I meant to write this for yesterday (shabbat), but then it was shabbat, and it wouldn’t have been restful to be writing. I’ve thrown in a few mentions of stars to kind of address today’s prompt.
A Harry Potter fanfic (once it has a title, I’ll post it on Ao3, probably Sunday afternoon)
…
Hermione stepped into the common room with a heavy bag over her shoulder. She probably shouldn’t have been surprised when Harry got up from the couch, looking resigned, and met her at the base of the stairs.
“What are we studying tonight?” he asked tiredly.
“What? When have I ever asked you to study on a Friday night?” Hermione asked. She pulled her candlesticks out of her bag, arranging them on the stone windowsill she and Erin often shared.
“You’ve insisted we study with you every night this week,” Ron reminded her, stepping up behind Harry.
Hermione frowned in thought. The boys had never bothered her on Friday nights. They always seemed to have something else going on. Quidditch, maybe? Even though Ron wasn’t on the team, she knew he liked to watch the team practice.
And it was true that exams were only a month away, and she had been pressuring the boys to study, but –
“It’s Shabbat,” she explained simply. She pulled out two white candles and set them into the candlesticks. She peered out the window. It was dim out, but not quite dark enough to see the stars.
“What’s Shabbat?” Harry asked, his eyes lighting up with interest.
“It’s the day of rest,” Hermione explained. Erin Fawley, the fifth-year prefect, arrived with her candlesticks out, saw Hermione’s in the windowsill, and slid them back into her bag, offering Hermione a smile in greeting. Hermione smiled back. “You lot have been busy most Fridays so you might not have noticed, but I do this every week.”
Harry was still giving the candlesticks a slightly distant stare.
“Hello, Erin,” Hermione added, over his shoulder.
“Good evening Hermione,” Erin responded. “Potter, Weasley,” she nodded at them. “Shabbat shalom. Would you boys like to light candles with us?”
Ron shrugged. “It’s better than studying I guess. Can we play chess after?”
Erin smiled. “You can do anything you like, if you find it restful and it’s not against school rules.”
“Yeah, I’ll join,” Harry agreed, sounding as distant as his expression.
“Hermione, would you like to do the honors?” Erin asked, glancing out the window. Many stars were visible now.
Instead of answering, Hermione stepped up and quietly spoke the incantation for the bluebell flames the boys had been so impressed with last winter, lighting one candle and then the other with a practiced flourish.
Erin led them in the blessing, and Hermione, glancing at her friends from behind her fingers, was startled to notice Harry mouthing along, silently. Ron just looked curious.
“That… seemed familiar,” Harry admitted, when they were done. “I felt like I should know the words.”
“Really?” Ron asked. “They were gibberish to me.”
“Is your family Jewish?” Hermione asked, with genuine curiousity.
“I don’t… think so?” Harry answered. “Although, occasionally when my uncle takes my cousin out in the evenings, my aunt gets out candles.”
“Your aunt is your mum’s sister, right?” Hermione mused. “Maybe your mum was Jewish too.”
“You think so?” Harry asked, his eyes lighting up.
“It’s possible,” Hermione answered with a shrug, feeling a brief pang of guilt at the uncertainty. What if she was getting his hopes up unnecessarily? “I could teach you, some things,” she offered cheerfully, shoving down her nerves.
“I can write my uncle, the one who cares about all the pureblood nonsense,” Erin offered. “I can ask if the Potters followed any particular religious tradition. He would probably know.”
“You would do that?” Harry asked, lighting up even further.
“Of course,” Erin agreed easily. “It’s no trouble.”
“Thank you,” Harry gushed, so honestly eager that Hermione felt her heart twinge. What would she have done, if her parents were dead and she was only finding out now that they were Jewish? She would probably feel even more desperate to learn.
“The first thing you’ll want to know is the greeting for Shabbat,” Hermione decided, thrilled to share knowledge, as she often was. “You say ‘Shabbat shalom.’ It’s Hebrew for “peaceful Sabbath” – as in you’re wishing your friends a peaceful day of rest. It’s Shabbat right now. Shabbat shalom, Harry.”
“Shabbat… Shalom,” Harry repeated uncertainly. Hermione smiled encouragingly back at him. “Shabbat shalom, Hermione,” he said, more confidently.
“Perfect,” she praised him, leading him back to the couch, in perfect view of the candles, still burning merrily in the window. She sat down and patted the seat beside her, invitingly. “Okay. What else do you want to know?”
Hey hey, if someone who’s allosexual and aromantic (or someone a-spec who’s in a relationship that’s more sexual than romantic. But being aromantic is important) wants to pop into my inbox, I’d love to pick your brain about how your relationships flow so I can write an accurate representation in a fic.
