The Oceanides

It is summer at Grimmauld Place. Since the battle in the Department of Mysteries, Molly considers all the children prime targets for the Death Eaters' retribution. Until they are safe at Hogwarts again, Ron and Ginny will stay with their parents in the Order headquarters. The Burrow, plottable and known to all, is all but abandoned; Arthur visits only occasionally, but never alone, and never stays for long. Fred and George are living at their shop, over their parents' objections. Harry is off for the summer at Privet Drive, protected by Petunia's grudging blood magic, and Neville's formidable old grandmother has ensorcelled her own home so thoroughly that Neville himself once blundered afoul of the wards and almost lost an ear.

No one knows where Luna is. Dumbledore is concerned.

Ginny spends a lot of time reading and looking out the window. She and Ron aren't allowed to leave the house for any reason, unless accompanied by an adult. Since the adults don't go anywhere other than work and missions, they haven't left the house once all summer.

Hermione is also staying at Grimmauld Place, her parents alarmed for her safety and easily convinced by Dumbledore to allow the Order to foster her for the summer. But even as Ginny and Ron find themselves infantilized in their mother's eyes, Hermione has been elevated; she attends the meetings, flies on reconnaissance missions, and offers strategies and logistical advice which are always well received. Ginny misses Hermione, but doesn't begrudge her this premature adulthood; after what she saw in the Department of Mysteries, Ginny is in no hurry to grow up. She knows that her childhood is almost at an end, and clings fiercely to each day of bed and meals and security.

Her only true companion in this overstuffed house is Ron. Molly loves her as much as ever, she knows, but the doting she had taken for granted is now diluted to an absent, preoccupied concern as Molly's family has expanded to include the Order and, by extension, the entire wizarding world. Molly bustles around the house, cleaning and cooking and fretting and owling, the quartermaster and comfort to all, in her element, worn and glowing. Ginny avoids her as much as possible.

Ginny doesn't bother to dress anymore. Where would she go? Molly doesn't notice, and Ginny has taken to spending all day in her nightdress. It fits her mood, the dreamlike mood of the shuttered house, hers and Ron's existences cloistered together. It should have felt claustrophobic, but it doesn't. It feels safe.

The weather this summer has been unusually warm. Every morning promises rain that never comes; humidity hangs in the air and spreads sullenly through every corner of the house. Ivy has grown thick over the windows of Ginny's upstairs bedroom, a murky green scrim between her and the world outside, tinting the gray clouded daylight so that she can imagine herself underwater as she idles the time away.

She asks Ron about it, once, noting that he also has given up dressing for the day, sitting on the bed in his room in drawstring pajama pants and nothing else. As he speaks, and nods, Ron's fingers wander to the scars still livid on his arms; he too is waiting to leave, but is not looking forward to it.

Ginny and Ron read the letters from Harry, long whining liturgies of boredom and restlessness and impatience. Harry, they are sure, dresses every day, lest the battle commence and catch him unprepared in his pajamas and slippers. They giggle at his vehemence, contrast it with their own indolence, laughing together on Ron's unmade bed. Sometimes Ginny catches him peeking down the neck of her nightdress.

There is news of Luna. She and her father are returning from their expedition to Sweden. Dumbledore is going to try to convince her father to let her stay at Grimmauld Place.

With only one sibling to contend with, ignored by the adults, Ginny finds her obsessive need for privacy starting to wane. She stops locking her bedroom door at night, now that there's no danger of the twins barging in to charm her stuffed animals or read her diaries or steal her underwear. Ron, also, has shrugged off the protective habits learned of necessity in the crowded, irreverent Burrow. Several times in the past week, Ginny has walked by the half-opened door to the third floor powder room and seen Ron inside, combing his hair or brushing his teeth or shaving.

The first time she sees Ron shaving, she stops at the doorway, startled. He is using a straight razor, a Black family heirloom, wielding it about the vulnerability of his jaw and throat with careless sweeping strokes that frighten her. Aren't you scared, she asks him, mightn't it be cursed like the others? He pauses, grinning at her in the black glass mirror over the marble sink, Yeah, it might, and starts again. She watches a moment longer, disturbed and fascinated, before moving on to breakfast.

Ginny is impatient at last, wanting Luna to come and stay. She thinks she understands Luna now, identifies with her fatalism and disinterestedness. Luna would appreciate the atmosphere at Grimmauld Place, would grace the dark mansion like a corporeal ghost. Luna wouldn't mind that she and Ron don't dress.

Today Ginny passes by the powder room and he's there again, glowing russet and cream among the heavy dark fixtures, shirtless as usual as he skims the wicked blade across his cheek. She stops, and enters, catching his eye in the mirror to make sure he doesn't mind. He winks, silently inviting her in as his hands maneuver the razor among the tricky contours between nose and lip. The welted scars on his forearms have faded slightly since the spring, but they still show purple against his freckled skin as he finishes, rinsing and drying his face before turning to her. She reaches a hand toward his arm and traces one of the welts there, sisterly and solicitous, Does it hurt? And Ron shakes his head, No, not anymore, and stands perfectly still. She lets her fingertips trail up his arm to his unscarred bicep, where instead of baby fat or gangly young-boy bones, her touch encounters muscle, silky and warm, surprisingly hard under skin still youthfully soft. She risks a glance at his face; color has flooded his ears and cheeks, but his expression is serene, almost sleepy, as his half-closed eyes again survey the neck of her nightdress before lighting up as they meet hers.

