7
KYA stood at the edge of the Black Lake a few days following her arrival at Hogwarts, the morning that she was due to take Quirinus home, back to his wizarding village of Doveport where he would be comfortable.
She was pleased to see that the following morning following their conversation that he balked at remaining in the Hospital Wing a second longer than he had to and insisted that he be allowed to walk around.
He had vehemently insisted to go for a walk outside, wanting to feel the wind on his face, to feel the sunlight.
Kya had protested, though she had eventually assented to his request after he'd begged her, knowing she could not refuse him, but only after she had ensured he had a heavy coat. She could not risk the poor man catching his death.
Once out in the open air, Kya could sense Quirinus relax.
She felt his affectionate gaze on her even as they walked at a snail's pace, her arm wound around his bicep.
Bashfully, she could not meet her friend's eyes, yet his nearness calmed her and settled ease over Kya that she had not known since she had stood so close to him that night underneath the willow tree, the night they had argued. The night she had fully intended to finally, after years of increasingly warm friendship with one another, confess her love, only for the wizard to announce that he was intending to leave on a year-long sabbatical, and where he wanted to go, Kya could not follow.
No mention was made of their conversation from last night, though it hung heavy in the air between them as they walked in silence, a thousand unspoken emotions hanging between the witch and wizard.
Kya's gait was slower than her usual purposeful stride, for which Quirinus was grateful.
His body still ached and sent swells of nearly crippling pain through every orifice.
However, he thought he could ignore the burns and the tight muscles, and the prickling itch as his dark hair was beginning to grow back if it meant that Kya would remain by his side for the rest of her life.
At the thought of his friend in his life once more, Quirinus's steps grew even more halting and hesitant, lost in his thoughts of her as he was.
Instantly, Kya's worried gaze found his soft heavy eyes.
"We should sit down," she offered nervously. "A-are you tiring?" she asked.
She was suddenly worried that perhaps Quirinius insisting to be let out of the Hospital Wing to take a walk had been a horrible idea, and just this leisurely slow stroll was taxing his body far too much.
Quirinus thought that he could have traipsed through the entire European countryside with Kya by his side, but he found that he was more than a little eager to linger at her side.
"Perhaps for a bit." He smiled, almost timid in his affection for the witch, his face hovering so very close to hers.
She nodded and looked away, her cheeks reddening with a shy blush that Quirinus found irresistible and could not help but to smile at.
She lowered her eyes, searching for a spot on the Hogwarts Grounds that would give him comfort among the vast plains. As she inspected the path ahead, her eyes spotted a stone bench that was relatively close to a small hut, that belonged to the Groundskeeper, Hagrid, she thought she had heard Quirinus tell her when they'd first stepped outside.
The bench seemed to call to her. "There, can you make it there?" she asked, motioning with her finger toward the bench.
Quirinus nodded and clung tighter to her arm, willing to follow Kya Ericksen anywhere if the witch would have him.
"Lead the way, Kya," he conceded, his heart pounding wildly in his chest and racing at the sensation of her touch.
As they walked through the Grounds in relative silence, Kya's seething with Quirinus over his leaving her was steadily beginning to fade, leaving her a bit unsure where to begin speaking to her friend after staying quiet for so long.
She began to think that perhaps he was trying his best to help her feel comfortable and atone for his mistake. She lowered her head at the thought, part of her grateful, part of her feeling guilty for expecting the very worst.
Together, they navigated the path to the stone bench, and though it was Quirinus who was recovering from near-fatal wounds, he saw Kya settled comfortably on the bench before he took a seat beside her.
The skies above their heads this morning were dull and grievous, however, even in the bleakness, a cloud must have passed for a small ray of sunshine broke through the darkness and threw the Hogwarts Grounds into the light for a moment.
He watched, mesmerized, as the light hit Kya's exhausted face and engulfed the witch in a soft golden glow.
When her auburn hair came into contact with the light, her hair was like a halo and shone with a new radiance that captured the underlying golden hues within her dark auburn waves. It was as if gold had been woven into her hair.
In the span of that single moment, he felt his breaths catch in his throat and he felt warm despite the chilly air this morning.
A light pink blush speckled along his cheeks he knew he had nothing to do with the chill.
His friend was gorgeous.
Though no sooner did he think the thought than he felt his heart plummet to the pit of his churning stomach. How could a failure like him compare with a brilliant witch like Kya? How could she spend so much of her time, her life, with him? Though they had known each other since both of them were young, even eight years later, Quirinus felt so humbled by Kya's presence.
Still in awe of how even after everything, she stuck by his side, the monster that he had become.
That she could care for a bastard wretch like him, he could not fathom as to her reasons why she did. But why? And how? For how long would this last before she left him for good? How long before this dream came to an end?
"Quirinus?" The sound of her voice pulled him from his thoughts.
"Hmm?" He blinked, her voice bringing him back to himself. He raised his head to meet her gaze, though the look of concern burgeoning in her eyes and on her face was not what he had been expecting to see.
