Fixing to Fly
Chapter Twenty-Five
Author's Note: Oooh, I'm so excited! This chapter is so cool! It took me a bit to write though; I had to decide exactly how I wanted to do it. But I think you'll like it! And it's the least I can do for all you amazing, brilliant people. You know something? You all astound me. I did not even consider possibly getting to 200 reviews by this chapter, let alone 212! Do you know how completely awesome that makes me feel? I just want to give a huge cyber hug to every last one of you, for being so unbelievably sweet and supportive. You guys really are amazing. And now, for the chapter that you (seriously) have all been waiting for. This one might turn out to be another tear-jerker too, by the way, so be prepared. I seem to be writing a lot of sad, dramatic stuff lately. But you still love me, right? ;)
**SPECIAL NOTE: Adele (that'd be me) has finally gotten her lazy butt around to paying for her ff.net account, which means that now, if you so choose, you can add her to your Author Alert list. This means that every time she updates any of her three stories, or adds a new story, you will get a special e-mail letting you know, so you can rush right out and marvel over her new masterpiece of literature (as, of course, she knows you all do ;). THANK YOU!**
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A shadow among shadows, she lurked outside the Gryffindor common room after breakfast, waiting. She knew he would come; he had first class free today, the same as she. He would come back to skulk around the common room, harassing first-years and contemplating whatever things cold, heartless bastards contemplate. He would be here soon, and then… well, she hadn't really thought that far ahead. But she was positive she'd know exactly what to do when the moment came. For once, she had no hesitations about letting her emotions be her guide.
She'd taken Oliver up to his dorm while the tower was still quiet, before anyone else had risen for the morning. A simple levitating charm had aided her in this venture, allowing her to leave the boy peacefully asleep as she escorted him to his bed. After tucking the covers lovingly around his shoulders, she'd grazed a soft kiss across his brow, pleased when a faint smile crept across his face. Then she'd crept into her own room to feign the act of sleeping.
Darcy stifled a yawn as she continued her wait, kneading at the sore muscles in her back. No sleep and having sat up all night in an awkward position made her short-tempered and irritable—which, she had to admit, would likely come in handy when Kotter finally arrived.
Footsteps echoing up the empty stone corridor sent a surge of adrenaline through her body, banishing all thoughts of sleep in the blink of her sapphire eyes. But when the approaching stranger at last rounded the corner, it wasn't Kotter's broad, muscular frame stalking down the hall, but the lithe blonde build of Terence Higgs, Slytherin Seeker. She watched his timid progress with confusion, uncertain whether she was glad or not that it wasn't Kotter. Either way, it was wholly odd for a Slytherin to be so far out of his domain, and she couldn't help a glimmer of curiosity as he at last reached the Fat Lady's portrait.
She regarded the smallish Slytherin as though he were an abomination to humanity. "And what form of trouble are you up to?" she drawled, glaring down at him.
From her shadowed corner, Darcy could see Terence wringing his hands nervously, his eyes darting back and forth like he expected a lynch mob to arrive at any moment. "Um, begging your pardon, ma'am. Sorry to disturb you. I was, ah, wondering if… m-maybe you could get Darcy Reed for me? I need to, er, talk to her about, ah… Quidditch things…" he stammered.
The Fat Lady sniffed indignantly. "Miss Reed is out at the moment, though I doubt she'd ever deign to speak to the likes of you."
"O-oh. Okay. Um, thanks. Sorry. Thanks. Yeah. Good-bye." He turned swiftly, ready to run back down to the safety of the dungeons, but found himself instead running smack into the girl he'd only seconds earlier been requesting. Darcy had emerged from her hiding place, her interest in the blonde Slytherin overriding her desire to wait broodingly in the shadows for Kotter.
"You okay, Terry?" she queried lightly, untangling herself from the younger Seeker as he gaped up at her. "You were looking for me?"
"Ah… um… yes?" he managed.
The Gryffindor Prefect sent a quick glance around the corridor; it was empty, for the moment, but hardly the place to seek privacy. She gazed back at the Slytherin. "Okay. C'mon. We can sit down in the common room, and you can talk to me about… Quidditch things, did you say?" Leading the way with a still-dazed Terence in tow, she strode calmly up to the Fat Lady and spoke the password aloud. "Aureate scarlet. And please let me know before anyone else enters the common room."
"Of course," was the portrait's absent reply, too busy gawking at the Gryffindor girl as she led a snake into her den. Darcy wondered how long it would take the Fat Lady to rush downstairs and inform her friend Violet of these peculiar events.
