chapter five
It's hardly even eleven in the morning, and Jo is exhausted.
Her day started off with Dorcas pulling and yanking at her hair, nearly ripping the follicles right out in the name of trying to straighten it out. But her hair, true to Potter fashion, fought valiantly against any attempts at laying flat. It took about forty-five minutes before Dorcas could even get one side of Jo's hair as sleek and shiny as she wanted it. And the outfit was even worse than that. Alice tossed her tights and skirts and dresses and sweaters and boots and necklaces, until Jo's bed was buried under a mountain of fabrics. And by the end of it, when Jo was staring in the mirror, now sleek hair longer than usual and dressed up in a crocheted patchwork sweater with bell sleeves and bell bottoms, she thought all that work, all that time and effort, was hardly even worth it.
She thought she looked good before, and Ivan Reed had hardly done anything worthy enough to deserve all this.
And now, her brother and his band of baboons are going to great lengths to get under her skin.
"Now, remember, Little Potter," Sirius says, tossing his arm over Jo's shoulders just for a second before she's shoving him off of her; he continues unphased, "we're going to hit Zonko's, Honeydukes, Dominic Maestro's, and then we'll be at the Three Broomsticks for the rest of the day. So if anything goes wrong, you'll know where to go."
Jo rolls her eyes, perched up on the back of a couch while Sirius and James lecture her. She had hardly been in the common room for a second before the two of them ambushed her. And she's thinking that there must be something she's missing, because, Merlin, it's just a date. "Right, and we mean if anything goes wrong," James tells her, tone severe and he's looking down at her like he's really worried, like something awful is about to happen. It's enough to make her chuckle under her breath.
"Piss off," she tells him, with a light shove to his shoulder.
But James is persistent. "Really, if he ends up being a complete tosser or just wants to have a little too much fun-"
"Or he just says anything that makes you uncomfortable-" Sirius continues,
"Do you think I'm incapable of taking care of myself?" Jo asks the two of them, and her own worlds sound familiar as they echo in her head, though she can't quite place from where.
"Nah," Remus says, and Jo twists around to face him. He and Peter are slouched on the couches, watching and smirking and waiting. "They're just inflating their own sense of self-importance."
Peter nods and tosses Jo a sympathetic look. "They like to pretend you still need them, Jo. Really, it's a bit sad."
"Would you two piss off?" Sirius snaps back at the two of them. "It's Little Potter's first date. That's a big deal."
James is attentive, fixated on his little sister and he puts his hands on her shoulders. "I swear, if Reed does anything -"
"Sod off, James."
"Seriously, Josie, you'll come and get me if you need anything, right?"
And James's expression is so sincere and innocent that Jo almost feels bad. She gives him a half, lopsided grin and says, "Sure."
Jo doesn't need anything, though, because Ivan is the perfect gentleman.
He greets her at the castle entrance, looking dashing in a set of robes, with a single white rose that, once in Jo's hand, turned into a flurry of petals, flying in the air and fluttering against her face like little kisses. Jo smiles, and thinks about it for the rest of the day.
Ivan takes her by the arm, leading her through the small village, over the piles of leaves and in and out of stores, scent of hot cider and wet ground heavy in the air. It's chilly out, even for October, and Ivan holds her close to him, blocking out the wind with his broad shoulders. He buys her a few sweets from Honeydukes, and he splits a box of Bertie Bot's with her. Ivan got cherry flavor. Jo got spinach and liver.
He laughs, telling her about a story about the year he had a poltergeist in his house, and how it horrified his muggle father half to death. Jo tells him about summers growing up with James, playing Quidditch in her backyard and trying to learn how to make treacle tart with her mother, the muggle way, but burning it every time. Ivan asks her what it's like growing up with a pureblood family. Jo doesn't know how to answer.
They talk a lot, between the two of them. Jo thinks she's a little bit quicker than him, but he keeps up well enough, holds the conversation better than she thought he would.
It feels like they've spent hours together by the time they settle down in a booth at the Three Broomsticks. Jo tries to ignore the stares and whispers from across the pub while Ivan settles down with their butterbeers. "You know your brother and all his mates are staring at us?" Ivan notes, sitting close enough to her that she can feel the warmth coming from him but not close enough that their sweaters brush up against each other. Jo swears she can see a slight blush to his cheeks.
