“Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death”
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 0600 hours local time
Ginny was standing alone in a dark place; she had no idea where she was or how she got there. In desperation, she cried out into the darkness, “Hello, hello, anybody out there?!” All she got back were echoes. Then in a confusing mass of sound and sensations, she found herself bound to a wooden armchair by heavy bands of metal on her arms and legs. She tried to speak, to cry out into the darkness and demand whoever had done this to come out and identify themselves. When she opened her mouth, however, a white cloth ball appeared in her mouth, gagging her. As she sat there she struggled to break her bonds and spit the cloth out of her mouth. However, she soon discovered that was impossible. For whenever she struggled against her metal bonds, they grew tighter and tighter until they had squeezed her hands and feet into the wood, and caught her in and intense and searing vice of pain. And whenever she spit out the gag, another one appeared in its place. Finally, with the metal bonds boring into the flesh on her hands and feet, she gave and sat their breathing heavily.
Suddenly, a bright light shone over her head, throwing back the darkness and creating a realm of shadow in a circle around her chair. And out of that realm of shadow stepped Hermione Granger, wearing her school robes and with an angry determined look on her face.
Hermione, thank God, Ginny thought, relief spreading through her, she’ll get me out. She was shocked when Hermione walks over and strikes her, hard, across the face. When the multicolored flecks disappeared from her eyes, and she was able to see clearly, she saw an enraged Hermione standing over her, saying, in a firm, deadly voice, “You are a pathetic waste of resources, time, and space you know that?”
Ginny just sat there; shocked her best friend would say that and wondering why she would say such things. Her question was answered when Hermione said, her anger and disgust obvious in every word, “Why did you say such horrible words to him? He spends an entire school year falling deeply in love with you and you, you bloodsucker, take advantage of his feelings. Then, when you’re all done with him, you tell him you never loved him and spit him out like an olive pit!” She then walks over to Ginny, pulls out her gag and says, “Well, what do you have to say for yourself?”
Enraged, Ginny blurted out, “How dare you! Harry broke up with me! He told me he had to leave me, for my own good, and I certainly never told him I didn’t love him.”
Hermione’s face contorts with rage as she said, “Liar! I’ll prove to you what you are!” She then takes her wand out, flicks it, and a hologram of Ginny and Harry by the lake appears. Over and over again, Ginny watches herself say to Harry, “Maybe that’s why I like you so much.” After a good five minutes, Hermione shuts down the hologram and says, pointing her wand at her, in that same evil voice, “Now that you see the truth about yourself, prepare for death deserved.” With cold pure hate in every word she says, “Avada Kedavra!”
As the green light rushed at her she woke up with a shout. The shout woke up Lavender Brown, who was sleeping in the four-poster bed across from her. Hermione, she noticed remained sound asleep in the bed next to her.
“Are you all right, Sir?” Lavender said quizzically, wandering what had awoken Ginny.
“Yes, I’m fine Lavender, go back to sleep,” Ginny said, irritated and still a little shocked from her dream. She heard Lavender’s head hit her pillow, so she lay back down and tried to settle her thoughts. Before she could even begin, however, Lavender blurts out, in a fit of rage and jealousy, “Damn it, that slut Hermione had no right to steal my man!”
That was the last straw, for the past few weeks Lavender had been angrily muttering anti-Hermione propaganda under her breath. Several times he had heard Lavender call her, “a promiscuous floozy,” and it was time for it to stop.
“Lavender,” Ginny said calmly, hiding well the anger burning inside her. “Walk with me."
“Yes, Sir,” Lavender said, visibly frightened. She probably realized she was way out of line and was going to pay for it. They got out of bed and walked downstairs into the darkened common room.
When they got downstairs, Lavender just stood there, confused and visibly terrified. Not surprising, Ginny thought, I do have a reputation of being loud, tough, and having a mean Bat-Bogey Hex.
“Now,” Ginny said coolly. “What is your problem, Lavender?”
“Hermione,” Lavender said angrily, “is a whore; first Viktor, than Cormac, and now Ron. She’s a slut with a thing for Quidditch players and if you were really her sister, Sir, you’d be helping me save him!”
Enraged by this slander against her best friend, Ginny pushed Lavender against the wall and told her in a cold, steely voice, “I know your type Lavender. You think every boy should be falling head over heels for you. If they’re dating someone else, not you, than their girlfriends are sluts, whores, or floozies. Your type just can’t accept the fact some boys just aren’t going to love you.” Judging by the scared look on Lavender’s face, she considered her point made and let her go. She than said that same tone, “Now, stop muttering under your breath. And if I hear one word out of you questioning Hermione’s morals, one word!! Then so help me I will have you thrown out of the D.A. for good, is that understood?”
“Yes, Sir,” she said quickly ran back upstairs trying to get away from her as soon as possible.
With that particular situation resolved for the present, unbidden into her mind came the images of her breaking Harry’s heart in two with those hated words ringing in her ears. As the images replayed over and over again, and the words rang over and over again no her ears, she found she couldn’t make the stairs for her legs were weak and starting to wobble. She had just enough strength to make it to a chair when she broke down and cried uncontrollably.
Luna Lovegood was also awake at 0600 hours, and as Ginny confronted her feelings for Harry, and Lavender’s disciplinary problems, she was also contemplating love. Luna was thinking back to what had brought her and Neville together.
