a/n for mew and mor's weird pairing competition, so credit for the pairings go to them. This will be a collection of fics, posted separately, each concerning one a different couple or character before, during or after a war, and the effect it has on them.
title: Someday
summary: Padma and Ernie in the days before and after the Final Battle that changes their lives.
pairing: Padma Patil/Ernie Macmillan
style: oneshot - 1762 words
notes: part three of the "futility" series.
i can feel your pain, i can feel your struggle
you just wanna live, but everything's so low
that you could drown in a puddle
that's why i gotta hold us up, yeah hold us up
for all the times no one's ever spoke for us
- B.O.B ft Taylor Swift
"I'll be okay, and so will you," he promises the morning the DA starts up again, and it says something about how disarmingly honest he is that you almost believe him.
"What do you want to do when the war is over?" you ask him, your head pressed to his chest like you can melt into him and become one person, and you feel as if you could lie there forever, just listening to his heartbeat and talking about nothing.
"It's a 'when' is it, not an 'if'?" he asks with a wry chuckle, his hand stroking your hair softly, twining dark strands around his fingers before gently letting go. It's peaceful, just the two of you lying in a hammock like you're an ordinary boy and girl in love, not two soldiers in a war that consumes all that you have ever known. For now, though, it feels as if it's just the two of you hanging out and learning about each other, even if the Room of Requirement holds most of your friends by this point, and privacy is a long ago dream.
"It has to end sometime, even if we don't win," you point out, your voice perfectly calm, even though you're dying inside at the thought of losing the war, losing him. Even if you don't win, you're determined to keep him safe, because being alive and captured is better than being dead and rotting in the ground, right? There's no return from death, but if you have to die protecting him, at least you know that there's a chance of rescue waiting for him.
"Then, if we survive - I want to marry you. Someday - not now, but someday," he says, a soft look in his eyes that contrasts with the deep bruising over one side of his face, blossoming from his cheekbone to his forehead, and you're careful not to touch them as you kiss him gently, because oh, the two of you may not make it, but you have to hope that you will.
"I guess all our studying over the years was worth it," he says, gripping his wand tight enough to leave marks that you're sure he'll fuss over later. He's kind of a perfectionist, your Ernie, but that's okay, because you are too, and when the world ends you'll survive it, and sweep dust out of corners like it's the most important thing you could do.
"I still maintain that I studied more than you in our OWL year," you say, referring to a long ago bet made between you, back when the two of you were purely friends and even more competitive than you are now.
"On a Tuesday, maybe," he smiles in return, and steps up to the plate while you raise your wand to begin the training fight. You're sure that Ernie can beat Michael, since you know all of both their tricks and strengths and weaknesses, and maybe you're a little bit biased but love gives you free pass to be as biased as you would like.
"Good luck," you call out to him, and Michael frowns at the other end of the room, his own wand clutched in his fingers and his knees bent as if preparing to run.
"You can't wish him luck, Padma, you're the judge and he's a competitor, and-"
You fight to keep your face smooth as a lavender cloud billows out of Ernie's wand and knocks Michael to the ground, though you permit yourself to feel a little proud. After all, you're the one who taught him that trick.
"Happy birthday," he says, stepping closer to sling his arms around your waist, and you smile in return, a careful, measured smile that barely lifts the corners of your mouth, but you haven't had enough energy for a true smile in days. It's not as if you're completely depressed, but you have just enough motivation to keep getting through the days, teaching the others some of the more obscure spells to keep themselves alive in the hopes that they'll be able to protect Ernie and Parvati for you if you can't.
You don't care much for your own life, really, which is probably the reason why the Hat whispered tales of Gryffindor heroes in your ear when you asked to be judged. You won't let the people you love die for a madman's machinations, though, and you don't care what you have to do to keep them alive.
"And what a happy birthday it's been," you reply finally, closing your eyes and resting your head on his shoulder, and you know that the same images are imprinted onto his eyelids and yours: third years being taught the Cruciatus, practicing offensive spells into the hours beyond midnight in case Harry comes back and the war begins in earnest, Morag's pain now permanently scarred into her face - and Ernie, always Ernie, holding your hand and kissing you goodnight as if it's the last kiss you'll ever share.
