AN: Contains swearing and a little bit of sex, hence the change in rating. Enjoy.
Christmas passed in a flurry of snow and empty corridors, hollow voices murmuring carols and the lights too dull to twinkle. Toby hadn't returned and it was with some sick hope that Bo wondered if he'd been injured carrying the letter to her mother, rather than Aoife just not caring to respond.
With the return of Dyson and Kenzi and Hale and Nadia, things almost returned to normal. Almost.
Lauren hardly spoke to them, buried in her books and her school work, often blowing off Nadia to hide in classroom three on the sixth floor. Nobody knew what she was doing, and after Bo had been on the receiving end of the three different hexes she'd shielded the door with, nobody bothered.
Nadia was getting worried. As was Bo, but she kept it quiet, locking inside the sadness she felt whenever Lauren tiptoed into the dorm late at night, face pale and eyes so very, very tired.
Things came to a head one rainy January afternoon in one of the herbology greenhouses. Nadia and Bo watched in horror as the plant pot containing a baby mandrake slipped from Lauren's arms and smashed to pieces on the concrete floor.
Through the screaming and the chaos Professor Sprout stormed up to Lauren, and as best as a squat dumpy woman in an over-large hat and ear muffs can, towered over her and hollered "You stupid girl, look what you've done! Fifty points from Gryffindor and detention for a week!"
Nadia tried to stand up for her but the baby mandrake was screeching too loudly and she ended up just hurrying after Lauren as she stormed out with tears brimming in her soft brown eyes and soil streaked along her cheeks where she'd dashed away her tears.
"Lauren! Lauren stop!"
Lauren kept on walking, ripping off her gardening gloves and her earmuffs and hurling them as far as she could out over the lawns. There was a freezing rain falling with Lauren's tears, hissing down from a low grey sky to slap cruelly against skin and melting snow alike.
"Lauren!"
She stopped, whirled around and Nadia felt her heart clench at the sight of her, broken, crying, and swaying imperceptibly on her feet.
"Lauren?" It was a quiet request to speak, and be listened to. Lauren gave a curt nod, blinking away her sadness and setting her expression in stone. "What's going on? You've barely spoken to me since I got back. Did something happen over the holidays?"
Lauren shook her head, her blond hair damp from the rain falling in a soft drizzle over the grounds. "Nothing happened. Nothing important." I realised I might possibly maybe be in love with my (former?) best friend, but it can't go anywhere because she doesn't feel the same way and I still can't forgive her. Or maybe I can. But I have to help her.
"I've just been studying for OWL's, you know?"
Nadia nodded sympathetically. The professors were piling on the pressure, despite there being more than a few months before the exams. She knew Lauren got edgy when it came to tests, she'd seen it happen.
"Things are just, you know… hard, and, and-" Nadia cut her girlfriend off with a sudden, tight hug.
"It's okay," she whispered in her ear, felt Lauren shudder against her as she tried to fight back her tears, and, unbeknownst to Nadia, her guilt. "Come on, let's get you inside, it's freezing out here."
Professor Sprout had Lauren copying up old notes on long-forgotten species of rare plants, to replace the faded, scrawled instructions on the back of some ancient seed packets. The professor's office was quiet, brightly lit despite the early onset of darkness outside the castle.
Lauren was alone; the only sound the scratching of her quill against parchment. It was a sound she loved, something that calmed her down. Despite the situation, she felt more at ease here on detention than she had for a long while.
As often happened when she spent long enough writing, the sounds of her quill against parchment, and the repetitive monotony of the words she copied lulled her almost into a trance. She drifted, carried by the feathers of her quill, the ink spilling from the tip, and the interior of classroom three swimming before her brown eyes.
It hadn't taken her long to find the recipe for a sleeping potion strong enough to keep Bo quiet at night. Having left the page on the brunette's pillow, she had left it at that and gone back to her studying.
When Bo came to her covered in soot and some strange, greenish goo, she had sighed, mixed the potion herself in her empty classroom, and tucked it under Bo's pillow with a stern note explaining how she was going to fail her potions OWL if she didn't buck her ideas up.