Jo smiles at him. He is very fit, she thinks, and very sweet, in the way he talks to her. She thinks it's going well. She thinks she might like him. She doesn't really know yet. "They're not very good at minding their business, I'm afraid."
Ivan looks down at his hands, knotting and twisting together and he just looks so nervous. "They're looking at me like I'm about to kidnap you," he tells her through bright red cheeks and hunched shoulders.
Jo tilts her head and bites down on her bottom lip, like Emmeline had taught her to do just the night before, when Jo had asked her for advice. She told her, in a tone of voice that seemed inappropriately severe, that biting down on your lower lip makes a boy think about your lips, and if he's thinking about your lips, he's going to want to kiss you. She feels stupid when she does it. "Are you?"
"No," he chuckles, "I don't plan on it."
He doesn't seem particularly affected by any thoughts of kissing her. "Just ignore them," she instructs, reaching for her butterbeer and praying it won't linger on her upper lip. "That's what I always do."
Ivan reaches for his drink, and takes a large gulp of it. Jo watches as his Adam's apple bobs up and down in his throat as he chugs. He has a strong jaw, Jo notices, and he puts the drink down. "I think James was a bit put off about me asking you out in front of him."
"I found it very impressive," Jo comments, and digs her teeth into the flesh of her bottom lip again. But it's like he doesn't even notice. "Very bold, very brave, for a Hufflepuff."
Ivan's grin is bright and white and stands out against the flush of his cheeks. "Well, then I did what I needed to do, didn't I?"
Jo drags her pinkie finger up and down the side of her mug. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Why did you ask me out?" Jo questions, settling back against the booth.
She thinks that, for a moment, Ivan hasn't heard her. Because the pub is bustling, full of students decked out in their muggle clothes, squeezing into booths and sloshing their drinks over loud chatter and chants and Ivan is still, head tilted down. But as she opens her mouth to repeat herself, Ivan looks up at her with big bright eyes and says, "Really, I've wanted to for a while now."
His answer comes as a surprise, because Jo had never really thought about him before Hestia brought his name up. "What held you back, then?"
"If I'm being honest," Ivan started, and looked up at Jo as if asking for permission; she stared at him expectantly, "you're bloody intimidating."
Jo can hear Alice and Dorcas in her ears all at once. She had no idea it's such a widely held sentiment about her. "So I've heard. I have a scowl, apparently."
"You do. But it's not bad or anything, just, intimidating," he tells her, watching her carefully, before he eases up a bit, relaxes his shoulders and smiles. "Why don't you tell me something about yourself?"
"What do you wanna know?"
"Anything you wanna tell me."
"Alright," Jo contemplates, and she racks her brain for something interesting enough for her to talk about on a date. "Well, I'm on track to be a Healer, right now," she eventually settles on, hands loose around her drink.
Jo watches this information reach Ivan, the way he widens his eyes and leans back, arms crossed over his chest. "Really? Wow. I wouldn't have guessed it."
"What would you have said, then?" Jo asks.
"Maybe an Auror," Ivan muses, "Something tougher."
Jo frowns. "You think being a Healer's not tough? It's gruesome."
"No, no, no!" he rushes out quickly, nervous laughter lingering in his voice. "I'm just saying you're different than I expected. But it makes sense, now that I think about it."
Jo gives him a smile. She likes the idea that he thinks of her. "What about you, then?"
This is his time to puff his chest, leaning forward and grinning. "I'll be on the Magpies or I'll be doing nothing."
"Magpies, eh?" Jo teases, and she hasn't realized that it seems Ivan's leaning in closer and closer towards her. "You're that confident, then?"
"I think I'm confident enough," he says in a low voice that makes Jo sure of what's about to happen next.
"Oh, yeah?" she questions, but the next thing she knows is that Ivan's hot breath is close on her face and his lips are pressed into hers and Jo is desperate to ignore the loud, deep gasp that comes from her brother.
