One might think that a party is a curious place to sit down and read, considering the circumstances - loud music, booze, bad decisions being made and all that jazz. But trust me when I say that a party is probably the only place where one can sit down and read without people disturbing all the time. This is something I've learnt during the past few years at this school. Wherever you are, someone is likely to turn up and try to get your attention despite you being caught up in the troll-binding words of a thick book. Even in the library people seemed to get all loquacious the exact moment something exciting happens in the story. It's like no one else can see that your not in the mood to acknowledge their existence.
During a party, everything is different. When settling down in an armchair a little separate from everybody else with a thick volume of poetry in your hands, you secure yourself a still and lonely and completely undisturbed evening. It marks you as a boring and uninteresting person that no one with even the smallest drop of alcohol in their bloodstream would ever want to converse with, which in my world equals success.
I don't mind reading during parties. Besides, I often consider a party a poem in itself. With the flickering lights, sweaty young bodies dancing inappropriately close to each other, the faint smell of perfumes and lip gloss and liquids, the bass that vibrated firmly in the chest and made the ears hurt after only a couple of songs, the parties were like a thousand different tales in itself. It fascinates me, just not enough to keep my eyes torn from the printed words on the lily white pages of the poetry volume resting on my knees.
If you still don't see the reason to read during a forbidden teenage party, the truth is that I don't really have a choice. I promised Rose that I would accompany her because there was this slight chance that Lorcan Scamander would show up. She's had this huge crush on him for possibly a year now. I would be a horrible friend if I'd denied to come with her. So now here I am, enjoying a masterpiece of a poem that is just coming to it's close when I all of a sudden find myself in the middle of kissing a stranger.
I'm not sure how it happens. One moment my eyes are glued to the fifth and final stanza of the canorous poem, the next I feel a firm hand tilting up my face and another circling around my neck, hot lips moving softly against mine.
It takes me a moment to react - I'm too dumbstruck to understand what is happening. My hands are gripping at the book in surprise and I'm still as a statue, my brain frozen in shock. Then I smell a faint cologne scent from the person, feel the light stubble scratching against my cheek and feel the short curls tickle my forehead. I gasp in surprise and resolutely push the person away from me, breaking the kiss.
"What the hell are you doing?" I exclaim in pure astonishment.
The chocolate brown eyes of James Potter is staring back at me, slightly narrowed as his full lips quirk into a smirk. The boy sits down on the low table in front of my armchair and leans backwards confidently.
"I'm just breaking the ice", he says with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. "Now we can have a proper conversation without you being distracted with how that could possibly feel like."
My mouth falls open in disbelief. That's just like James - he's so goddamn confident all the time. Or that's at least what Rose says. I've rarely got the honour to talk to him. He's too busy being popular to notice people like me.
And now he just kissed me.
"Are you-" My voice fails and I'm forced to clear my throat awkwardly. "Are you out of your mind?"
James tilts his head to the side, watching me closely. A smile still tugs at the corners of his lips. His brown, curly hair is as untidy as ever and falls down his forehead and tickles his eyelids. From this close I can make out that his long eyelashes are only a few shades darker than his thick curls. They make a nice contrast to his pale, seemingly flawless complexion.
"Oh, come on, Scorp", James mumbles in a low voice, snapping me out from my completely inappropriate thoughts. "You've wanted to do that for a long time."
Still flabbergasted from his sudden approach and unexpected actions, I only manage to stutter an unintelligible sentence. I trip over my tongue multiple times before I give up and press my trembling lips together. They're still damp with saliva that's clearly not mine.
James laughs. "You don't think I've noticed the way you always seem to stare at me?" he mocks and leans forwards a little.
It's important to point out that I'm not in love with James Potter. As a matter of fact, I don't even know him. I'm just best friends with his cousin, and she's given me all information I need to know that James is definitely not the kind of guy I would want to date. He's far too confident and too narcissistic. Too popular and just... too much. That doesn't mean he's not someone I enjoy looking at, because, to be honest, James Potter is a beauty. Everything in his appearance is simply perfect. Everything. And that's not an understatement. So to say that I have a slight crush on him would be closer to the truth.
