Chapter 26

Complication #26: The people you choose to spend your time with have a profound influence on your character.

Life falls back into a steady routine when I get back to Hogwarts. The professors are ramping up assignments since we have NEWTs in a few short months, and I end up spending most of my free time holed up in the library.

James is usually there as well, but I find that he's not as much of a distraction when we're separated by the expanse of wooden table and textbooks as he is when he's right next to me. When there's books and parchment between us, it's easier to remind myself that going any farther than friendship is a bad idea.

On Thursday night, I realize I'm about to fall asleep on the Charms essay I'm working on. James is still fervently writing a Herbology essay, so I leave him to it and walk up to the Ravenclaw Tower alone.

When I get up to the dormitory, it's completely empty. This kind of surprises me, because it's almost curfew. I figure Dom's staying with Alec tonight, but that doesn't explain the other three.

I change into pyjamas and am just about to go to bed when the door opens and Caroline walks in. She looks around the room for a moment, and then her eyes settle on me. She realizes, like I have, that we're the only people in the dormitory.

"Can we… talk?" she asks hesitantly, not moving from the doorway.

I can't deny that her behavior recently has been a subject of my curiosity, which is part of the reason I find myself agreeing to hear her out.

She makes her way over to my bed, and sits on the end of it. She looks like she feels out of place, which is so strange when you consider that she spent every Sunday night of our first six years sitting on it, gossiping.

She stares intensely at her hands, chipping away slightly at the navy blue varnish on her nails. Chipping off nail varnish has always been one of her nervous habits.

"I just – ," she starts, "I owe you an apology. I shouldn't have avoided you like Scarlett and Brooke did after Blaise broke up with you like that. I was just so hurt, you know, because you'd lied to us even though we've always told each other everything. I thought that's why Scarlett and Brooke were mad at you too, and I guess to an extent they were mad about it, but I didn't know anything else."

She takes a deep breath, and finally looks up at me. "I had no idea Scarlett had done what she did. If I'd known, I never would've done what I did. Hell, even if I didn't know, I wouldn't abandon you again like that. We just up and left you in a time when you really could've used some friends, and I hate myself for doing that to you. I've spent the past seven years despising a man who walked out on my mother when we needed him, and I let myself do the same thing to you."

I'm struck speechless by this.

"Anyways," she continues, "I know I've been a really horrible friend to you, so I don't really expect you to forgive me anytime soon, but I'm really sorry for the way I treated you. If you can ever put this past us, I'd really love to be friends again."

If ever there were a time to get vengeance for what happened last term, this is it. Caroline has just poured her heart out, and it would be all too easy for me to reject her and leave her with no one. Just like she'd done to me a few months before.

But I look at Caroline's guilty expression, and instantly experience a flashback to a moment on this same bed just a few months before. A moment in which the girl I now consider to be my best friend found it in her heart to forgive me for six years of mistreatment, even though I'd done nothing to deserve her sympathy.

And apparently Dom's forgiving nature has been a good influence on me, because I find that I'm not actually all that angry at Caroline, and I don't feel a burning desire to get revenge. If anything, I miss having her around.

So I find myself meeting her eyes and softly responding, "I'd really like to be friends again too."

That clearly wasn't the response she was expecting, because an expression of shock takes over her features. "Are you sure?" she asks quietly.

"I'm rather positive," I reply, a bit more sure-sounding this time. "You should come sit with me at breakfast tomorrow, if you'd prefer that to sitting on your own."

"I – I'd really like that. Thanks, Abigail."

"Sounds like a plan." I give her a soft smile. "And please, call me Abby."

True to my word, I bring Caroline with me to the Gryffindor table the next morning.

Whatever conversation was currently happening turns to silence as my friends notice the dark-haired girl walking next to me.

"Everyone, you know Caroline," I say, in order to break the awkward silence. "Caroline, this is Alec, Dom, James, Fred, Simon, Louis, Molly, and Amelie." I point out each person as I say their name, although I'm pretty sure Caroline knows who most of them are anyways.

"And what exactly made you jump ship from your other two friends who ditched Abby here a few months ago?" Fred narrows his eyes slightly at Caroline.

I feel an odd rush of happiness at seeing him behave so protectively towards me, because he was the one who took the longest to warm up to me when I joined their group just a few short months ago. And now, I'm really one of them.

"Well, I found out one of them was a hypocrite and the other didn't care about anything other than her own popularity," Caroline replies, rolling her eyes slightly. "So I got rid of the wand stuck up my arse and decided I'd apologize to the one girl who'd been the best friend to me out of all of them."

Fred studies her for a moment, then his face breaks out into a wide grin. He taps the space next to him on the bench. "Sit."

And just like that, our group has a new member.

I'm surprised at how easily Caroline fits in with these friends, although really, I shouldn't be surprised at all. Her sarcasm and wittiness blend perfectly with our typical pace of conversation, and she's perfectly willing to discuss things beyond Hogwarts gossip.

I don't miss the withering glare sent my way by Brooke and Scarlett when they notice Caroline's presence.

"So, James," Dom starts, "have you started any birthday party planning yet? You've only got two weeks."

James' birthday parties have always been sort of legendary. He and Fred both have birthdays within a month of each other, and the result of that is a massive bash that's treated with the same sort of reverence as the back-to-school and Halloween parties.

"Of course I have," he grins. "Nothing too grand – "

"You say that every year and it ends up being fucking massive," Simon interrupts.

"It's our last birthday at Hogwarts, James," Fred replies. "We've gotta go out with a bang."

"Every birthday party you've had since fifth year has gone out with a literal bang for you, Freddy," Alec responds.

