Year 2: Show Some Strength
Chapter 20: June 2017
Before Louis knew it, exams had passed, and the end of term was upon Hogwarts. With no more classes to attend, there was no more homework to complete, and no more Slytherins breathing down their necks.
Louis felt lighter than he'd felt in a long time. For the first time in a while, he and Justin could sit by the lake and just enjoy the sunshine and the breeze without having to worry about anything.
"Hey," a frighteningly familiar voice barked, jolting Louis from his daydream about swimming in the ocean. "Gryffindors."
His heart sinking, Louis pulled himself up and twisted his body around to find David Flint and the rest of the second year Slytherins approaching with scowls on their faces.
"What did we do?" Louis whispered to Justin in a panic. "Final grades aren't out yet, and there hasn't been a homework assignment in ages."
"I don't know," Justin replied, looking equally as terrified as his friend.
The Slytherins came to a stop. Flint extended his arm to the left, while Arthur Pritchard fumbled in his bag for a moment. When Pritchard retracted his hand from his bag, he was clutching a large handful of parchment, which he placed into Flint's waiting grasp. Then Flint took another couple of steps forward, so that he was practically on top of Louis and Justin and dropped the parchment in their laps.
"What is this?" Justin frowned, reaching for one of the rolls of parchment questioningly.
"That's your summer," Flint said by way of explanation.
Frowning, Louis turned over a few of the rolls and skimmed over the contents. It was all their summer homework multiplied by five.
"You mean you want us to…"
"That's right," Flint nodded, satisfied that the Gryffindors had got the message. "And we expect it to be well done. You've got the whole summer, after all. None of that same material re-written garbage you've been getting away with all year. We want individualized topics for our essays."
Louis felt tears prickling behind his eyes, but he wasn't going to give the Slytherins the satisfaction of seeing him cry. Instead, he resolutely gathered the rolls of parchment into one pile and shoved it into his own bag. He and Justin could divide it up later in the common room.
"Whatever you say," Louis agreed, swallowing thickly. There was no point arguing, no point fighting back. They'd tried that and they'd failed. The truth was, the Slytherin boys owned them. They could force them to do whatever they wanted, and Louis and Justin would have to obey.
"Have a good summer," Flint declared, turning around and beginning his retreat. The rest of his buddies followed after him and for a moment, Louis wondered how many of them followed him out of fear, like Alec Roper, and how many truly liked Flint.
"So much for a summer of freedom," Justin muttered angrily. "We'll be lucky if we have one free day to ourselves with all this extra work."
Louis sighed heavily. "I should have seen this coming," he muttered. It made complete sense that the Slytherins would force their summer homework on he and Justin. Somehow, he'd convinced himself that wouldn't happen. He'd envisioned a summer of swimming in the ocean and running along the beach at Shell Cottage. He'd imagined dinners at the Burrow and trips to Diagon Alley with his family. In reality, he'd be stuck holed up in his room for two months desperately trying to complete not one share of homework, but three and a half shares.
"At least it's not like they'll be around," Justin said on a more positive note. "We may be stuck doing their work, but they won't be breathing down our necks. We won't have to worry about them coming around the corner every minute of the day, or that they might beat the crap out of us if we don't deliver exactly what they were expecting."
"Until they confront us on the train looking for their completed homework," Louis pointed out.
"Yeah, but still, that's two months of not having to see them. Homework or not, it's better than nothing."
"You're right," Louis agreed. Just because he was going to be doing a bunch of extra schoolwork this summer didn't mean it wasn't still going to be an improvement on being at Hogwarts. "And hey, we have the whole summer to get that work done. Let's try to enjoy these last days in the castle and worry about the homework when we actually get home."
"Agreed," Justin grinned. Just because they were in a bad situation didn't mean they couldn't try to at least get some joy out of life. And for today, despite everything else, all Louis wanted to do was lie in the sun and listen to the waves lap on the shore of the lake, and dream of days on the beach at Shell Cottage.
LlLlLlLlLlL
The last few days of term flew by, and all too soon, it was their last night at Hogwarts.
Gryffindor had won their final Quidditch game of the season earlier that afternoon, so the Gryffindor common room was throwing a huge party in celebration. Though Louis and Justin were neither on the Quidditch team, nor did they pay too close attention to Quidditch games at Hogwarts, they were enjoying the party thoroughly.
Justin, maybe, was enjoying the party a little too thoroughly.
"I'm going to go talk to Dominique," he declared, getting up from his seat and heading towards Louis' sister, who was currently sitting by herself in the corner, observing the festivities.
"Oh no you're not!" Louis cried, grabbing Justin by the hand and pulling him back.
Justin had always had a bit of a thing for Dominique, which Louis had always found super creepy and uncomfortable. He was not about to let his friend embarrass himself when he may have eaten a chocolate cauldron or two that had been spiked with firewhisky.
