Slow Designs
A/N: Jay Lysander, a seventh year Gryffindor, finds that his final terms at Hogwarts are more complicated than just a football tournament commemorating the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, surviving NEWTS and chasing the mysterious girl he's fallen for but has never spoken to…Grisly, dark events hint at a bleak future ahead, and Jay and his friends must seek the birthplace of magic itself in order to determine whether they are at the will of a grim fate.
First, a disclaimer – I do not claim to own any of the characters or locations created by J.K. Rowling, nor any of the music titles or lyric quotes used throughout this project, nor National Geographic, Walking with Dinosaurs, Facebook, Question Time, Dorling-Kindersley…Any other necessary disclaimers will be posted before relevant chapters.
It is post-Deathly Hallows and takes place in 2015; mostly canon, only ret-cons/AU changes are that Victoire and Teddy are in the same year group and that the HP7 Epilogue occurs in 2015, not 2017. Rated M for a reason, there will be swearing (I'm English, it's second-nature), violence and sex, but hopefully not unnecessarily gratuitous!
Most chapters will only be 1000-3000 words but I'll be updating regularly.
Prologue: Two Christmas Dinners a Year
Jay Lysander couldn't sleep. He often couldn't sleep the night before he returned to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, even though he'd experienced it six times before. Perhaps it had been the heat – despite London's reputation for miserable, wet summers that rarely aided plans for mid-July barbecues, early September always seemed to carry on a bit of Augusts sunshine and light haze. At any rate, Jay flipped his pillow over to feel the fast-fleeting comfort of the 'colder side' and pulled his quilt off his body, so that he was exposed to his bedroom.
But it was no use. Still rather uncomfortable, and not tired in the slightest, Jay sighed and pushed himself out of bed. His bedroom at his dad's house was much the same as it had been since he was ten. Now seventeen, he seemed laughably out of place. Toy dinosaurs and James Bond cars were piled neatly into a plastic box in the corner of the room, next to a bookshelf, which, admittedly held some normal, adult content like National Geographic and David Attenborough's autobiography – but in the main, it was unmistakably a kids bookshelf, with Dorling-Kindersley guides to Vikings and Horrible Histories on Greeks and the Walking with Dinosaurs sticker collection.
His blue curtains, still adorned with dolphins, as they'd been since a trip to Spain allowed him to see some at the age of seven, were drawn, but the ever-present light from the lamppost annoyingly opposite from his bedroom flooded his room with an eerie, ethereal cobalt. Jay crossed his room, careful not to trip on the bags he had packed for tomorrow, but in the low light, he stubbed his toe on his heavy kettle bell and stumbled into his own shut door.
"Bastard." he swore, leaning down to massage the injured appendage. When he was quite sure it wouldn't fall off, he opened his door onto his landing and crept down the stairs. The echoing of polite laughter and applause filled the downstairs; no doubt his dad had fallen asleep in front of the TV again after the news and now Question Time was on. But as he reached the bottom of the stairs, he recoiled when his dad's voice cut through the quiet.
"Jay? You're still up?" the grogginess in his voice made Jay think his father had definitely been more successful in sleeping than he had.
"Yeah, couldn't sleep." Jay shuffled into the front room and plonked down onto the couch next to his dad.
"Hm. Well, you're all packed? Haven't left anything behind? Got all your medicines?" his dad asked, rubbing his eyes.
"Yup, double – in fact, tripled checked before I went to bed." Jay confirmed, recalling his fourth year when he'd left two required books and his robes behind at home.
"Okay. And you're sure you don't want me to drop you at the station? It's no trouble, I have to go in to the office at some point tomorrow anyway…" he offered lazily, but Jay shook his head.
"No, it's fine. I'll just get the DLR and then the underground to King's Cross."
His dad was a muggle, and had never quite gotten to grips with the magical world that secretly surrounded his own, normal universe and it would the height of awkward for him to watch Jay disappear through the Platform dividing column. Jay supposed he was informed of it when he and Jay's mum, he thought with a shudder, started dating. He must've been fine with it, because two years later they married.
His mum was Portuguese by descent, though raised in England, and when they divorced six years ago, she split her time between London and Lisbon. That meant Jay often found himself travelling between places over holidays – his dad's in Canary Wharf, his mum's in Harrow and his grandma's in Lisbon. It was worth it, of course – Jay vaguely remembered how bad they were as a couple when he was young, always arguing, shouting, bickering. He often wondered how they fell for each other in the first place, so incompatible they seemed.
He and his older sisters, Anna and Laura, did find some profit from all the messy divorce years – two Christmas dinners a year (one at with his dads side of the family and another on Boxing Day with his mums) was a good enough start, let alone having twice the presents (Birthdays too) received than normal. Distant relatives would often corner one of the three siblings to explain how sorry they were his parents weren't together and that they hoped they were coping okay.
