may

i will love you until every fire is extinguished and until every home is rebuilt from the handsomest and most susceptible of woods

[luvendiary]

welcome!

may ☆ 22 ☆ she/her ☆ art student ☆ aquarius ☆ infp ☆ cabin 20

everyone should be able to do one card trick, tell two jokes, and recite three poems, in case they are ever trapped in an elevator

masterlist | request rules

requests are open!

currently under renovation

[luvendiary]

Hello! I’ve read your mermaid!reader x Sam fics and they’re sooooooo good! I’ve always loved it when authors make the reader some sort of non-human and you’ve inspired me to make this piece 😘

I made her more monstrous with gills, black sclera, and a long tail and fins

this put such a big smile on my face, thank you so so much!!! i’ve never had art inspired from my fics before!! i cannot tell you how excited and happy this made me. thank you!!!

this is so so good, i’ll definitely keep her in mind when writing the next part!!

[luvendiary]

southern siren | s.winchester

how sam finds out

sam winchester x reader. no use of y/n. 5.9k words. not proofread. partial nudity.

The moon was full tonight.

That was the only thing your mind had been able to concentrate on since the sun disappeared below the horizon two hours ago.

Even now, leaning against the hood of the Impala, your eyes kept drifting west—past the dark motel parking lot, past the empty highway, toward the unseen stretch of black water waiting somewhere beyond the trees.

Lake Michigan.

You couldn’t see it from here, but you could feel it. 

It was a short walk. This specific motel was marketed toward people who went fishing or just enjoyed having the lake nearby. 

But the ache in your muscles would not allow you to move yet. The pull sat deep beneath your ribs, ancient and aching, like a hook buried into your bones tugging steadily toward the shore. It had been getting worse for days now. Three nights without sleep. Three nights of cold sweats, restless pacing, the constant sound of water roaring in your ears no matter where you went.

Full moons always made it worse.

They woke things up.

Humans felt it too, albeit in a much lower degree than what they called “monsters”. They didn’t know the moon called to everything touched by old magic.

You swallowed hard and shut your eyes for a second.

The motel room door creaked open behind you. Then, bootsteps against gravel, walking toward you.

Sam leaned against the hood next to you, leaving enough space so you wouldn’t feel cornered. The metal dipped slightly under his weight.

For a moment, neither of you spoke.

The night air smelled like pine trees, motor oil, and wood. Along with the faint scent of freshwater that incited you to come closer.

“You okay?” Sam asked quietly.

I will be, you thought as you nodded your head.

Sam glanced toward the treeline, following your line of sight even though there was nothing there to see.

“You’re tired,” he said gently.

“Long hunt,” you replied, still not taking your eyes off of the horizon. Exhaustion clung to every inch of you just as much as you were sure it did to Sam. Your limbs felt heavy, your eyes dirty, and your skin wrong. Too dry. 

The lake was calling…louder each time. 

“You should come inside,” he murmured. “Get some sleep.”

Your fingers curled tighter against the edge of the hood.

Sleep.

You thought of Dean, who by now was probably having his third dream of the night. He’d barely made it through half a complaint about cheap motel pillows before collapsing face-first onto the bed with an unopened vodka bottle still in his hand.

The second you closed your eyes, you knew exactly what would happen. Dreams of dark water, waves crashing against your ribs. Drowning you, like a hug. 

You smiled subconsciously as you slowly shook your head. “You go ahead.”

Beside you, Sam exhaled softly rubbing a hand over his face, exhaustion finally slipping through the cracks in his composure.

The breeze shifted again, carrying the scent of the lake with it now. Your lungs seemed to expand on their own, big and bountiful.

Sam studied your profile carefully.

“You should get some rest too,” you murmured absentmindedly.

Sam was silent for a moment.

Then, softer this time, “I will.”

You frowned faintly, finally dragging your gaze away from the horizon to look at him.

Moonlight caught against the tired shadows beneath his eyes. He looked exhausted enough to collapse standing up. There was dried blood still smeared near his jaw from the hunt earlier, and his flannel hung open slightly at the throat, wet with sweat and dirt. Yet, he was still here.

“You don’t have to stay out here,” you said.

“I know.”

You knew what he meant. Gentle and caring Sam, always looking out for you. Had it been any other night, or sometime where your mind wasn’t occupied with thoughts of the lake and the moon, you might have argued. Tell him how you can take care of yourself, make it ten times harder for him. But tonight, you just looked away.

With the moon up, your inhibitions were down. 

She hung massive overhead now, pale and watchful, casting silver across the motel parking lot until everything looked drowned beneath it.

For a second, you could almost imagine the lake itself staring back at you. Crawling at you. Dragging itself up the forest, across the street and into the parking lot. Picking you up, and holding you down. 

Your breathing had started to change without you noticing—slower and deeper. Like waves.

Sam noticed immediately. “You okay?”

You swallowed, and honesty came in the shape of a whisper.

“No.”

Sam straightened slightly beside you, concern sharpening through the exhaustion. “What do you need?”

The question nearly undid you.

Because the terrifying thing was—you knew exactly what you needed. Its freezing depths wrapping around your body until the ache inside you finally stopped.

Your fingers trembled against the Impala’s hood.

“I don’t know if I can ignore it tonight,” you admitted quietly.

You felt Sam shift beside you.

Another gust of wind swept through the parking lot, colder this time, and your eyes fluttered shut involuntarily.

You could hear waves now.

When you opened your eyes again you were surrounded by the forest. The faint sound of Sam calling out your name a few steps behind you.

Your legs moved without your permission, as if they themselves couldn’t wait to turn into one. 

Branches clawed at your arms as you moved through the forest, slow and dreamlike beneath the silver wash of moonlight.

“Hey—hey, wait.”

Sam’s voice echoed somewhere behind you, though it was distant and muffled. Like hearing someone speak from the opposite side of deep water. 

Your bare feet sank into damp earth and dead leaves. Every step closer made the ache inside your body ease just a little more. The lake was near now. You could smell it fully—cold freshwater and stone and moonlit depth.

Your heartbeat slowed to match the rhythm of waves.

Your name being called barely registered.

Your bare feet sank into damp earth and dead leaves. Every step closer made the ache inside your body ease just a little more. The lake was near now. You could smell it fully—cold freshwater and stone and moonlit depth.

Your heartbeat slowed to match the rhythm of waves.

Your lips parted soundlessly.

You were so close. You could feel it, the moon, the lake and you, all singing in unison. Calling to each other.

Sam stepped directly into your path.

You stopped automatically.

His chest rose and fell hard from running, hair disheveled, flannel hanging open as he reached for your arms carefully but firmly.

“Hey,” he breathed, trying to catch your gaze. “Hey, look at me.”

His hands were warm. Too warm.

Your eyes dragged slowly from the lake to his face.

Everything about him looked blurred at the edges except his eyes.

Worried hazel fixed entirely on you.

“You need to stop,” he said softly. “Just—just breathe for a second, okay?”

You stared at him blankly.

His words were slipping past you like water through open fingers.

“Please don’t be mad,” you whispered.

Sam blinked, confusion flashing briefly across his face. “Mad? Why would I be mad?”

“You can’t come with me.”

His grip tightened slightly—not painful. Grounding.

“You’re not making any sense right now.” His voice stayed painfully gentle despite the fear creeping into it. “Come back to the motel with me.”

The lake called louder.

You could feel it against your skin now.

Inside your bones.

“Please,” Sam insisted quietly. “Just let me take you back.”

But his voice couldn’t compete with the water.

Your gaze drifted past his shoulder toward the shoreline again.

“Stay with me,” you murmured suddenly.

His brow furrowed as he leaned his head down, trying to catch your gaze again. “Please, just let me take you to—”

“You’ll hate me,” you whispered.

Sam’s expression softened instantly, confusion giving way to something wounded.

“I could never hate you.”

Your eyes fluttered shut for a second.

The moon pulsed white behind your eyelids. When you opened them again, your mouth opened along with them. A soft melody came pouring out of your lips as you gently pushed past Sam.

The sound wrapped around him instantly. Gently and tender, like a lullaby, inviting you to a sweet dream.

Your voice flowed through the trees like moonlight over water, low and aching and impossibly beautiful. Every note seemed to sink beneath Sam’s skin, pulling at something deep inside his chest. His hands loosened around your arms without him realizing it.

The lake answered you.

Waves rolled softly against the shoreline in perfect rhythm with your song.

You stepped onto the sand slowly, your movements graceful in a way that no longer looked entirely human. The moonlight clung to your skin, silver across your throat and shoulders.

Sam stood frozen several feet behind you. His exhaustion disappeared beneath the haze settling over his mind.

You reached for the hem of your shirt, and pulled it over your head slowly. 

Sam’s breath caught quietly.

Your jeans followed next, pushed down your legs with slow, absent movements until you stood in only your underwear at the edge of the lake, pale moonlight spilling across every inch of your skin.

The song grew softer then.

You lifted your hands toward the necklace resting against your collarbone. The silver chain trembled faintly between your fingers before you unclasped it.

Turning back toward Sam, you crossed the short distance between you both. His eyes would not leave you. He looked like he wanted to say something, but did not want to interrupt your song. 

You took his hand gently and placed the necklace into his palm.

His fingers curled around it automatically.

Warm skin against cold silver.

“Sweet Sam,” you whispered softly, the melody still woven through your voice. “Please don’t hate me.”

Sam opened his mouth slightly, but no words came out. He could only stare at you, and your eyes clouded over with moonlight.

Then you turned away again, and slowly began your descent into the lake.

The water embraced you instantly.

Your song echoed across the dark surface as waves climbed higher up your body; your thighs, your waist, your ribs.

Sam remained rooted to the shoreline, breathing slow and shallow, unable to look away.

Moonlight danced across the water around you like shattered glass.

The melody softened more and more as you moved deeper.

Your shoulders disappeared beneath the surface,then your throat, followed by your chin. Your lips were the last thing visible above the water, still singing softly toward the moon.

Then, silence covered the shoreline. Like a dream vanishing. The only proof of you having been there were the fading ripples on the surface of the water.

Instantly, the haze around Sam’s mind shattered.

His breath caught sharply.

For one disoriented second, he simply stared at the empty water.

Then panic crashed into him all at once.

“No—”

He stumbled forward immediately.

“Hey!”

Waves splashed violently around his legs as he rushed into the freezing lake fully clothed.

His heartbeat slammed painfully against his ribs now.

Your name tore from his throat raggedly.

Nothing answered him.

Only black water stretching endlessly beneath the moon.

Fear twisted sharply across his face.

You hadn’t resurfaced.

“Come on,” he breathed frantically, moving deeper into the lake. “Come on, come on—”

Water soaked through his jeans, his flannel, dragging heavily at his body as he pushed farther out.

“Don’t disturb the water, Sam,” your voice came from a few feet away. Only your head being visible from the depths. 

Sam froze completely.

Beneath the moonlight, your skin seemed almost pearlescent, glowing softly silver beneath droplets of water. Your hair floated around you in dark waves while the lake itself curled gently against your shoulders like it belonged to you. Or perhaps, like you belonged to it.

For a moment, Sam forgot how to breathe.

“What–” was his breathless response. He was sure the exhaustion had gotten to him. This must be a dream, one of the many he’s had with you.

You slowly got closer to him. Drifting slowly, as if the water was carrying you—making way for you.

“I didn’t want you to find out this way,” you said.  

Your voice sounded different now. Still yours, but fuller somehow. As if the lake carried the sound toward him.

Water rippled softly around you as you drifted closer, moonlight following your movements across the surface. He still couldn’t fully see beneath the waterline—only the outline of your shoulders, your collarbones glistening silver, strands of wet hair clinging to your skin.

His chest heaved unevenly.

“What… what are you?”

Pain flickered across your face instantly.

“I wanted to tell you,” you whispered. “I wanted to tell both of you so many times.”

You stopped a few feet away from him. Close enough now that Sam could see how your eyes reflected light strangely beneath the moon, almost luminous in the darkness.

“But I was scared.”

Your fingers disappeared beneath the surface briefly, disturbing the black water around you.

“Hunters don’t exactly react well to things like me.”

Sam opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

You gave a tiny, trembling smile that broke his heart immediately.

“I tried so hard to hide it.”

The water shifted again, and this time Sam noticed it.

Something moved beneath the surface behind you.

His brow furrowed faintly as his eyes dropped lower.

The moonlight pierced through the dark water just enough for him to catch the shape of it. A long pearlescent tail, covered in shimmering scales that reflected silver and blue beneath the moonlight, moving slowly beneath the lake.

Sam staggered backward immediately, the motion happening before he could stop it.

Shock crashed visibly across his face as he stumbled toward the shallower water.

His boot slipped against a rock beneath the surface and suddenly he fell backward hard into the lake with a splash.

“Sam!”

You moved toward him instantly, panic flooding your face.

“I’m sorry,” you blurted out quickly. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to scare you, I just—”

Sam pushed himself up onto his elbows in the shallow water, breathing hard.

His soaked flannel clung heavily to his skin now as he stared at you like his mind couldn’t fully process what he was seeing.

You stayed several feet away from him now.

“I wanted you to know,” you kept saying softly, voice beginning to shake. “I did, I swear. I just didn’t know how to tell you.”

Your tail curled beneath the water anxiously, sending ripples across the lake.

“I tried to be normal.”

The confession came out painfully small.

“I tried so hard.”

Sam’s eyes dropped again involuntarily as more of your tail caught beneath the moonlight.

His eyes scanned every inch of you. From the pearlescent scales to the translucent fins drifting like silk through the dark water. Beautiful enough to make something inside him ache. 

He stopped when he reached your eyes. There's so many things he could’ve said about your eyes, so many things hiding within them. But what stood out to him the most was the clear terror they reflected. You look terrified, not dangerous, and nothing close to monstrous.

“Please say something,” you whispered.

Your voice cracked softly at the edges now.

“I know this is bad, I know this is—”

“You’re beautiful.”

The words slipped out of Sam before he could think.

You froze completely.

Sam stared at you wide-eyed from where he sat half-submerged near the shore, breathing unevenly. 

God, it was true.

Moonlight turned your skin silver. Your eyes glowed softly against the darkness, and beneath the water your tail moved with slow graceful motions. Looking at you, he understood how men died at the hands of sirens. He would gladly do so now, if you’d just ask him to.

Your lips parted slightly.

“You’re not afraid of me?” you asked quietly

Sam swallowed hard, his fingers tightening unconsciously around the silver necklace still clutched in his hand.

Then slowly, carefully, he sat up straighter in the shallow water.

“I’m not afraid of you,” he said quietly.

Your eyes searched his face desperately, as if waiting for the lie hidden somewhere inside it.

Sam shook his head faintly.

“I could never—”

His voice caught slightly on the words.

You stared at him for another heartbeat.

Then suddenly a small, breathless laugh bubbled out of you.

The sound washed over the lake softer than your song had, and Sam felt something tight inside his chest loosen instantly at the sight of your smile.

You drifted closer without even seeming to realize it.

The water carried you gently toward him until you were only inches away, your hands resting carefully against the lakebed near his knees.

Your torso rose partially from the water now.

Moonlight slid across your skin in silver ribbons, droplets clinging to your collarbones and shoulders like scattered pearls. Up close, Sam could see the faint shimmer beneath your skin itself—not glitter, not scales, but something luminous buried underneath you.

Your tail moved slowly beneath the surface behind you, powerful enough that each subtle motion sent ripples through the water around both of you. Yet, you still looked at him like you were waiting to be abandoned.

“You really mean that?” you asked softly.

Sam looked at you for a long moment.

Then he lifted the necklace slightly between his fingers.

“You trusted me with this.”

Your gaze softened immediately.

“Bobby’s,” you admitted quietly. “He gave it to me when I was little. Got it on a hunt, or perhaps went to a witch about it. I forget, really. It helps me not turn whenever I touch water. As long as I have it on, I’m good.” 

You lifted your tail above the water to prove your point. 

A sharp sting passed through Sam’s chest. Of course Bobby knew, why wouldn’t he? But the knowledge of this being something that existed previous to this very moment somehow made something ugly stir in his chest. He wasn’t sure why just yet.

“—yeah! You would not believe the things those fuckers get up to!” your laughter ebbed over the sentence. You found Sam’s disbelief in the lack of dolphin’s good intent highly amusing.

“There is no way dolphins are evil.”

You chuckled and shook your head as your fingers played  with the wet gravel beneath you. “See? This is exactly why they keep getting away with it.”

A grin tugged helplessly at Sam’s mouth.

The two of you had shifted farther onto the shore now, where the wet sand turned cold and packed beneath your hands. Somewhere along the way, exhaustion had disappeared entirely. Your tail stretched behind you, only the translucent fin still submerged beneath the water. Tiny waves lapped softly against it every few seconds, making the pearlescent scales shimmer silver-blue beneath the moon.

Sam tried very hard not to stare. Still, he was failing pretty miserably.

“So you’re telling me,” he said slowly, “that dolphins just… attack other fish for fun?”

“Yes.”

“And they get high?”

“Yes.”

“That can’t be true.”

“It absolutely is true.”

“You’re lying.”

You pointed accusingly at him. “You land people have a wildly inaccurate understanding of marine life.”

Sam laughed quietly under his breath. Although the debate on dolphin morality was highly interesting, his true interest lied in you. He could not stop staring at you, as hard as he tried. He was sure you would be uncomfortable by it, but you had not given any sign of it. Instead, you were smiling and laughing—something he found entrancing. He had not heard you or seen you this happy for a while now. 

“Okay, but this explains a lot.”

Your eyes narrowed immediately. “Uh oh.”

“No, seriously.” He started counting off on his fingers. “You hiss when the water pressure is low. The fact that you always know when storms are coming before anyone else. The shower thing.”

You smiled faintly.

“Dean is always so pissed about that…” you said as you stared up at him.

“Oh god,” Sam chuckled. “Dean. He’s going to freak out.”

You huffed, “yeah probably.”

“He’s gonna ask if you know Aquaman.”

“I do know Aquaman.”

Sam blinked. “What?”

You burst out laughing. “I’m kidding. Though it is notable to mention that you were more willing to believe Aquaman is real than the whole dolphin thing. Also I don’t hiss.”

Sam huffed, a small laugh escaping him as he softly threw sand at you. “Shut up.”

You grinned, sharp and beautiful beneath the moonlight.

For a moment Sam just watched you quietly.

Your hair spilled damp over your shoulders. Your skin still carried that soft pearlescent glow from the lake, and every subtle flick of your tail sent silver ripples across the shoreline.

“Does it hurt?”

Your brows pulled together faintly.

“The transformation, I mean.”

Understanding softened your face immediately.

“Oh.” You glanced toward your tail. “Sometimes.”

Sam frowned.

“When I fight it, mostly.” Your voice quieted a little. “Keeping legs during full moons gets harder the older I get. It’s similar to the ache you feel after exercising, you know?”

He nodded, lost in thought.

“Your voice earlier,” he said carefully.

The change in you was immediate.

Your smile vanished.

Your fingers stopped moving through the gravel.

The lake itself seemed quieter somehow.

Sam noticed the way your shoulders tightened slightly.

“What about it?” you asked softly.

Sam frowned faintly at your tone. “I just meant—”

“I know what you meant.”

You looked away from him toward the dark water, moonlight reflecting strangely in your eyes.

“I hate it.”

The confession caught him off guard.

Your fingers curled tightly around the rocks in your palm.

“I love singing,” you admitted quietly. “I always have.”

Your voice softened further. “But I can’t.”

Sam stayed silent.

You swallowed hard before continuing, as a wave rolled gently against your tail. “You heard what it does to people.”

Sam remembered the haze that wrapped around his mind. The way your song had pulled at him like a tide he’d willingly drown inside.

“But it’s like an instinct. It’s something we’re born with, and it’s a part of who we are. Suppressing it…it feels wrong. I just wish I could do it freely.”

Sam stayed quiet for a moment after that. The teasing smile that had lingered on his face softened into something more thoughtful as he watched you absently drag your fingers through the wet gravel beside you. Tiny stones clinked softly against each other with every movement, mixing with the sound of waves rolling onto the shore.

The exhaustion from earlier felt impossibly far away now.

A few hours ago you had both looked wrecked. Sam could barely keep his eyes open back at the motel parking lot, and you had felt like your own skin was suffocating you. But here, beneath the moon and beside the lake, it felt like neither of you could even think about sleep.

Instead, there was this strange restless energy between you both. Something warm and buzzing.

Like being teenagers sneaking out after midnight.

Sam had not felt like this in years. Maybe ever.

There was something strangely intimate about sitting here half-soaked in the middle of the night, talking quietly while the rest of the world slept.

And maybe that was why Sam found himself staring again.

Not at your tail this time, though his eyes still drifted there occasionally with quiet fascination. He was staring at your face. At the way your expression changed when you talked about things you loved, and things you didn't. 

You had always smiled around him. You joked with Dean, rolled your eyes at their arguments, teased Sam whenever he got too serious.

But this was different. This version of you felt unguarded.

Sam leaned back slightly against the sand, arms resting over his bent knees. “So you’ve really never sung around anyone?”

You shook your head. “Not intentionally.”

The lake breeze pushed damp strands of hair across your shoulder. Absentmindedly, you tucked them back as your tail shifted beneath the water.

“When I was little, Bobby used to hum a lot,” you admitted with a small smile. “He figured out pretty quickly that I liked copying sounds.”

Sam’s brows pulled together slightly. “You accidentally sirened Bobby Singer?”

You nodded. At the time it had been a terrifying experience, but now what came to mind was the way Bobby had consoled you after the fact. You couldn’t help but smile. 

“He was working on fixing up a truck or something,” you explained. “And he wasn’t paying attention to me. I wanted to play dolls, so I made him.”

You sighed softly at the memory, though there was no humor in it now. The blankness that had overtaken Bobby’s expression all those years ago still sat wrong in your chest whenever you thought about it.

“I hated realizing what I had done.”

Sam’s smile faded completely.

You stared down at your hands as you spoke, absently brushing sand from your fingertips. “At first I thought he was joking around with me. He just dropped everything and sat down on the floor beside me.” A small crease formed between your brows. “He looked… wrong.”

The waves rolled quietly behind you.

“I remember asking him if he was okay, and he just kept looking at me.”

You let out a shaky breath through your nose. “I got scared and ran.”

Sam glanced toward you again.

“I hid in the utility closet beside the kitchen.” You laughed faintly, embarrassed by it now. “Which was stupid because it was literally the first place Bobby checked.”

Despite himself, Sam smiled a little.

“He found me a few minutes later after whatever effect I’d had on him wore off.” Your gaze softened at the memory. “I thought he was gonna kill me.”

Sam’s expression shifted immediately. “Hey.”

You shrugged lightly, though your shoulders still looked tense. “I didn’t know exactly what I was back then. I just knew I’d done something bad. And monsters were the only ones that did bad things.”

The moonlight painted silver across your skin as you spoke, and Sam found himself looking at you with an ache he couldn’t quite explain.

You had been a child.

A terrified little kid hiding in a closet because you thought the only person you trusted would see you as a monster.

“He didn’t,” Sam said quietly.

Your lips curved faintly. “Of course not.”

You smiled a little more at the memory now.

“He sat on the floor outside the closet door for like an hour trying to convince me to come out.” Your voice softened unconsciously as you mimicked Bobby’s gruff tone. “‘Kid, I ain’t mad. But if you keep hiding in there you’re gonna breathe in enough bleach to kill a horse.’”

Sam laughed softly under his breath.

He could practically hear it in Bobby’s voice already. Gruff and annoyed and unbearably kind beneath all of it.

Sam had spent years around Bobby Singer. He knew the man loved fiercely, even when he tried to hide it behind insults and beer bottles. But now, sitting beside you beneath the moonlight, Sam realized just how terrified Bobby must have been when he found a six-year-old mermaid child and decided to raise her in a world built to kill creatures like you.

And somehow, against all odds, Bobby had managed to teach you kindness instead of fear.

A yawn escaped Sam’s mouth, making you realize just how long you both had been lying there.

The moon had shifted higher in the sky while you talked. The night air had grown colder too, though neither of you seemed particularly bothered by it anymore. Sam’s clothes were still damp from charging into the lake after you, and your tail remained lazily submerged beneath the water, occasionally flicking with the movement of the waves.

You smiled faintly at the sight of his exhausted expression.

“Okay,” you murmured softly. “I think it’s probably best we turn in for the night.”

Sam looked over at you immediately, like the suggestion itself disappointed him.

You pushed yourself up slightly on your elbows. “You can go ahead. I’ll catch up in a moment.”

He was quiet for a second, then he shook his head.

“Not yet.”

Your brows pulled together faintly as you looked up at him.

Sam was already staring back at you.

The teasing expression he had worn earlier was gone now. There was something softer in its place, something almost hesitant.

