A/N: Many of you probably think I dropped off the face of the earth, but I'm back! I have been working on a lot of stuff lately (fanfic included), but mostly real life stuff. I only have a couple of chapters left to publish of The Dragon Club, so I started the sequel since the first part of the sequel and the last part of The Dragon Club overlap. I hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, places, ideas, events, etc. are not mine. They belong to JK Rowling.
….
Zander Goyle was sleeping soundly in Olivia's bed. This was the second night in a row they spent together and they still had not had sex. She was currently curled up on her side, facing him, and he was lying on his back. Their hands, limp in sleep, were twined together. That was when they heard the owl pecking on the window. Olivia groaned and rolled over. She moved to stand up, but Zander mumbled sleepily, "I'll get it, love."
He slid out of the bed, goose bumps appearing on his bare chest as his feet made contact with the chilly floor. He opened the window and was surprised that he recognized this owl; it was his mother's. Anxiously taking the note from the owl, he opened it to read,
Zander,
Your grandmother is doing a lot better. The healers say that she needs rest, but is otherwise perfectly fine. I am back home in England, so whenever you're ready, go to your Headmistress and she will send you home. I can't wait to see you!
Love,
Mum
"Liv!" he screamed, "Olivia! Wake up!"
"Huh? What's wrong?" Olivia sat up quickly and searched the room with tired eyes before finding Zander standing by the window.
"My gran is fine and Mum says I can come home!"
Olivia felt torn; happy for her boyfriend, and sorry for herself. She would miss him being in the castle with her. "That's great, Zan," she said sincerely, "I hope you have a really good Christmas." She started lay back down.
"What are you doing?" snapped Zander as he ran over, grabbed the blanket, and pulled it off of her. Olivia squealed as the cool night air enveloped her; she had been sleeping in short sleep shorts and a tank top, which wasn't her usual sleeping attire, but with Zander's extra body heat, she hadn't needed as many layers as normal.
"I'm trying to go back to sleep, you bloody fool!" she screamed.
Zander was too happy to even be upset at her scathing tone. He merely chuckled and jumped on the bed, pushing her into the mattress and kissing her fiercely before whispering, "You'd better get up, love, otherwise you won't have time to pack."
"Pack?"
"Yes, you are coming home with me."
"I'm…what?"
"You don't honestly think that I would let my beautiful girlfriend stay at Hogwarts all alone for Christmas, do you? Not a chance! Get your adorable arse out of bed and pack your trunk. We'll leave as soon as you're ready." He kissed her once more, than took off toward his dormitory.
Tired, but excited, Olivia slipped out of bed, got dressed and packed her trunk. A house elf appeared, having been sent by Zander, and disapparated with her trunk, taking it to McGonagall's office.
Nervously, Olivia smoothed out her favorite yellow skirt, slipped her shoes on and skipped down the Tower to McGonagall's office. Zander was waiting for her just in front of the stone gargoyle. "Unicorn hair," he said, and it sprang aside. "I can't believe she hasn't changed that password yet," he muttered.
"She probably doesn't realize anybody knows the password," Olivia hissed in response. He chuckled and pulled her close to his side.
They entered the office cautiously because it was dark and eerily quiet. A portrait of a man with a crooked nose and half-moon spectacles was smiling at them from behind the Headmistress' desk. "Good evening," said Professor Dumbledore, "I have already informed Minerva of your arrival, she will be down in a moment."
"Er, thanks," said Olivia.
Just then Professor McGonagall came swooping into the room, wearing a tartan dressing gown. "Good heavens! What's the matter? Mr. Goyle, Ms. Wood, explain yourselves!"
"My mum just sent me this, Professor," said Zander, handing over his letter.
McGonagall read it, smiled and said, "Alright then, you're welcome to go home. However, this does not explain the presence of Ms. Wood."
"She's coming home with me, Professor, for the holidays."
McGonagall was obviously surprised, but did her best to hide it before saying, "Well, if that's what you want to do, then in you go," she handed them a bucket of floo powder. Zander dragged his trunk into the fireplace, said his address, and was engulfed in green flames. Nervously, Olivia did the same.
…
Zander was waiting for her on the other side, positively beaming. Laughing softly, he brought a finger to his lips signaling for her to be quiet. She nodded and followed him quietly down the small hallway and into a bedroom. "This is my room," he whispered as he flicked on the light.
"Your flat has electricity?" Olivia asked with surprise. Wizards rarely lived with electricity as magic tended to disrupt the electric currents.
"Yes, it's just Mum and me here at this muggle complex, and as I'm not even allowed to use magic yet, it doesn't interfere with anything."
"Fascinating," she noted dully while glancing up at the light fixture. Being a pureblood, Olivia had a basic knowledge of muggle things, had seen electricity before at Rose's house, but it still greatly amused and baffled her.