But it had been fine. Jay couldn't have imagined his childhood and adolescence any different. He only now worried his own future marriages might wind up the same way. Studying his dad as he finally turned off the TV and made to head upstairs, he wondered if he too had no inkling his romantic life would spiral as it did.
"Goodnight Jay. Goodnight Laura!" he shouted, successfully rousing his neighbour's dog so that a minuscule bark could be heard through the wall.
"Goodnight, dad." Jay returned, himself heading upstairs too. Before his own bedroom, he could see light from underneath his sister's room. Anna, now twenty four, had moved out to central London to be nearer her job, so it meant that Laura was awake.
"Alright weirdo." she greeted him casually as he entered her room. It was oddly barren, with things packed into boxes and nothing remaining on shelves or nightstands anymore. She was sprawled across her bed, illuminated by her laptop next to her head.
"Fine thanks, twat." Jay responded, collapsing on the foot of her bed. He scanned the boxes. "Nervous about uni?"
"No, 'course not you mental, I'm excited!" she said, not looking up from Facebook. Ever the extroverted middle-child, Laura would never suffer the same nervous trepidation his eldest sister Anna did about university. As usual, with him being the youngest, by the time he reached it, I t would no longer be of much interest. "What about you? Excited to go back to freak school?"
His sisters had not inherited his mother's magic. It didn't seem to bother them much. "Yeah." he sighed.
"What?"
"It's just…final year. For one thing, if the workload is worse than last year, it'll be such a massive ball-ache. And then there's Teddy and Victoire." he stopped. How much did things change when two of your three best friends declared undying love for each other?
"What about them?"
"They're now a couple. A proper one. Full on boyfriend and girlfriend. I mean, took 'em long enough but still, can't make things easier this year can it? For our group of friends, I mean."
"Teddy's the one with blue hair, right?"
Jay nodded.
"And Victoire's the one you fancy?"
"No, Victoire's the one everyone fancies because she's part Vee- the 'fit people' I told you about ages ago…?" Jay sighed, feigning exasperation.
Laura shrugged. "Why don't you just magic yourself a girlfriend?" she offered, grinning. "Then you wouldn't be such a lonely saddo."
Jay shook his head. "I don't need magic to get someone, unlike you perhaps. But that's not the point-"
"Well, it would help when they do couple-y-things, you could go off and do the same elsewhere."
Jay thought back to fourth and fifth year when he too had his first proper girlfriend. Kara Pennyworth, the pretty blonde Ravenclaw. She had been pretty much his first…everything. And it had definitely helped; when Teddy and Victoire had their frequent bouts of unreleased-sexual-tension-arguments, Jay and Kara would sneak off to some unbidden corner of the grounds…But by the time they reached the summer before sixth year started, they had realised neither had really had their heart set on each other anymore. Kara, like most girls, had developed a crush on Jay's other best mate, Nick Dawe – though she at least had the decency and tact not to act on it. Not yet, at least.
And Jay had developed what Victoire coined "the saddest crush of all time" on the 'Unknown Girl', or 'UG'. Jay had to admit, it was fairly stupid. UG was a student, though Jay didn't know what house, or year, or classes, or social group she was in…but whenever Jay caught sight of her, he seemed to freeze, like a rabbit caught in headlights. Mysteriously, he had never spotted her with his friends, so he had no idea who she was, and nor did they. And far be it from him to muster the courage to actually ask her out. That'd be the day.
"Daydreaming about some poor girl somewhere?" Laura woke him from his reverie.
"No." Jay mumbled, checking his mobile to unsuccessfully detract attention.
"Speaking of," Laura continued, tapping away at her keyboard as she spoke, "how come we've never met your current or past girlfriends? Embarrassed of them?"
Jay snorted. "Embarrassed of you, more like. But you know me, separation of church and state. Just the way of the world, unfortunately for you." he finished coolly, rising to leave. "Well anyway, sis, have fun at uni. Don't get too hammered like normal, I won't be there to rescue you from the dodgy nightclubs like this summer."
"I seem to recall you were only at that club because you and your own friends were on a bit of bender! But anyway, thanks little bro. Have fun at Pigspots or whatever it is – I won't be up by the time you've left, but I'll message you tomorrow afternoon or something. Goodnight!"
Jay returned to his room and collapsed onto his bed. He felt slightly better having thought about seeing his friends – maybe even the elusive Unknown Girl – tomorrow. Besides, living and studying with magic wasn't a hard – or at least, boring, life. He turned onto his side. The low light that swept in through his curtains was just strong enough to illuminate his poster of Jordan Henderson, Daniel Sturridge and Raheem Sterling on his far wall.
"You guys better not let me down tomorrow." he mumbled, eyes finally feeling heavy. It took a lot to put a football match into the category of second most important thing of the next day, but his final first day at Hogwarts was definitely that.