After the painting had swung aside, she ushered Terence into the warmth of the Gryffindor common room, allowing the Slytherin a moment to gape around at the space that only those wearing red and gold were supposed to inhabit. At last they settled onto one of the plush couches, and she queried, "So what did you need Terry, now that I've broken all the most crucial of Gryffindor unwritten rules and subjected myself to rather violent repercussions, should anyone happen along?"
"Well, um… yeah. I guess I should start by telling you that it was Marcus Flint who sent me up here, to tell you some things. I didn't just, you know, up and decide to come stalk you or anything," he told her, fiddling anxiously with the knot of his green-and-silver tie.
Realizing this was his attempt at levity, Darcy produced in easy smile, which in turn seemed to relax her Slytherin guest a bit.
Slightly more calm, he continued, "Right. So. Um, I should probably warn you that what I'm supposed to tell you… um, you might be kind of mad. Which is why Marcus didn't come himself, plus the fact he thinks you hate him—"
"And I do," she interjected.
"—and he says he doesn't particularly fancy you giving him another bloody nose. So I'm here, and I'm hoping you won't give me a bloody nose, because I'm just the messenger after all, and I didn't even know about any of this till Marcus told me, and if I had known, I would have told you before hand, because it just wasn't right what happened, and…" He was rambling on, and the tidbits of curious information he was slowly revealing had Darcy's patience shortened to the most minimal of proportions.
At last she placed a silencing hand over his mouth and interrupted, "Ah, Terry? Hi. I actually have classes I'll eventually need to get to today, so I need you to pull yourself together, and tell me what you came here to tell me. I promise not to maim you… though I may have to kill Flint, depending on what it is."
Terence shrugged, seemingly satisfied. "Fair enough. Right. Um… where to start? Okay. Well… I'm sure you remember the day when, ah, your Keeper got… you know…"
"Viciously slammed in the head by your disgusting ogre of a captain?" she supplied.
The green-clad Seeker appeared too lost in his own thoughts to acknowledge her bitter sarcasm. "Yeah, that. Right. Well, you know, after the game then, when they were taking Wood away, and Marcus—"
"Started shooting his mouth off like the repulsive, idiotic bastard he is?"
Cocking an eyebrow, he queried, "Are you going to keep interrupting me?" Swiftly Darcy shook her head and mimed the lip-zipping gesture, indicating he continue. "Okay. So you heard Marcus say what he said. He said it was his fault, that he hit Wood. Well… he did commit the actual act… but Marcus wants you to know that the only reason he did it was because someone asked him to—well, paid him to, that is."
Terence was gazing at her very soberly now, provoking a twinge of suspicion in the girl that rolled around her insides till she felt sick. "Who paid him?" she demanded, fighting to keep her voice steady.
The stammering Slytherin didn't even pause as he spoke a single name, the name she had dreaded he would indeed say. "Kotter."
A liquid tidal wave of rage seemed to envelope her, bubbling up through her insides, into her mind, and bringing a wash of screaming, angered thoughts that filled her like a haze, till her ears rang and a cloud of white obscured her vision. Her fists had balled automatically at her sides, clenched so tightly her fingernails dug into her flesh. She barely felt the sting of pain as ten tiny half-moons of blood welled up across her palms. Somehow she managed to speak, though her voice sounded only as a distant murmur to her own ears. "Kotter paid Flint to hit Oliver."
"Yeah." Terence's tone was grave and surprisingly repentant. "Marcus told me Kotter approached him, right before the game. He gave him ten Galleons on the spot. Marcus says the only reason he did it was because he thought he needed the money. But… and I don't know if you'll believe this part… I know you hate Marcus… but I know him, and he's not the complete and utter jerk everyone thinks he is… well, sometimes, anyway. He saw what you did for Wood, and the look on your face when they carried him away. Marcus said he'd never felt so terrible in his life as he did at that moment, seeing you like that. He wanted to tell you about Kotter—had been trying to tell you, in his own, um… unique way—but then you punched him in the nose. As you might have guessed, he's been reluctant to talk to you since then. So he sent me. Oh yeah, and he asked me to give you back this."
Digging around inside his robes, he produced ten gold coins and dropped them into the numb hand of the Gryffindor Seeker. She stared down at the Galleons—at the dirty money her "boyfriend" had paid to have Oliver injured. Then her gaze returned to Terence, and the horror and betrayal in her soft blue eyes made the Slytherin look away.
"Look… Marcus and the rest of us Slyth Quidditch guys feel real awful about what happened. Marcus even convinced one of our Prefects to take ten points from our House. He says he knows he's not exactly a saint… but there are some things even he can't condone, and what Kotter did was one of them."