"Mum's probably sleeping," he told her as he tore his clothes off and threw them around the room.
"Am I staying here with you or should I…"
The way he was smirking at her made her feel like she had asked a rather stupid question, "Stay with me," he said very deliberately, "That's always the correct option."
"What about your mum?"
"What about her?" he wondered with a frown.
"Won't she be upset if she knows we slept in your room together?"
Zander snorted and pulled back the covers on his bed. "She doesn't have any room to talk," there was just a tad of bitterness in his voice as he spoke. "She brings home a different bloke every other night. Wouldn't be surprised if there was one with her now."
"Oh," Olivia blushed. Zander's home life was so different from her own that she wondered how much they truly had in common, if anything. She lived in an actual house, not a flat. Her father was a professional Quidditch player and her mum was a devoted housewife. She couldn't even imagine her parents being with anyone but each other.
"She's just unhappy," Zander tried to explain, "I think that she's unable to get over my father, but instead of trying to not think about him, she thinks about other men."
"I thought it was just a one night stand between your parents," it was a statement that she had intended to be a question.
"Oh, it was," he assured her, "but that doesn't change the fact that my mum fell pretty hard for him."
"What do you think of him?" to Olivia, Zander's opinion of a person meant a lot.
He shrugged indifferently, but a hint of emotion could be seen in his eyes, "I don't know him all that well, to be honest. I've met him only a few times, and on those rare occasions we didn't talk much. Usually I got a curt 'hello' and the rest of the visit was spent with him and mum screaming at each other."
"But then where did you learn-" she cut herself off and pressed her lips tightly together. She had a feeling that it was much too soon in their relationship to bring up any affiliation he might have with the Dark Arts. Recovering quickly, she shook her head, smiled at him, and began rummaging in her trunk for her pajamas. It was chilly in Zander's room, much colder than it had been in her dormitory in Gryffindor Tower, so she pulled on fuzzy purple pajama pants and a white long sleeved cotton shirt to sleep in.
Within minutes, Zander was asleep, but Olivia stayed awake staring at the unfamiliar ceiling above her. She felt so odd, and it took her a while to place her feelings. Feeling like there was a lump in her throat, she swallowed hard but the emotions were still there; guilt, fear, anxiety, paranoia, and others she couldn't put a name to.
Her pale blonde hair fell in front of her eyes as she turned to watch Zander as he slept. They'd been dating for less than a week. She barely knew him. Yet she hadn't even considered objecting when he woke her up in the middle of the night and asked her to leave with him.
When she thought of what her parents would say if they knew, she shuddered. Perhaps that was why she had been placed into Gryffindor. She tended to rush headfirst into an adventure without really thinking it through properly.
Lying next to a half-naked Slytherin in his flat, she suddenly felt vulnerable, stupid, and like she didn't belong. As far as she could tell, she didn't have anything in common with this boy. Nor did she really even know him that well.
What was wrong with her? Why didn't she think about things before doing them? What would happen if there was an emergency, and her parents couldn't find her? She had been irresponsible, and as this realization dawned she felt sick to her stomach. Her parents had only allowed her to stay with the Potters because they knew that Harry and Ginny would never have let her and Albus share a bedroom.
A feeling of deep betrayal swelled up inside of her and she had to repress the urge to vomit. Without even realizing it was happening, tears were leaking out of her eyes, falling down her cheeks and landing onto the pillow beneath her head.
With a pang of regret, her thoughts went to Albus. Their first date, their first kiss, the way he smiled at her and his eyes would light up, the way he held her, the first time they had made love. The tears came much faster now and she felt her chest heaving.
As much as she missed Albus Potter, as much as she had loved him, as much as she loved every memory they had shared together, she couldn't lie to herself. Something had been missing in their relationship. It killed her that she couldn't fix it. She wasn't the type to just give up and throw in the towel, but Albus had been.
Maybe he just knew when to quit or maybe he wanted to bail when things got too hard, but either way she hated him for it. Would Zander hurt her the way Albus had? She didn't think it was possible seeing as how her feelings for Zander were not that deep.
And yet…
And yet her feelings for Zander were currently stronger than they had been for Albus at this point in their relationship. The way she felt for Zander Goyle was how she had felt about Albus after they had been dating for nearly two months.
Frowning, she rolled over onto her side, facing away from Zander whose nose was now whistling every time he exhaled in his sleep. She took a shaky breath, and slowly worked on controlling her sobs. The last thing she wanted was to wake her boyfriend and have him worry about what was wrong with her.
It was late, she was tired, she had experienced rather traumatic events recently, and all she wanted was sleep. Closing her eyes, feeling them sting with unshed tears, she willed herself into a shallow sleep for the rest of the night.
