January 3rd, 1976
"You let the room get too bloody hot."
This sharp accusation echoed through the humid greenhouse air as the glass doors slid shut behind one Evan Rosier as he watched Florence Kim predictably jump in surprise at his unannounced visit, which was nothing less than he expected from the jittery Ravenclaw.
He heard her curse under her breath, but she didn't bother turning to greet him. He pressed his lips into a thin line as she muttered sarcastically in a mocking attempt at a posh accent, "Hello to you too, why yes, yes I did have a terrific new year. And you?"
He ignored this because quite frankly he didn't care if she'd enjoyed the holidays or not (he certainly hadn't), and he had no patience for formalities with her. Now now, and not ever.
"Do you have any idea what time it is?" he asked coolly as he idly made his way over to his own section of plants, two tables away from hers. He examined his withering fanged geranium with a small frown, which deepened into a scowl when he looked up and saw that Kim had the temerity to shrug at his question. Also, her fanged geranium was in full bloody bloom.
She tried to brush a lock of her hair out of her face with the back of her wrist because her hands were covered in soil. Evan's left eye twitched as he watched her try and fail several times to do this before she gave up altogether to stare stupidly back at him, hanging lock of hair be-damned.
"What? No?" she replied blankly, as though the question had not been asked ten seconds of silence ago. "I dunno. Oh, bloody hell. You're here - er... When did the train get back?"
Listening to her demented train of thoughts irritated him almost as much as the streak of dirt on her cheekbone and that stray lock of hair, which she was now attempting to blow out of her face in between sentences. Evan grit his teeth as he watched this display out of the corner of his eye. He fought the urge to demand she plaster the strand to her skull lest he decide to yank it out of her scalp, which would certainly deal with the nuisance in a more permanent manner.
He settled on cursing at her for letting the temperature in the Room get too high and getting this close to destroying two important bacterial cultures he'd been harvesting for an upcoming potions project. A lesser student would not have known how to respond to this disaster. He'd only barely managed to save them with three hours of pained efforts.
Though she gave no indication of having heard a word of what he said, the little smirk on her face gave him the urge to shove her head into the pot of soil before her. They both knew it wouldn't have taken her much effort to keep the room temperature regulated... but they'd gotten into an explosive argument on the last day of school before the holidays (more explosive than usual, at any rate), and he knew perfectly well she'd ignored his instructions out of spite, the vengeful little bitch.
"I told you," she fake-yawned with a shrug, looking away from him to get back to her plants, "I'm not responsible for your personal belongings seeing as to how you're not paying me to be a maid." She said this in a most nauseatingly reasonable, placating tone, as though her last words to him before storming out of the Room hadn't been a very unreasonable, infuriating you'll have to kiss my muggle-born arse before I voluntarily do anything for you, your royal bloody highness.
They'd argued over his request, which he personally had found to be a rather reasonable one.
Alright, perhaps he hadn't presented it as a request... but normally she did as she was told regardless of his tone, though she might whinge and moan about it for a moment or two. Somehow, however, their usual back-and-forth had devolved into an impromptu duel. Duels were fine, but Evan didn't like impromptu. He'd made quick work of disarming her if only because he'd already been in an irate mood and hadn't the patience to torment her with fancy spell-work. Though she usually shrugged off a loss, on that particular occasion, Florence had barrelled into him in a surprising rage in an attempt to seize her wand from him by brute force. She'd caught him by surprise, sending them both tumbling back into a heap on the floor.
Though Evan had been winded by the impact, taking the brunt of the fall, he'd been more mentally surprised than anything else. It was what happened next that was truly shocking.
Lust.
Pure, unadulterated, adolescent lust.
He was used to it hitting him at the most inopportune times, but never like this. And never with - with her.
And yet it had - hit him like a sucker-punch to the gut when her softly rounded curves had provoked flaming desire low in his gut. After a split second of stunned disbelief, he'd shoved her off of him in horror and had scrambled onto his feet in as dignified manner as he could manage. He hadn't even know the irritating brat had curves.
