InsaneJournal

Morag MacDougal was no longer in Azkaban and she didn't know what to do with herself. It had been nearly a day, she thought -- maybe even less. First she had hugged Rory for ages, then her mother. Then she came home and cried on her father, something she would never admit to, and almost cried again when she saw how happy Roxanne was to have seen her brother after being away so long.

She showered for forever, trying to wash away the jail. She listened to the updates -- the war was over, You-Know-Who was gone, Harry Potter had saved them all, it was really and truly over -- and tried to process it. But finally, she just fell into her bed and slept. Morag had so many questions, but she couldn't even put them together. Not now. So, instead, she just slept.

It didn't feel like sleep, though. Not really. She kept waking up, thinking that she was back in Azkaban, thinking that she wasn't really in her bedroom but it was just a cruel dream, waiting for the guard to come and silence her again for shouting in her sleep too much or just giving her a punch or two to wake her up. It was restless and exhausting, so by the time that Morag had woken up again, it felt like she hadn't slept at all. She had to remind herself that she was home. The war was over. And those occasional footsteps she heard outside her bedroom door was her mother and father checking on her, nothing else. She was safe.

Some time later, Morag didn't even know how much later, there was finally a knock on her door. Her mother had already brought her some food for dinner (which she had rather devoured), so she doubted that was it. After a moment of ignoring the knocking, though, the door opened slowly and the light from the hallway flooded in.

"Morag, sweetheart," her mother started, her voice soft. The last time Morag had heard it before leaving for school, she had sounded so different. They had been arguing about something. It wasn't important now. "You have a visitor."

Morag sat up in her bed, her hand going up to her hair and pushing it back from her face. As she did so, Lydia MacDougal switched a light on and her bedroom lit up. It was a mess, as per usual, but all of the mess was left from before she had left for school. No one had touched it while they were gone.

"Who is it?" she asked. Morag hardly even recognized her own voice, it was so raw from weeks of yelling herself hoarse.

She watched as her mother pushed the door open the rest of the way and motioned toward the hallway. "Come on inside, dear."

If he had the choice, Michael could have been standing right there outside the gate to Azkaban, waiting for Morag to appear. But as luck would have it, his father, fighting in the battle at Hogwarts, with the Order of the Phoenix (unknown to him or likely any of his siblings) had been severely wounded and was out of commission for a while. In that time, there was a shit ton of stuff to do, and well, the first people that were required to see her were her parents anyway. But he couldn’t wait any longer and he just had to see her eventually, even if that meant that meant that she’d get annoyed with him because of the possibility of seeing her in a state.

Michael didn’t care. He loved her, and he could deal with anything she threw at him.

But it took a helluva lot of willpower not to rush right up to her and hug her there and then. He leaned over, his head in sight first before the rest of his body as he approached the door frame. “Hey,” he said, taking a step past the frame and into the room. He let a slow smile crawl over his face as he took her in. This suddenly all felt surreal. She was out. After so many weeks, he was finally seeing her again and more than anything, he just wanted to grab her and kiss her.

It was probably daft that she was surprised to see Michael there, but Morag actually was. He had been among the first that she had asked after and when she had heard he was fine, she had finally been able to relax. And now, there he was. Standing in her bedroom that was a bloody mess, which really didn't matter in the grand scheme of things and yet it suddenly seemed a little bit important to Morag.

She didn't wait to say anything, though. While she moved slower than she used to, she slid out of the bed and made it across the room in record time to throw her arms around him and assure herself that he was really there and this wasn't just her mind playing some kind of cruel trick on herself. No, that was really Michael and he was really here and he was okay and she was okay and they were going to be okay.

Michael’s arms were around her instantly, nearly lifting her off her feet (or maybe he really did). He turned his face into her hair, letting himself have a slight laugh before his eyes welled up. She still smelled like she always did, or at least she did to him. He was hugging her so close that a part of him wanted to ask her if he was holding her too tight.

She was stronger than that anyway. Still, he pulled back slightly, only to bend his head to cover her lips with his.

Something in the back of Morag's mind wanted to check to see if her mother was still floating about in her bedroom or the hallway, but another part of her didn't care as she kissed Michael back. Her hand cupped his jaw and it took a whole lot of willpower to control herself enough not to slam the door shut and throw him on her bed. It had been only a month and a half since she last saw Michael, but it had felt like years. She hadn't even known if either of them would live long enough to see the other again. This was a blessing, right on par with her family being alive, all of them safe and sound for the first time in ages.

Finally, she broke the kiss and backed away from him, only to look up at his face. He looked the same, which made sense, but at the same time it didn't. She knew that she was thinner, paler (as though it were possible), and not quite up to par strength-wise as she had been, but he looked perfect. Or perhaps he just did to her.

"You're all right," she said a little unnecessarily. It felt good to say it, though. "You're really here and all right, aren't you."

