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THE ART OF AVOIDANCE
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MUSICAL MOOD:
Holly Humberstone - Can You Afford To Lose Me?
"I know you're not in love with me, OK?"
I had snuck to the window next to my bed in the blue twilight that filled the room and pulled it open to let in the crisp morning air. I had woken up sweaty and gross with Katie's body heat smothering me and the cool breeze felt good on my skin. My eyes were dry and burning and I felt the exhaustion of last night in my body, most of which I had spent drifting in and out of sleep, crying over James Potter until Katie had wiped the smeared mascara off my face.
It had been pathetic and I was glad that the boy who had done this to me would never know.
I braced my arms on the ledge and leaned out the window, taking in the purple mist above the Black Lake and the dark clouds that loomed behind the hills like ominous shadows. There was going to be rain - lots of it - and I felt my throat close off at the thought of having to spend an entire Saturday confined to the castle with everybody else - with all these people who thought that I was a delusional fangirl.
For a second, I had tried to convince myself that maybe they wouldn't care. But I knew how these things went, especially when James Potter was involved, and it wasn't good.
"Hey."
I turned around and gave Katie a smile as she slid to the edge of my bed, her curls wild and bushy like they only ever were in the morning.
"Hungry?" She asked, stifling a yawn.
I wasn't. Even less so when I thought about walking into the Great Hall - about maybe having to see James again. It would have been so easy to ask her to stay here with me; to hide out in my bed until the first brutal waves of gossip had swept the castle. Katie would have done it in a heartbeat. But I couldn't just pretend this wasn't happening to me.
I had to face the fallout sooner or later.
"Yeah." I tried for a smile, but I didn't quite feel it. "Let's get breakfast."
It had been too early for a show. The Great Hall had been entirely empty with only a few younger students milling around the housetables, playing gobstones and munching on toast. None of them had been remotely interested in our slightly crumpled, bleary-eyed group as we had shuffled into the room.
The combination of a raging Gryffindor party and the catastrophic weather had granted me a temporary reprieve and, though I knew that this was far from over, I slowly exhaled the breath I had been holding since we had left the common room.
"So, what's the plan?" Katie asked a little too upbeat to be casual, but I was thankful for it. Anything that distracted me from overthinking the vicious rumours that were surely already poisoning the castle was good.
"I've got, like, a thousand pages to write for Sinistra." Hector yawned and stretched both of his arms above his head, just as Tarquin gave a low, painful groan.
"Shit, I forgot about that."
"I think she's more scared about our NEWTS than we are."
"Speak for yourself." Tarquin frowned at Hector, then at the half-eaten toast on his plate. "I'm plenty scared."
"You still have more than a month, though, don't you?" Katie scooped up the last bits of her eggs, which slid off her fork again as Tarquin reached over to ruffle her hair.
"Aw, my sweet little sixth-year."
There was the sudden sound of movement at the far end of the Great Hall. People were starting to trickle in now, filling the empty house tables, and I shifted in my seat. Some Ravenclaws sat down around us, keeping the usual amount of distance as they barely paid us any attention, and I felt myself relax a little. Maybe I had been too much in my head about this. After all, it was the end of the school year and people had more serious things to worry about than James Potter's social life.
A spade of giggles bubbled up behind me - a tangle of excited voices, most of them familiar - and then, loudly: "She was basically stalking him. Lucas told me that she showed up at their training once and entirely lost her shit when James said he didn't know her."
The tension in my body paralysed me for a moment - like a particularly viscous stupify hex, aimed right at the chest - and I clenched my fingers around my tea cup until my knuckles turned white.
"Oh my god, that was Seth Woodley?"
They didn't whisper. My name carried through the hall - enunciated, so that no one had to guess - and I grabbed Katie's arm as she let her fork clank onto her plate, ready to turn around.
I loved her for it, but I also knew that this would only make it worse. Hogwarts' toxic gossip culture thrived on provocation and emotional baits and I was done with playing other people's games.
"That's so pathetic," another girl said and I tried to focus on my breathing as I forced my chin up and took a casual sip of my tea. It was cold and tasted like bile, but I swallowed it nonetheless.
"Shut your fucking mouth, Singer." The words were low and harsh, not loud enough to cause a stir, and I looked over my shoulder before I could stop myself to find my cousin behind me, staring down a panicked-looking Adina Singer. "Or I'll do it for you."
Vala looked entirely calm, even as the group of girls pushed past her, shooting her dirty looks and I felt a wave of gratitude towards her.
"I told you he wasn't worth it."
She had. Several times. And it made sense now - it should have made sense before. I should have understood what I had been getting myself into before James Potter's lazy, crooked smiles had started slipping into my thoughts.
