1Before I continue, I'd like to give a thanks to Darkest Desire for being such a faithful reviewer! And to answer some of her questions which anybody else reading this might have, my whole idea for this story mainly came from the similarities between some of the characters in Final Fantasy 8 and Harry Potter (not to mention their school lives are pretty similar too, as they both live at school and have "Headmasters"). Also, I apologize if any of you find this to be moving slowly. It's just the way I write.
Chapter 7: Red-Heads
Malfoy watched as his sleek black owl flew off into the blue sky. It was an unseasonably warm day (for January, anyway), and after lunch most people had gone out to the castle grounds. Of course he wouldn't be making an appearance. He didn't like the sunlight too much. Besides, he didn't think Almasy wanted to go outside either.
Malfoy turned to him suddenly. He was gazing up the owlery, watching as the owls hooted and flew over head. "So, was that girl your girlfriend?" Malfoy asked.
"Who? Rinoa? She was," Seifer smirked. "She thinks she still is."
Malfoy didn't like talking about this. It reminded him too much of that chubs Pansy Parkinson. But Rinoa was nowhere near Pansy in terms of bad looks. She was pretty cute, and had an awesome body. If Almasy really didn't care, maybe he'd go for a shot at her. "So, what's going on between you?"
Seifer thought for a second as they began walking out of the owlery. "She's really just a toy. I figure, with her, it's win-win all around. I make Squall angry, I didn't have to stay back at Garden, and I get the best piece in the whole school," he gave an arrogant smile followed by a short laugh. Malfoy gave him the same smile back.
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"Squall! Wake up!"
The dormitory was really warm, thanks to its everlasting fire, and Squall had fallen asleep on his four-poster. He opened his eyes to see Selphie leaning over him. He let out a short yell and sat up.
"Ack! It's me! Selphie!" she replied as she hopped away from the bed. "I didn't mean to scare you. It's just that Hermy's taking a few of us on a tour and I wanted to know if you wanted to come. Irvine said you'd fallen asleep after they brought you guys up here."
"Yeah," was all Squall could say. For some reason he had a really bad headache. "Look, I know I'm your assistant commander, but I'm not up for taking any tours. Is that okay?"
"Yeah, that's fine," Selphie smiled. Squall decided to ask that question now.
"Hey, Selphie?"
"Yeah?"
"I know you and Irvine are really close, but are you guys actually going out?"
Selphie looked at him like she thought he had an agenda. "Well, we like each other a lot, and we are really close, but I could never expect him to really be my boyfriend. He likes other girls too much. At first I'd get jealous any time I saw him with another girl. But now I just let it slide."
"Oh. Alright," Squall said. So that was it. They had an open relationship. If it worked for them...
"Oh, and if you're worried about Rinoa, she's okay," Selphie said as she got up to leave. Squall's eyes widened. Was it really that obvious that he still liked her?
"What? I wasn't worried about her," was his monotonous reply. Selphie giggled as she made her way to the door, and turned back around to face him.
"Yeah, sure you weren't." And with that she left. Squall looked after her before collapsing back down on the pillow. If Selphie knew, then Rinoa knew. He wondered if Rinoa cared or just laughed about it. He fell back asleep as he thought about this, and didn't wake up later until the room was dark except for flickering firelight. He didn't open his eyes at first, though, because he heard someone coming in. And they weren't alone.
"Everyone's down to dinner, right?" he heard Irvine's voice say softly. Only not in his normal voice. In a voice Squall never wanted to hear from Irvine or any of his other guy friends again. There was a lot of rustling like someone trying to take their clothes off.
"Yeah," replied a girl's voice in the same tone. Squall heard some more rustling. "Oh, Irvine..."
Squall squinted his eyes shut more and wished he could cover his ears. Or better yet, just get up and walk out of the room. He really wished Selphie had done him the courtesy of shutting his bed curtains earlier.
"Hey," the girl suddenly said. "What about him?"
Squall knew who they were talking about.
"Oh, that's okay. He's a pretty deep sleeper," Irvine replied. Squall wanted to laugh. How would Irvine know? The only reason he'd said that was obvious.
After a few more seconds of rustling the bed springs next to Squall creaked as the couple made their way into a more comfortable position. He heard Irvine pull his own curtains shut and knew that if he was going to get out before anything happened, now was his chance. He quietly sat up and tiptoed out of the dormitory to the fervent whispers of the people next to him. He was glad when he finally made his way into the common room. He plopped into one of the cushy chairs by the fire. That girl was right; everyone was gone. Except...
Suddenly the portrait hole swung open and Ron stormed in. "Ginny!" he shouted. "Ginny! Where the bloody hell are you?"
He spotted Squall and stomped over to him. "Have you seen my sister, Ginny?"
"What does she look like?" Squall asked, trying to sound as innocent as he could. He was pretty sure he knew where Ginny was and what she was doing right now. Ron started to turn the color of his hair.
"She's the girl your friend was talking about earlier."
"Oh," was all Squall could think to say. "Well, I haven't seen anybody." That was true. He hadn't actually seen her.
"You were sleeping before, right? Did anybody else come in?"
Squall was caught. He didn't want to rat out one of his few friends but he hated lying to someone who was innocent. "I just woke up," he said. "I didn't see anybody."
Ron looked at him for a moment before saying, "I think I should go check up there, anyway. Maybe someone else knows where she is."
