Fixing to Fly
Chapter Seventeen
Author's Note: Did anyone catch my little slip in Chapter Sixteen? I said that captain of Ravenclaw Evan Rockford's robes were blue and silver, and any good HP fan will know that that should be blue and bronze, the Ravenclaw House colors! Bad me! I caught it about five minutes after I published it, so I decided to let it go and see if anyone noticed. Oh well! Cat's out of the bag.
As promised, here is Chapter Seventeen. Guess what's coming up next? Yep, you got it, the big Masquerade Ball! Are you excited? I am. Well, of course I am, I get to write it… but anyway. I have to work tomorrow night, so I don't know if Eighteen will be up by then, but I will estimate Wednesday evening at the latest, since I don't think I can go much longer without writing that chapter. Ahh! I'm so giddy!
Here's Seventeen for you, anyway. Hooray for exciting future chapters!
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With all the prim formality of a businessman, Percy Weasley politely knocked on the door to the seventh-year-girl's dorm, and waited until a female voice responded, "It's open!" before allowing himself to enter the room. He found Keely sitting behind her desk, finishing her homework by the light of a candle. She glanced curiously up at him.
"Need something, Weasley?" she queried.
"Ah, yes. Do you know where Darcy is?" he responded, shooting a quick gaze around the dorm. "They told me in the common room she was up here."
Keely snorted. "Oh, you mean the Bad Mood Blonde? Yeah, she's in here." She turned toward the Seeker's bed, around which the curtains had been tightly shut. "Hey, DC, you've got a guest." When no response was forthcoming, the brunette picked up a miniature Quaffle off her desk and chucked it into the curtains. "Darcy! Get with it!"
A moment later, a crack appeared in the wall of scarlet and the soft oval of Darcy's face appeared, accompanied by light music. "What is it?"
"Hello, Darcy," said Percy, moving across the room to meet her. "Mind if I speak to you?"
She contemplated him for a moment, then glanced back into the confines of her bed. Finally she drew the curtains wide enough to admit him. "Yeah, c'mon in. Just finishing up a few things here." She waited till he'd crawled up onto her bed, then smoothed the curtains shut behind him. Inside, the music of a band Percy didn't know filled the air, and she silenced it with a quick flick of her wand. "Sorry about that. I've got a silencing spell on so I don't bother Keely. What can I do for you, my auburn-haired amigo?"
"Well…" he took a moment to arrange himself atop her cherry-red comforter, settling for a cross-legged pose as Darcy herself had taken. Then he noticed what she'd been doing before his interruption. "I didn't know you did needlepoint, Darcy."
"Just sewing a few things," she replied, and held up for him a pale blue silk vest that she was putting a last few stitches into. "It hit me earlier today that it was Wednesday already, and with the ball tomorrow night, I'd best finish Kotter's costume."
Nodding agreeably, he remarked, "A wise decision."
"So what did you need to talk to me about?" As she spoke, she went to work with her wand, and for a moment, Percy watched as fine silver string spun from its tip, meeting up with the fabric of the vest and hemming the loose edges.
At last he shook his head, clearing his momentary lapse, and said, "Ah. Yes. I was just wondering when you were going to tell me what's been bothering you these past two weeks."
Darcy started, and for a moment the silver string faltered, but then she laughed. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Perce."
"Oh, of course, you do, Darcy, really! Do you think so little of my intelligence that I wouldn't notice? Since after the Ravenclaw scrimmage you've been completely… well, out of sorts, I guess, is the best description. I mean, you smile, but it doesn't touch your eyes, and you laugh, but it sounds flat and forced. And you barely eat anything, unless you've been hoarding food up your robe sleeves and eating later when no one's watching. To be frank, I'm quite worried about you, and I'm not the only one, either. Oliver is practically beside himself with thoughts that he's said or done something to offend you in some way. He's under the impression that you're angry with him."
"I'm not angry with him!" she protested, her expression caught between amusement and irritation. "Why on earth would he think that?"
"Perhaps because you've stopped speaking to him?" Percy suggested, and when a look of surprise slipped over her visage, he added, "Yes, I have noticed, Darcy. Observation is one of my chief skills, as you've pointed out so many times. You're barely speaking to anyone anymore, but most particularly avoiding Oliver. I don't think you've said more than five words to him the past three days." He looked her square in the eye. "Has he done something wrong?"
