A/N: I'm sooooooooooo sorry I took so long to update. I got started working on a different part of the story and forgot about the task at hand, so here's an extra long chapter to make up for it. Enjoy!
The kiss was incredible. Oliver quickly splayed his fingers in her hair with one hand and wrapped the other tightly around her waist. It was almost as though he had expected it to happen. His tongue slipped past her lips and flickered inside her mouth and then he nibbled at her lower lip ever so slightly as she repositioned so she was straddling him. Bailey instinctively ground into his lap and his hand fluttered up from her waist to the underside of her breast, and just as she groaned into his mouth—
"Bailey?"
Bailey sat, blinked. She was straddling no one, kissing no one, being felt-up by no one. She looked at Oliver; he was sitting close to the window, wearing a curious expression and not one of a person who had just been kissed.
Damn it.
"What?"
"I asked if you wanted me to get your robes while I go find mine?"
Goddamn it.
"Um, yeah, sure Oliver. Thanks."
Oliver seemed more than eager to get out of the compartment, now rife with sexual tension. As soon as he shut the door Bailey let out a frustrated groan and fell heavily against the wall.
What is wrong with me? Why am I suddenly a fumbling, hormone-crazed teenager again? (Because you are a--) Oh, shut up! You know what I mean. I mean I know. I mean… ugh! This didn't happen with Scott, this didn't happen with David, this didn't happen with John.
John.
Bailey closed her eyes, her inner commentary finally realizing it was time to shut up. She rubbed her temples, as though trying to crush the memories before they surfaced. Too late. She saw his smile, his eyes, his body. She felt his hands, his mouth…
"No!"
"No what?"
Bailey jumped at the other voice, at the only other person who could invoke emotions as confusing as those she felt last year with—
"Bailey, is something wrong? I mean, I know I don't really know you, but you seem… strange."
She rolled her eyes, not having the heart to point out the poor choice of words. She didn't have to, anyway.
"Oliver! Don't say that!"
"You're going to give the poor girl a complex!"
"Yeah, how will you feel when she ends up in St. Mungo's before even stepping foot inside Hogwarts?"
Oliver stood dumbstruck for a moment, but before he could utter a word of an apology to Bailey Alicia and Katie took hold of each of her arms, and Angelina was taking her robe.
"We can handle it from here, Oliver," she said, as Bailey was dragged from the room. "You think of something real gentlemanly to say next time you see her."
The last Bailey saw of Oliver until that night's feast was a rueful expression and the word "sorry" forming on his lips.
*****
By the time the train was finally pulling in to Hogsmeade station, Bailey was actually eager to get off and meet up with Percy.
That's how badly the final ten minutes had gone.
After Alicia, Katie and Angelina had wrenched her away from Oliver (a move that would have gotten all three of them hexed had her wand not been packed away), they insisted upon getting her up to speed on all the Hogwarts gossip ("This is vital information, Bailey, every bit as important as what you'll learn in class"). As it turned out, the most interesting (and that's being generous) of that "vital information" included a fifth year Hufflepuff who was secretly dating a ghost, something-Myrtle, a Slytherin girl who had made the mistake of going to the school nurse to get a birth control charm ("She would have been expelled if Pomfrey had told Snape!") and then one that actually did pique Bailey's interest.
"You know who Gilderoy Lockhart is?" Katie asked.
"Yeah, he's the author who was exposed as a fraud."
"Well!" She lowered her voice. "He was our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher last year, before the truth came out, and there was this huge rumor that he was shagging a girl from Ravenclaw."
Bailey, who had been picking tiny down feathers off of her robes, suddenly looked up at Katie. "He had an affair with his student?"
Katie looked at Alicia, who continued. "Well, according to rumor. She was a seventh year, so she wasn't in our class, but she did have it double with Gryffindor, so we had an inside source."
"He said that she was always staying after, during lunch, to get 'help' on something," Angelina added. "And he swears he heard them having sex, when he went in after dinner to get the book he forgot. He said Lockhart's office was locked and he heard people in there."
The unreadable expression on Bailey's face was one that Alicia interpreted as a mixture of shock and disgust. "Can you believe it? With a teacher! That girl's lucky she's gone, she looked absolutely miserable after all the accusations."
Angelina shook her head. "No self-respect."
"How about you Bailey?"
Again, Bailey's head snapped up, eyes narrowing suspiciously at Katie. "How about me what?"
"Did anything like that ever happen at your school?"
With a small sigh of relief Bailey went back to picking at her robes. All she did was shake her head vaguely. The subject was dropped and the three other girls continued chattering and tittering. Bailey remained silent, and wished that she were anywhere else but there.
Now that she was somewhere else, with Percy, she was starting to think that terrible compartment wasn't sounding too bad.
"Miss Whitman, I specifically asked you to be dressed in your robes and hat," Percy said sternly, stopping to glare at her through his horn-rimmed glasses. "Where is your hat?"
She rolled her eyes and kept walking. "It's tucked down my shirt. I thought I'd give Dumbledore the honor of retrieving it and putting it on my head."
