Disclaimer: And, for the almost-hundredth time, I don't own Harry Potter.
Author's Note: Written for Sam - MissingMommy - courtesy of the Gift-Giving Extravaganza 2013. I really hope you enjoyed this! I had a great time writing it.
Leanne can't remember ever being this terrified.
Katie's lying in that bed, so still, so pale. Her chest rises up and down only slightly. She looks awful - and that's coming from Leanne, who would sooner say that Umbridge was a gift from heaven before insulting anything about Katie's appearance. Seeing Katie like this is horrifying; Leanne can feel herself shaking a bit in that hard, uncomfortable chair by Katie's bed. The Healers move in and out of the room on a regular basis. Most of them barely give Leanne a second glance.
Katie's parents are off somewhere. Leanne's not totally sure where they went, just that they'd been there for over a day without sleep, and the Healers practically kicked them out. Leanne had showed up to visit a little earlier, since her classes were done - as if she had paid any attention today anyway - and she had volunteered to sit with Katie.
She knows it's selfish, but she can't help but hope that Katie wakes up while she's there. She can't help but hope that her face is the one Katie sees upon returning to consciousness. In her mind, she concocts fantasies of Katie waking up and seeing her face and falling in love. She knows it's stupid and childish, but she doesn't care. Her best friend - the girl she's in love with, for Merlin's sake - is in St. Mungo's, possibly dying, cursed with some Dark magic she probably can't hope to understand. She's entitled to be a little stupid.
o0o0o0o
Visiting Katie becomes a daily thing. After one failed day of trying to sneak out, Professor Sprout takes pity on her and grants her special permission to leave the school. Sprout lets Leanne use her own personal fireplace to Floo to St. Mungo's, and Leanne spends some time there with Katie every day after classes. Most nights, she's up until midnight or one in the morning doing school - she never does any work in Katie's hospital room - and she's perpetually running off of five hours of sleep, but that doesn't matter.
Getting to see Katie is more important than anything. And one night, she wakes up, and begins the slow road to recovery. Leanne isn't there when she wakes up, and she wishes that she had been, but the most overwhelming emotion is simple joy and happiness that Katie's conscious.
Leanne still visits, every day. Recovery is a process for Katie - the curse did some severe damage - but she's a strong girl, and she makes progress every day. On the day before she's supposed to return to Hogwarts, she grins at Leanne, twirling a strand of light brown hair around her finger. "You're going to have to deal with me for more than just an hour and a half every day, now that I'm going back," she says.
"Good," Leanne says, because 'dealing with Katie' is more than enjoyable. She's missed that.
o0o0o0o
Leanne is almost entirely sure that her schoolwork would be a hell of a lot better if she would stop devoting her entire afternoons to Katie.
If she's honest, that's a bit of an exaggeration. Katie has some dedication - and a lot more focus, certainly - and she's always the one to end their almost-daily meetings, saying that she has homework to get to. She's in seventh year, not sixth, and dealing with the pressures of upcoming NEWTs in addition to the difficulty of classes. Leanne knows Katie's having a harder time than she is - after all, Leanne's sixth-year work is a lot easier than Katie's seventh-year work.
Even still, it's hard to part and head back to their respective common rooms. They almost always part ways long before supper, leaving some time to get homework done, but that doesn't mean Leanne always does it. It's so hard to do school right after talking to Katie, because Leanne's mind starts racing, trying to analyze all the things Katie said. She's being a stupid, lovesick teenager again. She knows she's too old for this - she's seventeen, after all, legally an adult - but it's Katie, and even the smartest Ravenclaws know you can't actually control who you fall in love with.
o0o0o0o
Dumbledore was dead, and everything was all wrong.
Leanne is terrified. She still has one year left to go, and how will Hogwarts be safe without Dumbledore there to protect it? She tells Katie about her fears on one of those last days, while they're wandering the school grounds. It's a beautiful early-summer day, but Leanne barely notices. "Wasn't Dumbledore the only thing You-Know-Who ever feared?" she asks. "What if he comes to Hogwarts? Nobody's going to be able to stand up to him. I mean, McGonagall's badass, but she's not that badass."
