what a girl's gotta do

@aurorvancee

Emmeline Vance, 21.

1,163 posts

Homecoming

There was still a hesitance that hung between them despite all the words that were being spoke that seemed to mean they were together again. Ludo realized perhaps he had been naive to imagine them running together and her jumping into his arms, but somehow the reality even if less exciting was more amazing because it wasn’t a mere fantasy.

He smiled lightly as he looked at her, but still stayed silent.

“Are you serious? Do you really think things have changed so much that there is a moment I wouldn’t want you with me?” he took a step forward but halted before he got too close to her. “Of course I want you here—-Am i allowed to—” his hands moving lightly to symbolize the distance between them. He wasn’t sure if he was asking just to be close to her, or to hug her, or to finally feel the lips against his that he had missed for so long.

She found herself wanting both to run to and away from him. And in the strangest sense of vertigo, she found herself wondering why people run at all. Why is it that you can have this thing before you -- this beautiful, perfect thing -- and still have the animal instinct to turn and run as fast as you can? How could he possibly see the future that she saw and have chosen to leave anyway?

It was as clear as day to her. In seven or eight years, he’d have lead the national team to as many titles and she’d be several rungs higher on the ladder in the Auror office. They’d have moved from the heart of the city but they visited often and traveled far and wide. She accompanied him on trips to tournaments and regularly cheered until she lost her voice. And of late when she allowed herself this small fantasy, it seemed that a tiny thing with a mess of ashy brown hair had begun to appear in her thoughts as well. She had her mother’s eyes and her father’s smile, and she won the heart of any and all that she met. They were happy.

Any now.. now she didn’t know what she wanted. She wasn’t sure if that dream was possible anymore. But she knew one thing: if you never try, you’ll never know.

She stared at the space between them, her eyes not truly focused on a thing. Her mind seemed to race and suddenly she wondered if she’d jumped the gun and come running to his door too soon.

“I have fought for you and I have fought with you, and I am tired, Ludo; I am tired of fighting. I need a safe place to land every once in awhile,” she said, still staring at his hands, eyes silently measuring the small distance between them. She was trying to convince herself of something they both already knew: that this was right. “But I’m here. And you’re here.”

Emmeline swallowed, looking up slowly. That smile she loved crept up to the corners of his mouth as she nodded slowly. She took a step, his outstretched hands fitting naturally around her waist as she did. Her own arms instinctively went around his neck. “I think we’re gonna be okay.”

#homecoming #chat ludo

Homecoming

Ludo stood on the other side of the closed door for several minutes, a half hearted wish that it would suddenly open and she would tell him to come back now but he saw nothing. The walk back to to the place he was staying felt longer than it was, only because there was so much in the air for him to think about. He had to accept that perhaps things weren’t going to work out. Perhaps he could get her to not hate him, but more than anything he needed her to be better. He couldn’t be the reason she stopped her career.

Knowing he was in the same city as Emmeline and not with her felt wrong, it didn’t feel natural. She was the only reason he was here. The night was going to be long, but eventually it would bring a sunrise that would at least bring him some relief. Knowing he would see her tomorrow would make tonight far easier. He was just laying in bed staring up at the ceiling when he heard the door. He glanced at it before getting up as he wondered if he had imagined the sound. A moment later he moved quickly to the door and answered it.

He was ready to greet her but her voice instantly silenced him. He nodded to nearly every statement she gave as he knew just how right she was. “I know—” he quietly said a few times between her breaths. “I won’t leave. I’ll never leave. Every problem or issue we have going forward we resolve together. Even if t seems impossible we face it together” he promised. Her words sparking hope again in him as he let his eyes meet hers.

“I promise. We have to show each other that—-the other isn’t a weight. Not just are we going to go back but we’re going to thrive. You’re going to do amazing work, and i’m going to kick ass on that field. You’re going to see with you in my life i have passion and ambition, and i’m going to see how strong and amazing you are. This is worth fighting for, it’s worth figuring out. I need you in my life Emmeline. It’s not a desire, or something that i woke up and felt, I’ve needed you since the last day i saw you”.

