UNTIL THE TRUTH BECOMES A LIE

Casper held out his hand to help me off the train. His pale blue eyes looked even paler here under the sunlight of the train station.
Owls hooted around us and cats miaud and exited kids ran around trying to find their parents.
And all I could see was Casper standing in front me.

I smiled at him.

"Such a gentleman, Cas…" My hand already on his and his finger closing over it.

"Only for you…" He turned his hand in mine, so our fingers entwined and he pulled me gently along, his thumb drawing slow circles over mine. "So… Ready?" he asked with that crooked smile of his. He looked so kissable right now.

"As ready as I'll ever be i guess..." I replied nodding with uncertainty.

"You've met mom and dad already…"

"And they hated me."

"They did not!" his reply comes out a half laugh. I roll my eyes at him. They did and he knows it.
Being hated by his parents was not the worst thing that had happened this year, so I really didn't care that much.

"They wouldn't have invited you to stay with us if they hated you, Em…" he tried to reason. I shrugged.

"They let me come 'cause you asked…" I whine. "And… you threatened to not show up at all this summer if I didn't come…"

"I gave them a choice… That's all… and a summer without you would suck." I snort, as his arm comes around my shoulder and he pulls me closer to him, turning his head to plant a brief kiss on my forehead.

There's a long line of people trying to rescue their trunks, everyone wants to leave… everyone wants to get away from anything Hogwarts related for the summer and just be normal kids. Even I want to. And I'll never be normal. I groan imagining the long wait before us.

"Oh, fine!" he grins, his arm sliding off my shoulder, leaving a cold spot in its wake. "You wait here and I'll go rescue our trunks and Buster…"

"Should I go find your parents?" I ask in a grimace. I see his smirk.

"Sure, go play nice with the inlaws…" he mocks. "Stay there, we'll go find them together." One of his hands grabs mine and he pulls me a bit to him, kissing my lips quickly. I watch him wrestle his way into the sea of kids and then, he's gone.

I love Casper. At least, I think I love him. We've been together for the last 7 months. And it's been an intense relationship…
I pass my tongue over my lip ring. That's the newest addition to my ever growing piercings and tattoo's that had half the Hogwarts staff on my case.
No face piercings, no navel piercing, no nipple piercing, no tattoo's of any kind. I broke almost every rule.
I still remember Minerva's face going white and her eyes widening when she say the eyebrow piercing 9 months ago. Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she even said anything. And what came out was

"Detention, Miss Ainsworth", so I kind of wished her voice hadn't worked at all.
I used the ring on weekends, and Hogsmead, and whenever I could get away with it for the first week. Until Casper gave me a concealing charm to have it on and not have people see.
That earned him a long kissing session in the downstairs broom cupboard.

Casper was actually with me when I got the tattoo on my wrist. My second tattoo. A whole lot smaller than the one between my shoulder blades.
Casper gaped when he saw the broken fairy wings on my back, and then he kissed them. I cried when he did that.

It's been a bad year. A very bad year, and Casper made it better, for the most part. Casper was a savior… everyone else argued on that one, saying he was corrupting me. Everyone was wrong.
Casper was there when everyone else just left me. When everyone turned their backs on me and couldn't understand what was going on with me, he held my hand, or held me in his arms and let me be quiet about it. Or let me yell or scream or got me booz or pills to pick me up or put me down…

Casper comes out of the sea of kids with a cart holding two trunks and a cat's cage holding buster. He grins.

"See… gotta know how to elbow past people and push them aside to get that you want" I look up sharply at that from where I had been petting buster.

"You didn't…" I gasp.

"Of course, I didn't!" He laughs. "Ben and Adam were at the front of a line… I snuck in…" I smile nodding.

"Good boy…" I reply tapping the top of his head like one would a good dog. He looks around, slinging his arms across my shoulders again.

"Alright… mom said to wait here by the barrier… can't be too long now…" he checks the watch and I nod. So we remain standing by the cart.
I get bored of waiting and after a while, i turn in his hold and press myself to him, my chin resting on his shoulder. His arm comes around my waist.

"You're beautiful..." he whispers in my ear and I smile, eyes closed. This is bliss. I opened my eyes and find Albus watching me, standing between Scorpius and James a few feet from us. He's watching me with a slight angry frown and for a second I wonder where Summer is.

Keeping my eyes locked with Albus, I turn my head a bit and kiss Casper's neck. He moans in delight and i smile against the neck, as Albus face twists in anger.