Gaping, he caught up with her, sputtering, "W-w-what? You- you can't do that! Do you know—"
"Hey, peacock boy, it was joke! Here." She took the hat from her robes (not her shirt) and pulled it over her hair. "Happy?"
He glared again, not responding but only growling out, "Follow me," before continuing toward the castle at a brisk pace. Bailey was quite pleased to see the colorful tip of a feather stuck to the bottom of his shoe.
After a brief meeting with McGonagall, Bailey hung out in the Entrance Hall until all the first years showed up and they were ushered as one big swarm into the Great Hall. Looking around, Bailey's eyes grew just as wide as those of her younger companions.
Christ, they weren't kidding when they said "Great" Hall, she thought to herself. Then she mentally kicked herself for being shocked. After seeing the outside of the castle, which outsized her old school by about three times, of course the Great Hall would be this, well, great. She was torn from her thoughts as the two boys in front of her started whispering to one another, somewhat frantically.
"How will we even sit down? The tables look full!"
"Well, we are pretty small…"
That's an understatement. Even at Bailey's below-average height of 5'4", she stuck out terribly amongst the ten and 11-year-olds, and every eye she chanced to meet at the tables was looking right at her.
"There must be a thousand people here!"
"No way, more like five!"
"The shorter kid's closer, it's about two thousand."
Both boys looked back at Bailey with a mixture of fear and awe. They stared so long that they hadn't noticed the line stop and ran straight into the kids in front of them.
McGonagall glared at them before clearing her throat to speak.
"If you all would be quite, we will begin the sorting, followed by a few words from Professor Dumbledore. First years, when I call your name, please step forward, sit on the stool and place the sorting hat on your head."
Near the back of the line, Bailey breathed a sigh of relief and wanted to kick Katie for making it sound so difficult.
"Abbe, Samantha."
And so went the sorting. Quickly the line moved forward, and before she was sure she was ready—
"Whitman, Bailey."
The near-silence that had preceded the other students' sorting became non-existent, and the Hall erupted into whispered chatter as she approached the stool and placed the hat on her head.
Well, what have we here? A seventh year!
Bailey jumped slightly at the ragged voice in her ears, not having expected the had to say more than "Gryffindor" or "Ravenclaw," as she felt those two to be the most likely choices.
A very sharp mind indeed, but lacking a bit too much motivation for Ravenclaw. Far too sharp for Hufflepuff I'm afraid, but what's this? A nasty little secret, I see!
At these words Bailey instantly tensed up and tried to shut down the part of her mind that damned hat was seeing into, wondering for the first time if the whole school could hear what she did. To her surprise, the hat answered her question.
Oh no, this is between you and me. And experience such as this, the slyness and cunning involved, sounds like it may have prepared you well for a place in Slytherin.
Beginning to panic, Bailey's eyes flew to the Slytherin table beneath the great green flag. They looked so cold, so unwelcoming. When one boy sneered she caught sight of his horrible teeth and shut her eyes at once. To her surprise, Oliver's face (and perfect teeth) came swimming into view, and she tried desperately to remember which house he'd said he was in…
Not a fan of those teeth, eh? Well, all right, I'll give you the pretty boy, just like you had last time. I'll make it—
"GRYFFINDOR!"
This last word, and only this last word, was what the hat cried out to the Hall, and Bailey felt relief wash over her as she tried to appear cool and collected walking to the Gryffindor table. She tried to find Oliver, but was just about to give up and sit next to a lanky boy with flaming red hair when—
"Oy, Bailey!"
She smiled and saw Oliver standing on the other side of the table, a few people down, gesturing wildly. She scurried over and squeezed between him and a very putout blonde as the next name was read.
Oliver grinned at her. "That took forever! The hat usually never takes that long."
"Yeah, well, it debated putting me in Slytherin." She could have sworn she heard the blonde mutter "Too bad it didn't," and from the look on Oliver's face, so did he, but Bailey chose to ignore it.
As McGonagall continued, Oliver moved his head very close to Bailey and lowered his voice when he spoke. "Listen, Bailey, I'm really sorry that I said you were strange on the train. I wanted to apologize then, but Katie and Angelina and Alicia, the way they dragged you off, I… what's so funny?"
Bailey was laughing softly and, in a move of incredible daring, touched her lips to his ear as she whispered, "You should be apologizing for not stopping them. By the time we got to the station I was actually looking forward to meeting up with Percy."
He kept his face close. "That bad?"
"Worse."
Oliver smiled mischievously and returned Bailey's favor, brushing his lips against her ear. "I guess I'll have to make it up to you."
With that he turned away to watch the very end of the sorting, and by the time Bailey had recovered enough to make a comeback, Dumbledore was ready to start his speech. She heard it all but didn't take in a word of it.
I wonder how far it's appropriate to go on the first night in a haunted castle with next to no adult supervision, 'cause I think groping might actually be a necessity in these drafty halls…
It was with these ponderings that Bailey began the feast, chatting with who she hoped would be her new friends and brushing against Oliver at every opportunity. To him she said little, but communicated with the most, and by the end of the feast Bailey was more than ready to do some exploring, and not just around the castle.
Oh yeah, groping is definitely a necessity.