But I had already been falling, then, hadn't I?
Now, in the aftermath of it all, I could see it clearly - how he made me like him, bit by bit - and I wondered if I ever even stood a chance.
The sky looked progressively menacing. Dark clouds had been looming low over the Forbidden Forest all day, the threat of rain palpable in the air. Still, not a drop had fallen yet, like it was holding out, rallying for the storm.
"You're an avoider." Katie watched me unnecessarily stir the Fauxlantis which had turned a bright yellow over the past few days, a passable imitation of the potion it was supposed to mimick. "If I were you, I'd give James a piece of my mind and then some."
I didn't look up at her because I didn't need to see her expression to know the look on her face: fierce, frowning, eyes narrowed. I didn't doubt that Katie wouldn't have shied away from causing a very public, very dramatic scene, and maybe she was right, but I felt like I had said everything I needed to say to James.
"I'm not avoiding anything. I told him to leave me alone, remember?"
"Still." She shrugged and leaned against the desk next to me, arms crossed in front of her. "I feel like you need to punch him. Like, a good, hard slap to the face. It's therapeutic, believe me."
I snorted and shook my head, tapping the ladle against the cauldron and putting it down before turning to look at my best friend. "I don't think slapping James Potter like a jilted Ambrosia Tinkertabber heroine will make anything better."
Katie groaned, clearly frustrated with my reluctance to physically harm James, before turning her attention to Sam who was sitting on the partially overgrown desk across from us, his hands already covered in moonlace. "Sam, help me here."
"Sam." I turned to give him my full attention. "Tell her that she's wrong."
"I - um -" He looked back and forth between us, his blue eyes wide and a little panicked. "I lost my memory?"
"Dude." Katie shook her head at him. "You can't play that card forever."
The glass door creaked, flooding Greenhouse One with the sort of dense, humid air that felt a little too heavy to breathe easily as Tarquin and Hector came in, both looking tired and a little disgruntled.
"I hate astronomy," Hector groaned as he made his way over to Sam, positioning himself between his legs and wrapping his arms around him before burying his head in his shoulder. "What are we talking about?"
"Oh, the usual." I brushed a particularly persistent vine of moonlace off my shoulder but it wound around my hand before I could fling it off. "Memory loss, illegal potions, physically assaulting Potter. That sort of thing."
Katie threw her arms up, looking almost comically exasperated. "It just doesn't feel right that Seth has to hide out here while James is happily strutting around the castle like he owns the place."
"I'm not hiding." I sounded like a petulant child, probably because, deep down, I knew that Katie was right. I might not have wanted to admit it to myself, but I was terrified of the castle - of all the gossip and the looks and of having to see him again. Of having to pretend that I was absolutely fine in front of the boy who made me feel like this.
"He doesn't look happy," Tarquin said with a casual shrug of his shoulders and I felt my heart skip a beat - two beats - just as Katie rounded on him.
"What?" She raised her eyebrows like she couldn't believe he hadn't immediately shared this piece of information with her. "You've seen him?"
"Yeah… um…" He glanced at Hector who was still leaning against Sam, before shifting his gaze to me, then back to his girlfriend. "He was in the library."
"Doing what?" Katie almost snorted, like she had never heard anything so outrageous, but Tarquin only shrugged, clearly not catching on to the general we-hate-Potter-vibe that Katie was pushing for.
"Um, studying?"
This time, Katie didn't hold back as she gave a snort of contempt that made it very clear how she felt about this. "Right. Studying."
"Tarquin's right," Hector said, turning towards me as much as he could with Sam's arms around him. "He looked not great. Like shit, actually."
I could feel the tightness behind my chest, behind my sternum, as it expanded, threatening to crush my windpipe. I didn't know what to do with this; how to deal with the fallout of falling for James Potter - for anybody, really. I had never been here before and I didn't know how to make it stop; how to get rid of him. Because no matter how much I tried, I couldn't stop thinking about him, pathetically wishing that it were different.
"I can't talk about this. Him."
I hadn't meant to say it like this, especially not with that raw, brittle edge to my voice that did not sound like I was OK, and there was a crushing silence that fell after my words. But then, Sam smiled and nodded and Katie looped her arm through mine, and Tarquin said, "I have an idea about how we can track the Fauxlantis once it's done", and everything suddenly felt a little bit better.
Not great, not even OK, but better.
"Right. That's good." I loosened a sigh and turned my head to look at the slowly simmering potion behind me.
I still hadn't heard from my blackmailers but I doubted that they had forgotten about me. The potion would be done in a week and there would probably be some sort of very shady transaction event that would once again put me at risk of expulsion, but it was too late to turn back now. I had to see this through.
