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Part of you pours out of me

ginny & quirrell convo | gen | 5.4k words

She can feel it immediately, as her eyes meet those of the unassuming man sitting in the corner of the bar she’s just walked into in the middle of nowhere, Slovenia. A jolt of recognition that nearly knocks her out of her skin - bone-deep recognition, soul-deep - no matter the fact that she’s never seen the man before in her life.

*****

two strangers walk into a bar... and discover that they were both possessed by the same man over a decade prior :)

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Matthew Mazzotta, Wandering Home 2005

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just had my first shift back at my pub after seven months…. i am a DELIGHT! indispensable actually and everyone loves me and wants to work w me or buy drinks from me forever and ever

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"Second sea" - a gouache painting

Best part of making this was showing it to my father who said "Sea!" with the most flabbergasted expression on his face. Like yeah dude ikr?? This rules!

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Part of you pours out of me

ginny & quirrell convo | gen | 5.4k words

She can feel it immediately, as her eyes meet those of the unassuming man sitting in the corner of the bar she’s just walked into in the middle of nowhere, Slovenia. A jolt of recognition that nearly knocks her out of her skin - bone-deep recognition, soul-deep - no matter the fact that she’s never seen the man before in her life.

*****

two strangers walk into a bar... and discover that they were both possessed by the same man over a decade prior :)

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paintings by John kacere

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love love love when a particularly manipulative character is lying off their ass about something and then throws in one hauntingly genuine line

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Part of you pours out of me

ginny & quirrell convo | gen | 5.4k words

She can feel it immediately, as her eyes meet those of the unassuming man sitting in the corner of the bar she’s just walked into in the middle of nowhere, Slovenia. A jolt of recognition that nearly knocks her out of her skin - bone-deep recognition, soul-deep - no matter the fact that she’s never seen the man before in her life.

*****

two strangers walk into a bar... and discover that they were both possessed by the same man over a decade prior :)

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microfic - marytunia :( | 1.6k words | reminiscing on a summer fling - no warnings except potential sadness <33

Petunia looks at herself in the mirror in front of her. She thinks maybe she’s put more blush on the right side of her face than her left, wonders if she should add more to the left or try to wipe some off of the right. She doesn’t make any move to do either. 

Instead, she continues to stare at herself, continues to sit at her dressing table in a full-face of makeup and her freshly-ironed blouse, continues to wait. 

There are just under two hours until Vernon said he would come to pick her up. It’s their third date. They’re going for dinner at a restaurant that Vernon likes. He’s already told her, in immense detail, all about exactly what he’s going to order. Apparently, they do a delicious steak and chips and have his favourite beer on tap. Petunia isn’t huge on beer, or steak for that matter, but he assures her they do other things too. 

There’s still time for her to cancel. There’s still time for the phone that she has out on the table in front of her to start ringing, for the screen to light up with her name. There’s still time for Petunia to pick up. 

She likes Vernon. Really, she does. He’s got a good job, and a strong set of teeth, and an inoffensive wardrobe. He’s straightforward, and respectable, and completely ordinary. 

Petunia had always wanted ordinary. Normal. Something with both feet steadily fixed to the ground and a decent, stable future stretching out in front of it. That’s what Vernon provides for her and that’s what she’d always wanted. What she still wants.

But, there’s still time to cancel the date. There’s still time to call off the whole thing, to cut the nice, Vernon-shaped rope with which she’s been diligently tying herself to the ground and fly away back to the place that she had been that summer. 

It had passed in a sort of magical, swirling haze of stolen time and dazzling colours and a smile that tasted of homegrown strawberries and sunshine. 

She had come to stay for the holidays. 

Mary MacDonald.

Lily’s friend from school.

Petunia had been ready to ignore her for the entire month that she was there. Ready to turn up her nose at Lily and whichever freak friend she’d brought home from her fancy school. Ready to spend the summer in her room or hanging about town with the few people from her college with whom she’s somewhat more than passingly acquainted. She had planned a pleasant, boring summer for herself, the last one she would hopefully ever have in that sorry excuse for a town, before she headed down to London for her typing course. 

The summer she had experienced instead was far more than pleasant and anything but boring. She hadn’t planned for the fact that Lily’s freak friend might worm her way under Petunia’s skin, might learn more about her in a month than her ‘friends’ had in seven whole years of school, might pull laughs out of her like silks from a magician’s sleeve, one after the other until they blurred into a bright string of delight. 

Mary was funny, and charming, disarmingly so, and she’d caught Petunia entirely off-guard. She’d been expecting someone like that horrible Snape boy, sure that all of Lily’s friends from her fancy school were equally as nasty and disturbing, but Mary wasn’t anything like that at all. 