Because her sleep hadn't been at all restful, Olivia awoke with the first rays of the morning sun. The first thing she noticed was that she was swathed in blankets, still slightly chilly, and Zander didn't have any blankets on him at all. He lay on his back beside her, in nothing but his boxers.
Feeling sorry for him, she untangled herself, scooted over to him, and threw half of her blanket over him. He muttered something in his sleep, and flung the blanket off. Surprised by this, she tried again, this time throwing one of her legs over him and wrapping one of her arms around him, taking the blanket with her.
He grumbled incoherently for a moment and then groaned, just waking up. He squinted at her and said thickly, "It's too hot for blankets and cuddling, Liv, I won't be able to sleep when I'm this smothered."
Olivia flinched in unexpected pain. Even though she knew that Zander had meant no harm with his words, she couldn't help but feel slightly offended that he felt like she was smothering him when she was barely even touching him, really.
Obliging, she pulled away and kept the blankets to herself. Her mind was whirling with doubts and questions. Albus had always said the perfect things. If he had felt too hot, he would've said, "Olivia, honey, I love you, but I'm really hot, would it be alright if we snuggled later?"
That was just another thing she could add to a list of facts she was compiling about Zander Goyle; bad with words. Rarely says the right thing. Apparently in her sleep she had created a list of things she knew about him. Thus far, the list looked something like this:
Good kisser. Handsome. Intelligent. Kind. Sometimes says or does mean things. Arrogant. Bad with words. Rarely says the right thing.
After a few moments of dwelling on these thoughts, she fell back asleep. The second time she awoke, it was with a start. Before she was fully conscious, she was sitting bolt upright, panting heavily, clutching her chest with one hand, and running her other hand through her hair.
The dream had been so strange and so adrenaline pumping that she still felt as if she were in it. In the dream, she was on a stage singing. People were cheering and clapping; the crowd sounded huge. It had been a muggle song, that much she could recall. What were the lyrics? She remembered the word touch and the word alive, but that was it. Shaking her head, she suddenly realized that the most startling part of the dream was that she had sounded good.
Immediately, she shook her head, and rushed to her luggage to pull out a quill and notebook. The notebook was enchanted; it held thousands of pages, but was thin enough to appear to be less than one hundred pages long. Normally she didn't keep track of every dream she had, but she was experienced enough to know that this hadn't been a dream.
Since the age of three, Olivia Wood knew she was a Seer. However, the only other people to know were her parents and brother. At first, her mother had encouraged her to tell the ministry. Ever since the Hall of Prophecy had been destroyed, it had not been rebuilt. As a result, the ministry had no way to know if someone was a Seer or not. Unless the Seer told the Ministry.
But Olivia had refused, and thankfully, her father had backed her decision. She knew that she had to be one of the best Seers in a long time. She knew her skills should be honed and put to good use, but she didn't want to See. Usually it happened, like this, in dream format. The difference between dreams and visions wasn't something she could explain. It was always something she just knew.
Granted, if there was something in particular on her mind, she would normally get visions of it. And, if she didn't like what she Saw, she could even tweak the present to change the future. But if she didn't know what events led to something, she had no idea what to change. By now she had learned to simply not worry about it. Whatever will be will be, as her mother said.
Every vision she had ever had was written in her journal. Mostly she Saw little things; herself eating breakfast in the morning, grades on assignments that she hadn't even written yet, what someone would say before they said it. Occasionally, bigger things would crop up in her visions. For instance, she had Seen Rose kissing Scorpius years before it happened. Though not every vision she had came true, they all would come true if she didn't do something to change it.
She also Saw scores of Quidditch matches, Ministry decisions, and even once, a flying carpet accident that she ended up preventing. But those things were all reasonable. Perfectly normal things for someone to envision happening. But herself, onstage, singing a muggle song? Where did that come from? She would never do that. Never in a million years.
Taking a moment to meditate on her latest vision, she also saw flashes of another vision. One that she had had many times for many years. It was the first vision she could ever remember having, and the fact that she still Saw it in her future unnerved her.
It was her wedding day. Before she could dwell on it, she shook her head again, wrote everything about the singing vision she could remember, then put her journal away. She gave quite a start when a sleepy, deep-voice said, "Morning, Liv."
Liv.
No one ever called her that. The only nickname people used for her was Ollie. But Liv was a nickname she could get used to. "Good morning, Zander."
Just then the door of his bedroom opened and a woman with long brown hair peeked in. "Oh!" she said and her face flushed red at the sight of her son in bed with a girl. Before she could retreat entirely out the door, Olivia jumped off of the bed, and scrambled to make herself at least somewhat presentable.
"Mum," said Zander without chagrin, "This is Olivia Wood, my girlfriend. Olivia, this is my mum, Lavender Brown."