He'd never been more glad to see the back of her as she too picked herself up and her wand with haste before storming out of the room, hollering like a banshee without looking back.
He'd attempted to banish the memory to the back of his mind throughout the holidays, but he'd occasionally woken up hot and flushed from disturbing dreams that left him panting. By day, he'd spent an unforgivable amount of time stressing over whether or not she'd noticed his unexpected state of arousal. Judging by her reaction to him today, she hadn't realized what a state she'd left him in that day, otherwise he was sure she would have been a blushing, stammering mess instead of the sarcastic harpy she was now.
"I'm paying you," he snapped, unable to control his displeasure because he was so perturbed by the memory of their last interaction, "to do your fucking job! Which is to -
" -to participate in experimenting on things with you, in addition to being experimented on. Nowhere in that job description lies 'to babysit Lord Rosier -
"Lord Evan," he corrected sharply, both annoyed by the error and unable to resist the temptation to bait her.
"What?"
"You said 'Lord Rosier'. Rosier is my last name. My father is - was le Duc de Cajolet. By English equivalents, being a fourth son of a duke without a courtesy title, that would make me 'Lord Evan Rosier', or just 'Lord Evan' in speech. Since hearing you speak my name is nothing short of revolting, 'my lord' will do if you insist on formalities."
He said this in his haughtiest, most imperative voice and the outraged Ravenclaw gaped up at him as though he'd lost his head, before she sneered, "You would be a poncy lord, you son of a -"
She didn't finish, cutting herself off as her expression suddenly became chagrined.
"I didn't -
"Shut up," Evan snapped, predicting exactly where this was going to go. He didn't want to hear it.
Charles Rosier had died half-way through his youngest son's first year, having drank his way into a such a state that he'd slipped on a set of stairs while he'd been literally chasing after his latest mistress. He'd just turned forty-five. There had been mentions of it in the Daily Prophet, obviously... and several other less than reputable rags. It was odd to think that she didn't know, but then they hadn't been - well, whatever they were in those early years at Hogwarts. Why would an eleven year old mudblood nobody care about the ongoings of French wizarding aristocracy?
She wouldn't, and she shouldn't now. Their relationship was strictly business. Employer and employee. This is what he told himself, in any case, pretending that he hadn't literally dreamed about seeing what lay under her ratty clothes.
Tits, said a snickering, impossibly callow voice from the back of his mind. She's got tits. And an arse -
Outraged that his own inner voice could betray him thus, Evan heard himself shout "The only thing I want to bloody hear from you is why you let the Room temperature go up -
"For Merlin's sake, I told you -
"No, I told you that I had two cultures that needed to be kept at a steady temperature, and I just spent the last three hours bringing them back to a decent state. So how do you propose you're going to pay me back for my wasted time and efforts?"
His voice grew louder, and it boomed ominously around the chamber. Despite this, he could not drown out the gleeful voice in his head.
"Pay you back?" Florence scoffed, keeping her voice purposely low and calm as though to show him how ridiculously he was behaving. He wanted to wipe the smirk off her face, which she made no attempt to conceal as she turned resolutely back to her plants.
He watched as she sunk her small pale hands viciously into the soil, as though she wanted to somehow cause it harm. "In your bloody dreams. Did you come all the way here to tell me that? Rather risky of you, considering anybody could see us here, don't you think?" This point was moot, since fifth year Herbology students were expected to work on their plants outside of class, but she continued her tirade before he could point this out. "Anyway, as I was saying before you so rudely interrupted me, my fucking lord, you don't pay me to take care of your personal projects. Only for the things we work on collectively."
Evan half expected to her add a "so there", but she seemed to have finished. She turned her head away once more to look down as she stuck her hands back into her pot of soil, effectively dismissing him.