“Please,” he said quietly. “Just a little longer.”

The sincerity in his voice made warmth spread through your chest before you could stop it.

You smiled. “Okay.”

Relief flickered visibly across his face, subtle enough that he probably did not even realize it himself.

So you stayed.

The shoreline settled back into silence around you both after that, filled only by the hush of waves against the sand and the distant rustle of trees behind you. Sam stretched his legs out in front of him while you leaned your cheek against your folded arms, half turned toward him.

Sleepiness had started creeping back in now that the adrenaline from earlier had faded.

You watched Sam’s profile quietly in the moonlight. The tired shadows beneath his eyes. Damp hair falling over his forehead. His hand still loosely wrapped around the silver necklace you had given him hours ago.

Your necklace.

The sight of it in his hand made something ache softly inside you.

After a moment, you spoke.

“Can you keep it a secret for a little longer?”

Sam glanced down at you. “What?”

“From Dean.” You huffed a quiet laugh through your nose. “I just… I don't want him to freak out yet.”

Sam smiled faintly at that.

Dean Winchester learning he had unknowingly been living with a mermaid for years would probably become the loudest day of everyone’s lives.

“Okay,” he said. “I can do that.”

You relaxed slightly.

“But,” he added.

Your eyes narrowed immediately. “Oh no.”

Sam laughed softly.

“I have one condition.”

You tilted your head. “What’s that?”

For a second he looked oddly nervous asking. “Would you sing to me?”

You stilled.

Sam’s expression shifted almost immediately when he saw your hesitation. “You don’t have to,” he said quickly. “Forget I asked if it makes you uncomfortable, I just—”

“No.” You shook your head gently. “It’s okay.”

He fell silent.

You looked out over the water for a moment, watching moonlight ripple across the surface. Your fingers absentmindedly traced circles into the damp sand while you gathered the courage for it.

Singing had always been complicated, something you loved enough to fear. But Sam was looking at you now with such quiet trust that it made your chest ache. Somehow, for the first time in years, the idea of singing did not feel wrong.

You nodded softly.

“Okay.”

Sam settled back against the sand slowly, his head resting near your side. Close enough that you could hear his breathing over the sound of the lake.

Your tail shifted beneath the water as you looked down at him.

“You sure?”

His eyes were already half closed with exhaustion.

“Yeah,” he murmured.

So you sang.

Barely above the sound of the waves.

Sam felt it immediately.

Warmth spread slowly through his chest as your voice wrapped around him, dissolving every remaining edge of tension inside his body. Exhaustion returned all at once, heavy and comforting now instead of painful.

His eyes slipped shut.

And still your voice continued, threading through the cold night air beneath the moon.

You watched his breathing even out gradually as sleep overtook him there on the shore beside you.

A small smile tugged at your mouth.

Then, carefully, you shifted closer until your shoulder brushed lightly against his.

Birdsong dragged Sam slowly out of sleep.

For a few disorienting seconds he had no idea where he was.

The ground beneath him was uneven and cold, his clothes damp with lake water and morning dew. Sunlight filtered weakly through the trees overhead, flickering gold against his closed eyelids while waves rolled softly nearby.

Then his phone started ringing.

Sam groaned quietly, blinking awake as he fumbled blindly through the sand beside him for the device. Every muscle in his body protested the movement, though nowhere near as badly as they should have after the week you’d had.

His hand finally closed around the phone.

DEAN flashed across the screen.

Sam rubbed a tired hand over his face before answering. “Hello?”

“Dude, where the hell are you?”

Dean’s voice exploded through the speaker loudly enough that Sam immediately pulled the phone away from his ear.

Sam squinted against the morning light and pushed himself up slightly on one elbow. “Good morning to you too.”

“I woke up and you guys were gone,” Dean snapped. “Do you have any idea how creepy it is waking up alone in a motel room?”

At that, Sam instinctively turned his head, and promptly forgot how to speak for a second.

You were curled asleep beside him in the sand, close enough that your arm brushed his side. Your fingers were wrapped softly around the necklace’s silver amulet, whilst the chain was still in Sam’s grasp.

Human again.

Your tail was gone entirely, replaced by bare legs tangled slightly beneath you. Sometime during the night you must have shifted back in your sleep. Your hair spilled across your shoulder in messy waves, still faintly damp from the lake, while morning sunlight painted soft gold across your skin.

You were only wearing your underwear.

Sam’s brain stalled completely for one deeply unfortunate moment.

“…Sam?” Dean’s voice cut back through the phone suspiciously. “Why’d you go quiet?”

Sam blinked hard and immediately looked away.

“Nothing,” he said far too quickly.

You shifted slightly in your sleep beside him, brow furrowing faintly before relaxing again.

Dean groaned through the phone. “There better not be any funny business happening in Baby.”

Despite himself, Sam snorted softly.

“There’s no funny business.”

“Sam.”

“There is zero funny business,” he insisted while quickly tugging off his flannel.

Still half distracted, he leaned over carefully and draped it across you. The oversized fabric settled over your shoulders and legs while you instinctively curled deeper into the warmth without waking.

Something about the sight made Sam’s chest ache strangely.

“And Baby’s fine,” he added distractedly into the phone.

Dean went quiet for a beat.

“Oh my god,” he breathed. “There is absolutely funny business happening.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Dean.”

“I knew it. I leave you alone for one night—”

“We fell asleep outside.”

“Uh huh.”

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’ll be back in a minute.”

“You better. If you drown, I’m not salting your corpses—.”

Sam hung up before Dean could keep going.

The shoreline fell quiet again afterward except for the distant sound of birds and the gentle wash of water against the sand.

For a moment Sam simply sat there.

Watching you sleep.

You looked peaceful in a way he had rarely seen before. No tension in your face. No exhaustion dragging at your features. Just soft breathing and sunlight warming your skin beneath his flannel.

Sam smiled faintly to himself.

Dean could wait a little longer.

[luvendiary]

southern siren | s.winchester

sam winchester x reader

summary: you were investigating a series of mysterious drownings when you disappeared. a strange carnival passing through town and the fact that you are a mermaid are the perfect recipie for disaster. set during season four, dean has just come back from hell. a/n: hi everybody!! i think i haven't posted anything in about half a year. i am sorry! i kind of lost my motovation there for a bit. i haven't written fro spn before, but since that once episodes of the boys came out i'm back on my spn grind. i've had this idea for a while now, and i'm hapy i could finally get it out. i'd really like to expand more into this storyline specifically, so if anyone has any requests i'd appreciate them. either way, there's more to come for this au for sure. no use of y/n. 7.7k words. not proofread. mentions of blood, and overall canon violence. lots of angst, but with a happy(ish) ending.

The water smells wrong.

You’ve had plenty of experience in bathing outside saltwater or other natural bodies of water. Not even the old motel bathtubs smelt this wrong.

It’s not that it’s dirty—you thought. It’s more that it feels flat and unalive. Like it’s been sitting too long inside the rusted metal walls of this tank, gathering the stink of bleach and iron and old pennies while men with cigarette breath lean over the rim to stare at the creature inside.

At you.

You curl tighter against the curved glass despite knowing it changes nothing. Your tail aches where the scales split near the fin, silver-blue dulled under the jaundiced carnival lights overhead. Every movement sends another wave sloshing against the walls, too small a space, too shallow, too close.

A cage pretending not to be one. Well, to the audience at least. 

To your captors, it served its exact purpose. 

Outside the tank, music crackles through ancient speakers. Somewhere nearby, somebody wins a stuffed animal, children laugh, and a woman along with them.

You close your eyes.

Three months ago, you would’ve been able to laugh at that. 

Three months ago, Dean Winchester had still been alive.

A memory surfaces before you can stop it. 

Some nowhere town in Nebraska where you had stopped after a particularly harsh case. You were supposed to sleep in a parking lot nearby, the Impala having already found a comfortable place where the three of you could rest. But the sight of the Ferris Wheel over the horizon sent those plans out the window immediately. 

Dean had complained at first, and Sam pretended to already be asleep. But when you dashed off with some taunts about how they were too afraid you’d kick their asses at the games, they couldn’t help but follow.

The anger comes fast, hot enough to burn through the cold water that surrounds you. And all your mind is consumed by now is how it all went to hell. Literally. 

Dean being ripped apart by the Hellhounds.

Bobby pretending he wasn’t worried sick every second of every day.

Sam disappearing afterward like a ghost. 

Not for the first time, you found yourself wondering if that was Sam’s way of feeling closest to his brother now that he was gone. 

Still, the anger clouded it all, much like it had done the past three months. Much like how it had led you to this situation. 

There was nothing much to do in this tank—if you could even call it one. Not much besides remembering. Remembering, and regretting.  

You still remembered the hunt that led you here. A small southern town, where girls had gone missing. Where strange drowning happened nowhere near water. Where a traveling carnival happened to be passing. You can connect the dots now—so very obvious in hindsight, as most things often are. But you had been so angry, you could not see what was right in front of you.

Everything since Dean died had felt sharp-edged. Like an incessant ringing in your ear after the sound of a gunshot.

Food tasted like ash, and sleep never lasted.

And on top of that there was Sam. Or rather the lack of Sam. Dean had left an open wound that would probably never heal, and Sam had rubbed salt and lime on top of that by leaving. It was now a festering gash, ugly and very visible despite how hard you tried to hide it. 

It was a jarring contradiction, the way they both left.

Dean had died screaming, and Sam…he just vanished.

Your thoughts are interrupted by the carnival lights flickering to life. You squint your eyes, trying to get used to the spotlight reflected against your tank.

Footsteps approach accompanied by male voices.

You sink lower into the water automatically, as low as you can go, which isn’t much. So instead you press yourself against one of the crystal walls, the furthest one away from the voices.

“—told you she’s dangerous.”

You recognize the voice. The owner of the carnival. A thick-necked man with nicotine-yellow fingers and a grin that never reaches his eyes. He had introduced himself as Belial. A demon.

Another man laughs nervously. “Dangerous? She doesn't look it to me.”

Belial snorts.

“That’s because she knows what happens if she tries anything.”

A sharp knock hits the glass beside your head.

You flinch before you can stop yourself.

Humiliation burns hotter than fear ever could.

“There she is,” he croons. “Our little sea monster.”

Monster.

You stare at him through the glass with enough hatred to flay skin from bone.

His grin widens.

“See that look?” he says to the others. “Mean little thing.”

You want to kill him. You want to split this tank open and drag him underwater until his lungs burst.

Instead, all you can do is sit there while another wave rocks the tiny prison around you.

“Don’t worry,” he says softly. “Tomorrow night’s show’s sold out. People are gonna love you.”

Your stomach twists.

Your fingers twitch instinctively toward your throat before stopping halfway there. The skin is still bruised where he carved whatever damned sigil he used to take it from you. You can feel it even now—that awful hollow absence sitting inside your chest where your song should be.

Mermaid voices were never just voices. Much like the ocean they were similar to currents. Hooks beneath skin.

A pull in the deepest parts of the human mind that whispered come closer, come closer, come closer until people followed without understanding why.

Most of your kind avoided using it on humans entirely. It was cruel. Addictive in a way even hunters couldn’t really comprehend. 

You remember your mother once telling you that the ocean gave your species songs so nobody would ever have to fight to survive.

You also remember Bobby nearly having a heart attack the first time you accidentally used it on a cashier when you were nine.

“Kid,” he’d said carefully afterward while you cried in the truck beside him, horrified by the blank look that had crossed the poor man’s face, “you gotta understand people ain’t built to hear somethin’ like that.”

It took some practice to perfect it, and a lot of accidents where you charmed Bobby to let you eat ice cream for dinner, or allowed you to stay up past your bedtime. Every time without fail after realizing what you had done you’d lock yourself in your room just to hide from the blank look in his eyes. And every time he’d find you with tears streaming down your cheeks and red gashes your nails had dug from your throat to your chest. He’d allow you to sit in silence and wrap his arms around you. 

You would not speak for days after each incident. But with every passing day, you learned to control it. You learned to keep your voice soft and small around humans. It wasn’t until you met Sam and Dean that you started using it again (in the most dire of cases). It felt good, letting your song be used for something good.

And now a demon was wearing it like stolen jewelry. Your necklace tied around his horrid neck.

You squeeze your eyes shut as nausea curls through your stomach.

Every night follows the same pattern.

He entertains the crowd for a bit, presents you like a caged animal—a curiosity, another display for entertainment. The lights go red.

Belial steps onto the stage with that same awful grin splitting his face in two.

Then he orders you to sing. And you do, because he has your voice and he commands your song.

People stop what they’re doing the second they hear it.

You’ve watched it happen night after night through blurred, murky glass.

Mothers lowering their children to the ground without looking away from the stage, and men going slack-jawed mid-sentence. Teenagers drifting closer like sleepwalkers.

And then the demons come.

You still remember the first night you realized what was happening.

A woman in a yellow sundress had approached your tank afterward while the crowd dispersed. She looked dazed. For a brief moment you thought she was a hunter, a slight glimmer of hope bloomed within you as you allowed yourself to believe  that she knew what was going on. That you were getting out of here.

And when her husband asked if she was okay, black eyes had flashed for half a second before vanishing beneath a smile.

“Oh,” the demon wearing her had said sweetly, “I’m wonderful.”

You had slammed yourself against the glass so hard it cracked.

Belial shocked the water until your vision went white. After that, you stopped fighting during the shows.

Not because you’d given up, but because every time you resisted, they punished the audience first. He had figured you out quickly.

You could handle pain, what you couldn't handle was guilt.

So now you sit still during performances while your stolen voice pours through rusted speakers overhead and people walk willingly into damnation.

A harrowing little assembly line straight to Hell.

And the worst part—

The absolute worst part—is that sometimes they look at you while it happens.

They stare into your tank with wide, enchanted smiles.

A beautiful monster beneath glowing lights.

Something to marvel at while their bodies get hollowed out behind them.

Your throat tightens painfully around a scream that no longer exists.

You wondered if Sam would recognize your voice if he heard it now.

Rain chased the Impala all the way through Mississippi.

The windshield wipers groaned rhythmically across the glass, barely keeping up with the downpour. Outside, the world blurred into streaks of black highway and swamp water reflecting the pale moonlight.

Sam had spent weeks avoiding the moon, partly because it attracted ghouls, vampires and werewolves. Mostly because it reminded him of you.

Inside the car, silence stretched long enough to become its own living thing.

Dean drove with one hand hooked lazily over the steering wheel, the other tapping restlessly against his thigh in time with the music humming low through the speakers.

Sam sat rigid in the passenger seat. 

Every couple minutes he glanced sideways.

Briefly. Just enough to make sure Dean was still there.

“You keep starin’ at me like that,” Dean muttered eventually, eyes fixed on the road, “I’m gonna start charging.”

Sam looked away immediately.

“Sorry.”

Truth be told, Sam could’ve gone on about how angry he was. At Dean, at Bobby, at the demons, at his dad… 

But instead, he allowed numbness to wash away the anger.

Dean’s grip tightened slightly on the wheel. He didn’t like that word. It meant there was something lingering between them, something wrong. 

The silence returned.

Streetlights flashed intermittently through the windows, illuminating Sam’s face in fragments. Exhaustion carved deep into him. Dean kept catching glimpses of the past few months in the hollows beneath his brother’s eyes.

And guilt. A whole lot of it.

Dean understood it better than he wanted to.

“You wanna tell me what’s going on with you?” Dean asked quietly after another mile passed.

Sam frowned faintly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you look like hell.”

Sam huffed humorlessly at that.

“Funny.”

“I’m serious.”

Sam leaned his head back against the seat. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Dean drummed his fingers once against the wheel.

“How about why you disappeared?”

Outside, thunder rolled somewhere deep in the distance, like the sky was mocking them. Like it knew there was a heavy weight that had not been lifted since Dean left—not even by his return.

Sam stared out the passenger window for a long moment before answering.

“Because you disappeared, Dean,” he said after a while. “I didn’t know how to do this without you. I needed some time…away.”

Dean frowned slightly.

“You could’ve called,” he said eventually.

“Stop,” Sam said. His voice laced with anger. “Stop being so senseless about everything. You died, Dean!”

“Yes,” Dean replied. “I died. I went to hell. So I don’t know why you’re acting like this is about you.”

 Sam turned so fast in his seat the movement almost startled Dean.

“What?”

Dean’s jaw tightened immediately. He kept his eyes fixed stubbornly on the highway ahead.

“You heard me.”

Rain hammered against the roof hard enough to drown out the music.

For a second Sam just stared at him in disbelief.

Then he laughed once. Sharp and humourless, he would not entertain this. He was too tired to do so. 

“Wow.”

Dean gripped the wheel tighter.

“No, seriously,” Sam continued, voice rising now. “You think I’m making this about me?”

“I think disappearing for four months and shutting everybody out isn’t exactly healthy coping behavior, Sam.”

Sam barked another bitter laugh. “Healthy coping—are you hearing yourself right now?”

Dean finally glanced over. “What, you want me to congratulate you? You bailed.”

“I watched you get ripped apart!” Sam snapped.

The words slammed through the car.

Silence followed immediately after.

Sam’s chest rose sharply as he looked away again, rubbing a hand over his mouth.

Dean looked back at the road.

“You think I don’t know that?” he asked quietly.

Sam shook his head slowly. “No. I think you don’t know what happened after.”

Dean’s expression hardened slightly.

“And what exactly happened after, Sam?”

“You died.” Sam’s voice cracked around the words now, anger fraying at the edges into something uglier. “That’s what happened. And I was supposed to just keep moving like nothing happened.”

“Nobody said that.”

“You didn’t have to! In fact, you weren’t here to say anything at all.”

Dean flinched almost imperceptibly.

Sam stared out at the rain-streaked darkness beyond the window.

“I kept thinking if I’d just been faster—” He cut himself off sharply, jaw tightening. “If I’d done something differently—”

“Sam.”

“If we had found something. Another way to—”

“You couldn’t have stopped it.”

“How do you know?”

Dean slammed a hand against the steering wheel suddenly.

“Because I made a deal, remember?!”

The words exploded out of him so violently Sam went quiet.

Dean’s breathing came heavier now.

“There was no version of this where I walked away, alright?” he snapped. “I knew exactly what I was signing up for.”

Sam knew that. He had known it a year prior to it all happening. You had held him on the nights when he got desperate, after failing to find something—anything that would help Dean. You had been by his side when Dean acted as if his life was worth nothing. As if it was wrapping paper he could throw away. It drove Sam nuts. 

The Impala filled with silence again.

Thunder rolled overhead.

Dean scrubbed a hand tiredly over his face before turning the music louder.

Neither spoke for a long while.

Eventually Dean sighed through his nose.

“Bobby said she was researching drownings?”

His brother’s voice startled Sam for a brief moment. He didn’t expect him to speak again. But he was grateful for the change of topic, so he nodded once.

“Girls going missing near Lafayette.”

Dean frowned faintly. “Doesn’t sound like her usual thing.”

“No.”

Silence again.

Then Sam swallowed hard.

“There’s something you should probably know.”

Dean glanced over briefly. “About the case?”

“About her.”

Dean raised an eyebrow.

“What, she’s secretly got a third eye or something?”

To Dean’s surprise, Sam didn’t laugh.

“Do you remember how after hunts she’d disappear for a while?”

Dean frowned.

“What, those marathon showers?”

Sam nodded slowly.

Dean snorted softly despite himself. “Yeah. I remember. Every motel we stopped at she’d vanish into the bathroom for like two damn hours.”

A faint flicker of memory surfaced immediately.

Dean banging on motel doors dramatically while you yelled at him to shut up.

Be a gentleman, Dean.

You’ve been in there forever!

That’s because unlike you, I know basic hygiene.

Dean huffed quietly at the thought.

“I always told her nobody takes showers that long,” he muttered.

Sam looked down at his hands, where a small seashell had found its way between his fingers. He had not looked at the thing in months, but it remained always in the pocket of his jacket. He did not have the heart to part with it, even when he had parted with you. 

“She’d always brush you off. Said you didn’t know anything about women.”

Dean smirked faintly. “Which is objectively untrue.”

Sam ignored that entirely.

Dean glanced over briefly before another thought surfaced and he snorted under his breath.

“To be honest,” he admitted, “for a while I thought you two were sneaking off together.”

Sam looked genuinely startled. “What?”

“Oh, come on,” Dean said. “You’d both disappear after hunts at the exact same time.” He pointed accusingly with one hand while keeping the other on the wheel. “And every time I knocked on the bathroom door, she’d yell at me to get lost while you sat there lookin’ guilty as hell afterward.”

“I did not look guilty.”

“You absolutely did.”

Sam rubbed tiredly at his face. “Dean—”

“I’m just saying, man, the signs were there.”

Sam stayed silent. The signs were there. Dean knew that to be true, he just wanted to hear it from Sam, but he couldn't, not now with how he had left things.

“Long showers. Weird tension. You both acted shady whenever I brought it up.” Dean shrugged. “I figured eventually I was gonna walk into a motel room and need bleach for my eyeballs.”

For the first time since Dean came back, something that almost resembled a real laugh escaped Sam. He pictured you coming out of the shower, Dean sitting on the edge of the bed, looking visibly tired and frustrated. 

“Don’t sit on the bed with your outside clothes Dean,” you’d chastised as you rubbed your arms, applying the vanilla lotion that drove Sam mad. 

“I’m going to make you drown someday,” he mumbled as he stood up.

“I’d like to see you try,” you laughed as you flung the towel that had been wrapped around your hair to him.

The moment faded as quickly as it came. Sam looked back down toward the little seashell.

The rain continued pounding against the windshield.

And suddenly, for reasons he couldn’t explain yet, the inside of the car felt much colder. 

Sam swallowed hard.

Guilt had been sitting inside him for months now. Heavy and rotting and impossible to cut out. No matter how hard he tried drowning himself in other things—women, alcohol, sex—he knew that the only thing capable of drowning him was you. It was your domain after all.

Suddenly every memory of you kept replaying itself in brutal detail.

You sitting cross-legged on motel beds with wet hair dripping down your shoulders.

The smell of saltwater lingering faintly on your skin no matter where the three of you were.

The way your eyes always seemed clearer after those long disappearances. Less tired. Like the water washed something deeper than dirt away from you.

And God—your voice.

Sam pressed his thumb harder against the edge of the shell.

He still remembered the first time he heard you singing behind a motel bathroom door.

Dean had gone out to get food while Sam stayed behind researching lore sprawled across the small motel table. You had disappeared into the bathroom almost an hour earlier with one of your usual vague comments about needing a shower before Dean started complaining about the water bill again.

At first Sam barely noticed the humming drifting through the thin walls.

But then his eyes stopped moving across the page.

The journal remained open in front of him, yet he couldn’t remember a single word he’d read.

Your voice curled through the motel room slowly. Low and smooth and absentminded.

Some time later, on a late night where he had begged you to sing for him whilst your hands were playing with his hair, you  would admit to him that you sang in the shower because it was the only time you could without affecting anyone else.  

Sam remembered sitting there frozen for a while before, somehow, without consciously deciding to, his feet carried him closer toward the bathroom door.

He didn’t even realize how long he’d been standing there until the water finally shut off.

Twenty minutes.

He practically stumbled back toward the bed before you came out, grabbing the nearest journal and pretending very hard to read it.

When the bathroom door finally opened, Sam’s head snapped up instantly.

You stepped out with damp hair clinging to your shoulders, sleeves pushed up slightly as you dried your hands on a towel.

“Did you find something useful-?” your question was cut short when your eyes raised to meet his. “Why do you look like that?”

Sam blinked. “Like what?”

“Like…” You squinted at him suspiciously. “Weird.”

“I don’t look weird.”

“You do.”

Sam looked back down at the journal immediately, pretending to read.

You walked closer.

“Sam.”

“I’m fine.”

“Dude, your pupils are huge.”

That made him look up too fast.

You stared harder.

“Oh my God,” you muttered. “Are you on ecstasy right now?”

Sam nearly choked. “What?! No!”

“Now say it without lying.”

“I’m not on ecstasy!”

“Okay, but you look like you’re on ecstasy.”

Sam could still remember how your fingers felt when you suddenly grabbed his jaw.

You tilted his face slightly toward the motel lamp, turning his head from one side to the other while inspecting him carefully.

“Huh,” you murmured. “You’re kinda clammy too.”

“I am not clammy,” he mumbled like a kid. 

Sam stared at you while you held his face like it was nothing. He could smell the shampoo, the motel soap, and your vanilla lotion. That damned vanilla lotion. 

Your thumb brushed accidentally against his cheek. And all Sam could think was:

Kiss her.

And he would have. Had you remained looking at him a second longer, had your legs been spread between his, had your eyes kept looking at his, and your teeth keep worrying at your lips, and your brow slightly furrowed. Perhaps, then he would have kissed you. 

