Fic: Easter Egg Radishes (Luna/Tonks) Title: Easter Egg Radishes Author:bitterfig Rating: NC-17 Prompt: #54: “If you want something to play with go and buy yourself a toy.” Pairing(s): Luna/Tonks (Luna/Ginny) Word Count: 3162 Warnings: Explicit posthumous girl/girl smexing. Toys. Author's notes: Thanks to Fedink for beta-reading. Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.
Easter Egg Radishes
“But here,” she said, “Where none can see I make an offering, in the grass, Of radishes and flowers." And then she wept For fear the Lord would not accept. The good Lord in His garden sought New leaf and shadowy tinct, And they were all His thought. He heard her low accord, Half prayer and half ditty, And He felt a subtle quiver, That was not heavenly love, Or pity.
This is not writ In any book.
Cy est Pourtraicte, Madame Ste Ursule, et les Unze Mille Vierge Wallace Stevens
I saw her die.
The pink-haired woman, Nymphadora Tonks, or Mrs. Lupin, as she once asked me to call her.
It was during the battle, everything was horribly loud and confusing with nasty spells flying everywhere. I was trying to help Livia Finn, she was bleeding and I couldn’t make it stop. Then we almost got struck, the both of us by a bolt of purple light but the tall, raggedy man who’d taught Defense Against the Dark Arts my second year stepped in just in time to stop it. That must have been when she saw him, his wife, the pink-haired woman. She called his name.
“Remus.”
It came loud and clear over the din and I saw her start in our direction then Livia moaned and I focused on her. I started chanting and concentrating as hard as I could on stopping the bleeding. I concentrated so hard I couldn’t hear the fight any more or even really remember it. All there was in the whole world was my chant and Livia’s heartbeat.
The bleeding stopped.
My eyes were shut tight but I knew that the bleeding had stopped and that Livia was going to be all right. I opened my eyes just on time to see a bolt of green hitting the pink-haired woman. It lifted her up in the air and she fell backwards, twisting like she was trying to break free. When she was still in mid-air I noticed her hair was brown and I knew she was already dead.
I saw her die.
I wonder what that means.
It ought to mean something.
That was why I made the doll.
*****
The doll was perhaps a foot tall. Her body was made of odds and ends, bits of wood, ceramic, bone and plastic held together, shaped by magic. Her clothing was fashioned out of scraps, a ragged black tunic and leggings, on the chest a red heart split by a green lightening bolt. Her painted face consisted of childish squiggles that formed an expression that might have been anger or sorrow. Her hair was pink.
Ginny examined the doll carefully, the shadow of a scowl on her lovely face.
“It’s rather horrible,” Ginny finally said to Luna Lovegood, who had made the doll. “But it really is her, isn’t it. It really is Tonks.”
Luna sat quiet and still as Ginny spoke, nervously turning the doll over and over in her hands.
“This is the way she was,” Ginny said. “It’s a bit of a shock, seeing this. I mean I think about her quite often and Harry and I have told Teddy about her but what we tell him, it’s not real. It’s a nice story for a little boy, about his mum who’s dead so we tell him what a nice lady she was, and how she loved his dad and was funny and a bit of a klutz but mainly brave and good and true.
“I’ve told it all so many times I don’t remember her properly any more, just the story. It’s a nice story, but it’s not her, not Tonks as she really was. Oh she was good, good and brave and true but there were other things, things you don’t tell a five-year-old boy about his late mum. Not because they were bad, but because he wouldn’t understand.
“She wasn’t happy. Not really. Not when she married, not even when Teddy was born. She wasn’t happy with herself. She tried to hide it but it was always there, even when she was laughing. Especially when she was laughing.”
Ginny touched the doll’s face tenderly, almost reverently, smoothed its pink hair.
“You’ve truly captured her, Luna, but I don’t know if you should have. I think she’d rather be remembered as she wanted to be, not as she truly was.” For the first time she looked up from the doll, looked at Luna sitting so still and pale in her long white dress. “Did you even know her, Luna? Did you know Tonks?”
