Luna's not been about for a week, and they've both been stepping around her absence: treading more lightly as if maybe they could draw her bare-stockinged footsteps into the absence of sound they leave behind. Ginny feels herself skittish in her bones, twitchy and sharp and quick to look behind her, and Neville—Neville, gallingly, is even more silent than usual; when they're in proximity he keeps a foot of space between them, like if he won't touch her Luna will pop up into the unused space.
It doesn't help. It doesn't do a bloody thing, and Ginny feels it acutely: that nothing that they're doing. Her hands sit uselessly at her sides for days on end, and the work stills around them. The DA, in its fragments, are shocked silent for a week, and it's on the eighth day that Ginny finds herself staring shamefacedly at a plate of radishes for fifteen minutes—radishes, honestly, she thinks, and then oh bugger no, there are tears in her eyes.
Neville looks up. She hasn't made a sound and Neville looks up anyway from his fixed place next to her. "Hey," he says, barely audible in the air between them, and she shakes her head hard. His hand raises above his plate and teeters awkwardly in the air between them. Caught still in the space.
It's that hovering she despises, that feeling that catches in the air around them as if they're being hoisted and stalled on marionette strings. She reaches out, Seeker swift, and catches his hand, grips it hard in hers.
"I'm full," she says, gulping hard over the catch in her throat, "come with me?"
He gets up without comment, follows her through the tables to the end of the Hall without shaking out of her hand. His fingers, broad and slightly soft, are intertwined with hers when they reach the entryway. Nott's on duty, that awful rangy Slytherin with the sneer on his face some foot above her own. "You got a pass, Weasley?"
She freezes. It's Neville who speaks, then. "Of course we do." When she looks back at him, he's flashing a bit of parchment. "Professor Sprout's expecting us."
Nott tosses a contemptuous hand, and they pass. She'd give anything to hex him, but her wand's in her room now—they need Carrow license to carry wands to meals now. "Thanks," she says when they've come to the nearest staircase, which wags toward them, "sorry."
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timeasmymeasure
an addiction to hands and feet (1/2) - ginny/neville - r
Date: 2010-11-27 11:45 pm (UTC)Luna's not been about for a week, and they've both been stepping around her absence: treading more lightly as if maybe they could draw her bare-stockinged footsteps into the absence of sound they leave behind. Ginny feels herself skittish in her bones, twitchy and sharp and quick to look behind her, and Neville—Neville, gallingly, is even more silent than usual; when they're in proximity he keeps a foot of space between them, like if he won't touch her Luna will pop up into the unused space.
It doesn't help. It doesn't do a bloody thing, and Ginny feels it acutely: that nothing that they're doing. Her hands sit uselessly at her sides for days on end, and the work stills around them. The DA, in its fragments, are shocked silent for a week, and it's on the eighth day that Ginny finds herself staring shamefacedly at a plate of radishes for fifteen minutes—radishes, honestly, she thinks, and then oh bugger no, there are tears in her eyes.
Neville looks up. She hasn't made a sound and Neville looks up anyway from his fixed place next to her. "Hey," he says, barely audible in the air between them, and she shakes her head hard. His hand raises above his plate and teeters awkwardly in the air between them. Caught still in the space.
It's that hovering she despises, that feeling that catches in the air around them as if they're being hoisted and stalled on marionette strings. She reaches out, Seeker swift, and catches his hand, grips it hard in hers.
"I'm full," she says, gulping hard over the catch in her throat, "come with me?"
He gets up without comment, follows her through the tables to the end of the Hall without shaking out of her hand. His fingers, broad and slightly soft, are intertwined with hers when they reach the entryway. Nott's on duty, that awful rangy Slytherin with the sneer on his face some foot above her own. "You got a pass, Weasley?"
She freezes. It's Neville who speaks, then. "Of course we do." When she looks back at him, he's flashing a bit of parchment. "Professor Sprout's expecting us."
Nott tosses a contemptuous hand, and they pass. She'd give anything to hex him, but her wand's in her room now—they need Carrow license to carry wands to meals now. "Thanks," she says when they've come to the nearest staircase, which wags toward them, "sorry."
"Course."