Who: Miranda Parry & Ralph Frobisher
What: he tells her he joined the Order
Where: Ralph's dorm
When: right now!


So--she---really---liked----snogging.

Miranda could snog Ralph all day. Allll day. All day and every day. And what made snogging so much fun these days is that Ralph had his own summer dorm and they could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted.

Which was a whole lot of snogging.

And shagging. But the snogging came first (usually).

At first she'd been a bit apprehensive of Ralph taking more university classes and having to study all summer, but Miranda had found that his schedule was quite lenient, and that his dorm was quite empty. Everything worked out perfectly! Her parents were sure she was at W.A.D.A. rehearsals (and some times she was!) and other times they thought she just needed to get away.

Bwahaha.

She was probably going to get in trouble with how crumpled up her script was getting, but was it really Miranda's fault that her boyfriend was really good at getting bored of read-throughs and interrupting them with kisses? Definitely not her fault that her script was crunched up under her back right now and that she had no intention of getting up to relieve it of its pain.

Snogging was always the best distraction to put off things you didn't want to do. Like Ralph's lab write-up. He had no desire whatsoever to even begin that thing-- and it didn't help that his half of his rats had died before the experiment had even started, so he had nothing to write about anyway. Luckily for him, however, Miranda was the greatest distracter he had ever known (in many ways), so the uneasiness about that grade was put off for the umpteenth time.

But unfortunately Miranda couldn't distract him from the one thing that had been bothering him for a bit, and--- Ralph didn't like keeping secrets from Miranda. Not only did he feel bad during the time when he wasn't telling her, when he did, it usually ended up in her being upset that he hadn't told her said secret in the first place (her reaction varied on the severity of the secret). So... Ralph figured that he should have told Miranda about the Order that the night he signed up, but one thing had led to another, and they had been doing so fine lately, so he... didn't.

Now it was weeks later, and by that math, Ralph calculated Miranda's dismay would be at one hundred and fifty on a scale from one to a hundred. Which had basically meant death in past experiences.

So. He should tell her. Like right now.

"I joined the Order," Ralph blurted abruptly into Miranda's face, only pulling back slightly from her. An anxious look spread on his face as he refused to move from his position on top of her, just in case she didn't hear him.

She blinked quickly as she tried to regain her breath, her mouth still very much in kissing position. Had he just interrupted snogging to tell her that he joined the Order? The Order of the Phoenix? It took Miranda's brain to push its self out of the snogging-induced fog it was in to fully comprehend what he was saying.

"The Order?" Her face contorted as she said the words, going from confusion to shock to complete terror in five seconds. Her acting professors would be so proud her for her change of emotion, but all Miranda could think about was crying. She wanted to cry. Her eyes welled up immediately with the shock and she dropped her hands from around his neck. What was wrong with him? Why---"Why!" she squeaked.

Ralph, who'd almost been killed once and was now hiding from insane death eaters, just joined a group who gets its members killed all the time and goes after insane death eaters.

Her boyfriend was a right genius.

Bad reaction, bad reaction, bad reaction.

Ralph faltered greatly, his emotions spiking from anxiety to panic within seconds of Miranda's face welling up. Even though it shouldn't because this was Miranda here: the prospect of facing death eaters didn't get him this alarmed, but telling his girlfriend that he had recently joined a secret society? He was apparently unable man up to that, because right now he was really sure a sweat was breaking on his forehead.

Alright, control was the key here, because she could take this as him being anxious about joining the Order, which he wasn't. In fact, it was the exact opposite; joining the Order was the first thing that Ralph felt had been a good step forward in his recent life.

"Because---" Ralph started, his face turning to show determination now. "Because--- I felt-- feel like it was the right thing to do." He nodded slightly, pleased with his answer, since his brain had stopped working minutes ago. It was a rather good one, if he did say so himself. As he nodded, Ralph moved his hands to either sides of her body to prop himself up more.

Miranda gaped up at Ralph. He felt like it was the right thing to do? He just--he felt? When the hell had the Order put up a open-call for new members? Were too many of them dying and they needed to refill their ranks. He felt like----it was a feeling. She couldn't grasp this, why would you want to throw your entire life into something like this? To have no idea what was going to happen, the trouble...

Oh God, she sounded just like her brothers. Miranda had basically been interrogated when she'd joined them for the wedding. Why had she left, where had she gone, and all she could tell them was that she'd set off because of a good feeling. She'd had a good feeling that this would be for the best.

Her good feeling didn't have a high-risk chance of killing her, however.

"Merlin's fucking beard, Ralph," Miranda choked out, wiping at her face. "You're going to kill me with this!"

"Nothing's going to--" Well. No. That wasn't true, things were going to happen, but it wasn't like--- he had basically already died once--- not that that was a good reason to join the Order, but-- Frank and Alice had been protecting him for so long, as well as the rest of the Order, how could he not join when they extended the invitation? It would have be wrong to decline.

"I have to do this," he stated firmly, and Ralph shifted again toward her side so he could look at her at a more equally angle. Not to mention help brush the forming tears away from her face. "If no one helped, then whose going to stop this war? They've done so much for me, I couldn't--- it would be wrong for me to have turned the offer down." Ralph watched Miranda closely, trying to talk as calmly and logically as he could muster to her.

