#victoliver

murtronia - “Paper Rings” (Lover)

now i gotta admit, picking a song for murtronia was a little nerve-racking, since they’re like one of the top otps in this fandom. however, i’ve been reading up on my coffee and commentary (which is so so so excellent, i don’t know why i didn’t start reading it sooner) and i’m pretty pleased with what i’ve got here!

the word that comes to my mind when i think of murtronia is “fun” (along with soulmates, best friends, otp, and adorable). they are just genuinely one of the most fun couples, and i think that especially comes through in their cameo @lifeofkaze’s Art of Balance, which was my first introduction to this ship, and those vibes were only strengthened upon my reading of c&c! so, i really recommend listening to this song especially, as the groove of the song is just very fun and that’s not something you can experience just by reading the lyrics. the atmosphere the song creates is one of the reasons i initially thought of this song for them. ok sry for my rant, let’s get to the break down!

“The moon is high / Like your friends were the night that we first met / Went home and tried to stalk you on the internet / Now I've read all of the books beside your bed” while there was no getting high or internet stalking upon their first time meeting, katronia did return to her dormitory and gossip about murphy with her friend, so i think that counts enough. also, this ravenclaw power couple has absolutely read all of the available reading while waiting for the other to wake up.

“The wine is cold / Like the shoulder that I gave you in the street / Cat and mouse for a month or two or three / Now I wake up in the night and watch you breathe” it’s safe to say these two played cat and mouse for MUCH longer than three months, it took them a while to stop secretly pining after each other and confess their feelings. “i wake up in the night and watch you breathe” for all of the falling asleep together that they do.

“Kiss you once 'cause I know you had a long night (Oh) / Kiss you twice 'cause it's gonna be alright (Uh) / Three times 'cause you waited your whole life” I haven’t made it very far in coffee & commentary yet, but already the number of times they comfort each other in times when they really needed someone with them is off the charts. and the way they support each other is simply by being present for each other, and knowing when the other needs them.

“I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings” really suits their engagement story- they get married within 24 hours of murphy popping the question. they don’t need an extravagant engagement, they just need each other!

“I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this” so many misunderstandings, and reckoning the odds of the other liking them back were too low, stood in the way of katronia and murphy’s romance initially. if they hadn’t once again accidentally fallen asleep in the common room together maybe katronia wouldn’t have been courageous enough to shoot her shot with mcnully so soon. love isn’t something mcnully can just predict with statistics, but i reckon he’s 100% happy with how things turned out for them.

“Darling, you're the one I want / In paper rings, in picture frames, in dirty dreams” it was always murphy that kc wanted, sorry barnaby. and katronia was the one for murphy from the moment they became friends as well.

“I want to drive away with you / I want your complications too / I want your dreary Mondays / Wrap your arms around me, baby boy” katronia and murphy are that couple who want to be with each other on their bad days as much as their good days. and they’re very cuddly.

and for the free choice i have chosen…

viktoliver - “New Year’s Day” (reputation) victoria belongs to the marvelous @whatwouldvalerydo

“There's glitter on the floor after the party / Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby / Candle wax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor / You and me from the night before” this reminds me of the Halloween party story, where oli and victoria are hanging out alone together after the party has ended.

“Don’t read the last page / But I stay when you're lost and I'm scared and you’re turning away” oliver didn’t look to see the carving in victoria’s pie… but she did stay to comfort oliver after his seemingly lost love. victoria, in fact, is always there for oliver after all his failed endeavors, if only he saw her there and he’d have his love much sooner.

“I want your midnights / But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day” Victoria had wanted nothing more than to be oliver’s date, just as the song references wanting to have spent midnight on New Year’s together. instead, they share a different kind of intimate moment together while dealing with the party aftermath.

“You squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi / I can tell that it's gonna be a long road / I'll be there if you're the toast of the town, babe / Or if you strike out and you're crawling home” they stand with each other in times when they “strike out”, but are ever supportive and will be cheering the for the other loudest when success comes.

“Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you / And I will hold on to you” the impossibly cheerful victoria and ever hopeful oliver must have countless stories of fun they cherish, such as being trapped in a corn maze together.

