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37
THE RELUCTANT DAMSEL
MUSICAL MOOD FOR THIS CHAPTER: GLASS ANIMALS - HEAT WAVES
"Even I can't stand the sexual tension anymore."
Despite the cool wind, my sweatshirt was starting to feel hot. My back felt vaguely sticky and I tried to angle my arms in a way that hopefully would prevent the grey cloth from staining under my armpits. The weather was nice for April in Scotland and while the air was still appropriately chilly, sitting in the sun on Katie's picnic blanket felt a little like lounging by the pool in late July.
"What are you doing?" Sam had been frowning at Kaite for a while, watching her as she tapped her wand against her phone, which looked like a patient mid-heart-surgery with an array of metallic pieces splayed around the cut-up carcass.
"Can't talk. Critical moment," she mumbled without looking up from her project.
"She's trying to get her phone to work-" I began to explain, but then realised that that probably only made more questions for Sam. "Um, phones don't work at Hogwarts because-"
"-because the amount of magic at the castle makes them go haywire, I know," he said and, when everybody looked at him, he added, "what?"
I glanced at Hector as he shifted uncomfortably next to Sam. He had one hand planted on the blanket, fingers splayed so that his pinky was almost touching Sam's elbow.
Almost.
We were all struggling to deal with the borders of Sam's memory, figuring out what was still there and what was gone, but whenever I looked at Hector, my heart broke a little for him. It must have been torture to have your boyfriend remember useless things like how electricity didn't work at Hogwarts while forgetting that he once loved you enough to announce it to an entire room full of people.
"So, Katie," Tarquin said into the silence, his voice sounding a bit too loud to be casual, "didn't you say you have to get that book from the library?"
"Um no." Katie finally looked up, a broad grin plastered across her face. "I'd rather stay here and listen to what you guys are planning for my birthday."
Hector arched an eyebrow at her just as Tarquin snorted. "I thought you wanted to be surprised?" Katie shrugged and began to comb her fingers through my hair when I leaned back and rested my head on her lap.
"I do. But I also hate surprises."
"Complicated woman." Tarquin shook his head and Sam laughed and, for a moment, I felt incredibly unbothered by everything, wishing I could stay here forever; in the sunshine with my friends.
"Hey." A shadow fell over my face and I opened my eyes to find James Potter looking down at me, the ghost of a smile tugging on the corner of his mouth. It took me a moment to find my bearings, mostly because Katie was still digging her fingers into my scalp and I had absolutely not expected James to be even vaguely on time. So it took me a second too long before I finally blurted "hey!" and then sat up so suddenly that Katie tore out a few strands of my hair by accident. "Hi!"
James grinned, probably because I had just greeted him twice like an idiot, and the sun felt unbearably hot all of a sudden as heat crawled up my neck.
Why couldn't I be cool - just for once.
"Am I too early?" He asked, one eyebrow raised as he watched me assemble my things that were strewn all across the blanket. It didn't exactly help that everybody was watching me as I crawled around on the ground, collecting the books I had scattered before, but there was only little I could do about that now.
"Um, no. I'm ready." I pushed myself up, cradling the half-dozen books that I couldn't fit into my tote bag anymore in my arms, while absolutely avoiding making eye contact with Katie. I had a feeling that if I looked at my best friend, my cringeworthy awkwardness would be reflected in the expression on her face and I needed to not think about how weird I felt right now.
"I'll see you later," I told my friends and then fell into step with James as we walked down the slight slope, ambling towards the banks of the Black Lake. Around us, the Hogwarts grounds were teeming with people, all milling around on the grass to soak up the warmth before the next spell of rain would inevitably hit the castle. It was a brilliant day, really; a few wispy clouds were drifting across the blue sky, a soft wind was rustling the leaves on the trees, the sun danced on the lake like clusters of genuine diamonds, but I barely noticed any of this as I tried to reign in my racing pulse.
I felt a lot like I had felt taking my OWLs last year and the fact that neither of us said anything, just made everything infinitely worse.
"How about here?" James had stopped walking when we passed one of the wooden piers that was still unoccupied and it took me a moment to reassemble my wandering thoughts. I looked at him, how he stood there in his jeans and the green sweatshirt and, for a moment, I felt a strange tug that pulled on my insides; I would have denied it with my last breath if anyone had asked me, but James Potter was outrageously handsome.
"Sure." My voice was a little too breathy to be entirely normal and I quickly marched past him to sit down on the ground, emptying the entire contents of my bag between us. "I brought only the basics."
"The basics?" James sat down across from me, his eyebrows arched as he took in the pile of books, the hint of a grin playing on his lips. "Are you shitting me, Woodley?"
"Well, you really suck at Potions," I said before I could stop myself, which made him laugh, and I felt the awkward tension melt away a little. Maybe we didn't need to talk about all the weird things between us. Granted, we had snogged - twice - and James had technically seen me half-naked, but it didn't seem to be that big of a deal to him. So, maybe, it was time to just move on.
The sun had broken through the clouds for one last hurrah before it would disappear behind the Forbidden Forest, flooding the grounds with the most gooey orange light, and I stretched my arms above my head to relieve the spasm that had settled between my shoulder blades.
James had long abandoned the notes in front of him, his elbows resting on his propped-up knees and his head turned towards me. From the corner of my eye I could see him following my movement, tracing the curve of my back until his gaze seemed to linger on the exposed strip of skin at my waist.
I could feel my face grow hot despite the cool breeze and quickly put my hands down, pushing my hair behind my ears. "Um, should we call it a day?"
James looked up, his eyes meeting mine, and my heart seemed to suddenly stumble over its own beat as though it was trying to keep up with the much faster rhythm of an imaginary song.
"Thanks for the help." He knitted his eyebrows like he had done before when I had tried to explain potion inversion theory to him. "Merlin knows I need it."