"It's going to be--- Frank's been helping me train more when he can, Dedalus too, he's been filling me in, and Sebastian Goldstein, do you remember him? He was two years above us... and James Potter, they're getting us ready so we can help, because I should help if I can and--- I should have told you earlier, but everything's been so good lately and--- please don't be upset."

"How can I not be upset?" Miranda asked loudly, almost sounding offended that he could ask such a thing of her. She was allowed to be upset! Ralph was safe here, right here, and going out into the wizarding world to fight dark wizards was just erasing all the hard work they'd put into the last year. Why was he even going to stay here, then, if he was just going to get himself killed anyway?

Merlin---Miranda knew that the Order had helped them, she literally owed them her life for saving Ralph's, so even she couldn't deny that a way to repay them would be brilliant, but...but did he have to do it this way? Wasn't there some other way to help out the Order that didn't involve actually getting into the fray?

Miranda pulled up the collar of her shirt to wipe at her nose, eyes avoiding Ralph's because she knew she couldn't look at him and manage to speak, just the thought! "You already---I had to deal with you dying once, Ralph, and I---I---" Okay, she wasn't going to be able to speak anyway, so she looked up at him and shook her head, "I c-can't do that again!"

"I'm not going to die!" Ralph responded immediately, not missing a beat. Obviously there was a chance of that happening, yes, but--- no. It wasn't going to happen. He rejected that statement as potentially coming true because he knew deep down in his heart, that he and Miranda were meant to go old together, and have as many babies as she wanted and him dying would prevent all of that, so therefore it could never happen.

It sounded stupid when he thought about it, but it was just one of those gut feelings he got rare and far in between. It just wouldn't happen, like how she wasn't going to die, and like how they weren't going to have any sort of problem having children, because it was meant to be.

"I am not going to die," Ralph repeated, moving his face so that he could catch Miranda's eye. She must understand that he was not going to be like--- he wasn't going to purposely run into a fight with the intent to die valiantly, no no. Other Order members maybe strive to do that, but he--- he would do no such thing, ever. End of story. He would try his best with helping win this war, but not give his life for it.

"Believe me--- believe me, it's not going to happen. I just--- have to do this." Maybe she would warm up to the idea if he brought her to one of the... informal meetings they had. The moment Ralph thought of that, he immediately decided that was a bad idea: the sight of Greta and Gilly there would most definitely make her even angrier.

Ralph moved his hands to run through her hair, and he held onto her face tightly. He knew she would understand eventually, but he also knew that it would take time. If they places were reversed... she was reacting much better than he ever would have.

Why why why was he able to do this to her? She should hate him for all the shit he's put her through. Miranda's mind raced---Ralph had broken her heart twice because he didn't want to deal with...with...well for fuck's sake, she still didn't have a good reason for any of their recent breakups, but they'd all been his fault! And for some crazy, out of her mind, stupid reason, she kept leaping into his arms and trusting him. Stupid---stupid love! Love was so stupid! Love made you stupid, that was her new philosophy. If anyone disagreed, they'd never been in love before and hadn't felt its negative affects like absolute and undying trust.

All she wanted to do was push him away and slam her fists into the mattress, shrieking about how he can't do this, how she wouldn't allow it. But all Miranda could find herself doing was crying even harder. All she could do was cry, because for some reason she believed the bastard. What Ralph was saying was absolute nonsense; no one knew that nothing was going to happen! Who would have ever thought that Ralph Merridew would end up being targeted by a psycho death eater and then run out of the wizarding world? Bloody hell, Miranda had every reason to believe that this was going to end badly, but all she could do was cry and bury her head into him.

"You're an idiot," she whimpered.

For some reason beyond him, Ralph hadn't thought that breaking this news to Miranda would get her upset. Well, not this kind of upset, he was expecting more of the angry upset than the sad upset. Why... he wasn't really sure, now that he thought about it. It was stupid of him not to think beyond what to say once he told her he had joined the Order, so the more Ralph thought about it, the more he agreed with Miranda that he was, in fact, an idiot.

"But I'm your idiot," he reaffirmed in a light tone, smiling widely at her. Fortunately, Ralph had the insight to realize that statement alone would not win her over, so he shifted once again to wrap his arms around her body. But when he couldn't think of anything else to say at that moment, Ralph wasted no time to bury his face into her neck, momentarily enjoying the smell of her hair and her warm skin.

He needed to say something.

"Put all your anger into amazing acting?" he finished hopefully, something of a cheeky smile tugging at his lips as he pressed them on her ear.

"Don't try to snuggle with me, Mister," Miranda said with a pout, but she didn't move out of his embrace. In fact, she did the exact opposite and pushed closer to Ralph, her arms managing to press around him as much as they could. He really was an idiot, but she was a bigger one for staying with him through it all and dealing with all the stress. She was going to lose all of her hair because of this fool, Miranda was sure! And then she'd really have to kill him.

...God, he couldn't get killed. Miranda knew that they had used up all their luck when he escaped from that fire, so what now? Just because the Order was training him and helping him didn't mean that he was going to suddenly be able to fend off death eaters! Aurors couldn't fend off death eaters, sometimes! How was her Ralph supposed to do it? God, if he died, Miranda would---she'd...ugh. Damn him for making her think about it.

Miranda let out a dramatic breath and twisted her face just a bit to kiss Ralph's forehead. "When I'm starring on the West End I'll be sure to dedicate all my performances to my idiot boyfriend."