Bo paid more attention in potions class after that, and began concocting her sleeping potion herself, and Lauren could feel herself almost hoping the brunette was relying more on herself in an effort to somehow apologise to Lauren for inadvertently taking advantage of her.
It took three weeks before the potion began to stop working. Lauren almost had to smother Bo with a pillow to stop Kenzi and the others waking up to the sounds of Bo's dreams. The next day, after an uncomfortable night on the couch, Lauren tersely led a sore and grumpy Bo to the library, and pointed her in the direction of the potions section.
"I'm only doing this to shut you up at night."
"Really? I thought maybe you'd forgiven me."
"Don't be so sarcastic, or I might hold the pillow down a little longer next time."
Of course Lauren did her own research on the side, it was what she did best, she told herself. An unsolved problem to her was like cooking a full Sunday roast, and then leaving it on the table and wandering off. She needed to at least try to understand how to fix things.
Reaching for the next crumbling seed-packet, something caught her eye. Forgetting her thoughts, she began reading in earnest.
Professor Sprout let her go after two hours of scribbling. Just as Lauren reached the door, the head of Hufflepuff called her back.
"Miss Lewis?"
"Yes?" Lauren still had her hand on the doorknob.
"Is everything alright?"
"Yes, professor," she said curtly.
"Lauren, you dropped a plant pot in my lesson today, then stormed out crying. That isn't like you. Forgive me if I start to think something isn't right."
Lauren dropped her gaze, shuffling her feet. "OWL's." Her default excuse these days, it seemed. "They're just getting to me, is all. I know they're still ages away, but exams always make me a bit jumpy, you know?"
Professor Sprout nodded, fiddling with a pair of dragon-skin gardening gloves she had picked up from her desk. "I understand. They are important exams, your OWL's, especially to someone like you. But they're not everything. Remember, my door is always open if you need to talk, as is Professor McGonagall's, I'm sure."
Lauren didn't think she would like to talk to Professor McGonagall about what was going on, not unless someone was in serious danger of getting hurt, anyway. Professor Sprout was still speaking. "Just remember let loose once in a while, forget about OWL's for a few hours. Run along now, or you'll be out after curfew. I'll see you again same time tomorrow."
Lauren left, making sure to take a short-cut back to avoid Filch. In her pocket was the seed packet detailing the sleep-inducing qualities of the Carnivorous Toadstool.
Nadia found her in the library the next day at lunch. Slipping her arms possessively around Lauren's waist from behind, she kissed her hair, ignoring how Lauren tensed slightly at her touch.
"What'cha reading?"
"Oh, nothing important," Lauren closed the book and put it back on the shelf. Sighing, she leaned back against Nadia, allowing herself one brief moment of comfort before she remembered Bo, and her mood soured. Nadia didn't notice.
"So, if you're not doing anything, we still have half an hour of lunch left. How about we spend it together?" Lauren let her kiss her neck, before turning in her arms, looping her own around her girlfriends shoulders.
"Doing what, exactly?"
"Oh, you know. Things."
Lauren raised an eyebrow. "Things?"
Nadia grinned and nodded. "Things."
Lauren took her hand and led her out of the library. "Okay, but not in the library. I need a note to get into the restricted section. I'm not sure anyone will give me such a thing, should they find us doing 'things', in what could be considered to be a public place."
Her lips were a little swollen, and her cheeks had a pink tinge to them when it struck her. "Oh," she gasped.
Nadia misinterpreted. "Do you like that?" she said, her teeth grazing Lauren's collarbone.
"What?" Lauren was distracted, her mind racing as she mentally calculated how quickly she could get into the Forbidden Forest and out again, before anyone noticed she was missing.
"I said," Nadia's tongue swirled across her neck. "Do you like that?"
"Err, yes." Lauren was already reaching for her tie, discarded somewhere in the empty classroom along with her jumper. "Can we continue this later, perhaps?"
"Why? We still have ten minutes."
"Yes but I, err-" Lauren racked her brains, fiddling with her tie. "I need to ask Professor Sprout something."
