Chapter One: Defense of the Heart
Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep-beep. The loud sound in Elspeth's ear dragged her eyes open and had her out of bed and clutching for her wand before she remembered where she was, sighed, and collapsed back with a groan. Every single morning. This entire summer. Every single morning.
Despite the fact that she had been staying at Ral's house for over two weeks now, she still hadn't gotten used to the alarm clock. It wasn't as if it was that much louder than the bell at school, it was just blaring and angry in a way that did not agree with her brain, although she had to admit it was very good at getting her out of bed. Of course it also meant she tended to start the day with mild heart palpitations.
After she had brushed her teeth and her hair, she pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, which she actually did prefer to robes, and headed down the stairs for breakfast. "Good morning, Natalka," she said, and Ral's mother looked up briefly from her newspaper.
"Good morning," she said. Natalka Zarek was a professor of history at Oxford University, and despite being a compact, intimidating woman, she had been very supportive when Ral asked if one of his best friends could stay with them over the summer as part of her independent project for Muggle Studies. The first week at Ral's house had been significantly more challenging than Elspeth had thought. The Zarek household's technology had not adapted well to having two young, powerful wizards near it, and Elspeth and Ral had spent a significant amount of time down in Ral's parents' workshop in the basement, Ral trying to finesse some of his favorite items into working, Elspeth just reading up Muggle children's science books so that when she was around the rest of the house, she could manage to get the basics to function.
"Eggs, Betta?" Alexei Zarek, Ral's father, stood over the frying pan. A professor of music at Oxford, he also made the best fried eggs Elspeth had ever had, and never seemed to remember to call her anything but 'Betta'. Elspeth had stopped correcting him after the first week and a half. Ral seemed to find it hilarious anyway.
"Thanks, I'd love some," she answered, then headed over to the window to check whether she'd received an owl the night before.
She had. The large, tawny bird shuffled sleepily along its perch on the window outside the Zareks' kitchen and fixed her with one golden eye. When she had started exchanging letters with her pen pal two years ago, Achilles had been standoffish and hostile, even trying to peck her fingers once or twice. Now he butted her hand affectionately and nibbled at a stray strand of hair. Elspeth headed to the freezer and liberated one of the dead mice she kept there for him. He took it and swallowed gustily as she removed the letter from his claws.
"I've got one for you to take back to her as well, all right? Just a minute."
Though normally Elspeth left her letters for her pen pal on her desk, she had been tired enough the night before to forget her most recent one on the desk in the cellar. She clattered down the stairs and glanced around, trying to remember where she'd been writing it. There was light streaming out from under the door of the workshop, and Elspeth shook her head, sighing, then headed in.
Sure enough, Ral was collapsed over the old laptop at a desk in the corner. The electric light in the corner of the room flickered as Elspeth came too close, and she checked her jeans and pulled a face when she realized she still had her wand in her right-hand pocket. Ral wouldn't have been happy if she'd come near the computer with it. Wands tended to drain energy rather indiscriminately from their surroundings—there were some technical details that Elspeth wasn't really interested in, but Ral and Professor Granger went into raptures over. She paused and leaned her wand carefully on the wall inside by the door and then went over to shake Ral awake.
Usually, Ral was impossible to wake up, especially when he'd stayed up until three am tinkering in the workshop, but today, his bloodshot eyes flew open as soon as Elspeth touched his arm. There were great dark circles under them, and Elspeth paused to think she really needed to get him to start sleeping. No matter how much Ral enjoyed theatrically complaining that he hadn't been able to sleep because he had "too many ideas", he usually didn't look this bad.
Ral grabbed her shoulder and dragged her toward him, and Elspeth instinctively opened her arms. The amount of physical contact in their relationship was probably a bit unusual, but Elspeth and Jace both tended to require physical grounding at times, and Ral's immigrant family was more prone to casual touching than most. Usually, it wasn't Ral who made a wordless, desperate plea for comfort, but there was nothing unclear about the motion now.
Elspeth found herself pulled into his lap as he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her shoulder. Wordlessly, she stroked his head and made a soft, comforting noise. They sat like that for several minutes before Ral heaved a huge sigh and looked up at her with a forced smile. "Sorry," he mumbled awkwardly. He half-moved, but didn't quite push her off, instead making an abortive leaning-up motion so that his face was just inches away from hers.
There had been a few other similar awkward moments over the summer. Actually, Elspeth was surprised that they hadn't been more awkward. She was fairly sure that sixteen was well past when crazy teenage hormones were supposed to be kicking in, but she hadn't really noticed many. Certainly not around Ral or Jace, and she didn't really get physically close to anyone else.
