The Flip Side - Chapter Twenty-One - Slytherin Implodes
Abby had chewed all of her fingernails down to a sorry state by the time dinner rolled around; she had spent the afternoon mulling over what Wood had told her and going back and forth between being furious with him for having the audacity to try and guilt-trip her into doing something and being furious with him for being right about it.
"What are you going to do?" Violet whispered to her as they sat down.
"I don't know yet," Abby whispered back, motioning for her to change the subject.
"About what?" Sam asked as she sat down next to Violet. "Flint's pathetic little poem to Hocks?"
"Pathetic is one word for it," Abby snorted, relieved that she hadn't had to come up with something on her own.
"Vomit-inducing is another," Aretha sniffed in Flint's direction. "I say, let him make a fool of himself."
"You're well rid," Lara added, scooping a helping of vegetables onto her plate.
"And we don't have to pretend to like him anymore," Sam smirked.
"Oh, well, I'm glad everything has worked out so conveniently for everyone," Abby rolled her eyes and stole a quick glance at Pucey while she reached for a pitcher of water. He was watching her out of the corner of his eye and both quickly looked away.
Out of habit, then, her gaze drifted to Flint, and it shocked her to see how apparently cool he was, rather than the scowling, fist-clenching, moody sod he usually was when he was sulking. How can he be so calm? she wondered incredulously. I am barely holding it together! It is driving me mad to have these 'normal' conversations and force laughter at all the stupid jokes people tell and it looks like he doesn't even care. Her stomach sank in a wave of sadness; did their time together mean so little to him? Was it possible that he felt nothing while her heart had been ripped apart?
"Are you wanting some of this chicken, Lara?" Violet offered the other girl.
"No, no, I'm all right with this," Lara said as she nibbled on a piece of carrot.
"Oh, you've not gone veggie again, have you?" Sam groaned.
"I want to lose a quarter stone," Lara shrugged nonchalantly, as if it were obvious.
"Please," Aretha rolled her eyes as the appropriate response, "you look amazing."
"Your loss, my gain," Sam laughed as Lara gushed at Aretha. "Abby, can you pass that bit to me?"
There was a beat of silence and the four girls exchanged a worried look when Abby did not answer or even seem to hear the question. "Abigail?" Violet asked softly. "Are you all right?"
"Was it really that bad?" she replied quietly. "Being with me? Was I so terrible a girlfriend that he's happy to be rid of me?"
Each of the four other girls took a moment to compose themselves; the words necessary in this situation were delicate and required care. It was difficult to find such words when their first collective instinct was to bash their plates across the back of Flint's head.
"Abby, listen to me," Aretha began slowly as the first to find her voice. "This has nothing to do with you. This is all about him and his massive ego."
"You didn't see any of us crumbling under this imaginary pressure of following your Healers' orders, did you?" Sam pointed out.
"It was always Marcus pushing to tell you after Durmstrang was brought up," Violet hissed and shot a look down the table, and Abby suddenly remembered the dragon broach that he had given her for her birthday. Does it remind you of anything? She felt her stomach turn. "Do you know - I could swing for him."
"Me, Sam, Violet, Aretha, Terry, Adrian, Bletch - we all knew the truth and what to do to protect you from a relapse," Lara ticked off the names on her fingers. "And yet, the only one who got annoyed and made it about himself was your lousy excuse of a boyfriend."
"I'm gonna kill him," Sam stated bluntly.
"You'd get a standing ovation," Violet sniffed.
"Your friends care about you and your health, Abby," Aretha concluded. "He couldn't even be bothered to be your friend, let alone your boyfriend, meaning he's meant to be the one who cares most about you."
"Too busy wondering when all the attention will be back on him," Violet agreed. "Remember how he went mad, like, a month ago when you forgot about helping him study and told him the world doesn't revolve around him?"
"You are an amazing friend, you are," Sam grabbed Abby's hand across Violet's dinner, making sure she looked her in the eyes. "And you know it. What you deserve is somebody who can give that back to you."
"Aw, this is cute," Flint snorted from down the table. "Trying your luck, Sam?"
"Piss off, Marcus, you creep!" Sam snapped back as her cheeks flushed. "Nobody gives a damn about your opinion!"
"Funny, that," Flint sneered. "Because I've heard my name so many times from over there, I thought I was out on the pitch listening to all my fans chant it at me."
"Come on then, give her a snog," Derrick said obnoxiously. A couple people laughed but most, to their credit, looked uncomfortable.
"Give it a rest, Marcus," Pucey rolled his eyes.
