"If I Could Melt Your Heart" by Redcandle17
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and elements from the Harry Potter series belong to J.K. Rowling. No copyright infringement is intended.
"You know," Alicia said, smiling brightly, "If you wrote my Transfiguration essay, I'd have more time to spend with you."
"And where would you be while I was working on the essay?"
"Snogging that cute Ravenclaw who keeps staring at me," Alicia teased.
Cassius frowned and looked around as though he expected to see someone else in the Astronomy Tower with them. "Didn't you tell him to get lost?"
"I told him no when he asked me out, but he keeps smiling at me and I can't help smiling back, which, I think, gives him hope."
"Then get him to do your homework. I'll take the snogging."
They kissed for a while, before Alicia broke away. "I've really got to go. The twins were talking about paying some Seventh Years to polyjuice into them and take their exams. I have to go look into the possibility for me, too."
"I'm surprised you're worried," Cassius said, as they descended the narrow staircase. "McGonagall's Gryffindors are guaranteed to pass."
"Oh, please," Alicia said. "McGonagall's a very fair professor. She works us as hard as the other Houses. And you really shouldn't talk about teacher favoritism; not with Snape taking points every time a Gryffindor so much as sneezes."
They argued good-naturedly and stopped to kiss some more before going their separate ways for the night.
Angelina was quizzing Katie on old O.W.L. questions when Alicia returned to the Gryffindor common room.
"Is he going to take your final exam for you?" Angelina asked archly.
Katie groaned and rubbed her shoulder. "I hope you got him to give you a massage, Alicia. My muscles ache. I wish I had someone to make me feel better… all over."
"I don't know what you two are talking about," Alicia lied. "I was studying in the library." She held up her heavy Advanced Transfiguration textbook. "See?"
"I was studying with Cormac earlier in the library and I didn't see you there," Katie said.
Angelina whacked Katie with a sheaf of papers. "She certainly wasn't studying. I caught her in the Muggle Studies stacks with McLaggen's tongue in her mouth."
"Really, Katie? Cormac? Isn't he kind of a jerk?" Alicia curled up in the chair nearest them and opened her textbook for the first time that evening.
"Yeah, but it's not like I talk to him much." Katie glared at them defensively when they stared at her. "What? You hypocrites. I won't be lectured by she-who-has-twins-to-pleasure-her and she-who's-snogging-or-more-a-Slytherin."
"Really, Katie, you have to stop joking like that. Someone might overhear you and think you're serious. My reputation would be ruined," Alicia said.
"So it was a Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw, then?" Angelina asked. "Is it that one, the muggleborn, who's so clearly in love with you?"
"No."
"It can't be a Gryffindor or you'd just snog him here," Katie said. "Unless he has a girlfriend?"
"No!" Alicia shrieked, insulted. "All right, it was Cassius. Happy now?"
"Who's Cassius?" Angelina asked.
"Warrington. Geez, Ang, we've shared classes with him for six years and you don't know his first name?"
"I think of them all by their last names. It's not like we're friends."
"Well, I plan to spend lots of time with him this summer. Mostly alone in my bedroom while my parents are at work. But occasionally we may go out in public and you'll have to be nice to him."
"Why should I bother being nice to him? I'm not the one fucking him."
"Angelina!"
"All right, all right," Angelina said, grinning. "Now, Katie, why are centaurs classified as beasts?"
Katie, however, wasn't ready to resume studying just yet. "It's okay for Alicia to date a Slytherin?" At Alicia's warning look, she hastily added, "No, I'm asking seriously. So it's okay if I want to go out with a Slytherin, too?"
Angelina and Alicia ignored her.
"I suppose I'll have to find my own way of being a wild and crazy teenager. I mean, you have twins, and you have a Slytherin. I'll have to go out with someone really out there to compete. Maybe a male veela. Are there male veelas? There must be."
Alicia threw a cushion at her, sparing Angelina the trouble of smacking her with the review notes again.
Alicia's eyes never left Cho's face as she listened to Professor Dumbledore's speech. Cho was crying, as she had been since it happened. Her face was splotchy and her eyes were red, and Alicia should feel some petty jealousy that she didn't look quite so beautiful today. But she didn't; couldn't.