He sauntered towards her - Evan did not stomp, ever - and stuck his wand in her face.
"I'm not finished with you," he hissed, pressing the tip of his wand under her chin so that she was forced to look up at him.
"So sue me," she mumbled. He gave the barest hint of a smirk as he put his wand away with great satisfaction, witnessing the bravado wither out of her as she considered the implications of her own words. Talk of money always put her in her place.
It was, he thought sourly, why they'd argued that day in the first place. She'd wanted to be paid to keep the room temperature up. This had deeply irritated him, given how simple the request was. Admittedly, he had also been short of funds because he'd had to buy gifts for every single one of his family members, including the ones he hated, and reminder of his broke state had put him into a sour mood. Naturally this was not something he'd had any desire to explain, and so their row had continued.
And here they were now.
He'd come all this way to yell at her, thinking he would go back to being his usual self after two weeks away from her. Unfortunately, this was not to be the case. Just as he was about give her another sharp set down, he was suddenly caught by surprise by the fact that he could see her face.
Ordinarily, Evan was a very meticulous person. Too meticulous he thought to himself on the rare occasion he was feeling maudlin, because disorder could sometimes bother him to the point where he felt physically disturbed. On top of being meticulous, he knew himself to be an extremely observant person. Thus it galled him to no end that he had not realized a change in Florence Kim's person earlier on, despite the fact that he'd even spent a good moment watching her try to brush that stupid lock of her out of her face.
Her face! As in he'd seen it. Could see it at this very moment. She was staring up at him through her bizarrely straight lashes, her brows furrowed together. She'd done something to them, he thought - had made them darker somehow, where he remembered there had been two sparse, shapeless smatterings of hair before. They were arched at the ends now too, adding a fierceness to her frown. Her pink mouth was also pressed downwards, accentuating the plumpness of her lower lip as much as her displeasure. And just like that, Evan felt robbed of his breath.
He knew the feeling of course - quite clinically ascribed it once again to being lust, just as he had on that last day of school. Only on that particular occasion, he'd been able to react, to push her off of him as quickly as possible. This time, however, he was paralyzed in place.
Had he not spent half the holidays puzzling over his reaction to the awful mudblood? He'd told himself it was a one-off. A boy his age couldn't help but feel aroused when a girl had her arse rubbing up against him, however unintentional or unattractive she was otherwise.
Yet here he was now, frozen by the mere sight of a pair of wide, unblinking brown eyes.
"W-what's the matter with you?" she stammered, her face suddenly an unbecoming shade of pink. She knew, he thought to himself. Instinctively, she knew exactly what was wrong with him.
For the umpteenth time in his sixteen years, Evan damned the stupid ancestor who had literally gotten their bloodline cursed for all of eternity. He also damned the human body. He'd been more or less content with himself as a boy. He had no doubt that he would be perfectly at ease as a man.
But now, as this - this thing, this teenager - his entire life was now an unsettling, hormonal mess and he had enough self-awareness to realize that he was being overly dramatic at this moment, undoubtedly because he was indeed a teenager, but for Merlin's sake why couldn't he just skip the stage altogether and be an adult already? Preferably one who wasn't spotty and apparently turned on by anything in a skirt, including mudbloods with dirt up to their elbows and a sauce stain on their sleeve?
It's not your fault, he told himself silently as his heart pounded. She wants you. This is on her.
She did. He could feel it in his bones, in the rushing of his blood. Even if it weren't for the telltale dilating of her pupils and the red across her cheeks, his cursed body knew. Perhaps he'd picked up on her desire before, but had been too distracted by her former utter lack of physical appeal to really notice.
Hell, he could even see the outline of her body. It was too hot and humid in the greenhouse to work in robes, and she'd shed them on the floor in a very disturbing heap that would have made Evan shudder if he wasn't so focused on the droplet of sweat sliding down the mudblood's collarbone to really take in such extraneous details.
