Work Text:
i. falling
She’s getting used to this, now. Ted gets a look in his eyes; she knows exactly what he’s thinking, and then they fall into each other like there’s no tomorrow. Perhaps there is no tomorrow, and perhaps that’s why it feels so good. It doesn’t matter that the cottage is a little dirty and dusty no matter how many charms they perform, or that the dining room table has already broken when they’ve only been there five minutes.
It takes her a while, of course, because something like this means feeling and she’s spent the past few years trying so hard to Not Feel A Thing. Ignorance has never been bliss for Andromeda. And it’s times like these when she really doesn’t want to think about her sisters or her parents and cousins and aunts and uncles and the whole goddamn family, so she doesn’t think about them. She can’t almost see Bella’s dark eyes watching her all exposed and vulnerable and muddy, and she can’t almost hear the delicate sniff of Narcissa.
Ted is there to bring her back even though she never left, never left, did she? He knows, now. Knows the distant breath, the way she tilts her head away from him, towards her ghosts. It’s easy.
His tongue moves against her neck and down until they’re both gasping for breath. He feels so hot under hands, and she likes the way he’s a bit too heavy, a bit too ready.
She smiles as that word slips from his mouth, teeth pressed into his bottom lip, the assonant hiss of an ‘f’. It’s a glorious sound, a luxurious sound that in the day seems cold and hard and unfeeling but now, in the dead of night, it’s beautiful because she has done this to him. She’s not worthless scum to him; she’s not a traitor to family or a blackened hole on a tapestry.
She is just a girl with a boy, and nothing else really matters at this moment except the searing heat in her bones, on her skin, and at her heart.
ii. blush
He starts a rebellion and falls for the girl and it’s all so Harry Potter and nothing like Neville Longbottom that sometimes he just has to laugh. Harry was right. It’s never as impressive as it sounds. He only chops the head off a snake but suddenly everyone is all ‘Neville this!’ and ‘Neville that!’ and he just wants them all to shut up and leave him alone. Hannah doesn’t mention it at all, and that’s why he wants to talk to her and be silent with her and make love to her.
The first time, his hands are shaking so hard, she suggests they have another drink. His blush is so hot and fast that he doesn’t have time to look away. It’s okay, she says, and pretends to miss the flush of red unfurling on his cheeks. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.
He thinks: this is Hannah, for crying out loud. He thinks: calm yourself, man.
But when she is moving above him, so warm and soft and beautiful, the shaking stops, the silent pleas for help leave his eyes, and the panic roaring in his chest turns into something more.
He starts a rebellion and falls for the girl, and it’s all so Neville Longbottom and nothing like anyone else at all.
iii. distance
She’s so distant sometimes. It reminds Daphne that what they’re doing is not what they really want, but it’s so hard and fast and good that they’re not going to stop, either.
The war has marked them in more ways than puckered lines on skin and clamorous dreams in the night. They’ve managed to paint over those scars with magic, managed to brew draughts for calm and quiet sleep. They haven’t managed to cover up the empty seats, though; the missing shadows, though; the unresolved lust, though.
She’s so distant sometimes that it hurts. Daphne can’t afford to let herself be hurt so she’ll just slide her fingers further down, lower her lips onto skin, pretend that there was no bloody war and that she never had to choose a side. She’ll pretend that Parvati isn’t thinking about her Best Friend who is everything that Daphne is not.
Brave and blonde and dead. What a joke. What a laugh.
She’s so distant sometimes that she groans, whispers, screams another name. Maybe it’s sick but Daphne loves to look at her as that moment of realisation hits, and Parvati’s eyes open to see a veil of straight black hair cascading down her lover’s shoulders instead of bouncing, blonde curls. Everything feels so real in that moment that Daphne can almost forgive herself for this giant hole of meaningless nothing.
Almost.
iv. blood
He has a scar on his left arm, just above the elbow. Hugo has always wondered about it, likes to trace it with his tongue, likes to close his eyes and imagine the moment the skin tore. It’s so deliciously morbid because Hugo has no scars at all.
A body is a map because - if you look close enough - you can always tell where a person is going or where they’re coming from. The scar is a pinpoint, a large red arrow that says, ‘Hugo, You Are Here’.
It’s a funny place, because if Hugo really wants to be anywhere on Scorpius’s body, it’s not just above the elbow. He moves his hands round Scorpius’s neck, shoulders, hips, and down. This is where Hugo likes to be, here and there and everywhere. This is where he likes to tongue, to bite, and suck.
Scorpius doesn’t seem to understand the fascination, but it doesn’t help when he refuses to tell Hugo the story behind the scar. Well, it annoys Hugo to the point that he’s hot and angry and ready. Straight answers aren’t Scorpius’s thing at the best of times, though.
And truth be told, who wants a straight answer anyway?