Here is another installment of the saga of a nice boy and a nice girl
searching for true love. Ah, the angst, the romance - the Fluff (capital F
intended). A majority of this was written while I listened to "Half Life"
by Duncan Sheik. Check it out if you like Flangsty music.
Chapter 10: What I Mean To Say
A life unexamined isn't worth living. -Plato
His mind clearly elsewhere, Neville Apparated just outside his own front door. As was the responsibility of all good house-elves, the door was locked good and tight. Knowing that he was not thinking clearly enough to be able to try to Apparate again inside the house, he resorted to pounding with all his might on the solid oak door.
"Master Neville! The sun is still high. You are home? Something is wrong! Kibbie calls the medics right away. Come rest." Running past an agitated house-elf trying it's best to be helpful requires the strength of ten men and a calm mind. Since Neville had neither, he did the next best thing. Grabbing Kibbie by his large ears, he swung him over his back and carried him down the hall.
"Ginny! Ginny! You have to let me in!" he yelled as he ran, already out of breath from his hectic journey so far and the weight of the small servant. "Please, let me explain!" The carpet was also proving a problem for a fast trip down the gloomy passage. The centuries-old fabric was not used to such activity and tore every time the man tried to gain better traction. Faithful house-elves had polished the wood around the runner just that morning and it was proving to be a formidable obstacle.
Without thinking of the consequences to his action, he decided to come to a full stop and evaluate the situation. Man, servant, carpet runner and a side table all flew down the without regard for gravity or the proper speed which mortal objects should fly through enclosed spaces. A rather nicely reupholstered chair stopped their progress.
"What's all the commotion? Is it Boxing Day already?" a grizzled man asked from his still-wobbling portrait.
"Oy! Haven't had this much fun in this place since the Goblin Rebellion of '58," another answered back, righting his tri-corn hat that had fallen over one eye. "Tell me boy, have we defeated the new uprising?"
"No uprising, sir. Just an error in judgement," muttered Neville as he tried to extract his leg from beautiful brocade, springs and stuffing. "Kippie, remind me to have Lavender start working on these hall carpets tomorrow." There was a stirring from under the tattered remains of the offending fabric and a groan of agreement.
"Neville!" Gran exclaimed from a nearby portrait. "What do you mean by causing all this commotion. Stand up and tell me what you're about without resorting to all your mumblings."
"I've come to tell Ginny to come out of that blasted room so that I can tell her I love her. Once and for all, I want her to know that I feel this way about her not because of who she was but who she is. Right now. Right here. I love her."
The older woman shook her head. "I'm delighted that you've finally sorted out your feelings but you're too late."
"How can I be too late?"
"She's not there," the milkmaid up above Gran mournfully told him. "She left this morning."
"You saw her?" The portraits all nodded in unison, right down the small child on the wooden horse who spent most of his time eating licorice whips. "But where, I mean, how did she, er, where?"
The hallway was silent.
"I love her," he whispered, reminding himself what he was doing home in the middle of the afternoon. She couldn't have gotten too far in one day. This sinking feeling in his stomach was merely a reminder that he hadn't had anything to eat in days. It wasn't the fear that she had decided that she didn't ever want to see him again. It wasn't because he dreaded that she decided to lose herself in the Muggle world again.
"Gran? What would you expect me to do with the news that Ginny left?" When she stared at him oddly, he shook his head and faced the painting with his chin up. "What would Neville Longbottom do with the information that the woman he loved was not where he left her? Would he hide in his room? Run off to find her? What would he do? Tell me because I want to do the exact opposite."
"Why, dear boy? You're a Longbottom. You've always had this strength of spirit. It just took a real test to make you aware of it."
"So the exact opposite is?"
"There is not opposite. Listen to yourself. You've been the Minister in charge of Muggle Affairs for the past four years. When are you going to get it through your thick skull that you've always had this potential inside of you? Don't worry about the opposite of what you think you would have done. Do what's in your heart."
His brain was telling him to lock himself in the front room and concentrate on his plants. They wouldn't ever hurt him.
His heart fought that idea, though. It was telling him to concentrate on finding her. Four years or forty. It didn't matter.
Having learned his lesson on the way down the hall, he walked back to the door even when he wanted to run. He needed a plan. Just moving forward helped him feel like he was doing something, though. His one hope was that she was also moving forward.
"Where would she go if she was moving forward?"