I pull back and kiss Casper properly now... deep and obscene... eyes open watching Albus watch me.

Scorpius turns to see what was making Albus face distort like it was, but he turned away from me quickly when he caught sight... tugging Albus away from the scene.
With a mental sigh, I push Albus out of my head, close my eyes and melt into Casper.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Allison Barrows is elegantly waving her hand at us from her perch by the barrier. She's waving at Casper, most likely.
Casper's mom is wealthy in the wizarding world, and his dad is a multimillionaire in the muggle world.
So, Casper is loaded from both sides. I think his mom believes I want his money, that's the sole sreason I'm dating Casper… I couldn't care less about money.

But me being a poor orphan, no money, no name that held any weight in any world, they weren't all that thrilled when Casper invited me over for New Year's dinner. Casper had held my hand and presented me to his parents. Bothjust frowned and looked down their noses at me. Their son was dating a nobody, shock shock shock.
Out of his family, the only person who was nice to me was his cousin Ben.

We fought because of his parents. Because they told him to break up with me. Casper swore he didn't care about that, that he loved me, that money didn't matter to him. He liked to be with me because of me. He liked to kiss me and touch me and make love to me because I was me not because of money or names. I swore up and down I didn't wanted his money, and he smiled and kissed me gently and said he believed me. And asked me to believe him. And I did.

I smiled as Casper took off with both our trunks, and I grabbed Buster's cage, following him.

I stood waiting. As he threw his arms around his mom and she hugged him back smiling, and giving me a half disapproving glare. I sighed inwardly. Great. Two months of this.

"Hello, Emma…" she said holding out her hand and making my name sound like something that resided under her worst pair of shoes. I shook it.

"Mrs Barrows. How are you?" She nodded.

"Fine, Thank you." She turned her attention back to Casper, grabbing his arm and pulling him away. I sighed softly now. I gave them some space, following at a decent distance, when a hand wrapped itself around my wrist, startling me and I turned.

Albus fucking Potter stood there. Something akin to pleading in his eyes.

"Don't go with him..." he begs.

"Go away, Al..." I say tiredly. We've had this discussion so many times before and we always end up screaming at each other. I don't want to start my vacation like this.

"He's a bad influence on you... he's turning you into something you're not..." he says and I twist my wrist out of his grip. Scorpius, Rose and Eli stand a little behind him. Watching but pretending they're not watching us.

Albus parents and Draco are watching too... hell, everyone in the station is watching us.

"Give it a rest already..." i reply tiredly

"He'd bad for you... he's pulling you down with him..."

"Shut the fuck up, Albus! You don't know anything about him, or me... or us!"

"I know what he makes you do, Em...I know! I know you!"

"I do what I do because I want to...and you don't know me… you used to know a side of me."

"Em, you don't see it... please... please..."

"Leave me the fuck alone, Potter...I mean it."

"I don't want to lose you " That word again. Lose. He's used it so many times the last months I think it's loosing meaning.

"You had your chance... you blew it. You left me. Deal with it." I see the hurt in his eyes. I've seen it build up for months now.

"I'm still your friend." He almost whispers.

"No..." i shake my head sadly and just saying it kills me. "We're not friends anymore. You kissed me, we slept together and I woke up alone … and the next thing I knew, you walked into this train with this girl hanging from your arm calling you his boyfriend and you left me."

That morning, still stood out in my memory. Coming to the station with a wide smile on my face, waiting to see Albus… nervous about where we stood what we were now… seeing him come to the station with Summer Fucking Willoughby hanging from his arm threw me. Seeing him smile at her and have her kiss him on the lips, half stunned me. Hearing her walk past me and have her call him boyfriend killed me. I locked eyes with Albus, who met mine for a second and then looked away ashamed. I stood there in the middle of the slowly filling station fighting tears and trying to get my mind to work again.

I shook my head, coming back to the here and now.

"I was confused... when i kissed you...I didn't...and then we slept together and… "

"Go away, Albus.... and leave me alone."

"Em..."

"Go away!" I yelled angry now, because he still hurt.

Everyone turned now...

"Something wrong, Potter?" an arm sneaked around my shoulders again and I leaned into Casper.

"Yes..." Albus said and turning his eyes to Casper. "You don't deserve her." Albus snarled.

"Neither do you. At least I haven't hurt her. Now go away and leave her alone." Casper snarled back and turned, bringing me with him. We walked away.

It felt worse than it should have.

It felt like walking away from everything I had ever had.

Everything I had ever known.

Everything I had once loved.