maybe it's just their magic
Pairing: MollyLysander.
Disclaimer: Because yeah, I'll admit, I own nothing.
A/N: This is a response to the Pretty Little Liars Challenge over at the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges Forum with the prompt: Do you want your own? I'd rather have yours.
She hears the lightning in the ash grey sky, sees the ripples on the lake where the giant squid, which had been languidly floating, has gone deep beneath the surface to shelter from the coming storm, feels the tremor down her spine and without a second thought about who she's with or what she's doing.
She runs.
Through the great hall, out of the huge doors of the school doors, and it's just as her feet hit the pathway leading to the lake that lightning splits the sky overhead, thunder cracks the heavens wide open and the rain and wind literally smash into her like a freight train and she laughs out loud like she's never seen anything funnier.
Lysander runs after her, because he's a fool in love, and she's not wearing a coat and she doesn't have her wand and she's so delicate and fragile (and, oh there are so many excuses that he simply doesn't need).
She stops running right next to the lake, and she's dripping with laughter and she's so high that she can't hear Lysander screaming to her over the growing tempest. There's only the thrill of the uncontrollable, unpredictability of the weather she spends her whole life trying to out-do and when the lightning comes again, even from halfway across the grounds Lysander doesn't miss the way that her eyes are lit up brighter than magnesium.
He stops maybe twenty feet from her, and the wind is whipping her robes into frenzy about her fairy frame and her auburn hair is plastered to her head as she stands there with her face upturned as if she could kiss the rain.
She's soaking wet, and as the downpour dies down and the winds become gentler, like they're lovingly caressing her, he can see the rivulets of water tracing down the porcelain skin of her throat into the folds of her uniform and her brighterthannebulasbright eyes are lost in magic that Lysander doesn't think has even been discovered yet.
He thinks for a moment that maybe she is what beauty truly is, because he's never seen anything more alive than she is at this moment.
He's never seen her blaze to this vivid intensity before.
In her uncomplicated every days, she's quiet and dutiful, the perfect twin to a sister who was born with the world at her feet.
And yes, Molly's better at magic and kindness and simply being there if you need her, but Lucy is better at boys and make-up and performing for everyone and in this world that they live in, being Molly just isn't enough most of the time.
But here, in this moment with the storm and the thunder and the everything, Lysander thinks that maybe this is how the world should see Molly, because her eyes are captivated with visions that no else can see and her smile is easier than ever before and she just looks, happy.
When the storm clouds pass overhead, and blue skies suddenly turn the lake crystal clear she breathes in the clean, sweet rain-tinged air and she turns to Lysander like she's seeing him for the first time, like she's just been release from the most magnificent of enchantments (and he doesn't doubt it).
"You're wet," she calls to him from across the grass, and he has to almost physically shake himself from the daze he's been drawn into.
"Yeah," he replies as he starts to walk towards her, "it's been raining you know."
She smiles then, wide and free and her flushed porcelain cheeks and her firefly bright gaze makes his sillysilly heart skip a beat (or three) and then she just laughs and laughs.
As she's laughing, the thought flashes through his mind like a bullet that maybe, for as much as he loves her, he'll only ever be second to the calling of the tempest to her, that she'll never love him as much as he will her.
He honestly can't help the pain that shoots through him at that thought, but then her arms are around him, and he can taste the rain and lightning and thunder on her(his) lips and because she strikes him like an arrow through the heart, he lifts her up and spins her around until her head is back and her arms are out like she's flying and Lysander thinks that if she'll always be like this, he'll forgive the second place he'll mark in her heart to the storm.
Ultimately she's back on the muddy grass, and there's nothing but birdsong and their breathing and the way that he's giddy on her presence.
"What are you thinking," she asks him quietly, and her head is tilted to one side and her cobalt eyes are wide and open and he thinks about the million thoughts running through his head.
He doesn't know how to answer, so he twines his fingers with hers and notices how there are still droplets of water clinging to her skin and scattering sunshine.
"Nothing much," he says eventually, and he absentmindedly tugs at curling lock of her loose hair, "just that I don't think I've ever seen you look so perfectly incandescent. I've never seen you breathe with so much freedom".
She steps closer to him, and he can see her mulling the words over in her mind with so much care you'd think they were glass.
"Do you want your own?"She whispers as she pushes his wet-blond hair away from his eyes.
Does he want the freedom that she has in the rain? Does he want the way that her eyes shine like diamonds in himself? Or the way that she seems to be living in bliss in the aftermath (and she will be until that clean, pure, rain smell finally leaves). Does he want the splendour of her imperfect life glowing with luminescence?
No, he doesn't. Not really, or at least, not for himself.
"I'd rather share yours," he breathes into her hair and pulls her tighter so that he can bask in her radiance.
"Always," she swears, and when they kiss again he can taste their freedom and their love, and her dreams and his hopes and he thinks that maybe this is the real magic.