"Master Neville?" came the muffled voice. Lifting up the worn fabric, Neville freed his house-elf.
"Kibbie, I'm awfully sorry that I swung you around by your ears."
"Oh, please don't be sorry. Kibbie enjoyed it. Truly Kibbie did."
"It's just that I was so excited." He opened the front door and stood, half in and half out. "Where would she go, Kibbie? Where will she move forward to?"
"Sometimes moving ahead means going back."
The idea had merit. "Back to the beginning?"
"No, not necessarily. Back to where it started."
"The beginning."
The house-elf shook his head, a small smile playing on his huge mouth. Even his ears twitched with the merriment he seemed to be holding in. "No. The beginnings is not always where things start."
Holding his head, Neville looked at the small creature for a moment. "You're giving me a headache, Kibbie."
"Kibbie knows, sir. Sometimes things like love is hurting."
So, where did this all start? The library? The park?
With a flash of insight, he finally understood. The start was different than the beginning. A loud pop and flash later, he stood in the spot he needed to wait at.
"Mum, quite crying."
"It's just so sweet. I don't mean to cry but he's been sad for so long. And I always hoped she would love him but one can never tell, can they."
"No, dear. Hush now or they'll hear you even down there."
The group sat silently, staring out the window at the pond and the two people sitting underneath the tree.
When Ginny had arrived at the Burrows, she had been surprised to see her mother crying on the porch. It had taken some time to get the older woman calmed down enough to explain herself.
"He's been down there for half an hour. I went out to see if he wanted something to drink or perhaps a bite of nosh but he just smiled up at me with that beautiful smile of his and told me he was perfectly content to wait."
It had taken another fifteen minutes for Ginny to work up the nerve to walk down to the water's edge. He had smiled up at her with the same beautiful smile but said nothing.
"Neville?"
"Yes, love?"
"Why are you here under the tree? Shouldn't you be at work?"
"I'm at the start of it all. Waiting."
She sat down beside him, slightly confused by his quiet attitude. She'd been looking for him all morning, trying to plan out the perfect way to tell him what she felt. When her mother had told her he was out here, she'd been hurt. Did he not feel the same urgency she felt?
"Are you feeling okay? Nothing bothering you?"
He looked over at her, smiling a calm smile. "I feel better than okay. I feel wonderful. Love sometimes does that."
Leaning over, she put her hand on his forehead, scared that he really was running a fever. He felt cool and his reflexes were working just fine as he grabbed her hand to bring it to his mouth for a kiss.
"I remember the first time I ever saw you out under this tree."
"Of course you do. It was like two days ago."
'No, it was before that. Remember that summer Harry and I came home for the weekend? You were out here one day, reading a book. I think you were trying to get Harry to notice you."
She giggled, thinking of the careful planning that had gone into that scene. "And it worked."
"Yep. He fell hard that day." Neville smoothed the skin on the back of the hand he still held in his own. "So did I. This was the beginning of my love for you. Of course, I didn't call it that then. Harry was my friend and so were you. Today, though, I knew that I needed to come back to the beginning."
"That's beautiful, Neville. Thank you." Something had lifted in her heart listening to him talk. Had he always loved her? How was that possible? "Can I ask you one thing without ruining this moment? If Harry had lived, what would you have done? About me?"
He stared into space but turned to face her before answering. "I would have eventually found someone who would have taken over that immature love I felt for you and changed my heart. Now I don't have to think about it. You came and changed that immature love to something stronger. Something deeper."
"I'm glad you feel that way," she whispered, still slightly confused. "I feel like my feelings for you have changed as well. When I got angry with you the other day, I didn't mean it. I was scared, more than anything. It's been so long since I let myself feel anything other than the basic emotions of hungry and tired that I forget how stressful they can be."
"It's okay, Gin. I can understand that. And if you need some more time to come to same place I am, well, I'll wait. I can wait for you as long as you need me to."
"I don't want you to wait." With a broad smile, she pushed him over so she was straddling him, her hair hanging down to sweep his cheek. "You've been the one pushing lately. Well, it's my time to push. I love you, Neville Longbottom. It's a pretty new emotion for me and I've enjoyed it. I love your little house-elf and your scary backyard. I love the hall of portraits that are as noisy as any family gathering. I love your grandmother, who tells me that my red hair may be sinful. I love when your eyes cross like that because I've gotten close enough to kiss you but won't. That's a new one for me. I think I like it." She pushed at his shoulders, keeping him from lifting himself up. "No, stay there for another sec. I'm not done."