The stars are bright outside the windows of the Ravenclaw common room, the navy carpet tickling the bottom of Jo's thighs as she leans against the front of the couch, a starry quilt matching the twinkling lights that illuminate the domed ceiling. Jo thinks that, if it weren't for her own biases, the Ravenclaw common room would be her favorite.
They sneak in there, every now and again. Her and Alice and Dorcas and Hestia, slipping in after hours on a Saturday and staying till the next afternoon, after the sun has risen and the castle is already bustling. And the cloak helps. Jo has been more than eager to take advantage of her brother's promise to lend her the cloak whenever she needs it. Now it sits with her, folded neatly on the couch behind Jo's head.
Emmeline, with her long, dark hair in messy braids that are poking out and static, looks at Jo, candlelight hitting her eyes and making her look demonic. "So, how was it?" she asks eagerly of her friend, hands in tight fists around her knitted blanket.
Jo can feel the eyes of all of her friends on her, waiting, excitement palpable in the air. She savors it, the buzz of their anticipation. "It was nice, I suppose," she says casually, shrugging. "I don't really know how dates are supposed to go, but he was very nice. Nice to talk to, bought my drinks, and a sweet or two at-."
"Ah, who gives a shite about that?" Hestia interrupts from her spot next to Emmeline. "Did he kiss you?"
Jo looks up at the ceiling and frowns, feigning nonchalance. "He might've."
There's a collection of gasps and squeals that run through the room, and Jo smirks. "Jo's first kiss! Holy shite!" Alice cheers, hands over her mouth.
Emmeline is ecstatic. She had been pushing for this moment since third year. "It took you long enough."
"I just haven't really been interested in anyone before," Jo reminds them. "I'm sure I could've snogged anyone I wanted all this time."
"Well, how was it?" Hestia presses.
"The kiss? It was fine. I mean," Jo pauses, and thinks about it. She thinks about the way his lips were warm and thick against hers, how they moved and how he got a bit of spit on her. She thinks of the table jutting into her ribs as she leaned into him, her brother aptly watching in disgust, and the loud, constant background noise of the Three Broomsticks. Jo is convinced it's nothing special. "I don't know how spectacular a kiss can be. You're just mashing your mouth on someone else's."
Alice sighs, leaning forward and into Jo's side, resting her head on her shoulder. "Oh, c'mon, Jo. You really didn't get any butterflies or anything?"
Ivan kissed her and it was long and lingering and Jo thinks it was sweet but butterflies wasn't what she was feeling. "No," she answers simply.
"Jo has nerves of steel," Dorcas teases, sly smirk playing on her lips. "Can't imagine the type of bloke it would take to make her nervous."
"Says you!" Jo laughs, pointing a finger back at Dorcas. "Six bloody years now and you haven't even looked at a boy!"
Dorcas, with her mouth pressed in to a thin line, lowers her gaze and says, simply, "I've had my sights on someone for a while."
Emmeline leans forward, chin in her hands and a wild look in her eyes. "Tell me," she demands, frenzied.
"Not bloody likely!"
Hestia chuckles. "Remember when Reg Cattermole asked Dorcas out last year?"
"How could I forget?" Jo grumbles at the memory. "My robes smelled like roses for a week after."
"Got a month's detention for those little fireworks and she didn't even go out with him!" Alice jokes. Jo will never forget when those fireworks went off in the middle of the Great Hall, bright red words spelling out, Dorcas, will you go out with me? Rose perfume flooded the entire place, and Dorcas was so embarrassed she refused to eat meals down there for a week.
Dorcas is flushed now, sinking into her blanket and keeping her gaze fixed harshly on the carpet. "Stop it! Me and Reg Cattermole are friends now."
"That's just how in love with you he is, Dorcas," Hestia goes on. "The poor bloke endures humiliation for you and he can't even hate you after it."
Dorcas snaps her head up and glowers at Hestia. "How's Prewett then, Jones?"
Now Hestia is blushing wildly, arms crossed tightly over her chest and her reaction causes an eruption of laughter. "How should I know?" she grumbles.
"Because Mary MacDonald said she saw you guys holding hands on the grounds!" Alice erupts, grinning broadly.