Or maybe she was, just a little; it’s certainly true that her honey-brown eyes could be bee-sting sharp, and that the bright vibrancy with which she carried herself could cut right to the very quick, and that her presence there that summer had marked a profound disturbance in the things that Petunia had always thought were unshakable.

Little by little, alongside the laughter, Mary had pulled things from Petunia that she had been trying to keep hidden, tucked away and protected down in the depths of her ribcage. Things like the yawning, festering desire to press her lips against Mary’s and breathe some of that sunshine in, to kiss her and be transformed into something that dazzled and sparkled and floated high above that little old mining town like Mary did. Like Lily did. 

Mary was contagious. And shimmering gold. And she somehow wiped the greyscale from their perpetually dreary, frowning twilight skies and painted them hues of pink, orange, red. She slowed the turning of the world on its axis, lifted the sun back above the horizon, just for a little while, made everything infinitely more vivid. 

That summer was as brisk and unexpected as the time Lily had pushed her out of a little rowboat into the River Tame when they were kids, and as languid and woozy as long afternoons lying on the sofa recovering from the flu - Petunia was both drowning and burning up. Mary seemed to diffuse honey into the air, making it sweeter and slower, viscous, insidious instead of the usual biting bleakness. 

Time expanded past its rigorous boundaries, like water in the heat; late-night whispers, muffled giggles and inexperienced fumbling; early morning sighs, fingers running softly through hair like the summer through their fingers; glances that spoke a thousand words, brushes of shoulders, when Lily was there, red hair like fire burning the honey into bitter jealousy. Time melted and intermingled with that strawberry-sunshine smile.

All of it was stolen. All of it was sunset.

And nothing can hold the sun above the horizon forever. The day has to end, just as the summer does. 

Mary had to fly back to her fancy school, with Lily and the other freaks. Petunia had to go to London, to endless grey skies and the grounded, absolute life she’s determinedly wanted for herself since the moment Lily had taken flight. 

To her typing course and the ensuing clerical job, and to the little flat for which she’d meticulously saved up and to her two dates and counting with Vernon Dursley. 

There's an hour and thirty-six minutes until that count goes up to three. 

There’s still time to cancel. There’s still time for Mary to call. 

Petunia’s been waiting for her to call since they exchanged numbers, lying in her bed in the early hours of the morning on Mary’s last day there - before Mary had kissed her one last dazzling time and snuck back into Lily’s room as the birds started up their singing, before a quiet breakfast of fading colours and coming back up to the surface, before Petunia’s dad had driven Lily and Mary back to where they belonged and Petunia never would. 

It’s been five months since then. 

February is as miserable as every other month has been since that vivid August, and Mary has not called. Halloween and Guy Fawkes’ and Christmas and New Year have all been and gone. Petunia hasn’t been home, or seen Lily or her parents.

She’s worried that Mary may have soured her hometown and the house she grew up in once and for all, which is ridiculous because she’d lived there under those heavy, grey clouds for eighteen years before Mary had injected them with that swirling colour which had disappeared as she did the second the month of her visit had ended. 

London is just as grey as that little town, despite its vast, bustling potential, and Petunia thinks that’s probably Mary’s fault too.

And Mary has not called. Petunia waits. She stares at herself in the mirror and thinks that if Mary called she would cancel this date. 

She thinks that she’s being completely absurd, because she’d only known Mary for one hungry, shimmering month. It had felt a little like flying, luxuriating in that special glow that always surrounded Lily, a glow that Mary had shared with her. But it was flying with wax wings and the sky was burning and she’d never really had Mary, not really. It was ephemeral, hazy and always slipping away from her. 

And Petunia had never wanted it anyway. She wanted ordinary, entirely non-freakish mundanity - the kind that people like Vernon can provide, artificiality and dullness, simplicity and ease. 

And yet. 

And yet she sits and waits for her phone to ring, sits and tries to stop those honey-brown eyes from blunting and fading in her memory. She sits and tells herself that if Mary called, she would pick up, that if Mary called, she would cancel the date, that if Mary called, she would painstakingly craft her own pair of real wings, sweat and sinew and laborious work, so she and Mary could chase after the sunset forever. 

She knows, really, in the part of her that isn’t trapped away in the fanciful depths of her ribcage, the part of her that had decided that she wanted to be normal, that she would never be able to stay off the ground for that long. 

After a moment, she decides that she should add more blush to her left cheek. It is Valentine’s Day after all. She doesn’t think it would be all that out of the ordinary if a woman was a little more rosy-cheeked than she tended to be. 

One hour and twenty-three minutes later, Petunia puts her phone in her handbag and heads towards the door. Vernon has come to take her on their date. 

Mary has not called.