She listened and turned his words over and over in her head. They could do this. They could make this work. Somehow.

“Okay,” she said, nodding slowly. “Okay.”

And some time passed in silence. She couldn’t be sure how long, only that it felt long as a decade and quick as a second all at once. There was an unstable air that hung between them, wanting to be nearer and further at the same time.

How eerie that, after all they’d been through, here they stood as fresh as strangers.

“Do you even want me here? I can’t– I didn’t even think about how late it is. I.. I’m sorry–”

#ignore the text #shes nervous rambling #chat ludo

Homecoming

He forced a nod at her words, moving toward the door that was open. He wanted to believe she would be by tomorrow but he wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t. He kept his eyes locked with hers for a few moments of silent before nodding again and moving to the door. His body paused in the doorway as his back was to her, his hand raising to rest on the door frame for a moment. “I love you Emmeline. Don’t let yourself fall asleep and ever question that, I love you” his eyes moved back to the ground as he took the additional two steps, knowing that yet again a barrier would divide them.

She didn’t know what else could be said, closing the door and letting the silence hit her. None of it made sense. She let everything spin itself into webs in her mind until all of his words ran into each other. No, she wouldn’t think about that now.

Emmeline cleaned the entire flat, top to bottom. She pulled fresh linens from the closet, threw out the growing stack of newspapers, and opened the curtains for the first time in months. She took a long, hot shower to clear her mind, the scalding hot water breathing life back into her tired bones. And as she toweled off her hair, she realized that time actually seemed to be moving forward again, no longer stuck in the vacuum she’d felt confined to in the previous months.

It was him. It was the return of her prodigal love. And she knew it, even if she didn’t want to know it.

Emmeline threw on her coat, wet hair dripping as she apparated from her flat. The familiar halls of his building felt welcoming and haunting at the same time and her feet needed no reminder of the path to his door. She eyed her wrist closely, and then.. tick tick tick.. It was midnight.

She knocked loudly. The moment the door opened, so did her mouth.

“You left. And that’s not something I can ignore and that is not something I am okay with. You left. We were doing great and you had Batty staying here and you were at my flat all the time anyway and, a-and that scares the hell out of me, Ludo, because things were going to well and you just--” she shook her head but the words still came as quickly as they had before, one long train of thought after the other. “You can’t do that, you can’t just leave. You can’t bail when it gets hard. I can’t live like that.”

She paused for the shortest moment before she spoke again. “You have to promise me that you’re going to keep playing. You’re going to keep training, and you’re going to travel with the league. And I’m going to go back to work. And we’re.. we’re going to figure this out.”

Homecoming

Ludo paused before speaking again, nodding in agreement “Okay” he said. He let a moment of silence exist between them “Do you want me to go?” he asked. He was terrified of her answer but he knew this wasn’t going to magically be fixed over night, despite wishing it would. “Just tell me what to do—”.

Emmeline stepped toward the front door, looking back to him as she pulled it open. “I’ll come by tomorrow, alright? I promise,” she said, trying to offer an apologetic look and knowing it couldn’t possibly be enough. “I think we need to sleep on it.”

Homecoming

He glanced down at his hand as she glanced at it before looking back at him, letting it fall back to his side at another failure to try to bridge the gap between them. “I know. I know it was 6 months and I can never make up for that time and i can never make up for failing you that badly”. He took a deep breath, happy to at least have her eyes met with his “It is. It is that easy. It’s when we make it more difficult that we have problems. It’s when you think about my future and holding me back. It’s me thinking i’m holding you back. The moment we look past how much we want this, and how happy we are we fuck up. It’s when we strafe from this, we have to accept that this is the most important”.

She shook her head even as he spoke. Persistent, so persistent. “Ludo, please,” she said quietly, holding one hand up to stop him. "I think we both just.. need some time to think,” she said, rubbing her temples.