But your fingers left his face, and you stepped away from him. From his hesitant arms, that would have wrapped around you had you stayed a second more.

“Maybe you’re getting sick.”

“Maybe,” Sam managed weakly.

Then Dean had burst through the motel door carrying burgers and immediately looked between the two of you suspiciously.

“Why is the room weird?” he demanded.

You had pointed at Sam instantly. “I think he’s on drugs.”

“I’m not on drugs.”

By the time they crossed into Louisiana, the rain had stopped.

Humidity clung thickly to the air instead, turning the town hazy beneath the late afternoon sun. The welcome sign creaked slightly as the Impala rolled past it.

Bienvenue à Marrowbone.

Population: 2,103.

Dean frowned faintly. “That’s a serial killer town name if I’ve ever heard one.”

Sam barely reacted.

Something felt wrong the second they entered town. There was this unsettling feeling that seemed to hug the very bones of their bodies. Like a perpetual chill running down their spine, or a heavy sensation on their chest. There was no danger they could pinpoint, not really. Just something that felt…off.

The streets were too quiet for a Friday evening, yet somehow still busy enough to feel alive. People wandered sidewalks carrying funnel cakes and stuffed animals while children sprinted past with glowing carnival toys clutched in their fists.

Everyone smiled. Every single person.

Dean slowed the Impala near the center of town as music drifted faintly through the humid air. Somewhere nearby, a ferris wheel turned slowly above the tree line.

“There,” Sam said quietly.

Dean followed his gaze.

Carnival lights blinked in the distance just beyond town limits.

A giant painted sign rose over the trees:

BELIAL’S TRAVELING WONDER SHOW

Dean grimaced. “Subtle.”

But Sam wasn’t looking at the sign anymore. Something had caught his eye, or  rather multiple things. Multiple papers and flyers—stappled on every telephone pole or previously empty wall. They all had different faces on them, men, women, teenagers, small children…every single one of them missing. They all laid underneath the bright carnival advertisements stapled directly over them.

COME SEE THE SIREN OF THE SOUTH. ONE WEEKEND ONLY.

Sam’s stomach twisted. A bad feeling washing over him, like a wave trying to drown you in the middle of the ocean, barely allowing you to come up for air.

The Impala crawled farther down Main Street.

Outside a diner, an older couple laughed loudly over milkshakes while a little girl waved a plastic wand around excitedly.

Across the street, two teenagers argued over which carnival ride to hit first.

Meanwhile three missing posters fluttered loose behind them in the wind.

Dean noticed it too.

Sam could tell by the way his expression slowly hardened.

“That’s weird, right?” Dean asked finally.

“Yeah.”

A group of townsfolk crossed in front of the car carrying stuffed prizes and paper bags of popcorn.

One of them leaned toward Dean’s rolled-down window with a grin. “You boys headed to the carnival?”

Dean forced an easy smile automatically. “Thinkin’ about it.”

“Oh, you gotta,” the woman said enthusiastically. “Tonight’s the big show.”

“What show?” Sam asked.

The woman looked almost offended he had to ask. “The mermaid, honey.”

Sam went still.

Dean snorted immediately. “A mermaid?”

“People say she’s real,” her husband chimed in excitedly from beside her. “Swear to God, my cousin saw her blink underwater.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Right.”

The woman started giving them instructions on how to arrive, where the best parking spots were, and how they just had to try the candied apples. But Sam wasn’t listening anymore, his gaze had fixed somewhere distant.

Mermaid.

The word lodged itself sharply beneath his ribs. There it was again, that wave preventing him from taking a relieving breath. 

The woman continued rambling excitedly. “Show starts at eight, but folks line up early. Last night nearly sold out.”

“Best thing that’s happened to this town in years,” the man added.

Dean looked around slowly at the strangely empty streets, at the missing posters peeling beneath carnival flyers, the people smiling too wide beneath tired eyes. Then back toward the distant carnival lights glowing through the trees.

“Yeah,” he muttered quietly. “Sure looks that way.”

The townsfolk wandered off still chatting excitedly about the show.

Sam stared after them silently.

Dean finally spoke once they were alone again.

“You okay?”

Sam swallowed hard.

“No.”

Dean frowned deeper.

“Sam—”

“She’s there.”

Dean blinked. “What?”

Sam tore his eyes away from the carnival lights finally.

“She’s there,” he repeated quietly. “She has to be.”

Dean wanted to ask how he knew, why is it that he was so sure. But he felt it too, there was something absolutely strange in the town. Somewhere beyond the trees, the carnival music drifted through the thick Louisiana air sounding strangely warped in the distance. Like something trying very hard to sound human.

The shows always followed the same routine.

You knew the timing by now.

The lions first.

Belial liked opening with the animals because people expected them to be the cruelest thing there. The audience would gasp when the lion tamer stuck his head inside a beast’s jaws, or when elephants marched beneath flashing red lights while circus music screamed through the speakers.

Then came the trapeze artists.

The fire dancers.

A magician that wasn’t actually doing magic so much as low-level demon tricks dressed up for drunk humans too willing to suspend disbelief.

All of it carefully designed to soften the audience up before the real show began.

By the time they brought you out, people were already primed to believe anything.

You sat curled tightly inside the tank while workers rolled it slowly beneath the stage. The wood creaked overhead with every footstep above you.

Your stomach twisted harder the closer the music got.

Showtime.

Again.

The tank jolted slightly as it locked into place beneath the center platform.

The stage lights overhead cut out one by one while the crowd erupted into excited applause.

Then darkness. Now that you knew the routine by heart, there was meaning attached to every moment of it. The darkness before the show was the best and the worst part of them all. For a brief moment you could pretend you didn’t know where you were, you could pretend to be anywhere you liked. A rusty old motel, or the backseat of the Impala, pretending to be asleep while the boys talked. But that was all that darkness was to you, a lie, the hiding of the light. Pretending that you didn’t know better. 

Even from beneath the heavy velvet curtain draped over your tank, you could feel hundreds of eyes turning toward the stage.

Your pulse hammered painfully against your ribs.

Above you, Belial’s voice echoed theatrically through the speakers.

“Ladies and gentlemen…”

The audience quieted immediately.

You pressed yourself farther into the corner of the tank instinctively.

“Tonight,” Belial purred, “you will witness something beyond imagination.”

A fresh wave of applause rolled through the crowd.

You shut your eyes. Maybe if you didn’t look at them, it would hurt less.

The water shifted suddenly beside you.

You looked up sharply.

Belial crouched above the tank, partially hidden behind the curtain. The red carnival lights painted his face something infernal. 

“Cheer up, little mermaid,” he said, smiling that awful smile down at you. “Tonight’s show is special.”

You stared at him, you felt your  nose twitch in anger.

Belial tilted his head slightly. “I’m told there's a surprise for you in the audience. Be sure to give them a good show. ”

Your brow furrowed, but you had no time to react before the curtain was ripped away.

Blinding white light crashed over the tank.

The audience erupted.

It was always like this after the darkness. An awful sense of shame washing over you. Like you were being exposed completely naked—which you were. But somehow this felt worse. The perversion of it all made you feel dirty.

You recoiled immediately, squeezing your eyes shut against the sudden brightness. Spotlights burned against the glass from every direction, turning the water silver-white around you.

For a few horrible seconds, you couldn’t see anything except shapes.

Noise.

Applause.

"Isn't she a beauty ladies and gentlemen?” Beliel roared over the speakers. “Some would call her a true siren!”

The audience laughed at the miserable joke. If you weren’t so confused and overwhelmed you might have rolled your eyes at him. But instead, you found yourself trying to clear your vision as soon as possible, trying to see every member of the audience, trying to convince yourself your heart wouldn’t shatter into a million pieces in a particularly cruel way tonight.

You told yourself you were looking for Bobby.

That was reasonable.

If Belial really meant what he said, then Bobby would make sense. Bobby who had raised you. Bobby who would’ve torn the world apart looking for you.

For a brief moment, you felt like that little nine-year-old who had been comforted by him, sitting in his car, the leather sticking to your legs uncomfortably. But that didn’t matter, because Bobby was there. 

Bobby would be there,

You were not sure you could survive seeing anyone else.

Your eyes darted maniacly across rows of faces blurred by stage lights.

Families, children, men with beers clutched loosely in their hands, women leaning forward eagerly in their seats…

Then your gaze caught on a familiar silhouette.

Your entire body went still, but your brain rejected it immediately. It was impossible. And it was certainly cruel.

Because standing there near the front of the crowd was the face of death itself.

Dean Winchester stared back at you beneath the carnival lights.

His eyes were wide, confused, angry, and alive.

Your breath caught painfully inside your chest. 

He was dead. He was supposed to be dead. You saw him die. His eyes now full of emotion had been completely void of anything resembling life. He had been dead.

Dean Winchester was dead.

And yet there he stood staring at you like he couldn’t decide which impossible thing to process first: the fact that you were a mermaid—or the fact that he was somehow alive to see it.

Impossible.

The word kept repeating itself in your head. As if you weren’t one. As if you weren’t a part of the chain of impossibilities that made up your life.

So there you stood for a second. Two impossibilities. A dead man and a mermaid staring each other straight in the eye.

Then your gaze shifted beside him.

And your stomach clenched hard enough to hurt.

Sam.

Unlike Dean, there was no confusion on Sam’s face, only anger. And something infinitely sadder beneath it. His jaw was clenched so tightly you thought his teeth might crack. His eyes moved frantically over you, over the tank, over the bruises lining your throat and shoulders.

You saw the exact moment he noticed your necklace hanging from Belial’s hand.

Something murderous flashed across his face.

Your head shook faintly before you even realized you were doing it.

No.

No no no.

Not here.

Not this.

The impossible reality of the Winchester brothers crashed over you all at once.

Dean alive.

Sam here.

Both of them standing beneath carnival lights staring at the monster trapped inside the tank.

Your hands lifted instinctively toward the glass.

Pressed flat against it.

As if somehow you could get closer to them through inches of crystal and water and stage lights and all the terrible things separating you now.

“—and she has a present for you tonight!” Belial’s voice cut through your haze.

Your blood ran cold instantly.

Belial smiled broadly at the audience while slowly wrapping the broken silver chain around his fingers.

“Now as you all may know,” he continued theatrically, “mermaids are creatures of song.”

The crowd leaned forward eagerly.

“And our lovely little siren has prepared something very special for you tonight.”

Panic slammed into you so violently it nearly knocked the air from your lungs.

No.

Before the necklace could exert its control fully, before that awful hollow pull inside your chest could force your stolen voice through your throat, you moved.

Your tail slammed hard against the side of the tank.

CRACK.

The glass shuddered violently.

The audience gasped.

Belial’s smile twitched.

You hit it again harder.

CRACK.

Water sloshed over the edges now.

Children screamed somewhere near the front rows.

You didn’t stop.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Your entire body thrashed violently inside the tiny tank as panic overtook everything else. Your tail smashed against the crystal hard enough to send spiderweb fractures briefly splintering across the surface before fading beneath reinforced sigils carved into the glass.

Belial barked something furious behind you.

You barely heard him.

Because you could feel it already.

That horrible sensation spreading through your chest. Your stolen voice waking up inside you like a hook sinking beneath skin.

You shook your head violently toward Sam.

Run. Please run.

But the crowd only screamed louder as you thrashed harder beneath the lights.

To them it was still part of the act.

A frightened sea monster putting on a show.

Belial grabbed the side of the tank suddenly, black eyes flashing briefly beneath the stage lights.

“Behave,” he hissed low enough only you could hear.

Then the necklace tightened around his fist.

Pain exploded through your throat.

And despite your panic, despite your terror, your mouth opened.

You felt it immediately.

The song resurfacing. It forced itself upward violently, scraping through your throat like barbed wire being dragged beneath skin. Every nerve in your body lit up in agony.

You clawed at your throat instantly.

Your nails dug hard enough to break skin as you tried to stop it, tried to rip the sound out before it could escape. Panic consumed every coherent thought left in your head.

You couldn’t let him use it again.

Not on them.

The pressure inside your chest built painfully, unbearably, while Belial tightened his grip around the necklace.

“Sing,” he hissed.

Your entire body convulsed.

The water around you exploded violently as you lost control completely. Your tail slammed against the glass again and again with enough force to shake the entire tank.

CRACK.

The audience screamed now instead of applauding.

People stumbled backward from the stage in confusion.

“Jesus Christ—”

“What’s wrong with it?!”

Your hands remained clawed around your throat desperately while the song fought its way upward anyway. Your muscles locked painfully beneath your skin as the magic forced your body to obey.

You shook your head violently toward the crowd.

But your body no longer belonged entirely to you.

Belial grinned wider.

And then the song finally tore free. But much like the sound of an agonizing animal, singing was not what came out, but rather screaming. A deafening, inhuman screech erupted from your throat with enough force to shake the tent poles overhead.

The entire carnival tent rattled violently.

The audience collapsed into chaos instantly. It was like watching a stampede. People screamed and clutched their ears, several dropped to the ground outright with blood streaming from their noses and ears. 

Glass shattered somewhere in the back of the tent.

The lights overhead flickered violently.

Your scream echoed through every inch of the carnival like something dragged straight from the bottom of hell.

Belial staggered backward. “That’s enough!” he snarled.

But you couldn’t stop.

The sound kept ripping itself from your chest uncontrollably while your body thrashed like a trapped animal inside the tank.

The reinforced glass began splintering visibly now. Spiderweb fractures spread faster and faster beneath repeated blows from your tail.

CRACK.

Water burst from one of the seams. Then the entire tank gave out.

Glass exploded outward in a deafening crash as thousands of gallons of water detonated across the stage all at once. The force threw you violently forward alongside shards of crystal and splintered wood.

The flood swallowed the front rows instantly, carrying chairs and lighting equipment across the tent floor while spotlights burst overhead in showers of sparks.

Your body slammed hard against the ground.

Pain erupted through you immediately.

A strangled, voiceless cry tore through your chest as your body spasmed violently against the soaked dirt beneath you.

The world blurred.

Noise came muffled now, distant beneath the ringing in your ears.

You couldn’t breathe right, couldn’t think.

Your voice was gone, the scream had ripped everything out with it.

You lay there trembling while water rushed around your body in icy waves, your tail twitching painfully against the mud-covered ground. Every muscle still seized uncontrollably from the force Belial had used to drag the song out of you.

Run.

The thought surfaced weakly through the haze.

Run.

Your eyes struggled to focus through blurred vision until finally they landed on the glowing green of the EXIT sign near the side of the tent.

So close.

You dragged yourself forward instinctively.

Your nails dug into soaked dirt hard enough to tear skin as you pulled your body inch by inch across the flooded ground. Your arms trembled violently beneath your weight.

Behind you, people still screamed and shoved toward the exits. Somewhere nearby Dean was shouting something you couldn’t make out over the ringing in your ears.

But none of it mattered.

Only the exit. Only escape.

You barely made it another foot before agony exploded through your tail.

A sharp screamless gasp tore from your throat.

Something heavy slammed down across your fin.

You twisted weakly onto your back.

Belial stared down at you, one boot crushing the end of your tail hard enough to pin you in place.

“You are not going anywhere,” he said coldly.

The necklace dangled from his hand.

Water dripped steadily from the silver chain while black eyes burned down at you with pure fury.

Around him the carnival descended further into chaos, but somehow he remained perfectly still within it.

You tried to move, and in an anticlimactic moment, nothing happened. Your body had nothing left.

Every muscle still trembled uncontrollably while sharp spasms wracked through your tail and chest. Your fingers twitched weakly against the dirt before collapsing uselessly beneath you.

Belial crouched slowly beside you.

“You stupid little thing,” he hissed. “Do you have any idea what you’ve cost me tonight?”

Your vision darkened further around the edges. An undesired thought popped in your mind as his dark eyes stared down at you—perhaps this was the day you lost your humanity. Perhaps your eyes would darken today and stay black forever.

You could barely keep your eyes open now.

The necklace swung slightly from his hand.

You stared at it helplessly.

So close, and yet so far away.

Belial grabbed a fistful of your hair suddenly, forcing your head upward.

“You belong to me,” he snarled.

Then movement exploded somewhere behind him.

You thought you saw Sam, with a knife in hand, and anger clear on his face. But there was no more room for beautiful thoughts. Not when sleep felt so alluring.

The water was different. 

You could feel it like an extension of yourself. Like you had been disarmed into a million little pieces and it was this water holding you together. 

Relief washed through you so suddenly it almost hurt.

For one disoriented moment you simply floated there with your eyes still closed, letting the water cradle your aching body while your muscles slowly unclenched for the first time in what felt like months.

This wasn’t tap water.

You knew the difference instantly.

Saltwater.

Real saltwater.

You lifted one trembling hand through the water slowly before bringing damp fingers toward your lips.

Sea salt.

Your eyes finally opened.

Dim motel lighting greeted you overhead, a peeling yellow ceiling, water-stained wallpaper, and a rusted shower rod.

You were in a bathtub. A motel bathtub.

Your gaze drifted downward slowly toward the water surrounding you.

Soft pink swirled beneath the surface. Blood.

Your breath hitched soundlessly.

Slowly, carefully, you lifted part of your tail above the waterline, only to find that it was already out. You had forgotten how small these bathtubs were. Your fin already hanging out of the bathtub appeared to be partially cured.

You took notice of the wet towels sitting at the edge of the bathtub, stained red and dripping saltwater.

You stared at your tail again, where proof of the embedded crystals of the tank still existed in the form of angry red lines.  But the glass was gone now, someone had removed it. 

Your fingers hovered over the scars unsurely, before your attention finally shifted toward the rest of the room.

That’s when you saw him.

Sam sat slumped against the bathroom wall beside the tub, asleep.

His head tilted awkwardly against peeling wallpaper, one arm resting across his stomach while the other hung limply near the edge of the bathtub.

Your necklace dangled from his loose fingers.

The silver chain was stained dark with dried blood, and so were his hands.

Your eyes lingered for a second. On the split knuckles, the bruised fingers, the fresh cuts across his palms…

He looked exhausted.

You stared at him quietly while the motel bathroom hummed softly around you. The flickering overhead light cast tired shadows across his face, accentuating the bruise darkening beneath one eye.

Your arm moved without your permission

Slowly, carefully, your fingers drifted upward through the air toward his face.

You wanted to make sure he was real.

The pads of your fingers barely brushed his cheek before his eyes snapped open.

You both froze immediately.

For one disorienting second neither of you moved.

Sam stared at you from inches away now, sleep still clinging faintly to his expression beneath immediate alarm. Your own hand remained suspended awkwardly against his face where you’d touched the bruise near his eye.

Neither of you pulled away.

The moment stretched painfully thin between you.

Then Sam moved first.

He lifted one battered hand toward yours, his split knuckles brushing lightly against your wrist before he pressed your palm fully against his cheek.

His eyes closed briefly at the touch.

Your breath caught painfully in your ruined throat.

“You’re here,” you whispered. The words came out broke and barely audible. It was more breath than sound.

But Sam heard them anyway.

Something inside his expression cracked instantly.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

You tried to shake your head, deny deny deny. But the sentiment was false, because despite how relieved you were to be sitting in this dingy motel room with Sam, that didn’t erase the weeks of anger. The feeling of abandonment and utter and pure solitude.

So instead your lip wobbled, and your face scrunched into something that felt ugly.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered hoarsely. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Then, before you could process it, he lowered his head.

His lips brushed gently against your wrist first.

Then higher. Slowly, up the inside of your arm until finally he pressed a trembling kiss into your palm.

You wanted to push him away. To make him feel the pain you had felt. But you couldn’t, not now, when you couldn’t even talk properly. There would come a day where you would tell him everything, how much of an asshole he was, how he had been cruel and selfish. But today, you would be the selfish one, allowing yourself to melt into his touch.

Sam stayed there for a second longer than necessary, his forehead resting lightly against your hand while his fingers curled carefully around your wrist like he was afraid you’d disappear if he let go.

“I should’ve been there,” he murmured against your skin. “I should’ve answered the phone. I should’ve—I don’t know—I should’ve found you sooner.”

You nodded, that angry feeling in your chest not completely dissipating. But your other hand went to grab the other side of his head, making him look up at you. “Not now,” you whispered. “Later. We can regret everything later.”

He nodded along with you, as his own hands reached for you. Kissing your hands over and over again.

[ratatoskryggdrasil]

Douglas Blanchard, The Passion of Christ - A Gay Vision, Part II

[piedpip3rrr]

Criminal minds but it’s an adult swim show no one can remember

[luvendiary]

a matter of perspective / c. weasley

charlie weasley x reader

summary: you don't believe in absolutes. there is no such thing as dark and light magic, but rather the intent of the user. not many people agree with you on that. a/n: hello dearest. thank you so much for your request. i'm sorry for it being so late. i've been kind of in a writing funk lately plus also balancing a lot of things. i moved into a new appartment with my sister and some friends!! i had actually forgotten how down bad i was for this man. also, i'd like to take a moment to aknowledge something, i've put a lot of myself into this story, especially with the father thing. my dad, who i love so so much used to have a drinking problem, but he pulled himself together for his family. he's the strongest man i've ever know. he's had so much hardship during his life and still manages to be good and caring and so so loving. a few days ago we celebrated his rehab anniversary. though he'll most likely never ever see this, i'd like to thank him for absolutely everything. i hope you enjoy <3

The Burrow looked like something out of a children’s book. Crooked and teetering, patched together with stubbornness and love. It made you just a little uneasy.

Charlie had told you everything about it. From the tradition of his mum’s sweaters to the gnomes that plagued their garden. How there was always something cooking, always someone laughing, always someone shouting — but out of care, not cruelty.

Truth be told, you felt a little out of place. Not because the house had anything wrong with it. In fact, it was completely the opposite.

It was so imperfectly perfect that you felt like a smudge on a clean windowpane. Like black ink spreading on clear water.

It was such a stark contrast to the way you’d grown up. The polished floors. The coldness that seemed to seep its way into the house even when the Russian winter was long behind.The soulless walls. Decorated only with oil paintings too valuable to look at for too long and silver mirrors that only ever reflected what your parents wanted to see.

Love had existed in your childhood home — but quietly. Sharply. In the way a blade might shimmer in the light. It cut more than it held.

Your mother kept everything under control. Her smile, her posture, her house, you. You were her project — a doll with real skin and inconvenient emotions. She was the kind of woman who only acknowledged excellence — and only once. Praise was rationed like medicine. The kind of woman who believed good behavior should go unnoticed because it was expected.

Your father… your father had loved you. You knew that. You never doubted that. There were days when he came home laughing, cheeks flushed with liquor, stories tumbling from his mouth like gold coins. And days he came home hollow-eyed and mean. You never knew which version you’d meet. And your mother — instead of shielding you — made you her mirror. Her outlet. Her weapon.

So you learned silence. You learned how to hold your tongue and your breath. How to keep your face blank when the voices rose and the furniture trembled. How to disappear even when you were right there, center stage.

You didn’t cry much. Not even when you were little.

And the older you got, the more you resembled them. Cold. Controlled. Capable.

You studied magic like it was survival. Not just charms and transfiguration — but theory. Deep, tangled spellwork, old texts your tutors tried to hide from you. Dark magic, they called it. Advanced, you’d said. And it was. But you weren’t drawn to it for power. Not really. You wanted to understand it. The parts people flinched away from. You wanted to hold the match to your palm and ask it why.

Maybe by understanding it, you would understand your parents. What made them what they are now, and how to avoid it.

You could have ended up like your father. In the worst ways. Sometimes you think you almost did.

It was a corrupted normalcy you had grown into. Disturbing, but still normal. Or at least that was the illusion the three of you had been under until a particular fight that changed it all. Even years later, you did not like to dwell on the memory too long — thinking about what would’ve happened if things hadn’t changed, and had escalated instead. Where would you be now?

It had not been a pretty fight, to say the least. It was a fight that had bled far beyond words. A door slammed. A spell misfired. Blood covering your vision, and the way your hand immediately went to cup your face. You had been seventeen.

Your father had seen something in your face that shook him that night. He didn’t say anything, just left you and your mother crying in the kitchen as he slammed the front door.

He checked himself into rehab that same week.

Not the magical kind, but rather the slow kind. The kind that took work, and effort, and countless amounts of tears. Tears you had never seen any man in your life shed. He relapsed twice, and the third time he didn’t. Your mother changed too, though not as loudly.

It was like a series of earthquakes. Your childhood home completely rearranged from its foundation. You found yourself often standing in the ruins of your childhood. Wondering how to go on, how to change along with them, or even if it was too late for you. You wondered what came next.

What came next was choice.

You saw, for the first time, how change could be real. Not immediate or cinematic, not even steady. There were still hard days, but the worst of them appeared to be far behind. Your father — who had once hexed a man for jostling him in a queue — now refused to cast anything beyond basic defensive charms unless he was calm enough to name his emotions first. He journaled. He drank tea. He apologized without being asked.

