A/N: So, yes, I'm starting a new WIP. But I promise, I'll work on my others too :D A big thanks to Georgia, Jack, and Molly over at TGS for helping me name this. Also to Georgia, Melissa, Melanie, Katrina, Kaity, and Lucy for helping me give Lucy a middle name. Thank you to Kaity and Georgia for kicking me to write this :) I love you guys!
"Lucy!" Lucy cursed under breath when she heard the voice, running down the hall after her. "Lucy Marie, I know you can hear me!"
"Damn it." Lucy swore once more, acknowledging that she could not avoid this confrontation any longer. If only what's-his-name hadn't ousted her from that hiding spot she'd have been able to put it off for at least another evening.
"What do you want, Forbes?" Melissa Forbes, Lucy's ex-best friend came to a stop in front of the seething blonde.
"I just want to talk Lucy."
"I really don't think we have anything to talk about." Lucy flung her long blonde hair over her shoulder, settling into a pose she'd often seen her sister strike when getting ready to tear someone apart. Of course, Molly was four inches taller and had gotten both the Weasley's flaming hair and slender figure. She looked like a slightly taller, younger, version of their Aunt Ginny. Lucy had inherited every single trait from her mother, Audrey. Blonde hair, short stature, and the nicest comparison anyone had ever given her about her looks was pixie like. What the hell was that supposed to mean?
"Come on Lucy, just let me explain."
"I don't want to hear it, Forbes."
"Are you really going to throw away nearly seven years of friendship over one little mistake?" Melissa smiled a little and put a hand on one hip, as if Lucy was being silly and really ought to just come around at anytime. Lucy was not impressed.
"I am not the one throwing anything away, Forbes. This is entirely your fault."
"Well, but, Lucy. Look, I'm sorry okay. It was a mistake, I never meant for it to happen."
"You mean you never meant for me to find out." Lucy bit off her hard words with plenty of venom. She clenched her hands into fists, her patience wearing thin.
"Don't you think you're being just a little bit dramatic?" Melissa asked, still trying to lighten the tension that was steadily thickening between them, threatening to boil over from the heat of Lucy's anger. She may not have gotten the Weasley looks, but she certainly had the temper.
"No."
"Okay." She drew out the 'o' and the 'a', grating on Lucy's fragile self control. "Well, can we just talk?"
"Go ahead, talk." Lucy gestured wildly with one arm, nearly hysterical with the fury boiling in her veins. She wanted to scream, and cry, and hit Melissa Forbes in the face with the punch Uncle Charlie had taught her when her parents weren't looking.
"It's not worth ruining our friendship over, okay? I'll explain."
Lucy cut her off them. "Explain what, exactly, Forbes? How you accidentally fucked my boyfriend? Twice!"
"I was drunk Lucy!"
"Yeah, the first time." Her voice crescendoed with each syllable, rising in pitch until her voice was straining.
"Calm down Lucy." Melissa said, frowning a bit.
"Don't tell me to calm down. You bitch. I can't believe you did this to me." Melissa began to get angry in return, crossing her arms and glaring back at Lucy.
"I did you a favour."
"By playing whore with my boyfriend? How is that doing me a favour?"
"He would have cheated on you and – "
"He did cheat on me you idiot! With you!"
"Hey Weasley!" Lucy turned to look at who was coming. It was that boy, the one who'd disturbed her hiding spot. She had been tucked into a niche, in an out of the way corridor, staring out the window when he'd come up and scared her. After insisting it was her own fault she'd been scared, he'd had the nerve to get annoyed with her and declare it his spot. Lucy had been none too pleased with that estimation. He'd told her it was where he came to be alone. Of course, she had employed another of her mother's faults and blurted exactly what she was thinking without stopping to process how rude it was first. After asking him, well wasn't he always alone?, she had left with a blazing red face and then Forbes had found her.
"Oh – er – " He stopped short when he saw the two girls in a fighting stance. Lucy took the moment to once again appreciate his visual virtues. He might be the quiet boy in the back of the class who rarely spoke and she had always thought maybe a bit odd, but he was no sore sight.
"Go away Nott." Melissa growled. "This is not the time."
'I knew I had heard his name.' Lucy thought. The last name was now recalled to memory but she wasn't sure she had ever heard his first name. All she knew was that he was a Ravenclaw, like her cousin Louis, with whom he was presumably at least familiar acquaintances if not nearly friends.
"You forgot your bag." Giving Melissa one raised eye brow, he turned back to Lucy.
"Oh, thank you." She replied, taking the bag from him that she'd apparently left sitting on the window seat in his spot.
"Now go away, Nott." Melissa said again, glaring at him.
"What," taunted Lucy, "don't want him to hear what a sleaze you are?"
"Lucy!" Melissa exclaimed, staring in shock at the wrathful girl.
"I already knew." Nott said, then turned red and backed away as both girls turned on him, Melissa looking as if she wished to tear his eyes out.
"What?" They chorused. Melissa in anger, Lucy in confusion.
"Well," he said uncomfortably, "everyone knows she's been shagging Long for the last month. And cheated on Underhill with Manders."
"What?" Lucy said again, whirling to face Melissa once more, her outright anger replaced by shock and hurt. "You told me it only happened twice." Melissa refused to look at her.
"Yeah," Nott continued. "It's why he had that black eye last week. Louis found out and told him to straighten up." Lucy thought fondly of her cousin and, for once, his overly protective tendencies as well.
"You cow." Lucy hissed.
"Uh, sorry." Nott said, looking with wide eyes once more as Lucy advanced on Melissa as if to claw at her. "I thought you knew."