For reference, I’m ace and demiro, but I’ve never been in a relationship in which I’m not feeling romantic attraction to my partner, so I want to make sure I’m writing accurately and I can’t do that from personal experience.
I’ll elaborate further on the relationship i intend to portray once we’re chatting.
Another installment in what is apparently becoming a series of “Hermione teaches people about Judaism”
“Braiding is just weaving, Rosie,” Hermione explained, patiently rolling out the first section of dough. “Remember the plastic loom you had so much fun with? Would you pour some more flour on the counter for me dear? Gently,” she cautioned, as Rose ignored her repeated advice, and dumped a large amount of flour onto the counter in one large fwump. Half of the flour immediately rose up in a cloud, coating Rose’s face and hair in a fine dusting. Under the flour, her dark curls became a lovely salt-and-pepper, momentarily making her the spitting image of her grandmother, mid-baking-spree. Hermione blinked, and her daughter’s flour-covered, freckled face came back into focus.
“Rose! That’s exactly why I said ‘gently’,” Hermione chided, though she couldn’t keep a fond smile from her face. She focused on the feeling of the sticky dough under her fingers as she worked more flour in, rather than the flour tickling her own nose. If she ignored the tickle long enough, maybe she wouldn’t sneeze.
Rose just giggled.
“I mean it, Rosie,” Hermione said, as sternly as she could manage. “When you start learning potions in a couple years, and your teacher tells you to treat something gently, you must. When we’re baking you might just make a mess, but some potions ingredients can really hurt you if you treat them wrong. I don’t want you to get hurt, that’s why I’m trying to teach you good habits now.“
“Yes, mum,” Rose agreed heavily, but her cheer bounced right back.
In the meantime, Hermione had finished working more flour into the dough, and rolling it out with a quiet efficiency, until the six long rolls of dough were firm enough not to melt in to each other. She squished the ends together, fanning out the rolls.
“I know you’re used to a braid with three strands, Rosie, but six isn’t hard. Watch.” She demonstrated, tucking the far right strand over one strand and under the next, until it landed in the middle. She grabbed the leftmost strand, to do the same.
“Wait! mum!” Rose protested. “Shouldn’t it go all the way across?“
"That’s the only difference from weaving,” Hermione agreed, tucking the leftmost strand under, over, under, until it too rested in the middle of the table. She shuffled the other strands to fan out further so it would have room. “When you’re braiding, things meet in the middle. But watch, once we’ve gone a little bit further -” she deftly braided the loaf a few strands further - “see how that strand is still woven all the way across?” she followed the first strand with her finger, hovering over the dough, showing how it was neatly woven, over-under, all the way to the other end, where she now held it in her left hand, ready to be braided in, the other direction. “If we had woven it all the way across on the first go, we would miss out on this symnetric part,” she explained, indicating the left side of the loaf, above that.
Rose nodded eagerly, her eyes gleaming with the joy of learning something and seeing the aesthetics within it. Hermione saw so much of herself in her daughter some days. She wondered when she had stopped finding awe in the simple ritual of baking bread every week.
Probably when you went to Hogwarts and decided magic was even cooler, she scolded herself, before pushing the thought aside. She was just glad her daughter appreciated this as much as Hermione had in her own youth.
“Here, you try,” Hermione suggested, clapping her hands so that most of the flour from them fell back onto the counter. She stepped aside, and pulled Rose’s tall stool closer with her foot, until Rose was centered in front of the half-braided loaf.
Rose promptly scrambled up from her seated position to kneel on the seat instead, so she had a better angle. “Like this?” she asked, pulling a little too hard on the current rightmost strand, before weaving it, over, under, into the middle.
Hermione watched the dough stretch and thin without comment. “Good job,” she encouraged. Rose was such a perfectionist, she had certainly noticed her own poor technique. She would learn over time how to do it better. “And the other side?“
"Like this?” Rose asked, taking the leftmost strand over, under, until it was next to the previous strand. She frowned at it. Hermione waited patiently. “That can’t be right,” Rose observed. “These both need to go ‘over’ next.“
"Mmhmm,” Hermione agreed, waiting for Rose to puzzle it out.
It didn’t take long before Rose was gently undoing her work, starting over from the edge to weave it under, over, under, so it nestled properly with the previous strand. “Like that,” she decided proudly.
“That’s right,” Hermione agreed. “Let’s see you keep going.” She took the opportunity to wash the flour and dough bits off her hands, keeping an eye on Rose as she worked with increasing confidence.
