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"Ginevra ferch Molly" for "Merlina Murke"
Title: Ginevra ferch Molly (or: Fairytale Princesses, the Disadvantages of and Thereabouts)
Author: Griselda Wormwood (pitry)
Recipient: Merlina Murke (nevrafire)
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Ginny Weasley/ Neville Longbottom
Rating: PG
Word count: ~2,000
Warnings: None.
Summary: Ginny’s not quite sure what her role in the adventure is, but it’s not the damsel in distress.
Author’s note: The title refers to the second branch of the Mabinogi, Branwen ferch Llyr (Branwen Daughter of Llyr). The story references both the second branch and the third branch, Manawydan fab Llyr (Manawydan Son of Llyr).



Ginny Weasley is not a fairytale princess.

She has some things going for her - her family is poor, the knight in shining armour is her boyfriend, possibly the red hair counts as well? But the story doesn’t hold up when she checks the details. Most fairytale princesses are blonde, not ginger; her family didn’t surprisingly stumble upon a hefty sum of Galleons now the war is over (and no one gave them an award, just a tombstone for their lost son); and the knight in shining armour isn’t actually her boyfriend.

They try; oh, how they try. But at some point, a year or so after the war, they both reach the same conclusion. This isn’t going to work. It’s not anyone’s fault - it’s just them. She’s been in love with him ever since she was ten years old, but really, she’s eighteen now, and what you like as a kid isn’t always what you keep as you grow older. She thinks she might just be more in love with the memory of being in love with Harry than with Harry himself.

Harry, for his part, is still dealing with the war. That’s what they all call it, the most diplomatic name possible. Dealing with the war. Learning to get over it, more likely. And she was willing to put her own feelings aside to help him with it, because, love of her life or not, he’s still a dear friend and she doesn’t even have the words to express just how much she appreciates him, but he’s the one who says it in the end.

“This isn’t working, Ginny. I’m - ”

“Don’t apologise.”

They part as friends. That’s the best way. She’s quite relieved, when all is said and done. Maybe a little bit sad. But definitely more relieved than sad.

Ginny Weasley isn’t a fairytale princess in one more way. She has no intention to sit back and mope over the Big Breakup. Well, maybe that’s not what fairytale princesses actually do (seeing as they never actually have a breakup), but it sounds about right for them. It’s not right for Ginny.

***

Of all the people she could go to, she finds Neville. That’s not surprising either. Harry’s battles were side by side with Hermione and Ron, and the bond between the three of them is impossible to break. Her battles she spent next to Neville, a whole year of Carrows. He’s the one she’d trust with her eyes closed, he’s the one she’d trust with her life. He’s the only one who comes to her mind when she’s looking for someone to spend the next couple of weeks with.

“Oi, Neville,” she says when she’s on his doorstep and smiles. “Feel like taking a trip?”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

***

Well, that’s not what he actually says. It would have been nice - almost poetic, even. But life isn’t a story, and he starts fretting about his job and commitments and where would they go and is she sure she wants to go with him and it’s that last bit that makes her roll her eyes, tell him to stop fretting, and that she’s sure it will all be okay. Only then he smiles and says it sounds like a good idea. And finally, they’re on their way.

To Wales.

Not quite the destination she had in mind.

Fairytale princesses go to Paris, Ginny thinks, or maybe Rome, or some other romantic city. Personally, Ginny’s always been more interested in visiting Charlie in Romania or in Bill’s stories of Egypt. She should have realised then she just wasn’t fairytale-princess material. But she never quite considered Wales. They go to Wales because between her schedule, Neville’s commitments, and the amount of Galleons they have to spend on this journey (not a lot), Wales is the only practical destination.

So here they are, standing on this spot of beach, where the waves crash unto the shore, and there are traces of ancient magic all around them, and then she thinks that actually, Wales isn’t such a bad place after all.

There were the Giant Kings of Wales once, Ginny remembers vaguely from History of Magic. Neville seems to know quite a lot more on the subject than she does - not because he paid any more attention to Binns than the rest of them, but because his grandmother loved telling him about them. “It was when giants still used magic,” he tells her.

There’s a fairytale princess somewhere in the story too, but in Ginny’s opinion, her story is the perfect example of why being a fairytale princess is not a good idea. She was married off to stop a war with Ireland, Neville informs her, and then died of a broken heart when a war took place anyway. Ginny doesn’t quite get that. Dying of a broken heart when there’s a war going on sounds like a luxury Ginny never had.

Not that she’s particularly interested in dying of a broken heart; there were a few girls in her year who would probably find it all awfully romantic, but Ginny’s having much more fun digging around that beach with Neville. After all, the legend says that this is where the Raven King’s head had been cut off, and while Godric Gryffindor had found the head buried under the Tower of London, no one else has ever found hints of the rest of the body. The thought fleetingly crosses her mind that the rest of the girls wouldn’t find digging for ancient giant bodies too romantic either, but she’s then distracted by Neville falling and having to dig him up, and then they just spend the rest of the day building an ancient fort (sand castles are boring) on the beach.