“This must be the right way now.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“Of course it is. It’s the only way we haven’t tried yet.”

“Really? I think I remember that broken corn stem over there. We must have passed it three times by now.”

Selene sighed. Conversations like this had happened in different variations between her and her best friend Ethel for the last hour or so. At this point, they might as well face reality:

They were lost.

It had started all so well. To celebrate the beginning of autumn, a corn maze had been set up just outside the gates of Hogsmeade; and not any ordinary corn maze, either, of course not.

Like the staircases up at the castle, the narrow, winding paths threading through the field of corn were twisting and turning every now and again, creating new paths and dead-ends, and countless opportunities to get lost.

Selene and Ethel had been burning to go from the first moment they had caught wind of the new attraction. They had positively harassed their Gryffindor friends Oliver Gerard and Victoria Summer to come with them, until they had given up on refusing the two girls and agreed to join them.

Everyone in Gryffindor House agreed that the sweet Victoria and the hopelessly romantic Oliver would make the most wonderful pair; all but themselves apparently. They had been dancing around each other for ages now, and neither Ethel nor Selene could stand Oliver’s whining or Victoria’s dreamy sighs in their dormitory anymore. So, they figured, something had to be done.

Their plan had been infallible; they had ventured deep into the maze with Victoria and Oliver until they had reached a spot they deemed suitable for their endeavours.

When their two friends weren’t looking, Selene slipped Alan, her and Ethel’s adopted pet ferret, out of her bag and set him on the ground.

He looked up at them out of trusty, beady eyes, maybe a little grumpy he had been so rudely awakened from his blissful nap.

“Come on, Alan,” Ethel said and gently nudged him with her foot, “this is your cue.”

As if understanding her, Alan turned around and darted off into the maze.

“Oh NO, Selly! How did Alan get here?” Ethel exclaimed dramatically.

“I don’t know, Effy! He’s gone! Whatever shall we do now?” Selene called out, barely able to contain her laughter.

“We need to get him back,” Oliver said firmly, stepping onto the path Alan had darted along.

“No, no, no,” Ethel and Selene said simultaneously.

“He’s a very sensitive ferret, you know,” Selene explained.

“You might scare him away,” Ethel agreed. “He’s in shock and needs familiar faces now. You two just stay here. Don’t move,” she smiled as she backed away from them, “and don’t do anything we wouldn’t do.”

“Or maybe do exactly that!” Selene called over her shoulder as she and Ethel set off to chase down Alan, leaving a baffled looking Oliver and Victoria behind.

As it turned out, there was one major flaw they hadn’t considered in their wonderful plan to give their friends some time to themselves; Alan was surprisingly good at hiding, and the corn maze offered a little too many opportunities for him to do so.

It had taken them several turns and scratched heads until they had found the fugitive ferret basking on a bench in the golden autumn sunlight. With a triumphant cry, Selene scooped him up and tucked him into her bag again, from which his little head was peaking out curiously.

When they had turned to walk back the way they had come from, they had been forced to realise that the maze had had different ideas. The enchanted paths had shifted again, and the two girls found themselves in front of a solid wall of corn plants.

“That’s unfortunate,” Selene said.

“Indeed,” Ethel mused, her lips pursed as she was thinking on what to do next. “Let’s try this way.”

One hour and countless wrong decisions later, Selene and Ethel were almost ready to declare defeat.

“Do you think we could just walk straight through?” Selene wondered with a judging look at the dense plants.

“They’re probably hexed to prevent that,” Ethel sighed. As if to prove her point, she picked up a stone from the pathway and flicked it at the corn surrounding them. As expected, it bounced right back off.

“Seems like there’s no shortcut for us this time.”

Selene looked around them. “If there was something to climb on, maybe we could get an overview. “Or should I give you a leg-up?”

Ethel shrugged. “Might as well try that.”

Selene interlaced her fingers to give her friend a foothold, but when Ethel stepped into Selene’s folded hands and was hoisted up, she immediately lost her balance and the two Gryffindors came crashing down to the ground.

“Ouch,” Selene huffed as she got up and dusted off her dress. “What did you eat this morning, rock cakes?”