Hermione pulled her wand from its holster and activated the oven. She debated vanishing the flour from the floor, but decided against it. It wouldn’t hurt Rose to sweep it up and learn that her actions had consequences. Plus, she could always vanish anything the broom didn’t pick up, after Rose was done.
She stepped up, when Rose was frowning at the end of the loaf, visibly puzzling out how to finish the braid without a hair tie.
“Egg will glue it together,” Hermione pointed out, uncovering the beaten egg yolk they had prepared earlier, and brushing it onto the strands. She twisted the ends together and tucked them under the loaf, then levitated the shaped loaf gently onto the pan. “Help me cover the whole thing with egg,” Hermione instructed, handing Rose the basting brush. Rose took to her new task with abandon and Hermione wielded her wand to cover the other end of the loaf with egg.
When they were done, Hermione slipped the pan gently into the oven and set an alarm for an hour or if something went wrong. “C’mon Rosie,” she instructed. “Now we just wait for it to bake. Let’s go see if Daddy fell asleep for Hugo’s naptime.”
well I never heard back that #jewishjanuary must be fandom content
I tried to come up with headcanons for jewish characters based on the word strength
but my brain instead fixated on the idea of “jewish” and “strength” together and I wrote a Thing about some important women in my life
(may or may not be poetry. What the hell is a title. Below the cut because it’s long)
there are people I admire
the women around me
my mother
my grandmother
this coworker
.
where does their strength come from?
their persistence in the face of injustice
their commitment to tzedakah
in deed if not in word?
.
I cannot help but compare myself
why am I so lacking?
.
look at this one
working nearly fifty years as an engineer
starting when women were often pressured out of engineering
listen to her telling our creepy coworker that his uncomfortable jokes aren't funny
watch me slip away silently, determined not to give him any more of my free time
watch me eat lunch with most of the team the next day
he is there, as usual
she is not
as usual
listen to her telling everyone "happy new year" in September
despite how none of us respond
not even me
.
when does she eat lunch?
is she lonely?
I wish I could join her
ask about her experiences
as a woman in engineering
as a jewish woman in engineering
as a jewish woman at all
in another life, perhaps I would have been
any of those things
perhaps all of them
before I find a chance to ask
even about lunch
my internship is over
I will never see her again
.
watch me now
biting my tongue the eighth time I am cut off in a meeting in which I am one of two experts
biting my tongue again later that day
when I am praised for learning not to speak over people
"I saw you holding back today"
i had not yet been told it was a problem
they believe I am a woman
I do not correct them
she would not have let them trample her like this
.
listen to that one
repeating over and over
to a cashier we will never see again
the correct pronouns for my wife
usually my wife and I just move on as quickly as possible
in case this is the one ignorant transphobe
that turns out to actually be a murderous transphobe
but there is strength in numbers
he finally calls her ma'am
and we finally leave
my wife admits she appreciated having someone to fight for her
I cannot even fight for my own pronouns
even among friends
when it is just the two of us we resume never correcting anyone
leaving instead of telling them they were wrong
.
And look at the other
kindly but firmly informing someone they got our order wrong
watch me scrape mustard off my burger rather than initiate confrontation
listen to me insist it's okay
it is
really
I’m eating it, see?
.
what makes them similar?
is it that they are all women?
I was raised to be a woman
am I just weak?
or was I taught that women could be strong in this way
and it didn't stick because I am not a woman?
.
perhaps it is generational
perhaps the similarities are coincidence
and my grandmother taught my mother her strength
and my mother tried to teach me
and I have failed to learn
why am I so weak?
.
is it that they are all Jewish?
except
one is not
anymore
but she was raised jewish and I was not
i would like to be jewish
my aunt says I already am
my grandmother says I can be
(christian) society says that religion is defined by belief
I'm not sure I believe in anything
.
perhaps their strength has something to do with being raised jewish
I was not
learning young that you will not be heard unless you shout over the only voice society wants to hear
that your voice has value to others like you
I was raised christian
through no fault of my own
.
I learned to trample others' boundaries
in the name of religion
in the name of helping the very people I was disrespecting
I learned the hard way that my opinions were not welcome
that presenting them so forcefully was rude
I grew out of christianity
I did not grow out of keeping everything to myself
to be polite
I try to never be rude
.