Instantly she replied, "No! Of course not! If he sent you here to ask me if I was mad at him, then you can go back right now and tell him he's being completely ridiculous!"
"Oliver hasn't asked me to do anything. In fact, he tried to convince me not to come speak with you tonight. He says that if and when you want to talk, you'll do so, and that I shouldn't push you. But he's also worried that someone might have said… or done… something to you."
Percy, of course, meant Kotter, but it was Brian's voice instead that was brought to her mind, echoing the intense conversation they'd had almost two weeks ago. His words had haunted her since that day, assaulting her during every waking hour, and often in dreams. She was uncertain what bothered her more—the fact that it had all been true, or the idea that the choice Brian had mentioned was indeed one she would soon have to make. Suddenly she found fresh tears threatening to spill from her eyes, and she glanced quickly away from Percy, but the fourth-year's gaze was simply too keen.
"Darcy…? What's the matter?" he demanded, reaching to touch her arm.
"Nothing!" she answered, a bit too forcefully. Softening her tone, she corrected, "I'm fine. Don't worry about it." She sighed heavily, blinked away the last tears, and looked down at the silk vest in her lap. She produced a weary smile. "Well. I think I'm finished. I've got to go ask Kotter his sizes so I can shorten or lengthen things, if I need to." She raised from her bed and reached to draw open the curtains.
Percy protested, "But Darcy—"
"Thanks for stopping by, Perce, and thanks for your concern, but I'm fine. Tell Oliver I'll talk to him later this evening. I'll see you." She jerked wide the scarlet curtains and leapt from her bed, her sewn garments folded under one arm as she disappeared out of the dorm room.
Still seated at her desk, Keely turned to smile in commiseration with the stunned Weasley brother. "She wouldn't talk to you either, huh?"
* * *
Darcy jogged swiftly down the stairs to the common room, carefully putting Oliver, Percy, and even Brian out of her mind. She would deal with those things later; the only thing she needed worry about at the moment was sizing Kotter's outfit for the Masquerade Ball. She found the male Gryffindor seated in his customary chair in front of the fireplace, brooding over a nasty bit of Divinations homework.
He barely looked up as she slipped into the seat beside him. "Hey, whatcha doing?"
"What's it look like?" he snapped, and scribbled something irritably down onto a sheet of parchment. "Is there something you need, Darcy, because this is due tomorrow morning…"
Glaring at him in barely-contained annoyance, she replied icily, "Don't get all snarky with me, buddy. I haven't done anything that deserves your bad attitude, so take it down a notch, will you?" Kotter's response was a disenchanted grunt. "All right. Can I please have a brief moment your Highness's precious time then?"
The Chaser sighed in resignation, put down his quill, and turned to stare at her condescendingly as though she were a whiny child demanding his attention. "What, Darcy?"
"I need you to tell me your sizes, so I can finish your outfit for tomorrow night," she said, and held up the costume she'd assembled for him. In addition to the pale blue vest was a white button-down workshirt, similar to the ones they wore beneath their school uniforms, but with black buttons instead of white and black velvet strip sewn into the shortened collar. A pair of glimmering silver pants completed the ensemble. "What do you think?"
His expression changed at the sight of the costume, and suddenly he was no longer meeting her gaze, rather studying his paper as if searching for errors. "I'm sure it's nice and all, baby…"
"But what?" she said suspiciously, picking up on his unspoken thoughts.
"But… well…" and then he mumbled something beneath his breath that didn't come close to being decipherable. He peeked at her uncertainly from the corner of his eye. "Okay? Don't be mad at me or anything, I just don't feel like it—"
"Like what?!"
"Like… going to the Ball," he muttered, this time slightly more audible.
Darcy felt a surge of anger flood through her body. "What?! Why, Kotter, why in the name of Merlin did you wait till now to tell me? Why are you doing this anyway? This was supposed to be something we could do together, as a couple! You know, as we are trying to salvage this pathetic thing we call a relationship."
"You're getting loud, Darcy," he admonished, a touch of ire darkening his own face. "And our relationship doesn't need any salvaging. We are fine. And if I say there's no reason for us to go to the Masquerade Ball, then we don't go to the Masquerade Ball, plain and simple."
"I'm the Head Girl, not to mention the Gryffindor Prefect, not to mention the Quidditch team captain and Seeker, Kotter. I can't not go."
"Yes you can. It's easy. You just don't go." He slammed shut the book he'd been working from, attempting to physically signify the end of their argument. "We'll just stay here tomorrow night and do something together, okay?"
