build me up

she leaned back into her chair with the bitter taste of coffee and something stronger lingering on her tongue long after she’d put the cup down. her shoulders dropped lower and lower, her eyelids, hidden behind sunglasses, drooped little by little while her body relaxed into the chair. the wind coming down onto her cheeks felt softer, like a caress. she wanted to fall into it, let down her guards and simply be. but even when she was completely locked, which she wasn’t, she found herself never being able to shed the fear that had taken refuge in the back of her mind like a spider in the corner of a dark room. she watched as witches and wizards milled about the shops, watching as people went on their lives as though they had no concerns whatsoever. her attention was focused on a mother and her kid when her ears peaked with the sound of feat approaching her table from behind her. without thinking, she whirled around, bracing a hand against her boot, where she kept her wand. 

who: luna & anyone! when: january 4th where: slugs and jiggers apothecary

“No, no — I’m sure it’s fine.” It wasn’t a rare thing, to catch Luna Lovegood talking to herself in public. Growing up with little company had made her prone to thinking out loud every now and then ( and then, on the other hand, it made her prone to sinking in her thoughts and zoning out for minutes on end, even when in front of others ), and she had never been ashamed of it, and thus had seen no reason to unlearn it. And so, as she stood in Slug & Jiggers, judging the contents of a bottle filled with Billywig sting slime, she hardly cared that there were others who could hear her. But despite her efforts, she was unable to pass a proper judgement. She needed a second opinion. Eyes moved away from the bottle, and she noticed someone standing near her. Luna looked at them for a moment before talking a step closer and holding the bottle in front of the other’s face. “Do you think this looks cloudy?”

gaze travelling quickly around her while her head was pulled backwards with the force of her hand brushing through her hair, lottie took in her surroundings; the smell of fresh herbs, the lack of buzzing that often came with an establishment wired with electric equipment, no cameras, no dark forms standing in the corners. she did her best to avoid wizarding establishments like this, and had she had the choice, charlotte would have been happy to keep to this new habit by foregoing the visit to the apothecary to go out into the woods and gather her own ingredients. if only coming by them in the wild wasn’t nearly impossible. she’d known this from the moment she’d started thinking about cooking up this potion at all, and had taken days debating and planning when and how she would come in. having stocked up on some extra items that she was running low on, lottie counted three minutes passed since she’d come into the shop. she didn’t want to spend too much time here in case someone... less than desirable was to enter, and put the last item she needed in her basket when an older woman began to speak. “uhh...” she took a step away from the bottle that was much too close to her face to look at properly, and studied the woman for a moment before she turned her attention to the bottle itself, studying it for a few seconds before nodding, “a little, yeah. why?”

nothing about this situation was fair. how was fawn supposed to be there for charlotte? how was she supposed to help charlotte come to terms with her cousins death, when she was still struggling to process her own father’s death? fawn kissed charlotte’s hand and gave it a squeeze before letting go of it. fawn felt so hopeless, but more than anything, she felt guilty. it was not fair of fawn, to drag charlotte down into her pool of grief — charlotte deserved better, she deserved more, and fawn knew that. charlotte deserved to have her own time and her own space to grieve both neville and her cousin, without having to worry about fawns feelings as well. 

she took a deep, shaky breath as she laid her forehead against charlotte’s collar bone. she wrapped her arms around charlotte’s midsection and sat there for a moment, tangled up with the love of her life, trying to find the right words to say. “ i know… i know that this isn’t something that we can fix. ” fawn replied with a soft ( almost too soft to hear ) laugh. “ i just…” she trailed off, feeling hot tears begin to well up in the corner of her eyes again. “ i just need you. and i know that’s not fair because you need me too. ” 

her breath escaped between her lips in time with the hand that brushed fawn’s hair downward, tilting her head down and laying a gentle kiss atop her lover’s head, trying to absolve both of them of this grief that plagued them both. sometimes, she wished all of this had happened to them while they were children, where death was something they didn’t yet completely understand. if they couldn’t understand what all of this was, could it make all of this better? no. no, of course not. but they could forget, couldn’t they? they could grow up and forget about what grief felt like.

“ it’s not unfair at all. I’m-- I’m here, f. I’ll always be here. ” she cupped fawn’s cheeks and gently pulled her head away from her chest so that she could look at her. merlin, could she really be here? here here? she needed a drink, something to numb keep her from feeling her feelings; to make her numb. she wanted to will her emotions to take a break so she could really be here for fawn, so she could figure out how to make things better for her. couldn’t she stop being so selfish for just one bloody second? 

“ he said, and I quote: “ you clearly didn’t write this with a quill, you therefore forfeited 10% of your grade simply on that account. also, have you ever learned how to write proper english? I have never, in my life, seen such atrocious writing and so many misspelled words! ” it’s completely bonkers, ” she said that last part underneath her breath so that only her fellow ravenclaw could hear her, looking over her shoulder as she stepped closer to her friend. “ but obviously I would never be able to fight for a better grade, so I really shouldn’t be thinking about it anymore, but still . ” she started walking alongside her friend as they made their way to their next class. 

“Hey! Sit down- I’ll buy you a butterbeer. It’s boring sitting here alone.”

“hm, how could I ever say no to free butterbeer.”

“uhm, well, I hate the fact that I’m so behind everyone else. obviously fawn has been a lot of help, but I still haven’t exactly caught up with the rest of my classmates, which makes me feel I’m rather stupid.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“I think I might have, eventually, but I probably wouldn’t be in it at this time if she hadn’t been killed.”

“I… don’t know, honestly. I’d like to think that I could if I had to, but it’s easy to think about having to kill someone rather than actually do it.”

“I don’t know what she’d think, but I think it might hurt her. I think…” she licked her lips and looked up, “when she finds out, whenever that is, I think… I think she’ll put up a good front, but she’s going to be hurt that I didn’t choose the knights… among other things.”

“of course! I’m–” lottie stepped back, eyebrows furrowed so close together they could be attached to each other. “I could never stop loving her–” she shook her head. the idea that she could ever not be in love with fawn was so foreign to her, she was shocked anyone could ever think otherwise.