a/n: Okay, my first Harry Potter story!I've been working on this for a while (it's come a long way, believe it or not). This is a James Sirius/OC story, but he's only mentioned in this chapter. He will be around later. Believe me.
Characters you might recognize: Dominique "Dom" Weasley; mention of James Potter, Freddy Weasley, Oliver Wood, Neville Longbottom, McGonagall, and Flitwick.
WARNINGS: Eileen Schneider, my OC, and Dom Weasley have dirty mouths, so SWEARING is present. Discretion is advised if it makes you uncomfortable.
I'm pretty excited about posting this, so reviews telling me stuff you liked and stuff you think I should change are greatly appreciated!
And if Eileen comes off really strong as kind of obnoxious and overdramatic...she's supposed to be that way. It's all part of the plan.
PRONUNCIATION GUIDE: Piama: pee-ya-ma. Kyrie: kai-ree. Schneider: sh-n-eye-der (NOT snyder)
For future reference, when having a crisis—it's probably best to leave your idiot friends out of it, because while you're flopping about, feeling all dead on the inside and having an existential crisis about your purpose in life, their best guess as to the source of all your sorrow will be your O.W.L. results.
Please. As if I'd be so petty as to have an existential crisis over schoolwork.
"Piama, you have to do something about her! She's borderline catatonic!" Dom Weasley's voice cut through the still atmosphere like a well-aimed bat-bogey hex, hovering somewhere between anger, concern, and amusement. She gave me a rough poke in the back to show her annoyance. I grumbled at her and refused to move from my position; flopped over and spread out, face down like a dead person, really suited my current mood. "She literally flooed over, marched to my room, and attempted to suffocate herself on my bed with my pillows for the past three hours! Best friend or not, I—"
"Hush, Dom," our best friend Piama Thomas's voice floated over the air like a cloud of sweet-smelling perfume—and then clogged my ears with its annoying, patronizing-ness. "Eileen," she said clearly, speaking slowly as if I were a disobedient child and she was my primary school teacher, "if you don't tell us what's wrong, we really can't help you."
I turned my head to the side and narrowed my eyes at her.
"Eileen, c'mon," Eliza Wood, my cousin, crawled over to the bed from her place on the camp bed that had been set up in preparation for when I was intended to arrive tomorrow. She eyed me earnestly, her brown eyes wide and innocent. "You can tell us," she urged encouragingly.
"I can't. It's too horrible," I admitted, turning my head away. If I looked at Eliza too long, the puppy-dog eyes would get to me and I would 'fess up faster than you could say 'I didn't get the badge'.
"My life is over," I moaned, removing my face from Dom's pillows and moving to sit up slowly.
"Can your life be over on the camp bed?" Dom snapped, shaking out her pink-streaked silvery-blond hair in a huff. Piama threw her a Look before turning back to me, her dark eyes concerned.
"Did something happen, Eileen?" she asked me, using her Soothing Voice. I glared at her and dropped my depressed melodrama act.
"Was it Kyrie? The Evil Twin giving you a rough lot?" Dom chortled. I scowled. at the thought of Kyrie, my identical twin sister—in Slytherin. My stomach rolled at the very thought.
"I got my letter today," I told them, snapping angrily. Piama's eyes widened in understanding.
"Oh, you got your OWL results, didn't you? I'm so sorry, Eileen—"
"Oh, piss off, Piama!" Don't you see how annoying that is? She automatically assumes— "Why do you always assume I got bad marks? You keep treating me like I'm a freaking idiot!" I interrupted her, and ignored Dom's muttered: "Because you act like one."
Piama furrowed her eyebrows. "...so it is your OWL scores? I told you that you should have started revising earlier, I told you—"
"NO! It's got nothing to do with my bloody scores!" I shouted, throwing a pillow at her.
Piama looked just confused. "So it's not your scores…" She began rattling off all the things that apparently could go wrong with a Hogwarts letter and still she didn't come anywhere near the truth. I laid back down onto Dom's bed and stared at the ceiling, my emotions ranging from this-cannot-be-happening to I-want-to-kill-something as my mind drifted back to the start of my problem.