"No problem." I shrugged in an attempt to diffuse the odd tension that weighed down the air around us and then finally forced my gaze away from him towards the still busy grounds. I had noticed it before; that people were looking. Not obviously, but they'd glance up from whatever they were doing and their gazes would stray towards us. I had tried to brush it off as coincidental, but it kept happening and I only hoped that tutoring James in public would not cause another onslaught of rumours about drugging him with an obscure love potion.
Then again, who was I kidding?
"Are you going to Hogsmeade on Saturday?"
"Hm?" I snapped my head back at James, trying to ignore that we definitely had an audience. "Oh, yeah. Katie wants to buy costumes for the concert next week."
I immediately regretted saying this as James raised an eyebrow at me. "Costumes?"
I could have gone with anything, really; but, of course, I was so spectacularly uncool that I told James Potter about buying costumes for a rock concert. Unfortunately, I couldn't find an elegant way out of this and so I tried to play it off by merely shrugging my shoulders.
"Dressing us up is Kat's raison d'ètre," I said as though it was no big deal, and then pretended to busy myself with collecting the spread of notes that covered the ground around us.
"Like for the ice skating rink?"
I stopped mid-motion and looked up at him again; he was smiling his stupid crooked smile and I suddenly felt an entire glorious cocktail of mortification and embarrassment as the image of me skating past him and his friends while taking a wonky bow popped up in my head.
"I liked the shiny leggings," he said in a devastatingly low voice, the grin still in place, and, for a moment, all I could do was stare at him. It even took me a second to notice that I was actually smiling back at him, which was unsettling, to say the least. Realising that James Potter could elicit such a reaction and that I had absolutely no control over it felt akin to a mild panic attack; especially because I shouldn't be smiling in the first place, considering that he had been acting like a git back then.
"Hey! I'm doing something nice for you here, Potter, so stop making fun of me." I wanted to sound nonchalant - to diffuse the tension - but my voice came out all wrong and I suddenly felt as though I was drunk; mostly because he still hadn't looked away, squinting at me as the golden sunlight danced on his face and the wind ruffled his already messy hair.
"I'm not." The corner of his mouth lifted slightly and my stomach writhed as, suddenly - unsolicited - I had to think about the way his lips had felt on mine.
Shit.
"Um, OK." I began to stuff my books into my bag and then pushed myself up clumsily, ignoring that my left leg had gone numb from sitting on it. "So you've got the study cards and, um, the books so you're all set."
"Um, right." James arched an eyebrow at me. "So, Sunday?"
"Yeah." I turned to look at him, my bag bumping awkwardly against my bum and my hair blowing about my face. "Use the cards," I said, because of course I had to make this even worse, "I'll know if you didn't."
"I will, I promise."
His laugh was easy, and, though I was always inclined to believe the worst of him, it seemed impossible that the dimple on his right cheek could ever be a product of mockery. It stayed, even after his laughter had faded, and I wondered if he knew that it was there.
My heart fluttered and I automatically stumbled backwards as I tried to make it stop. I couldn't handle this - at all - and so I took a couple more steps back and gave James a final wave. "Cheerio!"
Oh god, I was a complete disaster.
He didn't laugh this time and I didn't stick around to see the expression on his face - mostly to hide the embarrassment that showed on mine - and so I just walked back up the hill, ignoring the stares that followed me all the way to the castle.
Rain had returned to Hogwarts, which always seemed so much more depressing after a few balmy spring days. I watched Katie from the side; how her gaze kept straying to the large windows that lined the corridor, her frown growing more intense with every new view of the gloomy courtyard. If the weather was like this next Friday, the Hey Hey Hippogriff concert was definitely going to be canceled.
"It'll ease up until next week," I said but Katie turned her frown on me.
"I can't think about this right now. Bleeding Scotland." She shook her head to herself and then closed her eyes for a second, almost running over a tiny first year in the process. "When are you meeting up with James today?"
"I'm not. He's got training." I made to swerve to avoid colliding with the loud group of intertwined Hufflepuffs that were heading straight towards us, but they immediately broke ranks to scatter around me, shooting obvious glances in my direction. It wasn't the first time this had happened, either; at first, I had attributed it to the aftermath of the potions rumours and the assault on Sam; those weird, overt looks that seemed to increasingly stray my way. But they were distinctly different to the uncomfortable, sidelong glances I had been receiving back when everybody had believed me to be a reckless potions dealer and I couldn't help the nagging feeling that this newfound attention was directly connected to James Potter.
"He has a ton of study cards to tide him over until Sunday," I said, shrugging, and Katie let out a groan.
"Oh no, you didn't."
"What?" I laughed, mostly because of the exasperated expression on my best friend's face. "They're effective."
"Honestly, Seth, there is nothing more unsexy than study cards."
I shook my head, still laughing as we stopped at the end of the porticoed hallway, which was the furthest we could walk together before Katie had to branch off for double divination. "I'll see you for Herbology, drama queen."
"You will, schoolmarm," she said, blowing me a kiss, and I kept on grinning even as I pushed open the door to the girls' bathroom.
It was conveniently empty, except for one girl, and I leaned against the sink next to her, dropping my bag to the floor before getting out my water bottle. As I turned on the faucet and waited for the water to be cold enough to refill my bottle, I glanced at my reflection and tucked my hair behind my ears, examining the freckles that had become more pronounced after the unusual amount of sun Hogwarts had been getting this past week.
Grandmother was not going to be pleased.
"Cool hair."
I looked up, meeting the mirror image of the girl that was still occupying the sink next to me. She was looking at my reflection but it took me a second to catch on to the fact that she was actually talking to me.
"Oh, um, thanks," I said, somewhat awkwardly, not familiar with the protocol for receiving compliments from strangers in a school restroom. Sure, I had attracted a number of weird stares during what Katie liked to refer to as my tomboy-phase, and successfully got Demeter Notte to lose her shit once, but this was definitely a first.
