And I'm back. Here's a thing. I don't feel good. Ew.
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Hogwarts (where I'm a snek) Assignment #8 Advanced Warding Task #5 - Incense: Write about something burning (I think I was mean with this)
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Hogwarts April Auction Challenge Day 20 (Item) - Tattered Dress
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Summary: Ginny and Luna find comfort in each other after the war, but what happens when something happens that challenges that comfort? Ginny is left, struggling to heal.
Warnings: Destructive fire, major character death, depression. I think that's it.
Word Count (excluding A/N): 1415
The Way We Burn
Ginny couldn't breathe.
Her lungs constricted, prompting her to scratch at her throat—her chest—but it didn't help.
Nothing helped.
She felt like she was burning from the inside out, the flames licking around her heart.
She downed glass after glass of water, slowly feeling herself become more waterlogged, but it didn't soothe the pain.
Nothing could soothe the pain.
Her skin ached too, pulled taut around fresh scars, things even the Healers were unable to fix, but it didn't come close to comparing to the burn she felt. No, the emotions were too strong for her to handle, for her to control. They raged inside her like a wild fire until she was nothing more than ash.
And the Healers couldn't fix that either.
I
Their relationship burned slowly. Ginny was surprised it burned at all.
But there was this spark during their seventh year—after the war had ended and everyone was doing their best to just move forward. Sure, there might have been something between them before, but neither girl had acknowledged it. There hadn't been any reason to.
Besides, they were friends. Why would they ruin that? They didn't realize that becoming more couldn't ruin their friendship, only make it grow stronger.
And the spark came.
It was barely there, but also impossible to ignore. A tug in each girl's hearts as they sat in an alcove between the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw towers, comforting each other during the times when they were unable to sleep.
It was almost summer when they finally acted upon that spark, letting it grow into something bigger. On the day they graduated, Ginny kissed Luna for the first time.
There were no fireworks.
Just the feeling of coming home.
II
The first night in their new flat, they lit a fire in their fireplace. It was winter, and the setting felt right.
Boxes lay scattered around, some of them partially unpacked and others still sealed, and there wasn't a single piece of furniture in sight. Ginny sat on a blanket with Luna as they shared a bottle of wine, not bothering with glasses.
They slept on that same blanket, watching the embers die out as they drifted, Ginny tucked into Luna's chest, arms around the blonde's waist.
After a week full of unpacking during the day and cuddling in front of the fire at night, they decided to turn the bedroom into an art studio. They had no use for it if they were going to be sleeping in the living room every night.
Besides, Ginny quite enjoyed seeing Luna painting, her hair pulled up into a wild mess of braids, paint splattered on random bits of her skin and clothing. She would take that sight over a bed any day.
III
Ginny lit candles around their flat on the night she proposed.
She was nervous, but she wasn't worried that Luna would say no. They had been together for nearly four years; had been living together for almost three of them.
They still had no bedroom, only an art studio and a mess of blankets in front of the hearth, but neither of them thought that was a problem.
Luna gave Ginny a knowing smile after stepping through the front door and looking at the decorated living space.
Both of them cried—tears of joy, promise, love—that night as they cuddled into their blankets and each other, watching the flickering flames of the candles dance on the walls.
IV
A month before the wedding, Ginny lit a fire in the fireplace, her mind slightly dazed from all of the wedding planning.
Neither Ginny or Luna wanted a large wedding, but Molly had managed to finagle herself onto the planning team, determined to make up for Luna's mother not being able to be there. She was twice as overbearing and opinionated.
Not that Ginny minded all that much, but it was still exhausting.
There were dresses, flowers, table runners, color themes, cakes, and innumerable other things to decide on. Ginny wasn't quite sure how to handle it all.
It didn't make things any better now that Luna had been called into overtime at St. Mungo's, or that Ginny had just made it out of the reserves and onto the actual Holyhead Harpies' team.
Ginny knew Luna was decompressing in her art studio, so she decided to let her fiance paint out her stress in peace. Opting to just stay in her white day-dress, Ginny wrapped herself up in a blanket and laid herself in front of the fire.
Before falling asleep, she cast a spell on the flames to keep them burning, their warmth a comfort to her aching body and exhausted mind.
V
The comforting heat from before had disappeared. In its place was an unbearable burn that woke Ginny up with a start. A black smoke filled the room, obscuring everything from Ginny's sight.
Well, everything except for the bright orange flames that licked at her skin.
Somehow, she had slept through getting burned.
Panic welled up in Ginny's chest as she scrambled back away from the fire, rolling over the flames that had danced up her dress. She wanted to scream, but coughed instead.
As soon as she was partially away from the fire, the image of Luna flashed through her mind. Staying low to the ground, she clawed her way out of the living room and towards the art studio.
She tried the handle with her bare hand at first, cursing in a choked voice as the metal burned her skin, before tearing off a strip of her dress and using that to open the door.
If the smoke had smelled bad in the living room, it smelled even worse in the art studio—it smelled toxic in a way Ginny couldn't explain.
The fire had spread to the studio. In the haze of smoke and orange flames, Ginny saw Luna's form crumbled halfway between her latest project and the door, like she had passed out before she could escape the room.
VI
The firefighters had come just as Ginny had managed to drag Luna out of the art studio. Her body was as heavy as lead, her head was fuzzy, and her dress was in complete tatters.
She couldn't put up a fight when she was separated from Luna.
Her consciousness faded when she saw Luna taken away from the flat in the arms of a fireman, just the knowledge of knowing that Luna would be cared for—saved—being enough to let herself stop fighting the exhaustion she had been feeling.
VII
When Ginny woke up, the first thing that she registered was that Luna wasn't beside her.
The second thing she registered was that her mother was.
Molly looked like she hadn't slept in days. Her hair was a tangled mess, her clothes were dishevelled, and there were bags under her eyes.
She started crying when she realized Ginny was awake. Ginny honestly couldn't tell if they were tears of sadness or of joy.
It turns out, they were both.
VIII
"You're saying that the paint killed her," Ginny said, her voice scratchy. She eyed Ron carefully, watching the way he pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, the way his hands shook slightly, the way he wouldn't meet her eyes.
He hesitated before nodding. The fumes from the burning paint had been more toxic than just the smoke of the burning building. They had almost killed Ginny too, but Luna had ended up with more exposure for a longer amount of time.
Ginny felt sick.
IX
She barely made it to the funeral. It hurt more than she could have ever imagined, her dress rubbing against her new scars. Her heart as she stared at the coffin as it was lowered into the ground.
There was a table set up with a photograph of Luna, two candles lit in front of it. Ginny stared at the flames, wishing they could swallow her whole.
X
Ginny couldn't breathe, and nothing helped. Everything burned, and nothing helped.
Not water. Not potions. Not spells.
It was agony, and Ginny couldn't bear it any longer. She had only been without Luna for two months, but that was two months too long.
So she let the fire consume her, burn her down until she was nothing but ash. She stopped responding to physical, visual, and auditory stimulation, refusing to be treated. She became nothing—an empty shell of who she used to be.
And she let that be her end.