Not that I would ever tell him that. "What are you suggesting?" I ask and close the book with a thud to pay James my full attention. As if my sole existence isn't embarrassing enough, I can feel my cheeks burning evidently. Trying to cover this up, I cross my arms over my chest and hope to gain somewhat of a threatening position. By the way James' smirk knowingly grows wider, I fail miserably.
He chews on his lower lip to hold back the grin while stoically looking me straight in the eyes. "Perhaps you fancy me?" he says, his tone contrastingly innocent to his stare.
"You're a dude", I point out with a scowl.
"And you're gay", he confirms calmly.
I inhale sharply and get to my feet. The book falls out of my lap and hits the ground, the thump hardly noticeable due to the loud music. I don't even care about the poor book - I'm too furious at the boy in front of me. "Oh, well, remind me again who kissed who here?" I hiss at him, waving a little bit too dramatic with my arms.
It's not that James is wrong. I am gay and I'm definitely not ashamed of that fact. It's his way of saying it, like it's so fucking obvious. It unnerves me a bit, because I haven't come out officially - only a few of my friends know it. James is definitely not one of them. Then he comes and shoves it straight up my face like it's so easily spotted and, on top of that, rather disgusting. Well, he should have thought about that before he kissed me.
James gets to his feet, too. His mere height makes me feel intimidated. Dear Merlin, he's tall. He puts a hand on my chest and pushes lightly. "Hey, hey", he says, eyes wide with surprise. "That's not what I meant."
"Oh", I say sarcastically, ridiculously distracted by his hand on my chest. "And what could you possibly have meant with that statement, then? Either you're saying I'm gay or you're not saying I'm gay and I am fully convinced you referred to the earlier."
"I didn't mean to offend you."
Naive as I am, I sit down again and James instantly mirrors my movement. I glare at him, at his superior posture, at his gorgeous wide eyes. He meet my gaze, a smirk still apparent on his pink lips, though fainter now than before.
"What is your problem?" I ask after a minute of uncomfortable silence. "Are you drunk?"
He frowned at me before he shook his head. "As a matter of fact, no, I am most certainly not drunk."
He scrunches his nose as if the simple suggestion of drinking disgusts him. I just happen to know that he's pretty good at getting drunk at parties, so the expression makes no sense to me. It seems quite hypocritical.
Thinking back at the kiss we had shared only minutes before - one of us more reluctantly than the other - I remembered just the slightest tinge of Firewhiskey. But the night was young and the party had barely started. James had possibly swallowed a mouthful or two judging by the faint taste in his mouth. He couldn't possibly be drunk yet.
"Then what makes you think it is okay to go and stick your tongue down another guy's throat?" I ask sharply and poke a finger hard into his chest. He winces slightly at the touch. "That's not something you can just go around and do every now and then! No matter whether you think the guy might be gay or not, it's simply not okay to do such a thing. Especially not when the guy has little to no interest at all in you."
The expression on James' face after those words is close to priceless. His brown eyes are the size of the moon and his lips slightly parted, forming a surprised O. He looks so disbelieving and confused right at that moment that I nearly laugh despite my shirty mood.
"You- You are not interested?" he asks, dumbfounded. "Not at all?"
"Not in the slightest", I say with a shake of my head. Now that perhaps isn't completely true, but it is true enough that I don't get a bad conscience because of saying it.
He blinks a couple of times before he seems to compose himself. "Oh", he mumbles quietly, face tilting down.
"Oh", I repeat with a nod.
"Why not?" he asks after a moment of silence - well, as much silence there can be in the middle of a party - and look at me from under his fringe. He looks so vulnerable all of a sudden and I can't help but wonder if I had actually hurt his feelings. But then I think again and conclude that he gets enough admiration from the girls every day to last a life time. My disliking opinion won't bring him down to earth in a long while.
"Well", I say slowly, "you're simply not matching my requirements of a good partner -"
"How do you know?" he interrupts, leaning forwards eagerly. His eyes are sharp and alert, focused on me entirely. I can't decide if it's endearing or entirely intimidating.
I swallow nervously. How does one put this easy? From what I've learnt, James Potter is a bit of an arse. From what I've heard, he's somewhat of a player. From what I've seen, he's definitely straight. And from what I've experienced, he is far too confident for his own good. For my good, too, for that matter.
Still, I don't very much like to criticise people for their personality. What right do I have, after all, to tell someone that they are wrong as a person?
