand times-colors are brighter, sounds are louder-and yet it all feels very distant, like someone else is moving her body and she is just along for the ride.
She crosses to his bed quickly and pulls open the curtains. He is flat on his back, staring at the canopy above him. He turns his head, very slowly, to look at her, and when his pale green eyes travel over her face and body, she feels like he is dissecting her. And yet, strangely enough, she trusts him-trusts him to pull out her heart and replace it exactly where it was before.
Well. Not exactly where it was. But close enough that she will be able to survive.
“I knew you would come,” he says matter-of-factly, and, though she doesn’t know why, this comment makes her heart break and her eyes water. She had, she supposed, always wanted to be stronger than this; she had always had to be stronger than this, and now she’s afraid she doesn’t have any power over herself. It’s a terrible thought. Ever since she was eleven years old and killed roosters to write with their blood, she has been terrified of letting any man control her like that-and yet it seems, now, that she is right back where she started, ready and willing to do anything for another black-haired man.
“I-“ she says, and clamps her mouth shut, not knowing where to begin. He stretches his long, skinny arm out to her, beckoning. She sits, pulling the covers up over her lap, and suddenly she is wondering how did the Hogwarts beds get so small? They have always been enormous, and yet she feels clearly the heat from his body radiating into her.
“Are you all right?” he asks. She nods and relaxes a little, smiling at him and laying down. He hesitates, then moves closer to her, and oh God oh God he is lying right next to her. “I knew you would come,” he says again, “but I was still afraid you wouldn’t. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes.” She was afraid she wouldn’t come, either, and yet it was inevitable. One look her way before he went upstairs, and when she crawled into her own bed it was cold and lonely, and then she had finally understood.
The years of sorrow seemed interminable when she was in the middle of them, and yet now they all seem worth it-they all were building up to this, they must have been. Whether or not he understands what is now so clear to her is immaterial; it doesn’t matter if he says “yes” or “no” tonight. What matters now is this-the sound of his breath, the warmth of his body, the connection she feels.
She has learned, slowly but surely, to live in the present-not the future, not the past-but the beautiful, ever-changing present, that is hers endlessly, whether or not she wants it.
She realizes, suddenly, startlingly, that she does have a choice here. She made that choice long ago; and though she perhaps didn’t understand it entirely then, it was her choice and is still her choice, years later. And she can change it, now, if she wants to, and yet, if she thinks about it, there is really nothing else she would choose.
“I feel silly,” she says to fill up the silence. Under the covers, their feet bump once, twice, and then stay linked together.
“Why?” He turns onto his side, and his face is very close.
“I think I came here tonight expecting… something,” she says.
“What something?” he asks, his eyes flitting over her features. His hand settles on the curve of her jaw, and she doesn’t know how to breathe.
“That’s the thing,” she says, laughing shakily. “I don’t know anymore.”
He smiles. His thumb moves along her chin, not quite touching her lip but getting there.
“I’m glad you came,” he tells her, and though she knows he wanted her to come, she is still a little stunned by his words. “I like being with you.”
What is there to say to that? She scours her mind for words, and can find none, and so she just nods a little. He shakes his head, as though to clear his mind, and pulls back.
“No one wants to talk to me,” he admits, looking straight ahead.
“Everyone wants to talk to you,” she says, pushing herself up a little. “I mean, you defeated Voldemort, right?”
“No, I mean, people want to talk to me, but they don’t want to talk to me,” he explains. “It’s like I’m not a real person anymore-I’m just a stupid bloke with a scar who cast a spell at the right time. Jolly good, then; now we can all forget about everyone else.”
“That’s not quite fair,” she tells him. “I think a lot of people are remembering everyone else.”
“I don’t want everyone who died to be forgotten because I have good reflexes!” he says too loudly. She looks at him, half-crossly, half-sympathetic, and says his name softly and soothingly, touching his warm shoulder. He flinches.
“Don’t do that,” he says. “Yell at me.”
“What?” Her hand stills on his neck. His pulse thumps beneath her fingers.
“I need you to yell at me,” he says desperately. “I don’t like eggshells, and people walking on them. You’re the only one that ever yells at me and means it, and isn’t just angry.”
She doesn’t want to yell at him, but his eyes reflect the same desperation she has often felt all bottled up inside her, and so she compromises, wrapping her arms around him tightly and pulling him very close to her, so that his jaw slides against her cheekbone.
“You’re a prat,” she says into his ear, and he shudders, and she thinks he might be sobbing, and so she begins to cry as well, for all the terrors and ghosts and horrors that pushed a seventeen-year-old to crying into her arms. She presses him to her for what seems like hours, until the pillow is soaked through with their tears, and the memories of all the dead are shoved to the back of her mind in favor of the feel of his body pressed against hers.
And then it is strange, because what she thought would be the most difficult thing is somehow not so difficult, and his mouth is on the corner of her jaw, and then at the corner of her mouth, and then there is nothing but the pressure of his chapped lips on hers, and his teeth scraping her bottom lip gently, and his tongue touching hers softly, impossibly, and her back arching up against him.
He pulls away after what could have been seconds or minutes and his cheeks are still wet with his tears and hers. She smiles at him, and he smiles back. She murmurs his name again.
“Hm?” he asks, eyes on her mouth. She puts her hand to his cheek, and he looks at her eyes, then.
“You know Voldemort died that day,” she whispers.
“I know,” he replies, squinting, confused.
“I mean-Voldemort died that day, but you-you’re still here. And you can’t pretend not to be, even if you want to-he can’t win this,” she says with conviction. “I know you can’t forget it, but you should… you should let it go, or you should try to.”
“Let it go,” he repeats, his voice wondering. She prepares herself for him rolling away, yelling at her, getting angry at her, and she misses him already.
And yet all he does is nod, and she realizes how much she underestimated him. He is only seventeen years old, but he is no more a boy than she is a girl, and she knows completely, with amazing certainty, that if he can kill Voldemort, he can kill his memory of Voldemort. Hope fills her chest; she feels weightless.
He touches her neck as though it is a precious thing, and moves his thumb along her eyebrow. She swallows.
“Let it go,” he says again, then pauses for a minute and sighs. “All right,” he whispers, though he seems as though he can't quite believe what he's saying. “All right.”
And whether or not he believes it, she thinks that everything is possible here, with the rumpled bedsheets and the moonlight on their faces and the strange look in his eyes. She knows as his hand moves to her waist that nothing is ever going to be perfect, but if this is what imperfection is, then she will take it all, every last piece.