"I think this might work." Tarquin had dug his hand into his pocket before holding it out to me, showing me the small leaf that lay in the middle of his palm. It was dark, almost black and, when I looked closer, I realised that it had the distinct shape of a heart.
"It smells like mint," Katie said as she bent over her boyfriend's outstretched hand, sniffing at the strange little plant. "What is it?"
"Lovenettle."
Hector frowned, pulling Sam along as he came to stand next to me. "Isn't this stuff used in love potions?"
"It's actually a main-ingredient in most of them," Tarquin explained as he carefully tipped the leaf onto the desk. We all moved a little closer, watching as he picked up a knife and, with the precision of a surgeon, cut right through the middle, separating the heart into two halves.
There was a moment of anticipatory silence - like we were collectively holding our breaths - but a few seconds passed and absolutely nothing happened.
"It's not doing anything," Katie said.
"It will." Tarquin picked up one of the halves and dropped it into my hand. The leaf was heavier than it looked and the scent of mint was so intense that it cancelled out the slightly putrid smell of the Fauxlantis. "Lovenettle inherently seeks its other half when separated, no matter the distance. It just takes the leaves a while to miss each other. The pull is quite strong, which makes it so useful in love potions. Creates the illusion of attraction."
I examined the lovenettle, which looked very inconspicuous as it lay a little limply in my palm, but I remembered reading about it before; how some people even worked it into necklaces and wedding rings that were destined to always find each other. It sounded romantic at first but, when you really thought about it, there was something unhealthy about the entire concept, maybe even sinister. Magically chaining someone to you actually seemed very much like the opposite of love.
I sighed and leaned against the desk, feeling the lack of sleep in my muscles. "If this works, we might actually be able to find the potion."
"Find the potion, find the perpetrator," Katie said and I felt deeply grateful that she was here; that all of them were here, refusing to let me do this absolutely stupid thing on my own.
"Seriously, I don't get it," Katie said as she watched me struggle with the knot of my uniform tie. "Why do you have to fill in again?"
She was sitting on a cushion on the floor, her back propped up against the frame of her bed and her legs stretched out in front of her. Behind her, Bernice's strawberry blonde ponytail whipped up and down with each ferocious push-up, punctuated by low, primal grunts, while, at the far end of the room, Ursula's curtains were drawn shut, like so often.
I sometimes wondered if she was ever going to speak to me again.
"We're short-staffed again and I volunteered." I fumbled with my prefect badge, trying to pin it to my blouse without injuring myself.
"But why?" Katie groaned, letting her magazine drop onto the snack bowl in her lap. She looked like a cosy night in with her yellow pyjama trousers and fluffy pink socks, and I envied her just a little bit. "I mean, rounds, I ask you! And on a Saturday, too! Why, Seth?"
I sighed and picked up my wand from my bed, just as Bernice's rhythmic snorting changed tact. Apparently, she had progressed to squats and I watched her for a moment; how she kept pushing herself, even though her entire jaw was clenched with exhaustion. "Because I don't mind."
Because I felt so guilty for what I was doing behind McGonagall's back.
Because, even though I knew it was illusionary to hold on to the idea, there might have still been a glimmer of hope that, by some inconceivable miracle, I wasn't entirely out of the running for headgirl yet. I wasn't sure I deserved it anymore - after everything that had happened this year - but I also couldn't just give up. Not like that.
"Fine." Katie sighed, dramatically, and picked up her Witch Weekly again, almost dislodging the bowl with pretzels that balanced precariously on her legs. "I'll wait up for you, you massive nerd."
The castle was different at night - without the crowds and the noise and the chaos.
But it wasn't quiet. Ever.
The storm had finally reached Hogwarts and it felt cathartic. Hard rain was pelting the windows, the sound mingling with the muted whispers that echoed along the hallways, travelling from portrait to portrait; with the creaking and ticking and the distant groaning of a staircase changing direction, like a magical heartbeat.
I leaned my back against the wall underneath one of the crackling torches, soaking up the warmth and regretting leaving my sweatshirt behind in my room. But my shift was almost over and, if Bernice hadn't used up all the hot water, I could still take a shower before changing into my softest pyjamas and curling up with Spellbound in Stratford.
It was the probably dumbest book on the planet but also strangely enthralling.
Suddenly, there was a bloodcurdling scream, loud enough to slice through the torrential rain, and I pushed myself away from the wall, the grip around my wand tightening with sudden apprehension.
I was running before I knew it; before I had a plan.
Another scream - a wail - and adrenaline was pumping through my body, pushing me to move faster. The sounds were gut-wrenching and I felt my heart beat in my throat as I blindly tore down the dark corridor, my wand still clenched in my shaky hand.