"Oh," Nadia looked a little non-plussed, but handed Lauren her jumper all the same. She fixed her mussed hair. "I'll come with you."
"No need," Lauren was already halfway to the door. "It might take a while. I'll see you after dinner."
"O-okay." Nadia said to the door.
Luckily (or not, given what happened next,) she had a free period after lunch. She hurried past Hagrid's hut. She could see him in the distance, tending to some massive pumpkins in his garden.
The forest loomed over her, and despite the clear, cold daylight, inside was nearly a solid block of unforgiving shadow. Lauren swallowed, then stepped beneath the tree line.
"Lumos," she whispered, her voice high and scared. Something rustled in the undergrowth as she followed what she sincerely hoped was the path. The leaves were so thick, even though it was only January, no sunlight filtered through to the forest floor.
Briefly she wondered how the undergrowth could survive in such conditions, then decided that she could pass it off as magic. She heard a howl, and froze, her wand light shaking with her trembling hand. She glanced back to the opening, dwindling in size, and almost ran back to the light.
Then she felt the parchment seed-packet in her pocket, and, squaring her shoulders and fiercely going through everything she had ever learned in Defence Against The Dark Arts in her head, she continued into the forest.
The rattling of spiders great and small clattered and echoed through her head as she, Nadia, and Bo pelted through the undergrowth. Branches tore clothing and ripped skin, their way lit only by the stunning spells each shot hopelessly back at their pursuers.
"Lauren what the hell did you think you were doing out here alone?" Bo yelled through great gasps of air, ducking as a red bolt of light from Nadia's wand passed inches from her head.
"STUPEFY!" was Lauren's reply, followed by a shout of glee as one of the huge spiders dropped to the forest floor. Dodging a tree, she answered "Mushrooms! Well, toadstools."
"Please do not tell me you had some secret stash of muggle drugs growing out here- Impedimenta!" a spider stopped dead in its tracks, tripping another and both went down in a tangle of legs.
"Of course not, I just came looking for them."
"Why?" Nadia cried, leaping over a fallen tree trunk.
Lauren didn't answer, pretending not to hear as she dashed through a fern bed. "Why did you two follow me? I was doing fine until you came bumbling through the brush and woke the spiders up!"
"We thought you were in trouble," Bo panted, dodging Lauren's Incedio charm, which took out another two spiders. "Clearly we were right!"
"I could have dealt with the first two if you hadn't woken the rest!"
"Can we stop arguing and focus on escaping, please?" Nadia asked, almost politely despite the situation.
Lauren agreed, so did Bo, and then the sleeve of Lauren's jacket caught in a low tree branch. She jerked to a stop, her wand flying from her grip. Nadia didn't notice, running ahead.
"Bo, help!"
The brunette stopped, turned around, her eyes widening in panic as she saw a gigantic spider scuttling towards the trapped Lauren. Raising her wand, she aimed, and just as the spider was about to chew Lauren to pieces, screamed "Diffindo!"
Lauren felt hot blood spatter over her clothes as Bo's spell whistled past her, taking of one of the spider legs clean off its hairy body. She heard it screech in pain, and then Bo was there, scrabbling untangle Lauren's jacket, picking up her wand and shoving it in her hand, taking her other and then they were running.
The spiders didn't follow them as they hurtled out from under the trees and into the rays of the setting sun. They amassed just in the shadows, clicking pincers and eyeing the three girls, who had collapsed onto the grass once they knew they wouldn't be followed.
They watched as Bo sat up and began to berate Lauren, the blond's chest still heaving from exertion. "What the hell, Lauren? Are you out of your mind? It's called the Forbidden Forest for a reason you know!"
"Yeah, that didn't stop you from going in second year, did it?" Lauren shot back, still panting.
"That was a dare," Bo complained. "And I had backup!"
"Yeah, yeah, the fantastic guard dog Dyson."
Bo ignored the slight, and got up, limping over to Lauren. "You shouldn't have gone alone. Those mushrooms can't have been that important anyway. What do they do?"