But look now at my rabbi
listen to her introduce herself with her pronouns
every time she stands on the bima to talk
to teach
listen to her call me 'they' without hesitation
hear her offer me an adult b'nei mitzvah
before I am confident enough to ask
watch her navigate conflict with a confident diplomacy
not as a scolding teacher (a call from the principal)
but as a partner in finding peace
the way I aim to do the same
I say I prefer to avoid conflict
but perhaps there is strength in seeking peace
.
my rabbi says I may honestly consider myself jewish
given my ancestry
given my effort to reconnect with my family's traditions
but I also may honestly consider myself not jewish
if I find that to be more true
that I know myself best
and that if I am not trying to lie
about whether or not I am Jewish
then I am not lying
no matter what I say
I can't decide which is more true to me
my participation in jewish community now?
or the lack of formal learning and ceremony
.
my grandmother never had a bat mitzvah either
in her generation
girls didn't get the ceremony
.
Look at all these women around me
these admirable Jewish women
each with their own strengths
I have so many role models to choose from
.
one thing is certain
I aim to be like them:
a Strong
Jewish
...Non-man
Most of this @badthingshappenbingo card inspires whumpy happenings, but this fic turned kinda shippy instead.
Content: Anxiety/facing fears, summer shenanigans when they’re all young and innocent, preslash Fremione
unbetaed and barely edited
read it on AO3
High Stakes and Higher Flying
“C'mon, Hermione, we need a sixth,” Ron pleaded. “Three on two isn't as fun.”
“Ron, no. You know I'd much rather watch,” Hermione insisted. She tried to step away, to sit down with her book and read, and keep her feet firmly on the ground.
“Please? you can play Keeper," he offered. “That way you won’t always be in the middle of the action.”
“I’d really rather not,” she insisted. Harry shifted his broom from one shoulder to the other, clearly impatient to be in the air, but also unwilling to leave her behind until everyone agreed that she was staying on the ground.
Ron was still on the ground, half mounted on his broom while holding a second out to her, but the other Weasleys had none of Harry’s hesitations. Ginny was far above everyone’s heads, testing how high she could climb around the edges of the clearing before Mrs. Weasley scolded her, and then diving, so steeply that just watching made Hermione's stomach clench, before climbing again, testing the limits. Although they were flying lower, Fred and George appeared to be trying to tackle each other off their brooms. Neither activity made joining in seem more appealing.
“C’mon, it’ll be fun.”
George’s whoop of laughter interrupted their argument as he made a muddy crash landing. He popped up hardly a moment later, still laughing, before even his mother could worry about him being hurt. Meanwhile, Fred swooped down beside the cluster of almost-fourth-years, grinning triumphantly. “Ronnikins, I think it’s a lost cause,” he said, shaking his head with mock solemnity. “Hermione is scared of flying, but she’s not scared of crashing, she’s scared she won’t be the best.”
“That’s not true!” she protested, trying to quell the guilty flinch at his words. Yes, she was scared of flying and yes, she knew she wasn’t the best at it, but causation went the other way …right?
“Prove it,” Fred demanded, with a wicked glint in his eye.
“I…” Hermione hesitated. She wasn’t exactly one to back down from a challenge, but that mischievous expression made her certain that pranks would be involved, and she was barely willing to fly on a broom already.
“How about this.” Fred paused, and with a quick twist of his wrist, he was hovering ten feet higher, so Ron took the brunt of George’s revenge mud-attack.
Ron dropped both brooms in favor of tackling George back into the mud.
“I bet you,” Fred said from her other side, suddenly flipping over to hang upside down from his broom, holding on with only his knees, and easing his broom downward until his face was even with hers, “that I can ride my broom, upside down, like this, for longer than you can stay in the air riding normally.”
Well, if the prankster grin was going to interfere with Fred’s flying and not her own… “Fine,” she snapped. “What are the stakes?” There was no way he could keep his balance like that for more than a few minutes, especially if he started moving around. She could last on a broom for a few minutes.
Fred’s grin got even wider, though it was hard to tell exactly which grin that was – challenging? pleased? anticipatory? – with his face upside down and turning red. “When I win, you have to let me take you for a ride on my broom.”
“And when I win, everyone has to leave me alone to read when I want to, at least until we leave for the Quidditch World Cup,” she demanded, heart pounding already at the challenge and at the prospect of flying even as high as Fred was.
“Now come on, that’s not fair,” Fred chided. “You’re making a bet with me, you have to demand something from me, not from everyone else.”
Hermione scowled. “I want you…” what did she want? “When I win, you have to warn me before you cause any explosions, in your room or otherwise, for the rest of the summer.” The irregular, loud noises were at least as disruptive to her studying as her friends’ desires to hang out were, and the explosions didn’t have three years worth of fondness built up to encourage her to forgive them.
Fred didn’t even hesitate. “Done,” he agreed, offering his hand, and they managed an awkward handshake that would have worked much better had he been right side up. She was briefly concerned at how fast he agreed, despite how following through might force him to stop experimenting altogether, because she doubted the explosions were planned, but now they had shaken on it. It was too late to back down.
