Author's Note: Well, whaddaya know, I had this all finished and ready
before I went to bed, but, story of my life, the college internet system
crashed and I was unable to upload it. I have also pushed the game back yet
another chapter (bringing the total for this to twenty). Over the last
couple of days I've had a lot more ideas than what I thought I would, and
this one reached a natural closure point. I am writing the game chapter as
I speak and it should be up in another couple of hours.
# # # # # # # # #
Chapter Eighteen: It's not the Batwings, Roger, it's Me
12:56 AM, November 8th
Sleep well my arse.
1:05 AM
Actually, since have been sitting down on hard common room stools for past two hours, arse is well and truly asleep. So that's where saying comes from. You learn something new every day, I guess.
1:27 AM
Arse still asleep. No go with the rest of me though.
1:29 AM
Fucking hell, I do like Roger.
When the bloody Merlin did this happen? How did I let it happen? Was it when he put me to bed after the first time I'd had sex with Luc? Was it after I had those nine Firewhiskey shots on Halloween and he didn't bat an eyelid when I threw up on my sheets again minutes after he'd changed them? Was it even after he hit me with an Impedimenta when I was seconds away from hurling myself out of the library window to escape from the Mary Sues? Was there ever an exact time, and exact point where if I knew what was happening at the time, I could have stopped it, or it just sort of happen progressively? Either way am totally and utterly screwed. And not in the way I would like to be.
1:36 AM
Ah, can't sleep! Decided to get up and make drowsiness-inducing potion. Had to skip on the batwings thing but heard they were just to improve flavour anyway. How anything from a creature that looks like Snape and acts like Trelawney is supposed to improbe flavour is completely beyond this poor wittle fifth year...
Oh well, down it goes.
1:37 AM
Hm, potion doesn't appear to be working but is giving me a nice buzz...
2:06 AM
Huh, really, what good is love? It's just a neverending cycle in which you like one person, get to know them, decide you don't like them anymore then move onto the next person and repeat process ad nauseam. Adrian is right. Lack of sex is putting me in bad mood. Roger Smodger. What I really need now is good roll in the Floo Powder. It is only, well, seven weeks away from the season of giving. Maybe Bombardino would be willing to be charitable and bestow me with a mercy lay?
2:09 AM
Now, Natalia, repeat after self (and refrain from talking to self while you're about it): IwillnotbegBombardinoforamercylayIwillnotbegBombardinoforamercylayIwillnotbe gBombardinoforamercylayIwillnotbegBombardinoforamercylayIwillnotbegBombardin oforamercylayIwillnotbegBombardinoforamercylayIwillnotbegBombardinoforamercy layIwillnotbegBombardinoforamercylayIwillnotbegBombardinoforamercylay..
Oh bloody hell.
2:23 AM
Verdict: Bombardino a morning person, but most definitely not an "early" morning person. Yelled at me for about ten minutes about the importance of beauty sleep, especially before a big game. Did not buy my excuse about using sex as novel, fun warm-up. Finally did his bun and called me a vampire.
Er, perhaps it wasn't best to wake him up by biting on his neck. And better yet not attempting to sleep with him at all. I mean, Bomba-freak-dino? What the hell was I thinking?
Maybe batwings more important than I thought.
2:40 AM
Decided to wake up Roger, who laughed hysterically when told him what I had done. Apparently the absence of batwings in a sleep potion changes it into, well, an aphrodisiac. "Apparently"? Bloody hell, I "know" it does! But all I could do when waiting for Roger to finish making proper sleeping potion was stare at floor and stammer whenever he asked me a question. Lack of speech definite sign of infatuation, particularly for me. Bloody hell.
"Cat got your tongue?" Roger asked as he added garlic into the mix. Now garlic is what "really" is just for flavour.
"Actually I was kind of hoping that you would have it," I blurted out. "Eventually, that is."
Looked at his face expecting him to appear shocked and dismayed, but actually saw him laughing. "The sleeping potion that wasn't talking again, is it?" he chuckled. "Don't worry, Nat, once this goes to the boil it will be done, I'll cast a cooling charm on it and then you can drink it. Should be in no time at all."