He caught himself staring and forced his eyes to her face, keeping his expression as blank as he could manage.
"Maybe I'll just stop paying you altogether," Evan heard himself say after what felt like an eternity. His voice, mercifully, had stopped cracking a couple years ago, but this time it came out uncontrollably hoarse and thick. He wasn't sure what was worse in this situation, but didn't dare clear his throat lest she make something of it.
"I - what? But why?" Kim cried out (he reminded himself that it was Kim, and not Florence).
Why indeed.
Because I want to fuck you, and we can't have that.
She seemed to shrink into herself, and Evan was suddenly reminded of just how small she was. They'd once seen eye-to-eye, years ago when he'd still not yet entered into puberty, which always hit the Rosier girls early and the boys rather late because of the stupid family curse. Apparently, he'd shot up like reed in the last year. Somehow he had not really noticed until now. The top of her head could perhaps just skim his lower lip.
Still. Had she always been this frightfully mousy in demeanor? Evan was startled to realize that the mouthy little bitch she liked to play at in his presence wasn't who she really was most of the time. For instance, it occurred to him that despite sharing nearly all her classes with him, he'd never actually heard her speak in a public setting. Or, at least he hadn't noticed if she did. In fact, he hadn't noticed her as much of anything, let alone as a - a girl - until quite recently.
No, that wasn't true. He'd certainly noticed when her long dark hair had begun to fall out in clumps the previous year. Everybody had. Apparently the girls in her dorm had played a nasty trick on her, replacing her soap or whatever with an elixir made of Porgrebin hair that one of them had stolen from home. Florence Kim been bald for days. Not a single eyelash had adorned her face. Even her already sparse eyebrows had disappeared.
When she'd stepped into the Great Hall the next day, completely hairless even after a night in the Hospital Wing, he'd been very aware of the fact that she was a girl, if only because she looked so very unlike one due to the noticeable absence of her formerly gleaming dark locks. They'd been her one redeeming feature prior to the Incident.
She was half pretty now, he thought in dismay, downplaying the grudging compliment even in his head. Besides suddenly having a half-grown body, Madame Pomfrey had finally worked wonders on the mudblood's head after a year of prescribing her patient with foul-smelling hair treatments. Evan vaguely remembered that a greasy curtain of hair had sprouted out of that bald head after the first week. It had remained limp and nasty and constantly in her face after that, including up until the last time they'd fought.
This was no longer the case, apparently.
He'd not noticed the difference until she'd been right there in front of him, her chin tilted up under his wand. He'd put the wand away, but he suddenly wished he hadn't made such a premature decision. He wanted to hex her now. Or pull all her hair out of the messy bun at the top of her head to join that awful, unruly hanging lock so that she could properly cover up her face again.
She was babbling something in that small mousy public voice of hers. For some reason he found this to be infinitely irritating, and for the first time in their acquaintance, wished she would start her sarcastic snapping again. At least then he could hit back with full satisfaction, giving her a good few insults and challenging her to another duel that she would inevitably lose. Mouse-mode was off-putting. It did nothing for him to intimidate her when she was cowed and silenced herself in this wilting manner.
Furious with himself, he made a gamble and finally forced his body to cooperate by stepping towards her, effectively cutting off her stream of babbling words. It was a tactic he'd often used with her. It amused him to send her scrambling backwards to avoid touching him, though occasionally she stood her ground to annoy him, knowing full well he (normally) had no desire to lay his hands on her mudblood skin. Luckily, she chose not to test him today, and she quickly stepped back from him. Thank Merlin for that. He would not have been able to take physically colliding into her right now.
"Stop talking or I'll you out for good," he drawled, or at least did his best to sound like he was drawling. He was too tense to really pull it off, not that she seemed to notice. He could see the panic in her dark, almond-shaped eyes.