Michael had taken a lot of beatings both during detention and in the battle but they’d been able to get him to the Healer eventually. Everything on the outside was okay. Inside... not so much. They had won the battle but he was pretty sure this entire ordeal had left them about twenty years older. He’d seen his friends get killed right before him, people getting crushed or impaled or worse. And then Hermes Vaisey’s fate at his hands....

He pushed away all those thoughts though and focused on Morag and only Morag. “Yeah, yeah I’m really here. And you... you’re here--” He let out another laugh and kissed her again.

This time Morag didn't give up on kissing him nearly as quickly as she did before. This was the stuff of romance novels, right here, even though she was pretty certain that instead of the girl having a stint in Azkaban for stupid reasons and the bloke having to fight a war without her -- actually, no. That seemed like just the sort of thing she'd read in a romance novel...not that she ever read them.

That wasn't really important at the moment, though.

What was important was breaking the kiss for just a moment to murmur, "I love you," to Michael just once before going back in to kiss him again. It would have been better form to let him answer and he really might have had Lydia MacDougal not chosen right then to meander back into her daughter's bedroom with a full glass of water (she had been obsessed with keeping her children hydrated) and clear her throat at the sight just steps from the doorway.

Morag backed away and quirked a little smile. Even when she spoke to her mother, she didn't take her eyes off of Michael. "I'd say I'm sorry, Mum, but I'm not." Her mother only sighed in return as she set the full glass of water on her nightstand.

Even though she had stepped away when Lydia walked in, Michael still had his hands on her and he let them slide down her arms and to her hands without letting them go. He’d already done that earlier. He’d left her in the school, believing she’d be okay there even without her around and they had still managed to take her away, before he could even see her again and before he could even fight them to get her back.

He wasn’t sure if Lydia was going to hang around for a bit or leave and he wasn’t really looking at her anyway, but there was something he had been holding in for days now. And before he even realized it, it was coming out of his mouth anyway, regardless of whether they were alone or not.

“Morag, marry me.”

Those three words hadn't completely registered in Morag's mind before she heard her mother's quick little intake of breath behind him. "I..." she started, blinking up at Michael in confusion. Surely that wasn't what he'd really said. Did he just...did he ask her to marry him? Did he realize that she was a complete idiot? And why was her mother still standing there?

"Mum, honestly," Morag said, giving Lydia a look. The circumstances must not have been normal because, for once in their lives, that was enough for her mother to give her privacy.

That taken care of, Morag looked back up to Michael. "Are you...are you serious?"

Michael nodded, and brought her hands up to his chest, thus, pulling her closer. “More serious about this than anything. I love you, Morag.” He didn’t have a ring on him, he realized. He really didn’t have anything that would look similar. But that didn’t matter. He was a hopeless romantic himself, so after a moment’s pause, he stepped back slighty and got down on that one knee. “Will you marry me?”

It seemed like a crazy idea and Morag had a feeling that it really was a crazy idea. They were only eighteen, after all. They hadn't seen one another in over a month. She had just gotten out of jail and he had just lived through a bloody battle. He was probably just acting out of emotion or whatever the fuck it was called.

But when Morag looked down at him, her hand going to his cheek and her eyes meeting his...it didn't seem like that. Neither did the feeling inside of her that was screaming, "Say yes, for the love of all that is fucking holy!"

And so, that's what she did. She smiled, nodded, and, for the first time in her life said something quiet: "Yes."

Michael was practically pleading with his eyes before she finally said yes. Then he broke out in the widest grin and stood up, swooping her up in a passionate hug at the same time. The amount of joy could have taken on about fifty Dementors if they’d been around. She had said yes! He lifted her off her feet and twirled her around before finally looking down at her. She had just made him the luckiest man in the world. “I love you so much, Morag MacDougal.”

And then he paused and blinked down at her. “Uh. I don’t have a ring. Yet.”

"Oh my. So it was a proposal in the heat of passion," Morag said, pretty much quoting every romance novel ever with a smile on her face. "How truly romantic." It actually kind of was, but she was Morag MacDougal. Of course she would make it into a bit of a joke. She just hoped that the rather fluffy, lovey-dovey expression on her face got the point across that she was just as happy about this as he was, even if it was probably crazy of them.

“You know it,” Michael said, pulling him. “A proposal that I had been thinking of how to make special for a while now. I was kind of thinking candlelight dinner, whatever whatever. But heck, then I thought, why not just now?” He reached up with both hands to cup her face before he kissed her forehead. “So.. when do we get to share to your parents?” Or was Mrs. MacDougal still outside the door?

"Later," Morag replied simply, one of her legs jutting out behind her to push her bedroom door shut with a quiet thunk. It wasn't that she didn't want to tell them this decision, but she had a feeling that her mother would try to talk her out of it and she wasn't feeling like being lectured at the moment. A lecture from Mum was a lot better than another night in Azkaban, but she'd prolong that just a bit, if possible.

Her arms wrapped around Michael again and she pulled herself close, her head on his chest. "Let's just hang out for a while first. Okay?"