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microfic - marytunia!!!!! | 1.7k words | i don’t think there’s anything to warn?? so enjoy <3

“Smoke?” Mary asked, shaking the pack in her hand, an eyebrow raised. 

Petunia was already halfway out of her seat, picking up her jacket and leading the way out to the alleyway beside the building where they worked. She’d been waiting for Mary to ask for the last half an hour, fidgeting in her seat and staring blankly at her computer screen. 

A far cry from when she had first started working there, four months ago, trying to stand dead in the centre of the ring of boundaries she had built around herself and making herself as small as possible so that she wouldn’t have to press up against them any more than she already had just by being there, by working in that call centre. 

(D’you wanna come for a smoke?” Mary leaning against her desk, their first day on the job.)

She had been so sure that this job would be temporary, that she would do it for a month at most before she found something better, something that was an actual career, something that paid more than minimum wage and would make her parents proud.  

(Petunia frowning up at her from her chair, “I don’t smoke.”)

They were always proud of Lily, the youngest child, the special one, now in her second term at Oxford, always smarter and prettier and funnier and better than Petunia in every conceivable way, a prodigy, the perfect daughter, the one who had potential. Petunia who didn’t, always average and trying to be satisfied with that, the afterthought, never mind how she had been born first, not bad, not a complete failure but disappointing nevertheless in how she didn’t excel, the sister who was left behind.

(“Will you come anyway?” Mary insisting, those big brown eyes, something nearly desperate in them, and Petunia reluctantly acquiescing.)

Mary had been left behind too, Lily’s best friend all throughout secondary school. Petunia used to think they were more than friends even, but she’d never had any proof and she didn’t like to think about it all that much. Mary wasn’t going to university either, but at least she had actual dreams - Lily may have left them both behind, heading for greener pastures, a new group of friends with summer houses in Tuscany, a new best friend in all her instagram pictures, one that she called a sister, but at least Mary knew what she wanted from the world. Had plans beyond the four walls of the call centre and memories of when a girl with red hair used to smile at her. 

Petunia’s plan had always been to get married, to have a child or two, to spend her time tidying the house and cooking and being unexciting and uneventful, average and disappointing but enough, maybe it would be enough. 

Then Vernon, her long-term boyfriend, had found someone newer and shinier and more interesting and Petunia hadn’t even had the self-respect to leave him, no, he’d had to break up with her after three months of cheating on her and two months of her knowing about it. It was a bit pathetic really, because it wasn’t like Vernon was anything special anyway, in fact, he was fairly awful, but he was security and Petunia always liked to play it safe, no potential, no risks, no surprises. 

She had been surprised to find Mary there, on that first day four months ago, sat at the desk next to hers, friendly as always even as Petunia tried to ignore her, tried to focus on the job (which was mind-numbingly boring and also quite possibly her least favourite thing in the world, calling people up and trying to get them to buy things). It was familiar now though, nice even, especially when they went out to smoke. 

Petunia leant carefully against the brick wall, holding out a hand for one of Mary’s cigarettes. They’d been doing this every day that they’d been at work together for the last four months and she still refused to buy her own pack, she didn’t smoke, you see, but if Mary was offering, then who was she to say no? There probably weren’t many things that she would say no to if it was Mary who was asking.  

Mary huffed as she always did, settling in next to her against the wall and fishing her lighter out of her pocket, placing a cig between Petunia’s waiting fingers.

Once it was lit, Petunia took a long drag, tipping her head back against the wall, eyes closed and breathing out slowly as Mary took it from her so she could take her own, their fingers brushing.

“Lily texted me last night.” she said after a few quiet moments, passing the cig back again. 

Petunia cracked one eye open. So, it was going to be that kind of smoke break, “Oh?”

“She said she wanted me to go and visit her,” Mary continued, “In two weeks.”

Petunia frowned. Two weeks was Mary’s birthday. They had both booked the day off work so they could go into town, do something to celebrate together. 

“Oh.” she said, taking another drag from the cigarette, trying to ease the tension she could suddenly feel in her shoulders.

“Yeah.” said Mary. Then she laughed, a little bitter, a little sad. “Silly, really. All the times I’ve asked her if I could come up and she’s said that she’s too busy, but the first time that she asks me - I’m the one who already has plans.”

Petunia felt herself slump further against the wall, relieved, pleased maybe. Mary nudged her with an elbow, “Hey. Did you think I was gonna just cancel our plans?”

“I don’t know,” Petunia sighed, letting Mary take the cig again, “It’s Lily.”

And really, that could mean any number of things. 

It’s Lily and Lily always gets what she wants. 

It’s Lily and everyone always picks Lily over me. 

It’s Lily and if Lily wanted me to visit, I think I might’ve cancelled our plans.

