A Terrible Temptation

A/N - Um, yes, I know the history of the chant having read the book myself several times. The point is that by the end it was a positive thing and the \"Weasley is our King\" chant became a happy thing for Ron. If you have been reading, you will note that Lavender had a button with the slogan on it earlier and I was trying to reference that moment. It was literary - LOL. anyway, this chapter is tons of mush and fluff for your delectition, please enjoy. Thanks as always to Kate whose constructive critism is much appreciated. Thanks also to my wonderful reveiwers whom I adore.



Chapter 29 – Letters

Hermione,

A kiss! The word is sweet.
I see not why your lip should shrink from it;
If the word burns it,--what would the kiss do?
Oh! let it not your bashfulness affright;
Have you not, all this time, insensibly,
Left badinage aside, and unalarmed
Glided from smile to sigh,--from sigh to weeping?
Glide gently, imperceptibly, still onward--
From tear to kiss,--a moment\'s thrill!--a heartbeat!
A kiss, when all is said,--what is it?
An oath that\'s ratified,--a sealed promise,
A heart\'s avowal claiming confirmation,--
A rose-dot on the \'i\' of \'adoration,\'--
A secret that to mouth, not ear, is whispered,--
Brush of a bee\'s wing, that makes time eternal,--
Communion perfumed like the spring\'s wild flowers,--
The heart\'s relieving in the heart\'s outbreathing,
When to the lips the soul\'s flood rises, brimming!

Severus,

I still don’t know what you are quoting from but it is always beautiful and wonderful. Someday maybe you will use your own words on paper; they are always perfect when we speak together.

Classes with you are so hard to sit through, all I want is to stand on the desktops and scream how much I love you to the whole school. I watch you as you prowl the classroom and it is so close to the way you kiss me, all the intensity you direct towards me sent razor-sharp across the room to cut your students and jolt them to awareness.

I think of your hands in my hair as I watch you in the Great Hall, you have this incredible grace to you -- the way you move, the way you stop, frozen as you listen to some subtle sound that has caught your awareness. The immobility of your face is painful to see though, as now I have seen how expressive your face can be. I have watched such subtle emotions move across your mind revealed in a quirk of the lip, a twitch of an eyebrow, the brightening of your eyes.

It is hard to pretend indifference or even contempt when I am anything but indifferent and I was never contemptuous. I love you so much that moments without you leave me cold and sad, like some essential part of my soul has been ripped from me. Graduation cannot come soon enough for me. I miss you so very much.

Love always,
Hermione

Dear Lavender,

I am no good at writing things, words have never been my friends, they are clumsy companions always knocking into each other and tripping me up when I try to make them come out right. You asked for a letter though and I would do far more humiliating things for you than just to try to write to you.

The first time I realized that you were pretty was second year, but lots of girls are pretty and that has never been enough for me. I figured out you were smart in fifth year, when the O.W.L. results came out and you were near the top of the class. Still, you were never acting like you were smart and it had me confused.

I have not always been very observant, but even I noticed that you were growing up last year. I was dating Hermione and I kept noticing the way your hair would get those golden highlights in summer. It made me unhappy because I thought I loved her and that if you love a girl you don’t notice little things like that about other girls. I grew up too I guess.

You see, I haven’t stopped noticing things about other people just because I love you, but I have found that it doesn’t matter anymore. Girls can be pretty, but they don’t make me go red just thinking about them. They can smile, but they don’t make my breath come short and my heart pound as if I got hit by a bludger. Only you do that. So I guess that love is better than Quidditch that way, though I know it would hurt far worse for you to stop loving me than for me to get hit by a dozen bludgers.

Yours,
Ron

Sweetest Ginny,

How many years does a guy have to be blind for him to be a genuine idiot? I am pretty sure that I qualify, because six years is a really long time to be stupid.