Licking her lips, she smiled at him seductively to see what would happen. Yes, he definitely felt something for her. Interesting.
"I love that you spent the last four years with your life on hold while you helped my family look for me. I know you'll say it was because you were worried about me or maybe because you knew that you loved me even then. But I can't help but wonder if you ever realized that I could have found someone else in that time. It would have torn you up but I love that you would have done it anyway."
His body had stilled as his eyes bored into hers, silently conveying how he felt about that possibility. It wasn't a nice possibility to think about, even for her. If she had turned to someone else, she would have missed out on so much that she knew was hers now that she had this man. He was special. One in a million.
"I love that you love my family already. It wouldn't change my feelings if you didn't but it validates my choice somehow. I have more than enough family to go around and I want to share them with you. Frankly, right now, I need someone to remind them that I'm not spun glass and you've already done that so well."
He waited for her next large pause for breath. "Can I go now?"
"Yes, but all your sentences have to start with 'I love that'. It's how we're playing this game."
His heart pounded as her hands began to stroke his shoulders. He was content to have her over him, for now.
"Okay, I love that you have let your heart out again. I love that you wanted to run the other day but that you didn't go as far away as you could have from your family. I love that you were comfortable enough to come to me. I love that you're wearing my shirt and trousers."
Her blush spread down her neck and he wanted very much to kiss the couple of freckles that are accented on her jaw.
"I love that you can still blush. I love that you said 'I love you' first this time. I love that Gran didn't scare you away forever and that you've calmed her down a bit." Reaching up to push his hands into her hair, he brought her head down closer to his. "I love you, Ginny Weasley."
"Before I let you kiss me, I should tell you that they're watching us from the window."
"Who?"
"Oh, the whole clan, I suspect."
With a wicked smile, he brought her closer. "To make it fair, we'll have to do this again in the hallway then. Wouldn't want one side of the family to feel left out."
When he let her up for air, she laughed softly and licked her lips again. "Oh, yes. We'll have to practice this many and many times. I'm sure I can come up with some new material. Let's see, I love that you kiss me like that and I forget my name." She went in for another kiss and promptly forgot a lot of other things.
Chapter 10: What I Mean To Say
A life unexamined isn't worth living. -Plato
His mind clearly elsewhere, Neville Apparated just outside his own front door. As was the responsibility of all good house-elves, the door was locked good and tight. Knowing that he was not thinking clearly enough to be able to try to Apparate again inside the house, he resorted to pounding with all his might on the solid oak door.
"Master Neville! The sun is still high. You are home? Something is wrong! Kibbie calls the medics right away. Come rest." Running past an agitated house-elf trying it's best to be helpful requires the strength of ten men and a calm mind. Since Neville had neither, he did the next best thing. Grabbing Kibbie by his large ears, he swung him over his back and carried him down the hall.
"Ginny! Ginny! You have to let me in!" he yelled as he ran, already out of breath from his hectic journey so far and the weight of the small servant. "Please, let me explain!" The carpet was also proving a problem for a fast trip down the gloomy passage. The centuries-old fabric was not used to such activity and tore every time the man tried to gain better traction. Faithful house-elves had polished the wood around the runner just that morning and it was proving to be a formidable obstacle.
Without thinking of the consequences to his action, he decided to come to a full stop and evaluate the situation. Man, servant, carpet runner and a side table all flew down the without regard for gravity or the proper speed which mortal objects should fly through enclosed spaces. A rather nicely reupholstered chair stopped their progress.
"What's all the commotion? Is it Boxing Day already?" a grizzled man asked from his still-wobbling portrait.
"Oy! Haven't had this much fun in this place since the Goblin Rebellion of '58," another answered back, righting his tri-corn hat that had fallen over one eye. "Tell me boy, have we defeated the new uprising?"
"No uprising, sir. Just an error in judgement," muttered Neville as he tried to extract his leg from beautiful brocade, springs and stuffing. "Kippie, remind me to have Lavender start working on these hall carpets tomorrow." There was a stirring from under the tattered remains of the offending fabric and a groan of agreement.
"Neville!" Gran exclaimed from a nearby portrait. "What do you mean by causing all this commotion. Stand up and tell me what you're about without resorting to all your mumblings."