She cocked her head to the side and regarded him in silence for a moment as if seeing him in a brand new light, and for all that he knew of her, perhaps she was, it was difficult for him to say.
"What's…wrong, K-Kya?" he asked, inwardly cursing himself for stuttering her name.
He had not fumbled her name like this in years, so why was he slipping up now?
Why was he reverting to the old habits he thought had been long behind him? Kya would never hurt him purposefully, never speak harshly to him, she had never raised her wand to him in anger.
She straightened her head, frowning at him, and then looked away for a moment and out towards Hagrid's hut before she turned back to face him with a furtive, apologetic expression now brimming to life behind her blue eyes.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, suddenly looking timid.
Quirinus felt his eyes widen and he was unable to stifle the gasp of surprise that squeaked past his lips.
"W-what?" he exclaimed sourly, frowning at the witch, itching to reach up and brush back a lock of her hair that had fallen loose from her bun, but he refrained himself, unsure if Kya would let him touch her. "Wh-what for?" he asked, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth.
The confusion must have been evident on his face and in his eyes, for now, it was Kya's turn to be confused. He watched as her expression changed from a look of morose regret to bewilderment.
"What? What do you mean, 'what for?" I hurt you, how's that your for you 'what', my friend?" she challenged.
"Hurt…me?" His eyebrows receded onto his forehead as he gaped at her in awe. He was sure he had never been more confused. She had nothing to apologize for. Nothing.
He was the one who had turned away from her and had not listened to her pleas to stay, much less listened to what Kya had had to say that night.
"I-I'm the one who should be apologizing, Kya. Not you. I hurt you."
Kya looked as though she was of a mind to say something, for the witch opened her mouth though nothing came out.
She must have thought better of speaking whatever was on her mind, for she closed her mouth.
Quirinus watched in worry and concern as she let out a frustrated exhale and ran a slender hand through her auburn waves out of habit.
"Perhaps…" she began hesitantly, untangling her fingers from her hair and turning her head slightly to offer him a small smile. "We both apologize for the way we acted and move forward? I—I can't keep looking back, Quirinus. I-I need to just keep moving forward, now that…you're back. Now that I'm going to be staying with you. Choosing which of our memories to relinquish to the Wizengamot is difficult enough for me as it is, I...I'd like to put what happened behind us, my friend," Kya whispered timidly, chewing on her bottom lip, waiting for him to answer her.
"I think that would be best," he murmured lowly in a soft tone, returning her hopeful smile with a bashful grin of his own.
The way her face lit up with joy and the sweet white smile she graced him with at hearing his words was a moment that Quirinus knew that he would always cherish.
Her blue eyes sparkled, and he did not resist when she leaned forward and rested her head on his uninjured shoulder, careful to avoid any bruising that he might have.
"I'm sorry that I hurt you, I just…I—I didn't expect this would be so…difficult. It's harder than I thought it would be, to see you hurting like this. I cannot tell you why, but I hope you understand…like I told you that night under the willow tree, there's no one I trust more than you. I hope you know that. I am right here. I am with you, always," she whispered.
Her shy sweet voice barely carried on the breeze, her hand instinctively reaching for his, and she intertwined her fingers with his without so much as a second thought. Their fingers slotted together perfectly, like the pieces of a Muggle jigsaw puzzle. Quirinus felt his breaths catch in his throat as he stared down at their conjoined hands, amazed at how right this felt.
He felt his heart give a painful flutter at her words, and though he felt disheartened and annoyed that she was still refusing to tell him what was bothering her, he recognized that he should just be pleased that she had summoned enough courage to tell him that there was something bothering her, even if she was not ready to say outright what. He would trust his instincts and let her come to him.
Quirinus exhaled a shaking breath as he gave her hand a firm squeeze and whispered, "It's alright, Kya. I'm here if you want to talk. I'm sorry that I—" he started to say, but the wizard was instantly cut off.
"Don't!" She ripped away from him and glared at him, her blue eyes darkening until they were almost cerulean in color as her annoyance flared to life behind her eyes. "There is nothing left for you to apologize for, Quirinus. I told you last night that I…I'm past it, and so should you be."
She smiled, though the hesitant gesture did not reach her eyes as she lowered her eyes in shame and embarrassment, as nervous as she was the day that she met him in her Pop-Pop's shop.
She did not know how long the two of them sat in silence, but she could no longer stand how loud her thoughts were in the silence.
It was Kya who broke the awkwardness between them.
"Are we just going to sit here, Quirinus?" she began and quickly realized that her inquiry sounded like a proposition. She flushed and began to try to correct herself. "I—I mean…surely there is something we can talk about?" she stammered, nervously lifting her stricken face to Quirinus's.
Quirinus caught his breath, mentally kicking himself for his mistake. Kya was his best friend, perhaps his only friend, and surely there was no need for his illogical bout of nerves for the witch that he had known since he was eighteen.