For a moment, she almost agreed. She almost opened her mouth to say yes, and give in again to the demands of her lover she did not love. She would deal with her intense disappointment of missing the Ball, and somehow find a way to placate all the friends that would be angry with her for not showing. She would do things just exactly as she'd always done them—her way, in control. But then a strange voice was suddenly speaking, and strongly and clearly, it said, "No."
Kotter's head snapped up sharply. "What did you say?"
The voice, she discovered, was her own, and again it stated, "No. No, we will not stay here and do something together tomorrow night. Because I am going to the Masquerade. And I'm not going alone either." She stared at him with a hardness in her gaze. "Do you understand?"
Something like shock registered in the male Gryffindor's gaze as he stared back at his girlfriend, and it took him a moment before he could manage, "I understand just fine, but I don't think you do. I said you weren't going, and even if I did decide to let you go, don't think for a minute I'd let you go with somebody else."
"Well guess what, pal, that's what you're doing," she snapped instantly, an inner-dwelling fierceness released now within her. "And you know who I'm going with?"
He could predict her answer. "Don't you dare say it."
"Oliver Wood. I'm going to have a fabulous time with him, and you can sit up here in the common room and brood all you want. And don't bother trying to change your mind now, as you've already made your true feelings painfully clear."
Immediately he began to protest, "No, Darcy, you cannot…" but then he stopped, and a strange expression that could have almost been smugness washed over his features. Smartly he set his jaw and said, "Fine. You know what? Fine. Go ahead and go with your perfect little Keeper boy. Have a great time. I could give less of a damn what you decided to do. Whatever." And with that he reopened his textbook and proceeded to completely ignore her.
Darcy didn't wait to spring to her feet and storm off, headed directly up for the fifth-year-boys' dorm. Unlike Percy, she didn't bother to knock, slamming the door open against the wall as she entered. At his desk, the aforementioned redhead gaped up at her in shock, while the room's other occupant, who had been stretched out across his bed in a red tank top and loose grey cotton running pants, jerked up into a sitting position at her appearance. Before either could speak, she said, "Hey, Perce, could you give me a second to talk to Oliver?" When he didn't move, she added, "Alone."
"Oh… oh! Yes, of course. I'll, ah, just go have seat in the common room." He gathered up his books, and with one last look at the blonde, he left, drawing the door shut behind him.
Despite his surprise, the Keeper still had a delighted smile for the girl as he rose to greet her. "Darcy, hey. Percy said you might… well, I had hoped you would… come and talk to me this evening. Is everything all right?"
At his invitation, she sat down beside him on his bed, curling her feet up beneath her in catlike fashion. Gazing into his soft brown eyes, she found herself grinning as she replied, "Yeah. Yeah, things are good. I've, ah, I've got a question to ask you, though, and I really hope your answer is yes."
Oliver chuckled. "Well, I can't make any promises, but I can bet it will be."
"Great. In that case…" she drew a deep breath, released, and with confidence she asked him, "Would you like to go to the Masquerade Ball with me… as my date?"
For an uncomfortably long moment, he stared at her in stunned silence, studying every last centimeter of her face as if trying to determine the punch line to the joke she surely had to be telling. But in the depths of her sapphire eyes, he found only honesty, if not a touch of anxiety, and at last he said, "You mean you actually are asking me to go with you to the Ball? Like you and me together, me holding your arm, and slow-dancing with you, and being by your side all night long?"
"You don't have to be my side all night long," she said with a giggle. "I'm sure we'll both have to go to the bathroom at some point."
Secretly the Keeper pinched himself, and when Darcy failed to fade away into the canopy of his bed, as she usually did in his dreams, he laughed. "So this isn't like a joke or anything. You're actually asking me to the Ball?"
She feigned a second of deep thought, then nodded. "Yep, that's the general consensus."
"I—wow. Um, I don't… I-I… well, you know I'd love to Darcy, I won't even pretend that I haven't been privately wishing this for weeks… but what about Kotter? Why isn't he going with you? I mean, I don't want you to get into any trouble with him, anymore than I want to be on his bad side myself…" he trailed off, and glanced uncertainly at the door, like he expected Kotter to burst in at any moment.
Darcy drew his attention back to her with a soft hand placed on either side of his face. "You don't need to worry about him, Oliver. Kotter refused to go with me, so I told him I was going to ask you to be my date. To be honest with you, I don't think he even cares—"
"Oh, he cares. It's you, Darcy. How could anyone dating you not care?"
