We Can Steal Time
Cause we are lovers and that's a fact
yes we're lovers and that is that
though nothing will keeps us together
we could steal time just for one day
we could be heroes forever and ever
what do you say?
Heroes - Oasis
She's always been the odd one out or, at least, that's the way she has always seen it. After all, she isn't as pretty or as distractingly feminine as the rest of the girls in her family. She's always been the tomboy who got on better with her brother than with her sister. She thinks that Hogwarts was probably a little shocked when she had turned up. After Victoire they were probably expecting someone just as kind and loving and beautiful. So it must have been a surprise when she showed up with her burnt orange punk hair and her dragon skin combat boots. She's never been the girlie and it was needless to say that all her friends were guys. She's tall too but not in the same way as Vic who is tall and statuesque. No, she's quite the opposite of her sister. She's loud and boisterous and she adores playing Quidditch. She finds it difficult at family parties because she just doesn't quite fit in with the other girls except from maybe Lily but she's seventeen where as Lily is only eleven not that Teddy seems to mind. She's not bitter though or she doesn't think she is. Sure she can be stand offish and emotionally closed off but she doesn't like people who invade her space. She adores her friends Liam Wood and Tyler Crawford who have never cared about who her family is and just love her for her.
It's her last year at Hogwarts and she spends as much time as she can hanging outside by the lake with her friends or practicing Quidditch. She's a chaser on the team and Liam is the keeper as well as Quidditch Captain. She's a prefect although she has no idea how she managed it but it doesn't matter because she can't outdo Victoire who was Head Girl two years before. Not that she's trying to outdo Victoire because her sister is just too perfect for that and she accepts that. She loves Vic of course and anyway they were so different it didn't really matter. She stomps around the corridors in her favourite combat boots and plays up in lessons just like she always has but manages to get good grades because she wants so much to be a curse breaker just like her father. She's a lot more like her father than like her mother although her father had been Head Boy. Still, her parents had both been very proud when she had made prefect.
'Hey Dom,' shouted a familiar voice from behind her as she was walking down the corridor and she turns round to see Tyler running up towards her with a huge grin on his face.
'Hey Tyler,' she says as he falls into step beside her his black hair windswept and his face slightly pink from running. 'How are you?'
'I'm all right,' he tells her with a grin. 'Where are you off to?'
'Nowhere really,' says Dom grinning. 'I just thought I'd go for a wander. Where's Liam?'
'Oh he's up in the common room with Quidditch through the Ages super-glued to his lap studying plays in order to beat Slytherin in the Quidditch Cup Final,' Tyler says laughing a little.
Liam is his father's son and has been for as long as Dom has ever known him. Her Uncles George and Harry were often fond of recounting Quidditch practices led by Liam's dad Oliver and to Dom it seemed that Liam had inherited the ability to talk about nothing but Quidditch forever and ever. Not that Dom minded at all. She's perfectly happy to talk about Quidditch come rain or shine. There was no better sport in the world although she had once been insane enough to try to play that ballfoot game with Tyler. That hadn't been nearly as much fun as Quidditch but then Tyler was a muggle-born and he had weird ideas about sport.
'So where have you been?' she asks him as they reach the top of the marble staircase.
'Oh, you know the Remembrance Day dance next month,' says Tyler lightly knowing what Dom thinks about getting dressed up and going to a dance, 'well I was just asking Charlotte Cadwallder if she would like to go with me.'
Her heart sank a little. Tyler was going with Cadwallder from Hufflepuff? Now she would be going on her own because Liam would be taking his girlfriend Emily King to the dance. Not that she wanted to go to the dance anyway. She would probably just stay in the common room and sleep. It wasn't like no one had asked her but she had turned them all down. She always thought that guys wanted to date her because she was either Victoire's sister or the daughter of a Weasley. She couldn't stand that. It was shallow. The truth was that she had date Malcolm Kettletoff when she had been in fifth year but it turned out that he'd only asked her out to get closer to her sister and to brag about dating one of the numerous Weasley girls. Since then she had stayed away from boys and said no to anyone who asked her out on a date.
'That's good,' she encourages Tyler because she knows how painfully shy he is when it comes to girls and he's had a crush of Cadwallder for a while now. 'How did you get her on her own?'
That was the problem Tyler had been having. He just couldn't seem to get the girl on her own. Dom thought it was silly for girls to go everywhere in groups. Victoire had done that and Dom just didn't see the point in having a friend escort you to the toilet. Nothing was going to happen whilst you were in there unless you went into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. She certainly didn't ask Liam or Tyler to escort her to the toilet. When she had asked Victoire about it she had said that Dom wouldn't understand because she didn't have girlfriends.
'Well I went up to her and her friends and I ask if I could speak to her alone for a moment,' he tells her with a rather stupid looking grin on his face and she can't help but smile at it because she's pleased for him, after all.
'So,' he says after a moment, 'what are you going to do?'
'About what?' she asks playing dumb.
'About the dance?'
She shrugs and when she answers she is very nonchalant.
'I'll probably just stay in the common room and sleep.'
'No Dom, come on,' Tyler complains a little. 'You should come. Hey, you might meet Prince Charming underneath the disco ball.'
'Is that you getting me mixed up with my sister?' Dom asks him her blue eyes glittering dangerously and she smiles a little as Tyler gulps.
'No,' he says. 'You know I was just joking Dom.'
Of course, she knows he was just joking because Dom has long held the idea that she'll always be the singleton. She doesn't believe that there is someone out there for her and surely men want a woman who is feminine and pretty if not beautiful. No man could ever want the tomboy because she would never look glorious in a wedding dress.