3½ hours earlier
I tapped my fingers on the table top impatiently, and then glanced at my watch. Huffing restlessly, I turned around and glared at the clock. I looked out the window; nothing but the same busy London street filled with gormless muggles romping about completely engaged in their mundane lives. Sighing, I rolled my eyes. Tapped my fingers again. Checked the watch. Glared at the clock. Glared at the muggles outside the window.
I tapped my watch—maybe it had stopped or something?—the time didn't change. I sighed again, my eyebrows furrowed and my feet tapping randomly on the floor. I waited for what seemed like ten hours (and in hindsight was probably ten seconds) to whirl around in my seat to check the wall clock again. I slammed my head onto the table and let out a groan of annoyance.
Okay, what fucker glued the second hand to the 5?
"Effing Slytherin," I mumbled, because there was no way I'd only been sitting here for five minutes. I glared at the annoying barn owl that was hooting impatiently at me from the chair across from me like I actually gave a shit about whether the stupid thing was late in delivering a reply. I sneered at it. It just hooted and looked creepy.
Ugh. I hate owls. Why Dom insisted on using one I'll never know.
(I'll also never know why she named it Twinkle, but counted among all the things that Dom effing Weasley does that no one—herself not excepted—can find any plausible reason for, her fucking owl is relatively low on the list.)
It was all Twinkle's stupid fault, anyway. If he hadn't been so prompt delivering Dom's anxious message about whether or not I'd gotten my school letter—because she had, apparently—I wouldn't be worrying about whether my first-cousin-once-removed-in-law Professor Neville A. Longbottom had mysteriously forgotten our address or if a pterodactyl had appeared and swallowed the stupid school owl or something.
I picked up the letter Twinkle had delivered and glared at the purple ink so with the intent of perhaps setting it on fire with my eyes. Eileen, it read in Dom's scrawl, I've just got my letter and I just wanted to tell you that just so you know, Longbottom didn't sack Piama as prefect in favor of me, so you can put that fear to rest! And also I got an A in Transfig, Maman's going to kill me. Let me know ASAP when you get your captain's badge and so we can celebrate and rub it in Eliza's face that she didn't get it! ~Dom. P.S. You're still planning on staying at my place for the rest of the summer, right?
Ugh. I threw it away from me when it did not burst into flame, sending Twinkle into an indignant flap of feathers. I ignored him and resumed my restless annoyance. As per usual with my idiot best friend, there was no point in replying to the message; nothing I could tell her she didn't already know. No point in me having been practically dive-bombed by her kamikaze owl while eating toast—so, what, I could be informed that, no, our top-of-the-year straight-O other best friend Piama Thomas had not been sacked as sixth year Prefect in favor of I-only-come-to-class-Tuesday-through-Thursday Dom?
What a shocker.
"Shut up, Twinkle." I mumbled into my arms when it let out a particularly annoying hoot. And then the owl bloody pecked me. And it hurt.
"Why you little—" I snapped my head up and was about to throttle the bloody thing when I realized that Twinkle and I had been joined by a third party.
And elegant eagle owl with a letter tied to its leg, emblazoned with the Hogwarts crest.
"Yes! Yes! It's about time!" I seized the owl roughly by the feathers—it tried to peck me again, but I dodged—and practically ripped the letter off its leg.
It was conspicuously light. A feeling of dread grew in the pit of my stomach, like I'd swallowed some of my mother's noxious vegan casserole accidentally.
Maybe it came for Sunny or Kyrie, I thought hopefully, thinking of my two schoolgoing sisters with mild distaste. I flipped the too-light envelope over.
Miss E. Schneider
Left Side of the Bed by the Window,
Apt. 2B Pinecrest Apartments
233 Gladstone Lane,
London
I gulped, loudly enough that I probably spooked the owls. Definitely me. My hands shook a little as I turned the letter back around so that the crest was visible. I let out a huff of frustration with myself—I was a Gryffindor, dammit! Fearlessness is my middle name (it's Katharine, actually, but I digress). And I was about to become the first Schneider in Hogwarts history to become a Quidditch captain.
