Most people would think that Ginny’s hair was just red, but Harry knew better. Yes, it was a bright copper that shone in the sunlight, but up close there were strands of gold and of chocolate brown, all weaving together to create something that was so uniquely Ginny.
He loved when she pulled it back into a braid for quidditch, and even more when it came loose as they played, whipping around her face in the wind.
It was so soft, slipping through Harry’s fingers while he helped her pull out leaves that had gotten tangled in the strands when one of their afternoon walks through the orchard had ended up as so much more. He loved burying his hands in her hair while he kissed her, the way it fanned out across her pillow at night while he worshipped her, making her moan and sigh in ways that drove him mad with want.
Maybe, if he was lucky–
‘Are we interrupting your daydream, Potter?’
The entire Auror department turned as one to look at Harry, who did his best not to shrink in his seat.
‘Sorry, boss.’ He said sheepishly to the frowning Auror Robards, who continued the staff meeting after a seemingly endless silence.
Tomorrow’s trip to Hogsmeade, and the chance to see Ginny for the first time in months, couldn’t come soon enough.
I kind of hate those posts that are like “you can be autistic and function well/not have any of these traits non-autistics hate about us!”
Because yes, you can, but many of us can’t or don’t and I don’t want to have to appeal to people with traits I don’t have to make my autism seem or feel better to them.
This especially and particularly applies to empathy, which people immediately jump to go “oh but most autistic people are actually super empathetic!!! Don’t worry we’re not evil and scary see!!!”
I’ve seen many autistic people shame and abandon low empathy autists just as often as non-autistic folk just to appease their own pride of not being “the bad autist.”
We don’t need to be appealing to be allowed to live and to be accepted.
Every year, a dragon lands in the center of the kingdom and lays two eggs. When the eggs hatch, the two baby dragons then fight to the death. The red one winning means a year of good luck while the blue one winning means a year of bad luck. This year, the dragon laid three eggs.
So my therapist explained to me the other day that when neurotypicals ask why something happens they don’t actually want to know why, they’re just throwing that out there as part of the discussion. I’m not gonna lie, I kind of sat there silently for a moment, computing. Eventually I told her that I was trying to absorb that piece of information because I like explaining and finding out why things happen, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why someone would ask why without wanting an answer. But honestly, my conversations with people make so much more sense.
i love my therapist but i hate being in therapy. 10 minutes before my appointment, i’m in a meeting with my boss - we discuss my artistic choices; my boss recommends i artistically choose less. 10 minutes after therapy, i wash my hair and think about everything that was said, and then i have to switch it off, like a lamp, and go back to work again.
i was on a walk the other day and someone had the perfect combination of his cologne and whatever-else. it was almost exactly his scent. i fucking hate that. after all these years, i remember that? i tell my therapist - i feel like a fucking wolf. try telling a middle-aged blonde lady. oh i scented him on the air. i’m 30, and i’m having a panic attack over something that would be a plotline in the omegaverse.
what they don’t tell you about mental illness is that if you are lucky enough to survive it into adulthood; it becomes a weird slice of your life. because you do, eventually, have to build a life. i realized in a panic somewhere around 22 - oh. i don’t know what i’m fucking doing, because i always assumed i’d just go ahead and die. i didn’t die, and i’m grateful for that, and i’m very happy about that choice. but it does mean that i am an adult in an apartment, living with my conditions side-by-side like. oh, that’s my roommate, adhd.ignore the glass, bytheway, that’s ocd.
so you pick your stupid life up by the scruff of the neck and you’re, like glad for it (so much laughter and light and friends you would have never thought possible, when you were in the worst of it). but it feels so strange to be dancing around these odd little microcosms, these patchwork moments of your symptoms. if you have a panic attack at night, you still need to wake up and walk the dog in the morning. if your depression is making everything boring, well, you don’t have any sick days left, and a job’s not really supposed to be that exciting anyway. your ocd tears out each individual leg hair, and then, an hour later, you sigh, patch up the bloody bits, and go get dinner with friends. and the life is kitten-quiet, mewling and pathetic, but it’s also like - it’s yours, so you’re fond of it.
and it’s like - you’re real. so you still enjoy pushing the shopping cart really fast and then riding on the back of it down an empty aisle. and you’re not, like, so sick anymore that when you accidentally drop a mug you burst into tears (except for the days you do that. which are bad). and no, you’re not allowed around certain items anymore. oops! but you’ve learned to be good about brushing your teeth most days of the week. and yeah sometimes in the middle of the day you have a little freak-out about how fucking unfair it all is, how fucking hard, how other people can just do this without having to fucking hurt the whole time. and then you sigh and force yourself to sit down and fucking journal about it so you can tell the nice middle-aged blonde woman yeah i had a hard day but i practiced grounding. you still sometimes want to burst out of your own skin, but you force yourself to eat kind-of healthy and to take your vitamins. you let yourself chop off all your hair in the sink in a dramatic poetry of control and relief - and you also have developed good hobbies that help you move your body more frequently. you feel helplessly behind, lost in the shuffle - but you also practice gratitude, taking stock of what you have garnered. because you’re trying. even if you’re never gonna be normal, you have something… close enough.
and the little kitten of your life, this mangy, starlit tigercub, this thing you expected to rot so young: in your arms, it turns itself over, belly-up. exposing this new soft part, all the organs and guts. like it’s saying i trust you now. youwon’t give me up.