Katie almost looks like she wants to laugh at that last comment, but she doesn't. "I know," she says. "I wish I was still going to be here. I hate that I'm leaving at such a bad time, dammit - I want to be here, doing something. I don't even know what I want to do after Hogwarts." She shrugs. "Hell, I don't even know what I can do after Hogwarts, with the Death Eaters gaining power. I don't know what'll be open to me."
"You'll find something," Leanne says. She looks down at the grass beneath them, twisting her hands together. She wants Katie to still be at Hogwarts, too. She feels safer with Katie by her side. She always has had Katie there - the two of them met on the Hogwarts Express when Leanne was first going to Hogwarts as an eleven-year-old. She's never known Hogwarts without Katie. Facing Hogwarts without Katie would be scary enough - but facing Hogwarts without Katie in the middle of a war?
She can't imagine anything worse.
o0o0o0o
The reality, of course, turns out to be worse than what she could imagine.
It's not even so much the lack of Katie as it is everything else that's going on. The Carrows run the school - can it even be called that anymore? Hogwarts is no longer Hogwarts. This isn't the place Leanne grew up loving. Not anymore. It's transformed into a twisted place full of pain and torture, of students being Cruciated for the damnedest things, and Leanne can't take it anymore.
When she overhears Hannah and Susan talking late one night about their secret group of students, she asks if she can join, and within the week, Leanne Moon is proud to call herself a D.A. member.
She thinks Katie would be proud.
She plans to tell Katie, over Christmas holidays. Their letters have been short and infrequent - all letters in and out of the school are read, and so everything has to be deemed Carrow-appropriate. Leanne doesn't dare to mention anything about the D.A., or complain about the Carrows' regime. She asks Katie stupid questions, and Katie does the same - it seems she understands the secrecy, even though Leanne doesn't say anything about their letters being screened. She waits for Christmas holidays, knowing that she'll finally see Katie again, and she'll be able to tell her all about what's happening.
o0o0o0o
Being part of the D.A. is exciting. Leanne isn't usually one who cares about excitement. She'd much rather relax, most of the time (especially with Katie) but this year is an exception. It's thrilling to sneak back to her common room at midnight after a three-hour-long meeting; it's thrilling to know defensive spells and counterattacks and curses. She feels smart and powerful and brave, like she's actually doing something with her life.
For the past two years, she's thought of herself as nothing - a stupid daydreamer in love with a girl who would never love her back. Now, she's a fighter, a rebel. She still loves Katie in the same way she did before, but now, she thinks, there's more to her than just her unrequited love. She has other friends - real friends, not just her roommates - and people who honestly enjoy spending time with her.
She misses Katie, and she wishes she were there, but at the same time, she's surviving - she's living.
o0o0o0o
"It's like a goddamned prison," Romilda Vane says loudly. Leanne's in a compartment with Romilda, Su Li, and Wayne Hopkins, the latter of whom looks as though he's sincerely regretted sitting in this compartment. Wayne's a Hufflepuff like Leanne, a mountain of a boy who doesn't say much. He looks supremely awkward around the two fireballs, Romilda and Su.
"Or hell," Su says, pulling her dark hair back in a ponytail.
"Are you kidding me?" Romilda says. "Hogwarts is too cold to be hell. Those freaking Carrows made me spend a night in the dungeon last week, to 'make me think about what I did' or some bullshit like that, and it must have been zero degrees in there."
"If somebody was locked in the dungeon with you," Su says, wiggling her eyebrows, "you could have generated a bit of heat, y'know?"
Romilda throws a rolled-up copy of the Prophet at Su; it hits Leanne by mistake. "Oops. Sorry - I meant to hit the pervert sitting next to you."
Leanne chuckles. "She does have a point, you know." She tries to keep her own mind away from 'generating a bit of heat' with Katie. Definitely not the time for those sort of thoughts, not while she was trying to pay attention to the conversation at hand.
"Oi," Romilda says. "Don't corrupt the only fifth year in the compartment, you ancient people."
