Title: Sand Castles
Author: Alexandri
Pairing: Pansy/Ernie
Rating: K/K+; not sure yet. Kinda angsty.
Disclaimer: Still don't own them.
Cool sea air with the slightest hint of warmth ruffled Ernie's hair and chilled his damp skin. He sat on a towel a few metres away from his wife and wished he could be next to her now. But it wasn't time. It hadn't been time all day.
They'd gotten the news late last night. Pansy had cried until morning. However, instead of getting some much-needed rest, she'd sat on the living room sofa, hollow-eyed and unresponsive. Ernie hadn't known what to do or how to reach her so he'd packed a lunch and some towels and declared they were going to the beach.
The morning had been unremarkable; they'd sat quietly, staring out at the water, letting the hush of the mid-September day envelop them. After lunch, he'd tried to coax her into going for a swim, but she'd ignored him and conjured a pail. Knowing she still wasn't ready to talk, he'd alternated between swimming in the near frigid water and sitting on his towel keeping vigil over his wife.
Pansy spent the rest of the afternoon working on building a sandcastle. She dumped pile after pile of wet sand in a heap and meticulously molded it into an increasingly impressive dwelling with turrets and windows and walkways. A frown marred her brow as she worked and she overlooked the wisps of now shoulder-length hair that the wind had teased out of her haphazard ponytail to blow across her sad, sand-smudged face.
The sun hung low in the early evening sky when Ernie finally sat next to her. Her castle was nearly finished and he decided that it needed to be peopled. As she put the finishing touches on her masterpiece, he molded a tiny man and woman, and placed them on one of the walkways.
"They aren't supposed to be gone," Pansy whispered suddenly. Ernie rubbed his hand soothingly over her back, silently encouraging her to continue. "They weren't supposed to go until we'd made up."
"I know, love," he murmured against her temple. He didn't say that her parents' beliefs had been too deeply ingrained to change; that they never would have seen eye-to-eye and they never would have forgiven her for standing against the Dark Lord and the superiority of pure blood. So he hugged her close and let her spill out all of her sorrow and regret until they sat in silence and the only light came from the full moon climbing the sky.
"My mum taught me how to make sand castles," she told him as he rubbed her chilled arms. "But they never last."
"No, I guess they don't." Ernie nudged the tiny people on the walkway with his wand and they moved toward each other and slipped their tiny arms around the other's waist. Pansy giggled and Ernie smiled, happy to have given her even an ounce of pleasure. "They don't last, but that doesn't mean we have to stop making them and attempting to make better ones."
She nodded, her hair brushing his jaw. "Let's go home."