Nadia watched as her girlfriend handed Bo a slip of old parchment, puzzled when the girl's frown smoothed, and she said "oh. I see."
"What? What does that parchment say?"
"Nothing," Bo shoved it into the pocket of her jeans, and reached out to help Lauren up.
"How did you know where I'd gone?" the blond asked, changing the subject.
"I was worried," Nadia replied. "When you left so abruptly earlier. I followed you, bumped into Bo on the way down to the great hall and she insisted on coming along."
She ignored Bo's hand, getting up herself as the brunette said "Yeah, be glad I did, I saved both your asses."
"They wouldn't have needed saving if you hadn't trodden on that big stick and scared that owl."
"If I hadn't stood on it, you would have, clumsy."
Lauren watched as the two argues, rubbing at a long scratch on her arm caused by a thorny bush growing near the Carnivorous Toadstools she had picked. She could feel them, squashed into her bag.
"It's your fault she went out alone in the first place," Nadia was saying to Bo, whose frown returned.
"My fault? How is it my fault?"
"She's insecure, she's been insecure ever since you two fought, so she probably felt like she couldn't ask anyone for help."
"Hey! She started that fight. And who are you to say she's 'insecure'?"
"I'm her girlfriend, I'm here to protect her" She needs me, because you," she stepped into Bo's personal space and poked her shoulder roughly. "You, left her all alone."
Bo gritted her teeth and spat back "You're sounding dangerously like you think you know her, Nadia. Watch your step, she doesn't like that."
"But I do know her, Bo. More than you do. She's not yours, okay, she's-"
Bo cut her off. "Yours, Nadia? Does she belong to you?"
Lauren felt her head spinning, tried to keep her vision steady as she watched the two girls fighting. For all her shortcomings, at least Bo knew how she hated being controlled, feeling like she belonged to someone else.
As Bo and Nadia yelled at each other, all Lauren could see was her step-mother, Nancy, cowering protectively over Lauren as her father raised his hand, his deep brown eyes full of anger and his signet ring glittering on his finger.
Lauren didn't like belonging to someone else.
"She's mine, not yours. You had your chance, stop trying to take her back! Lauren? Lauren!"
Lauren was running again, sprinting over the grass and the remains of the snowfall, tears glistening in the glow of the setting sun and all she could think of was I don't belong, I can't belong, I will not belong.
She could hear the wind whistling in her ears and the sounds of Nadia and Bo screaming her name as the castle loomed over her, its cold stone her home, only for so long as it protected her. But the marble floors couldn't wipe her memories of her father, of Nadia betraying her trust like so many others, so she let her tears blur her thoughts as she headed for the sixth floor, bag banging against her hip.
In a way, she deliberated as her cauldron simmered and her thoughts bubbled, this was worse than Bo. At least her brunette didn't see her as an object. It occurred to her that she was taking this too far, that she should leave her experiment until the morning and find Nadia, apologise, make up and make out and forget about Bo.
And yet, as she watched the acid dripping from the Carnivorous Toadstools she had risked her life to gather (although really, who would have known about the spiders), she couldn't bring herself to extinguish the flames beneath her cauldron and leave.
The acid in the conical flask was a sludgy green colour, not appealing at all. She sighed. Professor Sprout must be worried by now. Either that or she had forgotten entirely about Lauren's detention. Lauren knew she herself had. Not that it mattered. She was an hour late anyway, and couldn't leave now. Wouldn't leave now.
She didn't hear the door open, and when Bo spoke softly over the hissing of the flames and the spitting of the potion, it almost vaguely occurred to her that the brunette had finally gotten past her security measures, without breaking out in boils again.
"Lauren, honey?" Lauren heard the door click shut, and it was that that alerted her to the presence of another, not necessarily, human.
"Bo. How did you get past-"
"Your hexes?" Bo gave her a small smile. "I read a book on it, would you believe."
"Not if I hadn't seen it," Lauren replied.
Bo held out a thick spell book she had been hiding behind her back, causing Lauren to break out into a smile. A pained one, but a smile nonetheless.