A smile drew itself delicately across her full rose petal lips. "You're too sweet, Ollie. I don't deserve to go to the Ball with someone as sweet as you. But if you'll have me, I'll gladly walk into the Great Hall tomorrow night with my arm curled through yours."
With much gravity, he said, "Only one problem."
The Seeker felt her stomach drop. He had a date. Of course he had a date, why didn't she even think of it? Just because he had a crush on her, that didn't mean he was going to drop his interest in all women. She'd been absolutely foolish to think she could barge up here and just demand he go with her… Fighting the strong desire to crawl into a hole and die, she mustered all the courage she possessed and answered brightly, "What's that?"
Leaning into the blonde, he let his lips graze against the delicate flesh of her ear as he'd done so long ago in the common room, and he whispered, "I don't have a costume."
Darcy blew out a relieved sigh, an exquisite dizziness washing over her brain from both lack of oxygen and the intoxicating scent of Oliver's flesh that was now so near. The urge to reach out and ruffle her fingers through the short, silky lengths of his hair was nearly overwhelming, and only with the most supreme of efforts did she manage to remain still, only gazing into the enchanting depths of his chocolate eyes. She wished to touch the Keeper, to discover if his own thoughts were anything like hers, but she didn't dare move.
At last some benevolent entity spared the poor girl, and enabled her to locate her intelligence through the swirling mass of impulses and hormones that clouded her brain. "I think I can solve that problem," she said, and revealed the costume still rolled beneath her arm. "I haven't sized it yet, if you want to try it on and see how it fits."
He took the garments from her, reluctantly pulling himself away from Darcy as he stood. "You'll have to close your eyes while I change," he said with a slight smile.
Obediently, she followed his request, though she got the feeling he expected her to peek, which she did only once. She caught a quick glimpse of a defined, muscular chest and abdomen, broad, sun-freckled shoulders, and strong, sleek arms, and that was enough to send her pulse racing and force her to snap her eyes shut again. After all, she did still technically have a boyfriend…
"Okay. You can open them," he said finally, and Darcy gazed up at him through long fluttering lashes. Suddenly she understood the fourth-year's speechlessness the day she'd showed him her own dress. In the ensemble she'd created, he was stunningly handsome, the pale blue fabric of the vest set off against the glowing tan of his skin. He'd left the top few buttons of his shirt undone, revealing again that oh-so-delectable chest that she insanely desired to press her lips against.
Instead, she dug into the pocket of the black cotton yoga capris she wore and produced the last touch of the costume: a pearl cross, hung on a thick black cord. She drew up lightly behind the boy, flexing onto her toes to stretch her arms around his neck, and gently she tied the piece in place. Then she stepped back to look at him.
"Almost perfect," she mused, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Just give me a minute…" she produced her wand, and with a few quick waves, the clothing fit Oliver perfectly.
"What do you think? Do I look angelic enough to counter your devilish nature, Miss Reed?" he teased, giving a slight spin so she could take him in at all angles.
She laughed. "I think you need one last touch." Stepping close to him again, she gave her wand a short flick, muttering a few words under her breath, and a soft white glow seemed to suddenly emanate off the Keeper, illuminating the area around him as though his very flesh were alight. He stared, amazed, down at his own hand, as Darcy grinned. "There. Now you are truly an angel, Ollie."
"What about you?" he asked, curiously studying the blonde. "Will you… glow too?"
"Oh, you want to see what I'll be doing tomorrow night?" She pointed her wand at herself, spoke a few more words, and before Oliver's eyes, the mass of her gold hair exploded into loose curls that blazed with all the fiery red brilliance of a setting summer sun. Tendrils of black velvet fabric, that would match both her choker and the strip in his collar, spiraled sporadically through the cascade of curls, and the same way his flesh glowed a soft white, her own radiated an elegant red, though her honey-colored skin remained unchanged. She said, "This'll be me."
Oliver stared at her, taken as always with her absolute beauty. In a near whisper he said, "Man, we're going to blow everyone else away tomorrow night."
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What do you think? Are you guys as anxious for Eighteen as I am? I hope so! As always, thank you all so much for showing me appreciation by reading and reviewing my story, and I mean that from the bottom of my little heart! You guys really are the best; your comments, advice and praise all mean the world to me. Thanks again!
Humbly yours, *~Adele~*