This ought to be awkward, but mostly she just felt—
Ral kissed her. Okay, now things were awkward. She tried to kiss back, more out of a feeling that she probably should than out of any real desire on her part. It didn't quite work. Ral's tongue definitely ended up in her mouth, and she managed to get one hand on the back of his head, but it just felt—off. It was too much like snogging her brother, which was a disturbing enough thought for her to stand up quickly, pressing her hand to her lips. Ral was doing the same thing.
"Oh, shit," he said.
"Um," said Elspeth. "I don't think—"
"I think I'm gay."
"What?"
"I mean, you're—uh—you know—attractive and stuff," Ral blurted. "But kissing you just doesn't—do it."
Elspeth stared at him and then thought back to the warm feeling in the pit of her stomach when she'd open a letter from her pen pal and seen her for the first time. "Oh, Merlin," she said limply.
"Did I break your heart?" Ral asked, and he sounded so pitiful that she burst out laughing. He scowled at her. "Hey, I was legitimately worried!"
"I think I might be gay, too."
"What?"
Elspeth bit her lip. "It never really occurred to me before? But it makes some sense. My pen pal—"
"—that you never shut up about—"
"—just like you never shut up about Jace—"
"—hey, I may be gay but I'm not crushing on my best friend!"
She raised her eyebrows at him.
"Much." Ral sulked, turning back to the computer screen. "I'll be up for breakfast in a minute."
"All right." Elspeth reached out and ruffled his hair, snagged the envelope of the end of the desk, and was turning to go when Ral grabbed her wrist.
When she looked back, he was studiously staring at the desk. "We're, uh, good, right?"
"Of course," she said immediately. "Just don't try to snog me again."
"Yeah, there's no chance of that." He paused. "Uh, no offense."
"Just get yourself up for breakfast before I come back down and hit you with a spoon."
Ral chewed on his lip as he watched Elspeth clatter out of the room. Well, that could have gone worse. What the fuck had he even been thinking? He turned moodily back to his laptop and clicked over into the Pidgin window he'd fallen asleep staring at last night.
Littleboyblue7900 (June 30, 9:15 pm)
france is beautiful
nivmizzetdragonspet (June 30, 9:16 pm)
how are you?
i miss you
Littleboyblue7900 (June 30, 9:16 pm)
i made a new friend
also there's a lot of good food
nivmizzetdragonspet (June 30, 9:16 pm)
trust you to pay attention to important things
i bet you ate so much chocolate you got sick
Littleboyblue7900 (June 30, 9:17 pm)
i didn't get that sick
nivmizzetdragonspet (June 30, 9:17 pm)
oh my god you did
what did ranna say
Littleboyblue7900 (June 30, 9:17 pm)
my mum was very nice about it
nivmizzetdragonspet (June 30, 9:19 pm)
did you tell her that elspeth and i had to hold your head over the toilet after last new year's while you threw up three chocolate puddings and five butterbeers
Littleboyblue7900 (June 30, 9:19 pm)
are you blackmailing me :P
nivmizzetdragonspet (June 30, 9:20 pm)
of course not, i'm just reminding you to be grateful to me ;)
Littleboyblue7900 (June 30, 9:21 pm)
that sounds more dangerous than blackmail
i miss you too ral 3
nivmizzetdragonspet (June 30, 9:23 pm)
did you seriously send me a fucking heart beleren
are you saying you fancy me :P
nivmizzetdragonspet (June 30, 9:30 pm)
haha
nivmizzetdragonspet (June 30, 9:43 pm)
jace?
did you fall asleep on the keyboard again?
nivmizzetdragonspet (June 30, 9:50 pm)
did ranna take you out to a play?
i was just fucking with you, you know that right
nivmizzetdragonspet (June 31, 10:23 pm)
okay i'm going to assume you fell asleep
nivmizzetdragonspet (June 31, 1:48 am)
mate you've got to stop doing that
nivmizzetdragonspet (July 2, 4:04 am)
hey are you alive out there?
you can send me an owl if your computer's fucking up
nivmizzetdragonspet (July 3, 3:57 am)
for fuck's sake jace
why the hell did you stop getting back to me
nivmizzetdragonspet (July 3, 5:17 am)
sorry for snapping
i miss you
nivmizzetdragonspet (July 5, 6:00 am)
sorry if i made you mad somehow
just get back to me
nivmizzetdragonspet (July 6, 2:38 am)
hi?
nivmizzetdragonspet (July 7, 9:45 pm)
Hi?