But what if I didn't get it—what would first-cousin-once-removed-but-I-call-him-my-Uncle Oliver say?
"Disgrace!" probably.
Oh, Merlin, I've disgraced my own Uncle Oliver— ex-Gryffindor captain, Quidditch Cup winner, ex-pro player for Puddlemere United, and currently their head coach, who taught me to fly and bought me my broom, who practically raised me to be the Quidditch lover I am today—who treated me like I was his own child (better, probably, considering Eliza isn't spectacular at Quidditch and nor is she particularly manic or driven about it).
What will I do with my life?
"Wait—wait, I'm being stupid," I scoffed at myself; "Of course I'm captain." I mean, come on! I sucked up to ex-captain Lina Merecio for two years of my life! I am the heart and soul of the team! The other teams live in fear of my wrath! I'm practically Goddess of Gryffindor! I'm the subject of worship and reverie! I am Eileen Schneider, most fearsome beater to walk the hallowed halls of Hogwarts since Gwenog Jones herself!
And here I am, going to pieces over a bloody letter like a pansy. What am I, a Puff or something?
(God, can I rock the pep talks or what? James Potter can go wank off somewhere, that captainship is mine.)
Steeling myself, I ripped open the letter, and out fell my OWL scores and my school letter.
And no badge.
My mind hit a blank before I drew the next possible explanation—an apology was written out for me in my letter, apologizing profusely for the mistake at the badge-making factory that had caused for a delay in the sending of my captain's badge.
Of course, of course, that was it. I eagerly read, in emerald green writing,
HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
Headmistress: Minerva McGonagall
(Order of Merlin, First Class; Order of the Phoenix)
Miss Eileen Katharine Schneider,
We are pleased to welcome you back for your sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed your Ordinary Wizarding Level results, and a list of all necessary books and equipment required for the courses your exam results have qualified you to take.
Yours sincerely,
Filius Flitwick
Deputy Headmaster
I checked the back for a post script. Nothing. Nothing. Not even a scribble.
I always knew Flitwick hated me, the way he was always going on about my stupid older Ravenclaw sister Jenny and how she was the Messiah of Charms or something like that.
What a moron.
(and the exams are clearly rigged pro-Ravenclaw, I'll have you know, I couldn't have aced them even if I wanted to).
(which I didn't. Because Charms is stupid.)
"This can't be right!" I threw the letter down in disgust. There had to be another explanation, there had to be. I racked my brain for answers almost feverishly. I mean, if it wasn't me who was captain, who could it be? Not Eliza, nutty second cousin (and admittedly third best friend) that she was; reluctantly, I could admit that she came with a the merit of having an ancestry laden with Quidditch champions and a family of Quidditch nuts, but, God, what an airhead.
(I can say that because we're friends.)
I pondered it a little longer. Fred Weasley, maybe? No, no, I decided. Merecio hated him—she'd never name him her successor.
Certainly not Roxy Weasley or Roger Jackson, the only two non-sixth years on the team.
I nearly tore the letter in half as a horrible thought occurred to me, practically striking me in the face like a bat on a bludger with all its horribleness: my own first-cousin-once-removed-in-law Professor Neville A. Longbottom could not have passed me over in favor of that wart on the butt of humanity—the very idea sent my stomach flopping about like a landed trout and bile rising in the back of my throat. It was like my body was rebelling against the very notion of James Potter getting to be the capt—no, I mustn't even think it.
I mean, I knew Longbottom had a thing for the Potter kids, but that was favoritism, bloody favoritism if he chose James freaking Potter as the bloody captain instead of me, his very own wife's first cousin's daughter! I've been cheated of my dues!
I mean, what happened to good old nepotism?
As I sat back down heavily in my chair, the truth suddenly dawned on me; God, I was so stupid! The answer was so obvious it might as well have been dancing naked in my face this entire time!
I jumped out of the chair, successfully sending the owls into a frenzy, with an ear-to-ear grin on my face that quickly turned to a fierce glare.
Foul play must be involved. And I knew just who was the culprit. Seizing my letter, I raced out of the kitchen, nearly bowling over my little sister Sunny—who, in traditional Hufflepuff fashion, stood around looking gormless.