You asked me last night if your being a Weasley were part of why I wanted to be with you. I guess that would be best answered with a yes and a no. Yes, because your parents raise really great people. No, because I would never just date you for your family. I live in fear of what your older brothers would do to me if I messed this up, so that can’t be a reason.

Last week in the Library, I was busy kicking myself for being an idiot about something else entirely and you came to talk to me and it was like lightning hit me. You have always been smart and pretty and strong and all the things I thought were wonderful, but you always looked at me like I could make the world spin backwards or something.

I am just a seventeen year old boy going to school and trying to survive in what Professor Dumbledore calls “interesting times”. Everyone treats me like I am the savior of all Wizarding kind, but I was only a year old the first time and since then I have been incredibly lucky.

I have never been luckier though than now. I really love you, Ginny. It makes me all giddy and happy and then suddenly sad and worried. I get frightened sometimes that you will vanish tomorrow or die like so many other people I loved have. Then I feel stupid for getting needy and upset and try to stay calm and rational, but this feeling isn’t rational and I can’t seem to fight the downs except by seeing you again. Being with you is the best thing in ife ife and I never want to stop feeling as good as I do when I am with you. I’m rambling now so I will stop. Good night, sweetheart.

Love,
Harry

Dearest Harry,
For years I thought you were something you were not and therefore could not love you as you deserved to be loved. It was only when I realized that you were not the icon of valor that I had imagined you to be, when I saw the real person behind the legends that I found that I could truly love you, the real you.

I do love you, the boy with his hair sticking out in every direction, with a shy smile and a streak of stubbornness that can daunt even a Weasley. I love the way you frown as you concentrate and the way you laugh at Ron’s jokes, even when they aren’t funny. I love that you listen to me when I am being bubbly and happy and not really making any sense. I love everything about you -- the good, the bad, the silly and the gross and I don’t care about anything anyone else says. Thyou you for giving me such a wonderful person to
love.

Faithfully,
Ginny

Ron,

You goofball, that was a beautiful letter. What do you mean you can’t write? You write wonderfully. I am the one who isn’t sure I can tell you what I feel in words. I have always been great at flipping my hair and smiling and that has been enough to get a boy for me. That you want my mind and heart to engage in this relationship is incredible and amazing to me. You are the first boy who didn’t grab me the first time we kissed, who was gentle, tender, and sweet to me.

I used to think that getting a boyfriend meant smiling and keeping my mouth shut, but you want to know what I think about everything. If I hadn’t loved you before for your loyalty, compassion and sweetness, I would have fallen hard the first time you asked my opinion and then actually listened to my answer. I love your parents so much for raising someone as incredible as you are. Don’t ever change.

Forever,
Lavender.

Hermione,

My own words? I don’t know if I have any words of my own that haven’t been tainted by lies and deceptions. All the words that I would use have been used before to flatter the mighty and to seduce the innocent. I cannot use them for you; it would be a blasphemy of all that I am feeling to use the same words to you as I have used for such base purposes.

When you graduate, your present from me will be a copy of the book from which I have been quoting. Until then let me use his words to speak with. These borrowed phrases are cleaner and truer than anything I could write to you. My mouth is sullied by darkness; let me use his pure language to speak my truth.


If, leaving Cupid\'s arrows, quivers, torches,
We turned to seek for sweeter--fresher things!
Instead of sipping in a pygmy glass
Dull fashionable waters,--did we try
How the soul slakes its thirst in fearless draught
By drinking from the river\'s flooding brim!
If I have used wit to arrest you
At the first starting,--now, \'twould be an outrage,
An insult--to the perfumed Night--to Nature--
To speak fine words that garnish vain love-letters!
Look up but at her stars! The quiet Heaven
Will ease our hearts of all things artificial;
I fear lest, \'midst the alchemy we\'re skilled in
The truth of sentiment dissolve and vanish,--
The soul exhausted by these empty pastimes,
The gain of fine things be the loss of all things!

Yours always,
Severus