"Potter", I sigh after a moment of thought. "Sometimes, you just know when a person is not a good match for you. I'm quite certain in this case."
I bend forwards to pick up the poor poetry book that still lay abandoned on the floor. It's mostly an excuse to not have to look James in the eye. He makes me feel like I'm the bad guy in the current situation.
As I close my fingers around the leather case, I hear James' voice pipe up. "Give me two hours to try and change your mind", he said quickly, his voice rough and quiet. "On Saturday, just you and I."
I inhale so sharply that I nearly choke on my own breath. Coughing, I straighten up and look at him with eyes filled of burning tears, arm covering my mouth. "What?" I manage to croak between my coughs.
James waits for me to calm down and catch my breath before he speaks up again. "Yeah, you know, like a date?" He sounds so uncertain, insecure in a way that is so unlike James. He's even blushing.
Perhaps the question shouldn't come as a surprise, considering the fact that he kissed me. But everything seems like a bizarre joke at the moment.
"Like a date?" I repeat sarcastically. "Wow. What a way to come out of the closet."
A moment of silence. James abducts his puppy-eyes from me, looks down at his hands, cheeks getting redder by the second. A sting of regret makes my stomach flip uncomfortably. Perhaps that was a little bit too harsh. I grimace at my own stupidity.
"Is that a 'no'?" he asks eventually, barely audible over the loud music.
Self-conscious again, I squeeze my book closer to my chest. I'm not used to this. Turning people down. I've done it before, but that had been girls. I've never turned down a guy before - especially not a drop dead gorgeous bloke like James Potter. Perhaps because I've never got the opportunity.
Still, I can't get my head around the fact that he's asking me out in the first place. James is not gay - he's straight as a goddamn ruler. So why is he doing this to me?
With an inwardly sigh, I shake my head. Who can it hurt to say yes? I'll give him a chance. If he can change my mind about him, well, that's positive. And if he cannot, then at least both of us gave it a try. Right?
"That is a -" I interrupt myself abruptly and look to my left side with a sinister feeling in my stomach.
What I see explains everything.
In the other end of the room sits a group of people, perhaps a dozen, in a neat circle. They are watching us suspiciously, some eyes narrowed in disbelief. I can see Rose in the group, biting her thumbnail the way she always does when she's nervous or uncomfortable. She meets my gaze, looking comically like a deer in the headlights, pale in the face and blue eyes round and wide. I avert my gaze from her, look to the middle of a circle and see... a bottle. A bottle pointing to the only free space in the circle that's big enough to fit a young adult male. A space that's big enough to fit James Potter.
"You fucking bastard!" I yell at him and smack him straight in the face with my very thick and hopefully very hard book.
James yelps and shoots backwards rather disgracefully in pure astonishment, shock evident in his wide eyes. "What's gotten into you?" he exclaims.
Without a word, I get to my feet and bolt for the door, head held high as if I wasn't the least bit hurt. But of course I am hurt. I was just about to say yes to his date proposal. I had been a single word away from mortifying myself to endless degrees.
It was a game. It was all a big, damned game, and I'd been so close to falling for his trick. How idiotic can one be?
"Scorp!" James yells after me, his hand on my shoulder, spinning me around. "Scorp, where are you going?"
I stare his straight in the eye. "I'm not Scorp to you, Potter", I hiss through gritted teeth. "Who do you think you are?" I shake off his hand in an irritated gesture and take a step back. "I'm not a goddamn slut." And with those words I take the last few steps to the door and shut it with an audible bang behind me.
The music disappears the moment the door closes behind me. I'm left alone in silence in a desolated corridor at the seventh floor, facing the ridiculous tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy teaching trolls to dance ballet. I feel about as ridiculous myself. How could I ever think that someone like James Potter could ever feel even a little interest for someone like me? How could I ever believe that a moment of perfection, like that kiss I had secretly enjoyed, could ever be real?
And how could I ever believe that I would be able to read a single poem in the middle of a raving teen party without getting disturbed.
I've understood that new generation slash isn't overly popular in the HP fanfiction - or that's at least the perception I've got. Therefore I'm not quite certain if this fic will get any response whatsoever. If that's the case, this will remain a one shot. If any interest is shown, there just might be a few more chapters. So the rest is all up to you, really.
Anyhow, if you've read this far - thank you very much. I hope you enjoyed it.