You had watched him fall in love with the man he was trying to become.

And so, you had tried too.

That’s why it stung, more than you expected, to hear Molly Weasley speak about people like your father as if they were born wrong. As if a single act, a single branch of magic, could define the rest of you.

Your fingers tightened on the edge of the table as the conversation circled morality. Light versus dark. Right versus wrong.

Charlie had known. Of course he had. You’d told him. Not everything. But enough.

So when he took your hand under the table, thumb brushing the inside of your wrist in slow, grounding circles, it was the only thing that kept you from going cold.

You didn’t argue for fun. You didn’t contradict to be clever. But you had to say it.

“I don’t believe there’s such a thing as ‘dark magic’ or ‘light magic.’ Not in the spells themselves,” you’d said.

Molly’s reaction hadn’t surprised you. What surprised you was how much it hurt.

Because she reminded you — without meaning to — that some people only knew how to measure others in absolutes. As though one wrong note meant the whole song was cursed.

She didn’t know you. She didn’t know your father. Didn’t know the years he spent studying healing magic to atone for the hexes he once reveled in. Didn’t know that when you held your wand, you held all of it — your bloodline — and still chose not to use it against the world.

So yes, you stood by what you said.

But it didn’t make you feel any more at home.

Later, when the table was cleared and the conversations softened into laughter in the other room, you slipped out the back door without a word. You stood in the garden, arms crossed, boots crunching in the grass, looking up at the stars as if they might offer a verdict.

You heard the door creak open behind you, and the soft pad of boots.

Charlie didn’t speak. Not right away.

Just came to stand beside you, shoulder to shoulder.

“She’s never met anyone like you,” he said at last. “And she’s afraid of what she doesn’t understand.”

You didn’t answer.

You restrained yourself from saying what you were currently thinking. Because Charlie was right. Molly was not a bad person by any means, she was just a product of her surroundings. A place where ‘purebloods’ often defended dark magic, and used it for their own benefits. Where the likes of people like you, were often associated with cruelty and arrogance.

You could not blame her.

But it was still hard —that even when you insisted on not seeing absolutes— most times it was all people could see when they looked at you. A pureblood doll, and all the labels that came along with it.

You wondered, not for the first time, whether you would ever be able to walk into a room without first being seen as a warning.

Your voice came quiet. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make it uncomfortable.”

Charlie held on to your wrists gently and tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “You don’t have to apologize. You stood for what you care about.”

You nodded once, and even though your throat still felt tight, you let him pull you into his arms. There, against the warmth of his chest, the coldness that was so rooted in you found a home.

You were staying in a borrowed flat, one of Charlie’s friends from the reserve who’d gone abroad for the season. The flat was modest — creaky floorboards, windows with chipped paint, a couch that sagged in the middle — but it was yours, for now. And after the Burrow, it was a welcome kind of quiet.

Charlie was in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up as he lit the candles around the small dinner table. He had insisted on cooking — or rather, insisted on trying, which you found equal parts admirable and mildly concerning.

“Don’t let him near the garlic,” you’d warned Bill when he arrived.

“Too late,” Bill replied with a grin, stepping inside and ducking to avoid the low hanging doorframe. Fleur followed close behind him, radiant even in a rain-damp coat, and in her arms—

“Oh,” you breathed, soft and involuntary.

Victoire.

She was bundled in soft ivory wool, cheeks pink from the evening chill, a blue charm floating lazily above her head that kept the rain from touching her. Just a baby, not even walking yet — blinking up at the room like she was still dreaming.

You crossed the room before you even realized you’d moved.

“May I—?”

“Of course,” Fleur smiled, and passed her over with the kind of ease you hadn’t expected.

You held her carefully, like something sacred. And for a long moment, that was all there was. The weight of her. The tiny warmth. The quiet rise and fall of her breathing against your collarbone. You hadn’t held something so small in… maybe ever.

Even the baby dragons back at the reserve were already the size of a toddler when they hatched.

“She likes you already,” Fleur said softly, settling down into the armchair across from you.

You didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Not right away.

Victoire’s hand curled instinctively into your sleeve, and something in you folded in on itself — something old and long-buried. You blinked once, then twice, and forced the burn behind your eyes to settle.

Fleur watched you with a kind of knowing. A pause stretched between you, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.

After a minute, she spoke again — gently.

“Molly didn’t like me at first either, you know.”

You looked up, startled. Fleur’s expression was calm, her lips curled into the ghost of a smile.

“I’m sorry?”

“She didn’t. She thought I was too polished. Too proud. Too French, perhaps.” Her tone was light, but her eyes were sharp. “Too much.”

You huffed an unbelieving laugh. Because where you stood, Fleur was the blueprint of what a perfect daughter-in-law must look like. Soft around the edges, with just the right amount of sharpness in her eyes.

In some way, she was your antithesis. Sharp where you were soft, and soft where you were sharp. You had come to the conclusion that maybe that’s why Molly didn’t seem to like you at first. Even before your opinions on dark magic became clear. That had been the last drop.

“Yes,” she said simply, as if she was able to read your thoughts.

“I was too much for her,” Fleur continued, adjusting her sleeves, her voice not bitter — just honest. “And I didn’t try to be less.”

You swallowed, looking down at Victoire, who had gone heavy in your arms, tiny lashes fluttering as she dozed.

“She didn’t think I was good for Bill. Thought I was proud. That I would outgrow him. That I was…not quite one of them.” She tilted her head slightly, watching you with something like recognition. “And she was right, in some ways. I wasn’t like them. But I never tried to be.”

You said nothing. Just traced a circle with your thumb over the wool knit of Victoire’s blanket, her warmth seeping into your skin like light.

Fleur shifted forward in her chair, resting her elbows on her knees. Her tone softened. “But she came around. Slowly. Molly learns through observation, not persuasion. She needs to see who you are.”

You looked up, and the weight of Fleur’s gaze didn’t frighten you. “She’ll come around for you too,” Fleur said, gently but certainly. “Because you’re not going anywhere. And you shouldn’t have to shrink to fit into a house that’s already too full of love to notice when it spills over.”

You let out a slow breath. Victoire stirred, then curled further into your chest.

Then, from the kitchen — Bill’s voice, cheerful and far too loud for the sleeping baby: “Oi! Dinner’s ready.”

You saw him emerge from the kitchen and smile at the sight of his wife and you sitting on the couch.

A scream for his name came from the kitchen. Charlie—sounding a bit too panicked for your taste.

Bill sighed and turned to look at you. “Do you keep a first aid kit?”

The table was small, mismatched chairs pulled in from every corner of the flat. You took your seat next to Charlie, Victoire passed gently back to Fleur, who placed her in a floating bassinet charm that hovered beside her with the faintest glow.

Candles flickered. The windows steamed from the warmth inside. And for the first time in days, you weren’t thinking about the Burrow. Or Molly. Or what she saw when she looked at you.

You were here.

And that was enough.

Dinner, against all odds, was good. Burnt around the edges in places, yes, and Charlie had absolutely oversalted the mushrooms — but still. Good.

Bill told stories about Victoire — how she’d bitten George’s nose and then promptly charmed him into carrying her around the garden like a prince. How Ron, terrified of holding her, had sat stiffly with a pillow in his lap and looked like he might cry from fear when she smiled at him.

“Ginny’s the only one who didn’t flinch,” Bill said proudly. “She scooped her up like it was nothing. Victoire puked on her hair and she didn’t blink.”

“Gabrielle is obsessed,” Fleur added with a soft laugh, cutting into her roast. “She’s been reading all the parenting books in English, even though she is not even married. She calls herself ‘godmother in training.’”

“She’s got a whole bag of enchanted toys already and she’s only visited twice,” Bill added. “Victoire’s going to think she’s Santa Claus.”

You laughed and Charlie turned to look at you like he’d been waiting to hear that sound all night.

“What about you?” Bill asked, reaching for his butterbeer with a grin. “What’s it like, wrangling dragons all day?”

“You know…” you said, taking a sip from your wine. “Similar to having a kid in some ways. Very different in others.”

Victorie seemed to laugh at that as a cheering noise came along accompanied by her launching mashed potatoes with her little spoon.

You smiled at her as you watched Fleur clean her mouth.

The rest of the evening stretched in easy rhythm. The conversation wandered — Bill recounting near-catastrophes from Gringotts that had you snorting into your glass, Fleur speaking about her sister’s dramatic letters, and you, when pressed, telling them about the time two hatchlings had mistaken Charlie’s boots for food and he’d spent an hour chasing them barefoot across the reserve.

By the time plates were scraped clean and wine bottles stood empty, the candles had burned low, dripping wax in uneven pools across the table.

“Go on, leave the dishes to them,” Fleur said with a sly glance at Bill. “They’ll survive.”

Charlie shot her a mock glare, but he was already rolling up his sleeves. Bill smirked, clearly unbothered.

“Sit,” Charlie said firmly, brushing a hand across your shoulder as he passed. “We’ve got this.”

You didn’t argue. Not when Fleur settled beside you with Victoire, who had begun to fuss in her bassinet. Fleur lifted her gently, kissed her head, then placed her in your arms once more.

“She adores you,” Fleur murmured, brushing her own hair back from her face. “Babies… they feel when someone’s heart is safe.”

Something tightened in your chest at that.

You shifted Victoire carefully against you, her warmth sinking into your collarbone, and without thinking too much about it, you whispered a small charm to float soft notes of music into the air. Low, lilting — a tune your father used to hum when he was trying to make amends.

You rose slowly and began to rock, a small, instinctive sway that became a gentle circle. Victoire’s small fists opened and closed against your sleeve, her breaths falling into rhythm with the music.

Fleur stayed silent, watching from her chair, a knowing softness in her eyes.

The clink of dishes in the kitchen dulled, and when you turned in your slow orbit, you caught sight of Charlie standing in the doorway with a towel lazily slung over one shoulder and the softest of smiles on his lips.

His eyes were fixed on you — moving with his niece in your arms, the faint smile on your lips, the music filling the quiet. And for once, he looked utterly still. As though if he so much as blinked, he might miss something holy.

Bill brushed past him with a towel in hand, muttering something under his breath about soap charms, but Charlie didn’t answer. He just kept staring, the kitchen light spilling behind him.

The song faded when Victoire finally relaxed, a tiny sigh against your collarbone. Fleur rose, brushing your shoulder gently, and took her daughter back with a grateful smile.

They said their goodbyes not long after. Bill kissed your cheek, Fleur squeezed your hand, Victoire blinked owlishly up at you one last time before disappearing into the night wrapped in her parents’ arms.

You began clearing the table, throwing out the empty wine bottle and snuffing candles one by one. But before you could move more than a finger, Charlie was there.

No words. Just his hands, sudden and insistent at your waist, turning you before you’d even registered it. His mouth crashed against yours — not rough, not hurried, but deep. Like he’d been holding back all evening and had finally decided not to.

The bottle slipped from your hand onto the table with a muted clatter as he lifted you slightly, spinning you half a turn through the dim room.

You pulled back, breathless, your laugh cutting through the quiet. “What’s gotten into you?”

Charlie only grinned, pressing his forehead to yours. “You. Just you.”

You swallowed, eyes flicking to the dying light of the candles, to the half-cleared table, to the way his hair curled damp against his temples.

The laugh that escaped you this time was softer. Not because anything was funny, but because it was impossible not to.

“Put me down Charlie,” you said as you thrashed in his arms.

He decided to t¡do the exact opposite as he twirled you once more. You hung onto him for dear life, hiding your head in the nape of his neck.

He then threw you on the couch, his body following after, settling on top of you as he kissed you.

Your face was sore from all that smiling and laughing, but you couldn’t hold back.

“Charlie!” you squealed as his kisses started traveling down to your neck.

Charlie hummed in acknowledgement. His hands were on your waist, roaming up and down your body.

Your laughter came in short bursts, each one breaking against his mouth as he refused to stop kissing you. His lips chased every sound you made, greedy for it, as though laughter was as intoxicating to him as the wine.

You tangled both hands in his hair, tugging gently when he ducked lower, dragging his mouth along the slope of your jaw, down to the hollow of your throat. He nipped there, not enough to hurt, just enough to make you squirm and laugh all over again.

“Charlie—” You tried to sound stern, but it was hopeless. The way his curls slipped through your fingers, the way his stubble grazed your skin — it unraveled you.

He came back up to your lips suddenly, kissing you until you were dizzy, until the taste of wine on his tongue was all you knew. When he finally pulled back, you pressed your palms to his cheeks.

“What has gotten into you?” you asked again, your voice soft but breathless.

He looked at you like you’d just asked him to explain the stars. His grin was loose, giddy, his pupils blown wide, making his green eyes darker than usual.

You shook your head, lips curving despite yourself, and leaned forward to press a small kiss to the tip of his nose.

“Let’s have a baby,” Charlie murmured, drunk on wine and you, his smile impossibly unguarded.

You broke into startled laughter, dropping your forehead against his. “Charlie—”

But he was insistent, his lips already scattering along your cheekbones, your temple, the corner of your mouth. He kissed wherever he could reach, muttering against your skin between touches.

“I’m serious—” kiss “—a baby—” kiss “—you’d be—” kiss “—perfect.”

You tried to wriggle away but he held you easily, whining into your jaw as you covered his face with frantic little kisses in an attempt to stop him from talking. “You know we can’t do that,” you said between bursts of laughter, peppering his cheeks, his forehead, even the curve of his chin.

“Why not?” he whined against your skin, mouth finding the line of your jaw again.

You tilted your head back, a helpless giggle escaping you as his lips grazed your ear.

“You know why not.”

He nibbled at the shell of your ear, groaning dramatically, as if your reasoning was some great tragedy. His arms locked more securely around your waist, pinning you to the couch as he buried his face against your neck, mumbling unintelligible protests softened by how much he was smiling.

You bit your lip to stop yourself from laughing too loudly, but failed when he nuzzled into your throat like an oversized, insistent dragon demanding attention.

You let your fingers trace the nape of his neck, soothing where your tugging had left his hair mussed.

“Merlin help us if you’re like this after every dinner party,” you murmured, though you were smiling so hard it hurt.

Charlie only hummed, content and unwilling to move, lips still pressed clumsily against your skin like he’d forgotten how to stop.

The letter came folded in half, sealed with Molly’s tidy handwriting across the back. Charlie had plucked it from the stack of owl post and slid it across the kitchen table to you with an almost sheepish grin.

“Ginny’s birthday,” he explained. “Whole family’ll be there. She asked specifically that you come.”

You’d turned the envelope over in your hands, thumb dragging over the crease. You could already imagine the Burrow, filled with chatter and noise, Molly flitting about like the axis the whole house turned on. The last time you’d been there, your words on light and dark had landed like stones in water — ripples spreading further than you meant them to.

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” you murmured, gaze fixed on the neat scrawl.

Charlie leaned back in his chair, arms folding loosely across his chest. He looked as though he wanted to say the perfect thing — the one phrase that would banish your hesitation — but instead he kept it simple. “I’ll be with you the whole time. If it gets… too much, we’ll leave early.”

That was how he won you over. Not with promises that everyone would love you, but with the certainty that he’d be at your side when they didn’t.

The Burrow looked much as it had the last time — roof patched in odd angles, garden wild with summer growth, the long wooden table stretched out across the lawn and draped in cheerful bunting. Laughter floated in the air long before you crossed the garden gate.

Ginny spotted you almost immediately. She jogged over, her hair catching in the sun like a living flame. “You came!”

You smiled, pulling the wrapped parcel from your bag. “I thought you might like this. It’s… not something you can get in England.”

When she tore away the paper and unfolded the black-and-white jersey, her eyes went round. The Sankt-Peterburg Swans crest gleamed on the front, and scrawled signatures crowded the fabric in silver ink.

“You’re joking,” she breathed, voice gone high and thin with disbelief.

“They’re the first all-female team,” you explained, a quiet pleasure curling in your chest at her reaction. “I had a school friend who went to play with them. She owed me a favour.”

Ginny’s squeal startled a flock of garden gnomes back into their holes. She clutched the shirt to her chest, nearly hopping on the spot. “This is… Merlin’s beard, I can’t believe this—thank you! You’re the best.” She flung her arms around you before you could brace for it, warm and fierce.

Charlie’s hand brushed your lower back as he passed, the small contact grounding.

You found Fleur in the shade with Victoire balanced against her shoulder, the baby’s blond wisps of hair haloing in the light. Fleur greeted you with the same composed warmth she always carried, and you bent to greet the little girl.

Victoire took one look at you and squealed — an unfiltered sound of delight. Her tiny arms stretched out, fingers splayed in demand.

Your chest loosened. “Oh, hello there, ma petite,” you murmured, stepping forward to gather her up. She came easily, nestling against your collarbone as though it were the most natural thing in the world. You cooed softly in Russian without thinking, little nonsense words that made her giggle and grab at the edge of your dark sleeve.

Fleur smiled, half-surprised. “She remembers you. She does not do that with everyone.”

Charlie chuckled low, leaning close enough that you felt his breath stir your hair. “She has good taste.”

From the kitchen window, Molly Weasley’s hands stilled on the rim of a mixing bowl. She had been ferrying trays of sandwiches to the counter all morning, her rhythm unbroken, her focus fixed on the party outside. But now she lingered at the glass, eyes drawn to the sight of her granddaughter happily nestled in your arms.

“She’s not bad, you know?”

The voice came from just behind her shoulder. Bill stood at the chopping board, a half-sliced cucumber in one hand, knife in the other. He didn’t look up, just kept working with the quiet ease of someone accustomed to Molly’s kitchens.

Molly frowned, the faint line between her brows deepening. “I didn’t say she was.”

“You didn’t have to,” Bill replied mildly. He sliced another piece, neat and even. “I saw the way you bristled last time. About the light and dark business.”

“That wasn’t—” Molly began, then broke off. Her gaze slipped back to the window. You were bouncing Victoire gently, murmuring something that made the baby’s laugh ring out like a chime. Charlie watched you with a softness that seemed to set his whole frame alight.

Molly exhaled through her nose. “She’s different.”

“She is,” Bill agreed, wiping the blade clean. “Different doesn’t mean wrong.”

For a long moment, Molly said nothing. Then she turned back to her work, hands steady as she pressed dough into the waiting tins. But when she carried the next tray out to the garden, her eyes lingered just a fraction longer on you before she set it down.

The day unfolded slow and lazily.

You’d expected the watchful stares, the hesitant pauses in conversation. And they were there — at first. But the longer you stayed in the Burrow’s garden, the more the weight shifted.

Fred and George had drawn you into some ridiculous banter about whether dragons could be trained to deliver mail, and you found yourself volleying their jokes back with sharp retorts. That seemed to win them over.

Arthur, delighted, pressed you with earnest questions about dragon physiology, wide-eyed as though you were reciting wonders from some long-lost manuscript.

You’d ended up between Charlie and Harry, though Ron had been leaning so far across the table toward you that his elbow kept dipping into the butter dish. Charlie noticed, of course. He noticed everything. Which was probably why his arm had stretched lazily along the back of your chair, hand brushing your shoulder as though it had every right to be there.

Harry asked the first question, half-shy, half-intrigued. “So… dragons. What’s it actually like working with them? Everyone makes them sound like untameable monsters.”

You smiled faintly into your glass. “They can be monsters, if you treat them like ones. But if you learn their habits, respect their space, and don’t try to force them into things… they’ll give you more than you expect. It’s not taming, really. More like… negotiating.”

Harry’s eyes lit with a quiet kind of respect. “That makes sense.”

Ron, on the other hand, was nearly vibrating. “But you’ve flown them? Properly flown them?”

Charlie chuckled next to you. “Of course she’s flown them.”

Ron’s jaw practically hit the table, but Charlie wasn’t finished. He tipped his glass toward you, a grin tugging at his mouth. “You’re looking at the reserve’s damage-control unit.”

You shot him a glance. “Charlie—”

“No, go on,” he said, nudging you with his shoulder. “Tell them what that means.”

You hesitated, aware of half the table’s eyes flicking toward you, and then sighed. “It means I get the dragons no one else wants to touch. Behavioral cases, mostly. Hatchlings that won’t bond. Mothers that reject their young. The ones that tend to lash out.”

Ron leaned in so far his plate tipped. “And you do what, exactly?”

“She calms them,” Charlie answered before you could. “When a dragon’s too far gone for handlers to manage, she steps in.”

“Cool,” Harry muttered-

“The coolest”, Charlie agreed as he squeezed your hand.

The tips of your ears warmed at the intensity in his voice. “It comes with the job,” you murmured.

“Tell them about the Black,” he said casually, though his grin betrayed him.

You stiffened. “Charlie—”

“No, come on,” he pressed, his voice picking up a note of mischief. “You’re underselling yourself.”

Your frown deepened. “That’s not—”

He turned to the boys anyway. “One of the interns at the reserve fell into the enclosure of a Hebridean Black last year.”

Ron nearly choked on his drink. “What?”

“What did you do?” Harry asked.

“Not me,” said Charlie. “Her.”

You closed your eyes, already covering your face with one hand. “Charlie—”

“She jumped straight into the pen,” he continued anyway, grinning like he couldn’t help it. “Didn’t even hesitate. Got up on its neck while it was thrashing, clamped her legs down like a rider, and jabbed it with a small dose of anesthesia. Not enough to knock it out, but enough to make it sluggish, docile enough to back off. She bought the intern enough time to be pulled out. No one else on staff could’ve done it. They would’ve been eaten alive.”

“Brilliant,” you heard Ron mutter, his voice having gone an octave higher than usual.

By the time the cake had been carried out and Ginny blew out her candles, you felt… not at ease, but less like a shadow pressed against the wall.

Which was why Molly’s voice from the kitchen doorway stilled you so completely.

“Would you mind helping me with the soup?”

The words landed like a summons. Your first instinct was to decline—graciously, politely, but firmly. And yet when your gaze darted toward Charlie, you found him watching you with steady eyes. No pressure in them, just a small nod.

You rose. Your hands felt colder than they should as you followed Molly inside.

The kitchen smelled of herbs and apples, the air warm with steam. A large pot simmered on the stove, and Molly handed you a wooden spoon without ceremony.

“Give it a stir,” she said.

You obeyed, focusing on the slow circles, the broth shifting and bubbling under your hand. Silence stretched. The kind that pressed at your ribs.

“May I…” Your voice caught, and you cleared your throat. “May I try it?”

Molly nodded once.

You dipped the spoon carefully, let the broth cool a fraction before tasting. The flavours were good—comforting, hearty—but you remembered something. A memory that was half scent, half sound: your mother humming softly as she stood over a pot, a few well-worn jars lined up on the counter beside her.

“If I may,” you ventured, cautious, “my mother always added black peppercorns, celery seed, and garlic to soups like this. She said it—brought the broth alive.”

For a moment, you wondered if you’d overstepped. Molly’s eyes were unreadable, her hands steady on the counter. Then, slowly, she gestured toward the spice rack.

“Go on, then.”

Your heart thudded louder than it should have as you gathered the jars, adding the seasonings with care before stirring them in. You dipped the spoon once more, then offered it to her, your hand steady despite yourself.

Molly tasted. Her face did not soften, not exactly. But she gave a small, considered nod. “Better,” she said simply. Then, after a pause: “You’ll have to come round more often. Teach me a few of these recipes.”

The words hit you harder than you expected. A small door opening in a wall you hadn’t thought would ever budge.

“I—” you stammered, heat rising in your cheeks. “I’d like that. Very much.”

A voice at the doorway cut the silence.

“Isn’t she the best.”

It came out more like a statement rather than a question.

Charlie leaned there, arms folded, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He crossed the kitchen, coming to stand behind you, his arms slipping around your waist with the ease of long practice. His chin brushed your shoulder as you stirred, the warmth of him a steady anchor.

Molly had already turned back to her work, flour dusting her hands as she rolled out pastry for an apple pie. She didn’t look over. But she didn’t need to.

You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding, the wooden spoon still circling through the broth. Charlie kissed your temple, low and unseen, his voice a murmur just for you.

“See? Nothing to be afraid of.”

[peterplanet]

ive been obsessed with everything you write since i stumbled across your blog a few months ago. it's in the way you write so eloquently but succinctly—it feels like every story you write is bathed in something gentle and holy, and not every story on this site has that appeal. your style & voice are so strong & i'm genuinely in awe of everything you write and choose to share!!! this is no different!!! the reader underselling herself??? charlie sticking up for her???

". . .'And you shouldn’t have to shrink to fit into a house that’s already too full of love to notice when it spills over.'" ????????? this line made my breath catch in my throat. genuinely. beautifully written but put in like this line isn't going to be devastating!! like it's no big deal that you crafted a sentence so incredibly succinct in describing exactly how the weasley household would feel!!!!