"I…th-thank you," he said solemnly, thinking of everything within the last few years Kya Ericksen had done for him, and even because of him. "You saved my life."
He nervously brought his eyes to hers and held their soft blue depths within his gaze.
Kya looked at him, stunned.
"Wh-what?" she whispered hesitantly, the furrow of confusion between her eyebrows deepening.
Quirinus nodded, his black eyes growing glassy and distant.
"When I thought I was dying. I thought only of you. Of the time that we spent together. Do you remember the first day we met?" he asked casually, though his words he felt in the moment were anything but casual.
She did not immediately answer him, but he was surprised when she raised her wand steadily and pointed it at her temple, closing her eyes as if conjuring an image of another time and place in her mind's eye.
After a moment, she opened them, slowly withdrawing her wand and let the single silvery strand of the first memory she had apparently chosen to relinquish over to the Ministry of Magic fall gingerly into the tiny glass vial that she procured from the pocket of her dress.
"Y-You do," he breathed, awestruck.
She shot him an offended look and raised a brow at him, regarding Quirinus as though she could not believe the words that were coming out of the wizard's mouth at this moment.
"Of course, I remember it, you silly man," she told him, her tone holding a slightly teasing lilt though not intended to poke fun at him, but rather, out of a sense of relief that her old friend seemed to be coming back to himself, to her. The thought made her smile. "How could I ever forget it?"
As if to emphasize her point, she closed her eyes and forsaking the use of her wand in a feat of impressive but simplistic magic, she conjured a small glass sphere, and what it contained within startled Quirinus.
"Y-you kept it, a-after all this time?" he breathed, awestruck, as he stared at the floating orb cupped tenderly in Kya's hands as she held the object out for him to inspect.
She nodded, her eyes brimming with affection.
"Always, Quirinus, I could not bear to part with it, my friend, how could you think that I'd be rid of it? It means more to me than you know," she whispered. "It's one of my most prized possessions, from...from one of the happier days of my entire life, my friend," she confessed, the edges of her mouth turning up in an affectionate grin at seeing how touched he was becoming upon seeing the preserved flower she'd given him the day they had met.
She could see it in his eyes. He was overwhelmed at how with just a single look at the flower that Kya had kept preserved was able to transport him back home to the wizarding village of Doveport in just a split second.
He was overcome by the flood of memories that ran through his mind, and one quick glance at the witch beside him and how her eyes too were now distant and far away, suggested to Quirinus that her mind was revisiting that day, just as he was the longer he looked at the white flower.
He closed his eyes and as he did so, a single tear slipped from the edge of his eye, somber and strangely peaceful. He was almost smiling and relished the feeling of Kya's soft and smooth hand enveloped in his calloused hand.
The last thing he saw before he allowed the memory to consume him was Kya's sweet face, smiling at him which immediately took him back to that day, to the time when he began to feel the happiest.
He touched his left cheek again, his fingers secretly hoping to feel the peace that lurked when Kya's lips remained still on his flesh and let himself be consumed by the happy memory.
THE air in the wizarding village of Doveport was chilled as the autumn leaves of late September softly rode the bitter breeze. The village rested peacefully through the early hours of the morning.
Not a single voice or sound could be heard aside from the swaying creaking of the tall dark elm, pine, and oak trees that lined the village.
Bells sounded tenderly from the village's simple church, the small structure framed by the dull blue and bright reds of the budding morning sky, the air carried with it the faint scent of rainfall and a low rumbling thunder could be heard in the far-off distance.
Not a single witch or wizard was awake except for Quirinus Quirrell. He'd woken from yet another nightmare. In his dream, a witch stood silently watching him.
She was beautiful, her stare so intensely that Quirinus almost wanted to look away, but he could not. Her face was so sullen that it sent a chill down his spine.
Behind her, what remained of the village of Doveport lay in smoldering ruin, and he could not fathom what had happened.
It looked as though a horrid explosion had lain waste to the village. The witch's deep blue pleading eyes pierced his soul. She mouthed his name, he swore she did, but Quirinus could not hear her.
He inexplicably longed to reach out, to touch the witch's hand. He stretched out a trembling hand and reached for her.
He tried with all of his might, but the distance between them only grew with each attempt.
Suddenly, the witch began to fade from his view and burned in the fires that engulfed the homes of dozens of witches and wizards in the village.
He screamed for her, horrified as the sound of her piercing screams rang in his eardrums as she was burned alive, and he could do nothing to help the witch but watch.
As her image vanished as the flames consumed her and burned her body beyond recognition, another took the witch's place, a black cloaked and shrouded figure, tall and thin, almost spindly, in a way that stuffed the chills down his throat.
At first, Quirinus thought it to be Death, the figure from the fairytales that were told to unruly children, but as the figure raised a skeletal bone-white hand and lowered the hood of its woolen cloak, his stomach turned as he found himself staring into the crimson slit-like eyes of Lord Voldemort, the Dark Lord's pupils reminding him of a pit viper snake's pupils.