"Please Rosier," she said in a small, broken voice, which sadistically was very nearly Evan's undoing. He almost did step back then. He - or rather his body - enjoyed the sound of her pleading all too much, and for very inappropriate reasons. "I - I'm sorry for not - I should have taken care of the temperature -
Temperature? What temperature? He nearly forgot why he'd been angry in the first place.
"What did I just say," he murmured sarcastically, carefully keeping his expression distant and shuttered. Losing himself was something only she could provoke him into doing. He had no intention of letting himself becoming permanently uncharacteristically hotheaded and Gryffindor-like, in addition to already having lost control over his own body.
"But I don't understand!" she cried out suddenly, losing composure at last. Her voice rose an octave, and just like that she was back to being a shrew. She tilted her chin up defiantly and shot fire at him with a vicious glare. Thank Merlin for that. She was better when provoked, he decided firmly. It turned him on to hear him beg, and that was all too disturbing. "For merlin's sake, you know how stupid it would be to - to give everything up now? You'd never find anybody else to replace me -
"I don't need you," he said sharply, though this wasn't entirely true.
"Don't you?" she demanded, her voice edging on hysterical. Would she cry? She began listing off all the reasons why he ought to keep her around in that sanctimonious, pedantic manner of every Ravenclaw in existence, but still with that edge of panic in her voice.
That was his cue. He could and - must - make his exit now, while he still held onto some semblance of control. Let her stew. Let her wonder what had just happened. Hell, even he didn't know. All he knew was that he had to leave, now.
"Shut up," he said, coldly cutting her off, just barely managing to school his face into a bland expression of disinterest. "I don't need you. Don't make me say it again or I really might bring all this to an end, if only because I can."
And with that, he swept past her without looking back. She didn't attempt to follow him, and he felt her eyes on his back as he stepped out into the blustery winter night, hoping to god that the cold air would do something to return him back to his senses.
It was not to be.
The curfew bells had just begun to peal, taking all of Evan's attention for the split it took for the greenhouse doors to open and for Florence Kim's small voice to be drowned out by the ringing and the howling winds. He did not, therefore, have any warning when her small but strong hand reached out to hold him back by the bicep, taking him by utter surprise.
Evan did not take well to surprises. Startled by her grasp, he instinctively bucked back, shoving her into the flat pane of the greenhouse doors.
"What the fuck," he swore, whipping around to face her.
She gasped, whether out of fright or cold or to catch her breath, her chest heaving and giving Evan a glimpse straight down at cleavage he wished he could unsee. Her breasts weren't large by any means, but Merlin's balls, they were there alright, shapely enough to strain against her too-tight white blouse as he gawked down at them like the imbecile schoolboy that he was. He looked up sharply, right into her dark eyes. The light from the greenhouse gave her a sort of ethereal glow, as did the pink flush that was rapidly spreading across her cheeks.
She should have shoved him off by now, or he should have stepped back, but neither of them moved. Or rather, they both moved in the wrong direction.
Well, Evan moved in the wrong direction. Florence, pinned between the greenhouse and his large adolescent body, could do nothing but tilt her head up in surprise, eyes wide as his lips crashed into hers, one of his hands sliding into her messy bun as the other slid to her waist and pulled her towards him. It was as though his hands could not decide whether they wanted to push her off or pull her closer, so he did both.
She tasted sweet and good, like those rubbish muggle chocolate eggs with the useless toys inside that had stupidly become all the rage last term. Inexplicably, she seemed to like having her hair pulled because she arched into him whenever he tugged a little too hard. Though she did not kiss well - was this her first? - something about it made him wild. He told himself it was the curse, and that it was the sheer wrongness of the situation that made it so good - that he would never in his right mind do this otherwise, but anyway, what did it matter now if he was already doing it? He knew he would regret this in about ten minutes, but for now all he could do was swallow her cries as she let his other hand wander its way up under her blouse, making quick work of the buttons as it went.