Homecoming

He felt a weight lift after her words, they were a silent agreement that she did want him here. She did want to be with him despite how upset she was and how angry she was at him. He took a cautious step forward toward her and instead of reaching out to touch her he just held out his hand toward her as he kept his eyes locked with hers.

“I will never leave you. I love you. I’m sorry it took such a shitty act for me to realize how important you were in my life”.

Words. They were just words. Anyone could say them.

She tore her eyes from his, staring instead at his outstretched hand. It felt like forever, the time she took studying the weight of the distance between them. “Six months, Ludo,” she said, looking back up at him at last. “It’s not as simple as what we want anymore.”

Homecoming

Even the lightest embrace of her sent a wave of calm over him, sparking the vague memory of what it felt like to be with her again. It was the same memory that he lived on for months, every time it felt like it diminished slightly. He needed her so entirely but as soon as the calm began to settle it was gone, his hands immedietly falling back to his side as his shoulders slumped.

“How can you even pretend that this isn’t what you want?” he asked. “How can you look me in the eyes and tell me that you don’t want to be with me? I know this is a mess and we have 1000 things that we need to fix but—–we have to fix them” he knew better than to reach for her again, seeing the turn in her tone.

For the first time every in her presence he felt alone. He felt more divided from her than he had ever felt and even though they were feet apart he felt just as distant as he had been the last few months. “Emmeline please—” his plea beginning to sound more like a beg and his eyes showed more signs of the pain that he felt.

“Tell me you don’t. Tell me you don’t love me and I’ll leave. Tell me that you don’t want to be with me and I’ll let you live your life. But—-I mistakenly thought that we had control over this. I thought I could control things and free you, but the universe thought otherwise. Our paths are intertwined babe, you’re the love of my life. You’re the only one i’ll ever have. Please don’t let the pain we feel now end our love”.

Everything he said made sense to her heart but rattled her brain. She couldn’t comprehend any of it, no matter how desperately she wanted to. She couldn’t understand what he wanted, couldn’t riddle out how he’d come to this conclusion. And why now? Out of nowhere?

She straightened, looking him in the eye for the first time since he’d entered the apartment.

“And when you leave again? What then?”

Homecoming

“I may have you love, but it doesn’t mean i deserve it. The fact i put you through this means I didn’t. I put you through hell unfairly and I broke your heart because I was scared. I didn’t deserve how much you loved me, I don’t deserve how much you still love me but all I can do is pray that someday I do deserve it. I need to look in the mirror and know that—-I deserve you”.

He instantly took a step forward as he aggressively shook his head “No. No” he said while she was still speaking. “No that is not true Emmeline. I won’t grow restless. I love being out there. I love flying and I love playing, and I know you’d never ask me to give it up but if I had to choose it wouldn’t be difficult. Because when i’m presented with two routes I’m choosing the one where my happiness isn’t conditional on something as insignificant as work or a sport. With you it’s constant. It’s real”.

She was worse than he had even expected her to be. He had contacted Lucy once or twice to ask about Emmeline but he had no idea she had withdrawn this much from the world. “No it’s not normal. And it’s not normal that things for me flipped over and became a mess as well but maybe that’s because we are more important to each other than we realize. You think you’re going to weigh me down and hold me back, I think i’m going to do the same to you——what if we’re part of why we’re so ambitious. What’s the point of success if you have no one to share your joy?”.

“You misunderstand me. I’m not saying we won’t be happy. I’m saying we’re a mess. We’re not the conventional couple that you see in the movies. We make Han and Leia look like a perfectly functioning relationship. We’re a mess but that doesn’t change that you’re the best thing in my life. I need you in my life” as he spoke he walked toward her, pausing as he was just a foot behind her. He paused between words but eventually closed the gap, letting his hands wrap around her waist.

She turned rigid when she felt his hands winding around her waist. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t okay. She took a step forward, slipping from his grip without raising it to discussion.