"Want a cupcake?" he asks suddenly, drawing back and looking ever so slightly up at you.
"There's cupcakes?"
"It's your birthday, so of course there's cupcakes," he tells you, apparently shocked that you would think otherwise, and you have to bite your tongue to stop yourself saying something sarcastic. "They're down in the kitchen, actually - one of the house elves helped me make them."
"To the kitchens, then," you say, and if your smile gets the tiniest bit bigger, he doesn't say anything, and for a moment you feel perfectly happy. All is right with the world, for once.
(Harry Potter climbs through a portrait-hole the next day, and your happiness falls apart as quickly and easily as if someone found a key and unlocked Pandora's box, but this time no one thinks to keep hope trapped inside.)
It's the end of the war and Ernie's missing, and you're so close to dying inside, because he's a piece of your heart that you never wanted to lose, and oh, if only you could turn back time, because then you'd kill Voldemort before he even had the chance to poison the wizarding world the first time, let alone now. You would do anything for him, and Parvati - you are unafraid to do what you have to in order to get what you want.
(Sometimes, you think you would have made a good Slytherin, but then you remind yourself that no Slytherins are good, and the world is set to rights again.)
Ernie turns up at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, the two smallest fingers on his left hand bleeding stumps and his clothes torn to pieces, and you forgive his inability to not go charging off to save whoever the werewolves got their claws into in favour of running your hands over every bit of skin you can reach, just to remind yourself that he's real and that everything will be okay.
At the end of the battle, Ernie shows up alive. Your sister, on the other hand, shows up dead, and you think that no one gave you the choice of which one the world could keep, and which one you would let die.
(Your choice for the last would always be you, never either of them.)
It's May third, 'a brand new beginning', as the radio says, and you hate yourself and hate the world for ensuring that you will remember this day for the rest of your life. The kitchens are your haven, a place far away from the rest of the world where you can sit and try desperately not to think about your dead friends and sister in the ground.
Ernie holds your hand as the sun goes down on the first sunset your sister and her best friend and your best friends will miss, though there are no tears to blink away as it finally slips below the horizon. You are determined not to cry, and there's still enough shock and adrenaline lingering in your system that it's not even hard to remain cold and emotionless.
It's hard to keep living when so many people are no longer permitted to, the names building up a wall of faces that you know intimately, and the dead haunt your dreams and call your name in your sleep. You keep on, living day by day, but even your own refusal to give in fails you eventually, and you and Ernie almost fall apart as you both try desperately to keep yourself together, as if by smiling and playing make believe, everything will be normal again. You're not quite sure what normal is anymore, but he makes it easy to pretend like you know, because when you're kissing him it's almost like you're not self-destructing.
"The funeral's tomorrow."
"I'm not going, Ernie. I can't watch them put my sister in the ground."
"You don't have to, but I will. They're our friends, Padma, and they deserve to have us there at the last."
"They were our friends. They're dead now, and crying at their funerals won't change that."
"If that's how you feel about it."
"It is."
"I'll see you afterwards, then."
("Say goodbye to her for me," you whisper, and the world stops still to listen to the utter silence of your heartbreak.)
It's Sunday when you take a step and reach the end of the world as you know it, your sister's grave more than three years old before you can bring yourself to see it. The flower held in your fingers drops to the ground as you kneel beside your twin sister's resting place, its red petals catching in the faint sunlight and lighting up the colour of fresh blood.
Ernie drops to the grass beside you, placing his own flower carefully next to her grave like he has done every Sunday since the funeral, wishing her hello and goodbye and I love you in your place. He takes your hand, a practised movement that comes easier than breathing, because you haven't been able to be in each other's presence and not touch in some way since the war, and oh, you love him.
You love him for his smiles, for his stubbornness, for his inability to believe the worst in anyone without concrete proof (and even then). You love him for his ineptitude at Arithmancy, though he refused to drop the subject, for his inexplicable hatred of apples, for his talent in knowing when you need him to just hold you. It's been the two of you against the world for longer than forever, it feels like, and you love him. Oh, how you love him.
Please review!
~Liss :)