Realizing this could get very bad, Squall said, "Maybe she's up in her room. Did you ask any of the girls?"
Ron gave him an aggravated look. "They all said the last person they'd seen Ginny with was that Irvine guy!"
Ron suddenly bolted up towards the boys' dormitories. Squall bolted after him. Ron reached the door first of course and charged into the room. Squall heard a scream as he came into the room and Ron yanked open Irvine's bed curtains. There was Irvine, and there was the red-head girl, and they were in a very compromising position while being totally naked. "Ron!" Ginny screamed, her face as flaming as her hair. "Ron! You fucking bastard go the hell away!" In a flash the curtains were closed again. Ron stood there gaping. Squall was sure Ron really hadn't wanted to see anything either. Squall turned away and started to leave the room as Ginny continued yelling at Ron. He settled once again by the fire and put his face in his hands. He hoped the image of Irvine wasn't burned in his mind. He didn't blame Irvine for wanting it with Ginny, though...
Ron came back down the stairs after a few minutes, still crimson. He looked angrily at Squall as if this were all his fault. "To be totally honest, I left when I heard them come in," Squall said although Ron was now gazing into the fire. "I had nothing to do with this."
Ron didn't say anything. He just stared into the fire for a few moments. Suddenly he let out a war cry and pounced on Squall. Squall tried wrestling him off but Ron was really strong. He suspected it was because of all that quidditch practice, whatever the hell quidditch was.
Squall knew there was only one way to stop this before he got black eyes like Zell and Seifer.
"Thundara!" he shouted, hoping he was concentrating hard enough. Suddenly a spark came out of the ceiling and Ron shook so hard Squall was able to throw him off. He landed on his back and stopped shaking when he did, but he lay there puffing for a moment.
"What... was that?" Ron asked, still out of breath. "You didn't... even... use a wand!"
Squall sighed. He hated explaining this. "Where I come from we don't need wands to use magic."
"Then where'd that come from? I'd say that was a pretty powerful spell."
I went easy on you, thought Squall. "You see, there's magic in everything where we come from, and we store it in small stones where we can only use the magic for a certain amount of times. Here..."
Squall pulled some of his magic stones out of his pocket. He didn't have too many; Selphie was usually the one who equipped the most magic. "Look. This is the Fire stone. See that little number that looks like its inside of it?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, that's how many more times I can use it. Got it?"
"I think so. Can I try using it?"
Squall thought for a second. He should be able to, he thought. "Okay. We can try, but I'm not guaranteeing anything. Here, take this one."
Squall handed him a Scan stone.
"Okay, now put it in your pocket and concentrate really hard. Now look at me and shout 'Scan'."
"That's it?"
"Yup."
"Okay. Scan!"
Squall felt the same way he had from the Sorting Hat. Ron's eyes suddenly grew wide and the feeling was lost as Ron turned away. "I... you... are you playing some kind of mind trick on me?" he demanded.
"No," Squall replied calmly. "Why?"
"Because something told me about you. In my head. It said you were a skilled fighter from Balamb Garden. But that doesn't make sense. Why would you come from a garden? And then it told me that you're weak against fire and poison."
Squall sighed. "Scan is a spell that tells you anything you would need to know about someone if you were fighting them. It gives you some background on them and tells you the best ways to beat them. I'm weak against fire and poison because all humans are. And Balamb Garden is what we call our school. It's a military academy, so we're taught how to fight."
Ron looked lost. "This is weird."
"It is," agreed Squall. He didn't know what else to say to this guy. After all, he'd almost had his head torn off him only a minute or so ago. Squall was glad to hear footsteps coming down from the boys' dormitories.
Ginny appeared, looking disheveled, but fully dressed. She gave Ron a scathing look as she walked across the Common Room to the girls' dormitories. Before she disappeared up the steps, though, she turned around to face Squall. "Irvine says he wants to talk to you," she said. "And if you follow him, Ron, I'll tell Parvati what you said about her to Harry during quidditch practice."
Ron turned a deep red as he stared hard at the table but said nothing as she started upstairs. Squall stood up and went up to their dormitory. There sat Irvine on his bed, just placing the hat back on his head. "Hey there, Squall," he greeted, a devilish grin on his face.
"Hello. You wanted to talk?"
"I just said that so I could get you away from that Ron kid," Irvine replied, standing up. "He's pretty pissed, huh?"
Squall remembered what Selphie had said about their relationship earlier that day. "I guess it'd be like if you'd just seen Selphie in bed with him."
Irvine's face fell. "What? No, nobody else would touch Selphie..."
Squall didn't want to get into some kind of stupid he said/ she said type of thing, but he felt he had to say what came out of his mouth next. After all, he really cared about Selphie, and his other friends, despite the way he usually acted. "So, it's okay with Selphie if you go around fucking everybody else but she can't have anyone?"
Irvine looked slightly angered for the first time Squall could remember. "What goes on between me and Selphie is our business. I didn't think you'd be like that, Squall."
Squall had nothing to say. He didn't want to act like the girls and ask a bunch of questions about relationships to Irvine. It was easier to do that with girls then it was other guys. Because girls always wanted to talk, it seemed. They could talk about the stupidest things sometimes.
"Well?" said Irvine after a few moments. He was beginning to sound more aggravated. "Don't you have anything to say?"
"No," said Squall. "Nothing at all."