Harry helpfully picked up the broom that Ron had been trying to force into her arms. Hermione procrastinated by finding a safe, dry place to set her copy of The Magic of Theatre: What Muggles Don’t Know About the Bard, but all too quickly, she had no excuses. She accepted the broom from Harry, and swung a leg over it.
Harry mounted his own broom and kicked off confidently, as Hermione rose, wobbly, a foot and a half into the air. She didn’t have to look at her knuckles to know they were turning white, where she had the handle in a death grip, but also she was very deliberately not looking at her knuckles, since that would mean looking down past them at how far away the ground must be.
Harry stayed near her momentarily, but once she was high enough that couldn’t even imagine that she was close enough to the ground that she could stretch her toes and reach it, Harry pulled away and climbed rapidly, quickly getting drawn in to some sort of game of catch-the-apples with Ginny.
Fred, unfairly, kept pace with her, meaning his knees were a few feet above her head, and his face stayed level with hers.
Hermione kept an eye on the trees to judge her altitude, and she stopped rising when she was about even with the lowest apples on the biggest tree.
She came to an unsteady hover, and met Fred’s eyes with her best attempt at a challenging smirk, though it felt similarly unsteady.
Fred smirked right back, and leaned slightly, with the effect that he began circling her. He looked perfectly at ease despite how very red his face was from being upside down so long. Hermione tried to pivot, to continue looking at him, just in case he intended to prank her when her back was turned, but as she tried to turn, her broom jolted downward, sending her heart into her throat.
Ignoring how her hands were now noticeably trembling, and the whole broom with them, Hermione forced her broom back to its previous altitude. She tried to look over her shoulder at Fred, since turning wasn’t working, but that had the effect of her broom shooting upwards faster than she meant, not that she intended to move at all.
She managed to get her broom to stay level again, but she was starting to forget why she was in the air at all. Her vision narrowed in on her hands on her broom, and the ground much too far below. Even the trees around the edges of the clearing seemed to fade into the distance. She was up here to spite someone, but surely she didn’t need to be quite this high. She eased her broom into descending, a little faster than she meant, but feeling nearly in control, and crossed paths with Fred who was still upside down, and climbing at a much more controlled pace.
She couldn’t focus on the look on his face, though he quickly reversed course to follow her down. Why was the ground still so far away?
Except, suddenly, it wasn’t.
She tried to pull her broom level, but she was a tad late, and her feet bounced jarringly off the ground as she leveled out.
But from there it was relatively easy to put her feet down deliberately, if a bit more firmly than necessary. She swung her leg off the broom and found, when she tried to step away, that her knees were shaking too badly to hold her. She collapsed in an undignified heap, but quickly rolled herself upright, scooting backwards out of the clearing to be less in the way. Her back ran into a tree, and she wrapped her arms around her knees. She found herself taking quick, panting breaths, trying to get enough oxygen.
Still, solid ground under her butt was as reassuring as it would have been under her feet, if not more so.
As the adrenaline rush faded, and her head cleared, though her heart was still pounding, she remembered exactly why she had been in the air, and groaned, as Fred came to a perfectly controlled hover in front of her, at a more-than-respectful distance as though she were going to lash out like Crookshanks did when he was cornered.
Fred flipped himself back upright onto his broom almost effortlessly, before landing gently, beaming. “I do believe this means I’ve won the bet,” he said, as though she hadn’t already figured that out. He approached her slowly, watching with just a hint of concern in his eyes as she used the tree to pull herself upright. She had to lean heavily upon it because her knees still wouldn’t quite support her. One of her ankles was sore from her rough landing, but it didn’t feel sprained at least.
“Fair is fair, Hermione,” he said gently, in an encouraging and respectful tone completely at odds with his usual irreverence. “Can I take you for a ride now?”
Hermione got the surprising impression that if she said no, Fred wouldn’t force the issue. But even If she didn’t expect that saying no now would invite more pranks later, she was a Gryffindor, and they had made a bet. On her honor, she would follow through.
She couldn’t quite meet his eyes, but she looked determinedly at his freckled nose as she forced herself to nod.
Fred kept one hand on his broom, shuffling backwards and gesturing grandly with his other hand, clearly inviting her to mount in front of him. She left her own borrowed broom on the ground, next to the tree and stepped forward. As soon as her hand was no longer on the tree she was using for support, her knees were shaking badly again, but she could at least walk the four steps to Fred and his broom, and she didn’t collapse again.
She reluctantly mounted his broom, and he wrapped his arms tightly around her, to grip the handle in front of them both.