His eyes grew wide with horror and awe as the Dark Lord stretched a bony hand towards him, silently beckoning him forward without the Dark wizard having to utter a single word.
Then, in the eerie and sudden silence, as the beautiful witch disappeared completely from his view, snow inexplicably began to fall.
It took Quirinus a moment to realize the weeny flakes that settled into his hair and on his shoulders were not snowflakes, but ashes from the fire that had engulfed his village.
Quirinus had bolted upright from his sleep the moment he felt his legs move as if by rote memory toward where the Dark Lord waited, his hand outstretched, beckoning him to be at his side.
His lungs, which were starved for breath, gasped in oxygen, but it burned them with its purity instead. He was drenched in sweat.
His chest heaved as his heart struggled to find its rhythm. Slick tears were streaming down his face and his mind felt like it was reeling as he struggled to process what the nightmare meant.
Try as hard as he might, the flustered wizard simply could not get these ghastly images out of his mind. He wondered why Merlin and the rest of the world seemed to have forsaken him so.
In a groggy stupor and unable to sleep, Quirinus had hastily dressed and had found his way outside, in front of the wizarding church, and sat hunched over on the front stoop's steps. His tired face was illuminated by the luscious sunrise, his dark hair disheveled and in need of a good comb or at least a run of his hand through his hair to try to smooth down the flyaways.
The worn young wizard of only eighteen held a forlorn expression. The silence around Quirinus was more than deafening.
A feeble ringing filled the young man's fatigued ears. He did not understand this dream, though perhaps the worst part of his nightmare was this was not the first night he had suffered from such a vivid and horrific dream.
He'd been having the same recurring dream now for the last fortnight and did not understand. He had contemplated going to the local Seer in the village, a kind older witch named Lottie for help and perhaps a Sleeping Draught to help him sleep without these dreams nagging at the back of his conscience, though Quirinus could not bring himself to visit her just yet.
Word would spread through Doveport that the son of wizard Theron and Muggle Lillian Quirrell was likely going mad, touched in the head as a result of his isolation and his loneliness, which stemmed from the wizard spending too much time on his own, preferring books to the company of others who were close to his age. No. He could not trouble Lottie with this.
There was little the older witch would be able to do for him aside from slipping him a Calming and Sleeping Draught into his tea that she would force on him, and then attempt to tell his fortune, which he did not want.
He shook his head to himself and repressed a sigh. He rested his head in his hands, his lackluster posture as he sat on the front stoop of the church suggesting to any witch or wizard who would be awake at this hour that he was greatly troubled, and of course, they would be right.
The calm wind ruffled his wavy dark hair gently. Quirinus's lips held a thin line that only deepened as the seconds came to pass.
His mind was constantly tormented day and out by this nightmare. The frustrated wizard sat in silence for what felt like hours, but the sun in the sky looked to not have risen any further. His throbbing head stayed in his calloused hands.
He was working himself to death, preparing to accept the post of Muggle Studies Professor at Hogwarts, much to the delight of his parents, though Quirinus wished he could explain to his mother who did not understand it was not enough.
He lacked the heart and courage to tell his mother what the wizarding world thought of Muggles, and how the subject that Professor Dumbledore had graciously given him following the retirement of the previous professor who had held the position, was treated as a laughingstock and joke throughout the community.
However, he would accept the job and hopefully achieve tenure in the process. He tried to force his mind to focus on preparing his lesson plans for the start of term all the while Quirinus breathed heavy scattered breaths while his large eyes looked to the ground.
He blinked rapidly, trying desperately to rid his mind of the images of his gruesome nightmare.
He slid his hands down his face, clutching at his soft thick woolen black sweater. He breathed in and out, as Mother had taught him to whenever he felt one of his anxiety attacks coming, but his burning lungs could not get enough air.
The same reoccurring nightmare with the beautiful auburn-haired witch as she burned to death and he, helpless to save her life, was haunting him daily and nightly as those dreadful scenes of Doveport burning and the Dark Lord extending his hand to him threatened to consume him.
The flashing images had only gotten worse within the last week until he thought it would send him insane.
Deep purple bags clung under his half-lidded eyes, a result of his continuously staying up late well into the witching hour of the night. He delayed going to sleep come the night, knowing what would be in wait for him behind closed lids once he fell asleep.
A full night's rest was foreign to him at this point. A heavy sigh escaped Quirinus's exhausted form.
He noted that soon he would need to go back inside and prepare breakfast for his parents.
His mother had fallen down a flight of stairs recently and had broken her hip, and Father was working increasingly long hours at the Ministry of Magic to make up for the fact that his mother was on temporary medical leave while she recovered from her job.
She worked in a Muggle insurance office downtown in Cardiff as an underwriter, and since she had not been able to work, he had been trying to spend as much time with his mother as possible, trying to take advantage of the time that he had with her while she was alone in the house before he returned to Hogwarts, though this time, instead of a student, as a faculty.
He worried about his parents being cooped up alone in the house for so long with no one else for company.