Their romance had begun the morning after the Death Eater attack on the castle. It was after breakfast and the night before Madam Pomfrey had asked her to pick up Neville and walk him back to the Gryffindor common room. The reason he couldn’t walk back himself, Madam Pomfrey had explained, were that his legs were badly damaged, and they couldn’t support his full weight yet. They needed to heal some more before that. It would be at least a month before they could do that, and at least another month before they could do that, and at least another month before they were fully functional. And so here she was walking up to the hospital wing.
This will impress Neville for sure, Luna thought happily. She lurched inwardly; where had that thought come from? Yet a few minutes later she found herself thinking of cornering Neville in a deserted corridor and kissing him senseless. Oh, my God, Luna thought. I really have fallen in love with Neville Longbottom. It had been developing for a long time she realized. They had spent the last two years hanging out with each other. She had seen the nice boy beneath the klutz, and in the D.A. she had seen the klutz disappear and the fighter come out. He had proved his new skills at the Department of Mysteries and again in the defense of Hogwarts where he had saved her life.
One of the Death Eaters had decided to cover his friends advance and check the D.A.’s by bringing the ceiling down around them and rushing forward in the ensuing cloud of dust and debris. He fired a blast at a patch of ceiling right above her head, and Neville, moving with phenomenal speed, knocked her out of the way and took the brunt of the falling millennia old stone and mortar. However, she barely thought of that as she ran, her mind ablaze with a whirlwind of happy thoughts about her and Neville, the rest of the way to the hospital wing.
She got there to see Neville awake and sitting up in the same bed next to another hero of the previous night, Bill Weasley. Bill had taken horrible gashes to his face when he was brutalized by Fenrir Greyback. But that was of secondary importance to her as all she had eyes or thoughts for was Neville.
“Are you ready to go?” Luna stammered out, trying to avoid the gaze of the boy she now freely admitted she’d fallen head over ears in love with.
“Madam Pomfrey says I am,” Neville said. Luna couldn’t help noticing that he was stammering and trying to avoid her gaze.
“She gave me a cane,” Neville said, pulling a good-sized oak cane off the floor. “Madam Pomfrey told me your task was to make sure I didn’t fall and aggravate the injuries to my legs.”
“Oh, all right,” Luna said, a little disappointed because she wanted to have Neville’s arm wrapped around her the whole time. With that Neville got up, balanced on his cane, and walked slowly and unsteadily to the door with Luna holding his arm.
Halfway through the walk, Neville, who had said nothing the entire time, suddenly groaned in pain, grabbed his legs, and sat on the floor.
“What’s wrong?” Luna asked quickly, worry etched in every syllable and cadence.
“It’s my legs,” Neville groaned. “I don’t think I can make the rest of the trip right now. I need a break.”
“It’s probably limb demons,” Luna said in an explanatory tone. “They’re invisible demons that fly around aggravating injuries to hurt limbs.”
Neville gave her the look most people gave to her when she mentioned such creatures. Well, Luna thought proudly, at least I believe they exist, and I know how to combat them.
“To combat the limb demons effects,” Luna said matter-of-factly, you must rest and drink lots of water when you feel and attack coming on.” She turned around and noticed the Room of Requirement. I didn’t know we made it this far, Luna thought vaguely surprised. Turning back around, she told Neville, “The Room of Requirement’s right there, we can go inside and make a couch so you can rest for awhile.”
Neville, who looked really uncomfortable on the floor, nodded in agreement. Luna held out her hand, helped Neville up, and walked him over to the room.
They paced three times outside the door and asked for a nice place to rest. They opened the door to reveal a nice red, comfortable couch sitting in an otherwise bare, windowless room, with torches lining the walls. Getting comfortable, Luna and Neville took off their school robes, keeping on their shirts, ties, and Neville’s school trousers and Luna’s school skirt. They both asked for, and got cups of fresh water, which they drank quickly, not realizing they were so thirsty.
After they were done, Neville turned to look at her, red in the face, and in a shy, quivering voice asked, “Luna, do you… have feelings for me?”
Luna was thrown completely for a loop by Neville’s question, at the same time, she felt she would die of happiness, for Neville had just confirmed what she hoped and prayed was true, Neville loved her. “Yes,” Luna said, excitedly pulling his head down and kissed him. After fifteen minutes of necking, Luna pulled away from him, and asked tentatively, breathing heavily, “How long have you had feelings for me, Neville?”
“I think I started to have feelings for you when I first really got to know you two years ago,” Neville said, also breathing heavily. “I noticed you were always courteous and respectful, even to those who were mean to you. It was then I found myself thinking about asking you out,” Neville said reluctantly.
“Why didn’t you?” Luna asked, shocked and a little hurt that Neville had kept this from her.
“I was afraid,” Neville said, sadly, after a moment’s hesitation.
“What were you afraid of?” Luna said, though she already knew the answer.
“I was afraid you’d say no,” Neville said sadly.
Well, he’ll never have to worry about me leaving him, Luna thought. “Could you kiss me?” Luna asked, totally unembarrassed. Neville immediately, and with an urgent passion Luna loved, took her in his arms and kissed her. They stayed there a long time.
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