When I finally reached the Entrance Hall, it was empty, but the doors were pushed open wide, the air heavy with rain and earth, and my heart plunged to my stomach when I suddenly saw her: Athena Notte was cowering on the ground, in the rain, her hands frantically clutching at something dark and writhing, and could barely keep myself from screaming when I realised what it was - who it was.
"What happened?" I shouted over the downpour as I dropped to my knees beside Athena, but she was sobbing convulsively and I was scared senseless as I watched Genie Patil's body contort with violent spasms on the wet stone floor underneath me.
I was on autopilot, really, when I raised my wand above my head and sent out the distress signal to alert the other prefects. We needed a teacher, an adult who would know what to do, because I didn't. I couldn't. Not when I could barely keep myself from sliding into mindless panic.
"She wasn't supposed to take it." Athena blubbered, her gaze frantic and unfocused as she looked up at me. "I didn't think it would be this bad. I just wanted to scare him. To make him realise…" she trailed off, wiping manically at the tears that ran down her cheeks, smearing her flawless make-up in the process, and my stomach turned as I understood; truly understood the depth of Athena's desperation. How far she would go to get the boy she loved to love her back.
It was reckless and dumb and so incredibly delusional, but it also made so much sense.
She wanted James to care, even if it meant poisoning herself.
Genie wheezed, guttural and wet, and I felt a renewed surge of panic sink its claws into my chest. "Shit," I muttered to myself as I pulled her body towards me, struggling to keep her in a stable side position. "Have you learned nothing from the Postula you slipped me?"
There was a pause, followed by a shaky breath. "How did you know it was me?"
"I didn't," I said, not looking up at Athena as I pointed my wand at Genie. "Regurgio."
I didn't know if I was doing this right; if the vomiting charm would work, but I had to do something - anything. Genie began to jerk in my arms - violently - and I had to dig my fingers into her shoulder to keep her from rolling over as she began to throw up on the stone tiles.
"Hey! What's going on?" Someone shouted over the rushing of the rain and I looked over my shoulder at the group of people that was clustered in the Entrance Hall. I couldn't see their faces through the downpour - if they were prefects or students or teachers - but it didn't matter.
"We need a teacher! Any teacher! Quick!" I shouted, my voice hoarse and rough as it fought against the cold and the rain and Genie's horrible gagging noises, but it was enough to send the group running, hopefully to get help.
"I - I shouldn't have done that." Athena snivelled as the sound of Genie's retching subsided, turning into slow, shallow breaths. I wasn't sure what she was talking about; if she meant Genie, me, both of us. Maybe she wasn't sure either. Maybe it didn't matter. "I just - I just want him to love me."
I half-leaned against a head-less statue at the end of the hallway, feeling the cold air of the castle crawl through my soaked clothes. It was April, technically spring, but, at the moment, even the concept of warmth was hard to grasp.
Fire flickered in the brackets along the stone wall, painting strange patterns as it blended with the rain that lashed against the windows, but they did little in the way of providing heat. Hogwarts was draughty - always - and the drying charm I had put on myself could only do so much.
At least I had stopped dripping.
I took a deep breath and then pushed myself away from the statue, feeling every bone in my chilled body wobble in protest. A hot bath would have been amazing, but it was past curfew and I was tired and exhausted. All I wanted was to bury myself under a mountain of fluffy blankets and leave this absolutely shitty day behind me.
Not that I could. The horrifying image of Genie Patil's fluttering eyelids and frantic breaths as she vomited up whatever malfunctioning potion was in her system had burned itself into my mind forever.
I still didn't understand it. I had been convinced that all of it had been connected somehow; the butchered potions and Sam and the blackmailing. That rooting out one evil would automatically stop all the others. But it hadn't, had it?
Athena had poisoned me with the Postula and I was fairly certain that the bathroom incident was on her head as well. But, as unhinged and reckless as those things were, I didn't think that she was secretly an evil potions-ring leader. A toxic mean girl, yes, but not a criminal mastermind.
She had looked terrified.
I had almost made it to the other end of the hospital wing where a bundle of staircases met to form a very badly lit landing when, suddenly, I heard footsteps - loud and urgent - and a dark shape bounded around the corner.
"No," I said before I could stop myself, taking a few instinctive steps backwards as James stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open as he stared at me.
"Woodley?"
This could not actually be happening. I had no idea what horrible thing I had done to contaminate my cosmic energy like this, but this was reaching a new level of ridiculousness. Or the universe was just a prick who enjoyed making my life absolutely miserable.