He kissed his way up her jaw and down her neck as she whimpered, her voice lost to the winds. It was madness of course, and he bit her on the shoulder as though to punish her for existing. This was apparently the wrong thing to do if he wanted to punish her because she let out a moan. He bit her again because stupidly, for once he liked the way his name sounded from her lips. Not 'Evan' in that snarky drawl she used to mimic him. Not a waspish 'Rosier'. Not an angry 'you stupid twat' or a sarcastic 'my lord'. Nothing but a drawn out cry of sheer pleasure. Feeling daring, he slipped his hand under her bra and began to toy with her, smirking against her lips as she gasped out in surprise when he pinched her nipple.
Later on, Evan would lie in bed and wonder just how far she would have let him go if the night had not progressed the way it had. Things might have gone decidedly different for them that year. But as it so happened, they would not get the chance to take it much further, for just as Evan began to kiss his way up her soft, smooth stomach, she suddenly shoved him off of her and whipped out her wand from some mysterious pocket, firing off an "expelliarumus" somewhere behind him.
His blood ran cold.
He whirled around. In the distance, a dumpy little witch was sprinting at full-speed back to the castle, disappearing into the snow and darkness. Evidently, Florence had not managed to disarm her - though what use that would have been anyway, he wasn't sure.
Fear, anger and desire swirled his mind together into an unacceptable mess. He felt the violent urge to punch something, which made him angrier because that was the most horridly muggle thing he could think of doing in response to this absurd situation.
"Who is it?" he finally growled.
"B-Bertha J-J-Jorkins," Florence replied, teeth chattering as the cold finally made itself known to her.
Evan swore and swore again. Nobody had a louder mouth than Bertha fucking Jorkins. The seventh year Hufflepuff was disdained by all, but she regularly held everybody's attention because she somehow always had the freshest gossip to spill. This would destroy him. But then she couldn't have possibly seen him. He'd had his back to her the entire time, and she'd already been at a distance when he'd turned around. Florence on the other hand...
He turned to looked down at her and felt nausea roll through his body as he came to terms with what he'd done. There would be no going back from this, he thought furiously. And Jorkins had definitely seen Florence's face, despite Evan having probably mostly blocked her from view. How could she not have? He'd sunk to his knees for this girl, he thought in horror. The greenhouse lights were like a beacon in this darkness, and it was not as though there were an abundance of girls who looked like Florence in school, with her slanted cat-like eyes, sun-kissed golden skin, and thick mane of pin-straight midnight hair.
Drawing in a deep breath, he tore his eyes away from her exposed chest, her shirttails flapping around in the wind. Silently, he looked away from her as he made the decision to make his way back to the castle as quickly as possible. Earlier, he'd momentarily played with the idea of running after Jorkins before she'd disappeared from sight into the swirling snow, but he knew that would be a stupid thing to do considering that a confrontation would only serve to confirm his identity. Instead, he calmly stepped away from the scene of the crime.
"Do up your shirt," he managed to spit out without glancing back. "You look like a common whore."
Why he'd felt the need to say this, he wasn't sure, but as he made his way back to the castle, leaving her to gawk at him in the cold, he hoped that those parting words had sunk in deep. She had to understand that this was a one-off. That he'd lost his mind. It had all meant nothing. She meant nothing.
All he could do now was hope to the gods that Bertha Jorkins hadn't been skulking around for long. If she'd seen him...
But no. He was safe. His attention for details took in the fact that the stupid gossip queen's footprints had come from the direction of the castle, and had abruptly come to a stop in the middle of the snow. She'd not been anywhere near the greenhouses. Frowning, Evan turned to look back, shuddering as he recalled the searing heat of Florence's skin against his lips. He swallowed uncomfortably as he momentarily watched the girl pace back and forth in the greenhouse. As though sensing his gaze, her movements stilled for a moment, and she stared straight back at him for a split second before she tore her eyes away.
Evan spun on his heel and began to walk. Walk, not run. Running was for losers.
