"And you're consuming me violently
And your reverence shamelessly tempting me
Who sent this maniac?
'Cause I never had this taste in the past
Oh you're different, different from the former
Like a fresh battery I'm energized by you…"
Chapter Four: A Fresh Battery
- Seventh Year -
Summer nights have chilled to almost autumn mornings. Beach bags are put away with school bags pulled out instead. The onset of fall. The promise of changing leaves and plunging temperatures. The uniform of cut-off shorts and tank tops has switched back to grey wool skirts and robes that skim the ground.
I'm headed back.
I never see my Hogwarts friends over the summer. They live there and I live here. It's just an established, unspoken rule between us all: I spend my summers alone. It's nothing offensive. Really. It's not.
And this summer was no different.
I spent the summer peacefully enough in my Muggle neighborhood. I worked as a lifeguard at the local pool. Minimum wage wasn't nearly close to worth it. I spent nights alone on the porch. The air conditioning choosing not to work and the only place to feel the breeze was on the swing, hanging off its rusty chain by the lilac bushes. They always make me sneeze. I sit there anyway.
It's night. Of course. And lying in bed next to the open window, I wait. Wait for my alarm clock to unnecessarily ring because I'll already be awake. Wait for the sun to rise and carry me back. Back to the place that has been more of a home to me than these poorly constructed walls ever have been. I don't like to talk about my family. I don't like to think about it. And I'm not about to start now.
Instead I'll just flip the channel back. To him. I've wondered about him all summer. All summer, questioning myself as to what this year will be for the two of us. And I really don't know. Do we pick up where we left off? Do we charge off into a far more innocent and platonic direction? Or do we drift apart? The lack of communication between the two of us really didn't help my fucked up version of Q and A. That I shared only with myself.
We've never been real good with the whole "communicating our feelings" aspect of our friendship. We were good with the jokes, the sarcastic quips. The friendly jibes and digs and the even friendlier flirtations. But feelings…always taboo. Another unspoken rule. One I didn't really appreciate. Or had thought about.
Until now.
- - -
Back at 9 and ¾. My parents never cross the barrier with me. They feel, and I quote, that "it's not their place." Of course not. Wizards have nothing in common with hotel receptionists and cable repairmen.
I spy Alicia with skin far darker and Katie with hair far lighter across the way. Merlin, I didn't realize how much I had missed them.
But sometimes. Well, sometimes I feel like the third wheel with them. And now was no exception.
"He was to die for!" Katie squealed. I didn't ask. I didn't have to. I got an earful as we boarded the train about the love of her life that she had met while spending her summer vacationing in the Riviera. And I had spent mine by the pool checking the chlorine levels.
Whatever.
"How about you, Alicia? How's the summer been?" I was desperate to change the subject. Jealousy is not one of my favorite emotions.
I wish I hadn't.
"Well, it's been good. I spent most of it hanging out with George." George. Brother of Fred. "And well, Fred obviously too. It was fun." I felt hollow, empty. Angry, bitter, resentful. I felt left out. And sad. I spent a summer among Muggles. She spent it with him.
What the fuck am I saying?
I shake my head, convinced I have gone completely loopy over the course of five minutes.
They ask me about my summer.
I smile. It's easier than explaining what a summer filled with "nothing" is actually all about.
- - -
The train clipped along, and Alicia, Katie and I sat alone in our little car. We gossiped. We ate more chocolate frogs than thought possible. We gossiped.
The train bit through fog and wound around curves. Lights flickered on and first years chattered nervously, desperate to make a friend or two before arrival.
I remember being them once. I had no friends. Nada. Zero. Zilch. I was the Muggle-born who had somehow been invited to attend the school.
Why my parents agreed to let me go is beyond me…
I ran into Fred on the train. Literally. He knocked me down. I yelled at him. Friends ever since.
Someone has to be able to take his shit.
Didn't know that it would be me.
- - -
And we're there. The horseless carriages all in a row. Like a bizarre version of Cinderella. Only this time we all get to be the princess.
Yeah. That train ride definitely left me more than a little loopy.
We ride up to the castle. I love this place. There's just the right amount of fog surrounding the walls, inching its way up. I can see my breath in the carriage and realize just how cold it had gotten. The place glows gold, spilling warmth out from each its windows.
It's magic. It really is.
The Great Hall. Floating candles and long, polished tables. Dumbledore sitting way up high, students chatting down the aisle.
I am home.
We take our seats. Katie and Alicia are still yipping away, a mile a minute. I must appear sullen against them. I'm not. Just not as animated as they are tonight. So I just smile, taking it all in. Pretending to play along.
It's just easier.
- - -
There's the Sorting Hat extravaganza and the usual greeting speech from Dumbledore, punctuated with an interruption from Professor Umbridge. I know I'll hate her. I can just tell. Fake as the smile that all too often bestows my own lips.