He didn’t know what he was saying. They battled now, as they always had, between logic and passion. They had never maintained the healthy balance that was necessary, always tarrying too far in one way or the other. And for now, it was she that held the reigns of logic while he ran free with passion.

She turned to face him suddenly, her hands in fists at her side. “What about what I want?” she spat. “What if I don’t want this, Ludo? What if this isn’t how i want things to go? Did you even think about that? Do you even care?”

He wasn’t thinking straight, neither of them were.

What would happen, she wondered, if they did try to mend things? How pathetic would she be, how small would it make her to have to own the mess she’d made of things? Thrown her career to the side, fallen into depression. And for what?

The biggest question -- one that should have been obvious months ago -- presented itself now: What kind of woman was she if she based her happiness entirely on him?

“You didn’t even ask me what I wanted. You just assumed that I want you back.”

Hotline Bling (Acoustic Cover)

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Lights // Hotline Bling

Homecoming

“I know that now” he agreed. “It took me months of not being with you to realize that it was unfair of me to leave for those reasons. It was unfair for me to speak for you and even worse that it was words that I know you would never truly say. I unfairly made a decision for you and I’m sorry for that”.

Every word hung in his mind as she spoke. Perhaps she was right, but it was in that moment he realized it. His hips turned just lightly to form the lightest presence of a smile as he forced a small laugh from his gut “Maybe. Maybe i will look back and say at some point you held me back. And maybe in 15 years if you’re not the head of the Auror’s you’ll be able to say it’s because i held you back as well. Maybe both of those things will happen. But maybe we’re giving up those things for this—-Maybe we’re giving up something like that for something better. I can’t speak for you but I’ll give up a hell of a lot if it means i’m with you”.

“We’re fucked Emmeline. We’re both damaged, and we both make mistakes when it’s the worst possible time. I wish i could promise I won’t make any more mistakes but I know I will. But I said it to you once, maybe twice who fucking knows. No matter what happens I’ll never be able to stay away from you. You’re it. You look at quidditch as if it’s my greatest achievement but it’s not. Earning your love is my greatest achievement, and I’ll work every day to get there”.

“No. You don’t understand me, Ludo. You think that you do, but you don’t,” she sighed. Just the thought of the next words she would say brought tears to her eyes. She made no effort to stop them. “You don’t have to earn my love. I have been in love with you since I was sixteen years old,” she said, shaking her head yet again. “It’s never been a question of whether or not I loved you. It’s always just been a series of hows and whys.”

“And I don’t have the answer. Because I know you, Ludo -- I know you, and I know that you’ll grow restless. You’ll grow tired of not being on the pitch, you’ll be bored in any other job. So the answer is obvious: you have to keep playing,” she explained. “And I..”

“I haven’t been to work in three months,” she admitted, finally. “Because I haven’t been myself in at least as long. Do you think this is normal?” Emmeline asked, gesturing at her apartment and the massive disarray it was in. “That’s not to say that it’s a good thing, that we’re a good thing. Maybe just the opposite.”

She couldn’t take his stare anymore, turning toward the living room. She walked to the window, looking out at the street below. “I don’t like what losing you does to me. That doesn’t mean that we’re supposed to be able to make it work, Ludo. That doesn’t make it okay. That just means that something is wrong with me.”

“You’ve decided we won’t be happy. What more is there to say?”

Homecoming

“I’m sorry that it sounds that way but it’s the truth. I don’t want to be the want that weighs down Emmeline Vance. In 10 years or 15 years you could be in charge of the Auror’s department. You’re going to be at the height of your career and you’re going to be with a beaten up ex quidditch player”. He could feel his heart practically beating out of his chest as he spoke to her, a phantom pain stinging and aching with every beat.

“I know you were giving me an opportunity and I proved to you that I’m a mess. I did lost my damn mind because it wasn’t us just moving in together and you have to realize that. It was us agreeing that we wanted our lives to be together, we wanted forever. I wanted it so fucking deeply but that didn’t change that the idea of it freaked me out and i reacted in the worst possible way”.