"What are you doing here, Bo?" Her tone wasn't accusatory, more resigned.
"I'm worried about you, Laur."
Lauren sighed, taking off her safety goggles. "I'm worried about me, too."
"Oh?" Bo perched on the edge of the table Lauren had set her equipment up on. Technically it was two tables she had dragged together, just to fit everything on.
The hostility that had taken her over these past few weeks, months, really, was gone from the blond's voice as she leaned back in her chair, taking her hair from the bobble she had tied it with. She fiddled with the tie, watching green acid drip, drip, drip, slowly into the conical flask, and spoke.
"I've been a complete bitch to you Bo. Rightfully so, but still, that's not me."
Bo stayed silent, watching her watch the flask.
"This is me," she indicated the potion. "Science, discovering things, knowing things. Sometimes helping you overcome whatever petty problem you have, ignoring when I never get a thank you, or when your eyes skip right over me as I hurt so much inside.
This is me. I hate how you took advantage of me, but I love that you paid enough attention to me to do so. Hush," Bo tried to speak but Lauren shushed her. "I was so grateful, that day in Flourish and Blotts when you fell on me, and you still wanted to know me, even though I knew nothing about your world.
I was grateful, when you stayed with me for all these years, and I guess in your own way, you did love me. But not like I love you."
Bo held up a hand. "There, Lauren, you have made a mistake. I love you in exactly the way you love me."
"Perhaps you misunderstand. I don't love you like a friend. Or even like a best friend."
"What about super best friend?" Bo joked, and Lauren cracked a smile.
"Not even super best friend. Something more."
Bo felt her heart jump in her chest, she stayed quiet as Lauren took a deep breath. "I guess maybe it did start as the sort of love someone feels for a close friend, but over time it changed. When we fought, it hurt, it hurt so much, because I loved you, and at the same time I hated you.
Then you came after me, saved me in the forbidden forest. And I didn't hate you."
For a while they just sat there, each gazing into the others eyes as the firelight played over their faces. Lauren leaned forwards, whispering against Bo's lips "I love you."
Then they were kissing, kissing over the cauldron of bubbling potion, neither cared as simultaneously their lips parted to allow tongues to tangle, dancing around one another. Bo reached her hand up to cup the back of Lauren's head, pull her closer. She hissed when it collided with the conical flask of acid, cold air flowing between her teeth to play on Lauren's tongue, so neither noticed when the Bunsen burner toppled over onto the desk, the flames licking at the spilt acid.
Bo gently pulled the blond from her chair, hands going to the buttons of her pristine white lab coat. Taking a few steps back, Bo allowed Lauren to push her against another desk, away from her long-forgotten experiment, mouths still pressed firmly together, eyes closed beneath fluttering lids as she slipped the lab coat from her shoulders to let it pool at her feet.
Drawing back for breath, Bo whispered "I dreamt about you. I dream about you." She didn't give Lauren a chance to reply, although something about the way the blond's hands moved from her hips to the bottom of her shirt told her she'd heard.
Bo gasped as Laurens hands grazed the skin of her abdomen underneath her shirt, her own hands moving to help unbutton it. She slipped it off just as the blond reached up to cup a breast through the black lace of her favourite bra.
She bit her lip as Lauren ghosted a thumb over her nipple, felt it harden at her touch. Her fingers tightened on her hips, nails digging slightly into skin as Lauren's mouth drifted to her neck, nibbling her pulse point before dropping to suck at her collarbone.
Bo's hand slid up the other girl's spine, fingers tangling in blond hair to guide Laurens head, specifically her mouth, towards her still bra-clad chest. Fire ignited in the pit of her stomach as teeth replaced fingers, tongue playing over lace and skin.
Behind them, the spilled acid bubbled as fire traced over its surface.
Lauren's hand gripped Bo's ribcage, pulling the brunettes upper body towards her. Bo moaned as she felt Laurens breasts press against her own through too many layers of clothing, hands pawing at the buttons of her school shirt, and behind closed lids her eyes turned blue.