An excited little burst caught in my brain. I could now say whatever I wanted to say to Roger, tell him exactly how I feel about him, and it would have no lasting consequences whatsoever because he wouldn't believe me! Never knew the absence of batwings could have such powerful indications.
"Roger," I said, "you're one of the best-looking boys in the school, but not the best."
"Ah, the aphrodisiac's beginning to wear off already," he grinned.
"You could never be the best-looking boy at Hogwarts with Adrian, and Cedric, and - dare I Mary Sue it - Oliver Wood around," I continued. "And while Luc was still here, well, you were way out of the running. But even though you're not the best-looking boy in the school, I'd always thought of you as being the most attractive."
Roger blinked.
"While I was with Luc I wanted him all the time he was in the same room as me," I said, edging around the table he was brewing the potion on to be closer to him. "But when he was out of sight, he was out of mine. When he wasn't in the same room as me, I thought of you. And because you engaged me in a way he never could, I wanted you all the more. Luc was just a face and a body and a butt. You're a mind, a heart, a soul, a killer sense of humour and your arse isn't half-bad either."
"Er, Nat," Roger began, backing away from me slightly.
"I've wanted you ever since I came to Hogwarts," I continued, "but I never did anything about it. I was lonely and I thought I needed you as a friend more than anything else. But now I realise that I need you as my boyfriend more than I need you as a friend. Because you would be the first person who would ever be my boyfriend in the true sense of the word in that you're a boy who is also my friend first and foremost, but you're also a boy that I happen to want to kiss all the time. With us it wouldn't be just about sleeping together, but that would still be pretty damn good too. I know that because I have no idea what you would be like in bed, but I still really, really like you, Roger."
Roger was silent for a minute, then he said, "Damn, that's strong stuff. Whatever you put in it, you should bottle it up and sell it to geriatrics and Malfoys in the back pages of The Daily Prophet. It could be the wizarding equivalent of Viagra - it could really take off."
"It's not the potion," I said in frustration. "It's me." Now that I was finally talking, it seemed like a waste of time to say all this stuff and not have Roger believe it.
"Whatever, Nat," Roger smirked. "You don't fancy me. We both know that. We're definitely the best friend types, the ones that make everyone believe that boys and girls believe that they can have platonic relationships, the ones Pothead looks to when he's trying to convince himself that he doesn't want that Hermione Grater girl. To you I'm the Mulder to your Scully."
"Mulder and Scully have had the hots for each other for series," I responded.
Roger didn't seem to know what to say to that one. Seeing his hesitation, I relentlessly pushed on. "I like you because your eyes have some specks of gold in them when they catch the light, because half the females in the school want you while having absolutely no clue who you really are, because you're so damn obsessed with Quidditch and it's so fucking annoying yet adorable-"
"Uh, Nat, I'm Roger Davies," Roger pointed out. "For Oliver Wood you would have to try the Gryffindor common room."
"-And because of your poor attempts at humour which are funny to no one but me," I continued triumphantly. "I like you because you're not afraid to make me angry at you and hurt my feelings in the short-term when you know it's for the best in the long run, because you sometimes know what I want before I do and because no matter how furious you are with me, you always give me a hug when I start to cry. You never use my tears against me like Luc did, and you're not afraid of them the way my father was. Whenever I started to cry my father would leave home for a week. My tears were too much trouble for him. But they're not too much trouble for you." Speaking of tears, my voice was beginning to waver a little. "And now I'm going to walk over and try to kiss you, and you wont know whether to pull away or kiss me back because you wont know whether it's the potion kissing you, or me."
"The potion boiled," Roger said softly.
And that was it. That was my answer. "Fine then," I said, feeling sad but in a calm way. It was no better than what I had expected. "You insist on believing that it's not me. You don't want me and want to get around telling me that or you're afraid to risk a relationship that may actually mean something. Either way you're a coward. So I'll drink your stupid sleeping drought, and we can both go to bed and pretend it was the potion talking and that this never happened and our friendship will continue to be the way it's always been. And when we graduate we'll marry different people - well, you may marry "one," I'll marry a succession of them - and we may occasionally look back and wonder what we've missed. But life will go on."