“Trust me, Hermione?” he murmured into her ear, and she nodded, not quite able to speak. She grabbed the handle in another white-knuckled grip, just below his hands, before he could remind her to hold on.
He kicked off, gently, and they rose more slowly than either of them had during their bet. Hermione found her eyes drifting closed, trying to avoid realizing how far off the ground she was, but that turned out to be a bad decision, and the potential for being terrifyingly high had her eyes snapping open again. They weren’t; they were still well below the plane of Harry and Ginny (and Ron and George now too) playing whatever improvised game that involved throwing apples at each other. Some of the apples were rotten and exploded like water balloons when someone tried to catch them, which was inevitably followed with shouts and good-natured complaining.
She smiled fondly up at her friends. When the broom didn’t feel like a wild animal trying to throw her off, Hermione realized she didn’t hate flying quite as much. She still didn’t love it, but the usual panic, the need to be back on solid ground, wasn’t materializing this time.
Hermione leaned back into Fred’s firm chest, and suddenly realized how intimate a position this was. He was wrapped solidly around her, a pleasant warmth at her back, and she felt her face heating too. She was abruptly glad that her dark skin wouldn’t reveal a blush very easily.
Fred gave her an odd, hug-like squeeze with his shoulder, without affecting his grip on the broom. He must have felt her losing tension, because his mouth was at her ear again, breath tickling as he asked, “are you okay if we try something a little more exciting?”
She hesitated, then leaned back so they were cheek to cheek and hopefully he would hear her answer. “A little,” she conceded.
She felt, more than saw, his grin, as he adjusted his grip to comply. Fortunately, “a little more exciting” turned out to be them doing slow laps around the clearing, still gaining altitude at a snail’s pace, rather than going straight up at a similar speed.
Hermione felt herself relaxing further at the proof that Fred was completely in control, and he wouldn’t let her fall.
When they got high enough to join the others, Ron’s face did something odd when he spotted them, and George immediately started flying towards them, wearing his own mischievous smirk, but whatever look was on Fred’s face must have warned them both off. Ron scowled and turned away, and George, without hesitation, reversed course and dove after Harry who was chasing a trio of apples that Ginny had lobbed the opposite direction from the group.
Fred warned her before every new maneuver (including “can we startle Harry by rushing through his blind spot? I promise we won’t be close enough to touch”) and by the time Hermione’s feet touched the ground again, so gently she almost didn’t notice the transition, she was startled to realize she had actually enjoyed herself, and although her hands were stiff from holding so tightly to the broom handle, her knees weren’t shaking at all. She felt a goofy, breathless smile on her face that wouldn’t go away.
Fred trailed after her, broom slung casually over his shoulder, as she collected the broom she had borrowed earlier, and then her book.
“It wasn’t that bad, was it?” he prodded, though his proud grin made it clear he had spotted her own.
Hermione rolled possible answers around in her mind, before settling on, “I suppose, riding with you isn’t too bad.” Her cheeks were warm again, and she still couldn’t quench that smile, not even to express her discomfort at the prospect of flying in general.
Fred’s smile turned blinding. “Well, I guess I’ll have to take you flying again some time.”
He led her to the broom shed, to put her broom away. “Do I have to worry about you going flying with anyone else?” he asked, as she set her broom gently in the designated corner.
She turned around, and found herself practically in his arms. She took half a step to close the gap and wrapped her arms around him as she’d been wanting to do for most of the afternoon. He returned the hug, and pressed a tentative kiss to her forehead.
She squeezed him tighter, approvingly, since her own beaming smile was hidden in his chest. “No,” she promised. “Just with you.”
by a lake, predawn, bloodcurdling (for the candy prompt)
Fog curled over the lake as she made her way around it, footsteps carefully silent in the sand and grass, avoiding the muddy patches.
Her eyes fixed on her destination, a simple canvas tent, a short ways up from the bank at the edge of the trees, and inhabited by campers. Stupid campers. Perhaps they were new to the area and thought the stories of the haunted lake were exaggerated to scare children, or perhaps they put down the rumored disappearances of previous campers to bears. This pair had strung a dark plastic bag full of human foodstuffs responsibly over a branch, a safe distance away from their tent.
Unfortunately for them, even the bears avoided the area in favor of the fiercer predator.
the eastern horizon was starting to be a lighter gray, threatening dawn. she quickened her pace, her inner eyelids instinctively snapping shut against the very idea of sunlight. Counter to the legends, sunlight wouldn't kill her, nor would it burn her worse than it would any pale-skinned human. The sun was just painfully, impossibly bright to eyes adapted for the night.
Withone set of eyelids closed she could see what humans now were calling infrared - the shape of heat. It was sufficient to avoid fire or to find prey, but not to avoid inanimate obstacles like their tent.