"You should see them during Care of Magical Creatures," Emmeline laughs. "The partnered up together at the beginning of the year and now I can't hear anything Grubbly-Plank has to say because Hestia's too busy giggling-"
"Piss off!" Hestia shouts.
"Oh, Fabian, you're so funny!" Dorcas mocks, putting a hand on Jo's shoulder and batting her eyes rapidly up at her.
"Oh, Fabian, you're so clever!" Jo continues, reaching for Dorcas's hands and cupping them up to her chest. "However do you come up with those brilliant pranks?"
Dorcas reaches for Jo's bicep, curling her fingers around it and swooning. "Oh, Fabian, your arms are so strong!"
"Fabian's an awful partner, for the record," Hestia interjects, and Jo wonders what the point in denying it is anymore. The two of them have been mad for each other for years. Anyone could see it. "He's always distracted, he always asks me to do his homework for him, he's always pinching me when I'm trying to pay attention-"
Emmeline rolls her eyes. "He's flirting with you, Hestia."
"Honestly, could you be more dense?" Jo asks.
"Yeah, I wouldn't be complaining if I were you, either. Me and Potter got screwed for Potions partners," Dorcas complains.
Jo tilts her head. "Yeah, how is Talkalot?"
"Ugh, you got paired with Talkalot?" Hestia asks. Lucinda Talkalot has a reputation, like most Slytherins do with the other houses, and it's one that she seems to willingly embrace. A knot of guilt twists in Jo's stomach when she thinks about Dorcas stuck with her two hours every Friday.
"She's vile," Dorcas groans. "Never shuts up. No idea what she's doing. Even worse than me. It's a nightmare." Dorcas pauses, and nudges Jo's shoulder. "Still not as bad as Jo, though. She got Black."
"Ugh, Regulus Black?" Hestia repeats. " My condolences."
Jo frowns. "Why condolences?"
Emmeline fires back for her, "Because he's a blood purist prat and he's stuck up as all hell and oh, yeah, he's a twat."
"Have you ever actually spoken to him?" Jo asks, and she doesn't know why.
She thinks of her words to him, I don't know you. I don't know what you do, when Emmeline shoots back, "Why would I need to?"
"He doesn't seem that bad, really," Jo says with a shrug of her shoulders, looking down at her hands. " Actually, doesn't bother me all that much."
No one says much about Regulus Black after that. And Jo is quiet, with her head nuzzled into Dorcas's shoulder.
Jo can't find a minute to herself.
She rushes from class to class, her first years one step behind her whenever she goes, and now that they've heard about Reed, Jo can't hear the end of it, all the questions, all the prodding. What's he like? Has he kissed you? Are you in love? It sets Jo's jaw on edge, but it wasn't any worse than the way Emmeline and Hestia pressed her, desperately pleading for details between classes, lounging by the Great Lake. Dorcas and Alice keep her up all night, between swapping Potions notes and boy advice and snogging tips and Jo sort of misses when she could talk about something that wasn't Ivan.
Ivan keeps up the sweetness, though. He walks her to the Quidditch pitch, early in the mornings through the chilled fog, hand on her lower back. He greets her after class, holding onto her hand and making her group of first years squeal in delight. He sits with her in the library and, though he's not nearly as dedicated to studying as she is, he's very content to sit there with her, hand on her knee while she frantically scribbles down Herbology notes. He's very touchy with her, Jo has noticed. The way he always wants to hold her hand, rest his palm on her shoulder, draw patterns with his thumb against her bare skin. Ivan likes having a hand on her, whenever he's with her. She hasn't kissed him again, though.
One of the first years asks Jo if he's her boyfriend. She doesn't really know the answer.
Jo lets her legs dangle off the counter in the kitchen, watching Remus rush through plates of food, practically snarling over them. And even though he hasn't said a word to her in twenty minutes, Jo's truly appreciative of his company. It's close to about three in the morning, and Remus is the only other person Jo can think of who would ever be awake and ready to sneak into the kitchens with her, but he's making for pretty lousy conversation.