"I've come to tell Ginny to come out of that blasted room so that I can tell her I love her. Once and for all, I want her to know that I feel this way about her not because of who she was but who she is. Right now. Right here. I love her."
The older woman shook her head. "I'm delighted that you've finally sorted out your feelings but you're too late."
"How can I be too late?"
"She's not there," the milkmaid up above Gran mournfully told him. "She left this morning."
"You saw her?" The portraits all nodded in unison, right down the small child on the wooden horse who spent most of his time eating licorice whips. "But where, I mean, how did she, er, where?"
The hallway was silent.
"I love her," he whispered, reminding himself what he was doing home in the middle of the afternoon. She couldn't have gotten too far in one day. This sinking feeling in his stomach was merely a reminder that he hadn't had anything to eat in days. It wasn't the fear that she had decided that she didn't ever want to see him again. It wasn't because he dreaded that she decided to lose herself in the Muggle world again.
"Gran? What would you expect me to do with the news that Ginny left?" When she stared at him oddly, he shook his head and faced the painting with his chin up. "What would Neville Longbottom do with the information that the woman he loved was not where he left her? Would he hide in his room? Run off to find her? What would he do? Tell me because I want to do the exact opposite."
"Why, dear boy? You're a Longbottom. You've always had this strength of spirit. It just took a real test to make you aware of it."
"So the exact opposite is?"
"There is not opposite. Listen to yourself. You've been the Minister in charge of Muggle Affairs for the past four years. When are you going to get it through your thick skull that you've always had this potential inside of you? Don't worry about the opposite of what you think you would have done. Do what's in your heart."
His brain was telling him to lock himself in the front room and concentrate on his plants. They wouldn't ever hurt him.
His heart fought that idea, though. It was telling him to concentrate on finding her. Four years or forty. It didn't matter.
Having learned his lesson on the way down the hall, he walked back to the door even when he wanted to run. He needed a plan. Just moving forward helped him feel like he was doing something, though. His one hope was that she was also moving forward.
"Where would she go if she was moving forward?"
"Master Neville?" came the muffled voice. Lifting up the worn fabric, Neville freed his house-elf.
"Kibbie, I'm awfully sorry that I swung you around by your ears."
"Oh, please don't be sorry. Kibbie enjoyed it. Truly Kibbie did."
"It's just that I was so excited." He opened the front door and stood, half in and half out. "Where would she go, Kibbie? Where will she move forward to?"
"Sometimes moving ahead means going back."
The idea had merit. "Back to the beginning?"
"No, not necessarily. Back to where it started."
"The beginning."
The house-elf shook his head, a small smile playing on his huge mouth. Even his ears twitched with the merriment he seemed to be holding in. "No. The beginnings is not always where things start."
Holding his head, Neville looked at the small creature for a moment. "You're giving me a headache, Kibbie."
"Kibbie knows, sir. Sometimes things like love is hurting."
So, where did this all start? The library? The park?
With a flash of insight, he finally understood. The start was different than the beginning. A loud pop and flash later, he stood in the spot he needed to wait at.
"Mum, quite crying."
"It's just so sweet. I don't mean to cry but he's been sad for so long. And I always hoped she would love him but one can never tell, can they."
"No, dear. Hush now or they'll hear you even down there."
The group sat silently, staring out the window at the pond and the two people sitting underneath the tree.
When Ginny had arrived at the Burrows, she had been surprised to see her mother crying on the porch. It had taken some time to get the older woman calmed down enough to explain herself.
"He's been down there for half an hour. I went out to see if he wanted something to drink or perhaps a bite of nosh but he just smiled up at me with that beautiful smile of his and told me he was perfectly content to wait."
It had taken another fifteen minutes for Ginny to work up the nerve to walk down to the water's edge. He had smiled up at her with the same beautiful smile but said nothing.
"Neville?"
"Yes, love?"
"Why are you here under the tree? Shouldn't you be at work?"
"I'm at the start of it all. Waiting."
She sat down beside him, slightly confused by his quiet attitude. She'd been looking for him all morning, trying to plan out the perfect way to tell him what she felt. When her mother had told her he was out here, she'd been hurt. Did he not feel the same urgency she felt?
"Are you feeling okay? Nothing bothering you?"
He looked over at her, smiling a calm smile. "I feel better than okay. I feel wonderful. Love sometimes does that."