He wanted to reach out for her just to pull her close to him, to smell the familiar scent of her hair and to just feel her body against him. He was convinced if he could perhaps the words would be just a side show to her feeling what he felt for her. He slowly shook his head in opposition “No. That’s what you don’t understand Emmeline” he began to explain. “I left with every intention to not come back. To let you move on and find someone better for you, but I couldn’t. Nothing matters without you. No quidditch game matters. No day matters. Every day is a fucking blur because there’s nothing to look forward to. There’s no ups or downs because my life has become null. Please babe—-”.

After a steadying breath, clearing the fog of emotions that even half-hearing the pet name had brought her, she looked up at him again. “You don’t get to make that decision,” she spoke clearly. “You don’t get to decide that whatever life we would have had together isn’t good enough for me.”

“The trouble is, Ludo, that you’ve never once stood in my way. You have never stood in my way. But I stand in yours. You have to be gone longer than I’d like, or you have to play on teams with women I don’t trust. You would have to make sacrifices to your career for me, and that isn’t fair. And if you get to decide that I won’t be happy in fifteen years, I deserve the same right,” she said. “Because there’s no way in hell that you’re not going to look back in fifteen years and say that I never held you back. That I didn’t stop you from becoming all that you could be.”

She shook her head, thinking to herself. “Maybe it was better before we knew it could be real. When we thought it was just us being young and stupid and we didn’t know what love was. It was easier to write it off then, right? Because now..” she sighed, looking down at the floor. “Now we have to admit that the love is there and we don’t know how to build a life where it can exist.”

And your heart is broken cause I walked away Show me your scars and I won’t walk away And I know I promised that I couldn’t stay, baby Every promise don’t work out that way

Beyoncé - SANDCASTLES

#lemmeline #words

Homecoming

“I know you were scared but you have to realize what I see Emmeline”. His eyes dropped the ground as he gathered the words that had been bottled up for so long. “You’re something special. You’re this brilliant, independent, strong, amazing woman and I’m a glorified jock with no discernible skills other than a sport that means nothing in the grand scheme. In what world should you settle down with me?” he asked.

“I know you knew what you were asking, but I couldn’t let you throw it all away because of me. I bring people down. I’m not a rock, i’m not a support system, I’m not good at being a boyfriend. Of the list of 100 things a partner should be i’d be lucky to check 5 of them. You deserve it all and I couldn’t let you throw away your chance at that for me”.

His eyes rose again as he looked at her, the tears already beginning to form after the words. “I tried so hard to try to stay away from you so that you could have a better life but I can’t stay away from you. I need you now as I needed you then. I don’t give a fuck about Quidditch Emmeline, I’m not going anywhere until you tell me you want me gone”.

“Don’t do this,” she muttered under her breath before repeating herself audibly. “Don’t do this. Don’t try to make this about me, Ludo. What? You want me to feel better because you decided that I’m too good for you? What about what I wanted? It doesn’t work like that!”

His words only confused her more. “I wasn’t throwing anything away. I was giving you the opportunity to prove to me that I wasn’t wrong and that I wasn’t crazy, and maybe -- just maybe -- two people as stubborn as you and I could still have a chance. You and your inflated stories of how great our life together would be. So I called your bluff and you lost your goddamned mind.”

He was in pain and it was obvious, but she couldn’t let herself be distracted by it or she’d never have the courage to say what had to be said. She realized with a chill that she was standing precisely in the same spot she’d been standing in three years before -- the last time they’d had this conversation. Both of them wanting more, and her, ever stubborn and focused, refusing to let him be less than he was destined to be.

“That’s exactly why you have to go,” she said after a long silence. “You have to go back and you have to get your spot back and you have to fucking play Quidditch, Ludo. Because you and I both know that you are always going to go back, and I refuse to be the reason that you don’t.”