“A masterpiece,” she laughs at their pathetic attempt right before the tide comes and washes it all away.

***

The real fort is different, though. It doesn’t make them laugh. It has that chill, that feeling that gives Ginny goosebumps and makes her think of the Carrows and Voldemort and Dark Magic. Something bad happened in the fort, she’s sure of that.

Neville, too, can feel it. Of course he can. He shared the exact same experiences she did, they both know that feeling. He looks uncertainly at his notes and then mumbles something about ‘ancient wizarding places’ and ‘archaeology’ and ‘really important fort’, but at the same breath he adds, “We don’t have to go in if you don’t want to.”

“Nah,” Ginny says. “It’ll be cool. Come on.”

It takes them about five minutes inside the fort to start wondering whether the notes Neville got from his grandmother really are about this place, and whether they should turn back. It doesn’t look like a place the Ministry knows about. It doesn’t look one of those places which Godric Gryffindor had purged of all Dark Magic centuries ago. It doesn’t look like a tourist attraction.

They still go on; it’s a bit cruel, Ginny knows, because she can see Neville only goes on because she does, but she’s still curious - and besides, she’s not worried. They both fought Death Eaters. Neville fought Voldemort himself. Even if there are some old curses here... how bad can it get? And if she needs someone to watch her back, Neville is more than capable.

“Come on,” she smiles and raises her eyebrows. His own laughter is a bit forced, but then he nods and they go on.

Only at the great hall do they stop. Only at the great hall do they realise they should turn back. Now.

There’s nothing there that looks intimidating, nothing to suggest danger. In fact, it’s completely empty. Empty but for a huge golden bowl, and all of a sudden they know which fort they have entered. The mists cover them, the ground shakes beneath them, and the old curse of the Fort of Dyfed starts again, the same place where a witch and wizard of old, the sorceress Rhiannon and her son, the wizard Pryderi, were lost, and they almost never found their way back. The same place Ginny and Neville have both been warned, in countless folktales and children’s myths and History of Magic classes (and in Neville’s case, his stern grandmother), never to enter, for fear that if they did enter, there would be no exit, no way to stop the curse.

Neville swallows; she narrows her eyes. She is not going to be lost because of some stupid old curse. She has things to do, after all: tickets for the Weird Sisters and re-sit her Transfiguration N.E.W.T and the Holyhead Harpies really did sound interested.

But Ginny is no Rhiannon and Neville is no Pryderi. They’re good, she knows that, but they’re not that good.

Maybe, in a fairytale, the prince would burst through the door to save them. That’s what happens in those tales, isn’t it, and Rhiannon, too, she was sort-of a fairytale princess, and this had happened to her when Manawydan found a way in.

Just... about... now.

She hates herself just a bit when she raises her eyes to look at the door hopefully. The door remains shut.

***

Five hours later they’ve shouted (they’re nowhere; no one can hear them), they’ve tried to curse their way out of the hall and away from the bowl (not a good idea; curses rebound, Neville had to remind her before she used something really destructive), and they’ve tried to Apparate back home (which would have been a bloody pathetic end to their adventure, but one Ginny would have definitely taken now over staying in this stupid - useless - hall - argh!). They’re still in the hall and there’s still no way out, and all of a sudden Neville gets a curious look and jumps to his feet.

“What is it?”

“I just thought... Finite incantatem?” he half casts the spells, half asks it to be cast, and all of a sudden - the mists are gone.

“Do you think it worked?” Neville asks suspiciously.

“Only one way to find out,” Ginny answers, and casts a useful little spell Hermione taught her the year before. If the spell is right, if she cast it well - and she has no reason to assume otherwise - then it worked. They’re exactly where they started. Wales. Solid ground again.

“You did it,” she smiles at him. “My hero,” she adds as a joke, and then, because she can’t help herself, “you never get this kind of anti-climatic ending in fairytales, though.”

“In fairytales, this is when the hero kisses the heroine,” Neville answers without thinking, then Ginny sees him going all red, as the realisation of what he has said dawns on him.

“Maybe he should,” she says, and she’s not quite sure why. “You know, old mythology, old magic, who knows what that’s like...”

“Er.” Neville is now a deep shade of puce, and he is rooted to his place, unable to move - not because of the curse, but because of Ginny’s words. Ginny still isn’t quite sure what’s come over her - must be this place, she thinks, must be this adventure - but she advances towards him, and then, without warning, touches his lips with hers.

It’s not exactly a spontaneous kiss, and she can’t help but compare Neville to Harry, who is definitely the better kisser, but all of a sudden something changes and she isn’t thinking about that anymore, just kissing Neville. And he kisses her back.

By the time they break the kiss, she feels happier than she has felt in a long time. She feels good. So she’s completely surprised when Neville looks at her with that miserable expression of his.

“What is it?” she asks, and he answers, “I’m not exactly a fairytale hero, though, am I?”

Ginny can’t help but laugh. After all, she’s no fairytale princess.