The girl smiled as she passed me by and I tried to play this as cool as possible - as though random people paid me compliments all of the time - barely keeping myself from waving at her. When the door finally closed behind her, I picked up my backpack and slung one strap on my shoulder, still slightly weirded out by this entire encounter. That was also why I wasn't paying attention when I pushed through the bathroom door, accidentally bumping into someone.
"Oh, sorry," I said absently, but then I felt hands clasping my upper arms and, before I could get my bearings, I was being shoved back into the bathroom and hauled into the last stall, my backpack bunched against the stone wall as someone pressed their wand tip against my throat.
"Don't scream."
I blinked at the person who was looming in front of me, my thoughts scrambling to assemble the pieces of what the hell was going on, but as much as I tried to, I couldn't make sense of my assailant's features. Intellectually, I could see their face - eyes, nose, mouth, ears - but I couldn't process it properly, and then it hit me: I knew them, I just didn't recognise them. The realisation made the fine hairs on my arm stand up.
"Who are you?" My voice trembled and my attacker grinned.
"Wouldn't you like to know…"
Their voice was so familiar; I knew I had spoken to them before, more than once, and yet I couldn't place it. It made my skin crawl. "You're mental."
"All the more reason to comply. We can get to your curly haired friend before you even leave this bathroom."
I shook my head, trying to suppress the sensation of sheer horror that wrapped around me. "You can't… I'm not doing this," I said lamely, feeling more and more frustrated with myself. I was powerless, like a dumb beetle that had been turned onto its back, limbs flailing, utterly useless.
"You know, your friend really shouldn't walk to Divination alone - Cute hair slide, though... Oh, now she's even taking a shortcut? Honestly, I wouldn't if I were her -"
"Stop it! Just stop!" I shouted, bile rising in my throat, pushing out the fear that had paralysed me before. They had gone after Sam, and now they were threatening Katie. All the shit I had had to deal with this year had been because of them; because of a group of dumb, underage kids who were messing with people's lives because they were bored with their own, and I finally had had enough. "What do you want?"
My voice was calm enough, but I had to clench my teeth to keep myself from spitting at them.
"Volantis. Two gallons by Saturday."
"Volantis takes at least two to three weeks to brew correctly."
They paused, maybe contemplating if I was playing a trick on them, and I felt another wave of anger when I realised that whoever I was talking to apparently didn't even have the faintest idea of potion-making. It shouldn't have mattered at that point, but somehow it still kindled the fire that had sparked in the pit of my stomach.
"Saturday in two weeks, then."
"And how is this supposed to work?" I hadn't meant to laugh - mostly because this was anything but funny - but the sheer lunacy of what they were asking had my words tumble out in a snort. "I mean, even if I could find a way to get the ingredients and a place to brew it, there's no way -"
"We'll contact you." They cut across me, not even bothering to hear me out as they backed out of the stall, leaving me pressed against the wall. "And don't even think about snitching. We'll know."
I wanted to scream - to call for help, for a teacher, for anyone - but my throat had closed off and I barely managed to get enough oxygen into my body to keep myself upright.
Only when I heard the bathroom door close, I dared to loosen a shaky breath. This was truly a disaster.
There was a soft humming in my ear - a steady buzz against which my racing thoughts swirled as I tried to get them at least into something akin to order - but the aftereffects of the occulto spell still seemed to muddle my brain, dissolving any concrete notions that might have formed into nothing but fragments that wouldn't settle. I must have had abysmal karma; there was no other explanation for why this shitty year kept digging its claws into me, dragging me into messes I wasn't equipped to deal with.
Something bumped into my shoulder and I snapped my head up to find Katie looking at me with raised eyebrows. It took me a second too long to catch on and she reached out and pulled the earmuffs from my head so that they dangled around my neck. Professor Longbottom's voice reverberated from the glass ceiling and I blinked, realising that everybody had abandoned their attempts at pruning their wailing wisps. My eyes slid to the fuzzy plant in front of me; I hadn't even touched it.
"Are you OK?" Katie whispered, her brows drawn together as she examined me from the side and I gave her a quick smile. This was hardly the time and place to tell her about being accosted in the girls' bathroom by a faceless assailant who threatened to wipe her memory if I didn't comply.
"... and just like the wailing wisps, many magical herbs can serve as adequate alternatives for difficult-to-procure or even illegal substances," Longbottom droned on as he strolled between the large tables, brushing his fingers softly over the tops of a few of the fluffy plants, which began to hum under his touch, "true, they may impact potions' effects to some degree, but in most cases, minor adjustments to the composition can counteract any such disadvantages."
My gaze settled on the softly vibrating plant in front of me again, sliding in and out of focus as my brain alternated between listening to the lecture and trying to not slither into a rage-fueled panic attack.
"What's wrong?" Katie hissed when Longbottom was out of earshot again, her face looming so close to mine that I could smell her coconut shampoo. "Is it James? Did you guys fight again? Wait, did you snog?"
"What? No!"
"- the wailing wisp, for instance, is not only an excellent pain reliever," Longbottom said loudly, shooting a pointed look at us, and I quickly ducked my head and continued to take notes. "If harvested the night after a full moon and dried at exactly 42 degrees for 27 days, they make quite potent substitutes for dragon scales and can be used in a variety of potions."
"Do you want to?"
I whipped my head up, frowning as Katie raised her eyebrows at me. "What?"
She shrugged but couldn't say anything as Longbottom had stopped directly in front of our table, leaning his hip against it like only a teacher could.
"It's fascinating that a single fungus can function as a substitute for unicorn blood, isn't it, Miss Banks?"
"Fascinating, yes." Katie nodded at the Herbology Professor like she knew what he was talking about and a few of our classmates snickered into their palms. "Fungi are great. Especially if you don't want to kill unicorns and damn your soul."
Sam snorted into his wailing wisp, causing it to rustle indignantly, but I barely registered his silent fits of laughter nor Longbottom's scolding looks as the pieces in my mind suddenly clicked into place.
Katie was a genius.
I should have felt worse, honestly.