Homecoming

Her silence was enough to give him at least a brief moment of calm, a brief second to at least believe it’s possible for him to explain things to her and have this all not blow up. He quietly took a few steps into her flat, his eyes scanning quickly but the disarray and chaos was a conversation that wasn’t important given the circumstance. He turned back to face her and attempted to reach out for her hand as a part of him was desperate to just feel the lightest touch of her skin again his.

“Emmeline—-an apology is worthless and I know that but I have to say the words regardless. I’m sorry” it was the easiest apology he’d ever said because he had been waiting to say them to her for months. “Everything happened so quick and I panicked and i freaked out. I didn’t know how to handle things and I—-I fucked it all up in tremendous Ludo fashion” he began to explain.

“I got scared. Because—-I realized what what happening and it fucking terrified me Emmeline. It had to have been that same fear you felt way back in Hogwarts”.

“You think I don’t know that?” she said, moving her hand away from his reach. “You think I wasn’t just as scared? I thought it was what you wanted.”

She softened with the obvious sincerity of his words, but the mention of Hogwarts brought the walls right back up. Of course he’d try to throw that back in her face. After all, it was so easy to throw.

“That was years ago, Ludo. We were kids -- stupid kids. And you didn’t know what you were asking,” she said, shaking her head. “Things were different this time; we were different. And I knew exactly what I was asking of you.”

She bit her lip, trying to keep her scathing comments to herself and failing. “And clearly you didn’t want any part of it. So just go back, alright? Go be the best damned player England’s ever seen. Nothing is stopping you.”

Homecoming

“If you close the door i’m just going to sit in your hallway. I’m one of the most stubborn people you know, so unless you want all of your neighbors gossiping about why Ludo Bagman is camping in your hallway it’s far easier to just let me in” his voice had the first note of confidence in it, only because he couldn’t let her think she could get rid of him today. “I haven’t been to training in 3 weeks. Even before then I was fucking horrendous. I’m not going to say some pretty words to make things better. I’m going to tell you the truth, and hope that you’ll see in my eyes that it is. I know you want to know why I left, Let me tell you, and if you still hate me when i’m done—-I’ll go”.

Damn him. Damn him for knowing her so well that he knew her curiosity would get the better of her. She couldn’t exist in a world with unanswered questions -- that was the main source of her spiral. She could have handled him leaving, but not fully understanding why.. that had eaten at her for the last six months. Emmeline crossed her arms again but took a few steps back, allowing enough room for him to enter the flat and close the door behind him.

Her apartment was, to put it kindly, a wreck. She’d stripped every trace of him from the flat and never taken the time to put it back together. Empty picture frames hung on the wall, a crack in the window she’d slammed after tossing that damned music box out onto the street below.

Her eyes stayed frozen on his until the door clicked into place. Suddenly the nearness was intimidating. Her fingers tapped on her own arm nervously as she waited for his words.

would have could have should have, but did not

b.q.

#lemmeline #words

Homecoming

His hand automatically moved against the door as part of him felt the need to defend against the possibility of her putting the barrier between them. He listened to every word she spoke and allowed his eyes to truly lock with hers. He wondered if she could see the pain in his own eyes, or if her own pain made it impossible to see. “It was never about returning the favor—” he defended though she had to know that it wasn’t that. “I didn’t” he said taking a larger step forward to the point that the door couldn’t be closed even if she tried. “I didn’t have to go. I could have turned it down, and I should have turned it down. I’m a fuck up, I always have been. All I’m asking is that if even a shred of you doesn’t hate me to just—–” he paused as he took a deep breath “just talk to me”.

For the first time in her memory, she was unsettled by his presence. The hand on the door made her nervous and she took another step back as he spoke. It was his larger step and the words that came with it that pushed her facade aside. “You’re damned right, you didn’t have to,” she spat, breaking through her forced decency. “But you did. So don’t come ‘round now that summer training’s over and pretend that you regret it, Ludo.” Her hand moved to the door, trying to close it but only meeting resistance. “I know you think you can say a few pretty words and make it all better but you’re wrong. So just save it, alright?”

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