So with a perfectly steady hand I drew my wand out of my dressing gown pocket and cast a cooling charm over the potion then proceeded to drink it. Then, my limbs beginning to feel heavy as the drowsiness set in, I made my way upstairs and collapsed onto my bed.
# # # # # # # # #
Chapter Eighteen: It's not the Batwings, Roger, it's Me
12:56 AM, November 8th
Sleep well my arse.
1:05 AM
Actually, since have been sitting down on hard common room stools for past two hours, arse is well and truly asleep. So that's where saying comes from. You learn something new every day, I guess.
1:27 AM
Arse still asleep. No go with the rest of me though.
1:29 AM
Fucking hell, I do like Roger.
When the bloody Merlin did this happen? How did I let it happen? Was it when he put me to bed after the first time I'd had sex with Luc? Was it after I had those nine Firewhiskey shots on Halloween and he didn't bat an eyelid when I threw up on my sheets again minutes after he'd changed them? Was it even after he hit me with an Impedimenta when I was seconds away from hurling myself out of the library window to escape from the Mary Sues? Was there ever an exact time, and exact point where if I knew what was happening at the time, I could have stopped it, or it just sort of happen progressively? Either way am totally and utterly screwed. And not in the way I would like to be.
1:36 AM
Ah, can't sleep! Decided to get up and make drowsiness-inducing potion. Had to skip on the batwings thing but heard they were just to improve flavour anyway. How anything from a creature that looks like Snape and acts like Trelawney is supposed to improbe flavour is completely beyond this poor wittle fifth year...
Oh well, down it goes.
1:37 AM
Hm, potion doesn't appear to be working but is giving me a nice buzz...
2:06 AM
Huh, really, what good is love? It's just a neverending cycle in which you like one person, get to know them, decide you don't like them anymore then move onto the next person and repeat process ad nauseam. Adrian is right. Lack of sex is putting me in bad mood. Roger Smodger. What I really need now is good roll in the Floo Powder. It is only, well, seven weeks away from the season of giving. Maybe Bombardino would be willing to be charitable and bestow me with a mercy lay?
2:09 AM
Now, Natalia, repeat after self (and refrain from talking to self while you're about it): IwillnotbegBombardinoforamercylayIwillnotbegBombardinoforamercylayIwillnotbe gBombardinoforamercylayIwillnotbegBombardinoforamercylayIwillnotbegBombardin oforamercylayIwillnotbegBombardinoforamercylayIwillnotbegBombardinoforamercy layIwillnotbegBombardinoforamercylayIwillnotbegBombardinoforamercylay..
Oh bloody hell.
2:23 AM
Verdict: Bombardino a morning person, but most definitely not an "early" morning person. Yelled at me for about ten minutes about the importance of beauty sleep, especially before a big game. Did not buy my excuse about using sex as novel, fun warm-up. Finally did his bun and called me a vampire.
Er, perhaps it wasn't best to wake him up by biting on his neck. And better yet not attempting to sleep with him at all. I mean, Bomba-freak-dino? What the hell was I thinking?
Maybe batwings more important than I thought.
2:40 AM
Decided to wake up Roger, who laughed hysterically when told him what I had done. Apparently the absence of batwings in a sleep potion changes it into, well, an aphrodisiac. "Apparently"? Bloody hell, I "know" it does! But all I could do when waiting for Roger to finish making proper sleeping potion was stare at floor and stammer whenever he asked me a question. Lack of speech definite sign of infatuation, particularly for me. Bloody hell.
"Cat got your tongue?" Roger asked as he added garlic into the mix. Now garlic is what "really" is just for flavour.
"Actually I was kind of hoping that you would have it," I blurted out. "Eventually, that is."
Looked at his face expecting him to appear shocked and dismayed, but actually saw him laughing. "The sleeping potion that wasn't talking again, is it?" he chuckled. "Don't worry, Nat, once this goes to the boil it will be done, I'll cast a cooling charm on it and then you can drink it. Should be in no time at all."
An excited little burst caught in my brain. I could now say whatever I wanted to say to Roger, tell him exactly how I feel about him, and it would have no lasting consequences whatsoever because he wouldn't believe me! Never knew the absence of batwings could have such powerful indications.