Rolling my eyes (I can't believe we're related), I regained my original cause and stomped the five or so feet it takes to cross our living space (affectionately referred to by grandfather as "That Damn Sardine Can You Call a Flat"), and screeched to a halt outside a door (the only door) labeled with a copious amount of Enter and Die notifications.
Why my stupid twin felt the need to put Enter and Die on the door to the room we share (with Sunny), I have no blooming clue.
(and if she's going to be vandalizing our door with unoriginal threats, she should at least pick a decent font.)
Kyrie started in surprise and nearly fell off her bed (the fact that she gets a bed to herself while I share with Sunny of I-have-to-use-the-loo-every-two-bleeding-seconds fame is one of our many ongoing battles in the ceaseless war we wage against one another).
I guess you could say that Kyrie and I haven't exactly had a stellar relationship since her sorting—into bloody Slytherin, of all places—but that can of flobberworms is because Kyrie (as her Slytherin-ness clearly indicates) is a lot of really nasty words that my dear friend Saint Piama would wash my mouth out with soap for even thinking.
(I swear to Merlin she's a legilimens or something)
She glared at me for a moment before shaking out her mass of blonde curls and going back to her diabolical scheming and evil plans like I wasn't standing there, angry as the Giant Squid when you poke it with an oar (don't ask, it was Dom's fault).
It was like she was a cow and I was just a bothersome fly that she had to swat away with her tail. That is just plain rude; I mean, she may be a cow and all, but there's no need to force me to make surprisingly accurate animal metaphors when I am clearly above a freaking fruit fly.
Her indifference coupled with the unoriginal threats in Comic Sans and this whole badge-nicking debacle made me glance longingly over my beater's bat, lying on top of my trunk. What I wouldn't give to bash in her twisted little head…
She is a Slytherin, after all, not really actual people, and therefore bashing in her skull couldn't technically be considered a homicide…
…but they'd probably take away my captaincy if I killed her.
"Oh, stop, I know I'm beautiful, but your reverence—however fitting and long overdue—is rather unsolicited at present. You can resume your veneration and make your blood sacrifices during the designated public worship hours—don't think you take precedence just because we shared a womb for nine months. I mean, didn't you read the sign?" Her trademark Slytherin Smirk stretched out across her evil little face that looks exactly like mine even as she coolly scratched out more evil with her Quill of Darkness on her Parchment of Doom.
Forgetting myself, I looked at the door to see—in fucking Comic Sans, again (we don't even have a computer, God dammit! Where the bloody hell does she make these things?)
SACRED TEMPLE OF THE HOLY GODDESS
PLEASE LIMIT WORSHIP TO THE DESIGNATED HOURS OF
five p.m. to six-thirty p.m. every other Thursday
Next session: August 5, 2021
WORSHIP FEE: £10 OR TEN SICKLES*
DONATIONS ACCEPTED AND HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
*no family discount
What the fuck?
"What the fuck?" I ripped the damn thing of the door and read it again just to see if I'd misread it or something, because Slytherin-ness aside, I like to think that my identical twin isn't a running some weird sort of brothel out of our room.
Nope. Hasn't changed. Wait. What if she has been hustling? From our room? Think of the contamination! The mental scarring is endless!
Maybe that's why Mum gave her the single bed once Jessie moved out! She's been pimping out Kyrie secretly all this time—I mean, think about it! How else can we afford Granndad's hospital bills and legal trouble his attempts to sex up the nurses inevitably get us into? We're dirt poor, after all!
Does my twin have a porn career, too? Did it pay for my broom? Do people watch it and think it's me? She looks like me, after all, she must be somewhat successful—if she's got a successful porn career and has "worship services" every other Thursday, WHY DO WE STILL LIVE IN THIS DUMP? Oh my god, have they used my bed? Can you catch an STD from the toilet seat? Is she pregnant? Isn't this illegal? Can she be arrested for this? Can I be arrested for this? Will they still let me be a Quidditch captain from Azkaban?
I am going to need SO. MUCH. THERAPY. OHMYGODICANNOTBELIEVETHIS.