I had been cornered in a bathroom and then blackmailed to brew an illegal potion with ingredients that were difficult enough to procure without being a sixteen-year-old who was basically confined to boarding school, but this somehow felt like a chance.
Yes, it was dangerous and frightening and I risked expulsion and possibly legal consequences, but, as far as I could tell, McGonagall and the other teachers hadn't even gotten close to finding out who attacked Sam or what exactly happened to Albus Potter. And, after the phenomenally shitty year I had had because of all this, I was finally done with being the damsel in distress.
I had a plan; or at least the vague silhouette of one.
"So, the party after the concert next week is going to be lit." Adina Singer and Morgana Evensong pushed past the couple of Gryffindors that were congregating in the narrow aisle between the tables, their voices soaring over the general din that usually followed the end of a class.
"Yeah, absolutely!"
They had stopped right next to my table, but I barely paid them any attention as I separated my Arithmancy books from the hefty volumes I had gotten from the library this morning. I should have brought an extra book bag, but I hadn't even been sure what exactly I had been looking for until I had found the small Herbology-Potions cross-section
"I wish I had an invite."
"Me too. I would do anything. Literally."
Their bodies were angled towards me somewhat awkwardly and when I tried to walk past them, I realised that they were both staring at me.
"Hi Seth!"
"Um, hi." I frowned as they both kept smiling at me, not sure what exactly was going on. I had been in classes with Adina and Morgana since our first year, but that was really as far as our social interactions went.
"I love your boots," Morgana said, following close behind as I joined the beeline for the door. "So chic."
"Yeah," Adina chirped in, "So cool."
"Thanks." I was still not sure what to make of this strange conversation, but, when they continued to beam at me, I began to understand: they probably thought I knew something about that stupid party. And, for whatever reason, they actually seemed to believe that I could get them invited.
When I had finally made it out of the classroom, I had opened The Botanical Potioneer at the page where I had left off before, trusting the crowd to safely drag me along the stream of people that was moving down the corridor towards the Entrance Hall. Adina and Morgana were still close behind me, though, their voices unnaturally loud as they continued to discuss the apparently not-so-secret afterparty and I almost had to laugh; they were going to be so disappointed when they realised that I was not only no more invited than they were, but also that I hadn't even been aware of the fact that there was going to be an afterparty in the first place.
"Saucy," a low voice suddenly said right next to my ear and I looked up to find James walking behind me, close enough to peer over my shoulder. He had a carefully crafted studious expression on his face as he pretended to read along and I shook my head, only just stifling a smile.
"Oh yes. The thoughts of moonlace and its magical properties are what's keeping me up at night."
"And there I thought it was me." He grinned at me like he always did, one corner of his mouth raised a little higher than the other, and I tried to counteract the flutter in my stomach by rolling my eyes at him.
"What are you doing here, Potter?"
He was still grinning; still walking a little too close to me while I was doing my best impression of someone who was completely cool with the curious glances that increasingly drifted our way. I couldn't help wondering then if he was aware of it - how everybody was always watching him - and if it bothered him.
"Watch out!"
I swerved instinctively at the outcry, only barely registering the hand that wrapped around my arm, but it was too late and I collided full-on with the dark-haired girl that had just come out of the Transfiguration classroom, knocking her bag from her shoulder in the process. Within the fraction of a second, her entire belongings were spilled across the hallway floor; books, pens, hairpins, but mostly there were tampons, rolling around everywhere, and her face turned a violent shade of puce as she dropped to her knees, groping frantically for her things.
"I'm sorry," I said quickly as I bent down to help her, "I wasn't looking where I was going."
She snapped her head up, her eyes wide as she stared at me, and I noticed that the yellow tie around her neck was too long, pooling on the ground like a shiny snake. Judging by the way she looked at me, it seemed as though she knew me, and I searched my brain for any sort of information that might have helped me to identify her, but I was sure that I had never spoken to her before.
"Honestly, Woodley." James laughed and crouched down as well, his knee bumping casually against mine. "I think I can't let you out of my sight anymore. You're a danger to yourself and others."
The girl's gaze shifted from me to him and maybe it was the fact that James Potter had just given her a handful of tampons, but the look on her face was nothing short of sheer awe.
"You don't have the best track record yourself, Potter," I said, wanting to grab my books which I had deposited on the ground next to me, but before I could, James swiped them up and got to his feet.
"Those are yours, right?"
I nodded and I held out my hands, thinking he would give them to me, but, instead, he just grinned and tucked them under his arm.
"I know you can carry your own books," he said, one corner of his mouth lifting lazily into this half-thing of a smile that bothered me in a slightly different way than it used to, "but let me have this, yeah?" He draped his free arm around my shoulder - so easily as though it was the most natural thing in the world - and, even though it felt like my heart was about to crack my ribcage in protest, I let him.
"So, your nutty cards actually seem to work," James said when we had reached the Entrance Hall, his arm still weighing on my shoulder as he steered us through the crowd. It wouldn't have been necessary, though; they parted well on their own to let us through.
"Hey, don't insult the cards." I looked up at him, my heart fumbling the beat like a sluggish drummer when my nose almost brushed against his. He was closer than I had expected and the heady, woodsy scent that slunk up my nostrils made me feel drunk and stupid.
It didn't mean anything, of course; I had seen him like this with countless other girls and I needed to get a grip.
"I'm serious, Woodley, ask me something. Anything."
"OK..." I turned away from him, staring resolutely at the entrance doors ahead. "Why does your hair always look like you just got off a broomstick? Honestly, don't you own a brush?"
"Haha, you're funny," James said loudly as we followed a group of Hufflepuff 6th years out of the castle. The wind had picked up during the night, swirling around the fine drizzle like sea spray, and I half-heartedly considered pretending to search for something in my bag to make him take off his arm. "Don't pretend you don't like my hair, Woodley."