"Roger," I said, "you're one of the best-looking boys in the school, but not the best."
"Ah, the aphrodisiac's beginning to wear off already," he grinned.
"You could never be the best-looking boy at Hogwarts with Adrian, and Cedric, and - dare I Mary Sue it - Oliver Wood around," I continued. "And while Luc was still here, well, you were way out of the running. But even though you're not the best-looking boy in the school, I'd always thought of you as being the most attractive."
Roger blinked.
"While I was with Luc I wanted him all the time he was in the same room as me," I said, edging around the table he was brewing the potion on to be closer to him. "But when he was out of sight, he was out of mine. When he wasn't in the same room as me, I thought of you. And because you engaged me in a way he never could, I wanted you all the more. Luc was just a face and a body and a butt. You're a mind, a heart, a soul, a killer sense of humour and your arse isn't half-bad either."
"Er, Nat," Roger began, backing away from me slightly.
"I've wanted you ever since I came to Hogwarts," I continued, "but I never did anything about it. I was lonely and I thought I needed you as a friend more than anything else. But now I realise that I need you as my boyfriend more than I need you as a friend. Because you would be the first person who would ever be my boyfriend in the true sense of the word in that you're a boy who is also my friend first and foremost, but you're also a boy that I happen to want to kiss all the time. With us it wouldn't be just about sleeping together, but that would still be pretty damn good too. I know that because I have no idea what you would be like in bed, but I still really, really like you, Roger."
Roger was silent for a minute, then he said, "Damn, that's strong stuff. Whatever you put in it, you should bottle it up and sell it to geriatrics and Malfoys in the back pages of The Daily Prophet. It could be the wizarding equivalent of Viagra - it could really take off."
"It's not the potion," I said in frustration. "It's me." Now that I was finally talking, it seemed like a waste of time to say all this stuff and not have Roger believe it.
"Whatever, Nat," Roger smirked. "You don't fancy me. We both know that. We're definitely the best friend types, the ones that make everyone believe that boys and girls believe that they can have platonic relationships, the ones Pothead looks to when he's trying to convince himself that he doesn't want that Hermione Grater girl. To you I'm the Mulder to your Scully."
"Mulder and Scully have had the hots for each other for series," I responded.
Roger didn't seem to know what to say to that one. Seeing his hesitation, I relentlessly pushed on. "I like you because your eyes have some specks of gold in them when they catch the light, because half the females in the school want you while having absolutely no clue who you really are, because you're so damn obsessed with Quidditch and it's so fucking annoying yet adorable-"
"Uh, Nat, I'm Roger Davies," Roger pointed out. "For Oliver Wood you would have to try the Gryffindor common room."
"-And because of your poor attempts at humour which are funny to no one but me," I continued triumphantly. "I like you because you're not afraid to make me angry at you and hurt my feelings in the short-term when you know it's for the best in the long run, because you sometimes know what I want before I do and because no matter how furious you are with me, you always give me a hug when I start to cry. You never use my tears against me like Luc did, and you're not afraid of them the way my father was. Whenever I started to cry my father would leave home for a week. My tears were too much trouble for him. But they're not too much trouble for you." Speaking of tears, my voice was beginning to waver a little. "And now I'm going to walk over and try to kiss you, and you wont know whether to pull away or kiss me back because you wont know whether it's the potion kissing you, or me."
"The potion boiled," Roger said softly.
And that was it. That was my answer. "Fine then," I said, feeling sad but in a calm way. It was no better than what I had expected. "You insist on believing that it's not me. You don't want me and want to get around telling me that or you're afraid to risk a relationship that may actually mean something. Either way you're a coward. So I'll drink your stupid sleeping drought, and we can both go to bed and pretend it was the potion talking and that this never happened and our friendship will continue to be the way it's always been. And when we graduate we'll marry different people - well, you may marry "one," I'll marry a succession of them - and we may occasionally look back and wonder what we've missed. But life will go on."
So with a perfectly steady hand I drew my wand out of my dressing gown pocket and cast a cooling charm over the potion then proceeded to drink it. Then, my limbs beginning to feel heavy as the drowsiness set in, I made my way upstairs and collapsed onto my bed.