Speaking of which, inside that tent, one of the humans was stirring, meaning they'd probably be out soon to stoke the coals, brightly warm and buried carefully in their own ashes, back into a proper fire. Despite the threat of fire, she smiled at the prospect. It always was more fun to catch humans alone.
decades ago, when names were relevant and her soul siblings still hunted beside her, they had often competed for who could make their target scream the loudest. Describing their screams as "blood curdling" to fellow victims was fortunately only metaphorical - it didn't ruin the taste at all - but those reserved for the second course would always fight more fiercely, after such a fright, and tonight she wasn't in the mood for wrestling. She had a different tactic in mind.
She forced her eyes fully open again, promising herself she would finish quickly, so the sun wouldn't give her a migraine. She edged into the trees, still on silent feet, and watched for the human to emerge, focusing on relaxing her fangs so they wouldn't look alarming.
Finally, a young woman, who only looked a little older than the vampire herself, emerged from the tent, and, as predicted, started using a long stick to uncover the coals, pulling a handful of twigs from her pocket.
Hidden in the trees, the vampire relaxed. It took so much effort and attention to flirt to take the men off guard, but women were easy. At least, they were easy for someone who looked like a woman to disarm. And she still looked every bit like the young woman she had once been.
She laid down briefly, silently matting dirt into her hair and smearing it into her clothing. The dirt would wash out later. Then she stood up. Fangs in. Eyes wide. She stepped on a branch, pressing until it snapped, and her target's head shot up, scanning the trees for movement, but she wasn't moving. She made her way through the woods at a bit of a rush, no longer silent. She was perfectly in control, making only as much noise as a human trying to be silent usually did. (So many had fled from her over the years; she knew exactly how she sounded.)
She spilled out of the woods and into their campsite, breathing audibly though she didn't need to breathe at all.
The young woman met her eyes warily, brandishing the stick she'd been poking the fire with. (Fangs in!) They held each other's stare for a long moment, each assessing the other as a threat (the woman was slowly relaxing her grip on the stick, and although the tip was smoking, it wasn't actually on fire.)
They both broke the silence at the same time.
"Who are you," the woman asked, concern clearly winning out over her initial fright.
"Can you help me?" the vampire asked simultaneously, in a tremulous whisper (softly. no need to wake the other yet. The sky was brighter every moment and the sun would be up soon, but there was still no need to rush. She was exactly where she wanted to be.) The compassion blooming on the woman's face told her this was going to go off without a hitch. "There's a predator in these woods.“
This vignette has actually been sitting around for ages, and I was trying to write more of a follow up showing the effects of sleep deprivation more than the insomnia itself, but with such a broad cast as the Weasley family, when I usually focus on 2-4 characters and not 7+, I’ve been stalled on finishing later scenes. And this stands alone pretty well, so I decided I’d post it now. If I ever finish the later scenes, I’ll add them to the version on AO3, but not to this post
content: Ginny Weasley, and the aftermath of her first year. Depiction of PTSD
My wife no longer has a tumblr, so I can’t tag her in thanks for beta reading
read it on AO3
To Flee From Morpheus
Ginny jolted from asleep to alert almost instantaneously. She scrambled upright, frantically trying to get her bearings. It was dark. Home. She was in bed at home. As her breathing settled and her heart slowed, she could hear Percy snoring through one wall, and the gentle creaking of the house. She’d only been asleep.
She muffled a groan — if Mum realized she was awake again, she would force Dreamless Sleep down her throat which would make everything so much worse; Ginny hadn't been able to explain that nightmares weren't the problem (she might even prefer them) — and glanced at the clock beside her bed. It was 4:03 in the morning. It had been almost three hours since her eyes had finally drifted shut staring at it. That might be a record for this summer.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to sleep, necessarily. It was just, realizing that she wasn’t aware of what had happened, or what she’d been doing for the past few hours, was a horribly familiar sensation, and she couldn’t shake the instinct to check herself for blood.
She checked. She was clean. She was in soft, clean pajamas, soiled with nothing worse than the cold sweat she had woken in. She hadn’t been wandering about in her sleep, and all of her time was accounted for before bed. There was no hint of Tom.
Still, she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep again tonight.
(my apologies if this posts twice. luckily I drafted this in another program because tumblr ate my first attempt to answer)
original work; no applicable content warnings. My apologies for length on your dash - the readmore only works to shorten reblogs, not the original (thanks tumblr)
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Press Pause
“What am I going to do with you, little goblin?” Julian asked fondly, rolling his eyes at Zachary. In the time it had taken Julian to take the last plastic tote out to his car and come back to check that it was really the last, the cat had rolled into the middle of the doorway to be underfoot, again. Julian had been trying not to trip over him all day. Zachary, meanwhile, didn’t care, luxuriating in the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the sturdy plastic storm door.
