Cursed

Neither Ginny nor Luna struggled with calling him Ianto rather than Neville.  This was mostly because they just called him Smoke, instead.  But what was uncanny was how easily they accepted him as their friend, despite how different he looked.  In the end, it was simply a matter of how it felt to be around him.  Everything was different except for how he made them feel.

“I’m not sure if you know this, but the Daily Prophet ran a story about you during the Lost Year,” Luna told him.  “When you were captured,” she added reluctantly.  “They had a picture of you that they’d got from the muggle transmissions.”

Ianto sat back, no longer even pretending to eat.  “Please say you didn’t recognize me.”

“I remember, now,” Luna nodded.  “I remember when you came to me for help, and I remember seeing that picture and just knowing that you used to be Neville.”  She rubbed her forearm.  “The scar reopened when I saw it and remembered, but then I forgot again,” she sighed.

“How did you think you’d injured yourself?” Ianto asked, curious.

Luna’s expression turned abstract.  “I never wondered.  And no one ever asked.  Dittany healed it, and I just never… turned my mind to it.”

Jack looked to Harry, concerned.  “Does she need a curse-breaker?”

“Oh, no,” Luna smiled at Jack.  “Thank you for your concern, but as soon as they broke that curse for Ianto, I was released from its effects.  I just didn’t put it all together until Ron and Hermione came to explain it to me, today.”

“So,” Ginny grinned at Ianto.  “Leading another resistance without us?”

“Well, I would have invited you to join in, but being as you tried to kill me every time I came near you…” Ianto sighed dramatically.

Jack realized that the humor was just what Ianto needed.  Something to make it less pitiable, more manageable.  Making light of it helped to loosen its hold on him and helped him to heal and reconnect with those around him.  Because as much as he had needed their compassion, that was something that set him apart.  But the gallows humor was all about belonging.  Something Ianto had been missing for a very long time.

“Bill told us you felt her dying,” Harry said.  “How were you able to…”

Ianto shrugged.  “I had no magic for it to mess with.”

“No, I don’t think that’s it, at all,” Luna said, her eyes large and haunted.  “I imagine that what we felt when she was dying was similar to being spellbound.  And by then you were used to pushing past that.  So you just… endured.”

Ianto blinked, and Ginny and Harry just sat there, stunned.  Luna stood and came around to where Ianto was sitting.  She perched on his knee and hugged him.

“So much pain, Smoke.”

“All different kinds,” he nodded, appreciating the comfort she offered but no longer feeling overwhelmed or undone by the memories.  He took that as progress.  “Each distracted from the rest, though.”

“You never spoke such nonsense when you were Neville,” Luna chastised, and Ginny sputtered into her glass as Harry laughed outright.

“It’s true!” Ianto protested, a small smile quirking his lips.  “The imbalance in the elements distracted me from the physical pain, which distracted me from the pain of being spellbound, which distracted me from the imbalance, and so forth.”

“So you just sort of pinged from one to the next?” Ginny asked.  “How did it not overwhelm you?”

“I couldn’t let it,” Ianto shrugged.  “The bastard had Jack.  I had to keep focused.” 

“Ladies, I’m sorry, but for that I’m going to have to kiss him.  Can’t be helped, I’m sure you understand,” Jack announced, standing and carefully grasping Ianto by the hair on the back of his head.  He pulled Ianto’s head back gently so his lover was smiling up at him and leaned over to kiss him with great care and tenderness.  Luna giggled as she returned to her seat.  Ginny and Harry laughed along as Ianto’s hands wound into Jack’s hair.

Jack, having already made his apologies, did a thorough job of it before breaking free of Ianto’s hold and returning to his chair with a grin.  Ianto, whose blush gave him a slightly healthier look, turned his attention back to his plate, where he pushed his food around a bit as the others laughed and chatted.

“You’re fooling no one,” Jack leaned over and kissed his cheek after a few minutes.  “A few more bites, please?  For me?” he said, giving his best puppy-dog eyes.

Ianto smiled sheepishly and brought a forkful of food to his mouth, chewed, and swallowed unenthusiastically.

It would have to do.

Apparently, this was perfectly normal, and Susan promised that as the fatigue faded, Ianto’s appetite would return.  In the meantime, the struggle to get him to eat properly was real.  He had dropped an alarming amount of weight during his stay at St. Mungo’s, but now it was time to help him regain some of it.

Ginny eyed him narrowly.  “You’re not normally this skinny, are you?”

Ianto shrugged.

“He’s dropped two stone since we got here,” Jack answered.

“He is sitting right here,” Ianto added, a note of warning in his voice.  He was so very over being talked about in his own presence.

“Sorry, Love,” Jack wrapped an arm around him.  “You were pretty out of it when Bill checked your weight.  I didn’t think you realized.”

Ianto gave him a peck on the cheek and mumbled his own apology for his impatience.

“Do you still like pound cake?” Ginny asked, perking up at the thought of being able to help.

Ianto gave the most infinitesimal flinch.  Jack frowned.  Ianto loved pound cake.  But Ginny interpreted his expression to mean he no longer did.