The lonesome wizard rose ever so slowly, his aching back cracked with every inch he rose until he was at his full height again of around 5'8 or so. Even then, his stature for a wizard of eighteen was still small.
As he was about to turn on his heels and head back down the street towards his parents' cottage, he looked over his shoulder to glance over the village for a moment.
Quirinus's mind was rushed by the vivid image of his nightmares, of the neighborhood being engulfed by fire as smoke swirled the sky and the hair-raising and haunting screams of the woman who burned to death in his nightmare rent through the air.
Quirinus grimaced, tearing his terrified eyes away from the truly alarming images. He shook his head wildly to rid himself of those startling thoughts as he sluggishly began to walk down the cobblestoned streets toward his family's home.
Maybe a distraction would help him forget these nightmares that plagued his mind and seemed hellbent on tormenting him.
All these thoughts of the witch whom he had not even met and likely never would, as the vision of loveliness in his dreams was nothing more than a phantasm of his own mind, reminded him about an important detail, one that he cursed himself for almost overlooking this morning.
His mother brightened considerably whenever he would bring her a bouquet of wildflowers from deep within the woods that lined Doveport, while she was trapped within their home, she pressed flowers for something to do, to preserve the rare ones, the best ones, she had told Quirinus, and she had even coaxed him into learning how to do it one afternoon.
A faint ghost of a smile flitted across his face as an idea came to him. A gift that he could make for his mother before he left for Hogwarts within the coming months. Quirinus made a quick mental note to head to the village's local florist shop that had only opened up within the last week. An immigrant family from Denmark had moved to Doveport, seemingly hoping to make a better life for themselves here in England, and had moved into the cottage next door to theirs.
He had not yet met the family, too consumed by preparing his lesson plans during the day, and his evenings were spent helping his mother with the various household chores while she recovered, which left him with little time to socialize.
Though he suspected with the idea that had planted a seed in his mind and taken root to craft a beautiful gift for his mother, he supposed there was no time like the present.
Quirinus paused when he came to stand in front of the florist's shop, his gaze flicking down to the door handle that he knew he needed to grab, before striding forward, tugging on one of the sturdy handles, and disappearing into the Danish herbologist's shop.
IT was Tuesday morning, and she was running late. This seemed to be how her days always started since Kya had relocated to the wizarding village of Doveport in England from Denmark.
She had woken this morning to the sound of jinxes fired near the woods outside of her bedroom window and had peeked out the window to find a group of young wizards, close to her age if not a few years older, tormenting some poor Kneazle to the point where she was almost tempted to raise her wand against the wizards torturing it, or perhaps even on the Kneazle and kill it, if only to put it out of its misery.
Though before she could, her neighbor that lived in the simple little cottage to their home's left, Theron Quirrell, she thought his name was, stormed outside and put a stop to it, hollering at the group at the top of his lungs, firing a few Stunning Spells their way and scooping the tortured animal up into his arms, barking at them not to trespass again. The boys had dispersed.
She did not know what had happened to the poor Kneazle, for she had looked at her alarm clock on the nightstand by her bedside and realized it was 4:30 in the morning.
She was meant to have woken by 4, and she prayed to Merlin and every single Muggle god she could think of that she could be ready and Disapparate on time to head downtown to be ready for her shift.
These were the only sorts of days Kya seemed to be having lately, the ones where her world started falling apart before she had even opened her eyes since moving to England.
She managed to dress and eat breakfast, though it was little more than a pitiable piece of buttered toast as she'd rushed to get ready and leave her home on time by a miracle.
Unfortunately, the moment she stepped out into the street with the intent to Disapparate to her grandfather's florist shop, the near-constant rain in England decided to show Kya no mercy.
Her heart pounding as she turned heel and Disapparated on the spot, she managed to slip into the door of her grandfather's shop at exactly 5:59 on the dot after suffering through a tense and uncomfortable breakfast with her parents, trying to ignore Father's interested gleam in his dark eyes as he had looked at his seventeen-year-old daughter in a predatory way that no father ever should, while Mother pretended not to see and merely wished her a pleasant day. Just barely not late.
Thank goodness.
At the sound of the bell, a rush of footsteps reached her ears and her grandfather, Frode Ericksen, came darting out from the back room. He scoffed and rolled his dark eyes to the ceiling when he realized that it was not a customer, but his granddaughter.
Offering her Pop-Pop a weak smile, Kya tried her hardest not to look utterly exhausted as she waved her wand to dry her hair and her clothes, straightening her gait.
"Good morning to you too, Pop-Pop." She meant it as a joke, though with how flustered and winded she was, her words came out as sounding more of a desperate wheeze.
Her grandfather, a tall and imposing wizard, quirked a thick gray brow at her and ran his hand through his mop of unruly gray and white curls.
"Perhaps next time, my dear, you could try Apparating inside the house instead of out in this storm? Did it not occur to you, child, to use the brain instead of that head of yours every once in a while? You spend too much time with your head in the clouds, my dear," he challenged.