It's kind of cool how daydreams can go from horror to so-totally-awesome so quickly.
"What the fuck?" I brought the sudden onslaught of horrifying thoughts to a halt. "How long has this been going on? What is wrong with you people! You'll get us all sent to Azkaban!"
Kyrie snorted. "Don't give me too much credit, mucker, it's a joke, and a poor one at that—one of Meredith's creations, I do believe."
"YOU LET THAT FAT OAF INTO MY ROOM? WHERE IS YOUR FAMILIAL LOYALTY, YOU PIECE OF HIPPOGRIFF DUNG!" Okay, you might be thinking something like, wow, that escalated quickly, but if you knew Meredith (fucking) Pasquale then you'd understand. She's my sister's "friend" (i.e. her monkey slave) and the Slytherin keeper; also possibly the missing link between humans and rhinoceroses.
We don't get along.
"Now, now, I haven't interacted with Meredith since term, and I certainly haven't granted her access to our humble abode. Especially after she made that poster as a dimwitted attempt at humor." Her disdainful nose wrinkle was subtle and the only clue that Kyrie wasn't completely at unfazed."And however oafish she may be, she's unlikely to risk disease by touching any of your possessions, however tempting it might have been for her to give in to your petty Quidditch rivalry and tinker with your precious bat that you so stupidly left exposed right over there." Kyrie nodded over at the bat without looking up from her work, shuffling over a few papers and looking entirely too calm for someone who had just been accused of prostitution by their twin sister.
"But if we're on the subject of familial loyalty, my dear Eileen," Kyrie continued. "Perhaps you should not be so quick to accuse your kin of whoring themselves about."
"I—"
"Piece of hippogriff dung, indeed. Why, I'm insulted."
"Will you just—"
"And if you are looking for a purpose in life, you appear to have found one barbarically knocking balls at your peers, so I'm afraid I'll be of little help to you unless you pay the fee for psychiatric help or come back next week during public worshiping hours, which, as indicated on the notice you seem intent on crumpling into a ball, are five p.m. to six-thirty p.m. every other Thursday."
"I can read." I ground out, tossing the paper to the ground. My Hogwarts letter was still in my left hand, as badge-less as ever, and it did nothing to soothe my current mood. I closed my eyes, my entire body tensing, and took deep breaths through the nose as I tried ignore the thought going through my head on repeat:
...they can't prove you killed her if they never find the body.
"So you're just ignoring it? How rude. Familial loyalty, remember?"
"STOP DISTRACTING ME!" I yelled. Even that didn't seem worthy of her precious attention and—and I may or may not have lost it a little and thrown her work across the room, and ended up shattering her ink bottle all over her already beat-up old copy of Asiatic Anti-Venoms. No doubt I merely forestalled whatever devilish plan she'll need an Asiatic Anti-Venom for, but that is besides the point entirely.
"LOOK AT ME." I demanded, looming over her as menacingly as I could.
She glared up at me. "You know, lots of people hate summer Potions homework, but generally they don't see the need to act like a raging gorilla over it. Evolution isn't exactly a snappy process, you know, and as profoundly entertaining as I find your ape-like attributes, I must ask you to refrain from undoing the work of a few million years of natural selection in only a few seconds. Impressive though the act is, it does seem a shame considering the Neanderthals had to go extinct so that knuckle-dragging idiots like you could overpopulate and eventually destroy the Earth."
"You bitch," I snarled. "Compare me to monkeys all you want, but I'm through with your shit. Game over, okay? Give it back now before I take my no doubt jinxed bat and ram it so far up your—" I gave a rather lengthy description of exactly where I'd shove my bat.
She quirked an eyebrow in her stupid, smug, Slytherin way. "Now that sounds almost as painful as hearing a scientific theory torn to shreds by the sheer force of your rampant ignorance. Monkeys, I swear to Morgana." She rolled her eyes and gave a long-suffering sort of sigh like the overdramatic bugger she was.
"KYRIE. Stop fucking around!"