I still couldn't look at him and so I kept my eyes firmly on the backs of my classmates who were unusually quiet as they trudged down the beaten path to Care of Magical Creatures. Some of them kept turning their heads as well and I shifted my gaze towards the forest line.
"Is it hard to not fall over with that big head and all?"
James snorted and I could feel his chest move against my shoulder. We had almost reached Professor Hagrid's hut that was nestled against the edge of the Forbidden Forest and I spotted Katie and Bernice huddling together with the others on the small porch.
"Jamie? What are yeh doin' here?" Professor Hagrid had walked around the corner with two gigantic buckets in his hands, his bushy eyebrows raised at us as his eyes flitted to James's arm around my shoulders. It was only then that I realised that James actually wasn't supposed to be here.
"Don't you have class?" I said as I turned my head to look at him, finally twisting myself out of his hold. He was still too close for comfort, though, and my eyes caught on the amber flecks in his eyes and the ghost of the dimple on his right cheek as his lips quirked. "You'll be late!"
"Relax. Flitwick won't kill me," he said softly and dragged his free hand through his slightly damp hair before turning towards Hagrid. "Had to help Woodley carry her thousand books, Professor!"
I frowned at him and quickly took back the stack he had still wedged under his arm. "You know that I could take at least 10 points from your house for this, right?"
"For sweetening your long and dreary walk to your next class? You wouldn't!" James had put a hand over his heart, the mock-indignation doing nothing to cover up the amused smirk that curled his mouth, and I could barely stifle a laugh as I shook my head at him.
"Just go, will you?"
He grinned and dug his hands into the pockets of his trousers as he began to walk backwards, not looking the least bit worried about getting to Charms class. "See you later, Woodley," he called out and winked at me, before finally turning around and jogging back up the hill towards the castle.
I was going to tell Katie. If only to warn her to be careful. But since I couldn't even identify my assailant's face, it seemed like a bad idea to do it in class when we were surrounded by other people, especially whilst stalking along the edge of the forbidden forest
"I think I've found one!" Demeter Notte shouted so loudly that she flushed an entire flock of sparrows in the process that now chirped indignantly above our heads. "Oh, no, never mind. It's just a twig."
She giggled and Bernice rolled her eyes. "Honestly," she growled and then extended her hand slowly towards the bowtruckle we had found in one of the ash trees that grew behind Professor Hagrid's hut, trying to tempt it with woodlice. "You gotta wonder how that woman even finds her way out of her dorm room."
I snorted, but Katie only waved her hand impatiently. "Yeah, yeah, Demeter's a bimbo." She folded her arms across her chest, her eyebrows arched as she looked at me. "Are you really not going to say anything?"
"Um, about what?" I didn't sound very convincing, but if there was one other thing I didn't want to discuss during class, it was James Potter; especially with Adina and Morgana still prowling around me like lions ready to pounce. It really hadn't helped that James had walked me to Care of Magical Creatures with my books tucked under his arm.
"Nuh-uh." Katie flourished her hand so vigorously that she almost slapped Bernice's face. "You don't get to do this."
"What, I -"
"No, Seth!" Katie's voice was barely louder than a whisper among the rustle of leaves around us, but people were looking our way nonetheless, even craning their heads to hear better. "You come to Care, arm in arm with James Potter -"
"We weren't 'arm in arm'!" I said under my breath, hoping that we were too far away for the knot of Gryffindors to overhear our conversation. They were trying to coax a particularly large bowtruckle out of a limetree, but they had gone suspiciously quiet a while ago and, from the corner of my eye, I could see their gazes flickering towards us.
"Jesus Christ, Seth!" Katie threw her arms up in a desperate gesture, her blue eyes wide as she looked at me.
"Kat, he was talking to me about Potions, OK?" It wasn't entirely true, but close enough; at least for now, while Morgana was so obviously listening in that she was practically staring at us, her palm tilted so that the pile of woodlice trickled to the forest ground.
"You know," Bernice said casually and looked up from the bowtruckle that was perched on her arm by now, literally eating out from the palm of her hand, "a couple of people have been asking me about you and Potter."
"What?" I said, too shocked to keep my voice down. There was a definite note of panic that I couldn't conceal and it caused Bernice to frown at me.
"Well, they know we room together and with all the gossip and stuff."
"What gossip?" Katie asked before I could even open my mouth, her eyes wide.
Bernice was still frowning, now at the both of us, probably contemplating if we had lost it. "Well, um, about Seth and Potter, you know…"
"No, I don't!" Katie's voice faded to a high pitched sound before she began to mumble to herself. "How is this possible?"
"What - what gossip exactly?" I looked at Bernice, feeling how my hands turned clammy. I could practically hear their sneers in my head; about that looney Woodley girl who obviously still had James Potter under the spell of some obscure love potion and my stomach twisted once more.
"That - um - that you guys are a thing…" She trailed off, her eyes darting from me to Katie, who still seemed to be struggling with the fact that Bernice knew more gossip than she did.
"A… thing?" I repeated, trying to wrap my mind around this, but Bernice only shrugged, her attention back on the bowtruckle that seemed to be taking a nap on her forearm.
"I told them to mind their own bleeding business."
Ursula still wasn't talking to me - or acknowledging my presence, for that matter - but this time, I didn't really mind her abrupt exit when I followed Katie into our dorm room. It wasn't late, but the day felt like it had been dragging on for ages already and I took a deep breath as I let myself fall onto my bed.
Katie had opened the window that separated our beds and let the humid evening air float into the room, carrying the scent of fresh grass, and I tilted my head to watch her as she leaned against the frame, her arms braced on the wood.
"Care to join me?" She asked as she looked over her shoulder, and I nodded, pushing myself up again to follow her out onto the roof where she had sat down on the window ledge.
"We haven't done this in a while." I sighed, surveying the dark shapes of the mountains that were silhouetted against the purple haze that had settled over the castle. A pale moon had risen above them and I felt my heart grow heavy as I stared at it, trying to find the courage to speak.