Ginny lies on her bed, watching dust motes circle sluggishly in the pallid afternoon light above her. Once in a while she blows her breath out sharply, to watch the motes accelerate and swirl madly for a moment before falling victim again to the saturated air.

The doorbell rings. Luna is here.

From the first moment of her stay, it is as if she has always been here. The house suits Luna, and she it, fitting into its twilit ambience as if she'd been born there. Even the portraits seem to welcome her, appraising her silently as she drifts by them, floating in the current of her own musings, impervious to tension or fear.

She moves her things into Ginny's room. There is no room elsewhere, and Ginny doesn't mind.

Luna falls easily into the Grimmauld dishabille. Most days she wears only a chemise that seems too big for her; Ginny is too shy to ask if it was her mother's. Sometimes Ginny wonders if Luna would wear clothes at all, if given her preference. At night, she sleeps naked.

One morning, Ginny wakes before Luna. Ron is in the doorway, watching them as they lie together, his pajama bottoms bulging out in a way Ginny has seen on all her brothers at one time or another. Only this time she doesn't find it funny. She smiles at Ron from the bed, slowly, and he swallows hard as he touches himself.

Ginny feels a hum under her feet, a frequency too low for her to hear, setting her teeth on edge and her hair on end like a warning from the sky. Charges are building in the dank air of the old house, ions flowing in graceful elliptical patterns among the three of them, binding them towards what final configuration Ginny does not know.

Ginny awakens one night with Luna's arm across her neck, Luna's hair in her mouth. Even so close, her breathing is so quiet that Ginny hears nothing, feels only the slightest slow pulse of the arm across her body. Her arm glows in the dark moonless night, sweet scent and comforting weight. She turns to Luna, pressing their bodies together, as Luna's embrace tightens.

Luna was supposed to be the stabilizer. Instead she is the catalyst, the silvered crystal seed flung among the ponderous clouds, forcing a reaction.

Tonight before bed, Luna stands naked in front of their vanity mirror, braiding her hair carefully before joining Ginny under the duvet. Ginny wants Luna to fall asleep, so she can caress her and insinuate herself underneath her. But tonight Luna is wakeful, fixing Ginny with stormy blue eyes both guileless and seductive in the light of the candles she has somehow neglected to extinguish.

It is almost midnight before they hear the footsteps outside their bedroom. Ginny turns on her side as Luna props her head up on her hand so they both can watch the doorway.

Ron stands there, uncertain of his welcome. As Ginny smiles at him, Luna places her free hand on Ginny's hip, above the duvet so he can see.

It is more invitation than he needs. Ron scampers across the bare floor, tossing a careless Colloportus over his shoulder as he climbs into the warmth next to Ginny. Luna flicks her wand at the bed to widen it; another careless flick at the window and it opens, the night breezes disrupting the stifling stagnant air, blowing candlelight and cobwebs and torpor from the room.

Ron's mouth is rough on hers, urgent and insistent, weeks of repressed longing bursting between her lips as he moans onto Ginny's tongue. Then he falls to her neck and it is Luna's mouth she kisses, small soft lips and clever tongue teasing whimpers from her throat as the buttons of her nightdress scatter under Ron's hands.

Luna's breasts press gently against the back of Ginny's head, her hands hooked behind Ginny's knees, pulling her legs up and out. She feels Ron grip her hands tightly as he lies between her legs, searching and finding and pressing forward. Ginny looks up to see Ron and Luna kissing, as she holds her breath and crushes Ron's hands, feeling a fierce uncontrollable energy cycling back and forth, flowing from Luna to Ron and back to her, building to a violent discharge as she gasps, stricken, and Ron's cry is loud as a thunderclap in her ears and Luna laughs in delight.

Ginny feels as if a haze has lifted, as if a paper screen before her eyes has been torn away to reveal the real, passionate world underneath, a world in which Luna crouches face down between her legs as Ron works behind her. She tugs on Luna's braid, urging her upward until she can taste her own blood on Luna's tongue, Luna's belly warm and flush against hers. Ron caresses himself on the both of them, delving into first one, then the other, as the wind whips tree branches against the house and rain hammers the ivied shutters.

Ginny wakes to the flutter of wings and a square of parchment thrust sharply into her open hand. Outside it is still dark, but stars are already beginning to fade from the clearing purple sky. Luna stands in front of their vanity, her hair now loosened and glowing in the candlelight, fully clothed with her robes in her arms. Ginny's panic is assuaged when Ron appears from around the bed, his robes far too short at the ankle and wrist, scrubbed and shaved and eager to be gone, his own letter crushed in his hand. She scrambles off the bed, seizing and throwing on alien clothing grown too tight, muffling laughter in her palm as Luna pulls the knots out of her hair and Ron stuffs her pockets with heavy coins smuggled to him by the twins.

Luna goes ahead of them to silence the portraits, as quietly, quietly, they steal down the stairs into the front hall, and suddenly, so easily, they are on the street and the house has winked into nonexistence behind them. Ron's arm around Ginny's shoulder and her arm in Luna's, they hurry through the brightening streets, giggling and merry and fearless, as Luna reads from her parchment, her words dropping bell-clear in the pure morning air:

"The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5 ..."