"And here was little old me, thinking you really had nothing to do than pester your poor old sister, but, lo and behold, there is a reason my Potions work has been so rudely flung across the room. Let me guess: one of your prized possessions has gone "mysteriously" missing and warranted this heated inquiry, which, to be frank, is rather stale. May I suggest looking beneath your bed, perchance? So many of your so-called "stolen" possessions that I have been accused of "nicking" have a rather nasty habit of popping up under there, don't they?
"But for curiosity's sake," Kyrie's words were biting even as her tone dripped with perceived amiability. "I simply must know: what exactly has you in such a tizzy at—" she checked her watch. "Nine o'clock in the morning?"
"You know perfectly well, you fucking prat. So hand it over." I told her, making sure to do my fiercest Gryffindor Glare. She dropped her sleazy Slytherin Smirk and instead settled for a glare of annoyance.
"I thought we'd established that I, the alleged disease-infested prostitute, have absolutely no interest whatsoever in fingering any of your no doubt septic possessions," she gibed, her irritation becoming clearer as her insults lost some of their original gaudiness and she adopted a terser form of verbal bite. "So, now that we've cleared that up, I'll be kindly asking you to either pipe the fuck down or vacate the premises." She pointed to the door forcefully.
"You can't throw me out of my own room," I told her.
"And you can't throw my homework across the room, can you? Looks like we're all little rebels today, doesn't it."
I stomped my foot like a petulant child. "Just give me back my captain's badge!" I shouted. For a half a second, Kyrie looked surprised at the accusation.
"Why do you labor under the impression that I'm a bloody kleptomaniac? And even if I was possessed by a recurrent urge to steal shit for no reason whatsoever, I still wouldn't touch your contaminated badge! It's probably teeming with germs," she snapped, disgust evident in her voice. She'd obviously lost whatever sadistic pleasure she got out of "apathetically" toying with an angry me and had dropped her facade of indifference.
"Because you like to mess with me!" I barked, using my superior height of five feet, seven inches for intimidation factor.
She sneered. "You'd like to think you were so special, wouldn't you?"
I sneered back. "If you don't have it, then where would it be?"
She rolled her eyes. "Where did you last see it, dimwit?"
"I didn't see it!" I snapped. "I never saw it because you intercepted my school owl and stole it from the envelope!"
Kyrie's eyes widened comically—and then she burst into laughter. And didn't stop for a good five minutes. I ended up standing there, caught between being bemused and continuing to glare at her until she regained enough composure to say: "Did ever occur to you that maybe you are not the captain, and that there is no badge? Or is the concept of someone outperforming the Great Eileen Schneider too abstract for even your meager intellect to comprehend?"
I flinched. "That's not possible, you idiot—who else would Longbottom give it to, if not me?" I retorted back, trying not to sound as disgruntled as I felt.
Kyrie raised her eyebrows in a way that said, really? "Come on, seriously?" I said nothing. She huffed, and continued. "It's obvious, isn't it? James Potter is captain."
I kicked one of Kyrie's old textbooks that littered the ground as red clouded my vision at the mention of Potter the Prat's name immediately proceeding 'is captain'. "Longbottom's not that stupid."
She shook her head incredulously. "You Gryffindors are all the same—you all think you're bloody God and nobody else even comes close to you and your divinity. Nobody ever could measure up to Eileen fucking Schneider, could they?"
"Did it never occur to you that not only is James Potter a better Quidditch player than you, he's also a better leader, never loses his temper, and is just all-around a better person than you are, and that you never really had a shot?"
"Of course not," I said carefully, my voice not giving hint to the white-hot fury that was building in my chest. "Because that is such fucking bullshit that only a Slytherin could have come up with it."
And with that, I slammed the door and stormed back to the kitchen, making sure to knock over as much shit as I possibly could on my way.
"You didn't get the badge, did you?" Eliza's soft voice broke up the monotony of my angry thoughts and Piama's rambling. We all looked over at her in surprise—it was unusual for her to come up with such an on-point theory. "That's why you're so mad. It's 'cause you're not captain, which means that James definitely is, and you hate him—so you're even madder. Right?"
It's a mark of how good of friends we are that my silence told them all they needed to know.