"What are you doing here?" I sounded normal enough. At least not like I had been silently crying into my pillow over him last night, but then he made to come closer and my insides crumbled like a sandcastle under a wave. "No!" I threw an arm out as though that would ever be enough to protect my hummingbird heart from the impact of his proximity. He looked much too good, too harmless like this; bathed in warm torchlight, hands buried in the pockets of his dark grey joggers, and his hair distinctly messy, like he had been running his hand through it all night.
"Go home, Potter."
He shifted his weight, a soft frown pulling on his forehead, but just as he opened his mouth to say something, there was another set of hurried footsteps and then Professor McGonagall appeared on the landing, followed by a lanky, dark-haired boy.
"James!" Yash Patil called out when he saw us, his face turned up to James like he was an actual adult, someone with authority to look up to rather than just a boy who was one measly year above us. "What happened? Is she alright?"
James's gaze flickered to the headmistress before settling back on Yash. He gave him a carefully crafted smile - not one of his dazzling, stomach-swooping ones, but something much softer. "She'll be fine, mate. Gee is indestructible, you know that."
He sounded convincing enough, but his smile flickered and there was something to the set of his jaw that made him look tense. I wondered if Yash could tell that James was lying, but before he could say anything, McGonagall's voice sliced through the lingering silence like a precision knife.
"You two," she said as she looked from James to me and the grove between her eyebrows deepened as they drew together. "Of course." She sighed. "Go to my office, both of you, and wait there."
"But -" James started, but McGonagall ruthlessly cut across him as she would have with any student. She wasn't playing favourites and I loved her a little for it.
"Now, Potter." Her voice was stern, unyielding, and James closed his mouth again, pressing his lips together, because even he seemed to know that it was useless to argue with her.
We moved to let her pass, Yash following close behind, glancing miserably at James, and then they vanished down the deserted corridor.
I noticed James twitch as he looked after them, like his instinct was to follow them down to the hospital wing. But he didn't, and then, suddenly, his gaze shifted to me.
"So, um, should we…?" He arched an eyebrow at me. His voice was slow and deep and not like anything I could deal with right now, and so I simply walked straight past him, pretending like he wasn't there.
"Right." I could hear him mumble behind me, just as I began to climb the set of stairs that led to McGonagall's tower office, but I didn't turn around.
I didn't have to.
I could hear him behind me as I made my way through the sleeping castle, his footsteps mingling with the crackling of torches and the patter of rain, and it felt like all of my senses were on hyper-alert. I felt his proximity, even as he kept his distance, and it made my heart race with apprehension. He couldn't ever know how I felt - what I felt - that I was thinking about him.
Too much.
The corridor in front of McGonagall's office was narrow and badly lit. A pitiful torch was flickering faintly in its lonely bracket above one of the stone benches on either side of the wall and I moved quickly to claim the spot underneath it. It barely helped; my clothes were still damp and cold and I was remarkably shit at household charms. Then again, some things just couldn't be salvaged, even by magic.
James hadn't sat down. I followed his movements from the corner of my eye, still refusing to fully look at him as he scuffed his trainer on the stone floor and then leaned his back against the wall opposite me, arms folded across the fading Gryffindor logo on his sweatshirt.
It was a ridiculous situation to be in; stuck in this bloody tiny corridor with the boy who had played his cruel games with me, all while on the verge of hypothermia. I pressed my hands together and tucked them in between my thighs for warmth, unable to suppress the shiver that shook me to my core. The drying spell had been a disappointment, but I could do a solid heating charm - one that wasn't specifically designed to be used on humans, sure, but I was cold enough to be willing to accept the possibility of third degree burns.
Across the hallway, James moved and I stupidly looked up to find him half-naked, with his sweatshirt over his head as he pulled it off in one swift movement.
"What are you doing?" I asked, mildly horrified as my gaze briefly dipped to the muscles that corded his abdomen before his T-shirt mercifully slid back into place.
"It's freezing," he said and then took two steps towards me, the sweatshirt crumpled up in one hand as he held it out to me.
I blinked at him, slowly, then at the grey piece of cloth that looked entirely too cosy and soft and everything my dank uniform shirt wasn't. But he couldn't be serious, could he? He couldn't really believe that I would take his cursed sweatshirt like some pathetic damsel in distress.
"Um, no."
"You're shaking."
"I'm great." I crossed my arms in front of my chest, realising too late that I was not only a damp mess but also wearing a black bra underneath a wet, white shirt.
"Oh, really?" James arched an eyebrow as he looked down at me and I bit the inside of my bottom lip, mostly to keep it from trembling as I glared back up at him with all the stubborn anger my half-frozen body could muster.
