A/N: I am so, so, so sorry I haven't updated in forever! Like I said last time, my Dad broke his back, so we've been dealing with that, and then school started, but hopefully now I can update a little more frequently.
Taylor stepped out of her Dormitory moments later, her heart fluttering. Was she nervous to go meet Sean? She had talked to him before without being too nerve wracked, but after talking with Ginny and realizing that she was indeed beginning to have feelings for the boy, she definitely felt more anxious. She really wanted to make a good impression. She took a deep breath, and tugging her shirt strait, started off down the stairs.
At the bottom, she instantly spotted his curly brown hair sticking up over the top of a squishy armchair in a far corner of the room. Her heart fluttered a bit. They would be off by themselves, out of the usual hubbub of the center of the common room. Taking another breath, she headed over. Sean had moved one other chair over to the corner so that it faced his. She came up behind him.
"Anyone sitting in that chair?" She asked, before he had seen her.
"Oh, actually, I'm saving it for – " Sean looked up to see her, and a grin broke out over his face, "Well, no, not at all," he said, gesturing towards that chair. Taylor sat down nervously, noticing that they were placed so close together her knees almost hit his.
"So, that Transfiguration homework?" She asked.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Sean said, holding up his hands, an adorable twinkle in his captivating blue eyes. "You're supposed to help me with Transfiguration, remember?"
Taylor could feel herself blushing. Damn. Of course she would blush now. "Well, I'm not so sure I get it either," she heard herself say. What was she talking about? She knew perfectly well what the Transfiguration homework was, and how to do it, it was Ginny who was the fool at Transfiguration. She was being a blundering fool right now, some impression she was making.
"Oh, you know you know, stop being so modest," Sean said, "You're brilliant at Transfiguration. Now be a good girl and help me?" He made sad puppy-dog eyes at her, and she laughed. How could she refuse him?
"Oh, alright," she said, and launched into an explanation of the theory of transforming a live mammal into an inanimate object.
"So, er, do you think you understand it?" Taylor asked after a couple minutes, realizing with a sinking heart that she had completely forgotten about Ginny's advice about not blathering on and on about homework.
Sean grinned. "I think so, but the real question is, what's your favorite band?" Taylor was totally taken aback at the random question. This had nothing to do with Transfiguration.
"Er," she blinked, trying to make her mind think. It was functioning so much slower right now than it usually did, "actually, I'm really into this muggle band called Senses Fail." She offered, not quite sure where this was going. "You'd laugh at me and call me an emotional fuckup for sure if you heard them – "
"I most certainly would not think that you were an emotional fuckup," Sean interjected.
"Well, they're not exactly upbeat and happy or any of that. But, seriously, they have the best lyrics. There's this one song, "The Priest and the Matador" – God, it's beautiful, the best song you'll ever hear in your life. After Senses Fail, there's definitely Brand New, so many of their songs make me so emotional, and Chiodos – I love their singer." Suddenly Taylor realized she was blabbering again. What had Ginny said? Ask him questions about himself; and here she was blathering on about her favorite bands. "So, er, what bands do you like?"
Sean smiled at her. "Actually, you and I seem to have the same music taste. I have to say, I'm a sucker for muggle bands, too, Senses Fail, Brand New, Chiodos, but what about Less Than Jake, MEST, Motion City Soundtrack, NOFX, MXPX, Dropkick Murphy's, Flogging Molly, ah, man, I could go on for hours about music."
And with that, their conversation launched off, and Taylor felt her nerves slipping away as the conversation continued comfortably. They discussed music, artists, singers, and their favorite lyrics, until Taylor noticed that they were the last ones left in the Common Room. All at once she felt her nervous state returning.
"Er, it must be past midnight, everyone's asleep," she said, wondering if Sean wanted to talk longer or go to bed. She tried to eye him without being too obvious, he seemed to have been enjoying himself, and looked fairly comfortable. Indeed, he slid sideways in his chair so that his head rested on one arm and his legs dangled over the other.
"Yeah," he sighed. "I like it when everyone else goes to sleep; it gets so quiet and calm in here. I can lie for hours and stare at the fire, just thinking." His voice trailed off.
Without thinking, Taylor said, "You know, you really surprise me. You're all popular and good looking, but you have this sensitive side to you that I would never have expected existed until I started talking to you."
"Mmm," was Sean's reply. Taylor wondered if she'd been offensive.
"Sorry, I didn't mean that I thought you were a dunderhead or anything," she said quickly. This brought a smile to Sean's face and he laughed.
"I bet you did think I was a dunderhead, don't deny it," he laughed, leaning over to slap her knee. "I bet you thought I was a completely useless oaf who only cared about looking good and getting with girls, didn't you?"
Taylor blushed. "Well, not completely," she said, "But well, ok, just a little." She finished lamely. Sean laughed, and Taylor joined in.