"I can't believe I didn't know about that rumour," Katie said into the silence and I felt an unpleasant pinch behind my chest. I knew that Hogwarts was a notorious breeding ground for gossip, but never in a million years had I seen this one coming. Frankly, the stories about me being the leader of an illegal potions ring were positively plausible in comparison to this.
"Well." I shrugged, trying to sound cooler about it than I really felt. "You know the truth."
"Which is?"
"Kat."
"Come on, Seth." She groaned and I didn't need to look at her to know that she was rolling her eyes at me. "Are you really going to keep pretending that you don't like him? I mean, not even a little bit?"
I shook my head, not in response to her question but because I didn't want to think about James Potter - about his stupid half-smile or the weight of his arm around my shoulder. Most of all not when I was dealing with so much worse things than trying to not fall for Hogwarts' resident bad boy.
"Something happened."
The words were out before I could stop myself. I could feel Katie look at me from the side and I dropped my gaze to my hands, twisting the ring on my thumb. There was no good way of telling your friend that she was potentially in danger because of you, but the words just tumbled out and I barely stopped to take a breath before I had told her everything that had happened in that bathroom yesterday.
"I - I thought you should know." I clenched my fingers and then finally forced myself to look up at her. "I'm so sorry."
Katie frowned so deeply that her eyebrows almost touched. "About what? That a bunch of lunatics are blackmailing you?"
"No, that you're being dragged into my mess. Again."
Katie sighed, not even trying to hide her exasperation with me. "OK, how often do I have to say this? I am your best friend. You don't have to do everything alone, Seth."
I only nodded, mostly because what I wanted to say got stuck in my throat as it closed off, and I pressed my lips together. Anything I could have said didn't come close to what I felt at that moment anyway and so I simply reached over and took Katie's hand.
"So, what are we going to do?" She squeezed it and then looked up at me. "I mean, Volantis is an illegal drug. And it's really dangerous."
"I have a plan," I admitted, even though that might have been overselling the vaguely shaped idea that had formed in my head. There were still so many plot holes that had the potential to bring this whole thing down, but for now it was the best I got. "I'm brewing the potion -" Katie whipped her head up, strands of auburn hair blowing about her face, but I cut her off just as she opened her mouth. "Not the real one."
"OK," she said slowly, the frown back in place, "I'm lost."
"I had the idea when Longbottom was droning on about herbal substitutes for hard-to-procure potions ingredients." I leaned back a little and reached for the top most of the books I had piled up on my nightstand. Several pages were already marked with colour-coded sticky notes that were poking out beneath the thick leather binding. "I did some research and it looks like I can brew a pretty good dupe for Volantis with a bunch of harmless plants that will make the potion appear legit but ultimately render it unusable."
"How?" Katie took the book from me and began to thumb through the pages, skimming the passages I marked. "I mean, how does that work?"
"If it works," I said quickly, resuming to twist my rings. "It will look and smell exactly as Volantis, but the substitutes won't be able to hold the strength of the potion.
"So it has all the components but none of the effectiveness," Katie mumbled, talking more to herself than to me, but when she looked up again, her brow was furrowed. "But they'll find out, won't they? I mean, if the potion doesn't work…"
Among many others, this was one major flaw in my plan; even if these people weren't exactly potion geniuses, my sham would become plainly obvious once they started selling the fake Volantis and their customers complained about the lack of results. I could only hope that there would be at least some delay between the distribution of the goods and their actual consumption. "Yeah, but it buys me some time."
"Time for what?" Katie closed the book again, her fingers trailing the embossed title absently as she watched me fiddle with my rings. The sky had turned from violet to pitch black meanwhile and I could hear the dorm room open and close, followed by the muffled sounds of Bernice's and Ursula's voices.
"To come up with a better plan."
Katie let her head hit the desk, her forehead pressed against one of the gigantic books that were spread out across the table.
"No, Katie!" I tried to push her head away from the particularly ancient volume, but she refused to budge and only groaned.
"My brain is broken."
"You're smearing your lipgloss all over the page. Madam Pince is going to gut us." I pulled again, but she completely ignored my attempts and simply turned her head to look at me, using the book as a pillow.
"Can brains break? Because I'm pretty sure I heard a crack somewhere in my frontal lobe."
I sighed and let myself fall back against the uncomfortable chair, feeling every muscle in my back in the worst possible way. We had spent hours in the library already, tucked away at the least comfortable table behind the section on troll wars, compiling lists of plants that we needed for the fake Volantis - or, as Katie called it, Faux-lantis - while everybody else had spent the afternoon outside, basking in the sun.
"I'm sorry."
"Stop apologising." Katie pushed herself up and stretched her arms above her head. "You know that Tarquin is really good at Herbology, right?"
"Yeah." I pushed my notes away from me and rubbed my throbbing temples. We had had this conversation before and, though I had to admit that Herbology wasn't exactly my strong suit and that it would have been nice to have someone on board to help with the list, I couldn't get yet another person involved.
"I'm going to get that Magical Fungi Catalogue," I said instead of giving a real answer and got up from my chair, ignoring the piercing pain that shot down my spine.
Katie had pulled the book in front of her onto her lap, all the while glaring at it as though it had personally offended her, and I could hear her voice even as I rounded the corner. "Oh, goody."
Due to the nice weather and the fact that it was Friday afternoon, the library was quite empty, safe for a few groups of seventh years who were preparing for their NEWTS. Their study groups had gotten more intense as the school year progressed and none of them even stirred as I walked by towards the Herbology section. The strained mood was infectious, really, but, at the moment, I would have given anything to trade places with them.
"Hey, you!"
I turned on the spot, even though the salutation wasn't exactly specific, and almost crashed into the shelf as Athena Notte planted herself in front of me, her dark red lips forming a straight, angry line.
"Aren't Ravenclaws supposed to be smart?"
"I - what?" I had wanted to say something nonchalant along the lines of 'what do you want?', but my brain was fried from spending hours reading about weird plants and it was really the best I could do.