“No.” Luna said quietly. “I saw her in the Ministry and again when the Death Eaters came to Hogwarts but really I only ever spoke to her one time, at your brother’s wedding.”
Bill and Fleur’s wedding had been on a sunny summer day. The last beautiful day there would be for a long, long time. On that day Luna had been eye-catching in her vibrant yellow robes, sunflowers in her hair but she hadn’t wanted to catch anyone’s eye. She was shy. Her father had important business and serious arguments to conduct and while Luna considered Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Harry to be her friends she didn’t want to tax their tolerance by being underfoot.
And so as was often the case Luna wound up in the company of creatures rather than humans.
As evening drew near and the shadows lengthened, she spotted a flickering yellow bird among the floating Japanese lanterns that decorated the Weasley’s garden. She was sure it was a Snidget, one of those tiny, golden birds that had been used as the Snitch in the earliest Quidditch matches. Snidgets were of course considered to be extremely rare, but Luna suspected this was because people simply didn’t notice them.
Luna pursued the quick yellow bird around three corners of the Burrow. When it lit on the shrivelfig bush beneath the kitchen window she saw it was a not a Snidget at all but a finch. Still, finches had their charms and she became quite absorbed watching the bird nibble on Molly’s shrivelfigs (no doubt the reason it was so tiny).
This moment of communion between witch and bird came to an abrupt end when a sobbing blonde lady rushed around the corner and ran full on into Luna, frightening away the finch.
By the time they had untangled themselves and Luna was able to get a good look at her the lady had undergone a complete transformation.
“Ooopsy daisy,” the woman sang cheerfully. ”So sorry about that. I’m quite the klutz, aren’t I? You’re Harry’s friend aren’t you, Moona Goodlove or some such?”
Luna nodded, not wanting to correct the lady who seemed strangely familiar.
“What’s the matter? Can’t place me?” The woman asked. “I’m sure you’ve seen me at the ministry that time or when I was moping about Hogwarts.” As she spoke her hair changed color, first pink, than a drab brown.
“Yes, I know you now.” Luna cried in delight. “You’re Tonks.”
“I actually prefer Mrs. Lupin.”
“Ginny likes you so much. She’s told me all about you and the clever things you can do with your face.”
“You have a very funny way of putting things,” Mrs. Lupin laughed. “And a very novel sense of style. I like your sunflowers. Very festive.”
“Thank you,” Luna said earnestly. “This is the first wedding I’ve ever been to but you just had one of your own, didn’t you? What was it like?”
Once again Tonks, Mrs. Lupin, changed. All the shadows of the coming evening seemed to cross her face.
“It was nothing like this,” she said. A bitter edge had crept into her voice. “Nothing so grand. We had to keep it simple, small, shabby, all but secret. Wasn’t anything like this.”
“But what was it like?” Luna wanted to know. Mrs. Lupin’s eyes grew distant and the set of her jaw grimly determined.
“It was lovely, as you’d expect.” She said. “Everything I’d hoped for, the happiest day of my life.” For a moment they were both silent and then a smile lit Mrs. Lupin’s face. “Well now, we ought to be getting back to the party don’t you think? Your mate Ronnie’s going to be making a toast and that’s not something I want to miss.”
“Oh no, I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Luna agreed. “Ron can be quite eloquent, though he doesn’t always say what he means.” Mrs. Lupin smiled and shook her head.
“You really are a queer little thing, aren’t you Moona,” she said.
Luna told Ginny this story, but not about how she’d watched Tonks die. That seemed too intimate to share, even with her closest friend.
When her visit with Ginny was over Luna returned home to her father’s house. The Rook’s tower as her friends had come to call it. It was evening and the overgrown garden was lit by the green glow of hundreds of huge, low flying lightening bugs. Xenophilius Lovegood sat beneath a beach umbrella (to shield him from moonburn) taking tea.
“Luna, my pet,” he exclaimed grandly when his daughter appeared. “I’m so relieved you’ve made it home in one piece.”