“Only three,” Ethel sniggered. “That was definitely in need of development.”

She dipped her head back, judging the height of the walls. “Do you think we could use the Spongify charm to jump high enough to see something?”

Selene’s eyes lit up as an idea struck her. “Forget about Spongify. How about the levitation charm?”

Ethel clearly wasn’t convinced. “You were just complaining I was too heavy, and now you want to try levitating?”

“Not you,” Selene laughed. “I was thinking more about him,” she grinned and held up her bag. Alan sniffed her hand curiously.

A broad smile stole onto Ethel’s face. “A splendid idea, as always. We’re here because someone couldn’t stick to the plan,” she said, looking at Alan pointedly, “so it’s poetic justice that the root of our predicament would be the solution to it, too.”

They didn’t waste another moment, and so Alan found himself slowly floating upwards through the air, until he was hovering a good deal above the upper edges of the maze.

“Which way, Alan?” Selene called out from below.

Alan sniffed the air and turned on his axis twice, once horizontally, and then vertically, for good measure. It was delightful how his fluffy tail was swishing behind him, and he tried reaching for it.

“Alan, concentrate!”

Alan chirped indignantly, but concentrated on his task again. When he had decided on a path, he pointed his nose in the direction and went stockstill, like a tiny hound who had found its trail.

Selene and Ethel were surprised to see that Alan seemed to have a better orientation than the two of them, because after only two tries they found themselves almost back at the place where their goose - or rather - ferret chase had begun.

They were just about to round the corner when Ethel’s hand shot out and held Selene back by her sleeve.

“Look,” she whispered with a broad grin.

Carefully, Selene leaned forward until she could see into the small clearing where they had left their friends. Funnily enough, they had actually been waiting for them to return, but they didn’t seem bored by their friends’ prolonged absence in the slightest.

They were sitting on the bench on the edge of the clearing, deeply immersed into their conversation. They were facing each other, mirroring their positions, and Oliver had a dreamy expression on his face as he watched Victoria speak. Victoria’s eyes were sparkling and she laid a hand on his arm when Oliver said something to make her laugh.

Bringing one finger to her lips, Ethel silently retreated backwards the way they had come, Selene tiptoeing behind her; at least this part of their plan seemed to have worked.

When they were out of earshot, Alan was sent on another trip up into the air on a lookout for another way home. The girls linked arms and marched in a perfect lockstep into the direction the floating ferret indicated.

“At least us getting lost worked for Vic and Oli,” Ethel laughed as the exit to the maze came into view.

Placing down the knife, Oliver took a step back admiring his pumpkin carving skills, smiling to himself before taking it off the table and deciding on another design for a new one.

Looking around the garden he called out to Victoria, her not answering, not even when he spoke her name out once more. She promised to get some refreshments and snacks prior to joining him, but he was already two pumpkins down and she was nowhere in sight.

Walking inside the house, he called out to her again, witnessing her running down the hallway "Vic? I've been waiting for you in the garden so we can carve pumpkins together."

Stopping in order to turn around and look at him, she shrug her shoulders “Yes? I am so sorry Oli dear, I got distracted.”

Squinting his eyes at her, he asked “Is that really what it is or are you lying?”

“The latter.” she admitted “I have the pumpkin curse I’m afraid.” 

“The what now?” he asked blinking in surprise.

“The pumpkin curse Oli. I can’t carve a pumpkin and if I do I end up dropping it and then a series of events transpire. Last time I ripped my dress, smashed the pumpkin, was late to your event and you didn’t even notice the same pattern on the pie. The following year my pumpkin suddenly decided magic was enough for it and fell from the ceiling, landing in the middle of a table, food and drinks splashing on my dress. It’s a curse. I have not touched a pumpkin since.”

Trying not to laugh and maintain a serious face, he still could not hide the amusement in his tone “I am fairly certain it was just a coincidence. Now will you please come to the garden so I can show you there is no curse involved.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“If I am wrong then I will wear the pumpkin you carve on my head for the party. Deal?”

“I hope you know that orange doesn’t go well with your suit.”