Su snorts. "You're already corrupted, Vane."
o0o0o0o
Romilda, Su, and Leanne leave the Hogwarts Express together, each with their respective trunks. Romilda's pouting at Su and Leanne, since they're seventh years and can use magic outside of school; both of them are levitating their trunks next to them, while Romilda's stuck holding hers. "You're extremely mean," Romilda informs the both of them matter-of-factly, but she waves as she walks away from them. Su and Leanne both stand there, scanning the crowd.
"Feels weird," Su says. "I mean, I don't need my parents to pick me up from school anymore, but I kind of expect it."
"Same," Leanne says, and she realizes with a start that she doesn't know whether her parents are picking her up. They hadn't mentioned anything about it, in their brief letters - maybe they are waiting at the house right now, expecting her. She remembered them being extremely happy when she got her Apparition license, saying that now things would be far more convenient. "Yeah, my parents are probably -"
Her sentence trails off as she sees a familiar face. Katie's standing there, a smile on her face, waving, and Leanne's heart pounds a mile a minute as she mutters a quick goodbye to Su and rushes off.
o0o0o0o
Katie Apparates them both back to the house she's sharing with Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet, two of her Gryffindor friends. They both happen to be out when Katie and Leanne return from King's Cross, and Leanne can't help but wonder if that's just a happy coincidence, or if Katie kicked them out so she and Leanne could have some alone time. Leanne can't help but hope it's the latter - alone time with Katie would be bliss - but she's not brave enough to ask.
"So," Katie says, "tell me everything. I've heard there's some pretty serious stuff going on." She folds her arms and leans against the counter, looking extremely expectant, as though Leanne doesn't have a choice in telling her.
Leanne fills her in on the Carrows and the D.A. She builds up her own part in the D.A., including as many details as she can about the things she's done and learned - and by the end of it, Katie honestly looks impressed. Leanne knows Katie was part of the first D.A. - Su told her - and so it feels cool to impress another D.A. member. She feels a rush of pride as Katie says, "Damn, Leanne - that's way more intense than anything I ever did in the D.A. You're good."
"Thanks," Leanne says, feeling even more pride, even more joy. "It's exciting."
Katie looks down, and she looks slightly uncomfortable as she says, "Oh. Guess you're looking forward to going back, huh?"
Leanne stares at her. "What do you mean?"
Katie takes a deep breath, bracing herself on the counter. "I heard what Hogwarts was like, and I thought I would invite you to stay here. This is a safe house - only the really trustworthy people know this address - so it's not like anybody could come and hunt you down." She looks almost flustered; Leanne finds it adorable and endearing. Katie's usually very in control of herself, at least for a Gryffindor. "I just figured, with everything going on - I would have thought that you would have wanted to be safe. I mean, I know Hogwarts is mandatory, but if nobody knows where you are, then you can't actually get in trouble. And, of course, if you want - you don't have to or anything."
"You were going to invite me to live with you?" Leanne's body tingled with warmth. "Merlin. That's the nicest thing anybody's ever done for me."
"I'm not going to pressure you or anything," Katie says. She's still talking just a bit faster than usual, like she's nervous. Leanne thinks it's the cutest thing. "It's totally your decision, of course. Whatever you want."
Leanne doesn't know what to do. On the one hand, there's Hogwarts and the D.A.; there's feeling like she's actually a part of something bigger. And then, on the other hand, there's Katie and safety and being able to live with the girl she loves. It's danger versus routine, excitement versus comfort, and Leanne doesn't know what she should choose. A year ago she would have chosen Katie, without a second thought - but the past few months have taught her that there's more to life than love.
"I need to think about it," Leanne says. "Is that okay?"
"Of course," Katie says. "Can you stay for the holidays?"
"That," Leanne says, "is a definite yes." She's sold on that one - celebrating the holidays with Katie sounds perfect. And as Katie helps her unpack her suitcase into the room she'll be staying in - Katie's bedroom, with its king-sized bed that apparently they'll have to share - she smiles to herself. Maybe Katie's not so unattainable after all.