That is BONUS "BEHIND THE SCENES" CHAPTER #2

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He was fucking dating a mentaller!

"You want to do what?" he roared at Wren, and she slid off the bathroom counter they had just shagged on, and she started pulling up her knickers that had been previously dangling around her ankle.

"I will let her do it. If I take any more Antidote, she'll know we are onto her, and we need to know why she's doing it. Well, they are doing it, since clearly her manky brother is in it as well. If I take Hate Potion..."

"No fucking way!" he interrupted, yelling, and Wren gave him the Leary look. He was intimately familiar with it. It meant 'please, reevaluate your previous statement and get back to me after proper consideration.' He fucking hated the Leary look. Because it was always given to him and others when they were fucking wrong and she was bloody right. Which happened annoyingly often.

"Thorin, you and I know something's going on, and it's not just her dosing me, it's something bigger..."

"I'm not letting some psycho bitch poison my girlfriend!" he roared again, and received another Leary look. "OK, I'm not letting some psycho bitch poison anyone," he amended, and Wren stepped closer to him. The slender arms went around his middle, and he tensed. He could never say 'no' to soft and reasonable Leary. And she looked all soft and patient, and he knew some reasonable arguments were coming. He didn't fucking want any reasonable arguments! He wanted this nightmare to never happen again!

"Thorin, there's a Ministry commission coming to school in a few weeks. You yourself overheard your Father discussing the disappearing portraits with the Minister. Clearly, someone trying to emotionally compromise you just before the big moment for your Dad isn't a coincidence. Think about it." She pressed her cheek to his sternum, and he didn't want to - he was no hen-pecked wuss - but his arms went around her, and he sighed. "Think about it. What would have happened if I dumped you?"

Thorin was going to brush it off, and snarl at her, and get back to the topic of her bloody planning to let some sicko drug her, but he suddenly saw that she had some sort of an iffy facial expression. OK, Thorin was a bloke, and there was clearly some feeling related thing going on, and he bloody panicked! What? What was she bloody asking about?

Seriously, they had just had a fucking horror moment, when she treated him like a rapist, and he thought he'd end himself in if she hadn't snapped out of and stopped frightening him, because he fucking loved her and couldn't let her fall part in front of him like that. And how would he have lived after that if she had, you know? And then they shagged three times in a row, on the bathroom counter, then on the floor, and then again on the counter because he just couldn't stop grabbing her, because it was his ginger, his Wren, and he bloody needed it! And then she grabbed his ears and pulled him and literally demanded him to do it again because apparently she needed to 'remind herself how much she fancied his smell,' which he hadn't really understood, but fuck him if he were going to argue with the chick he loved demanding a shag from him!

"Wren, that's a mental topic..." he mumbled. Um, what was he supposed to say? He didn't bloody know what he'd do if she dumped him. And to be honest, he didn't want to imagine it, even for the sake of a hypothetical discussion.

She was suddenly very busy with the zipper on his jeans, and maybe becasue he was still buzzing after the shag, or maybe he was kinda getting better at the whole boyfriend thing, but he sussed out that something had just happened, and he wasn't all in, so to say.

He stepped to her, picked up her under her arms, and placed her back on the counter. She was looking anywhere but in his eyes. Yep, the Kneazle evasive maneuver. No way in fucking hell he was letting this happen. Not after he had just felt there for a mo that she might… you know… leave him… He prohibited himself to even think about it.

"I'd probably... do something stupid," he started, and she looked somewhere at the wall above his shoulder. "I mean, yeah, like stop studying, and have a punch up, or like a dozen..." Saying all that was like pulling out teeth. With Carpe Retractum charm no less. He looked at her more attentively. OK, seriously what was the barney? She was sitting in front of him, her knees on the sides of his body, and the perky tits under the jumper were right in front of his nose. He ordered himself to concentrate. He had a clearly upset girlfriend, and no bloody idea what the aggro even was! Look at the mournfully lowered corners of her lips and how she was fucking trying really hard not to meet his eyes! He needed to fucking pull himself together!

And then it hit him.

"Wren, are you actually thinking here that I wouldn't be upset if you dumped me?" he asked slowly, and here we go, the blush. And a lot of it. Also, twitchy nose and shifty eyes. What an idiot! He cupped her face, and she wiggled, trying to get out.

"Wren, are you bloody mental? Clearly, I'd lose my bottle, and do something stupid, and that's what they were aiming for!" He tilted her face, making her finally look at him.

"How stupid?" The voice was squeaky, and the cheeks were burning, and he leaned in and snogged her so hard that she first whimpered under his lips and then started grabbing him and arching into him, and he properly had to remind himself that they needed to talk first and go for another round later.

"Wren," he gave her a firm look in the eyes. "I'd probably blow up the school. Would be totally bladdered, and blow up something in a Potions class, and then would beat up every fucking prick in this school, and cock up every Quidditch game. So, no more of this tude, OK?" Yeah, that was apparently the right answer. She properly tried to hide it, but a shaky but chuffed smile escaped, and he pretended to puff out air in irritation. "And stop looking so smug. Like you didn't know I cared..."