All she was could feel was pity and relief. She was sorry for Cho and for everyone who'd cared about Cedric, but she was even more glad that it hadn't been anyone she loved. Some people muttered that Cho and Cedric had only been together for six months; that they were only children. Some people said it out of sympathy for Cho; she'd cry for a while, then forget him. Others said it out of malice; Cho was exaggerating her grief, looking for sympathy.
The night Cedric and Cho appeared as a couple for the first time was the same night Cassius kissed Alicia. Alicia knew six months was more than enough time to fall in love.
If Cassius died today, only two people would know about her relationship with him. And would Katie and Angelina even understand the depth of her feelings? They both thought she was only looking for some forbidden fun. If she died, only Cassius would know she'd loved him. Fred, George, and Lee would chase him from her funeral.
She looked away from Cho for the first time since she'd sat down, searching for Cassius among the somber crowd at the Slytherin table. He looked worried. She wondered if his thoughts were similar to hers. She tried to smile when their eyes met, but instead she burst into tears.
Fred patted her shoulder and Angelina leaned around Fred to hug her. Katie, sitting across the table, clutched her hand. The girl on Alicia's left, a younger student she didn't know, gave her a tissue and asked if she'd dated Cedric. Alicia didn't bother replying to her. Katie's eyes were starting to look misty, so Alicia tried to make herself stop crying. She didn't want to be responsible for causing the entire Gryffindor table to bawl their eyes out.
After the assembly ended, Alicia caught Cassius's eyes again and hoped he understood that she wanted to see him privately. She didn't even remember what excuse she gave to her friends before she hurried to the entrance to the prefects' bathroom. The wait felt like hours, though according to her watch it was only three minutes.
"Are you all right, Alicia? I saw you crying during Dumbledore's rambling."
Alicia resumed crying as soon as Cassius's arms closed around her. She'd always been disdainful of girls who wept constantly. Her philosophy was: don't cry about it, do something to change it. But she couldn't stop her tears now because she knew there was nothing she could do to stop anyone she loved from being killed at an evil wizard's whim.
There was a large wet spot on the front of Cassius's shirt by the time Alicia stopped crying and pulled away enough to look up at him. "You know I love you, right?" she asked.
"I love you, too," Cassius said. He kissed her gently.
Most of their kisses were frantic and hard; hurried to make the most of their stolen time. This one was soft and slow. Alicia didn't realize she'd started crying again until Cassius suddenly stopped and stared at her in alarm.
"Sorry," Alicia sniffed, wiping away her tears. "I think it's time we told our friends about us. I realized that if we died, no one would know that we'd loved each other. I don't care about Houses anymore. I want us to be able to hold hands in the hallways like other couples."
Cassius kissed her forehead. "I'll tell my friends today, and I supposed you'll reintroduce me to yours after you tell them?"
"We can do stuff as a group this summer." But Alicia felt no need to hurry off to tell anyone else anything at the moment. She was quite content where she was.
"Diggory was guaranteed to be Head Boy. At least now I've got a shot at it," Cassius mused, rubbing Alicia's back comfortingly.
"What does that mean?" Alicia demanded, her sense of contentment gone. She shoved at Cassius until he let go of her. "Cedric's dead and all you're thinking about is how it improves your chances of being Head Boy?"
"I'm sorry Diggory's dead, but that doesn't mean life stops for everyone else."
"How can you think about your self, your ambition, at a time like this? What's wrong with you?"
Cassius looked sincerely puzzled. "Alicia, sweetheart, it's true and me not thinking about it won't revive Diggory."
"You don't get it. How can you be so…so Slytherin?" Alicia sighed. "Slytherins are really different, aren't they. Cassius, I don't think we'd make as a good a couple as we thought."
"Are you trying to break up with me? Because I'm not crying over Diggory?" Cassius's voice was incredulous – and louder.
"Don't shout at me."
"I'm sorry, darling, but you're being irrational. I'm sorry Diggory's dead and his fans have to live without the sight of his good looks, but it doesn't change much in the world."
"Our classmate is dead. Murdered by You-Know-Who, no less. I think that changes everything."
"A kid dies on school grounds – of course it's easier to blame some mysterious – and long missing, I might add – wizard."
"Are you suggesting Dumbledore's lying? How dare you?"
"Alicia, please, don't…"
"Forget it," she interrupted him. "Don't bother saying anything more. It's obvious how you think. The snogging was fun. I'll see you around school."
He stared, speechless, at her while she walked away. It was a good thing he'd shown Alicia the kind of person he really was before she made a fool of herself in front of all her friends.