Darcy just nodded dumbly, still too shocked to speak.
"And Marcus asked me to tell you one last thing. He said he owed it to you, so…" Terence paused and sighed, a sort of reluctant acceptance in his tone as he said, "The password to the Slytherin common room is serpentine perfection. It gets changed at the end of every month, so you've got about two weeks to… do whatever you're going to do." He sighed again, then hastily added, "And please don't put anything alive in my bed. Please."
At last her vocal cords chose to cooperate, and she managed to reply, "Tell Marcus I said thanks, and I'm sorry about his nose. And thank you too, Terry. It took guts coming up here to… to tell me all that. I guess I just—"
Her thought went unfinished, as it was at that moment the Fat Lady appeared in one of the common room's other paintings, out of breath and looking as though she'd sprinted from the Great Hall. She shot Terence a quick look of disapproval before informing Darcy, "Sorry to bother you, dearie, but that boyfriend of yours is on his way up the hall, and you should probably keep an eye on the clock. First class is almost over; you wouldn't want your House mates finding him in here." Another venomous glare was directed at the Slytherin.
Darcy nodded sharply. "Right. Thanks." As the Fat Lady ran off once more, the Gryffindor Prefect rose to her feet, her control quickly flooding back to her despite the heaviness that now weighed on her heart. But she would take care of that soon enough. She turned to Terence, who was standing now as well, and said, "She's probably right about getting you out of here. We already know what kind of person Kotter is, and I imagine whatever he would do to you would be a lot worse than the entirety of the Gryffindor House combined."
Swallowing thickly, the Slytherin squeaked, "Got a back door to this place?"
To her mild surprise, she felt a small grin slip across her face. "You'll have to thank the Weasley twins next time you see them," she stated, and quickly led him to a large tapestry on the far wall which she pulled aside to reveal a heavy oak door. "This'll put you right outside the Arithmancy classroom; I trust you can find your way from there."
Terence slid out his wand and muttered, "Lumos," as he entered the darkened passageway. He paused for a moment, glancing uncertainly back at the female Seeker. "You'll be okay then?"
Again, a hint of a smile twitched the corners of her lips. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Now go; I can hear Kotter talking to the Fat Lady." She carefully shut the door behind him, letting the tapestry fall back into place, and then she turned to face the common room entrance just as the blonde-haired traitor himself stepped in.
A smug smile hit Kotter's lips as he spotted her, and Darcy fought against the sudden nausea that attempted to overtake her system. She had never been quite so disgusted as she was at the moment, and the fierce urge for vengeance that now pulsed through her system was doing little in the way of helping. She forced herself to take deep breaths, and focus on the mantra running gently through her mind: I am calm. I am in control.
The Gryffindor Chaser ambled casually across the room, eyeing her up and down, with particular interest shown to the gentle swell of her breasts beneath the material of her uniform sweater. Even in her distressed state, it didn't take her much to realize what was on his mind.
I am calm. I am in control. I am calm. I am in control. I am Darcy Reed, and no cheap bastard can get the better of me…
His smile had turned to a definitive leer as at last he reached her, and in what he no doubt considered a 'sexy' voice, he greeted her, "Hello gorgeous."
Darcy didn't even hesitate as her fist met strongly with his face, a solid connection to his right eye sending the boy sprawling backward to the floor. And suddenly her control had broken, and every last ounce of rage and betrayal and hurt swelled through her till she trembled with the sheer force of her emotions. Yet her voice was clear and unwavering as she informed the stunned-looking Chaser, "I hate you, Kotter Baines."
He gazed up at her from the floor, one hand held gingerly to his eye, and a look of clear astonishment on his features. "What in the name of Merlin—"
"Shut up. You won't talk until I ask you to," she said coolly, and drew out her wand to reinforce this point. "Now you will listen to every single thing I have to say, and you will remember this moment, because it will be the last that I ever speak to you."
Slowly Kotter opened his mouth, as if to protest, and quickly found the tip of her wand resting between his eyes. His jaw snapped shut with an audible click.
"That's right. This has been a long time coming, and I will say every last thing I want to say to you. Because I know what you did. I know what you did last night… and I know what you did before the Quidditch match against Slytherin." She saw a flash of surprise flutter over his features at this and bared her teeth at him in a fierce smile. "Yeah, that's right. Your little hired snake went belly-up on you, and now I know everything. You paid Flint to take a shot at Oliver. You wanted Oliver to get hurt. And then when he recovered from that, you figured out how to hurt him in the worst way: you filled his head with lies. Didn't you?"