"Yeah. Toasty, really." My voice glitched on the T - a quiver that extended all the way to my shoulders and upper body - and I pressed my lips into a firm line as I braced against the treacherous shiver that ran down my spine.
"Woodley."
"I'm not wearing your sweatshirt, Potter."
James looked at me for a moment too long - frowning and dark and brooding like a tortured Ambrosia Tinkertabber hero - and I hated the way he could still make my heart feel like this; like it had recklessly thrown itself off a cliff and was now in perpetual free fall, headed for the inevitable impact.
"It's not mine, it's Freddie's."
His voice was a little too quiet to be entirely casual as he put the sweatshirt down next to me, but I ignored the lump in my throat and the pressure behind my chest because, of course, he was good at this; the band-aid and the hand holding and the soft rasp in his voice when he called me Woodley. The even softer edge when he called me Seth.
Circe, somebody should have given the boy a medal.
He had crossed the narrow corridor again and sat down on the bench across from me, his head leaning against the wall, arms folded over his rumpled black T-shirt, watching me. Intently. I didn't hold his gaze, because I couldn't play this game - none of his games. Looking at him hurt - a slow, dull sort of pain that felt like it would live forever behind my chest - and I was too tired and too cold to put up a fight.
The torchlight flickered - the frantic struggle of a dying flame - and then, it spluttered out, leaving behind nothing but blue-tinged darkness. My teeth were chattering and, when I flexed my fingers experimentally, I realised that they had gone numb. I was literally freezing and the blasted sweatshirt was taunting me as it lay there, looking warm and cosy and perfect.
I let my hand drop and casually slid my fingertips into the cloth, running them along the fleecy lining on the inside. It had the distinct feel of something well-loved; faded and linty, like it had been washed a lot, and I thought that nothing had ever felt this good.
It was just a sweatshirt, right? Freddie Weasley's old washed out sweatshirt. Wearing it would be a convenience not a concession.
I didn't look at James as I grabbed the sweater and pulled it over my head. It was warm and soft and large enough for me to peel off my wet shirt underneath before sliding my arms into the sleeves and letting them fall over my freezing fingers. It might not have been his, but it smelled like him - woodsy and a little like clean soap - and I felt a tightness wrap around my stomach. This was ridiculous. I shouldn't have exposed myself to this nonsense.
I pulled my legs up onto the bench and wrapped my arms around my knees, pressing them against the Gryffindor logo as I tried to think of anything but James Potter, which was difficult when everything bloody smelled like him.
"I'm sorry." The words fell heavy in the silence - throaty, barely audible above the drumming of rain against the windows - and I could feel the gut wrenching twists in my stomach mingle with a surge of panic as I glanced up at him.
Even looking at him still wrecked my heart.
"Shit, this is so fucked up." He dragged a hand through his hair - slowly - burying his fingers in the dark strands as he frowned at me and I wanted to run. I wanted to do anything but sit here with my unruly heart that refused to acknowledge that it couldn't react like this to James Potter anymore.
"I fucked up. I know that. But it's not -" He cut himself off, the faint echo of his voice still lingering between us as Professor McGonagall appeared at the end of the corridor. She was coming towards us at a swift pace, her boots clacking aggressively on the stone floor, and I could feel a prickle of fear run down my spine when I saw the expression on her face.
The potted plant on McGonagall's desk was thriving. I hadn't pegged her as the plant-mum-type, honestly, but the little tentacles had grown to lush, sinewy vines that swayed gently, almost hypnotically, occasionally prodding the dust particles that floated by.
I focused on that rather than on James, who was sitting in the chair right next to mine, entirely too close. His elbows were propped up on his knees and, even from the corner of my eye, I could see him bouncing his leg like a fidgety four-year-old. The nervous energy radiated from him in waves.
"Is she alright?" He asked before McGonagall had even sat down.
She gave him a stern look over the rim of her glasses but it quickly shifted into something a little softer at the sight of him. "She will be."
"Thank fuck," James said on an exhale but, catching the headmistress's frown, quickly added, "I mean, Merlin."
"You can thank Miss Woodley." McGonagall had taken her seat underneath the portraits of her predecessors, most of whom were snoozing or gone entirely, and her eyes shifted to me. "You may as well have saved Miss Patil's life tonight. I can see I made the right choice by reinstating you."
I swallowed the lump in my throat and prayed to Circe that I wouldn't start crying. Because I was so relieved. Because I felt so horrible at the same time. I thought about it then, for a wild second; about throwing in the towel and coming clean. I could just give up. I could tell McGonagall everything; about the blackmailing and the threats and the Fauxlantis in Greenhouse One. Let someone else handle this absolute mess.