“Oh, that’s a shame.  I could have brought you some of my famous…” she trailed off as Luna began chuckling.  “What?”

Harry’s expression could have been carved from stone, and Jack twigged.  He cast a glance towards Ianto.

“Don’t you think you’ve been cursed enough, Smoke?” Luna asked, stull bubbling with laughter.

“What,” Ginny said.  Not really a question now, so much as a demand.

“Now Nag, you know we love you,” Luna said, her eyes shining with mirth.  “But I think it’s well past time for Smoke to come clean about your famous pound cake.”

“Come clean?” Ginny asked, frowning as she looked from one friend to another.

“I… well,” Ianto looked as awkward as Jack had ever seen him.  “It… It’s just that…  Well, butterbeer is a… a very unique secret ingredient.”

“You mean you don’t like my pound cake?” Ginny asked, her eyes were wide, but then they narrowed.  “You never liked it?”

Ianto, whose masks and shields were pretty much out of commission for the moment, gave an involuntary shudder.  Luna chuckled again.

“He was the only one of us who could even pretend to like it,” Luna laughed.  Her unusually vocal dislike of her friend’s recipe had been the source of an ongoing, mostly mock-argument between them since their school days.

“I hate you all,” Ginny sat back with a huff.

Jack laughed along with Luna and Harry, but then noticed that Ianto had begun trembling.  He pulled his lover closer and frowned.  “Are you cold, Love?”

“’m sorry,” Ianto muttered.  “You always went to so much trouble, to bake those cakes.  And no one really…” he didn’t finish that, because it sounded pathetic.  But it was true. 

No one had ever made treats for him.  That Ginny did – even if it was for everyone – made him feel loved and appreciated.  The least he could do was eat them.  No one else would, and if no one appreciated the gesture, then she’d stop.  So he had eaten every crumb, despite the fact that he’d found the recipe to be completely disgusting.

He should have lied and said that as Neville he had loved pound cake, but now he did not.  He would gladly never eat pound cake, ever again, if it meant sparing her from feeling that he had rejected her, in some way.

Ginny jumped in her seat, almost as though she’d been kicked by Luna, who was glaring at her.  She had been staring at Ianto, unsure of what to say.  It had been in good fun, and she wasn’t really all that offended.  Particularly because she was beginning to realize what it had meant, that he had eaten all of those cakes back then, despite not liking them.

Luna’s glare subsided as Ginny got up and went to sit on Ianto’s knee, tucking her hand under his chin to raise his face to meet her gaze.

“Let me be sure I understand,” she said, her voice as soft as the smile that graced her features.  “You did not like pound cake, before?” 

Ianto looked guilty and shook his head. 

“And you particularly didn’t like my butterbeer pound cake?” 

Another, more reluctant head shake. 

“So all that time, all those cakes.  You ate them, just because I made them?” 

This time, a shrug.

“And you think I’d be upset?”

“You mean you’re not?” he asked, confused.

“Oh, you...  you…  you bludger-brained boy-lover!” she exclaimed, and Jack snorted out a laugh.  “How could I be upset?  That has to be the most daft, sweet, silly, kind, mad, wonderful thing anyone has ever done!”

“Boy-lover?”  One of Ianto’s eyebrows rose like a kraken from the deep.

“Well you are, aren’t you?” she challenged.

“Just the one, so far,” he said, shrugging again, ignoring Jack's splutter at the 'so far' bit.  “And just one woman,” he added, looking a bit sad before his expression cleared.

“Bisexual?” Ginny asked, because she could no longer avoid doing so.

“Yes, but also demisexual, I think,” Ianto replied, and a bit of a mystery from their school days was cleared up. 

Neville had been their best friend, so naturally they were interested in every aspect of his life, including his love-life (or apparent lack of same).  Having witnessed the behavior of the other teenaged boys of their acquaintance, they had idly speculated that he might be asexual, but they had never asked.  They simply allowed the wondering, loving Neville and letting him be whoever he was without their curiosity or interference.

“As long as you’re happy,” Ginny smiled, and Luna nodded.

Ianto frowned as though the word had bounced off of him.  “Now that the curses are gone, I think maybe,” he looked at Jack and a soft, vulnerable expression suffused his face.  “I think maybe I can be,” he said.  “H-Happy,” he added, as though testing out the concept, and the fact that he couldn’t even get the word out without hesitation hurt his dinner companions.

Jack gave Ginny a look of warning so she could get up before he engulfed Ianto in a hug.  “I am going to make you so happy, Ianto,” he promised in a whisper, not realizing the others could hear, nor caring if they did.

“Me too,” the normally articulate wizard choked into Jack’s neck, matching his lover’s vow.

The others began clearing away the dinner things, and by the time they were done, Jack and Ianto were with them, once more.  As the others had coffee, Ianto turned up his nose at the hospital’s attempt, not repining the deprivation because he knew just by the smell he wasn’t missing actual, proper coffee.

They began to discuss a plan of action, with Luna agreeing to bring her father for a visit the next afternoon for an exclusive interview.  Not long after, Ianto began to flag, and the three friends took their leave.  After a brief few moments of enjoyable canoodling with Jack, Ianto slept.

***