[luvendiary]

thank you so so much for taking the time to write this 😭.

i saw it the same day you reblogged but was so out of words that i didn’t know how to tell you how much i appreciate this. you’re too kind, this honestly means the world to me.

i draw a lot of inspiration from coco mellors and how she tells stories.

once again, thank you so so much. all i’ve ever wanted with my stories is that they can touch people and make them feel welcome and loved the same way they did for me back when i relied on them most.

ly!

[luvendiary]

Hiya darling! I hope your doing well.

I saw that your requests where open and I was wondering if I could send one in? If not just completely ignore me.

I was hoping that you could do one with Charlie Weasley? Charlie has been dating a girl for a while now and he really likes her but she’s not the type of girl that his mother would like. The reader is a pure blood from Russia, and she wears dark clothes & makeup, and has a different perspective on the world. Instead of “light” and “dark” magic she believes that it is the person who does the dark or light. It’s all in matter of perception. Charlie absolutely loves this about her and when he does actually bring her to meet his family and the “dark” and “light” thing comes up she says her opinion on this matter and Molly doesn’t agree and makes it sort of a big deal (no hate to Molly I love her! I just think that she would do this kind of thing) you can decide the ending.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this I appreciate it! Have a good day/night! 💗✨

hello lovely!!! thank you so much for this request. this is my first charlie fic, and hopefully not the last. he's so...

anyway, hope you like it. ly!

this one's for you <3.

[luvendiary]

a matter of perspective / c. weasley

charlie weasley x reader

summary: you don't believe in absolutes. there is no such thing as dark and light magic, but rather the intent of the user. not many people agree with you on that. a/n: hello dearest. thank you so much for your request. i'm sorry for it being so late. i've been kind of in a writing funk lately plus also balancing a lot of things. i moved into a new appartment with my sister and some friends!! i had actually forgotten how down bad i was for this man. also, i'd like to take a moment to aknowledge something, i've put a lot of myself into this story, especially with the father thing. my dad, who i love so so much used to have a drinking problem, but he pulled himself together for his family. he's the strongest man i've ever know. he's had so much hardship during his life and still manages to be good and caring and so so loving. a few days ago we celebrated his rehab anniversary. though he'll most likely never ever see this, i'd like to thank him for absolutely everything. i hope you enjoy <3

The Burrow looked like something out of a children’s book. Crooked and teetering, patched together with stubbornness and love. It made you just a little uneasy.

Charlie had told you everything about it. From the tradition of his mum’s sweaters to the gnomes that plagued their garden. How there was always something cooking, always someone laughing, always someone shouting — but out of care, not cruelty.

Truth be told, you felt a little out of place. Not because the house had anything wrong with it. In fact, it was completely the opposite.

It was so imperfectly perfect that you felt like a smudge on a clean windowpane. Like black ink spreading on clear water.

It was such a stark contrast to the way you’d grown up. The polished floors. The coldness that seemed to seep its way into the house even when the Russian winter was long behind.The soulless walls. Decorated only with oil paintings too valuable to look at for too long and silver mirrors that only ever reflected what your parents wanted to see.

Love had existed in your childhood home — but quietly. Sharply. In the way a blade might shimmer in the light. It cut more than it held.

Your mother kept everything under control. Her smile, her posture, her house, you. You were her project — a doll with real skin and inconvenient emotions. She was the kind of woman who only acknowledged excellence — and only once. Praise was rationed like medicine. The kind of woman who believed good behavior should go unnoticed because it was expected.

Your father… your father had loved you. You knew that. You never doubted that. There were days when he came home laughing, cheeks flushed with liquor, stories tumbling from his mouth like gold coins. And days he came home hollow-eyed and mean. You never knew which version you’d meet. And your mother — instead of shielding you — made you her mirror. Her outlet. Her weapon.

So you learned silence. You learned how to hold your tongue and your breath. How to keep your face blank when the voices rose and the furniture trembled. How to disappear even when you were right there, center stage.

You didn’t cry much. Not even when you were little.

And the older you got, the more you resembled them. Cold. Controlled. Capable.

You studied magic like it was survival. Not just charms and transfiguration — but theory. Deep, tangled spellwork, old texts your tutors tried to hide from you. Dark magic, they called it. Advanced, you’d said. And it was. But you weren’t drawn to it for power. Not really. You wanted to understand it. The parts people flinched away from. You wanted to hold the match to your palm and ask it why.

Maybe by understanding it, you would understand your parents. What made them what they are now, and how to avoid it.

You could have ended up like your father. In the worst ways. Sometimes you think you almost did.

It was a corrupted normalcy you had grown into. Disturbing, but still normal. Or at least that was the illusion the three of you had been under until a particular fight that changed it all. Even years later, you did not like to dwell on the memory too long — thinking about what would’ve happened if things hadn’t changed, and had escalated instead. Where would you be now?

It had not been a pretty fight, to say the least. It was a fight that had bled far beyond words. A door slammed. A spell misfired. Blood covering your vision, and the way your hand immediately went to cup your face. You had been seventeen.

Your father had seen something in your face that shook him that night. He didn’t say anything, just left you and your mother crying in the kitchen as he slammed the front door.

He checked himself into rehab that same week.

Not the magical kind, but rather the slow kind. The kind that took work, and effort, and countless amounts of tears. Tears you had never seen any man in your life shed. He relapsed twice, and the third time he didn’t. Your mother changed too, though not as loudly.

It was like a series of earthquakes. Your childhood home completely rearranged from its foundation. You found yourself often standing in the ruins of your childhood. Wondering how to go on, how to change along with them, or even if it was too late for you. You wondered what came next.

What came next was choice.

You saw, for the first time, how change could be real. Not immediate or cinematic, not even steady. There were still hard days, but the worst of them appeared to be far behind. Your father — who had once hexed a man for jostling him in a queue — now refused to cast anything beyond basic defensive charms unless he was calm enough to name his emotions first. He journaled. He drank tea. He apologized without being asked.

You had watched him fall in love with the man he was trying to become.

And so, you had tried too.

That’s why it stung, more than you expected, to hear Molly Weasley speak about people like your father as if they were born wrong. As if a single act, a single branch of magic, could define the rest of you.

Your fingers tightened on the edge of the table as the conversation circled morality. Light versus dark. Right versus wrong.

Charlie had known. Of course he had. You’d told him. Not everything. But enough.

So when he took your hand under the table, thumb brushing the inside of your wrist in slow, grounding circles, it was the only thing that kept you from going cold.

You didn’t argue for fun. You didn’t contradict to be clever. But you had to say it.

“I don’t believe there’s such a thing as ‘dark magic’ or ‘light magic.’ Not in the spells themselves,” you’d said.

Molly’s reaction hadn’t surprised you. What surprised you was how much it hurt.

Because she reminded you — without meaning to — that some people only knew how to measure others in absolutes. As though one wrong note meant the whole song was cursed.

She didn’t know you. She didn’t know your father. Didn’t know the years he spent studying healing magic to atone for the hexes he once reveled in. Didn’t know that when you held your wand, you held all of it — your bloodline — and still chose not to use it against the world.

So yes, you stood by what you said.

But it didn’t make you feel any more at home.

Later, when the table was cleared and the conversations softened into laughter in the other room, you slipped out the back door without a word. You stood in the garden, arms crossed, boots crunching in the grass, looking up at the stars as if they might offer a verdict.

You heard the door creak open behind you, and the soft pad of boots.

Charlie didn’t speak. Not right away.

Just came to stand beside you, shoulder to shoulder.

“She’s never met anyone like you,” he said at last. “And she’s afraid of what she doesn’t understand.”

You didn’t answer.

You restrained yourself from saying what you were currently thinking. Because Charlie was right. Molly was not a bad person by any means, she was just a product of her surroundings. A place where ‘purebloods’ often defended dark magic, and used it for their own benefits. Where the likes of people like you, were often associated with cruelty and arrogance.

You could not blame her.

But it was still hard —that even when you insisted on not seeing absolutes— most times it was all people could see when they looked at you. A pureblood doll, and all the labels that came along with it.

You wondered, not for the first time, whether you would ever be able to walk into a room without first being seen as a warning.

Your voice came quiet. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make it uncomfortable.”

Charlie held on to your wrists gently and tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “You don’t have to apologize. You stood for what you care about.”

You nodded once, and even though your throat still felt tight, you let him pull you into his arms. There, against the warmth of his chest, the coldness that was so rooted in you found a home.

You were staying in a borrowed flat, one of Charlie’s friends from the reserve who’d gone abroad for the season. The flat was modest — creaky floorboards, windows with chipped paint, a couch that sagged in the middle — but it was yours, for now. And after the Burrow, it was a welcome kind of quiet.

Charlie was in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up as he lit the candles around the small dinner table. He had insisted on cooking — or rather, insisted on trying, which you found equal parts admirable and mildly concerning.

“Don’t let him near the garlic,” you’d warned Bill when he arrived.

“Too late,” Bill replied with a grin, stepping inside and ducking to avoid the low hanging doorframe. Fleur followed close behind him, radiant even in a rain-damp coat, and in her arms—

“Oh,” you breathed, soft and involuntary.

Victoire.

She was bundled in soft ivory wool, cheeks pink from the evening chill, a blue charm floating lazily above her head that kept the rain from touching her. Just a baby, not even walking yet — blinking up at the room like she was still dreaming.

You crossed the room before you even realized you’d moved.

“May I—?”

“Of course,” Fleur smiled, and passed her over with the kind of ease you hadn’t expected.

You held her carefully, like something sacred. And for a long moment, that was all there was. The weight of her. The tiny warmth. The quiet rise and fall of her breathing against your collarbone. You hadn’t held something so small in… maybe ever.

Even the baby dragons back at the reserve were already the size of a toddler when they hatched.

“She likes you already,” Fleur said softly, settling down into the armchair across from you.

You didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Not right away.

Victoire’s hand curled instinctively into your sleeve, and something in you folded in on itself — something old and long-buried. You blinked once, then twice, and forced the burn behind your eyes to settle.

Fleur watched you with a kind of knowing. A pause stretched between you, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.

After a minute, she spoke again — gently.

“Molly didn’t like me at first either, you know.”

You looked up, startled. Fleur’s expression was calm, her lips curled into the ghost of a smile.

“I’m sorry?”

“She didn’t. She thought I was too polished. Too proud. Too French, perhaps.” Her tone was light, but her eyes were sharp. “Too much.”

You huffed an unbelieving laugh. Because where you stood, Fleur was the blueprint of what a perfect daughter-in-law must look like. Soft around the edges, with just the right amount of sharpness in her eyes.

In some way, she was your antithesis. Sharp where you were soft, and soft where you were sharp. You had come to the conclusion that maybe that’s why Molly didn’t seem to like you at first. Even before your opinions on dark magic became clear. That had been the last drop.

“Yes,” she said simply, as if she was able to read your thoughts.

“I was too much for her,” Fleur continued, adjusting her sleeves, her voice not bitter — just honest. “And I didn’t try to be less.”

You swallowed, looking down at Victoire, who had gone heavy in your arms, tiny lashes fluttering as she dozed.

“She didn’t think I was good for Bill. Thought I was proud. That I would outgrow him. That I was…not quite one of them.” She tilted her head slightly, watching you with something like recognition. “And she was right, in some ways. I wasn’t like them. But I never tried to be.”

You said nothing. Just traced a circle with your thumb over the wool knit of Victoire’s blanket, her warmth seeping into your skin like light.

Fleur shifted forward in her chair, resting her elbows on her knees. Her tone softened. “But she came around. Slowly. Molly learns through observation, not persuasion. She needs to see who you are.”

You looked up, and the weight of Fleur’s gaze didn’t frighten you. “She’ll come around for you too,” Fleur said, gently but certainly. “Because you’re not going anywhere. And you shouldn’t have to shrink to fit into a house that’s already too full of love to notice when it spills over.”

You let out a slow breath. Victoire stirred, then curled further into your chest.

Then, from the kitchen — Bill’s voice, cheerful and far too loud for the sleeping baby: “Oi! Dinner’s ready.”

You saw him emerge from the kitchen and smile at the sight of his wife and you sitting on the couch.

A scream for his name came from the kitchen. Charlie—sounding a bit too panicked for your taste.

Bill sighed and turned to look at you. “Do you keep a first aid kit?”

The table was small, mismatched chairs pulled in from every corner of the flat. You took your seat next to Charlie, Victoire passed gently back to Fleur, who placed her in a floating bassinet charm that hovered beside her with the faintest glow.

Candles flickered. The windows steamed from the warmth inside. And for the first time in days, you weren’t thinking about the Burrow. Or Molly. Or what she saw when she looked at you.

You were here.

And that was enough.

Dinner, against all odds, was good. Burnt around the edges in places, yes, and Charlie had absolutely oversalted the mushrooms — but still. Good.

Bill told stories about Victoire — how she’d bitten George’s nose and then promptly charmed him into carrying her around the garden like a prince. How Ron, terrified of holding her, had sat stiffly with a pillow in his lap and looked like he might cry from fear when she smiled at him.

“Ginny’s the only one who didn’t flinch,” Bill said proudly. “She scooped her up like it was nothing. Victoire puked on her hair and she didn’t blink.”

“Gabrielle is obsessed,” Fleur added with a soft laugh, cutting into her roast. “She’s been reading all the parenting books in English, even though she is not even married. She calls herself ‘godmother in training.’”

“She’s got a whole bag of enchanted toys already and she’s only visited twice,” Bill added. “Victoire’s going to think she’s Santa Claus.”

You laughed and Charlie turned to look at you like he’d been waiting to hear that sound all night.

“What about you?” Bill asked, reaching for his butterbeer with a grin. “What’s it like, wrangling dragons all day?”

“You know…” you said, taking a sip from your wine. “Similar to having a kid in some ways. Very different in others.”

Victorie seemed to laugh at that as a cheering noise came along accompanied by her launching mashed potatoes with her little spoon.

You smiled at her as you watched Fleur clean her mouth.

The rest of the evening stretched in easy rhythm. The conversation wandered — Bill recounting near-catastrophes from Gringotts that had you snorting into your glass, Fleur speaking about her sister’s dramatic letters, and you, when pressed, telling them about the time two hatchlings had mistaken Charlie’s boots for food and he’d spent an hour chasing them barefoot across the reserve.

By the time plates were scraped clean and wine bottles stood empty, the candles had burned low, dripping wax in uneven pools across the table.

“Go on, leave the dishes to them,” Fleur said with a sly glance at Bill. “They’ll survive.”

Charlie shot her a mock glare, but he was already rolling up his sleeves. Bill smirked, clearly unbothered.

“Sit,” Charlie said firmly, brushing a hand across your shoulder as he passed. “We’ve got this.”

You didn’t argue. Not when Fleur settled beside you with Victoire, who had begun to fuss in her bassinet. Fleur lifted her gently, kissed her head, then placed her in your arms once more.

“She adores you,” Fleur murmured, brushing her own hair back from her face. “Babies… they feel when someone’s heart is safe.”

Something tightened in your chest at that.

You shifted Victoire carefully against you, her warmth sinking into your collarbone, and without thinking too much about it, you whispered a small charm to float soft notes of music into the air. Low, lilting — a tune your father used to hum when he was trying to make amends.

You rose slowly and began to rock, a small, instinctive sway that became a gentle circle. Victoire’s small fists opened and closed against your sleeve, her breaths falling into rhythm with the music.

Fleur stayed silent, watching from her chair, a knowing softness in her eyes.

The clink of dishes in the kitchen dulled, and when you turned in your slow orbit, you caught sight of Charlie standing in the doorway with a towel lazily slung over one shoulder and the softest of smiles on his lips.

His eyes were fixed on you — moving with his niece in your arms, the faint smile on your lips, the music filling the quiet. And for once, he looked utterly still. As though if he so much as blinked, he might miss something holy.

Bill brushed past him with a towel in hand, muttering something under his breath about soap charms, but Charlie didn’t answer. He just kept staring, the kitchen light spilling behind him.

The song faded when Victoire finally relaxed, a tiny sigh against your collarbone. Fleur rose, brushing your shoulder gently, and took her daughter back with a grateful smile.

They said their goodbyes not long after. Bill kissed your cheek, Fleur squeezed your hand, Victoire blinked owlishly up at you one last time before disappearing into the night wrapped in her parents’ arms.

You began clearing the table, throwing out the empty wine bottle and snuffing candles one by one. But before you could move more than a finger, Charlie was there.

No words. Just his hands, sudden and insistent at your waist, turning you before you’d even registered it. His mouth crashed against yours — not rough, not hurried, but deep. Like he’d been holding back all evening and had finally decided not to.

The bottle slipped from your hand onto the table with a muted clatter as he lifted you slightly, spinning you half a turn through the dim room.

You pulled back, breathless, your laugh cutting through the quiet. “What’s gotten into you?”

Charlie only grinned, pressing his forehead to yours. “You. Just you.”

You swallowed, eyes flicking to the dying light of the candles, to the half-cleared table, to the way his hair curled damp against his temples.

The laugh that escaped you this time was softer. Not because anything was funny, but because it was impossible not to.

“Put me down Charlie,” you said as you thrashed in his arms.

He decided to t¡do the exact opposite as he twirled you once more. You hung onto him for dear life, hiding your head in the nape of his neck.

He then threw you on the couch, his body following after, settling on top of you as he kissed you.

Your face was sore from all that smiling and laughing, but you couldn’t hold back.

“Charlie!” you squealed as his kisses started traveling down to your neck.

Charlie hummed in acknowledgement. His hands were on your waist, roaming up and down your body.

Your laughter came in short bursts, each one breaking against his mouth as he refused to stop kissing you. His lips chased every sound you made, greedy for it, as though laughter was as intoxicating to him as the wine.

You tangled both hands in his hair, tugging gently when he ducked lower, dragging his mouth along the slope of your jaw, down to the hollow of your throat. He nipped there, not enough to hurt, just enough to make you squirm and laugh all over again.

“Charlie—” You tried to sound stern, but it was hopeless. The way his curls slipped through your fingers, the way his stubble grazed your skin — it unraveled you.

He came back up to your lips suddenly, kissing you until you were dizzy, until the taste of wine on his tongue was all you knew. When he finally pulled back, you pressed your palms to his cheeks.

“What has gotten into you?” you asked again, your voice soft but breathless.

He looked at you like you’d just asked him to explain the stars. His grin was loose, giddy, his pupils blown wide, making his green eyes darker than usual.

You shook your head, lips curving despite yourself, and leaned forward to press a small kiss to the tip of his nose.

“Let’s have a baby,” Charlie murmured, drunk on wine and you, his smile impossibly unguarded.

You broke into startled laughter, dropping your forehead against his. “Charlie—”

But he was insistent, his lips already scattering along your cheekbones, your temple, the corner of your mouth. He kissed wherever he could reach, muttering against your skin between touches.

“I’m serious—” kiss “—a baby—” kiss “—you’d be—” kiss “—perfect.”

You tried to wriggle away but he held you easily, whining into your jaw as you covered his face with frantic little kisses in an attempt to stop him from talking. “You know we can’t do that,” you said between bursts of laughter, peppering his cheeks, his forehead, even the curve of his chin.

“Why not?” he whined against your skin, mouth finding the line of your jaw again.

You tilted your head back, a helpless giggle escaping you as his lips grazed your ear.

“You know why not.”

He nibbled at the shell of your ear, groaning dramatically, as if your reasoning was some great tragedy. His arms locked more securely around your waist, pinning you to the couch as he buried his face against your neck, mumbling unintelligible protests softened by how much he was smiling.

You bit your lip to stop yourself from laughing too loudly, but failed when he nuzzled into your throat like an oversized, insistent dragon demanding attention.

You let your fingers trace the nape of his neck, soothing where your tugging had left his hair mussed.

“Merlin help us if you’re like this after every dinner party,” you murmured, though you were smiling so hard it hurt.

Charlie only hummed, content and unwilling to move, lips still pressed clumsily against your skin like he’d forgotten how to stop.

The letter came folded in half, sealed with Molly’s tidy handwriting across the back. Charlie had plucked it from the stack of owl post and slid it across the kitchen table to you with an almost sheepish grin.

“Ginny’s birthday,” he explained. “Whole family’ll be there. She asked specifically that you come.”

You’d turned the envelope over in your hands, thumb dragging over the crease. You could already imagine the Burrow, filled with chatter and noise, Molly flitting about like the axis the whole house turned on. The last time you’d been there, your words on light and dark had landed like stones in water — ripples spreading further than you meant them to.

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” you murmured, gaze fixed on the neat scrawl.

Charlie leaned back in his chair, arms folding loosely across his chest. He looked as though he wanted to say the perfect thing — the one phrase that would banish your hesitation — but instead he kept it simple. “I’ll be with you the whole time. If it gets… too much, we’ll leave early.”

That was how he won you over. Not with promises that everyone would love you, but with the certainty that he’d be at your side when they didn’t.

The Burrow looked much as it had the last time — roof patched in odd angles, garden wild with summer growth, the long wooden table stretched out across the lawn and draped in cheerful bunting. Laughter floated in the air long before you crossed the garden gate.

Ginny spotted you almost immediately. She jogged over, her hair catching in the sun like a living flame. “You came!”

You smiled, pulling the wrapped parcel from your bag. “I thought you might like this. It’s… not something you can get in England.”

When she tore away the paper and unfolded the black-and-white jersey, her eyes went round. The Sankt-Peterburg Swans crest gleamed on the front, and scrawled signatures crowded the fabric in silver ink.

“You’re joking,” she breathed, voice gone high and thin with disbelief.

“They’re the first all-female team,” you explained, a quiet pleasure curling in your chest at her reaction. “I had a school friend who went to play with them. She owed me a favour.”

Ginny’s squeal startled a flock of garden gnomes back into their holes. She clutched the shirt to her chest, nearly hopping on the spot. “This is… Merlin’s beard, I can’t believe this—thank you! You’re the best.” She flung her arms around you before you could brace for it, warm and fierce.

Charlie’s hand brushed your lower back as he passed, the small contact grounding.

You found Fleur in the shade with Victoire balanced against her shoulder, the baby’s blond wisps of hair haloing in the light. Fleur greeted you with the same composed warmth she always carried, and you bent to greet the little girl.

Victoire took one look at you and squealed — an unfiltered sound of delight. Her tiny arms stretched out, fingers splayed in demand.

Your chest loosened. “Oh, hello there, ma petite,” you murmured, stepping forward to gather her up. She came easily, nestling against your collarbone as though it were the most natural thing in the world. You cooed softly in Russian without thinking, little nonsense words that made her giggle and grab at the edge of your dark sleeve.

Fleur smiled, half-surprised. “She remembers you. She does not do that with everyone.”

Charlie chuckled low, leaning close enough that you felt his breath stir your hair. “She has good taste.”

From the kitchen window, Molly Weasley’s hands stilled on the rim of a mixing bowl. She had been ferrying trays of sandwiches to the counter all morning, her rhythm unbroken, her focus fixed on the party outside. But now she lingered at the glass, eyes drawn to the sight of her granddaughter happily nestled in your arms.

“She’s not bad, you know?”

The voice came from just behind her shoulder. Bill stood at the chopping board, a half-sliced cucumber in one hand, knife in the other. He didn’t look up, just kept working with the quiet ease of someone accustomed to Molly’s kitchens.

Molly frowned, the faint line between her brows deepening. “I didn’t say she was.”

“You didn’t have to,” Bill replied mildly. He sliced another piece, neat and even. “I saw the way you bristled last time. About the light and dark business.”

“That wasn’t—” Molly began, then broke off. Her gaze slipped back to the window. You were bouncing Victoire gently, murmuring something that made the baby’s laugh ring out like a chime. Charlie watched you with a softness that seemed to set his whole frame alight.

Molly exhaled through her nose. “She’s different.”

“She is,” Bill agreed, wiping the blade clean. “Different doesn’t mean wrong.”

For a long moment, Molly said nothing. Then she turned back to her work, hands steady as she pressed dough into the waiting tins. But when she carried the next tray out to the garden, her eyes lingered just a fraction longer on you before she set it down.

The day unfolded slow and lazily.

You’d expected the watchful stares, the hesitant pauses in conversation. And they were there — at first. But the longer you stayed in the Burrow’s garden, the more the weight shifted.

Fred and George had drawn you into some ridiculous banter about whether dragons could be trained to deliver mail, and you found yourself volleying their jokes back with sharp retorts. That seemed to win them over.

Arthur, delighted, pressed you with earnest questions about dragon physiology, wide-eyed as though you were reciting wonders from some long-lost manuscript.

You’d ended up between Charlie and Harry, though Ron had been leaning so far across the table toward you that his elbow kept dipping into the butter dish. Charlie noticed, of course. He noticed everything. Which was probably why his arm had stretched lazily along the back of your chair, hand brushing your shoulder as though it had every right to be there.