"I still don't understand what you were doing so far away from Gryffindor Tower after hours, Potter." McGonagall's voice cut through my thoughts and, when I looked up, I saw her gaze sliding from James to me. Then, to the burgundy letters across my chest that stood out even more boldly in the dim light of the tower room and I could feel the heat crawl up my cheeks.
"Midnight stroll?" James gave her a charming smile, which seemed to exasperate her enough to loosen a long, deep sigh as her gaze flickered to me again - to the sweatshirt.
"I see."
I could hear it in her voice, see it on her face - that she was drawing all the wrong conclusions - and I wanted to tell her that it was not what it looked like. That there was nothing going on between James and me.
But there was. A little. Wasn't it?
I couldn't help it as I glanced at James and the look he gave me was a punch to the guts. Or the heart. Or the throat. All of it.
"James," McGonagall said and I snapped my head back towards her, feeling caught. The use of his first name sounded too soft and distinctly ominous and I felt a prickle of unease in the nape of my neck. "I implore you to remain vigilant. Just for once in your life, I beg you not to be reckless."
The warning seemed strange - out of context - but James only sighed, a little exasperatedly, and gave her a brief smile. "I'm careful. I promise. "
The headmistress raised a stern eyebrow at him, like she knew he wasn't - ever - but there was fondness and warmth underneath it all; the definite tinge of parental worry. "Love potions are not to be taken lightly. You of all people should know that."
I froze. Because this didn't make any sense. Genie hadn't been drugged with a love potion, I was sure of that, which could only mean that -
"Yeah." James scoffed and I glanced over at him to see him grimace, looking distinctly bitter as he said, "I know. Trust me."
There were a thousand thoughts in my head - all of them loud enough to make my temples throb.
Love potion.
It shouldn't have surprised me. There had been signs; obvious ones even, now that I really thought about it. But it still didn't explain anything.
Safe for my Postula nightmare a few months ago, the poisonings had seemed not only random but also accidental - collateral damage of a group of reckless teenagers with mediocre potion making skills. But love potions weren't ever random. They were personal, intentional, both in their purpose and in their target, always motivated by emotions. They weren't something you would blindly slip someone just to watch them fall for somebody else, would you?
None of this made any bloody sense.
"Seth."
I didn't think before I looked up at James. He was standing right in front of me - too close - towering over me in the darkness of the hallway that suddenly felt too small, too quiet. There were no more fires, no light except for the weak, blue glow of the windows, but it was enough to see the expression on his face; the furrowed eyebrows and the intense gaze that held mine before it dipped - slowly - to my mouth.
I really wished that I didn't feel anything, then. That there weren't butterflies when he looked at me like that. But there were - a thousand of them - fluttering behind my chest and in my lungs, and I felt supremely pathetic.
"It's late." My voice was weird and shaky and I couldn't look at him, but it was the best I could do as I stood there like an idiot with my bunched up blouse slowly dripping on the floor. "Thanks for the sweatshirt. I'll return it to Freddie tomorrow."
"Woodley, wait," he said when I wanted to walk past him, his body bent towards me, cutting off my escape route. "Just… let me explain… please."
His voice scratched along the last word and his head dipped even more and, suddenly, my thoughts were a skittish flock of mokes, shrinking and vanishing before I could hold on to them. Circe, how was this so easy for him? To seem so utterly desperate even when I knew that he wasn't; that he was playing me, still.
"No, thank you." I said, feeling a prickle of anger as I pushed past him, deliberately shoving my shoulder against his as hard as I could. It probably hurt me more than it did him, but I wanted him to know that I was done with this stupid game.
"I know I fucked up!" He shouted after me, completely ignoring that it was hours past curfew and that he was risking a thousand house points. "But you can't keep running away from me!"
He was in front of me before I even reached the staircase, blocking my way once again as the walls and ceiling around us began to shimmer with translucent bodies that slowly pushed through the solid stone.
Of course, the overly invested castle ghosts had followed the ruckus in the hopes of a good show.
"I'm sorry," James said, ignoring the floating phantoms that surrounded us by now. Their forms glowed faintly in the darkness, gliding along invisible currents, and I felt like I had sunk to the bottom of the Black Lake. "I really am. But I swear I didn't mean to -"
"What?" I cut him off, feeling my exhaustion slide into something more visceral as Athena's words echoed in my head. I was losing control. I could feel it slipping through the cracks of my composure. All these things that I didn't want to feel - that made me so ashamed and vulnerable and anxious - were pressing against my lungs, my stomach, my heart, my head, and I felt a surge of utter recklessness; a violent tidal wave pushing me forwards.
"Apparently it wasn't humiliating enough to reject me when I was in your bed half-naked, you also had to go and tell everybody!"