"Apparently," she growled through her grinding teeth, "there was more to the story."
"Oh fine!" Melissa said angrily. "But you ought to thank me. I saved you from finding out the hard way."
"How is there an easy way to find out that your used-to-be-best friend is fucking your boyfriend? You slimy, lying, two faced bitch. Get the hell out of my life."
"Lucy – " Melissa implored, looking a little scared, as if just realizing that she'd really screwed up this time and that there was no repairing this gap.
Lucy just held up a silencing hand in her face. "Come on," she said to Nott. "We're getting out of here." Grabbing his arm, she dragged him away. He said nothing to the still blazingly angry blonde as she took him up three flights of stairs and down four different corridors before finally coming to a stop, once more in an out-of-the-way area of the castle. Her brown eyes, the only physical Weasley trait she possessed, were still burning with anger, but the pain was seeping through as well now.
"I'm sorry." She said, when they came to a stop. "I didn't mean to abduct you like that."
"It's okay. Look, about your friend – "
"Ex. Ex friend."
"I really thought you knew. I thought that was what the argument was about."
"It was. I just didn't know the whole story." She smiled then, a little crazily, on the verge of losing any shred of control she had left. "Did you see her face? I've never gone off on someone like that. Always wanted to, a bit, you know? No reason though. Never had the opportunity. I mean it's not every day you find out your bitch ex-friend was sleeping with your bastard of an ex-boyfriend. Of course, I thought he was quite lovely. You know? But I really think I did well, told her right off."
Then she burst into tears.
Nott, rather than awkwardly patting her shoulder or doing his best to escape, instead offered her a handkerchief from his pocket to mop her eyes with. Great sobs wracked her body and she didn't think twice when he drew her into his embrace. She clung to him, someone she barely knew, the only one she had. Lucy was a nice enough girl, but Melissa had been the only close friend she had. She liked having a small circle, but where was she to turn when betrayal came from within? As if he were the only one left in her crumbling world, Lucy held on to him tightly, to keep him close.
When at last the sobs subsided some time later, mascara was running down her face and staining the handkerchief he'd given her. Her eyes were red and swollen, her face blotchy. One part of her mind thought that she really wished she were like Molly, who could cry buckets of perfect pearl tears and still look beautiful. The rest of her mind was throbbing dully in agony. And a bit of her was embarrassed to have dumped on this boy she barely knew.
"I'm so-sorry." She hiccupped. "I didn't mean to – "
"No, no, it's okay. I understand."
"You have a handkerchief? I don't think I know anyone our age who just randomly has a handkerchief to give a sobbing girl."
He laughed a little. "Yeah, my dad is kind of old fashioned. I guess I just picked up the habit from him."
"Well, thank you."
"You're welcome. Keep it." He said, when she offered it back to him.
They stood in silence then, the quiet stretching out between them. Lucy was staring at the floor, a little embarrassed, and reluctant to show off her tear stained, blotchy face. She looked at her scuffed ballet flats, facing his polished loafers. One of her socks was sagging and her skirt was terribly wrinkled; his pressed trousers fell in a precise line. In the stillness, her heavy breathing echoed down the abandoned hall and she could nearly hear her pounding heart, racing with an overload of emotion.
"I'm sorry, Lucy." He spoke at last, his voice abrupt in the silence. "He should never have done that to you."
One shoulder rose and fell in a movement meant to show that she really was fine, though they both knew that was a lie. "It's okay. I'm better off."
"You are better without him, but not better off after what he did to you. It was inexcusable. It was wrong."
"Thank you." She looked up then, a sad half smile on her lips, and for the first time, she really saw him. During the last six and a half years, he'd always been the quiet boy to slip into the back row just before class started and leave before anyone else. Before today, she wasn't sure she'd ever heard him speak. He was a shadow in the corner, she knew he was there but never really looked at him to see him. Ebony hair fell like a raven's wing over one cheekbone, the only mussed thing about him. Intense grey eyes, grey like the mist over the Black Lake on a winter's morning, looked down at her. His skin was pale, so pale, as if he'd never seen the sun. Full pink lips, delicate as a blushing rose bloom and looking just as soft, lifted in an almost smile. But his eyes, they grabbed her and drew her in.
Lucy had always scoffed at the idea of drowning in someone's gaze, but she could get lost here. Quite happily, she would walk into that gaze and reside there, where it was cool and wrapped around her gently. He held her still with nothing but his eyes for several long moments, another silence that felt full of promise. Tentatively, he reached out one hand tucked her hair behind her ear, his fingers resting lightly on her skin, just in front of her ear, on the edge of her cheek.
"You are beautiful." He told her. "I've seen you, and you're better than them and their petty lives."
She drank in his words, wishing to believe everything he said. She was drowning in her angst and he threw her a lifeline, then slowly reeled her in, lifting her up. He was her saviour, she who dreamed of knights and castles in the clouds. With his pretty words, he charged the fortress and rescued her from her distress.
"Someone should give you castles. Not bouquets but gardens of roses." His soft voice sang to her heart and she leaned into him. Her breath caught in her throat, amplified in the stillness surrounding them. All she could feel were his fingertips, playing a soft melody across her skin. All she could see were his eyes, a deep gaze holding her own.
"I don't know your first name." She whispered. "I should, I'm sorry."
His fingertips threaded into her hair. "Julian. My first name is Julian."
Lucy's broken heart beat erratically, she could feel it mending itself together. The pieces melded whole under Julian's gaze. Her eyes slipped closed as his head bent toward her. A breath crossed her own, a touch of lips so soft it may not have happened. She breathed deeply once. Twice. And when she opened her eyes all she could see was him.
Julian.