His eyes were so heavily lidded and weighed down with wrinkled folds that it was almost like talking to someone asleep, yet her grandfather was intuitive and was quite alert.
Kya tried to offer up a retort, but instead only succeeded in doubling over and clutching at a stitch in her side as she erupted into a violent coughing fit. Her grandfather was instantly concerned and came to stand in front of his granddaughter and put a hand on her shoulders.
"You look like you were hit by the Knight Bus. Are you alright?" he asked, his tone laced to the brim with concern.
Her grandfather did not want his granddaughter to offer up a verbal reply, instead merely clucked his tongue in disappointment and shook his head, pointing towards a steaming cup of herbal tea on a saucer that was already waiting for her.
"Drink some tea, my dear, catch your breath, and do what you can to make yourself pretty before our usual morning rush gets here, yes?" he lightly scolded, though the man's catlike green eyes twinkled in play.
"Yes, Pop-Pop," she smiled as she shuffled past her grandfather. She offered her grandfather a mocking salute and began her morning work routine.
She drank heartily the tea her grandfather had brewed for her. She and her grandfather made small talk as the witch and wizard bustled around the shop preparing for their usual morning rush, though she doubted they would get one day with the torrential downpour outside.
Which was to say that Kya complained at length about her father and mother, and her grandfather made sympathetic noises where appropriate, though never once had he offered to whisk Kya away from the situation.
Much like her mother, he preferred to keep the family intact, and could not believe that his son-in-law could behave so abhorrently towards his own daughter, and flat out refused to believe it.
It was the only point of contention in his and Kya's relationship and a topic that always ended badly, despite her continued insistence to bring it up regularly, in the hopes that someone—anyone—in her family would listen to her.
Her morning as the hours dragged was especially slow. She was on her third cup of tea when the bell above the door jingled.
The rain had been coming down hard for so long that she did not think anyone would be coming into her grandfather's shop today.
Only locals ever came in. When the weather got so bad, they usually only had one or two customers a day. Her morning had been dragging on thus far, only three or four of their shop's usual regulars coming in, and so she was happily surprised when the strange wizard came in. She observed the tall stranger for a moment, curious.
Throughout her morning, she and her grandfather had been visited by several familiar faces she had grown accustomed to in the two weeks that they had lived here in this village, her grandfather opening up his business within the first two days of them moving here, and flourishing at the business, pun intended, she supposed.
She always tried to make it a point to make her grandfather's customers laugh, which she was quite good at.
After she had attended to their most recent customers, Kya curiously began to hear talk and murmurs from the wizards and witches around her. The main topic? The Quirrell's who lived next door to her.
The fair-skinned witch furrowed her thin eyebrows as she leaned her elbows on the counter, her mind wandering. She had heard many things of the wizarding family in question. How the wife was a Muggle and worked in the field of insurance, and fascinated by the wizarding world, though what Muggle wouldn't be? Kya thought, bemused, and the husband to the best of her recollection worked for the government in some department or other of Great Britain's Ministry of Magic.
And their son, of which their half-blooded son was the main topic of conversation among those who came into the shop.
Somethings she'd heard of him were good, but most…were not.
The topic made Kya feel incredibly uneasy, and so she tried to avoid that particular topic of conversation as much as possible if she could help it.
Something inside of her did not feel right talking so atrociously about a young man she did not know or had never met, and likely never would.
She had heard talk like this almost every day since they'd moved to Doveport. As much as listening to the gossip of the wizarding family unnerved her, she could not help but think of it from time to time.
Throughout her morning, her ears picked up many things related to their young son in question. She began to wonder which statements were true and which weren't.
"Quirinus is nothing but a devil! It's only a matter of time before the boy's fascination with the Dark Arts is his undoing, mark my words, Kittredge."
"Oh, the lad's harmless! He wouldn't hurt a fly! He's a brilliant mind, a keen aptitude for learning, I'd be shocked if the boy doesn't go far in this life, Elias."
All of these differentiating thoughts swirled around in her tired head like Wrackspurts she could not swat. Kya sighed in frustration as she leaned against the stand, curiosity overcoming her logic. Was he really so stand-offish and a monster like everyone said? Who was he? If he was her next-door neighbor, then why had she ever seen him before?
She took a lock of her hair in her finger to twirl as she pondered these odd thoughts of the wizard. She stood there in silence as her mind entertained these unusual questions, wondering if she would meet him.
"Uh, e-excuse me?"
A soft tenor-like voice pulled Kya's drifting mind back down to earth and out of the clouds. She blinked owlishly as she came back to herself a bit and her eyes soon landed on the figure who had spoken. The voice was soft and timid. He must be shy, she thought and looked at the wizard who now awkwardly stood lingering in the doorway.