Nobody said anything for a while. The ensuing silence was oppressive; I tried my best to sink into the bed and out of sight as I felt the weight of their stares, full of concern and pity and other things my remaining Gryffindor pride would not stand.
"I hate it when you call him James," I mumbled, my voice sounding oddly choked. "He's too much of a—a prat to have a first name."
"I know I'm supposed to defend him—blood being thicker than water and all—but he's—he's—an idiot!" Dom was all in a rage now, sweeping about and defending my honor and whatnot. "You totally deserved it more than he does! He's a prat!"
"…at first," my eyes were stinging a little. I blinked furiously and rubbed them surreptitiously with my arm—and left a salty trail of tears. Blink. Blink. Blink. "At first," I repeated, trying (without any real luck) to rid myself of the wavering in my voice. "I thought—I thought there was some—some—mistake at the b-badgem-making factory or—or—"
"Don't be stupid," Dom berated snappishly. "There's no such thing as a badge-making factory and if there was, the captain's badge would not come from there."
"Dom! Have some tact!" Piama hissed, shooting Dom a Look. "Oh, Eileen…" she turned back to me, her face sympathetic. "I'm so sorry…" Piama murmured in her I'm-so-mature-let-me-mother-you way.
"Bet you thought Kyrie'd stolen it or summat," Eliza extended her leg from her seat on the beanbag chair to poke me in the side. The other two eyed me cautiously and waited for my reaction with baited breath—they, justly, were unsure of how the little gibe at my quick temper would fly coming during a bad mood.
I put my face in my hands and let out a frustrated groan, feeling my face and neck heat up.
And, predictably, they all started laughing.
"You—thought—Kyrie—took—letter! But—James actually—got it instead! Your— face!" Dom fell to ground with a thump, howling with laughter.
"Oh, God, Eileen…you're so predictable…" Piama giggled, tilting her head back so that her silky raven hair flounced over her shoulders like a waterfall or something.
"Shut up, you prats," I growled, sitting up and aiming a kick at Dom. "You know she totally would have done that, just to piss me off!"
They just continued their guffawing, with a growing resemblance to a bunch of babbling baboons fighting over the same banana.
"Ha ha ha—now get the hell out of my house, you prats." Dom's sudden transition from ha-ha-ha-Eileen to 'piss off' was a normal occurrence for her—it didn't make her tone any less rude, but it wasn't unexpected.
"Can't I just move in with you forever, Dom? I don't want to go home, not ever again." I smushed my face into the pillow even further.
"Lemme think—no. Bloody hell, you're coming over tomorrow for the rest of the summer—can't you wait just one night, woman?" Dom was exasperated and I'm sure that if my face weren't buried in her plush pillow then I'd see her pretty face all twisted up in an annoyed scowl.
"Ah, come on, then," I turned my head to the side. Yep, there was the scowl. "I'll miss you too much, Dommie."
"Call me Dommie again and I'll break your fingers."
"Like you could catch them."
"Could you two please act like mature adults?" Piama interrupted with her usual self-righteous exclamation. "This is a serious situation here! Eileen, you can't just flip out over everything, you know! I thought someone had died!"
"If someone in my family had died I'd be throwing a party," I said drily, burying my head back into the pillow.
"And not moping about like some pathetic little Puffer, eh?" Dom was in good-nature, apparently, because someone else was in discomfort.
"Piss off." Namely, me.
"I thought you wanted to move in with me, love? Or have you changed your mind?"
"I much like the Hufflepuffs. I dunno why everyone's got to be so mean about them," Eliza had a wrinkle in her eyebrows.
"That's because you tricked the stupid Hat into letting you into Gryffindor—Puffer at heart, you are," I shoved feebly at her to show I didn't really mean it.
It was only a little true.
"Dom's schadenfreude aside—" Piama continued as if she hadn't been interrupted. The imminent lecture I was about to receive was obviously at the forefront of all our minds.
Not.