The words were too loud, too emotional, echoing from the arched ceiling as I stood there, shouting at James Potter amidst a sea of ghosts. This was absurd. I hadn't meant to say any of this, yet here I was, unable to stop.
"I mean, am I just a joke to you?" My voice cracked, pathetically, and I closed my mouth and swallowed the lump that was pushing against my throat.
"No! Seth -" James wanted to take a step towards me but I jerked away and he halted mid-motion, loosening a sharp breath. "Fuck." He dragged a hand through his hair, accidentally prodding one of the ghosts in an old-timey frock who had floated too close. "I - I told two people. I was going mental. I had to talk about it to someone." He looked at me and his jaw muscles tensed and it was unexpectedly devastating as he added, quietly, "And I didn't reject you."
He couldn't be serious. He couldn't stand here and pretend like it was all in my head - like he hadn't made me feel like a complete idiot for thinking he actually wanted me.
"'I can't fucking do this'." I forced myself to keep looking at him despite the shame that was coiling in my stomach like a poisonous snake. "That's what you said to me."
James shook his head before pushing out a quiet, humourless snort. "You have no idea, Woodley."
And then we were there again; in this place that felt final, somehow. Like this was as far as we would get - as far as we dared to go: vague confessions that were never enough.
"Let's just… let's not do this anymore." I took a few steps backwards, stirring the sluggish maelstrom of ghosts that was circling us like a swarm of fish. They were still watching in silence, like they expected some sort of grand finale, but this wasn't a movie or a romantic novel with a twist at the end.
It was just an end.
"Why did you apparate to my place that night?" James's voice was low and gravelly, almost like a whisper, and I blinked at him as I tried to understand what he was doing - why he wouldn't just let this go.
"I told you, I ended up there by mistake."
"No, you didn't," he said matter-of-factly, shoving his hands into the pockets of his joggers as he looked straight at me, and I wanted to push him. Hard. Maybe Katie had been right after all. Because how dare he? How could he be such a prick after everything that had happened?
After he had used me and played me and humiliated me.
"Oh yes, you're right, I forgot." I snapped, feeling light-headed as my irritation with him flared up like an allergic reaction. I was so angry that I didn't even care about the two dozen dead people that were witnessing my emotional outburst. "I obviously planned to throw myself at you like the smitten fangirl I am because I'm hopelessly in love with you!"
He let out a short, raspy breath. "For fuck's sake, Woodley." He buried both of his hands in his hair and shook his head. "I know you're not in love with me, OK? That's the whole fucking point!"
"You're not making any sense!"
A tense silence trailed after my words, punctuated by my own heavy breathing, and I suddenly realised how close we were; how close his face was as he bent towards me, head tilted and eyes fixed on mine. I could see the dent between his dark eyebrows, the flexed muscles along his jaw and throat, the damn freckles.
"You came to see me that night," he said, voice low and deep, "because you knew it was the last thing you should be doing."
"That's - I don't…" I pressed my lips together, trying to shape the sentence in my mouth, but the words wouldn't come. Because he was right, wasn't he? I might have been telling myself that I had wanted to apparate to Katie's place, but that was a lie.
Destination, determination, deliberation.
"So what?" I tried to laugh; to sound nonchalant and not at all mortified that he had seen through my pretence. "Don't tell me that you pushed me away because you were trying to spare my feelings, Potter."
He stared at me for a second, his mouth opening slightly before he raised an eyebrow and said, "you're taking the piss, right?"
"What?"
I frowned at him, utterly confused. He had crossed his arms in front of his chest and my gaze was momentarily drawn to the goosebumps that covered his skin all the way up to his biceps. The hallway was freezing, even more so with the congregation of ghosts that hovered above and around us, and I suddenly wished that he hadn't given me his stupid sweatshirt.
"You were going to use me to prove a fucking point to your family." He stopped abruptly and swallowed, the movement tracing down his throat, and then his voice dropped. "I wasn't bloody trying to spare your feelings, Woodley. I was trying to spare my own." He exhaled and shook his head, like he couldn't believe he had just said that - like he was just as confused as I - and then, without saying anything else, he just turned around and walked away, straight through the lingering castle ghosts.
A/N: Phew. That took me a while. I'm sorry, I didn't think I'd take me this long. But it's here and I hope you enjoyed it despite the long wait. As always, I would love love love to hear what you think.
Anything, really.
You guys's comments and thoughts really do make my day and are my guiding light through writer's block and lack of motivation. So, please, don't hold back.
Thanks for being so brilliant and amazing and still reading this story that is now slowly (finally) drawing closer to its end. I wouldn't be writing without all of you cheering me on.