“I was quite safe Daddy,” Luna said. “I’d only gone to see Ginny for the afternoon.”
“I know she’s your friend my dear but you mustn’t forget she’s in ranks with the enemy these days. That Quidditch team she belongs to is nothing but a front for a sinister breeding program. Mark my words, Luna, those Holyhead Harpies are breeding a human/squid hybrid with advanced flying skills. They’re a danger to us all.”
Luna cringed a little as she tended to when her father brought up his latest obsession. It wasn’t that his whole theory of a human/squid hybrid was so far fetched. Luna had willingly believed any number of much more convoluted conspiracy theories in the past. Yet something about Xenophilius’s animosity towards the Holyhead Harpies (and Ginny in particular) disturbed Luna deeply.
It troubled Luna that her father seemed to expect her to drop her closest friend for the sake of his beliefs. Beliefs that Luna couldn’t help thinking were rather groundless. She couldn’t help but notice her father’s animosity towards the Holyhead Harpies had begun when they passed over The Quibbler’s bid and chose Rita Skeeter’s hard-hitting tabloid Scourgify! as their sponsor.
And yet she loved her father. His brilliant, unconventional ideas had made her what she was. But what was she, a part of her whispered—a perpetual outcast, a joke.
Luna hugged the doll to her and went up to her room.
That night, she took the doll to bed with her.
The next day, she paid Mrs. Lupin a visit.
*****
I went to her grave with a bouquet of radishes. Easter egg radishes they were, pink and red, purple and white. I knelt beside her grave for the longest time, thinking of her, what I knew of her and when I looked up there she was sitting atop the nearest mausoleum.
I recognized her right away though it had been five years since she died. She really did look just like the doll I’d made, all a patchwork. Her hair was brown and a dozen different shades of pink from bubble-gum to ash of roses. She was wearing a tattered outfit of black and gold that seemed to combine the dark robes of the Auror with a naughty version of a Hufflepuff uniform (or maybe it just seemed naughty, the way her woman’s body filled those schoolgirl robes).
I didn’t ask her if she was a dream. Her skin pinkish gold like pale apricots, like honey and roses while mine was the white blue of skim milk. I didn’t ask her if she was a dream because she seemed more substantial than me, richer and fuller, more real.
There was no need to ask her why she was there. She was there because I’d conjured her. I left it to her to ask the questions.
“Why it’s little Moona Goodlove,” she said when she saw me.
“If you don’t mind, I prefer Luna Lovegood.” I told her.
“Ha, I know what your name is you silly thing. I’m only teasing. Haven’t you got any sense of humor?”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t.” I answered quite earnestly. She laughed at that.
“Well, sense of humor or no you’re still quite amusing.”
She hopped off the mausoleum roof and sort of floated down. It was lovely really, very graceful, though when she landed she stumbled over her feet and pitched on top of me.
“Ha! Clumsy me!” She cried, then a wicked smile played over her face. “Or maybe I did it on purpose.” We were sprawled on the ground; she was all but in my lap. So close I could see myself reflected in her eyes (they were deep red, like wine. The last time I saw her, at the wedding, they had been sky blue). I put my arms around her. I wanted to keep her, not that she was trying to get away. Her gay expression seemed to crack a bit. Perhaps we were too close.
“So tell me little Lovegood,” she said huskily. “Why have you dredged me up after all these years?”
“I saw you die,” I said.
“What of it? It was a rather public affair, my death. I’d wager half the veterans of that particular battle saw poor me bite it with never a second thought to what become of poor old Dora Tonks.” Her tone was jovial but there was something else in her eyes.
“You weren’t happy, were you?”
“I had a lovely life,” she said. “A brand new baby, a man I loved, dear friends. Everything I’d ever wanted. Why wouldn’t I have been happy?”
“When Voldemort first returned, when you were in the Order of the Phoenix, you used to flirt with Ginny.”
“She told you that?”
“No, she never said but I can tell from the way she talks about you.”
“I happen to be a beloved wife and mother. It says so right here on my gravestone.”