Freddy glares at him, but the smirk on his face betrays the fact that he's not actually mad. "Not what I meant."

I stop paying attention to the conversation, because I start thinking about getting James a birthday present. He went above and beyond on his Christmas present for me, so I feel obliged to do the same for this.

How does one outdo a Firebolt? Especially for a bloke who's got everything?

But suddenly, I have the perfect idea. I make a mental note to owl Diana later today, because I'll need her help in pulling it off.

"Abby?" Molly's voice brings me back into the present. "Any particular reason you're smiling like an idiot to yourself?"

I look across the table at her. "No reason at all," I reply.

"Well in that case you can smile like an idiot on the way to Potions," she shoots back, an amused tone to her voice. "We'll be late otherwise."

So I grab my bag and follow her out of the Great Hall.

"I'm surprised, you know," James says, as we make our way down to the Quidditch pitch. "I wouldn't have thought you'd forgive Caroline for what she did to you."

I shrug, pulling my cloak tighter around me. "The old Abigail wouldn't have forgiven her. But, I don't know, a lot has changed since then."

"You can say that again," James mutters as side commentary.

I choose to ignore him and continue my response. "I've learned that there's not a lot of value in holding grudges against people when what they did to you didn't come from bad intentions. Caroline was upset that I'd lied to her – and she doesn't get over things like that easily. But she didn't know about Scarlett. And she was horrified when she found out what Scarlett did. And she apologized to me, so I accepted it."

"Well Fred seemed to warm up to her pretty quickly, and that doesn't happen very often," James replies. "So I guess she's pretty sincere about it – Fred's got a good sense of that kind of stuff."

I only nod in response, readjusting my grip on my Firebolt.

"Do you think you'll ever talk to Scarlett?" he asks. He's apparently in a particularly chatty mood tonight.

I have to think about that one for a moment. "I don't have anything to say to her."

James looks at me, a little surprised. "Really? Nothing at all?"

"I mean, sure, there are things I wish I knew. Like why she did it, and why she was so willing to throw away years of friendship over it. But I don't think you should ask questions when you don't really want to hear the answers."

I don't want to have to hear that Scarlett and Brooke both chose their popularity and status over me.

Although now, they've really got neither.

As we walk onto the pitch, I shake out my ponytail to get out of the somber mood this conversation has gotten me in. "Alright James, less talking, more flying."

I straddle the broom and shoot up into the sky, and it takes only half a second for James to follow. Now that I've got a much nicer broom than the school ones and a few months of experience under my belt, I'm much faster. I can almost keep up with James, which is rather impressive given that the bloke's easily the best Keeper at Hogwarts.

Granted, if you threw a Quaffle my way, I definitely wouldn't be able to handle that aspect.

We loop around the pitch a few times, and I think I might scream at James when he recklessly decides to try standing on his broom. And he just smirks at me when he sits back down, clearly entertained by my distress. I fly up next to him and swat him for it.

A loud crack of thunder interrupts our flying session.

"I think that's our cue to go inside!" I yell at James, who's about halfway across the pitch.

He rockets towards me. "Scared of a little storm?" he smirks.

"Well, we're flying objects in the middle of a thunderstorm, which is literally just asking to be struck by lightning," I reply in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Alright then, let's go in. One last dive though?"

He doesn't wait for me to respond, and instead starts shooting towards the ground. I follow suit, hurtling towards the green grass until I'm quite positive I can't go any further, at which point I pull back upwards quickly, before landing.

I'm still rocky at best with the landing part of flying, so I stumble a bit when my feet hit the ground, and when I finally come to a stop, I'm about six inches from James' chest.

"Easy there, Abby," he laughs, and I look up at his amused expression.

He reaches his hand up to push a piece of hair from my face that has fallen out of my ponytail, and his hand lingers there for a moment.

I swear it's as if time stops in that instant, and all that's left is the two of us, locking eyes in the last remaining minutes of dusk.

All of a sudden, James' face is coming closer to my own, and I feel my eyes start to flutter closed of their own accord, even though I know that this is a bad idea.

And then the sky opens up.

It's just enough to completely ruin the moment, and I let out a shriek of surprise at the fact that we're both suddenly getting pelted with raindrops.

James grabs my hand, and we both start running back to the castle at full speed. Even going as fast as we possibly can, the rain is coming down hard enough that we're both soaked to the core with ice-cold rain.

The rain has also made quick work of soaking the grounds as well, which means that there's mud splattering around us as we run as well.

The combination of these things mean that James and I look a complete mess by the time that we finally make it into the Entrance Hall. James' hair is plastered to his face – probably the first time I've ever seen it actually lay flat – and there's mud splatters all the way up our robes.

James has his hands on his knees, breathing hard. I have one hand on his shoulder, holding on to him as I attempt to catch my breath as well. We're both dripping muddy water onto the stone floor beneath us.

After a few minutes of staying like that, James stands up to his full height, my hand sliding off of his shoulder as he does so.

"Well, that was fun," he finally says, looking at me and letting out a short laugh.

And I don't know what makes me do it – some mixture of endorphins and adrenaline and hormones, most likely – but I find myself closing the gap between the two of us and going up on my tip-toes to put my lips on his.

He reciprocates immediately, his hands finding my waist and pulling me in as a soft brush of lips transforms into something more.

Sneak peek of chapter 27…

"You're avoiding me."

Instead of sliding into the seat across from me, James sits next to me.

I bristle at the close contact, but try to act nonchalant. "I'm not avoiding you. We've eaten together multiple times this week."

"Let me rephrase: you're avoiding being alone with me."

I can't argue with that one.