"I do… but…" she started in an equally chuffed voice, but then she shut up. Literally, she clasped a hand over her mouth. Interesting…

"Wren, what are you not telling me?" The two widened eyes were staring at him above the hand. He pondered between yelling at her and coaxing her into talking, but then again, he almost had just lost her there, and it was his little ginger after all, so he sighed and dropped his head. "Wren, can you please talk to me properly?" he simply asked, and she blinked, and slowly lowered the hand.

"Someone left your photo on my bed. With your ex… You were in the photo with your ex. But I can't show it to you, because Thea burnt it so that I stopped staring at it."

The second clasp of the hand over the mouth followed.

Silence rang in the bathroom, Thorin was processing, his ginger was again staring at him in terror, clearly scolding herself for blabbering.

"Wren, you knew I had a girlfriend..." Oh fuck, he had always hated this conversation.

"Yes!" She raised her voice. "And I told you hundreds of times I don't give a fuck about your past, but they put it there, and the two of you looked all loved up, and... but I don't give a fuck! It's only important because someone made an effort!" She was glaring at him, and shouting at him, and he just didn't know what to say and how to say it so that she stopped thinking about Alex, or any other birds he shagged! They didn't matter, they fucking meant nothing, and he didn't want her to think about them!

"Wren, I… We dated for six months, and..." he started, and this time she clasped the hand over his mouth.

"I. Don't. Fucking. Care." Wow, these were really fucking badarse burning eyes. She was almost smoking from the intensity. "I don't care whom you slept with and whom you dated. I know enough, and I don't care. You had a girlfriend, it didn't work out. Her loss, my gain." Leary rubbed her forehead with another hand. "I don't fucking know how to explain to you how little I care. All I need to know right now is who would go to all this trouble to fuck up our relationships. To find your photo with your girlfriend, in the exactly same position we are photographed in my locket, which means they had had a look and then..."

He jerked his head, shaking off her hand.

"What?! No one saw the photo! Literally, you, me, and Martin. She took the photo, and then I took it from her, and since then no one saw it, and it's been around your neck..."

Wren nodded, her eyes unfocused, her giant brain working, and he fucking hated to do it to her, but…

Martin again. Somehow this whole aggro led to Martin again, and he fucking hated it, but he clenched his jaws, and cleared his throat, but he did need to say it. Oh fuckety fucking fuck.

"Listen, Wren, I don't know how to tell you this… It happened, and I decided to forget about it, because seriously… But then I knew I needed to tell you but you started avoiding me..." He realised he was mumbling, and she had already focused on him, and it was time to pull his shit together and talk to his girlfriend. "Martin... she tried to chat me up couple days ago."

OK, he wasn't lying here, he really didn't know how to tell her this. He'd been at sixes and sevens ever since. On the everyday basis, with any other bird he'd just politely inform them he had a girlfriend and so long and thanks for all the fish, but… Thea Martin… She was Leary's best mate, and he felt he had to say something, but on the other hand… Oh fuck. Fuck him, and fuck Thea sodding Martin!

Wren sat immobile, and then he sort of just realised what he just said. Oh fuck. He hadn't just told her someone'd hit on him, he just told her that her best friend was a double faced bitch while he had been apparently hiding the fact she tried to get into his pants. Oh. Fuck.

"When did it happen?" Leary's voice was even and emotionless, and that sounded properly scary.

"Um... Couple days ago. Thursday maybe… She just found me after a practice, and said we needed to talk…." Oh, seriously, to Deprimo his cock would be less painful than watching Wren at the moment. The face like a stone mack, lips white, cheeks pale… Oh fuck.

"Wren, seriously, maybe I misunderstood..." Was he mumbling and backing off? Yeah, he was, like the last fucking coward, but he just remembered how Leary once told him that Thea Martin was her first and only friend. Oh fuck…

"Or maybe she didn't come to proposition you..." Wren slowly spoke, and turned and met his eyes.

OK. She was clearly taking it better than he expected.

"Pardon?" he searched her face.

"Thea would never do it. Unless she was under Imperius. But that's an Unforgivable curse, and I doubt Clarisse or whoever else is doing it are that far gone in the lunatic department." Thorin frowned not understanding. "While Polyjuice is easy to conjure."

Oh that was brilliant! She was fucking brilliant!

"So, tell me, Thorin, was it definitely Thea Martin who offered you to cheat on your girlfriend?" Thorin gave it a thought, and all he had was a shrug. Leary nodded. "Indeed. Meanwhile we know that I'm being dosed with the potion that takes a lot of craft and a fucking load of knowledge in Potions. So why not make a nice cauldron of Polyjuice while they are at it?"

Thorin put two and two together and had to agree, that yeah, that was the most logical assumption. To be honest, he didn't pay much attention to Martin through that ridiculous awkward conversation. He was busy fretting about whether he was supposed to talk to Wren and how he was supposed to tell her.

"So, what are we thinking?" he asked, and Wren wrapped her arms around his waist.