Bo tossed Laurens shirt behind them once she had removed it (a feat that had taken a little time, the brunette not having realised just how difficult unbuttoning someone else's shirt was,) and unfortunately it landed on the Bunsen burner still spitting flame. It caught fire with Laurens skin when Bo traced her hands up the skin of her hips, her back, fiddling with her bra strap.
Neither noticed the crackling of flame, covered as it was by the low moan emanating from Laurens throat as Bo tugged her bra off, her nails scraping down her arms sending trails of delicious pain behind them.
They were still kissing when Bo rested her fingers over the zip of Laurens pants. "Is this okay?" she asked, breaking away, suddenly nervous. Lauren just nodded, resting her forehead against the brunette's for a brief moment, hot breath washing over Bo's lips.
Her zipper tic-tacked slowly down, hands pushing her trousers over her hips and letting them drop to the floor. Bo's fingers traced a blazing path from her sternum to her navel, thumbnail scraping across her abdomen and causing her hips to buck. In response, Lauren dropped her head again to Bo's breasts, taking her right nipple in her mouth and sucking, Bo's upper body arching into her mouth.
It felt so right, Lauren decided as Bo's hand dipped underneath the hem of her underwear, hesitating only a moment before sliding further, feather light touches exploring her centre, dragging her hips forwards seemingly of their own accord, over and over again.
So right, when Bo finally slid a finger inside her, only up to the first knuckle but still enough to make her breath hitch and her jaw tighten, pulling a moan from the brunette as she bit down harder on her breast.
"So right," she whispered to herself, moving impossibly closer to Bo and once again capturing her lips, partly to stifle her own moans, partly because she just could not get enough.
Fed by the boiling acid, and Laurens discarded shirt, the blaze turned its attention to the ancient wood of the desk. Later, Lauren would laugh over how apt a comparison it was, the fire greedily eating up the table as metaphorical flames devoured her skin, dancing in the pit of her stomach and lower, burning in time with Bo's fingers as they thrust, deeper and deeper, her own moans mingling with Laurens as the blond kissed her neck, her hand already unbuttoning Bo's jeans.
The light from the real fire played over their damp skin, turning Lauren's eyes red as they intently watched her lover with dilated pupils, although Bo couldn't see that as her own eyes were firmly pressed shut.
Lauren somehow lifted her onto the desk behind them, after tugging her jeans down her long legs, Bo allowing her thighs to fall open as the blond moved closer.
Lauren shuddered first, her orgasm rippling slowly, then faster, faster, until it screamed through her body and her back slammed ramrod straight, mouth falling open in a wordless gasp. Bo followed her over the edge almost immediately after, her head buried in Lauren's shoulder as her hips shuddered against Lauren's fingers and her guttural groan echoing through Lauren's head.
They stayed like that for a while, in each other's arms, panting, sweating, supremely satisfied. Then Bo opened her eyes, took in the sight of Lauren's irretrievable burnt shirt, flames licking across the desk to kiss the curtains.
"Better get dressed," Lauren said, still somehow oblivious to the blaze behind them as she searched for her shirt.
"Bo, where's my-"
"Aww shit."
"No, my shirt."
"Laur?"
"Mmmhmm?"
"Fire, Laur."
Bo pointed, Lauren turned and screamed, and not in a good way.
"Fuck Bo, how long have you know about the raging inferno?" Lauren was scrabbling for her wand, Bo couldn't help herself, despite the situation, from admiring her beautiful form.
"Oh shit, shit, where's my wand?"
It was lying on the floor underneath the table Lauren had just taken Bo on. Ducking underneath Bo's legs, Lauren grabbed it, spinning and shouting "Aguamenti!"
They watched as the water streaming from Lauren's wand tip hissed against the fire, steam billowing from the extinguished curtains. They sighed as smoke parted to reveal charred curtains, blackened desk, and the pitiful remains of Lauren's shirt.
"Here," Bo said, handing Lauren her lab coat. "You were too sexy for your shirt."
AN: *Mumbles something about writers block and runs away.*