"See?" Lara waved her hand in a shooing motion. "He always needs to be centre of attention."
"You have something you want to say to me, mate?" Flint growled at Pucey, who put down his bite of potato and glared back at his Captain.
"You know what? Maybe I do," he replied evenly, not backing down, as Flint's face turned vile. Abby and the rest of the girls looked up at him in shock.
"Mr Pucey," Snape's voice penetrated the mounting tension in the Great Hall. "Come here, please." Their stalemate would have to be put on hold. Abby watched Pucey push himself to his feet, shove his hands into his pockets and walk coolly to the Head table.
"That was unexpected," Sam raised her eyebrows.
The half of the student population that was not still sensibly eating and minding their own business was furiously whispering and trying to piece together the minor disturbance at the Slytherin table, while the other half noticed a familiar cherubic form enter the Hall ("No, please, surely they've all finished by now!"). Flint spied the Dwarf and a cruel smile crept across his lips.
"Hey, Abby," he called her attention back to him. "Don't worry. I didn't forget about you. Happy Valentine's Day."
"What?" she stared at him in confusion as her stomach knotted with apprehension.
"Abby Malfoy?" the Dwarf began, ensuring he had the right person. The blonde girl turned around in her seat, her face reflecting bewilderment as she nodded dumbly. "Right, last one today, though I admit it's a bit of an odd 'un. Ahem," he cleared his throat.
"What's it like to be undateable?
To be a joke and so totally hate-able?
Nobody will touch you, it's too big a risk.
Blokes don't want Dragon Pox or a kiss from my fist."
Flint was leering at her. She could hear a handful of students laughing awkwardly ("Not her week, is it?"). She could feel everyone either looking at her or trying not to look at her. Her cheeks were burning and it felt like cotton was stuffed into her ears. Her eyes began to sting and she tried to muster the strength to pull herself together and stare him down, but it was no use. She was having difficulty even breathing, let alone mounting a defense, and she did the one thing she could see left as an option: she stood on wobbly legs and ran from the Hall.
"Oh, right, Flint, well done!" Pucey bellowed at him on his way back from the Head table as all the teachers rose to calm the now chattering student body. "Yeah, you win! Well done!"
"What the Hell, Flint?" Higgs stared at him, dumbfounded, with Bletchley sat beside him with his head in his hands.
"How dare you insult our family," even Draco chirped him. "Our Father-"
"Oh, get lost, Malfoy, you little mummy's boy," Flint snarled at his Seeker.
"Yes, oh, you're so tough attacking a second year," Violet hissed while the other girls backed her. "Our fearless Captain, everyone."
"You know, you've pulled some stupid stunts with that stupid temper of yours, but this?" Pucey reached the space at the table across from Flint and slammed his hands down, making the dishes rattle. "This really takes the cake!"
"And what are you gonna do about it, Ade?" Flint's voice began to deepen and he stood to match Pucey's eyes.
Professors Snape and McGonagall were barking orders for the boys to sit down while the rest of the staff continued to urge quiet on the rest of the students ("This is a fight I never knew I needed to see!"). Professor Dumbledore rose quietly from his seat and gazed at the two quarreling Slytherins. Pucey felt a tingle between his shoulder blades, turned his head and exchanged a strange look with the Headmaster. When he turned back, it was with a look of confidence and resolve.
"I'm going to do what I should have done in the first place and go see if Abby's okay," he replied evenly, though it was through clenched teeth. "We're done here."
"You walk away from me and you're off the team," Flint spat and Pucey rounded back and pointed his finger at him.
"Ha!" he shouted, startling those around him. There was venom in his tone. "That's the beautiful irony, isn't it? Because I'm already off the team! Isn't that right, Professor?" Pucey turned dramatically to where Snape stood frowning at him. "Yeah! Handed my suspension just right now!" he said in response to the glimmer of shock that appeared on Flint's face. "It's your lucky day, mate."
Several students found that they could not help themselves in that particular moment and whooped their approval of Pucey's fate (although, in fairness, there were several girls that were unable to hide their disappointment).
"Yeah, go on, yeah," Pucey acknowledged his peers with sarcastic encouragement. "I wouldn't fancy having to face me on the pitch either, you load of prats." He turned one last disgusted look back at Flint. "I'm out of here."
The teachers seemed to collectively decide to let him go, recognizing that no calm would return to the Hall if Pucey and Flint remained in the same room. Professors Flitwick and Sprout were issuing orders that everyone return to their food while McGonagall was giving Lockhart an earful about his wretched singing Valentines idea. Snape icily summoned Flint to him at the Head table and told him in no uncertain terms that he was to see him in his office immediately following the meal.