We're fed and eventually dismissed.
We climb the stairs and say the password and enter our little sanctuary. The Common Room. Still the same. I breathe a sigh of relief. I always fear that things will change the second I am gone. I'm not disappointed. This time.
We unpack. Quickly. At least for me. And I decide it's time to wander.
Wandering alone at night can only lead to one thing. Trouble.
- - -
I amble and rove, meander and roam. All footpaths I've treaded before. All portraits that have gazed down at me times now gone by. It's familiar. It's comfort. It's a peace of mind.
I turn a corner. And someone grabs my arm. Hard. And pulls me in.
To the girls' bathroom.
"What the bloody hell do you think…" A hand is clamped over my mouth.
"Merlin. If you're any louder maybe then you'll wake up the whole fucking school." It's Fred. Who else. Who else drags girls into abandoned restrooms? "So. Moonlight stroll?"
"Something like that." I gaze at him. He looks the same. A little frecklier. Probably from the sun. Still the same smiling eyes. Still the same grinning lips. Wow, I have missed him. More than I had even thought. "I didn't see you on the train." I say it cautiously, as though testing the waters. Why the careful behavior, I'm not quite sure. "Or at dinner."
"Didn't know you were looking for me." The smirk has returned. "I was there." As if that's the answer to everything.
We just stand there. My reflection staring back at me from the mirror behind his shoulder. It's a long pause. I thought absence was supposed to make the heart grow fonder. Hardly. Rather, the situation more awkward.
"So…" Yeah, he feels it too. The awkwardness. The tension. Sexual and otherwise.
"So…" I've apparently become a parrot. Mimicking his every action.
"Good summer?"
"Um. Sure. You?"
"Yeah."
"Good."
And we stand there. I can feel the minutes ticking by, the earth rotating on its axis. My fingernails growing, my life shortening. Someone needs to say something. It'll probably be me.
"I've missed you." I say it quietly. Kind of wishing he hadn't heard it.
"Yeah. I've missed you too." He says it the way a person would say "Yeah, the weather has been nice." A trivial matter. Carelessly. Without thought or actual consideration.
So I smile like the idiot I am so good at being.
When did things get so weird, so awkward? So funny between the two of us?
"Yeah…" He ways it breathlessly. Answering a question that was never asked, except for maybe in his own head, going unheard by me. He looks at me. Studies me. Makes me have to turn away. I hear him inhale. And realize that I have been holding my breath.
And it all begins again.
He kisses me. Teasingly and painfully. Tempting me, dragging me out of the shell I've been hiding in since June. Soft, sweet, frighteningly slow kisses. Kisses that make the world stand on end, that make me want to melt, melt, melt, melt into the ground. And never come back. Kisses that he's never given to me before.
But he all too soon hits the accelerator. And we're off. Tongues invading and hands retracing routes that have gone unvisited by the two of us for what seems now like far too long. He feels good and tastes even better. I want to scream and jump and cartwheel. Wave sparklers in the sky. Light the way for him to follow.
My ass hits the sink, and suddenly I'm sitting in it. Not that it matters. At this point I'd do it anywhere. Including the kitchen sink. Or in this case, bathroom.
He's bent on teasing me tonight. Bent on making me beg and whimper and plead for him. And I do. All the above.
And it's different this time. I feel it. He slides in, and I'm gone. Seeing stars and screaming shouting screaming shouting screaming. For him. There's something here. Something ignited. There's more spark, more adrenaline, more fuel to light my flame. My torch.
I'm going to get burned.
But at this heat is just feels too damn good.
And I haven't a fucking clue as to where any of this is coming from.
- - -
Our pace: intensified. Our caution: obliterated.
We lost our sense of heed, our sense of regard. We were back in the Common Room, shagging on the couch that people use to study. I'd sneak into his room, and he into mine. Outside, inside. Hallways, classrooms. Didn't matter. Didn't matter when, didn't matter where. Anytime, anywhere. We were risky, silly, dicey. Throwing caution to the wind. Laughing in the face of danger.
Acting like the hormonal driven fools we were. That we had become.
I let him turn me into a sex addict.
- - -
"Why am I so curious?
This territory is dangerous
I'll probably end up back at the start
I'll be back in line with my broken heart…"
- - -
A/N: Song lyrics from New- No Doubt.
Yeah. I know. Another No Doubt song. They just all seem to strangely fit my stories. I'm sure there will be more to come. I did a first for me: actually drafted this story. The way I see it, there should be about 13 more chapters to finish out this story. Give or take a few. But, please, I beg of, keep reviewing! It gives me fantastic motivation and a reason to write!!! I love you all to pieces!!!