"And yet you are falling for James's fuckboy charms," she spat, her glossy hair tumbling over her shoulder as she leaned even closer, giving me an appraising once-over. "It's a little disappointing, really."
Even the regulation uniform did things for her body I knew it would never do for mine, and I suddenly felt childish in the school sweatshirt which was definitely two sizes too big and cut my pleated skirt in a funny way.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said, which wasn't entirely true, but it seemed like my best option if I wanted to avoid getting into a dumb fight over a boy I didn't even want to like.
Athena tilted her head a little, now flashing a disconcerting smile. "It's not like you're the only one. I just thought you'd want to know."
I didn't. And, even though I tried to tell myself otherwise, her words lodged themselves somewhere in my throat, making it a little harder to breathe.
Composure. That's what I needed. I couldn't let this get to me. After all, I didn't care, right? I shouldn't.
"OK, I'm still not entirely sure why we're having this conversation, but this seems like a you-and-Potter problem, so-"
"I'm not stupid." She laughed - entirely without humour - and I thought I had never heard a more desperate sound. "I know James; I've known him since our first year. In the end, he always ends up in my bed. Every fucking time."
The words tumbled into the muffled silence of the Herbology section and Athena's smile vanished as though she had shocked herself with her outburst. I had wondered before, if Athena was behind everything; the pranks, the plots, the poison. It had seemed so ridiculous that someone would be this reckless - would go through this much trouble - just because of a stupid boy, but the way she was looking at me right now, her perfectly painted nails digging into her arms, it seemed a little less outlandish. Still insane, of course, but I could see it now; she was in love with James - desperately. There was no other reason for why she would confront me like this and suddenly - despite everything - I felt a spark of sympathy for Athena Notte.
"Listen," I sighed, trying to pull myself together even though I could see them in front of my mental eye, entangled in her bed sheets, laughing about all the stupid girls that fell for James Potter. "I'm only helping Potter with potions. Nothing else."
I said it as much for my own sake as for Athena's - because I needed to believe it - but she shook her head, her curtain of long hair moving with her. "Yeah. Sure." And with that, she finally walked away, the sound of her high heels still audible as I let my back hit the shelf behind me.
I had woken up with a book page stuck to my cheek and a spot of drool drying on my chin. That was also why I was spectacularly late as I joined the throngs of students that were moving towards the Entrance Hall. A couple of third year boys kept shoving each other, apparently in an attempt at bumping into the cluster of girls that walked next to them. Their aim was lousy, however, and, instead of pushing into their classmates, one of them knocked right into the tall guy walking in front of them
"Oi, midgets!" Freddie Weasley called out over his shoulder and the boys scattered instantly, screaming with glee as they dove into the crowd.
"No respect, the lot of them," I heard him say as he shook his head before turning back to the person next to him. "So?"
"So what?" I recognised James's voice before I saw him; the crowd in front of me shifted a little and I had to resist the urge to turn on the spot and run in the other direction.
"I'm serious, mate," Freddie said, lowering his voice a bit as he looked at his best friend. "Even I can't stand the sexual tension anymore."
James snorted and shook his head, one hand tousling the back of his head. "Fuck off."
Someone shoved my shoulder hard and I half-turned to see Athena Notte pushing past me like I was one of the Castle ghosts, her girl-friends in tow.
"Who has sexual tension?" Her hand snaked around James's back as soon as she had reached him and he extended his arm to put over her shoulder as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Apparently he was very liberal with those and I felt an uncomfortable twinge of embarrassment at ever feeling even vaguely special when he had done it to me.
"Freddie and I," James said easily, flashing a languid smirk at his friend behind Athena's back. "It's ridiculous."
She laughed, her head leaning against James's chest as he turned to listen to Augustus Cotton, who seemed to have launched into a story that required lots of exuberant hand gestures.
"There you are!" Katie had come up next to me, her hand grabbing my wrist, and her touch jolted me out of the uncomfortable pressure that was starting to weigh on my chest.
"Yeah. Sorry. Bernice monopolised the bathroom for half an hour," I said quickly and put on a semi-convincing smile that made my best friend frown. Before she had the chance to call me out on my mediocre attempt at feigning coolness, however, Tarquin had appeared behind her, followed closely by Sam and Hector, whose hand, I noticed, was hovering just inches from his boyfriend's back - close enough to brush against his jumper but never really touching.
"Everything OK, Seth?" Tarquin had slid his arm around Katie's shoulder, but he was frowning at me like he knew I wasn't, which was even more unsettling then when Katie did it.
"Yeah. Of course." I nodded, just as a peel of familiar laughter rose over the clamour. "Let's get in line." I tucked my hair behind my ear and glanced towards the castle doors where the crowd became denser as group after group squeezed through the entrance, their voices reverberating from the high ceiling. And then, even though I hadn't meant to, my eyes strayed towards the particularly loud group around James once more. They had just reached Filch and his battered clipboard, Freddie mimicking the ancient caretaker when he wasn't looking, getting Genie Patil to shake with silent fits of laughter, and it took me a moment to realise that James had turned his head, looking in our direction.
At me.
He had dropped the arm that had been draped around Athena's shoulder, probably because Filch made them file out one by one, and then the corner of his mouth tugged upwards.
I didn't wait to see the familiar lopsided smile - I couldn't; and so I quickly turned away, back to my friends, trying to focus on Katie's detailed game plan for finding the perfect concert costumes while my heart was hammering against my chest.
Fuckboy charms indeed.
The gravel crunched under the soles of my boots and I wrapped my fingers tighter around the straps of my cotton bag, throwing occasional glances over my shoulder, even though I wasn't exactly sure why. I felt shoddy; which was stupid, because I had done nothing illegal.
Not yet, anyway.