He was tall, taller than her by a head or two, even with his shoulders hunched in against the bitter cold. His cheeks were red and windblown, and the rain dripped into a little puddle onto the hardwood floor beneath his boots, making the wizard glisten slightly. The presumably young wizard that stood in front of her sounded no older than twenty or so, and in height, he was considerably taller than she was, the height differences between them were laughable.
His form was adorned in a thick black woolen sweater and jeans, his boots looking slightly scuffed and muddied at the edges, as though he had spent a considerable amount of time trekking through the woods. His boots however still seemed high quality, which suggested that he took good care of them. The wizard who looked a year or two older than she was pale, white, and pasty almost, as though he did not spend too much time outdoors in the sun, likely a result of preferring to stay indoors, though it was a trait that she shared in common with this wizard. His face was beginning to show the signs of a five o'clock shadow.
The young man's nose was rather nondescript, neither wide nor narrow, neither arching nor straight, hooked nor upturned, large nor small. His lips were thin, straight, and pink. His eyes, deep rich black were wideset, but not uncomfortably so, and were stunningly beautiful, she thought, perhaps inappropriately, as he nervously approached. His fingers ran over his nose and his dark eyes moved over his hand. She watched the little movement of his right pointer finger in fascination, the way it glided over his cheek as he reached up and brushed his bangs out of his eyes that looked to need a trim.
She watched as his eyes moved, the way his jaw would occasionally clench, and one of his eyes would give a spasmodic little twitch, as though nervous, and the way the man's lips twitched a bit.
He did not look up as she slid off the stool she had been perched on and moved out from behind the counter to greet him, happy for the lull in the quiet. He only looked up when she coughed once to clear her throat and saw surprise all over his face. It was nearly childlike, and she could not help the small smile that tugged her lips upwards in pure affection.
Her eyes fluttered for a moment and then she realized that she still had not properly greeted him.
"O-oh! I'm very sorry, sir," Kya nervously laughed. "I-I was just um, lost in thought for a moment, how may I help you?" She smiled at him to see more attentive to the dark-haired wizard's needs, but also to get a better look at the man's black eyes, easily the wizard's true prize. She found them entrancing almost.
The man wrang his hands in front of himself as though he were suddenly nervous.
"I-I-I…w-was looking for a certain type of flower f-for a project, a-and I thought this was the best place to go. The-the neighbors, they speak h-highly of this place," the nervous wizard stammered over his words, and his hands were still wringing in front of his body.
Kya tried to stifle a giggle from observing his odd but endearing behavior.
The strange man was endearing to her and a welcome reprieve from the other wizards her age that had tended to frequent the shop within the last week or so just to ogle her and leer at her backside when they thought she wasn't looking.
Kya clapped her hands together in excitement, grateful that the monotony of her morning was temporarily ended. He jumped a bit at the sudden noise, clearly not expecting it. She did not apologize.
"Well, sir, what are you looking for this morning?" Kya smiled sweetly, her auburn curls falling beside her face. She could not see much of him, but she did notice the man's already large eyes widen. His lips parted as if to say something to her, however, it took him a moment.
Kya waited patiently for him to speak to her, recognizing he was nervous around her.
"L-lilies, i-if you have them, please." He took a step forward hesitantly. Kya's smile grew wider. It was one of her favorite flowers. Her heart inexplicably warmed.
"Well, of course!" she smiled. "For anyone special?" she inquired playfully, teasing him slightly.
She was surprised when his whole demeanor changed, and his body posture turned stiff and rigid.
"My, ah, my mother…" he whispered, almost looking shamefaced as he sharply turned his head away and the wringing of his hands only worsened.
She knew if he would just turn his head back to the front to fully face her, without a doubt, his face would be flushed a deep cherry red.
She had not intended to cause him distress, but she could not resist teasing him.
She had to have a little fun at this job from time to time, it was what would help her get through her entrance examinations to become a licensed and qualified Healer in another six months when she moved out, having saved up enough Galleons to afford her own flat, assuming Father didn't find out about her savings.
She shoved aside thoughts of her parents out of her mind for the moment, focusing instead on her current customer and chuckling under her breath while she searched for the breed of flower the man asked for.
"How many, sir?" Kya gently pried kindly.
"J-just one."
Only one? Strange. Kya frowned, her expression contemplative as she looked through her collection of potted lilies to find the best one.
When she finally found the one she wanted to give, she delicately plucked the beautiful flower from its pot, handling it with delicate and careful fingers.
The flower was the whitest of the bunch with the fullest petals. The mirthful witch turned back around to give the flower to the good-looking wizard.
He was reaching into the left pocket of his jeans as if he intended to hand her a Galleon or two for the flower. For some strange reason, something came over her and she immediately dismissed it.
"No." Kya waved away his offer of money. "There's no need for that today. It's free of charge."
Her actions were definitely odd for her today. As kind and caring as she was, her grandfather would likely not be pleased if he were to emerge from his office in the back and learn she was giving away flowers for free, especially with so much competition around, but she could not help herself. She held out the flower for him to take.
