Outside

(The Train to Nowhere)

Possible scene.

–

“Okay, that’s it,” Ginny says, slamming her book shut and turning to Hermione. “Sweetie, listen.”

“Sweetie?” Harry whispers, and Luna smiles at him.

“She’s been spending a lot of time with Gildy,” she reveals, and Harry isn’t sure if what troubles him is what Luna just said or that Luna called Gildy, well, Gildy.

“I know you’re smart,” Ginny says. “I know you’re pretty. I know you’re good at duelling. I know you ace all of your exams. I know you don’t use any make up. I know you don’t use charms on your hair. I know you dislike high heeled shoes and lip gloss and the thought of a girl having more than one boyfriend within the span of a year. But.”

Harry dares to glance at Hermione, who’s eyeing her friend with a worried expression. Ginny continues:

“But even if a girl is all that – even if a girl is your opposite – that doesn’t make her any less respectable, you know. Being a tomboy is okay, not being a tomboy is okay too. Having multiple boyfriends or girlfriends is fine. You keep harping about Lavender having dated five guys so far, and I want to know – why not? Because she has had sex with all of them? Newsflash: when done right and fully consensual, sex is fun–”

“Ginny!” Ron squeaks, and covers his ears. Ginny doesn’t seem to have heard him, though, and keeps pressing on:

“– and the way you think that guys can have quick, easy sex because they like it – the way you think that that reasoning cannot be applied on women – kind of gives the impression that somehow you think that sex is all about what the guy wants. That women can’t enjoy it, can’t do it because they want the pleasure of it, but because they’ve got some hidden agenda that makes it somehow shameful.”

“That’s not what I meant!” Hermione exclaimed, horrified. She looks genuinely upset, and so does Ginny, who shakes her head with a grim expression.

“We already have to endure so much misogyny from the outside,” the redhead says. “Men who think they understand what women want. Men who forget that every man came from a vagina. Men who think that women are secondary, not as important, not as smart or powerful. Men who think that our gender defines us. Women, too. Women who believe these men. We don’t need more of that.”

Tremble

(The Train to Nowhere)

This drabble contains possible spoilers.

–

“You’ve been a good friend,” Harry says, holding the trembling body of Truls, who’s gasping for air. “Far better than I have been for you.”

“Don’t,” Truls tells him, before the magic tearing at his body forces a pained whimper out of him. He’s pale and sweating and in pain, but there’s nothing Harry could do to make him feel better. This – all this agony – is part of the healing process.

“Even if you will not stand the sight of me after this,” Harry continues quietly, “you will always find a friend in me.”

“Won’t ever… hate you,” Truls hisses through clenched teeth. “I could not.”

Oh, how Harry wished for those words to be the truth and nothing but. He knows better, though. Knows that magic as it unwinds from the mind could nudge things on its way out. Knows that the sudden absence of the magic of a life debt that has been there for years will change things. He cannot let himself count on Truls’s heart to remain unchanged.

He hopes, though, that Truls’s affections will not disappear with the web of the life debt.

Truls trembles in pain, and Harry holds him tighter.