From this distance, Jorkins had definitely been able to see Florence's face, Evan thought to himself. Perhaps not while he'd been kissing her on the lips, but for those five endless seconds when he'd had his mouth pressed against her smooth, soft belly -
He shut away the memory. There was no point in going over it. It would never happen again.
He'd thought he could control his urges, but it was clear the curse of the Rosiers was stronger than his will (or so he told himself). The second he got back to the castle, he would seek his brother out. Felix, like most of the Rosier men before him, was a raving fan of coke because it provided the only known way to somewhat manage the symptoms that came with the family curse during adolescence. Of course, most of them didn't actually stop using just because they entered into adulthood, which was why Evan hadn't wanted to start in the first place... but it was clear that something had to be done. He'd just put his entire reputation and possibly his life at risk because he'd been thinking with his cock.
Yes. He'd have to do it. But only with careful experimentation...
He nearly paused mid-step as he realized what he needed to do.
A part of him wondered if he was mad. The other part of him assured him that this was thinking with his brain.
He would use Florence Kim to experiment with. Nothing different from their usual tests. Only this time she would have no idea what he was testing. All she had to do was - was what? Put up with his desire to touch her?
But if the powder of the gods did its job, he'd soon have an exact dose figured out and wouldn't actually want to be touching her. If he did this correctly, hell, she wouldn't even know he was experimenting.
It was a brilliant plan, he decided seriously. And in the meantime, he could set her onto researching the properties of cocaine. None of his ancestors apparently had had the foresight to do the same; they'd been satisfied with the symptom-management the drug provided, and had more or less ignored some of the nastier side-effects like collapsed nasal cavities or death.
Idiots. There had to be an alternative treatment. He'd not spent the past two years of his life researching everything to do with this stupid curse to not invest in finding a cure of some sort.
He'd long ago decided to make it his life's work.
Bertha Jorkins was what one could call 'smart-dumb'. She had the intelligence to appreciate the power of gossip and to leverage it like a social weapon. She had a knack for knowing what gossip was worth spreading, and what was worth holding onto. Her selective discretion meant she held enough information on enough people to be universally disliked without being a social pariah.
The next morning at breakfast on the first official day back at school, it was clear by the buzzing at the Hufflepuff table that Jorkins was about to release some big news. The last time she'd gathered such attention was when she'd made it known a couple years ago that somebody with a new pair of fancy platform wedges with an embroidered elephant on the side and salmon-pink toenails (ahem, Marilyn Laurence) was heard throwing up in the girl's loo every morning for a week straight before she'd mysteriously had to go to St. Mungo's after exhibiting some very nasty symptoms that Madame Pomfrey apparently hadn't the means to deal with (ahem, somebody, ahem Marilyn Laurence, very clearly had a bun in the oven).
Evan hadn't cared for Bertha Jorkins' bullocks then, and he didn't care for it now. Knowing that he was safe, he calmly sat down to his breakfast, perfectly at ease despite how disturbed he'd been the night before. Felix hadn't seemed at all surprised when Evan had asked him for the blow. He'd even smirked and they'd done a bit together - just a thumbnail's worth for Evan. It was possibly the most brotherly moment the two of them had ever passed together. They'd even talked for a bit, which was utterly strange because they'd never really been interested in each other's lives before.
Felix was two years older than Evan, and was the closest brother to him in age. He was also Evan's favourite brother, though this didn't mean much considering the fact that he rather loathed Alex and Roland, who'd either ignored or gone out of their way to torment their two younger brothers throughout their childhood.
Roland the Retard had always followed Alex the Arse around like a slave. Evan was more than happy that they were no longer at Hogwarts, especially not now - they'd undoubtedly somehow sense his unease, whereas Felix had never really cared for anybody but himself. Even if he knew something was up, he'd hardly do anything about it besides call Evan names or say something equally annoying but relatively harmless.