Harry asked the first question, half-shy, half-intrigued. “So… dragons. What’s it actually like working with them? Everyone makes them sound like untameable monsters.”

You smiled faintly into your glass. “They can be monsters, if you treat them like ones. But if you learn their habits, respect their space, and don’t try to force them into things… they’ll give you more than you expect. It’s not taming, really. More like… negotiating.”

Harry’s eyes lit with a quiet kind of respect. “That makes sense.”

Ron, on the other hand, was nearly vibrating. “But you’ve flown them? Properly flown them?”

Charlie chuckled next to you. “Of course she’s flown them.”

Ron’s jaw practically hit the table, but Charlie wasn’t finished. He tipped his glass toward you, a grin tugging at his mouth. “You’re looking at the reserve’s damage-control unit.”

You shot him a glance. “Charlie—”

“No, go on,” he said, nudging you with his shoulder. “Tell them what that means.”

You hesitated, aware of half the table’s eyes flicking toward you, and then sighed. “It means I get the dragons no one else wants to touch. Behavioral cases, mostly. Hatchlings that won’t bond. Mothers that reject their young. The ones that tend to lash out.”

Ron leaned in so far his plate tipped. “And you do what, exactly?”

“She calms them,” Charlie answered before you could. “When a dragon’s too far gone for handlers to manage, she steps in.”

“Cool,” Harry muttered-

“The coolest”, Charlie agreed as he squeezed your hand.

The tips of your ears warmed at the intensity in his voice. “It comes with the job,” you murmured.

“Tell them about the Black,” he said casually, though his grin betrayed him.

You stiffened. “Charlie—”

“No, come on,” he pressed, his voice picking up a note of mischief. “You’re underselling yourself.”

Your frown deepened. “That’s not—”

He turned to the boys anyway. “One of the interns at the reserve fell into the enclosure of a Hebridean Black last year.”

Ron nearly choked on his drink. “What?”

“What did you do?” Harry asked.

“Not me,” said Charlie. “Her.”

You closed your eyes, already covering your face with one hand. “Charlie—”

“She jumped straight into the pen,” he continued anyway, grinning like he couldn’t help it. “Didn’t even hesitate. Got up on its neck while it was thrashing, clamped her legs down like a rider, and jabbed it with a small dose of anesthesia. Not enough to knock it out, but enough to make it sluggish, docile enough to back off. She bought the intern enough time to be pulled out. No one else on staff could’ve done it. They would’ve been eaten alive.”

“Brilliant,” you heard Ron mutter, his voice having gone an octave higher than usual.

By the time the cake had been carried out and Ginny blew out her candles, you felt… not at ease, but less like a shadow pressed against the wall.

Which was why Molly’s voice from the kitchen doorway stilled you so completely.

“Would you mind helping me with the soup?”

The words landed like a summons. Your first instinct was to decline—graciously, politely, but firmly. And yet when your gaze darted toward Charlie, you found him watching you with steady eyes. No pressure in them, just a small nod.

You rose. Your hands felt colder than they should as you followed Molly inside.

The kitchen smelled of herbs and apples, the air warm with steam. A large pot simmered on the stove, and Molly handed you a wooden spoon without ceremony.

“Give it a stir,” she said.

You obeyed, focusing on the slow circles, the broth shifting and bubbling under your hand. Silence stretched. The kind that pressed at your ribs.

“May I…” Your voice caught, and you cleared your throat. “May I try it?”

Molly nodded once.

You dipped the spoon carefully, let the broth cool a fraction before tasting. The flavours were good—comforting, hearty—but you remembered something. A memory that was half scent, half sound: your mother humming softly as she stood over a pot, a few well-worn jars lined up on the counter beside her.

“If I may,” you ventured, cautious, “my mother always added black peppercorns, celery seed, and garlic to soups like this. She said it—brought the broth alive.”

For a moment, you wondered if you’d overstepped. Molly’s eyes were unreadable, her hands steady on the counter. Then, slowly, she gestured toward the spice rack.

“Go on, then.”

Your heart thudded louder than it should have as you gathered the jars, adding the seasonings with care before stirring them in. You dipped the spoon once more, then offered it to her, your hand steady despite yourself.

Molly tasted. Her face did not soften, not exactly. But she gave a small, considered nod. “Better,” she said simply. Then, after a pause: “You’ll have to come round more often. Teach me a few of these recipes.”

The words hit you harder than you expected. A small door opening in a wall you hadn’t thought would ever budge.

“I—” you stammered, heat rising in your cheeks. “I’d like that. Very much.”

A voice at the doorway cut the silence.

“Isn’t she the best.”

It came out more like a statement rather than a question.

Charlie leaned there, arms folded, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He crossed the kitchen, coming to stand behind you, his arms slipping around your waist with the ease of long practice. His chin brushed your shoulder as you stirred, the warmth of him a steady anchor.

Molly had already turned back to her work, flour dusting her hands as she rolled out pastry for an apple pie. She didn’t look over. But she didn’t need to.

You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding, the wooden spoon still circling through the broth. Charlie kissed your temple, low and unseen, his voice a murmur just for you.

“See? Nothing to be afraid of.”

[luvendiary]

guys today is my tumblrversary!! 👻

three years ago i posted my first ever fic.

and honestly i just want to thank all of you for your kind words and the requests you send in! they always make my day.

i’ll try hosting an event by september, although i don’t know if i’ll be able to do it since im moving. but, do let me know if you are interested in that

love you all !

[luvendiary]

I love your work!! I'm a big george fan but I feel like I never read enough of him :( so I had an idea, like me, reader isn't keen on touch of any kind, even with her friends. But with george she doesn't seem to mind, if anything seems to like. I'm thinking maybe george is oblivious to this, and doesn't realize it until Fred or someone points it out, then he's realizing maybe the feelings are mutual? Yknow friends to lovers type of situation :)

hello lovely, thnak you for your request! it's out now! i'm so sorry for the long wait. i kind of stretched a bit far from it tbh. it's more of a background kind of detail. i still hope you like it.

this one is for you <3

[luvendiary]

jealousy jealousy / g. weasley

summary: george weasly is too dense to see the obvious, and to jealous to see clearly a/n: hello! i'm sorry for disapearing for a while. the last month has been super bussy. i'm working half time, so by the time i get home i was too tired to write. i needed a break. but honestly your comments on previous posts gave me the inspo i needed to write again. you are all too kind. sorry for the wait. also, this one is a bit messy and all over the place. warnings: 9.7k words. based on this request.

“You’re cutting my blood circulation,” Goerge Weasley whined as you held on to his arm to reach the top section of the Cauldron Cake shelf.

“Stop complaining,” you replied — your voice a bit taught.

Your hand was indeed squeezing harder than necessary against his upper arm, but you knew you couldn’t hurt George even if you tried. Years of Quidditch had built him like a wall, and besides, he practically towered over you.

He sighed dramatically as you continued to stretch on your tiptoes, still just short of the box you wanted.

“Why do they make these shelves so bloody tall?” you grumbled, finally letting your legs rest. You weren’t particularly short—actually, you were on the taller side—but wizarding shops seemed hell-bent on designing displays as if they were catering to giants.

“Well, if you’d let me help like I offered-”

“It’s the principle of the thing, Weasley.” 

“Meaning?”

You gripped his arm tighter and used it as leverage to hop upward, snagging the box with far less grace than you’d have liked. Landing with a huff, you brushed a stray strand of hair out of your face.

“Meaning,” you started, “that if I need you for this one thing, I’ll eventually need you for other things.”

“Would that be so terrible?” George said as he tilted his head and pouted.

You pretended to think about it for a moment. “Catastrophic.”

He sighed loudly and threw his head backwards, playing the part of a tortured man. “Alright then, explain. Why was that particular Cauldron Cake worth the climb?”

Despite his protests your arm was already intertwined with his and you were both walking to the desk to pay for your hard-earned pastry. 

You glanced at the pastry box in your hand. “Because it was the most out of reach. Which means it’s had the least human interaction.”

George blinked. Then huffed out a laugh, incredulous. “Of course.”

“Is there a problem?”

“No,” he said, grin tugging at his lips. “Just—of course you would do that.”

You shrugged, defensive but not denying it. “Makes sense. Fewer people pawing at it.”

The two of you reached the counter still mid-conversation, your arm looped easily through his like you’d been walking that way for years. The witch behind the till barely glanced up, already reaching for the Cauldron Cake box as George leaned an elbow on the counter.

“You realize you’ve just admitted you’d rather risk injury than accept help,” George said, eyes glittering.

“I didn’t risk injury,” you shot back, placing the cake down. “At worst, I would’ve fallen on you. Which, if anything, would’ve been your problem.”

“You get this little glint in  your eye whenever you talk about me getting injured, did you know that? ” 

You gave him a flat look, and he broke into a grin. The cashier slid the box closer, tallying the price.

“It’s alright, if injuring me makes you happy, I’ll oblige,” he said as he twirled a strand of your hair rather annoyingly.

“And that’s why you’ll never be my first call for assistance,” you said primly, just as something on the counter caught your eye. A jar of sugar quills, glinting in the light. Without much thought, you plucked one free and laced it next to the Cauldron Cake box.

The cashier raised a brow. “That it, then?”

You nodded, reaching for your pocket. But before you could even pull your wallet halfway out, George was already dropping a few coins onto the counter, smooth as if he’d done it a hundred times.

“Oi—” you started, but he didn’t even look at you, already picking up the bag with his free hand.

“So,” he said, as though you hadn’t spoken, “you want to unpack the whole untouchable thing?”

He slung the bag casually, then slipped his arm through yours again, steering you toward the door.

“Very funny.”

“I’m just saying,” he continued. “Very interesting phrasing you used there.”

You didn’t even realize what he’d done until you stepped out into the cold air and the bell above the door jingled shut behind you. You blinked down at the bag, then back up at him.

“George.”

“Hm?”

“You didn’t have to pay for that.”

He glanced sideways, the corner of his mouth twitching up. “Consider it compensation.”

“For what?”

“For the grueling work of mountaineering the Cauldron Cake shelf,” he said, deadpan. “Honestly, I’ve never seen someone put so much effort into baked goods.”

“Clearly you don’t know your own brother very well then.”

By the time you’d both made it back to Gryffindor Tower, the sugar quill was already half gone. George had filched it from your bag without asking, holding it between his teeth as he held his arm out in front of him, allowing you to walk through the portrait first. You smacked his arm on the way in, earning a muffled laugh.

The fire was low when you settled into the common room, most students already in their dorms. You chose your usual spot: the corner of the sofa nearest the hearth, legs tucking up easily. Your chocolate cake opened in your lap, your fork already hovering over it as if deciding what part to sink its teeth into first.

George dropped down beside you with a huff, sprawling in the opposite direction so his long legs took up half the space. It was only natural, then, that when you stretched your feet out, they landed on his lap. He didn’t so much as blink. Just adjusted the angle, and pulled a small box of contraptions from his bag—bits of wire, screws, scraps of wood charmed to twitch unnaturally. You weren’t sure what he was making, and you’d long since stopped asking. And by the looks of it, you weren’t sure you wanted to know.

You were deeply concentrated in getting to the center of your Cauldron Cake that you didn’t look up when he spoke up.

“Do you think Madam Hooch and Professor Sprout are secretly seeing each other?”

Your hand halted at his question, your fork suspended mid-air as you considered his words.

“Think about it,” he said as he peered through one end of a spring toward you. “She does spend an awful lot of time near the greenhouse.”

“Absolutely not,” you said, resuming your digging into the chocolate center.

“What?” he said, his voice an octave higher than usual. 

“I don’t see it.”

His whole face scrunched up, as if you had just told him blond hair was better than ginger. “What- How can you not-? It’s so obviously there!”

“It’s obvious that Sprout and Trelawney have something going on.”

That got his attention. “Sprout and—Trelawney?” He gaped at you. “Are you mad?”

“Completely logical.” You didn’t look up. “They balance each other out while still complementing each other.”

“They don’t make nearly as much sense as Hooch and Sprout,” he continued.

“Sprout and Trelawney makes more sense than half the couples at this school, George.”

He leaned closer, eyebrows raised, smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Admit it. You can’t picture it, can you? Hooch and Sprout, sneaking off after lessons—”

“That’s enough,” you interrupted, shoving your foot against his side to push him back. He caught your ankle without thinking, holding it steady as he laughed.

George was still laughing when the portrait hole creaked open behind you. The sound of muffled giggling carried into the room, followed by the unmistakable shuffle of shoes across the rug.

You lifted your head lazily over the back of the sofa, hair falling into your face until you tucked it behind your ear. Two of your friends stepped in, cheeks flushed from the cold and from whatever secret they were carrying.

“What’s all that about?” you asked, grinning at the pair of them.

Your best friend’s face lit up instantly, unable to hold it in for even a second. “I just got asked to the Yule Ball!” she squealed, and the other dissolved into another fit of laughter.

Your smile widened. “No! Who was it?”

“A Hufflepuff sixth year,” she said proudly, smoothing her hair back like it made a difference.

Her friend jumped in before you could comment. “You should’ve seen her face. I swear she went redder than a Gryffindor banner.”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

You bit down on a laugh, swinging your legs off George’s lap so you could twist around properly on the sofa. “That’s adorable. How’d he do it?”

“In the courtyard, after lunch,” she said, already giggling at the memory. “He was so nervous—kept tripping over his words, poor thing. But it was… sweet.” She sighed, dreamy.

George made a gagging sound behind you, deliberately loud enough to draw attention. You smacked his leg without looking.

Your other friend, still grinning, plopped down into an armchair. “Oh! And speaking of the ball—there was a Durmstrang boy asking about you earlier.”

She sat up slightly to pinch your side, making you immediately slap her hand away with a laugh.

“Me?”

She nodded, smug. “He came up to us outside, on the courtyard. We told him you were in Hogsmeade, but that you’d be back later.”

Your brows rose, curiosity piqued. “Did he say what for?”

“Didn’t need to,” your friend said knowingly.

You made a humming sound and plopped back down on the couch, a smile threatening to make its way past your lips.

George scoffed as he rolled a small gear slowly up and down your shin.

“Is there a problem, Georgie?” your friend asked.

“There are several problems in fact,” he said. “The biggest one being that a Durmstrang bloke is not nearly good enough for her.”

You sat up, your eyebrows furrowed, and mouth slightly open. “And how do you know what’s good for me?”

“Because,” he said slowly. “I’ve known you since you knocked your tooth out by tripping on a garden gnome when you were five.”

He made sure to finish his sentence with a pinch to your side, which made you squirm and kick your foot as his face.

Your heel caught his jaw with a satisfying thunk.

“OW—bloody hell!” George yelped, clutching his face. “You broke it! I swear you broke my jaw—”

But he was laughing. Wheezing, even, doubled over with his hand pressed dramatically against his cheek.

You couldn’t help it—you laughed too, reaching forward to tug his hand away so you could see. “Stop being a baby, you’re fine. Serves you right.”

“Fine?” he croaked between fits of laughter. “I’ll be drinking soup through a straw for the rest of my life!”

You shook your head, still grinning as you checked him over. “That’s what you get for sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

Your friends exchanged a glance over your shoulder, rolling their eyes at the scene unfolding. One of them muttered something under her breath about “unbelievable” before flopping deeper into the armchair.

George finally sat back, rubbing at his jaw with mock injury—then you noticed it. A dark streak smudged across your tights.

You glanced down, horrified. “George. Did you just get grease on me?”

He followed your gaze, saw the black smear, and promptly lost it again, laughing so hard his head tipped back against the sofa.

“You—absolute menace!” You smacked his arm, which only made him laugh harder. 

“Ow stop that”

“I just washed these!”

Your shoes clattered against the stone steps as you flew down the corridor, clutching your bag to your side and cursing under your breath. Divination wasn’t exactly the class you cared to be on time for, but Trelawney had already docked you twice this month, and you weren’t keen on hearing another dramatic monologue about “lateness as a sign of turbulent energies.”

You rounded a corner too quickly and nearly went sprawling when you collided with someone solid. A hand shot out, steadying you firmly by the arm.

You froze.

The contact was brief, grounding, but your whole body tensed instinctively. Your eyes flicked up.

He wasn’t one of your classmates. The boy was older, broad-shouldered, with the sharp cut of a Durmstrang uniform and an accent you could already hear in your head before he spoke.

“Apologies,” he said, pulling his hand back a beat too late, his expression a mixture of composure and something a little… hesitant.

You shook your head quickly, the words tumbling out in a rush. “It’s fine. My fault, I wasn’t looking—thank you.”

You shifted as though to move past him, but he cleared his throat. That low sound was enough to stall your escape.

“I was… actually looking for you,” he said carefully, his words slow, deliberate.

Your step faltered. “Me?”

And then it clicked.

Your friends. The courtyard. Their smug faces when they told you.

The Durmstrang boy searching for you wasn’t just gossip—it was him.

He reached into his pocket, his posture stiff but oddly formal, and withdrew a single white rose. Its petals looked stark against the grey of the stone walls, almost too delicate for the roughness of his hand.

“I wanted to ask if you would go to the Yule Ball,” he said. Not flashy. Not dripping with practiced charm. Just steady. Direct.

Your lips tugged into a small smile. “That’s… kind of you.”

For a moment you hesitated—half a heartbeat, barely there—before nodding. “Yes. I’d be glad to.”

Something eased in his expression, and he handed you the rose. The bloom brushed against your palm, cool and faintly fragrant, before you slipped it into your bag with care.

“I really do have to go,” you added, still slightly breathless, backing away a step. “Thank you.”

Then you were moving again, faster than before, pulse running quicker for reasons you didn’t bother to pick apart.

By the time you reached the top of the tower stairs, your friends’ words were still echoing faintly in your head, and the rose weighed more than a flower should in your bag.

The door to the Divination classroom stood open, and George was leaning against the frame, arms crossed, an unimpressed look fixed squarely on the stairwell you were climbing. Fred lounged next to him, grinning like he’d been waiting all morning just for this.

“Finally,” George muttered as you rushed up, breath catching in your throat.

“Sorry,” you said quickly, brushing past them with your bag slung tight against your shoulder. “I got caught up.”

Fred tilted his head toward you, eyes flicking down with exaggerated curiosity. “Must’ve been something special, then.” He pointed at your hand, and it was only then you realized you were still clutching the stem of the rose.

You let out a breath that was halfway to a laugh, shaking your head as you brushed past him into the classroom. “Oh—right. I just got asked to the Yule Ball.”

You said it lightly, almost offhand, as you set your things down at a table. The words slipped out like they were casual, but Fred’s eyebrows shot up, and George’s stare followed you all the way across the room.

The table wobbled faintly under your books as you dropped them down, the clink of ink bottles and a quill rolling threateningly close to the edge filling the pause.

Fred was the first to break it, naturally.

“You what?” He let out a laugh, short and sharp, dragging a chair out with his foot and flopping into it. “Already snatched up, are you? Merlin, you work fast.”

You rolled your eyes, tugging parchment from your bag and pretending to be absorbed in straightening it. “Don’t be ridiculous. He asked, I said yes. It wasn’t complicated.”

“Not complicated?” Fred leaned forward on his elbows, clearly relishing the new piece of information. “That’s a rose in your hand, not a timetable.”

You stifled a chuckle, glancing down at the white bloom before setting it carefully atop your bag. “It’s just a flower.”

Fred hummed skeptically, grin not budging. “Sure. Just a flower. And you’re just casually accepting invitations from foreign boys in corridors.”

“Fred,” George said suddenly.

It wasn’t loud—just enough to cut his brother off.

Fred tilted his head at him, eyes sparking with curiosity, but George didn’t look his way. He’d slipped into the chair beside you with less noise than usual, dragging it close enough that the wood scraped softly against the floor.

He didn’t say anything else. Just sat there, hands folded on the table, expression unreadable as his gaze flicked briefly toward the rose and then away again.

Fred smirked, but something in George’s silence kept him from pushing further. He leaned back, muttering something under his breath about “touchy business” before finally digging in his bag for his things.

You pressed your quill into the parchment, trying to focus on the ink pooling at its tip instead of the weight of George’s quiet beside you.

The chatter of the classroom filled in around the three of you, but that silence stayed, lingering just enough to make you aware of it.

The days after that corridor encounter slipped into a rhythm that wasn’t really yours. Normally, you and George had this flow — jokes tossed between classes, wandering the corridors with arms linked, conversations that moved easily without thinking. But now? It was like speaking into fog.

George had gone quieter. Not cold exactly, but clipped. He still showed up beside you, but where you expected a quip, there was silence. Where you waited for his laugh, there was only that unreadable half-smile. And the longer it stretched on, the heavier it sat between you.

By Thursday, you’d snapped.

It had been something small — him brushing past you in the common room without so much as a glance when you’d been saving him a seat.

“Alright, what is it with you lately?” you demanded, shoving your books down on the table harder than you meant to. “You’ve been stomping around like I’ve kicked your bloody broomstick out the window.”

George stopped mid-step. His jaw tightened, the muscle ticking, but he didn’t turn fully toward you. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t do that,” you shot back, heat crawling up your throat. “Don’t act like I’m imagining it. You’ve been sulking for days, George. What did I do? Is it about the stupid ball?”

That got him to look at you. And Merlin, you almost wished he hadn’t. His expression was sharp, carved, his brown eyes burning with something you couldn’t read but could feel, like a stone lodged in your chest.

“Forget it,” he said flatly. “If you want to waltz around with your Durmstrang prince, don’t let me stop you.”

It stung, because you hadn’t thought that’s what this was. You opened your mouth, then closed it again.

“This is so utterly stupid,” you muttered to yourself as you began to pack up your things.

“What?” he asked sharply. “That I want what’s best for you?”

You turned to him sharply and pointed your finger at him dangerously, “don’t dare pretending this is about me Weasley. I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately but don’t pin it on me.”

His mouth opened, but you cut him off before he could say anything.

“This is about you being a coward. If you wanted to take me to the ball, I shouldn’t have been your last option,” you jabbed your finger into his chest angrily.

That did it. His face hardened, and he spun on his heel, storming up toward the boys’ dormitory without a single word more.

“You’re unbelievable, George Weasley!” you screamed after him finally, throat tight.

Tears were falling down your face — hot angry tears.

And just like that, you weren’t really talking anymore.

The night of the Yule Ball arrived, and you felt sick.

Your friends had gathered around you in the dormitory, fussing with your hair, smoothing fabric, fixing details — all of it felt far away. Your stomach was twisted, sour, because the one person you wanted to laugh with, to share nerves with, hadn’t spoken to you properly in days.

When they left in a cluster of perfume and excited chatter, you lingered behind. Sitting on the edge of the bed, chin propped in your palm, staring at the rose that had long since wilted slightly at the edges.

You hated it. You hated that George had gotten into your head like this.

There was a knock at the door. One of your friends popped her head in, smiling brightly. “We’ll see you down there, alright? Don’t take all night.”

You forced a smile, nodding.

When the door clicked shut, you let out a shaky breath.

Alright. Enough.

You slipped your heels on, tugged the straps tight, and rose to your feet. Head high. Chin level. If George wanted to sulk, if he wanted to stew, fine. He could. You wouldn’t hide away because of him.

The corridors hummed with music drifting faintly from the Great Hall. And then the staircase — long, sweeping, glowing with candlelight.

You paused at the top.

And suddenly, the chatter hushed.

Not completely, but enough. Enough that heads turned, enough that the weight of the moment pressed around you.

Fred and George stood at the foot of the stairs. Fred elbowed his brother lightly, some quip on his lips, but it died the moment he looked up at you.

And George — George was silent. Completely still, like the sight of you had knocked the air from him.

Your chest tightened, but you didn’t let it show. You gripped the banister lightly and descended, every step deliberate, controlled.

“George. Fred.”

Your voice was steady. Flat, almost. The acknowledgment of two boys who had been constants in your life, but with a distance now that felt like a chasm.

George’s lips parted like he wanted to say something, but no sound came. Fred shifted beside him, grin returning — though softer, less mocking.

“You look beautiful, love,” he said.

Your gaze softened as you acknowledged him and thanked him, but you were soon interrupted by your date. 

The Durmstrang boy. Handsome, polite, posture sharp in his formal robes. He stepped forward with a small smile, bowing slightly before taking your hand.

His lips brushed your knuckles — a gesture rehearsed, almost courtly.

And then he led you away, into the glow of the Great Hall, music swelling as the doors closed behind you.

“You’re such a prick mate,” Fred said as he patted his twin’s back once before going off to find Angeline.

George still hadn’t spoken.

The Great Hall was unrecognizable. Enchanted icicles dripped down from the ceiling, scattering blue-white light across gowns and robes. The hum of laughter and music wrapped around you as your date led you toward the dance floor, hand still loosely holding yours.