nivmizzetdragonspet (July 8, 3:43 pm)
hello?
nivmizzetdragonspet (July 9, 4:47 am)
jace why aren't you responding to me anymore
Hermione stood in a corner, trying to tug discretely at the hem of her short red dress. Why she had thought a Muggle cocktail dress was a good outfit to wear to a DA reunion, she was honestly unsure. There was a small, niggling part of her that suggested that she had been trying to make Ron jealous, which was stupid, since they hadn't been an item in over seven years. She hadn't really talked to him since, either. Oh, they had corresponded—stilted, formal letters inquiring how the other person was doing, etc, but their friendship had never really recovered. Ron was Harry's friend now, a thought which made Hermione sigh and reach for her glass of champagne.
She didn't want to be Ron's girlfriend, she knew that, and that had been all that had been on her mind all those years ago, when she stormed away from him after the shouting match they'd had in front of Draco. She hadn't thought about the fact that she did, in fact, still want to be his friend. Losing that hurt, as if the last of her childhood had been ripped away.
There he was. Hermione's heart jumped into her throat. Ron was wearing nicely-trimmed black robes, his hair was combed, and he looked almost put-together. He looked across the room, eyes landing on Hermione, and he gave her a cautious half-smile. Hand clutching at her glass, Hermione found herself rapidly downing her champagne. The alcohol burned in her throat and landed with what felt like a physical thump in her stomach. No, she was definitely not ready for this meeting. Time to go.
One last glance at Ron—she saw that his face had fallen with disappointment and a little frustration, and she felt a twinge of guilt, but it wasn't enough to stop her from making a beeline for the lady's washroom, where she leaned dizzily against the wall before remembering that she was probably get her nice new dress all dirty.
"Oh, hello, Hermione," said a gentle and surprisingly unsurprised voice. "I didn't expect to see you hiding in the loo as well."
Hermione nearly jumped out of her skin. She whirled around to see Luna Lovegood perched with the seat down in an open stall, her knees drawn up to her chest.
"What are you doing here?" Hermione asked, then realized that the question came across as sounding rather more accusatory than she had intended, but Luna just blinked at her, pursed her lips, and let her eyes wander up to the ceiling as if she were thinking very hard.
"I got nervous," she said eventually. "I think it was a little silly, really, but I just didn't want to see everyone after all."
"We haven't really been all back together in years," Hermione agreed. "It's quite odd."
"Yes, and I think Ron was looking for you," Luna agreed, genially.
Hermione winced. "I ought to talk to him…" she hedged, then swallowed. "I suppose I want to, but at the same time, I really don't." Luna nodded, her gaze still fixed slightly to the side of Hermione's ear, and Hermione suddenly wondered if Luna was nervous to see her as well. "I apologize, I didn't mean to intrude," she said awkwardly.
"Well, it is a public restroom." Luna twisted a hand in her long, blond hair. "Someone might have needed to use it, anyway." She put her hands behind her head, now staring very definitely at the ceiling. "Hermione," she said, and Hermione felt a strange jolt run through her. She hadn't seen Luna in over a year now; although they had been sporadically meeting up for coffee since the war ended, Luna had recently gone on a long trip, drawn by her work as a naturalist, and Hermione hadn't even realized she was back in Britain until she'd seen her name listed among the RSVPs for the DA reunion. Somehow, she felt as if she should have known.
"What?" she blurted, realizing she had taken too long to respond, but Luna merely blinked and spoke as if there hadn't been a pause.
"Do you remember a few years ago when you asked me to do some guest lectures for the herbology students?"
"Um," said Hermione. "Yes, I think so." Her mind was churning in odd loops. Surely the champagne shouldn't have been that effective? She hadn't eaten since breakfast, she supposed, but still…her gaze kept being drawn to Luna's hair, like loops of fine gold puffed about her shoulders.
"I said I didn't have time," Luna said. "I think I do now. If you still think that it would be helpful."
"Oh," said Hermione, pushing herself into a standing position and stumbling a few steps toward her friend. "Yes, I think it would be quite a valuable endeavor."
Luna's gaze flickered down, and Hermione felt as if she'd been struck as Luna's grey eyes met hers. She put a hand out to steady herself, and the hand landed on Luna's shoulder. Luna just kept looking at her, an unreadable expression on her thin face.
Hermione shut her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said numbly, though she didn't know what she was apologizing for. "I think I've had a bit too much to drink."
A faint sigh and a shaky laugh. "I'd better see you home."
"Thanks," Hermione said, without moving her hand. Luna's shoulder beneath it was round and warm.