[Summary] - Lorcan/Bathilda [Vampire!AU] There were a lot of things that he had never questioned - that he had never bothered to seek the answers to - and he supposes that is partly why intelligence was always something he was drawn to in others. But then, maybe he also needed that reminder of her.
A/N - Written for Quidditch League Finals, Round 1 - Pairing Diversity. The Wanderers had Lorcan Scamander. I also had the optional prompts [word] Curious, Embrace and [emotion] Pride.
More friendship than romance, but I didn't want to change the genres.
She had been very young when they'd first met. Perhaps about fourteen years of age. But then, he had been the same age.
He doesn't remember much of their first meeting - certainly not as much has he would have liked - and it will be something that, years from now, he will come to regret. But, for now, he is a fourteen year old boy with very few cares who has just walked directly into a fourteen year old girl with her nose buried in a book.
"Will you watch where you're going?" he snaps, glaring down at her small form crouched at his feet. She is more concerned, however, with finding her place in her book than with the person who she has just walked into. "Are you listening to me?" he asks, noting the small grazes on her palms - but if she is unconcerned by them, then he doesn't see why it would be worth mentioning.
"What? Oh, yes, I-" she murmurs, still not looking up at him. "I'm fine. Are you alright?" she tacked the last sentence on, almost as an afterthought, only looking up when she was done speaking and had her finger marking a page in her book. Later, he would look back and remember how pretty she had been in her youth, with her dark hair and intelligent eyes, her flawless skin, and the slight traces of baby fat that still clung to her figure. Now, he is simply irritated.
"Yes, I'm fine," he growls, glaring down at her. "You should watch where you're going," he repeats. "Not everyone's going to be as forgiving as I am." She smiles up at him, her eyes crinkling in the corners and her full lips slightly parted.
"Yes, of course. I apologise."
"Right, well-"
"Well," she repeats with that same infuriating smile.
He pushes past her, walking briskly through the quiet streets of Godric's Hollow, and tries to push the incident from his mind as easily.
.oOo.
Their next meeting does not go much better. They are both a little older, though he is none the wiser for it.
She is clearly busy, and he has - or believes he has - better things to be doing with his time than taking note of the quiet girl who lives at the other end of their little village. They do not exchange greetings, but she gives him that same little smily as their first meeting, and he finds it just as irritating.
His only response is to glare, as he picks up his pace and resumes walking alongside his friend.
.oOo.
He still wouldn't be able to tell you why she had always been so pleasant to him - he certainly hadn't done anything to deserve it - but before he had not noticed, and after he had been too afraid to question it, fearing that she might leave. But we are not there yet.
"You shouldn't go there," she murmurs, interrupting a conversation he had been having with his friends that she had not been a part of. "Not this night." Curiosity got the better of him, and he pushes his annoyance aside for the time-being.
"Why not?" he challenges, raising his chin slightly.
"It's dangerous."
"There are no werewolves at this time of month," he replies instantly.
"It is not werewolves you should be worried about." He imagines anyone else would have left at this point, if not before, but not her. She stood her ground, despite being almost a foot shorter than him, and for once was not shying away from making eye contact.
He should have taken that as a sign - things would have been very different if he had - but he had chosen to ignore it, and that had been his downfall. He had let pride determine his actions, preferring to follow his friends than to take note of her advise. But by the time he had come to this realisation it was far too late.
.oOo.
He remembers things much clearer after that. He has always assumed it is because of the change, though he cannot know for certain. She would have, but he had never thought to ask. The first time he sees her after is something that will always be ingrained into his memory.
His father is keeping him locked in their small house's attic. Under any other circumstances he would have been furious, but he knows that this is for the best. He does not begrudge his father his fear. He has earned it.
That makes it all the more surprising, however, when there is a tentative knocking at the small window on the slope of the roof, too light to have been the scratching of an owl.
He walks over, measuring his pace and forcing himself to slow down even though there is no one else to see. He opens the old latch, nearly knocking her from her perch on the roof as he swings the window outward.
They both remain still, him with his arm outstretched and holding the window open, and her in her precarious crouch on the roof.
"What are you doing?" he asks, when he is able to find his voice.
"I came to see you," she says as though it were obvious, with that same irritating little smile, only he does not find it so irritating now, in this moment. More endearing, really. And there is perhaps a hint of kindness in her eyes that he had previously ignored.
He finds himself standing aside, wordlessly allowing her to climb through the window.
There are many questions that she could have asked - many questions that she probably should have asked, and that he certainly would have in her place - but he will always be thankful that she did not.
"I brought you a book," she says once she has given the attic a cursory once-over, holding the object in question out to him.
He is not a fan of reading, but he still accepts her gift with a smile of his own.
He finishes the book by the end of the week, and only years later will he learn that she had hand-copied the original for him, making the letters larger and clearer and easier to read.
.oOo.
He had only ever considered turning her once, when she was nearing twenty and he eternally on the verge of sixteen. It is only a fleeting thought, but he will always be able to conjure up that image he had of her. Eternally young and beautiful, the knowledge she had gained over the centuries clear to see in her eyes.
But he had known, even as the idea had come to him, that he could not do such a thing to her. Her place was amongst the living.
Things might have been different had be known her before, but that was something that he could not change. Instead, he watched as she grew into herself, shining brighter than any other.
He had watched as she aged, and gradually began to fade. He had stayed with her until the very end, long past the time when all traces of the girl he had known had disappeared.
.oOo.
Over a century after his first meeting with her, he found another girl. They were complete opposites in a lot of ways. But their eyes - one set so dark they were almost black, and the other so pale they could rival the moon - both held that same intelligent gaze.
At first, she had been more fascinated with what he was rather than who, but that had changed soon enough, and she had allowed him into her life. She would never be a replacement - she was too good to be simply that - but she did serve as a reminder to all that he had lost. To all that he could have had.
She had listened to his story - or, as much as he had been willing to tell - and embraced everything that he was.
"Lorcan?" the shout carries up the stairs of the small cottage. He drops his pen, stretching his arms above his head.
"What?" he yells through a yawn, not really caring that she probably couldn't hear him. He hears footsteps on the stairs, and then the door to his room is opening.
"Mum! Knock!" He glares at her, though she doesn't seem to notice.
"We're leaving in five minutes. Your brother's already ready." She gives him a look as she says that, something he remembers from his mother in his true youth, something that should not be so effective against a creature over a century older than her. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing." He pushes his notebook under a stack of papers. "I'm ready. Let's go."