"Whatever, it's all good. I didn't even think about talking to you until recently. You're like the only girl in Gryffindor who doesn't swoon when I walk by, even though you think I'm popular and good looking – " Taylor blushed, "and you've actually got brains. Plus, you've got a secret, and I personally love a mysterious woman."
Taylor started. "What do you mean I've got a secret?"
"I don't know, I can just tell. I'm not asking that you tell me, and I'm not going to try to figure it out, I'm just saying I know you have one. Ginny doesn't even know, does she?" He asked, turning his head to look at her.
Taylor watched the dying firelight play on his face, leaving deep shadows on it – they made him look much older than his years.
"No, she doesn't," she replied, not quite sure why she was telling him this. "I don't know, I'm not even completely sure what's going on with, well, me and my 'secret', so I don't really feel comfortable discussing it."
"Well, if you ever need help, I'm here," Sean said, kicking his feet up in the air and waggling them about.
"Yeah, I'll remember that," and they sat in silence for a few seconds.
Then Sean said, "So you feeling better about the Ginny/Dean deal? I've noticed that they haven't been hanging around each other very much recently."
That caused Taylor to look back over the past couple days, no, Ginny and Dean hadn't been spending very much time together, now that she thought about it. "I don't know. Ginny's sort of stopped talking about him. I hope everything's ok."
"Well, whatever's going on, I hope it's for the best. Not meaning to sound like a nosy busy-body, but in my opinion, Ginny should break it off with Dean. I mean, the strain it puts on her puts a strain on the two of your' friendship."
Taylor nodded. "I wonder if that's why she stopped talking to me. I didn't mean that to happen, I just wanted her to make a good decision."
"And I'm sure she has." They sat in silence for a couple more moments.
Then Taylor remembered what Ginny had said about leaving him wanting more. "Well, I think I'm off to bed." She said, and Sean struggled around to sit up properly in his chair, one of his knees grazing Taylor's as he did so.
"So soon?" He asked. "Well, it was nice studying with you, I learned so much, we most definitely will have to do it again sometime."
Taylor grinned, "And maybe we will crack open a book next time," she said and stood up. "Well, goodnight," and she started off up the stairs towards the girls' dormitory. She carefully opened the door, trying not to let it creak and so wake up the other girls.
But Ginny was wide awake, lying flat on her back, shooting little baubles of light out of her wand and directing them in random directions. She instantly sat up when Taylor entered the room, the baubles disappearing, and lying her finger against her lips, motioned silently to the bathroom, and Taylor followed her.
"So?" Ginny demanded as soon as they had closed the door and flicked on the light. "What happened? How'd it go?"
"Well, we actually didn't do much studying, I explained a bit of the Transfiguration homework, but that was it. He actually asked me what bands I like, that was a surprise."
Ginny rolled her eyes, "And this surprises you? I told you he didn't want to study; it was just an excuse to spend some time with you. Now tell me everything!" She squealed, doing a little dance on the spot. And so Taylor went off and completely related her evening to Ginny.
"Ooooh, you lucky girl!" Ginny said, almost dancing again. "I can't believe it! You have such an awesome guy chasing after you!"
Taylor groaned, "I wouldn't exactly call it chasing, Ginny dear. More of, like, I dunno…"
"Chasing," Ginny insisted.
"Oh, alright. But enough about me." Taylor said, remembering what she and Sean had talked about in the Common Room. "What about you! You didn't talk to Dean all day today." Ginny's face instantly fell.
"We had another…'incident', and I dumped him." She sighed, and Taylor wrapped her arms around the redhead.
"Oh, hunny, I'm so sorry."
Ginny buried her head in her friend's shoulder. "I think, really, really, I'm glad it's over. It was too much of an emotional strain on me, what with him being King of Assholes one day and then King of Love the next. Even faster than that sometimes. I guess it's better this way."
"Of course it's better this way, hon. He was so bad for you! He didn't treat you right at all. I have to say I'm actually happy for you."
After comforting Ginny for a while, the two girls crept out of the bathroom and tiptoed to their beds.
"Night, Tay," Ginny whispered, snuggling into her blankets.
"Night, Gin," Taylor replied.
But she didn't fall right asleep. Long after the sound of Ginny's deep breathing filled the air, Taylor lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling. Her "secret" was not coming along well. After the weekend of the Hogsmead trip, she had made no advances. She felt like she had come to a dead end everywhere. What was she supposed to do? A single tear welled up in the corner of her eye, squeezed out, and slid down her cheek.
"I'm sorry, Dad," she whispered, rolling over on to her side to gaze out the window at the black night sky twinkling with millions of stars.
A/N: Hope you enjoyed! Once again, it went no where, but it was still fun to write, so oh well. Plus I'm a little stumped now, anyway, so there might be a couple chapters that are there purely for enjoyment! Please review and tell me what you think!