"We are thinking we are going to let them continue..." He was going to argue, but she pressed her titchy adorable finger over his lips. "Just listen to me, yeah? I'm worried they might try to up the stakes if whatever they are doing now doesn't work. We need to make sure they don't go further than that. So I'll let her dose me, and I'll take Hate Potion meanwhile, so that I don't actually change camps, so to say..."

"Wren, with Hate Potion you'll have two sets of emotions, you'll love and hate her at the same time, so you'll have to think really hard and question yourself every step of the way." He fucking hated this plan! "Plus, you will have all the side effects, nausea, stomach pain, vomiting, headaches…"

"I can manage," she dismissed his argument, and he properly didn't fancy it. He wasn't going to put her through it! She clearly knew that he was going to argue.

"Thorin, we have no proof! We don't' know anything! We have nothing to go to your Father with. We need to investigate."

He sighed, and she nuzzled him. He was bloody losing, and knew it.

"So, what do I do then?"

"If Thea," Wren gestured quotation marks in the air, "comes up to you again, I say you agree to her generous proposal."

"What?" His jaw slacked, and he gaped at her.

"Well, it will clearly be in a place I will walk on the two of you, or they'll take a photo or something. And by the way I doubt they'll go further than just a snog. Clarissa is gay after all. So, you will just get to grope Thea like you've dreamt of for the last seven years."

Thorin stared at her in shock. Seriously, who said things like that to their boyfriend?

She suddenly laughed and pressed her forehead to him.

"I've done it, you might as well."

"What?!" Word of the day, isn't it, Durinson? he asked himself venomously.

"Well, she snogged me under Amortentia, you get a go too. She's good," Leary sing-songed and lifted laughing eyes at him. Sometimes he fucking didn't understand her!

"I don't what a go," he spattered out, and she laughed louder. "Wren, are you off your trolley?!" Since she wasn't answering, he decided they needed to shag. If not for her sake, then for his. He really needed to get his mind off all this shite.


They lay intertwined on their round mattress, and she buried her nose into his chest and sighed.

"Leary, I hate this..." He really didn't know how else to let her know that he just wanted it all to end, and go back to normal.

"I know. But we need to do this." Her tone was sad, but firm, and she rose on one elbow and looked at him melancholically. Little fingers ran his face, along the nose, on the cheek, and then she rubbed his bottom lip with her thumb. "And I'm sorry. It'll be brutal… We probably won't be able to shag… And..."

"Wren, I don't give a fuck about not shaggin, I'm worried about you!" Was she daft or something?! "It's a stress for a body, and Merlin knows, how long it'll last..."

"I can do it," she stubbornly answered, and he made an angry noise.

"I know you can. It's just… Promise me, we'll stop if it gets too hard. And..." He wasn't going to talk about it, but fuck it. He was bricking it. He was properly terrified. "We need to make sure you don't do something you wouldn't in normal circumstances… Like shag her or something..."

Or dump him. Fuck it, let's face, that's what was nagging at him. She'd break up with him, and he wouldn't know what's going on with her, and they needed to be in it together! That was their fight, they were a bloody team, for fuck sake!

"Thorin, I sussed it out and came to talk to you, because as long as I have one brain cell left I won't forget that..." she stumbled over the words, but then looked him straight in the eyes, and pronounced in an unwavering voice, "That I love you."

He wanted to argue, but then closed his mouth and just kissed her.

After a few minutes she moved away from him. "She properly messed up my noggin, but I still remembered that I wasn't supposed to feel all that towards you, and it didn't make sense, yeah? I can do it." He nodded again. What else did he have to do? "And if I lose it, you have my permission to pour the Antidote into my throat."

"Don't joke like that, Wren," he grumbled, and she rubbed her nose to the tip of his.

"Thorin, we will still talk. We will meet up, discuss everything, make sure we are on the same page. We are in this together. Still, there might be some problem with shagging of course..."

"I don't care…" He suddenly felt tired, and sad, and pulled her closer, and hid his nose in her fragrant curls. She smelled so nice, so Leary, the lilacs, and the treacle, and he sighed.

And then he had a thought, and he pulled his Slytherin ring off his finger, and rolled her underneath him and held it in front of her face between his index finger and his thumb.

"Take it, Leary. As a reminder." She looked at the ring, eyebrows hiked up and eyes giant.

"Thorin, I can't. It has all those protective spells, and you use it to avoid Alarm spells, and..."

"I have other heirlooms, and it's not about magic, Leary," he grumbled at her, and she met his eyes. "It's the touchy feely thing, the token of my love and all that shite..." Oh fuck, he was now feeling embarrassed. Why did he think that this soppy gesture would be appreciated?

She sniffled, eyes suddenly filled with tears, and he felt even worse. Great, now he upset her.

She grabbed the ring and hugged his neck and pulled him down and kissed him so hard that her teeth scraped at his.

"I love you… I love you so much, and thank you..." She was whispering between kisses, and he just needed some more of that to block out all the manky nagging feelings, and he kissed her back, and she just kept on chanting how much she loved him… and maybe he believed her, and maybe they could do it.

And then he was going to make Clarisse Smaug and everyone else she worked with combust like a Howler, and he was taking his ginger on hols, and they would shag for two weeks straight, and go to Egypt or something, and fuck it all!


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