Still, ever since I had left Thorn's Herbarium and rejoined the sluggishly moving throng on Main Street, my pulse had picked up and, more than once, I had seen McGonagall's wary face in the crowd. Maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to wave off Katie's offer to come along after all. For one, if my irrational fear of running into Professor Longbottom at the magical plant store had come true, she would have probably done a better job at coming up with a plausible explanation for why we were bulk buying herbs that were not exactly on the sixth years' Herbology syllabus. More importantly, however, she wouldn't have burst into the Three Broomsticks, acting like a second rate criminal.
"Seth!"
I turned immediately, feeling a bout of relief as I spotted my friends squished around a too small table in the corner. It was a miracle they had managed to secure a table at all, really; the pub was bursting at the seams as half of Hogwarts crammed into the space, spilling out into the garden that apparently had been opened for the summer season. Even from here I could see the strings of lights that were tied between the trees, casting a warm glow on the crowd underneath.
"Did you find Archie's special owl nuts?" Sam asked over the loud music and I exchanged a quick look with Katie.
"Yes." I slid off the straps of my bag and handed it to her, feeling my hands grow clammy. I didn't particularly enjoy lying to my friends, but it was the only way I could protect them. The less they knew, the better. "I'll try and get a butterbeer."
"Good luck with that." Hector snorted and I looked towards the bar where people were shoving and pushing against each other in an attempt to get close enough to the counter to shout out their orders. "I had to elbow Hunter Greary in the ribs and then shout at the bartender for thirty minutes straight."
"Slashing. If I'm not back in an hour, feel free to leave without me."
"Just don't let them see you're scared!" I heard Tarquin call out behind me, but I was already too immersed in the jostling crowd to reply. Bodies were pressing in on me left and right and, for a few minutes, all I could do was try to not lose my footing as vaguely familiar people pushed me from one corner to another. It was a small miracle, really, when I managed to reach the countertop and, even though the wood was sticky with spilled beer, I held on to it for dear life.
"One butterbeer, please!" I called out to the solitary bartender that had been left in charge to deal with the horde of thirsty customers, but my voice barely carried over the racket and I just managed to swerve before the girl next to me slapped me with her wallet. You would think that with the nice weather and the predictable onslaught of teenagers that were looking to get plastered before having to return to the castle, the proprietors would have had the foresight to man the bar with more than one person. Apparently, though, even after a couple of hundred years, our monthly Hogsmeade outings still seemed to take them by surprise.
"Fancy seeing you here, Woodley," A low voice suddenly said next to me and I looked up, momentarily caught off guard by the proximity of James Potter's smirking face. There was a relatively fresh gash bisecting his right eyebrow and my eye caught on it unwittingly. This was so dumb - honestly - and I needed to get a grip.
"Is there a reason why you have dried blood on your face?" It wasn't exactly the casually cool reply I had been going for, but at least I wasn't making moony eyes at him like a lovesick fangirl. James's smirk still broadened to a grin, however, and he continued to look at me as I pretended to survey the bar.
"Quidditch is a rough sport."
There was absolutely no room to move away from him and so I tried to turn further towards the bar, to bring some distance between us. But the crowd moved suddenly and shoved me directly into James who - to my absolute horror - caught me by putting a steadying hand on my waist.
For a moment, I only blinked stupidly at the faded Gryffindor print that peeked out between the cracks of my splayed fingers. I could feel the warmth of James's hand as it rested against my skin where my top had ridden up a bit and I swallowed, slowly raising my head until I met his eyes. He was frowning at me - his dark eyebrows a stark contrast to the amber color of his eyes - and I noticed that a few very faint freckles had appeared on the bridge of his nose.
This was bad. Really, really bad.
"Sorry..." I quickly dropped my hands from his chest and took as much of a step backwards as circumstances allowed, possibly stepping on a couple of toes in the process. I could feel James's hand slide from my waist and watched as he stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans. Behind him, the girl that had been fighting me for the bartender's attention just minutes ago was now openly staring at us.
"So, um, training was good?" I said the first thing that had come to my mind - anything to cut through the awkwardness of whatever this was - and James quickly cleared his throat.
"Um, yeah. We could always be better, though." He shrugged and leaned against the counter. "What do you want?"
"Hm?" My thoughts were still sluggish, struggling to align as they clung to the ghost of James's touch on my waist, and he smiled, revealing the onset of that dimple on his right cheek.
"To drink."
"Oh, um, I was trying to get a butterbeer but I'm failing miserably so…"
"Right." James turned towards the bar and I watched him knock sharply on the wood before holding up two fingers at the bartender. It was ridiculously presumptuous of him to think that it would be that easy to get what he wanted, but barely a second passed before two fogged-up bottles of butterbeer were placed in front of us.
"OK, how did you do that?" I gave him an incredulous look but he only grinned at me.
"Natural charms."
I rolled my eyes at him, mostly to hide the treacherous smile that tugged on my lips, and dug my hand into the back pocket of my jeans for my money. Before I could fish out the coins, however, James had slid a few Sickles over the counter and took both bottles in exchange.
"Are you coming, Woodley?" He said casually, nodding his head towards the widely opened doors that led to the pub garden, and my mouth went dry. My first instinct was, of course, to just say no and then get as far away from him and his annoyingly good scent as possible. Unfortunately, while my head knew what was good for me, my legs apparently didn't.
"Actually, I…" I pointed vaguely over my shoulder and then half turned to where Katie and the boys were sitting, hoping for them to wave me over and provide a good excuse to run away, but when I caught my best friend's eye, she only raised her eyebrows at me, her mouth forming the word 'go'.
Great.
A/N: Once again, I apologise for taking so long with updates. It's a mixture of a lot of things really, like writer's block and lack of inspiration, but mostly it's because I'm an annoying perfectionist and can't upload anything before I haven't revised it about a hundred times.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, fillery as it might be. The good news is that I had to cut the chapter as it was getting way too long and therefore already have parts of the next one and a complete outline that only has to be filled in. I'll try my best to be quicker this time.
Thank you for bearing with me and, as always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the story.