She didn't even look up as the common room door swung open, and a handful of her Gryffindor House mates stumbled in. Chatting as they entered, the group instantly went silent as they stood to watch the unfolding scene. Darcy ignored them completely.
Kotter's gaze bounced between the woman above him and the crowd gathered at the door. He forced a nonchalant laugh. "It was just fun, babe. We were just having fun. I gave him a little liquor and we started talking—"
"So you got him drunk then too!" she laughed with sheer amazement. "Love of Merlin, Kotter, you're just all shades of bastard, aren't you? Paying a Slytherin to injure the Gryffindor Keeper, then spreading malicious lies because you can't deal with your own jealousy, and on top of that, getting a fourth-year drunk! On purpose!"
Several more people had joined the growing group by the entrance, and as several gasps of shock rang out, Kotter seemed to realize just what kind of trouble he was in. Weakly, he repeated, "It was just supposed to be for fun."
"No. It was not 'just for fun,' Kotter. You did it because you are a cruel, sick, possessive little man and you're determined to take someone down with you. But it won't be me," the anger had seeped back into her voice, her words clipped and sharp as razors. "For five years, I've let you use me, and parade me, and mock me, and accuse me of all degree of horrible, untrue things. And I took it all, because I thought you loved me, and that you were what was right for me. I was stupid and blind. But somebody finally helped open my eyes. And now I can see you for the disgusting thing you are. You're not even human to me."
Despite the wand still hovering dangerously close to his face, he blurted, "Wait, Darcy, listen to me for a second—"
"No, Kotter. I'm done listening to you. I'm done with you. I never want you to come anywhere near me ever again. You're off the Quidditch team; do not show up at another one of my practices. Get your stuff out of my locker room. And take this nasty little piece of metal back." From the pocket of her robes, she pulled the black velvet ring box, and with one quick flick of her wrist, she'd nailed him in the forehead with his own gift. "Say good-bye, Kotter. Because the best thing you ever had is walking out of your life."
And with that, she spun on her heel and marched up to her dorm room as the crowd of Gryffindors broke into applause.
She had made it to the seventh-year girls' doorway when the realization of what she had just done hit her, and suddenly she was in tears, racked with aching sobs that wanted to tear her lithe frame apart. Vision blurred, she somehow managed to stumble to her bed, where she crumpled like a flower in the wind, every part of her screaming out in devastation.
Footsteps at the door made her curl tightly in on herself, and she'd parted her lips to gasp a hasty, "Go away!" when the only voice she ever wanted to hear made the words die in her throat.
"Darcy?" Oliver sprinted across the room, dropping to the bed next to her and pulling her gently into his arms. Using his thumbs to gently swipe away the salty rivulets that cut down her cheeks, he examined her sobbing visage and, sounding as though he could cry himself, he whispered, "Jesus, Darcy…"
She nuzzled into his embrace desperately, needing the contact of his body against her own, comforted by his steady presence. Through hiccuping breaths, she began, "D-did—did y-you—hear…?"
"Yeah. I heard it all. And I am so sorry, baby. If I hadn't come along, none of this would've happened. If I hadn't ruined everything for you—"
"N-no! No… you saved me…" she whispered, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck as he stroked his fingers through her soft gold curls. She pressed herself closer into the chocolate-eyed Keeper, till she could barely draw breath. She pleaded, "Don't let me go, Oliver…"
"I couldn't if I wanted to," he murmured back, swallowing hard against the lump that was trying to build in his throat. "He's never going to hurt you again, okay? You're mine now. I love you, and you're mine. Okay? You're mine." He grazed a kiss over her forehead, gently rocking the beautiful seventh-year Gryffindor.
For the first time—but certainly not the last—Darcy fell asleep in Oliver's arms.
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*Sniffle* Are you not so totally tear-jerked right now? I know I am… *Sniffle* So tell me… was it all you wanted? I know Kotter hasn't been brutally maimed… yet. *Adele laughs evilly* Remember, there are still at least 10-15 chapters left I have yet to write, and let's just say I have plans for our bad boy… But seriously, what did you think? Likey? No likey? I would like very much to hear all your opinions. And I want to send a special thank you to Kate (pokElilpupE) who gave me the idea for having Kotter be to the one to have gotten Ollie drunk. Thanks so much, sweety! You won't believe how much that tidbit inspired! And thanks again to you all, the most amazing reviewers a girl could ever wish for. I'd leave individual thank-yous and messages to you all, but that would require a chapter of its own. ;) Just know how much I adore you all! It is for you (and myself of course) that I keep writing, and push myself to greater levels of, er… writing!
Luv and cyber hugs sent to you all ~ Adele