Wood, Fred and George sat agape and staring, still processing the magnitude of the information they had just learned.
"Boys," Wood began slowly. "You may be off the hook."
The twins nodded but could not seem to decide how to feel about it.
Abby had left no hint as to which direction she had gone and Pucey had no idea where to begin his search, so he opted to just start walking and see where his feet would take him. His thoughts were that jumbled between his boiling anger with Flint and his crushing disappointment at having Quidditch taken away from him that he would have had a time of it concentrating even if he had tried; instinct and luck would have to serve for now.
He shoved his hands into his pockets, half-muttering and half-laughing to himself, only to pull him back out and crack his knuckles anxiously. His skin felt like it was crawling off his arms and he ran his fingers through his dark hair just to give them something to do.
"This, ha - this can't be happening, right? This is all some mad dream or, well, more like a nightmare. It's - or maybe it'll be something mixed with the last batch. Yeahhhh, that's it, that is. The Puffs are trying to poison me before we play them. Because that, that actually makes more sense than all this that's happened the past few days! A few days! That's all it took for that IDIOT to cock everything up!" When he yelled, Pucey reared back and punched the castle wall with all his furious might, and immediately felt the familiar, sickening crunching of bones breaking. He sucked in an enormous lungful of air and released it attached to a very long loud repeated string of a very bad swear word.
He leaned back against the wall, clutching the wrist of the broken hand with it's fingers now locked in a maniacal-looking claw. He rocked back and forth, attempting to will the pain to subside. Smooth move, idiot, he scolded himself. Way to accomplish nothing. If you were going to punch something, you could have at least made it Flint's face.
The act would have been wildly regarded as suicidal but the thought made him chuckle anyway, and after a moment, he was able to tolerate the throbbing in his hand. He thanked his years of Quidditch for giving him a high pain threshold as he squeezed his eyes back open and discovered he was standing opposite the library.
And the door was slightly ajar.
"Well," he mused, "that's a bit creepy, innit?" He wrinkled his nose at his apparent subconscious being that of a bloodhound and pulled the library door open enough to slip inside. The torches were burning low and Pucey waited until his eyes adjusted to the dim light before continuing forward.
"Abby? Abby?" he whisper-yelled down the rows. "It's me. Look, I know you're in here, so could you please just save us both time and tell me where because you know you're going to eventually anyway?" He paused to listen and after a moment heard a soft knocking from up and to the left. He shifted his direction and passed several stacks until he came to a study section.
Abby sat perched against the edge of one of the old tables. Her arms her wrapped tightly around her middle and when she looked up, he saw she had mascara streaks down her cheeks. He reached up and scratched his forehead, then turned it into a sort of little wave as he shot her a sarcastic smile.
"Hey you. All right?"
She snorted the tiniest of laughs and he walked toward her and pulled her into a hug, taking care to keep his hand away. She latched on to him and buried her head into his chest, and though she seemed to have run out of tears, she was trembling in both anger and pain. For several minutes, he just held her and rubbed her back, waiting until she was ready to talk.
"Why?" she finally mumbled into his shirt.
"Because he's an arsehole, Abby," he replied without hesitation. "There's no other way to say it. Unless you want to entertain my theory that I am unimaginably high right now and hallucinating this entire weekend?" This time, she actually did manage a laugh. "Yeah, see, I figured that, too."
"Aren't you worried you'll catch Dragon Pox sat here with me?" she said with a pout in her voice.
He snorted in response. "I'm no expert, Abby, but my bet is that I would have caught it by now, don't you think?"
"I suppose," she admitted and unwrapped herself from their embrace. Pucey winced as she bumped him and her eyes widened as he again clenched at his wrist.
"Adrian! Your hand!" she exclaimed. "What on earth happened? Is it broken? Did you and Marcus-"
"No! No, well, I wish - but yeah, hey, thanks for the vote of confidence that this is all I would walk away with if we had," he cut her off before she could get carried away with her imagination. "I, er, well I lost a fight with that wall out there, didn't I? Not my proudest moment," he said sheepishly.
"Well, you've got to go see Madam Pomfrey," Abby started to take his arm.
"Yes, okay, I will, but later, all right?" he bargained with her, though her attempt to move him had not even made him budge. "She's at dinner. I'll see her after. But I just want to chill here for a minute."
"Yeah, all right," she conceded and they leaned side-by-side back against the table. She sniffled and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief, trying to wipe her mascara tears. He looked around and realized exactly where in the library they were standing.