“Yeah,” Mary replied, blowing smoke out into the crisp February air, “It’s Lily. And of course, I would love to see her. But you’re Petunia.”

“I’m Petunia,” she echoed blankly.

“You’re Petunia,” Mary agreed, a smile in her voice that she could hear now, “and I’ve been looking forward to our little outing for ages,”

Petunia turned her head to look at her, met with those brown eyes much closer than she was expecting, that warm smile, shoulder to shoulder out in the bleak cold. And there was something in the air, more than just cigarette smoke and the intermingling scents of their perfumes, something that made Petunia want to take a risk. 

“And it’s not just because you’re pissed at her?” she asked, because that would be worse maybe, Mary just using her to get back at Lily in some way, even if that was somewhat how Petunia had rationalised their… friendship, at first, or maybe it wouldn’t really make much of a difference, she didn’t know.  

“No,” Mary rolled her eyes, taking another drag before handing the cigarette back to Petunia, “It’s not because I’m pissed at her. Not everything is about Lily. Even if she had replied to every single message I’d ever sent her, I would still wanna go with you.”

Petunia paused, lips pursing around the end of the cig in her mouth, because she was sure there used to be a time when not everything was about Lily, back before she was born maybe, red hair and bright green eyes and immediately special, immediately the centre of attention (not that Petunia was jealous, she didn’t want to be special, she didn’t want the hot heat of the spotlight, but, it would be nice to have something, maybe, she didn’t know, maybe she was a little jealous). Now, and for as long as she could remember, everything had always been about Lily, it felt strange that Mary should say something like that, refute that absolute intrinsic truth of the universe, so casually, as if it wasn’t an earth-shattering revelation. 

Because Mary wanted to go with her. 

Not Lily. 

Her. 

Petunia Evans. 

Mary was still smiling a little, blinking up at her, earnest, honest, brown eyes that Petunia would probably follow anywhere, brown eyes that were making her brave, making her want to burn down the boundaries she had placed around herself, or at least climb through the hole that Mary had been steadily cutting into them over the course of the last four months. 

They were standing close, and Mary’s shoulder was warm against hers, and Mary wanted to go with her. 

And Petunia wanted to go too. Wanted to float off into this alternate reality where not everything was about Lily, and people chose Petunia because they wanted to, and maybe Petunia didn’t play it safe, maybe she took a risk. 

Maybe she watched as those big brown eyes flicked down to look at her lips for a moment, still wrapped around the end of their cigarette.

Maybe she brought up a hand and tossed the butt onto the floor.

Maybe she moved that hand to Mary’s cheek, soft skin, cold in the winter air.

Maybe she leaned in and pressed their lips together, something far out of the bounds of what she had thought she was or could be, something exciting and eventful, and maybe still disappointing to her parents but maybe that didn’t matter as much as she had always thought it did. 

Maybe what mattered was Mary.

Mary who was kissing her back, a hand on Petunia’s waist and pulling her so they were properly facing each other. 

Mary who wanted to go out with her on her birthday and probably get drunk and come into work hungover the next day and spend an excessive amount of time on smoke breaks. 

Mary who Petunia shouldn’t want, had tried and failed to convince herself that she didn’t want, but who had a smile that could melt glaciers and a gaze that felt like a spotlight and a way of working her way into your life until you looked forward to seeing her more than you had ever looked forward to anything. 

Mary who was there, in the alleyway beside the call centre with Petunia, kissing her in a way that she had never been kissed before, like she was the most precious thing in this universe, like she had potential.

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marytunia i miss you

me and you both anon, me and you both!!! it’s their season tho, summer is for yearning and secret touches and a miserable swirl of hope before the inevitable come down…. august slipped away into a moment in time etc etc

you can imagine they’re probably sat across from each other at the dinner in the evans’ house, ankles linked under the table and their eyes occasionally meeting just to quickly look away again, while lily regales them all with a story, lighting up the room as she always does. mary and petunia sit in the glow of it for now, waiting for when the sun goes down, when lily falls asleep later and mary can sneak out of her room and tiptoe down the hall to petunia’s……

you can also ponder them years and years later, both of them alive where lily is dead, bumping into each other in a park or on the street, and they still can’t meet each other’s eyes bc they’re full of the past, and all that’s left between them is the space where lily used to be…… or whateva

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Underground is a weird place

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Sketches by Gustav Gaudernack, 1910

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Trista Mateer, from a poem featured in her collection titled The Dogs I Have Kissed

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guys what if it told you that i’ve been writing again!!!!! sugarsnappeas summer baybeeeeee things are brewing

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Seeking for what replenishes rather than sedates.

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chappell roan ph. by ragan henderson