...
So the ball rolls round on the 2nd of May and Dom thinks of her big sister because its Victoire's birthday and she is most likely celebrating it in a fancy restaurant with her friends and Teddy. She compliments both Liam and Tyler who both look handsome in their dress robes but they don't manage to sway her one inch as they try to persuade her to come with them. She doesn't want to be responsible for interrupting their evening. She waits until the common room is empty and then she decides to go down for a walk in the grounds.
The moonlight seems to light up the lake as she steps outside the door but she doesn't stray down the steps in case she bumps into a couple in passionate embrace because as a prefect she would be obliged to takes points and give detentions and she really doesn't want to ruin anyone's evening. So she perches on the top step in her jeans and combat boots and the slight breeze ruffles her hair a little as she stares out towards the lake. She doesn't hear him come up behind her but all of a sudden he's sitting down next to her and she turns to stare into blue eyes flecked with white.
'Hello Josh,' she says in surprise to the blond haired Ravenclaw boy sitting next to her who just so happens to be Head Boy. 'What are you doing out here?'
'I came looking for you Dom,' Josh replies with a grin brushing his golden windswept hair to the side a little more. 'Why aren't you at the dance?'
'I could ask you the same question,' Dom tells him with a smirk. She likes Josh and she finds him terribly funny. He comes from a family that's even bigger that her own but he's onto second cousins and she's only got her first cousins. There is never a lack of White kids but he's the oldest out of twenty three of them and Dom thinks it's strange because their family is so very close and she supposes that's what it'll be like when all her cousins have children.
'I don't have a date,' Josh tells her sticking out his bottom lip in order to look forlorn.
'You? Not have a date?' laughs Dom. 'You're like the best looking lad in the school.'
'Well you see there is this one girl,' he says slowly, 'but she hates the idea of the dance and she doesn't like to date so I couldn't ask her you see.'
'Well that's stupid of her,' replies Dom without thinking. 'Who wouldn't want to go to the ball with you?'
Josh laughs a little shaking his head slightly but Dom doesn't get the joke and she just looks at him in confusion for a moment wondering what he is laughing at.
'You know it's worth it just to hear you call yourself stupid,' he tells her with a grin.
'When did I do ... Oh?'
Dom looks at Josh astonished for a moment and Josh just loves the way she looks so utterly confused because in that moment she looks vulnerable. He's always admired her strength but sometimes he found her difficult to deal with especially because she is so defensive.
'You wanted to ask me to the ball?' she asks him eventually and he nods. 'Really?'
The look she gives him is endearing in the way that she frowns as though she can't quite believe it and he has to grin.
'Why don't you stop moping out here and come inside for a dance?' he asks her standing up and holding his hand out to her and Dom think he's looks devastatingly handsome in his black robes with the red shirt underneath.
'I can't,' she tells him a little miserably because she wouldn't mind dancing with Josh because maybe she's had a little crush on him since they were in the prefect's compartment at the beginning of the year and she loves a forceful kind of man.
'Why not?' he asks her.
She indicates what she is wearing with her ripped slouchy jeans and her purple t-shirt that says "save water share a bath" over the front of it. He smiles a little and grabs her hand pulling her upwards. She looks at him a little unsure as he pulls out his wand.
'Come on,' he says as she looks at him apprehensively, 'I'm ace at Transfiguration.'
There's a collective gasp as she enters the Great Hall on Josh's arm wearing a dress, a dress no less but it's so exactly her with a black net skirt that comes to her ankles and a corset top in red and black print that plunges a little at her cleavage. She's not wearing any make up and her hair is still that little bit ruffled by the wind and she feels uncomfortable as the students turn to stare at her or maybe they are staring at Josh. She glances around a little and Josh secures her arm in his just little more tightly to stop it shaking. She spots Tyler and Liam staring at her open mouthed before they give her the thumbs up and she has to grin. She can see her little brother with two girls wrapped round him and he is smiling at her and she feels a little more relaxed until Josh sweeps her onto the dance floor.
'May I have this dance?' he asks with over the top gentlemanly manners.
'I can't dance,' she whispers forcefully as the music starts up.
'I can,' he reassures her as he twirls her around and she finds that she's doing all right and she ignores the raised eyebrows from some of the girls near her when they noticed at she is still wearing her combat boots.
Josh pulls her away from the dance early and they run through the corridors together like crazy people laughing their heads off and spontaneously breaking into dance all over the place. She's never had so much fun in her life and Josh picks her up in a swift movement that startles her as he hooks his arm under her knees and cradles her close to his chest. She looks up at him in surprise to see him grinning at her.
'Am I not heavy?' she asks with a giggle tilting her head back.
'Of course not,' he tells her with a laugh. 'I'm your superhero.'
She laughs at that and he laughs along with her hitching her up just that little bit higher. He stares into her eyes as her laughter dies down and suddenly she feels terribly uncertain of herself because she is so sure that he is going to kiss her. She knows that she wants him to and she can feel the longing stirring in her bones. She knows she's never laughed like this before neither has she felt so elated by the way that he looks at her.
'I feel a little like Cinderella,' she tells him softly remembering what Tyler said about meeting Prince Charming as Josh looks at her intently.
'Well, Cinderella,' he breathes quietly to her, 'would you mind if I kissed you?'
'No I wouldn't mind at all.'
He kisses her and it's like an electric surge through her bones as she kisses him back and it feels so right. Everything is frozen perfectly in place, like time has stopped to wonder at the beauty of their moment.
Nothing would please me more
than if you pressed that little button
&& told me what you think.
I might leave you kisses if you do.
Kerr X.