“I think Ginny liked it, that it made her brave. It made her feel as if she could go after things in life instead of pining waiting for Harry to take notice of her.”
Then she smiled.
“I suppose I did flirt a bit. I wouldn’t have done anything, she was far too young but back then I was always pushing things.”
“Why did you stop?”
“I guess I reached my limit.”
She put a hand to my cheek. It was soft and warm and when I licked her fingers salty sweet. We kissed – mouths and our whole bodies moving against each other. I parted my legs letting her sink deeper into my bed, nearer to me. My hands moved over the curve of her bottom, her stockings full of tatters and tears. I worked my fingers through to touch the crevice between the thighs. Within the creamy recesses I found the bead of her clit, rubbed it with my fingertip. She clung to me, moving against me, jerking through a series of orgasms until she finally fell back, gasping.
“You dig too deep, don’t you little Lovegood,” she said. “Well now you know. I wasn’t happy, wasn’t content. I never cared for the woman I became. I got what I wanted but I lost something too, some precious piece of me.” Then her wine colored eyes flashed ruby red. “Is this your fun, stirring up a dead woman’s soul? Am I a toy for your amusement?”
I shook my head.
“I think I might be unhappy the way you were.” I said.
“You seem bold enough to me.” She whispered.
“No. I’ve reached my limit. I’ve gone as far as I dare.”
“Tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“I know.” She said and took up the radishes I had dropped when she landed on me. She whispered over them, some kind of charm and my lovely Easter egg radishes turned to rubber balls of pink and red, purple and white linked by green cords.
She pushed up my skirt. Drew down my panties, her fingers found their way inside me and I melted for her, turned to jelly for her hands, her mouth and then she rubbed one of those rubber balls (which had been my radishes) against my vulva, till both were slick and wet. Little by little she pressed it harder, deeper inside me and I opened around the radish ball then another and another. She continued to tease me outside as the balls pressed against me from the inside, filling me so full I thought I would burst but in the best possible way.
“More, please,” I begged her. “Deeper, more…”
“I know,” she said again as I writhed and bucked for her. “There’s someone you love, someone you care about who means the world to you and you think you’ll lose them if they knew what sort of girl you really were. A girl with a mouth, a brain, a twat, all of them wanting things they’re not supposed to. You’re afraid you’ll lose them if you don’t lose yourself. That if you want to be loved you’ll have to give up what you are and become whatever they want you to be.”
I was gone, but I was there. My muscles were all clenched and I thought that I would crush the radish balls inside me flat. I was vibrating like tracks when the train comes.
“Oh, ohhhhhhhhh.” I moaned long and loud, fingers digging into her shoulders.
“Tell me,” she said when I was still again and my radishes were radishes again, laid on her grave.
“My father taught me to think for myself,” I said. “Now I think that he’s wrong. He taught me to question everything and now I’m questioning him. When I was younger he was like the sun to me. I was his little sunflower, I followed his path across the sky. He was the center of my universe. I thought he always would be but there are other things now, other people who matter to me. There’s Ginny. I like her a great deal, I always have. I don’t think it’s fair of him to expect me to turn on her because he’s feuding with the Holyhead Harpies. I don’t think it’s fair at all.”
I was twenty-two years old and I’d never spoken against my father before. Not since Mum died. It had always been the two of us but something was changed. I was not his little sunflower anymore. I was someone else, someone who wanted things they weren’t supposed to.
Mrs. Lupin smoothed my hair back from my face.
“You’re right,” she said. “It isn’t fair but I believe you’ll see it through. You’re a brave girl, braver than I ever was. You’ll hold on to yourself.”
*****
The afternoon sun fell through the lace curtains and warmed Ginny’s dappled skin. On the white bed the red-haired girl rocked her hips in ecstasy, moaning for the touch of her lover’s tongue. Luna’s golden hair spread out on her thighs like the sunshine itself.
On the bedside table was a ragged doll and a bouquet of Easter egg radishes, red, white and purple. Also pink, a dozen shades of pink, from bubble-gum to ash of roses.