Leaning over, she put her hand on his forehead, scared that he really was running a fever. He felt cool and his reflexes were working just fine as he grabbed her hand to bring it to his mouth for a kiss.
"I remember the first time I ever saw you out under this tree."
"Of course you do. It was like two days ago."
'No, it was before that. Remember that summer Harry and I came home for the weekend? You were out here one day, reading a book. I think you were trying to get Harry to notice you."
She giggled, thinking of the careful planning that had gone into that scene. "And it worked."
"Yep. He fell hard that day." Neville smoothed the skin on the back of the hand he still held in his own. "So did I. This was the beginning of my love for you. Of course, I didn't call it that then. Harry was my friend and so were you. Today, though, I knew that I needed to come back to the beginning."
"That's beautiful, Neville. Thank you." Something had lifted in her heart listening to him talk. Had he always loved her? How was that possible? "Can I ask you one thing without ruining this moment? If Harry had lived, what would you have done? About me?"
He stared into space but turned to face her before answering. "I would have eventually found someone who would have taken over that immature love I felt for you and changed my heart. Now I don't have to think about it. You came and changed that immature love to something stronger. Something deeper."
"I'm glad you feel that way," she whispered, still slightly confused. "I feel like my feelings for you have changed as well. When I got angry with you the other day, I didn't mean it. I was scared, more than anything. It's been so long since I let myself feel anything other than the basic emotions of hungry and tired that I forget how stressful they can be."
"It's okay, Gin. I can understand that. And if you need some more time to come to same place I am, well, I'll wait. I can wait for you as long as you need me to."
"I don't want you to wait." With a broad smile, she pushed him over so she was straddling him, her hair hanging down to sweep his cheek. "You've been the one pushing lately. Well, it's my time to push. I love you, Neville Longbottom. It's a pretty new emotion for me and I've enjoyed it. I love your little house-elf and your scary backyard. I love the hall of portraits that are as noisy as any family gathering. I love your grandmother, who tells me that my red hair may be sinful. I love when your eyes cross like that because I've gotten close enough to kiss you but won't. That's a new one for me. I think I like it." She pushed at his shoulders, keeping him from lifting himself up. "No, stay there for another sec. I'm not done."
Licking her lips, she smiled at him seductively to see what would happen. Yes, he definitely felt something for her. Interesting.
"I love that you spent the last four years with your life on hold while you helped my family look for me. I know you'll say it was because you were worried about me or maybe because you knew that you loved me even then. But I can't help but wonder if you ever realized that I could have found someone else in that time. It would have torn you up but I love that you would have done it anyway."
His body had stilled as his eyes bored into hers, silently conveying how he felt about that possibility. It wasn't a nice possibility to think about, even for her. If she had turned to someone else, she would have missed out on so much that she knew was hers now that she had this man. He was special. One in a million.
"I love that you love my family already. It wouldn't change my feelings if you didn't but it validates my choice somehow. I have more than enough family to go around and I want to share them with you. Frankly, right now, I need someone to remind them that I'm not spun glass and you've already done that so well."
He waited for her next large pause for breath. "Can I go now?"
"Yes, but all your sentences have to start with 'I love that'. It's how we're playing this game."
His heart pounded as her hands began to stroke his shoulders. He was content to have her over him, for now.
"Okay, I love that you have let your heart out again. I love that you wanted to run the other day but that you didn't go as far away as you could have from your family. I love that you were comfortable enough to come to me. I love that you're wearing my shirt and trousers."
Her blush spread down her neck and he wanted very much to kiss the couple of freckles that are accented on her jaw.
"I love that you can still blush. I love that you said 'I love you' first this time. I love that Gran didn't scare you away forever and that you've calmed her down a bit." Reaching up to push his hands into her hair, he brought her head down closer to his. "I love you, Ginny Weasley."
"Before I let you kiss me, I should tell you that they're watching us from the window."
"Who?"
"Oh, the whole clan, I suspect."
With a wicked smile, he brought her closer. "To make it fair, we'll have to do this again in the hallway then. Wouldn't want one side of the family to feel left out."
When he let her up for air, she laughed softly and licked her lips again. "Oh, yes. We'll have to practice this many and many times. I'm sure I can come up with some new material. Let's see, I love that you kiss me like that and I forget my name." She went in for another kiss and promptly forgot a lot of other things.