"Bit morbid, aren't you?" he wrinkled his nose. "Choosing here to hide out?"
"This is the last place I was when anything made any bloody sense," Abby replied, furrowing her eyebrows in annoyance. He nodded understandingly. "So," she produced a tiny mirror from her pocket to check her eyes, made one last touch-up, and then put it back away. "What happened down there?"
"Oh, it all kicked off, as expected," he replied as casually as though he were discussing the evening weather report. "Gossip for weeks to come, I'm sure. Your brother even had a bit of a go at Flint, in his way."
"Did he?" she was genuinely surprised. "Will wonders never cease?"
"Yeah, no doubt," he agreed. "And Snape was giving him a right earful and all," he scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Probably has detention for the next month. Oh, and I'm off the Quidditch team."
She froze, then rounded on him. "What?"
"Yeah, suspended - not for tonight," he clarified in response to her facial reaction. "For the Ravenclaw match. Yeah. He did try to kick me off but I guess the teachers beat him to it."
"Of course he did," she spat, and then stared at him. "But how are you so calm about this?"
"Well, I wasn't, and now my hand's broken," he rolled his eyes.
"Right," she stuck out a sympathetic lower lip and leaned back again. They stood in silence for a moment, both over-thinking everything with emotional, mixed up minds. "I'm sorry you can't play Quidditch," she said softly.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you," he replied with a frown.
"You're always there for me, give over," it was her turn to roll her eyes. "You're even doing it again - you know? Making me laugh while you need medical attention?"
He laughed once. "Yeahhh, well, last few days I haven't been, have I? Truth is: I had no idea what to do or what to say to you. Either of you."
"Duh, join the club," Abby scoffed, attempting to alleviate his guilt. "I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. I mean, I turned a Butterbeer on Oliver Wood's head yesterday."
"Oh, I know, I saw, that was ace."
"You were there?"
"We were hiding from you in the back."
"Adrian!"
"Well, you're terrifying sometimes!" he replied quickly, but she had no real animosity in her face, and even joined him in a laugh at the absurdity of it all. "Anyway," he began again and put his arm around her. She nuzzled her head into his shoulder. "I reckon the next time somebody asks me to set him up with you, I'll tell him to do one, yeah?"
"If you don't mind?" she smiled. A moment passed, and she felt a funny tingle in her stomach and on the back of her neck. With her ear pressed against him, she could swear that his heartbeat had quickened. "Why did you do that, anyway?"
He took a second to respond and licked his lips, and now she was certain that his heart was beating faster than it had been. "Well, I guess because he said he fancied you, and he was my best mate, and he knew we were mates," he replied carefully. A beat. "And," for reasons unbeknownst to him, his mouth decided to throw caution to the wind, "because I didn't have the confidence then to ask you out myself in case you had said no."
They went silent, letting what he had just said sink in, both hyper-aware of each other's stillness. Pucey, who had never expressed this sentiment aloud to anyone and had made a point of playing cool around people, now felt more exposed than he had ever been in his life. Abby, who was playing back recent memories and realizing just how often he really was there for her - from comforting her in the Hospital Wing to simply laughing and joking with her, to now - all were times where she felt safe and happy.
It was like a filter had been lifted off her eyes. How did I never see this before?
Pucey shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat. "Ah. Yeah, I'm sorry-"
"What if I hadn't said no?"
He stopped talking and licked his lips again, wondering if he had misheard her. His heart was pounding as he turned his head to look at her and met her blue eyes staring honestly at him, searching his eyes for an answer. He ran his fingers through his hair again as his brain made one last feeble effort to talk him out of what he was about to do.
"Fuck it," he shook his head and leaned in to kiss her. She jumped at how quickly he came at her, but then reached up to cup his face and kissed him back.
What are you doing? What are you doing? his brain yelled at him to no avail, for he had chosen to ignore it completely and continued to kiss her until they both pulled back, and rested, panting, against each other's foreheads. Their minds were racing with a million thoughts all at once, but only one mattered to him now.
"I have wanted to do that for so long," he admitted with a laugh.
She looked up at him. "Then why did you stop?"
He took the hint, and went back in for more. And as their snogging began to get more heavy (during which he had winced several times but had pointedly decided to ignore his injury as well), he was caught off guard as she reached for his (good) hand and deliberately slid it under her skirt. He stopped and looked at her quizzically. "Are you sure?"
She took a deep breath and nodded. "It might be the only thing I'm sure of."
Adrian Pucey did not have to be told twice.