Julian opened the door as narrowly as possible and squeezed his way inside, keeping a close eye on Zach in case he decided to bolt, and also to avoid stepping on him. Julian managed to close the door firmly behind him, mid-stride, without stepping on the cat. It was a reading success; he should be an acrobat.
On the other hand, he had a job already. (…almost. He started next Monday.)
A quick check around the entryway, the coat closet, and finally the kitchen, confirmed that Julian hadn’t forgotten anything. He’d checked his room again this morning before packing up his car, so he didn’t bother running up the stairs. instead, he came back to the entryway, squatting down next to Zach. Julian ran his fingers through the dark brown stripes on Zach’s side, from shoulder to hip, slowly, almost meditatively.
“I’m going to miss you, Zach,” Julian said, even though he knew the cat couldn’t understand him. “What am I going to do without my sneakthief?“
One of Zach’s ears twitched, but as Julian wasn’t currently holding a sandwich that Zach could pull the roast beef from - nor was he holding any other food -Zach didn’t react further to the nickname.
“I’d take you with me,” Julian continued, “but we both know Mom would just come steal you back.“
Zach didn’t respond, of course, but Julian glanced down at him anyway, pausing as though to listen. The tip of Zach’s tail was twitching, indicating his waning patience with being pet, though he was still vibrating with soft rumbling purrs. Julian switched to scratching Zach’s shoulder, then under his orange collar, then behind his ears, letting the silence stretch on.
Julian had hugged his parents goodbye before they’d each left for work in the morning, and the empty house now felt detached from the timeline. It should have been momentous - he was finally moving out. And not just moving out to college dorms in the city half an hour away, but to his own apartment, to be a real adult, with a real job. It deserved some ceremony, something loud or grand. Instead it was quiet, serene.
Julian looked around, at Zach who had rolled onto his back and was stretching, the white fur on his belly a tempting target for petting if Julian was willing to risk getting clawed when Zach decided that it had actually been an invitation to wrestle; at the dust motes, swirling lazily in the sunlight streaming in from the open door in front of him and from the window right beside it; at the faint scratches on the floor and the way Zach’s fur clung to his hands and his jeans. Around the corner, he could hear the dishwasher softly gurgling in the kitchen, and he knew if he moved two steps to the side, he knew he would smell the lingering scent of his mom’s favorite vanilla chai mixed with the too-sharp tang of lemon scented dish soap The stairs were just behind him, and his imagination carried him up the stairs and down the hall into the previous mild clutter of his bedroom, rather than its current state, stripped of books and posters and clothing and personality and ready to be converted into an office. It felt like nothing had changed.
Everything was changing.
Julian closed his eyes, trying to stamp this idealized snapshot of his early adult life into his memory, permanently.
How had Andrea managed to tear herself away from this place when she moved out, just under two years prior?
Julian dragged Zach gently aside, fur sliding easily along the hardwood floor until Zach was out of the path of the real door. Julian tried to ignore the quietly betrayed mew Zach let out in protest, but he still felt a twinge of guilt. Maybe Zach did understand that Julian was moving out. He wasn’t usually this patient. Julian was surprised, but glad, that he hadn’t yet gotten tired of the attention and wandered off.
“I’ll visit,” Julian promised, forcing himself to stand up. “A four hour drive isn’t so bad. It won’t be every weekend anymore, but I’ll visit.“
He sighed. He really had to get moving if he wanted to get to his apartment and move things in before dark.
The moment still didn’t feel real, even as he locked the house behind him (Zach finally popped up from his sprawl as Julian closed the door, meowing indignantly about his sunlight being taken away), and settled into the driver’s seat of his car, adjusting his mirrors unnecessary to procrastinate. It wouldn’t feel real until he hit the interstate, or at least it hadn’t in his college days. This was bigger. maybe it would take longer to sink in.
He fired up the car, cranking up the air conditioning against the summer sun.
With one final sigh, Julian texted his dad ’house locked up. driving. call if you need me’ and then his sister ’was it this surreal when you moved out?’ and then dropped his phone into the cup holder, and turned up the radio, breaking the moment with the wail of a guitar solo.
He wasn’t leaving home, he was driving home. Suddenly, he was excited again. He pulled off the driveway with a rapid pair of thumps as his wheels crossed the seam between cement and asphalt.
As he turned out of the subdivision, Julian couldn’t fight his smile even if he wanted to. The open road stretched before him, as did all of his adult life.