"—I mean, can't you grow up, just a little?" She's still talking? Yes, she's still scolding me and—Dom's imitating her mid-scold behind her back, her mouth flapping and doing the disapproving noodle-finger thing that Piama is particularly fond of. "Yes, you lost the captaincy, and that—why are you laughing? What's so funny? Pay attention! See, I know losing to James—"
"Potter, POTTER." I interrupted loudly, frowning. He is, as I said earlier, too much of a prat to deserve a first name like all of us normal people. "P-O-T-T-E-R. What's the use of him having a surname if we never use it?"
"—sucks, but by gum be gracious about it! Be the better person. Pretend it doesn't bother you." She sat back, folding her hands in her lap and looking down at me smugly.
Is it odd that Piama Thomas may be the type of mother I never had?
"Oh, Piama, you're awfully naïve. Our Eileen won't sit back and let the boys have all the fun!" Dom cut in. "She'll give old Jamesie hell for us, she will."
"Damn right." I pushed myself off the bed. "I must be off, I 'spose. I have a trunk to pack and a family to avoid, after all."
"Thank God," Dom rolled her eyes. "I thought I'd never get rid of you lot."
"But Hufflepuffs are nice, why shouldn't we like them?" Eliza, as usual, hadn't noticed the change in conversation (about ten minutes ago), and we all duly ignored her. We then bid our goodbyes in the usual fashion of Eliza acting like she'd never see any of us again, Piama attempting to give out her usual dosages of 'sage wisdom', and Dom shifting between moods faster than the Holyhead Harpies score points against the Chudley Cannons.
That is to say, very fast.
"But Eileen, seriously," Piama was still trying to shove off advice even as she had one foot in the dancing emerald-green flames of Dom's fireplace. "Act maturely about this, okay? Maybe it's a good thing James is captain—he could be great at it, but you'll never know if you don't give him a chance."
I narrowed my eyes. "Just whose side are you on, Piama?"
She rolled her eyes. "There are only sides if you make him an enemy, Eileen. Please, don't, it'll be better for everyone if—"
"He made himself my enemy when Longbottom and Merecio chose him over me," I snapped, and with that I gave her a light shove into the grate. Muttering her address, she disappeared in a swirl of emerald-green flame and a disapproving scowl.
"I can't believe her," I said to Dom as I threw more floo powder into the grate with more force than was strictly necessary. "You'd think she wanted him to be captain! She knows how much I want—I deserve this! And she still takes his side! It should have been me! You know?"
Dom hesitated even as she opened her mouth to agree, saying nothing for a moment, her eyes flitting about; looking anywhere but at me.
"You know?" I repeated with emphasis.
Dom scrunched her eyebrows together. "I'll see you tomorrow, Eileen." She decided on. Her voice was plain, emotionless. A dismissal.
My mouth gaped open. "You don't think James Potter would be a better captain than me!" It came out a bit sharper than I intended. "I mean, come on, that's—that's so— " I faltered when she still didn't say anything. "…do you?"
"No, no, of course not!" she defended quickly. "That's not what I meant at all! You're putting words in my mouth!"
"I wouldn't have to if you'd just say what you mean!"
Dom's eyes flashed to mine, full of exasperation and something else I didn't understand. "You're my best friend, Eileen, you know I'm on your side—Piama is, too, she just—" Dom paused, and I raised my eyebrows at her while she struggled to find the correct phrasing. Dom then let out a sharp sigh. Her eyes slide away from mine.
"She doesn't really…get it," Dom explained, vaguely and rapidly at the same time. "The whole Quidditch thing. She doesn't understand. You know."
I nodded even though I didn't know.
She sighed again, and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Forget I said anything." And then added, in a lighter vein with a halfhearted grin: "Seriously, get out, 'cause if you stay any longer than you already are, Maman will adopt you, and let's face it—there are too many blonde divas already; and Louis is enough diva for three people all on his own!"
Even though I spared a laugh at her brother Louis's expense and assured Dom that I wouldn't die of heartache for missing her too much in the few hours until I'd next see her, my heart wasn't really in it. I felt kind of weighed down, my stomach kind of getting that sinking feeling you get when you feel out of the loop.
And as I stepped into the grate and spoke my address, I couldn't shake the uneasy impression that Dom hadn't said what she meant at all.
a/n: so, thoughts? Let me know what you think!
Chapter two will be up ASAP.