You kept your chin up, expression calm, though your stomach hadn’t settled since you’d descended the stairs.

The first few songs were slower. Your date — Mikhail, you remembered finally, though you hadn’t cared to repeat it in your head much — was perfectly polite. Charming in a way that felt studied. He guided you into the dance with practiced ease, one hand at your waist, the other holding yours at shoulder height.

And it was fine. That was the problem. It was fine.

You let him move you across the floor, but every time his palm pressed too firmly into your side, your muscles tightened. Every time his thumb brushed against your skin, your breath caught for all the wrong reasons. Still, you smiled when you were supposed to. You let the music carry you. You didn’t falter.

But you felt trapped.

It wasn’t until the tempo shifted that something loosened. The orchestra picked up, the strings sharp and wild, and the floor around you filled with movement — skirts spinning, laughter bubbling, shoes thudding against the wood.

Mikhail twirled you once, twice, his smile more genuine now as he urged you into the rhythm. Your hair swung with the motion, the room a blur of light and color. Against your will, a laugh broke from your lips, sharp and bright.

And then another, because it felt good to be twirled, good to let your body move without the weight of thought. The music pulsed through you, and Mikhail’s grip, while still firm, no longer felt suffocating.

By the time you stumbled breathless into another song, a little glass of firewhisky had made its way into your hand, then another. The heat of it slid down your throat, buzzing in your veins, making the lights blur at the edges. The sting of George’s silence dulled — not gone, but muffled, like someone had put a wall between you and the ache.

Mikhail eventually leaned down, breath hot against your ear. “Drink?”

You nodded, too flushed to argue. He pressed a quick kiss against your knuckles before vanishing into the crowd toward the punch table.

And then you were alone.

But it didn’t matter. The music was enough.

You let your eyes slip shut, let your arms float up into the air, wrists loose, body swaying to the beat. Your dress twirled as you spun once in place, and for the first time all week, your smile wasn’t forced. It was wide and reckless, uncontained, spilling across your face as laughter pushed past your lips.

And then you felt it.

Hands. Warm, familiar, sliding around your waist from behind. Not Mikhail’s. Not tentative, not practiced. Solid.

Your eyes snapped open.

George.

He stood in front of you, close enough that the space between you buzzed with tension. His head was tilted, curls falling over his forehead, his eyes fixed on yours in a way that made it hard to breathe.

You should’ve pulled back. Should’ve shoved his hands away. But your body betrayed you — your shoulders softened, your chest loosened, and you let yourself lean, just slightly, into the steadiness of his grip.

Merlin, you hated yourself for it.

“What are you doing?” you managed, but your voice lacked bite.

George’s hold was careful, almost reverent, as if he was afraid to break you. His thumbs brushed the fabric of your dress at your sides, and he swallowed hard before speaking.

“I’ve been a right arse.” His voice was low, ragged against the swell of the music. “The biggest one, probably. I just—” His jaw flexed, his eyes flicking briefly away before locking back onto yours. “I couldn’t stand it. Seeing you with him. Thinking you’d rather be with him than—”

“Than what? Than you?” you cut in, sharper than you’d intended. The firewhisky loosened your tongue, pulled the words raw from your throat. “Because if that’s what this whole week was about, George, you’ve been sulking like a child.”

A muscle ticked in his cheek, but his grip on you didn’t falter. “I know. I know I was.” His lips curved, faint and self-deprecating. “Biggest arse of all.”

That made you laugh — too sudden, too loud. A laugh edged with alcohol and nerves, bubbling up uncontrollably. You clapped a hand over your mouth, eyes narrowing at him.

“Don’t you dare find this funny,” you warned, though the smile on your face betrayed you. “You were—Merlin, George, you were unbearable.”

His shoulders shook with a quiet chuckle he tried to hide, eyes softening as he looked at you. “I know. And I am sorry.”

You wanted to scowl, to shove him back, to remind him you were still furious. But your grin lingered, your body pressed lightly into his, your head swimming with music and drink.

“Not fair,” you muttered, but the words had no teeth. “You know I get happy when I’m drunk.”

George leaned in slightly. “Then I’ll take drunk.”

Mikhail reappeared at your side, two glasses in hand, the rim of each tipped with frost.

Your smile snapped back into place, your hips still shifting with the rhythm as you reached for one. The firewhisky burned cool against your palm, and you tipped it toward him in thanks before drinking half in a single swallow.

George’s hands loosened from your waist the moment you stepped back, and the chill of absence almost startled you.

“Mikhail,” you greeted brightly, your laughter bubbling too easily as you slipped your fingers through his. He blinked down at you, pleasantly surprised at the warmth of it, and grinned.

You tugged him toward the thicker crowd at the center of the floor, where the bodies pressed tighter and the music’s pulse was strongest. But before you disappeared into the crush, you leaned toward George, rising just enough to brush your lips against his cheek.

The kiss was light, but it lingered.

You pulled back just enough to murmur over the music, voice low, the edges slurred but the meaning sharp. “I expect an apology. When I’m sober. When I’m still mad enough to mean it.”

Then you were gone, Mikhail’s hand caught in yours, his laughter spilling as he spun you into the frenzy of the dance floor.

George didn’t follow.

He just stood there, cheek still warm where your lips had been, eyes unreadable, watching as you disappeared into the crowd.

He stayed on the edge of the dance floor longer than he should have. He didn’t move, didn’t really smile, just leaned against a pillar, watching the way you laughed and twirled with Mikhail. The sight wasn’t unbearable — it was almost calming, seeing you so alive — except for the way your body leaned into his, the ease in your movements, the careless tilt of your head when the music surged.

He kept his arms crossed, jaw tight, lips pressed into a line. The hand that wanted to reach out stayed rigid at his side. It wasn’t about jealousy exactly; it was irritation, self-directed mostly. He should’ve been there first. Should’ve asked first. And yet he hadn’t.

Each time Mikhail spun you, George’s chest tightened just slightly, the sharp stab of seeing your hair flick across your shoulders, your smile turning up to catch his eyes before darting away. It wasn’t even a full smile at him — it was your natural, unfiltered grin that made his teeth grind a little in frustration.

He didn’t move when you laughed into Mikhail’s ear, voice bright over the music. He didn’t move when you pressed your hand to the rim of Mikhail’s glass as he brought it to your lips, or when your hips swayed against his. He just watched. Quiet. Controlled.

The crowd thinned as the night wore on. Some couples left the floor, others drifted to the edges for drink or whispered conversation. George stayed, leaning a little more heavily against the pillar, eyes locked on you. He didn’t see the alcohol fogging your expression, didn’t care that Mikhail had that easy, tentative charm — the kind that got anyone’s attention.

And then, finally, the end of the night drew near. Mikhail had his hand at your elbow, guiding you through the crowd toward the exit. Your laughter had quieted to soft chuckles, your hand —much to George’s relief— no longer in his. 

Outside, Mikhail stopped just short of the stairs. He bent slightly and lifted your hand to his lips, pressing a polite, lingering kiss to your knuckles. You tilted your head, smiling softly, nodding a quiet thanks before stepping back.

George didn’t move. He didn’t even blink.

His hands were shoved deep into his pockets, shoulders tight, jaw still clenched. He couldn’t quite place whether it was anger, jealousy, or simply the sting of being sidelined. 

What he knew is that it was lodged deep within him. Like a piece of glass in his lungs. It shifted with each breath. 

The dorm room smelled faintly of damp robes and wood polish. Lee and Fred were lounging near the foot of one of the beds, casually tossing a pair of worn Quidditch gloves back and forth when the door creaked open.

George stepped in, shoulders slumped, tie undone, hair mussed like he’d just rolled out of a gale. His eyes were sharp but heavy, lips pressed into a straight line.

Lee didn’t even spare a moment before blurting out, “You look awful, George.”

Fred leaned back against the headboard, grin already stretching across his face. “Give him a break, Lee,” he said, mock sympathy in his tone. “He just had to watch his girl dance with some other bloke all night.”

“She’s not my girl,” George said flatly as he threw his tie on the floor.

Lee chuckled at that as he threw the glove his way. “Not yet anyway…”

George caught it, scowling. “I’m serious. The night was awful. I’ve just had to watch her dance with some Durmstrang prat who—” He cut himself off, shaking his head, voice thick with something caught between anger and despair. “Bloody hell. You should’ve seen them. Laughing, spinning about, her hand on his shoulder like she’d been waiting for it.”

Fred arched a brow. “And yet… she still ended up dancing with you, didn’t she?”

George ignored that, pacing once before stopping dead at the end of his bed. His hands curled at his sides. “You don’t get it. I’ve been—awful to her. These past few days I’ve been short, impatient, pushing her off without even thinking. And then tonight, she’s smiling. Like nothing’s wrong. Like I haven’t been making a complete mess of everything. And it—Merlin, it drove me mad.”

His words tumbled faster now, spilling out before he could stop himself. “Because while I’ve been a miserable bastard, she’s out there lighting up the room with someone else. A bloody Durmstrang bloke, no less.” His voice cracked into bitterness. “And she let him touch her. She laughed at whatever he said. She looked—happy. Happier than she’s been around me in weeks. And I’m standing there like an idiot, realizing I’ve lost her. To him. Out of all people.”

He finally threw himself back onto his mattress, hands dragging over his face until they clamped down over his eyes. “I’ve completely ruined it. She’s never going to look at me the same way now.”

Silence followed. A heavy, almost ridiculous silence.

Fred and Lee stared at each other from across the room, expressions perfectly blank for half a beat before they both broke into incredulous disbelief.

“You can’t be serious,” Lee muttered, jaw slack.

Fred’s laugh was sharp, disbelieving. “He’s serious.” He jabbed a thumb at George, who lay sprawled dramatically across the bed like some tragic figure. “The git honestly thinks he’s lost her. Because she danced. Once. With someone else.”

Lee shook his head, exasperated. “George, listen to yourself. You two are ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. Everyone sees it. Everyone but you. She practically melted into you tonight. ”

George dragged one hand down from his eyes, glaring out from between his fingers. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Fred leaned forward, smirk turning into something sharper. “She’s not lost. She’s not even wandering. She’s orbiting you. Always has been. You’re just too bloody dense to notice.”

Lee folded his arms, nodding. “You really think one night changes that? You think one stiff, awkward dance with some foreigner matters more than the way she looks at you every day? You’re blind, mate.”

George didn’t answer. His chest rose and fell, uneven, frustration still knotted tight inside him. He wanted to argue, but the memory of her melting against him during their own dance hit him like a sucker punch, and the words caught in his throat.

Fred lay back on his elbows, satisfied. “You’ll figure it out eventually, Georgie. Hopefully before she loses patience with you.”

Lee snorted. “Assuming she hasn’t already.”

George threw a pillow at his head. 

Sunlight woke them up the next morning.

George turned his face into the pillow with a groan, but it didn’t do much to dim the brightness cutting across the dorm. Dust motes swam lazily in the air, the kind of soft glow that only came after a night of storm—last night’s storm being the music, drink, and far too much of you in someone else’s arms.

Lee was still snoring in his bed across the room, mouth open, one arm hanging off the side. Fred was rolling out of his sheets, muttering curses about his head. George sat up slower, scrubbing both hands over his face until the scratch of stubble grounded him. He felt like he hadn’t slept properly in weeks.

Saturday mornings in the castle were usually quiet, but today the corridors carried the slow shuffle of students recovering from the dance. The three of them descended the staircases, moving past clusters of younger years who looked irritatingly well-rested. George’s collar was still half undone, and he hadn’t bothered with his tie.

The hum of the Great Hall reached them before the doors even opened—low conversation, the scrape of cutlery, the occasional clink of goblet on wood. When they stepped inside, George’s eyes went instinctively to the Gryffindor table.

He scanned once, twice—then found you.

You were folded against the bench, head pillowed on your arms, body slumped like all the fight had drained out of you. One wrist dangled limp across the table. You looked wrung out. 

Fred’s hand landed briefly against his back in a quick, wordless pat before he moved past him and slid onto the bench a few seats down. Lee followed. George remained standing a moment longer, fixed in place by the picture of you.

Your friend sat beside you, still eating with far too much energy for the hour. They poked at your limp hand with the edge of a slice of toast. At first you didn’t stir. Then, slowly, you dragged your head up, blinking as though even that small effort cost too much. The smudges beneath your eyes were dark against your skin. Without looking, you took the toast from their hand and bit into it, half-asleep, chewing like it was the most automatic thing in the world.

George’s chest pulled tight.

The hall blurred around him—the chatter, the clatter of knives and forks, Fred already reaching for pumpkin juice. All he saw was the faint slump of your shoulders, the way your hair clung stubbornly to the side of your face, and the traces of someone who had smiled until it hurt, danced until the ground seemed to tilt, and was now left with the aftermath.

You rubbed your temple with the heel of your palm, eyes slipping half-shut again between bites of toast.

He sat down heavily beside Fred, dragging his plate toward him without tasting a thing. His gaze kept pulling back toward you, even when he tried to look away. He hated how easy it was to see the edges of your exhaustion, hated more that he wasn’t the one who had carried you off that dance floor.

He pressed his lips into a line, staring down at his plate like it had answers.

Fred caught him once, smirk playing at his mouth but blessedly quiet this time. Lee raised an eyebrow, not bothering to hide the fact he’d noticed where George’s eyes had gone. George ignored both of them.

Across the hall, you were still chewing slowly, your elbow now propped against the table, chin resting in your palm. The sunlight caught against your hair, pale and bright, and George thought—against his will—how unfair it was that even wrung out, you still managed to undo him.

The steam from your mug curled up into your face, warming skin that still felt far too pale. Your head throbbed faintly, a dull reminder of firewhisky mixed with too much music and too many lights. You weren’t in the mood for chatter, and the friend at your side seemed to have caught on, filling the silence with their own story while you just nodded along.

You shifted in your seat, rolling your sore shoulders. The strap of your dress from last night had left a faint line across your skin; Mikhail’s hand, clamped too firmly on your arm during one of the dances, had left something else. You rubbed it absently, trying to ignore the stiffness.

That was when you felt it—eyes on you.

You lifted your head, scanning almost instinctively, and there he was. George, halfway down the table, a plate of untouched eggs in front of him. Tie still loose, hair a mess, eyes locked on you with a sharpness that startled you. 

For a moment, you almost faltered under the weight of it. He didn’t look away when you caught him. Just sat there, lips pressed thin, as if daring you to notice how hollowed-out he looked.

Despite the ache behind your eyes, you felt your mouth curve into the faintest smile—tired, reluctant, but real. The kind of expression meant for no one else in the room but him.

His shoulders twitched, almost like he’d been struck. A muscle jumped in his jaw, and he shifted abruptly, looking down at his plate as if the eggs had suddenly demanded all his concentration.

Fred and Lee both saw it, of course. They always did. Fred made a strangled noise into his toast, biting back a laugh, while Lee muttered something under his breath about magnets.

You turned back to your tea, the smile fading into the rim of the cup, but not before George risked one more glance up at you. Just to make sure he hadn’t imagined it.

The castle grounds buzzed with excitement, voices carrying in bursts of anticipation as students poured down toward the Black Lake. Scarves and banners snapped in the winter air, house colors bright against the gray sky. You walked among the throng, tugging your cloak tighter against the cold. Mikhail strolled at your side, his stride unhurried, hands tucked casually behind his back as if the icy breeze didn’t touch him.

He slowed as the lake’s edge came into view, the icy surface rimmed with thick sheets of frost. The noise of the crowd swelled around you, but he turned toward you with a small smile that made you immediately want to shift your weight from one foot to the other.

“It was good to see you again,” he said, his voice low, smooth in that Durmstrang lilt. He took your hand before you could tuck it safely into your pocket, his grip warm against your cold fingers. Then, with practiced ease, he lifted it and brushed his lips across your knuckles.

You forced a polite smile, lips twitching at the corners as you inclined your head in response. “And you,” you managed, tone even. But the moment he let go, every nerve in your hand screamed to be hidden, tucked away where no one could touch it.

As he turned to stride off toward the Durmstrang cluster, you let out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding, shoulders sagging the instant his back was turned. Your hand curled reflexively, half-hidden in your sleeve, before you shoved it deep into the pocket of your cloak where it belonged.

You didn’t get the chance to savor your small reprieve. An arm suddenly hooked itself around your shoulders, making you jolt forward a step before you registered the familiar weight.

“There she is!” Fred’s voice boomed far too cheerily in your ear. He leaned into you with exaggerated affection, giving you a little shake. “Our very own international heartbreaker.”

Before you could wriggle free, Lee fell in step on your other side, elbow brushing yours. His grin was wide, merciless. “Blimey, you don’t waste any time, do you? Hand-kissing already? That’s practically an engagement where he comes from.”

Heat crept up the back of your neck. “Oh, for Merlin’s sake—” you started, squirming out from under Fred’s arm, ducking forward to hug yourself against the cold and their relentless teasing. “He’s not my—”

“Boyfriend?” Fred finished, dragging the word out with relish. He waggled his eyebrows at Lee, who snorted so hard he nearly tripped on the uneven ground.

“Shut up,” you said, laughter breaking through despite yourself. You gave Fred a shove in the ribs that only made him cackle louder.

Behind the both of them, George trailed silently, hands shoved into his own pockets, face unreadable. He didn’t join in, didn’t so much as smirk. His eyes flicked once to you, then away, his jaw set as he fell into step a pace behind the rest.

Fred looped around to walk backwards in front of you. “Who would’ve thought that all it took for you to find a guy would be a tournament that hasn’t happened in centuries.”

Lee leaned closer, stage whispering loudly enough for anyone within five feet to hear, “Poor George, didn’t even stand a chance.”

That got a laugh from Fred so sharp he nearly doubled over. You groaned, clutching your arms tighter around yourself, the tips of your ears burning. “You two are insufferable,” you said, but your grin betrayed you.

They nudged and teased you all the way down the slope toward the stands, your half-hearted protests only fueling their jokes. George stayed behind, watching the three of you, his silence heavy enough to be felt even through the noise of the crowd.

By the time you reached the wooden benches, your ribs ached from laughing and squirming out of Fred’s reach. You pulled your cloak tighter, hugging yourself against both the cold and the teasing, settling between them with a sigh.

“Durmstrang’s finest,” Fred muttered with mock drama, elbowing Lee. “And she didn’t even save a dance for me.”

You shot him a look, rolling your eyes as you tried to steady your breathing. George slid into the seat at the end of the row, a half-step removed, his expression still carefully neutral. His silence pressed against you more than all of Fred and Lee’s laughter combined.

The stands rattled with the weight of the crowd, their noise rolling over the lake like a storm. From where you sat, tucked between Fred and Lee, the expanse of black water stretched wide and cold, mist curling off its surface. You’d pulled your cloak tighter around yourself, hands buried in the folds as you tried to ignore the way Fred kept leaning over to whisper loud running commentary in your ear.

“Ten galleons says Krum comes back with the whole bloody shipwreck,” he muttered, cupping his hands around his mouth as if that would shield it from anyone but you.

Lee snorted. “Ten galleons says he doesn’t come back at all. Look at that water. Gives me the creeps.”

You didn’t bother replying; your eyes were on Harry. He stood by the champions, smaller than the rest, his shoulders squared but stiff. From this distance you could see the nervous twitch of his hands as he adjusted his robes. Something tugged at you, protective, and you leaned forward in your seat, lips pressed together.

When the whistle blew and the champions plunged into the water, the stands roared. Banners whipped in the air, voices crashing together in support of their favorites. You cupped your hands around your mouth and called Harry’s name until your throat burned, ignoring the sharp bite of the wind on your face.

But George didn’t move. He sat stiffly at the end of the bench, eyes fixed on the lake, jaw clenched tight. If he noticed the way you leaned forward, gripping the edge of the railing until your knuckles ached, he didn’t show it.

The minutes dragged. You shifted, heart hammering as the surface remained empty and still. Around you, chatter swelled — speculation, nervous energy, Fred’s grumbling about how long it was taking. But your focus stayed locked on the lake.

When the first head broke the surface, the stands erupted. You shot to your feet, craning forward, desperate to see who it was. Krum, half-transfigured, clambered onto the bank, dragging Hermione with him. Applause thundered, and you clapped politely, though your stomach knotted.

More figures surfaced — Fleur Delacour, Diggory, Cho Chang. Relief bubbled in the stands, but Harry was nowhere in sight.

Your throat tightened. You shouted his name again, even as Lee muttered under his breath, “Come on, come on…”

And then, at last, Harry burst through, gasping, his arms dragging two bodies with him instead of one. The crowd lost its mind. You clapped so hard your palms stung, calling his name with every ounce of strength you had left. 

By the time the champions were herded off and the crowd began to spill back toward the castle, your voice was hoarse, your body buzzing from the adrenaline of it all. The chatter swirled around you, Fred and Lee already arguing about who had technically “won” the wagers they hadn’t even shaken on.

You slipped free of their noise, hugging yourself against the cold as the tide of students pushed up the slope.

That was when someone fell into step beside you.

You glanced up, and there he was — George. His shoulders hunched against the cold, his hands buried in his pockets. For a moment, you thought he might just keep walking, that he’d melt back into the sea of students without a word. But then he cleared his throat, gaze fixed stubbornly ahead.

“Can we talk?” His voice was low, almost rough.

You huffed out a short breath, half laugh, half disbelief. “It’s taken you long enough.”

He flinched, just slightly, but didn’t argue. For a stretch of steps, silence stretched between you, broken only by the crunch of boots on frost-hardened ground and the distant swell of voices behind. Then he spoke again.

“I’ve been a prat,” he said, blunt. “An absolute prat.”

You glanced at him from the corner of your eye. His jaw was tight, but there was no bravado there, no grin waiting to slip free and make it all a joke. Just George, flat and serious, his voice quieter than you were used to hearing.

“You have,” you agreed, coolly.

He nodded once, your eyes still not meeting.

“And I was cruel to you.”

“You were.”

“And you didn’t deserve that.”

“I didn’t.”

He sighed slowly.

“And I’m so sorry.”

You paused at that. His steps halted alongside yours.

You turned to look at him, expression unreadable.

Your breath fogged in the air as you stopped with him, your arms tightening around yourself. For a long moment, you just looked at him, waiting. He shifted, hands deep in his pockets, his tie askew still from the long day, and for once George Weasley looked like he didn’t know what to do with himself.

It all swelled up too quickly for you to stop it.

“I was so hurt, George,” you blurted, voice low but sharp, as if saying it too loudly would make it unbearable. “You don’t even know—how much I missed you. How much I hated myself for missing you when you were… when you were acting like that.”

His mouth opened, but you pushed on, the words tumbling out, jagged and raw.

“I even thought about not going to the bloody ball,” you admitted. “I was this close to staying in bed because what was the point? You weren’t talking to me, you were looking straight through me, and I thought—fine. Let him. Let him see I don’t need him.”

The corner of your mouth twisted, half scoff, half wounded laugh. “But I did go. And I drank too much. And I was furious that you waited until then to say anything. You know me, George. You know I can’t stay angry at you when I’ve had too much, especially not you.”

You stopped, breath shuddering out of you, the confusion finally bleeding through. “And I hated it. I hated that I couldn’t even cling to being mad at you, because you smiled at me, or you said one kind word, and I folded. And then I was just… confused. And miserable all over again.”

“I was miserable,” you admitted, quieter now, the fire gone but leaving something raw behind. “And confused. Because I hated you for it. And still, all I wanted was to dance with you. Just you.”

The silence that followed seemed to ring louder than the chatter of the crowd trudging uphill. George stood there, frozen, his expression hollowed out in a way you hadn’t seen before. His eyes—tired, sunken from lack of sleep—finally lifted to meet yours, and for once, he didn’t try to hide in humor or tilt the truth with a grin.

He just looked at you, as if everything you’d said had landed squarely in his chest, and he didn’t know how to breathe around it.

The wind bit across the slope, carrying the laughter of the other students, the distant echo of Fred’s voice somewhere up ahead. But here, between the two of you, it felt unnervingly still.

George’s hand twitched at his side, like he wanted to reach for you but couldn’t trust himself to do it yet. His voice, when it finally came, was so low you almost missed it.

“I didn’t want you to fold,” he said, almost hoarse. “I wanted you to… to push me back. To tell me off. To make me work for it. But I was too much of a coward to give you the chance.”

“How could I, George?” you asked, your voice breaking slightly. “I couldn’t understand why. And I thought that maybe I just didn’t mean as much to you as you do to me. So when you apologized—”

You sniffed and looked away, you couldn’t face him right now. Not with your soul laid bare like this.

“I was going to take what I could not to lose you completely. I knew even then I deserved more. But I still took it.”

George’s jaw worked, like he was biting down on something sharp. His breath came out hard, pluming in the cold.