Felix was one of the fair-haired Rosiers, with wavy dark blonde locks and green-grey eyes, whereas most of the Rosiers were dark of hair and eyes. He was vain and self-assured, loved all forms of athleticism and derided anybody who let themselves "go soft" as he put it (he'd even somehow cajoled Evan into joining the Slytherin Quidditch team, if only as a reserve). Still, despite his blondeness and air of carelessness (the Rosiers were generally a sullen, serious lot), there was no mistaking the family resemblance. He had their same sense of indestructibility and irritating stubbornness that turned family rows into explosive arguments. Physically, the Rosiers also all shared the same straight arrogant nose, large hooded eyes and high cheekbones, and were relatively athletic in build. They were a handsome family, no doubt. Evan had always privately wondered how much of this was related to the curse - surely somebody in the family had to be born ugly... but thus far, the Rosier genes had proven to be solid in this area. Too solid not to be suspicious.
Was this what it was like to be Felix? Evan felt languid this morning, as though he truly hadn't a care in the world. No wonder the men in his family got hooked on the powder. It was a phenomenal sensation. Coke didn't react the same way with the Rosier men as it did with normal people. He'd slept like a baby last night, no unexpected Projecting whatsoever. It felt rather more like he'd overindulged in hash than anything else. His head felt both fuzzy and astonishingly clear. For the first time since he'd hit puberty, his body was his own - for now. He felt no interference from other people's stupid hormones. None of their uncontrollable, horrid adolescent lust.
With great clarity, Evan convinced himself that his strange new fixation to Florence Kim was undoubtedly due to her own attraction towards him. He'd simply never noticed it before, if only because he'd been so decidedly turned off by her appearance until now. But that was in the time of her baldness, and then the greasy-lock era that had followed after that. Evan hadn't really listened to the details of Pomfrey's treatment because he hadn't cared, but he'd vaguely taken in that she hadn't been able to properly wash her hair or tie it up so long as it was in treatment-mode. Last night was the first time he'd seen her hair up in over a year. And it hadn't been greasy. It had been silky soft, and had smelled of faintly of lemons.
Evan scowled as he remembered this, and suddenly he felt uncomfortable again. Apparently the blow only shielded him from other people's desire and not his own. Still, this was a marked improvement over how he'd been feeling this past year. Ever since he'd begun projecting, he'd not been entirely himself. Sex was constantly at the back of his mind, and having other people's hormones amplifying his own was apparently what had kept him so on edge.
Fine. He wouldn't shy away from it. For some reason or other, he'd found Florence Kim to be attractive. It would have to be managed. That was all there was to it. The blow made him feel better already. There she was now, walking in with her stupid Hufflepuff friends, though her hair was back to hanging in her face, even if it was no longer limp and greasy. She kept her head bowed low. Displeasure coiled in his gut at the sight of the two boys who flanked her sides as they chatted over her head. Apparently Jorkins hadn't yet unleashed the dragon, for nobody had turned to stare at the latest victim of Hogwarts' vicious gossip mill. Undoubtedly the stupid cow was waiting for the right time to pounce.
Florence seemed to be having a whispered argument with her two friends now, and suddenly they veered away from the Hufflepuff table and made their way towards the Ravenclaws'. The three of them had just sat down and piled their plates (or at least the boys had), when Jorkins apparently opened the floodgates. A collective gasp filled the air surrounding the nosy bitch, and all around the Great Hall heads whipped so fast that Evan could have sworn he heard necks crack from the other end of the table.
Florence somehow sunk into her robes to the point of being nearly invisible, but nothing could be done. Evan watched as she quickly stood, turned on her heel and fled the Hall like the mousey coward that she was. By the time she reached the doors, the news had spread like wildfire and even the Slytherin table was in a riot...
Sirius Black, that mudblood-loving blood traitor, had been seen going down on Florence Kim behind the greenhouses.