"Why don't you slow down there, yeah?" Jo calls to him, and Remus looks up at her with a mouthful of steak and a venomous look in his eyes. "Pretty soon you're gonna be gnawing your own arm off."
"Piss off," he grumbles through his mouthful of food.
Jo watches him with careful eyes, taking note of his tensed, crouched posture and tight knuckles and the dark, heavy set bags under his eyes. "How many more days is it?" Jo questions.
"Two," he answers without looking back up at her.
"Ah," Jo muses, "that's why you're acting like a prat."
"Shut up, Jo."
"How are you feeling though, seriously?" she asks, hushed and delicate. It's not a topic they touch upon frequently, not one Remus is particularly eager to open up. But she worries. It's hard not to, with the way he diminishes over the month, how he snaps and glares and struggles. She sees it in his face, how it sags and pales.
And there's something in her that tugs and pulls at the sight of him like that. The same thing she felt when she saw Regulus Black's tear stained eyes and when she thinks of those three muggle and it drags her down, the knowledge that there's nothing she can do for him.
Remus just brushes her off, like he always does. "I'm fine, honestly."
"Yeah, obviously."
"You sound like your brother," Remus tells her.
Jo flinches at the thought of it. "Gross."
The potion shimmers under Jo's wand, pink, pear-like, smooth and shimmering. It's something beautiful, glittering and glimmering and Jo holds her breath at the sight of it. She's always been good at potions, always excelled in it, far better than all of her other classes. But when she looks down at the potion in front of her now, dreamy and silky, it really strikes her. She wonders what it tastes like, what it would feel like against her skin. What it would feel like going down her throat, what it would be like to be so madly obsessed, so madly infatuated.
Regulus is still beside her, watching intently as she tends to their potion. She's stuck with him, it seems, as Slughorn delighted in the way their Polyjuice turned out. Jo hasn't paid him any mind. He hasn't bothered to say much to her, either.
"Pass the moondew, please," Jo instructs, eyes scanning over the directions briefly. Regulus obliges, and pushes the ingredients towards her with his knuckles. He watches as she incorporates it, stirring the brew three times clockwise, and it shifts, suddenly, now a light, iridescent lavender.
"Did you have fun on your date?" Regulus asks.
The question is unexpected. Jo flinches, turning to look at him with a furrowed brow and scrunched nose. "What?"
"Heard you went on a date," he explains, shrugging. "Hufflepuff bloke."
Jo shakes her head, and turns her attention back to the potion. It irks her, the question, and she feels a sudden rush of irritation and she doesn't know why. "You didn't strike me as the type to be interested in something that's none of your business," she quips, jaw clenched. Maybe she's just sick of talking about Ivan.
"Still have ears," Regulus says. "I hear things even if I am uninterested in them." Jo doesn't know what to say to that, just shakes her head. "So how was it?" he asks again.
"It was a date. Pretty typical, I suppose," she answers in a low voice.
"So you go on a lot of dates then?"
And now it's not just irritation. Jo drops her wand to the table and turns fully towards Regulus, shoulders squared and eyes narrowed. "Piss off, alright? You don't ask a person you hardly know that sort of question."
Regulus looks down at her, and she notices his height, how he towers over her and looks down at her with a slight, amused smirk. "Then what sort of questions am I meant to ask?" he questions.
Jo crosses her arms. "'How's our potion doing?'"
"Well?" Regulus asks, raising an eyebrow.
"It's fine," she grumbles, and returns her attention back to the potion, wand in hand and stirring once more. "Almost done."
Regulus leans in close, his head near her shoulder and his scent is strong, oaky and deep and like warm spices. She can feel the warmth of his breath as he inhales, taking in the scent of the shiny brew. There are goosebumps on the back of her neck. "Can you smell anything yet?" he asks, voice low in her ear
Jo's back is upright and her gaze is straight ahead. "I don't smell anything," she tells him in a tight voice.
Regulus leans back. "Me either."
thank you everyone for reviewing and reading and everything! i'm not in love with this chapter; it was a real struggle to write but nonetheless i hope you enjoy it and where this story is going. i might go back and make some edits but for now im content with it and where this story is going. i got biggg plans for this one!
ps: pls be nice to me lol