“I was a coward, alright? I was jealous and scared and angry. Because you do mean that much to me. You mean so much more than you could imagine. Watching you dance with him was torture.”

“So you thought it was better to ignore me?”

George’s head dropped. He dragged a hand over his face, rough and restless, then shoved it back into his pocket as though afraid of what it might do if left untethered. “I know it’s not fair—”

“No, it’s not,” you cut in, voice sharp now, heat blooming in your chest. “You don’t get to make me feel unwanted just because you were too bloody scared to admit you wanted me.”

You wrapped your coat around you tighter, as if it could shield you from all the anger and despair.

“I was stupid. I know I was—”

“You were more than stupid, George! You were cruel, mean, and plain out bad to me.”

“I know—”

“And I hate you for it—”

“I know—”

“But what I hate most of all is that I keep lying!”

He paused.

“I hate that I still want to be near you.”

George’s eyes flickered to yours, raw and sharp, as if the words had pulled him out of some deep fog he hadn’t realized he was in. The wind tugged at his coat, ruffling his hair, but neither of you moved, frozen in that quiet, sharp-edged space between anger and longing.

Then, without a word, he stepped closer. Your heart thudded in your chest, your arms tightening automatically around yourself—but his hand lifted, tentative, until it rested against the side of your face. His thumb brushed lightly along your cheekbone, tracing warmth through the chill.

You froze for a moment, tension coiling through you, then let your hands drift to his arms, gripping the fabric of his coat. It was a grounding motion, almost desperate, as if anchoring yourself to him so the world around you wouldn’t fall apart.

George’s other hand came up to cradle your jaw gently, his fingers tracing the line of your face as though memorizing it, as though holding onto something fragile and irreplaceable. His eyes searched yours, silent, pleading even, and for a second the argument, the hurt, the weeks of distance—they all hung suspended, unresolved but alive.

Then, slowly, deliberately, he leaned in. His forehead touched yours for a heartbeat, and you felt the smallest exhale escape him before his lips found yours. The kiss was slow, careful at first, almost testing the waters, giving you space to pull back if you wanted. But when you didn’t, when your hands tightened slightly on his arms, he deepened it, letting the warmth of him press against the cold bite of the night.

Your body relaxed into his hold, despite the flaring anger still simmering beneath your skin. The tension in your shoulders melted, the sharp edges of your frustration softening against the weight of the kiss. His lips moved with quiet assurance, and you tilted your head slightly, closing your eyes as the world narrowed to the press of him, the heat of his hands, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against yours.

When you finally pulled back, just enough to breathe, your forehead rested against his, and your breaths mingled, slow and ragged. George’s hands lingered on your face, thumb stroking your cheek, fingers pressing lightly into the nape of your neck.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” he murmured again, almost a whisper, but this time it was softer, unguarded.

He leaned in again and pressed another slow kiss to the corner of your mouth. “I’m sorry.”

Another by the hollow of your cheek. “I’m sorry.”

Another on the tip of your nose.

On your eyelid. Then on the other.

On the center of your forehead.

On your chin.

Again and again he repeated the words like a soft prayer. 

And you melted into him. The way you knew you could only do with him.

[luvendiary]

Do you plan on doing a part two for George on your fic, Paying Attention?

hi! sorry but i don't think so. i didn't plan it as a multi-part thing. so unless i get struck by inspiration or lightning, i don't think it'll happen :(

however, if you have an idea for a second part, feel free to submit it to my inbox !

[livelove-fangirl]

🥳

[luvendiary]

i just finished crying at the cinema after watching the superman movie. i come with a renewed sense of hope and humanity.

anyone who says this movie is just woke propaganda is evil and have nothing but hate in their hearts.

love and compassion and kindness are not woke. they are what make us humans.

[luvendiary]

PLS can you do a part 2 for five years later!!!

hello lovely! it's out now!! i hope you like it

[luvendiary]

five more days / h. haddock

hiccup haddock x reader

part 1 a/n: heres the long awaited part two! ngl i struggled with this one finishing it most of all. 4.3k words

The silence after your last words still lingered like ash in the air.

Valka—always knowing when to soften the world again—placed a gentle hand on Hiccup’s shoulder and said softly, “Come. It’s feeding time. They’ll be expecting us.”

He didn’t speak. Just nodded, jaw tight, and followed her through the winding tunnels. You didn’t move at first, not until your dragon nudged your side with a low rumble.

“I know,” you murmured.

You walked behind them, far enough to give them space, close enough that you could protect Valka if needed. You kept your gaze trained ahead—refusing to meet his, even as your heart pounded against your ribs.

The wind shifted as you stepped out of the caverns and into the sky.

Valka mounted Cloudjumper in one graceful motion, wings snapping open. Without waiting for any signal, she soared up, climbing high above the cliffside.

“Come along!” she called out behind her, the wind catching her words.

She whistled once, sharp and high, and immediately the dragons surged forward—but not chaotically. There was rhythm in their movement, an unspoken order. 

Hiccup glanced sideways at you, then toward Toothless, who waited patiently beside him. He mounted slowly, watching Valka ascend.

“Wait,” he said as he leaned forward and Toothless leapt into the air after her. “I thought we were going feeding?”

Valka twisted slightly in her saddle, turning her head with a smile. “Oh, but we are.”

Hiccup looked down. They were heading out over open ocean—far from the caverns, far from anything that resembled a feeding ground.

Before he could question it again, the sea below them began to stir.

A rumble. A deep, trembling groan beneath the water’s surface.

Then—a burst.

Foam and spray exploded outward as a monstrous shape breached the waves: the Bewilderbeast. Its sheer size cast a shadow across the sea. Ice crusted its shoulders, shimmering under the sunlight, and its cavernous mouth opened wide as it emerged from the depths.

And in its mouth—

Fish. Hundreds of them.

The Bewilderbeast paused, lifted its head high and launched them into the sky.

The dragons cried out in chorus and dove from the sky like comets, wings folded back, snapping their jaws open as fish rained down around them. Monstrous Nightmares spun midair, Stormcutters twisted through corkscrews, and baby Gronckles barrel-rolled with squeals of joy.

Hiccup let out a stunned breath. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Valka only laughed. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

Toothless glanced up at Hiccup, as if asking for permission, to which Hiccup replied with a wave of his hand. “Go ahead, bud.”

He didn’t waste a second after that. He dove straight down, Hiccup hollering as he held on to his saddle. You couldn’t help but laugh just a little —a chuckle perhaps— at the way his hair stood vertically on top of his head.

Once Toothless pulled up and joined the others in the sky, Hiccup steadied himself, falling into rhythm beside his mother.

He had so much to say. So many questions and much more answers than he had ever hoped for. He wanted to know everything about her life for the past twenty years.

He wanted to give her his undivided attention.

But he failed.

Because every time his eyes drifted toward you—he couldn't stop watching.

You were no longer the girl he'd shouted at moments ago. No longer sharp edges and biting words. In the air, you were something else entirely.

You laughed—actually laughed—as your dragon flipped beneath you and launched you higher. He saw the grin spread across your face, wide and unguarded, as you twisted midair and landed with a thud on the back of a passing Stormcutter. You leaned forward, steadying yourself with ease, and tossed a fish from your satchel to a group of smaller dragons circling below.

You were gliding across the backs of dragons like you'd been born to it. Barefoot, nimble, utterly fearless. Your movements were a dance—leaping from a Gronckle’s slow-flapping wings to the sleek curve of a Timberjack’s back. They made space for you. Lifted you. Carried you like wind does a leaf. When one wing dipped too far, Hiccup instinctively stepped forward—

Only to watch your dragon swoop in from beneath, timing it perfectly, catching your fall as if it had known before you did. You didn’t even flinch. You smiled, brushing your fingers along its spine as it soared beneath you, carrying you to the next perch.

Hiccup’s chest tightened.

It didn’t make sense. Not after everything. Not after the tears threatening to fall from your eyes only moments earlier. But somehow, up here, you weren’t weighed down by the past.

Something clicked inside him then. Like something had been covering his sight —something angry and heavy. But now, with the wind around him, and the unmistakable feeling of freedom; he saw you. 

Not the version of you he remembered. Not that fifteen-year old that had been frozen in his memory and the tragic fate that played out in his mind most nights. 

He got to see you now, as you were. 

As if you belonged in the sky in a way most people never would.

He wondered if he ever really knew you. If anyone in Berk had.

And as you circled higher, your dragon roaring joyfully beneath you, he felt something unfamiliar crack open in his chest.

Not guilt. Not sadness.

Awe.

You, laughing into the wind, were so far from the memory he’d held onto. And yet… still undeniably you.

And Hiccup realized he didn’t just miss you.

He’d never known what he lost to begin with.

You didn’t stay to watch them bond.

The moment the last fish had been caught, you quietly directed your dragon back toward the haven. No one noticed you leave. That was the point.

You didn’t need to see what came next. You knew.

Hiccup and Valka would spend the rest of the afternoon together, catching up on what they missed. She would show him all the things she had discovered: the jagged islands rising from the sea like old bones, the hidden nesting spots, the ice-frosted cliffs, the glowing caves carved out by time and tide. And he would show her something in return—his maps, his new tail-fin designs, his thoughts on dragon races and Berk’s changing tides.

They would laugh. They would cry. They would find each other again.

And you?

You would not be part of that.

Back at the haven, the dragons were calm, drowsy in the afternoon light. A few babies snoozed in warm patches of moss, curled around each other in soft bundles of wings and scales. Your dragon settled behind the wooden structure you'd helped Valka build months ago—a makeshift outdoor kitchen with stone slabs and smoothed logs for benches.

You moved wordlessly.

Laid out the fish you’d caught earlier. Built a fire. Roasted them slowly, methodically, the smell of char and smoke curling through the cavern air. When they were nearly done, you took the old clay pitcher and carried it to the nearest spring.

You liked the sound here.

The water was soft and constant, burbling over smooth stone. You knelt, dipping the pitcher into the clear pool, your reflection rippling out in ghostly rings.

You didn’t look at your face.

Instead, you focused on the way your hands moved—controlled, clean. The way the pitcher filled. The slight ache in your knees from crouching too long.

The silence you had chosen for yourself. Again.

You were setting the pitcher back on the wooden table—placing it carefully beside the roasted fish, now steaming and ready—when you heard it.

Laughter.

A kind, easy sort of laugh. One that tumbled out freely and without hesitation. Valka’s. Then Hiccup’s followed, slightly muffled by the tunnel entrance, but warm and familiar.

Your entire body tensed.

You didn’t turn right away. You couldn’t.

Instead, you carefully picked up a second wooden plate. Focused on arranging a few pieces of fish. As if that could shield you.

Their footsteps were light but unmistakable as they entered the space.

“I still can’t believe you mapped all of that,” Valka was saying. 

You blocked their voices out. Focusing on your movements and the clattering of the knives in your hand.

They laughed again.

You straightened slowly, spine stiff, plate in your hands.

You didn’t say a word.

Didn’t look at them.

But you knew they were both looking at you.

The warmth of their laughter didn’t quite reach the edges of the cavern now. It bumped up against the wall you’d built around yourself.

Valka was the first to speak. “You cooked.”

“I figured you’d be hungry,” you said simply, still not meeting their eyes. You set the cutting knife down. “The fish we caught earlier. Should still be warm.”

Your voice was even. Calm. But you couldn’t hide the way your shoulders had locked up. The tension in your jaw. The way your fingers lingered on the edge of the pitcher just a moment too long before pulling away.

Hiccup’s smile faltered slightly.

Valka, perceptive as ever, glanced between the two of you.

“I’ll go check on the Raincutters,” she said gently. “They’ve been sulking since lunch.” With a knowing pat on Hiccup’s shoulder, she turned and disappeared into the darker part of the cavern, her dragon slipping behind her like a silent shadow.

You nodded once and turned back to your task. Your dragon flicked its tail beside you, watching you closely. Protective. Always.

Hiccup stood.

And you knew he was coming toward you before he said a word.

“Need help?” he asked awkwardly, standing just beside your crouched figure, hands shoved into his belt like he didn’t quite know what to do with them.

You gave no answer.

“I used to be terrible at gutting fish,” he continued, trying for a chuckle. “Toothless actually got sick once because I forgot to—”

“I’m fine,” you said shortly.

He paused.

You didn’t offer anything else.

“…Right,” he muttered, but didn’t leave.

You could feel him still watching you. Shifting his weight from foot to foot. Looking for something—an opening, a scrap of familiarity. You didn’t give him one.

“So,” he tried again, kneeling beside the fire. Still on the opposite side, but close enough now that you could smell the forest still clinging to his clothes. “You… you’re really good with them. The dragons, I mean.”

Nothing.

“It’s like you don’t even think. Just move with them.”

“I do think,” you said flatly, not looking up. “Constantly.”

He winced, but recovered. “That’s not what I meant. I just—It’s impressive. I guess I never realized how... how much you must’ve changed.”

Your hands stopped for a moment, the fish half-prepared. You set the blade down carefully, wiped your hands on a cloth, and finally looked up at him.

The expression on your face was unreadable. But your voice was cold.

“You never realized a lot of things.”

He blinked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

You gave a dry laugh under your breath and turned back to your work. “Forget it.”

“No. I—” He leaned forward slightly, frustration starting to edge into his voice. “Look, I know you’re angry—”

“I’m not angry,” you said, too quickly. Then you shook your head and muttered, “I’m…”

You groaned. Not being able to pinpoint the exact feeling that was causing the evergrowing tightness in your chest. 

“You wouldn’t understand,” you snapped finally as you gripped the knife harder and seemed to cut the fish with renewed ferocity.

“Then help me understand,” he said after a brief silence-

Something in you told you to discard him. That he would never completely get you, or why you did what you did. That you would just be giving him more reasons to be angry at you. But there was something in his voice — something so undeniably soft and gentle —  that reminded you of the boy you had known. 

You didn’t say anything for a while and just let the sound of the dripping water in the cavern soothe both of your rising tempers. 

Then you set down the knife and sighed. You still didn’t dare to look at him.

“Do you remember the raid when we were thirteen?” you asked. “The one where a Nadder got caught in a net and fell on the beach near the docks?”

He hesitated, the softness of your voice catching him off-guard. “I… yeah. I think so.”

“I tried to free it,” you said. “It was terrified. Just a baby. Its wing was twisted and it couldn’t breathe through the ropes.” You clenched your fists. “I remember Astrid yelling at me. ‘Are you stupid?’ she said. ‘Do you want it to kill you?’ Then she grabbed the nearest spear and threw it straight into its neck. Right in front of me.”

Your breath hitched, but you pushed through it.

“And my father—” your voice cracked a little. “My father dragged me off the sand by my collar and told me if I ever hesitated like that again, I might as well feed myself to the dragons and be done with it.”

You looked at him then.

You could see the tension in the tightness of his mouth, how it was currently pressed into a thin line. And the way his eyebrows were lightly furrowed.

“I couldn’t sleep for three nights,” you continued softly. “I kept seeing its eyes. Kept hearing how it screamed. No matter how many times I tried to wash it, I could still feel the way the blood had splattered on my face. It wasn’t even trying to fight. It just wanted to fly. That was the first time I realized I wasn’t like the rest of you.”

He tried to call your name, but you didn’t let him. 

“I used to hope that maybe you understood,” you said. “That maybe you saw it too. But you never said anything. You never even looked.”

“I…” Hiccup’s voice was small now. “I didn’t know.”

You laughed bitterly. “Exactly.”

There was a long silence. Even the fire seemed to dim.

“I was too busy trying to prove myself back then,” he finally admitted. “To my dad, and to the village.”

You didn’t reply.

But something in your expression shifted.

“I should have,” he whispered. “I should’ve said something. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well…It doesn't matter now. Does it?”

Your dragon nudged your shoulder gently. You reached out and let it guide you back down to the fire, sitting again, this time slower.

“…You’re not the only one who changed,” Hiccup said quietly.

You didn’t answer.

The days that followed were… strange.

You didn’t speak to Hiccup much. Not unless you had to.

But that line—sharp and jagged as it was—had begun to soften.

You found yourself lingering a little longer at the table in the morning, not rising immediately when he entered the cavern. Sometimes you even sat beside him, sharing a plate in silence. A truce, if nothing else.

The routine you’d carved so carefully for yourself shifted around him without your permission. It started with small things—letting him follow when you made your rounds with the baby dragons, letting him watch as you sang low to calm the younger ones before the midday heat. Then there were the repairs on the shelter roof you let him help with. The way he’d pass you tools like he used to back in Gobber’s forge, silent, almost nostalgic.

At night, when he and Valka sat by the fire, sometimes you stayed close—perched up high on one of the rock shelves, half-listening as they spoke of Berk. 

It was strange. Hearing someone talk with so much love about a place you had associated with hate for the longest time. 

One morning, long after the others had risen, you found yourself playing with the hatchlings in a shaded corner of the sanctuary. The sun spilled in through the cracks above, casting fractured light across the mossy stone floor. A few baby Gronckles were tumbling over each other in a lazy pile, while a skittish Terrible Terror kept darting between your ankles. You laughed as one of the bolder ones tried to steal a fish from your satchel, swatting it gently on the nose.

“You’ve always been good with them,” came a voice behind you.

You turned. Valka stood at the edge of the alcove, arms folded, smiling softly. A cluster of baby dragons clung to the folds of her cloak.

You shrugged, trying not to read into the compliment. “They’re easier than people.”

There was something about Valka that would always make you admire her. She was like sunshine and a strong cup of mead combined. Her stern nature that gave way to her smiling and wonder-filled exterior was something you didn’t think you’d ever learn to master.

She was the light your life needed when you had been just a child. 

Valka stepped forward, crouching beside you as the hatchlings chirped curiously in her direction.

One of the Gronckles rolled into your lap with a huff, and you instinctively reached out to scratch behind its ear.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked after a brief moment of silence.

You turned your head to peer at her.

You had never been great at talking about this sort of thing. Your throat closed up and your chest ached. 

“I’m sorry if I’m making things difficult for you,” you said without looking at her. The baby Gronkle served as a life line of sorts. “He’s your son, and I’m happy for you. I just, don’t…” 

Valka hummed.

There was no malice in her tone, just that same peaceful nature that always seemed to follow her. She didn’t press. She never did. You wondered if she knew that if she waited long enough, the truth always came on its own.

You sighed, pressing your forehead briefly to the Gronckle’s warm side. “I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do with him.”

“With Hiccup?”

You gave a single nod. “It’s like I’m speaking to a ghost. A version of him that I didn’t know existed. And I can’t decide if it’s better or worse than the one I remember.”

Valka said nothing for a moment. She reached out, plucked a leaf from the shoulder of your cloak, and let it flutter to the ground.

“I understand how that feels,” she said gently. “When I saw him again after all those years… He is so much taller now. Sharper. Wiser in some ways, but still that baby I remember last.”

She smiled faintly, though there was something painful beneath it.

“And even after all this time, he still looks for me .”

You turned toward her, surprised. “You’re his mother.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “And I left him. Just like the village left you.”

That made your breath catch slightly. Valka’s eyes held yours with a steady softness—not pity, or guilt. Just truth.

“I understand what you went through,” she said. “I went through the same.” Her hands tightened around the hem of her sleeve. “I was afraid. Of Stoick. Of what my own silence meant.”

You looked down. The Gronckle stirred and let out a sleepy snort.

You didn’t respond right away. Your throat was dry.

Valka shifted to sit beside you on the mossy stone. The dragonlings crowded her immediately, crawling up her side as if they’d done so a hundred times before.

“I hated Berk,” she said, plainly. “For a long time. For turning me into a stranger. For deciding what was right and wrong without listening to reason. But my son—he’s not Berk. Not anymore. Not really the one we knew anyways.”

You sighed. Your head tilted back until it bumped the cavern wall. “I spent years trying to let it go. I built a life here. I thought I didn’t need them anymore. Didn’t need him.”

“And maybe you don’t,” Valka said, not unkindly. “But maybe… maybe you want to try. And that’s harder.”

You let your head fall to the side to look at her. Her expression was gentle, a little tired, and utterly sincere.

“I’m not asking you to forgive him,” she said. “Not yet. But if you could give him the chance to show you who he is now, then maybe you’ll find that he’s not the ghost you think he is.”

You let out a long, slow breath. The kind you’d been holding for years without realizing.

It wasn’t like her words made everything click into place. They didn’t fill in the gaps or wipe away the bitterness that had been festering between your ribs for years now. But they did make you feel something you hadn’t expected:

Willing.

“…I can try,” you said at last, the words dry on your tongue. “I’ll give him a chance.”

Valka smiled, a warm, knowing thing.

“That’s all I’d hoped for.”

You reached down, gently lifting the Terrible Terror from your foot. It chirped indignantly before settling into your lap with a grumble.

The next morning, something was different.

You didn’t rush out before anyone stirred. You didn’t hide yourself in the back caverns or take the long way to avoid him. Instead, you found yourself pausing by the central fire as the steam rose from the cooking pot, fingers tapping absently against the edge of a wooden bowl.

And when Hiccup appeared, hair still damp from an early wash and arms full of sketch scrolls, you didn’t look away.

You nodded once in quiet greeting.

He nodded back.

No fanfare. No awkward explanations. 

To you, it felt like spring. Something light and ready for something new.

It started with the morning flights.

You’d take to the skies at sunrise, as you always had. But now, Hiccup began to follow.

The first time, you’d heard Toothless’s quiet wingbeats falling into rhythm with your dragon’s, and you nearly veered off in annoyance. But he kept his distance. Watched, quietly. Matched your altitude, your silence, your pace.

By the third day, you started waiting for him.

Not overtly. Not obviously. But you circled the far cliffs a little slower. You landed near the southern lookout just long enough for him to catch up. Sometimes you flew in parallel, not speaking. Other times you pointed to something in the distance—a new rookery, a nesting ridge. 

You didn’t want to admit it at first — the way he was starting to grow on you. Like vines crawling up a stone wall. 

But the small smile you tried to suppress every time he joined you, said otherwise.

He showed you a map once.

Unrolled it carefully across a flat stone after a long morning of flying. It was messy, ink-streaked, dotted with hasty notes and fine sketches of islands in the shape of teeth, claws, wings. His messy handwriting curled in the margins: Steep cliffs—deadly gusts. New dragon call recorded? Possible hybrid?

You crouched beside him, studying the northern chain.

“I didn’t know anyone had found this far east,” you murmured, tracing a coastline with your finger.

“I hadn’t,” he said. “Not until about a month ago. Toothless found it really, he seemed intent on going there.”

You considered. “There might be a death song nesting nearby. They mimic calls sometimes.”

He looked at you for a second longer than you were used to, his eyes slightly too wide and his mouth with a light smile. As if the piece of information you had offered him was pure gold.

As if what you said mattered to him.

It startled you how much you missed that feeling.

At night, you stayed by the fire a little longer.

You’d settle across from each other with the flames crackling in between, dragons curled behind you like breathing stones. Sometimes he’d pass you one of his little tools to tinker with—a broken clasp, a half-finished hinge. You’d hand him a small pouch of dried herbs in return, the ones you used to soothe dragons with respiratory strain.

“Crush them first,” you’d say.

“Into powder?” he’d ask.

You nodded. “Just enough to line the inside of the nest.”

He listened. He always did.

And when he spoke—about Berk, about what it had become, about the impending weight of leadership and how some days flying was the only escape he had—you listened back.

Sometimes you replied. Sometimes you didn’t. But he seemed to appreciate the quiet either way.

One evening, he handed you something wrapped in a strip of cloth. A bone carving—simple, small, shaped like a dragon wing in flight. The detailing was rough around the edges, and the balance slightly off.

“I carved it back when I first started mapping,” he said. “Didn’t know what I was doing.”

You turned it over in your hand.

“It’s… not terrible,” you said.

His mouth quirked, half-smile, half-wince. “High praise.”

You set it down beside you, but didn’t return it.

Later that week, while cleaning out the hatchling pool, he slipped and nearly fell face-first into a puddle of moss and algae. The squawk he made was utterly ungraceful, and your laugh—sharp and genuine—broke out before you could stop it.

He blinked up at you, soaking wet and annoyed. “Glad to see you’re enjoying this.”

“I am,” you said, too amused to deny it.

Something in his face relaxed after that. Like he’d been holding his breath for days.

It wasn’t a grand change.

There were no confessions. No sudden closeness. But the walls between you weren’t as tall as they once were.

He still asked questions. You still didn’t always answer.

But sometimes you did.

And when your hands brushed while securing a new perch near the cliffside, neither of you flinched.

The past still lingered. It always would.

But it no longer owned every breath you took near him.

And as you sat beside the fire one evening, passing a knife back and forth as you stripped bark to make kindling, you realized something strange—

You didn’t dread tomorrow.

You might even look forward to it.