He was too nervous to eye her for very long. The moment she had lifted her eyes to his, he'd felt his throat tighten, just as he was about to speak. The witch now standing in front of him was none other than the same woman that he watched burn to death in his nightmares. His eyes darted from her to the hardwood floor beneath their feet.
However, the glances that Quirinus did see of his new neighbor were…really something. She was gorgeous. The faint overhead lights of her family's shop framed her beautifully, causing a halo around her auburn hair which only made her more pretty.
He hesitantly lifted a trembling hand to hers. After a moment, Quirinus finally met her much smaller hand as he cautiously held the stem of the white lily flower she had given him for free in his palm. Their fingers brushed together slightly from the interaction. Neither one had expected the sudden touch between them, and they pulled back into themselves quickly.
The nervous wizard glanced from her to the ground, parting his lips to speak softly, his voice turning even more soft and timid.
"Th-thank you."
She smiled kindly at him as she brought her arm to rest by her side and took a step back, knitting her fingers together delicately.
"That's really not necessary, but…you're welcome." Something else came over her that morning as well. "And if you ever stop by the shop again sometime, please feel free to come in and say hello. You're more than welcome and I could use the company." Merlin, but she was really pulling out all the stops today, wasn't she?
The wizard's face held a dumbfounded expression, she was shocked to witness it.
All of his life up to this point, he was judged for his timidity and nerves by his peers, but this woman had not.
He did not know how to react. This beautiful, compassionate witch had spoken to him and looked at him as if he were normal, important, like everyone else. A warm feeling rested in Quirinius's heart as he gazed back at the witch.
He simply nodded to her, unsure what to say. He doubted he could even find the words to express his thoughts, as his tongue currently felt like wet clay in his mouth.
A hesitant little smile played on his features.
"Oh, and my name is Kya," she glanced down at her breast, and pinned on her right breast was her nametag which proudly displayed her name for any to see who came into her shop in dark emerald, green letters. "But you might have already known that."
She gave the wizard a fast wink that was meant to be friendly. She could actually see the man blushing this time. Her heart fluttered unexpectedly as his white smile caught her by surprise.
The wizard really did look better when he smiled.
"I-I'm Quirinus. Q-Quirinus Quirrell." His voice was barely above a whisper.
As he revealed his name to her, Kya simply stared at the wizard close to her age in shock and awe.
She felt heavy as her feet remained firmly cemented into the hardwood floor, feeling as though she was hit by a Stunning Spell and was unable to move a muscle.
A wave of sympathy and guilt racked through her body as she looked at the wizard.
This was her next-door neighbor's son, the subject of so much gossip here in Doveport.
This man did not seem like a monster, and he certainly did not seem to be the type to be fascinated with the Dark Arts.
He looked too innocent, too pure, too good, to let himself become seduced by wickedness. He was nothing but a human being, and this man had lived through a world of hurt and anguish his entire life if she were to take the whispered rumors about him that she heard with any seriousness, she was not about to continue that scorn.
She wondered what the wizard's first name meant. She was pleased to see that, if nothing else, as time passed, the overwhelmed man was finding it easier to look upon her for longer lengths of time.
What a guy, she thought to herself in awe as her eyes never left his form. A gentle breeze flowed through the air and the breeze was cold and quite chilling.
"That's a beautiful name if you don't mind me saying it."
The surprised man blinked hard and fast as his blush snaked further over his sunken in and emaciated cheeks. His hand crept its way to his cheek to try to rest over his blush as he tried to hide his elatedness from the witch.
The word 'beautiful' had hardly been ever directed towards him, but for some reason, this woman did not seem put off by his shyness. His heart was hammering in his chest.
Quirinus was almost afraid she could hear it.
He took in a hitched breath, a relatively poor attempt to calm his nerves as he stared back at her. No matter how long he gazed at her, the blushing young man could find not a single hint of distaste or anger in her deep blue eyes.
"I…w-well, u-uh, thank you…" His head felt like it was spinning from all the blood that was now rushing to his cheeks. He really needed a moment. "I uh, n-need to be going now." He stepped back but was almost tripped by the same puddle of water that he'd caused when he first came inside.
Kya held in a gasp as she watched the endearing and awkwardly charming young wizard stumble not only over his words but over himself as well. She pressed her cheek into her palm, an affectionate smile snaking its way onto her face.
He flipped the hood of his coat back over his head as he stepped outside of her shop and began to head back down the street, all the while clutching the little lily flower she had given him softly in his hands.
To her budding excitement, he paused in the street and looked back at her.
The rain began to dampen Quirinus's face as he stood in the street.
He looked over his shoulder for something that he knew he wanted to see, but he did not know what that thing was. Though he swore he found it, he knew he found it when the beautiful witch from the shop, from his dreams, moved to stand in front of the shop's front glass window, her face blurry but still beautiful from this distance. Her hair glowed even in the gray.
For once, they locked eyes in a brief stare before she barricaded herself behind the curtain of her family's shop.
And Quirinus swore he saw Kya smile.