"But she's all alone," Justin insisted, pleadingly. "She shouldn't be alone on a night like tonight."
"Trust me, if she's sitting alone, it's because she wants to be alone," Louis assured his friend, pulling him back down until he fell back into his seat and forgot about his mission to approach Dominique.
As the night wore on, Louis and Justin found themselves alternating between dancing amidst the rest of their house, and sitting on the sidelines, indulging in the plates and bowls of food that never seemed to deplete.
But all too soon, Louis felt himself start to get tired, and he knew that he was going to have to turn in if he wanted to be up at a reasonable hour the next morning.
Justin reluctantly shared Louis' sentiment, and the two boys began to make their way towards the staircase that led to the boys' dormitories."
Just as they were about to disappear upstairs though, the two boys turned back around to take one last look at the party, just in time to see Dominique bolting out the portrait hole.
"Where's she going?" Justin asked curiously.
Louis shrugged. "I don't know," he replied, even as her friend Miles ran out after her. "Come on, let's go upstairs."
"She was upset," Justin said, lingering at the foot of the stairs.
"Dominique gets upset all the time," Louis insisted. "She'll be fine."
"She shouldn't be alone when she's upset," Justin frowned, taking a step away from the stairs.
"Where are you going?" Louis demanded exasperatedly.
"To see if she's alright," Justin replied, walking towards the portrait hole.
Wishing his friend wasn't such an idiot, Louis chased after him, following him through the common room and through the portrait hole.
"Justin, please just leave her alone. She doesn't want to talk to you right now," he insisted.
"But I could comfort her," Justin explained. "It would be so romantic."
"Dominique doesn't need you trying to be romantic right now. Miles followed her out here, let him handle this," Louis pleaded.
"But I can help!" Justin exclaimed.
"No, you can't," Louis shook his head. "If she's really upset then you're the last thing she wants to deal with right now. She needs her own friends, not her little brother's friend."
"I could be her friend," Justin said obstinately.
Louis rolled his eyes. "Sure, maybe one day, but today you're not her friend. You're her stalker."
"I am not!" Justin cried. "I haven't been stalking her for ages, just like I promised."
Louis sighed, growing weary of this conversation.
"Let's just go back to the common room and go to bed," he insisted. "We can check in with her at breakfast tomorrow morning, alright?"
But Justin couldn't be persuaded. Instead, he took off down the corridor, which meant that Louis had to follow him.
Louis honestly didn't know whether he was more concerned about Dominique or about Justin at the moment. On the one hand, Dominique was clearly upset. Louis truly was worried for his sister, though he recognized that he wasn't the best person to comfort her in this particular situation. However, he did know that having to deal with an annoying second-year hitting on her wasn't going to improve Domi's mood in the last.
On the other hand, Justin still had it in his head that he was in love with Dominique. And if he went to her now, while she was distraught, there was no telling what Dominique would say to him. As much as Louis disliked his friends' obsession with his older sister, he also didn't want Justin to get hurt. And if Dominique rejected him outright tonight, Justin would be hurt.
As Louis rounded the final corner of the corridor before the stairs, he almost ran into Justin.
"Wha – ?"
Justin silenced him with a shushing motion and pointed ahead.
Dominique was sitting on the edge of the stairs. Miles was next to her, an arm around her. Her head was leaning on his shoulder and she was crying. It wasn't very ladylike crying either.
Louis' heart ached at the sight of his sister so upset, but he could see that Miles had things under control. He didn't need to interfere.
Looking questioningly at Justin, he saw that Justin had realized the same thing. This wasn't the time for interference. This wasn't the time to be making a move on her. Justin had accepted that this was a time for backing off.
Slowly and carefully, Justin turned around and began to retreat back down the corridor in the direction he'd come. Relieved that the insanity was over, Louis followed him, leaving his sister in peace.
"What changed your mind?" Louis asked once they had returned to the common room.
Justin shrugged. "She was really sad," he said. "She was crying. Whatever it was about, she had enough on her mind. And she was well taken care of. I would only have been in the way."
Louis had to admit, walking away had been one of the most mature decisions Justin had ever made, at least in regard to Dominique. Louis was relieved that he could finally start to trust Justin when it came to his messed-up feelings for his sister.
"So, does that mean you're over her?" Louis asked hopefully.
To Louis' dismay, Justin shook his head. "No, but I can pick a better moment than that," he declared.
LlLlLlLlLlL
The next morning, Louis awoke surprisingly sad that it was time to leave Hogwarts for the summer. For all the terrible things that had happened to him this year, he would miss the common room, and he would miss Justin, and he would miss the astronomy club.
They'd had their farewell to Ben party a couple of nights back, and now Ben was all set to graduate and move on with his life. Louis honestly couldn't imagine what the astronomy club would look like next year without him, but he was excited to return either way.
After breakfast, Louis and Justin made their final preparations and then headed down to Hogsmeade station with their trunks. Justin now had an extra piece of luggage; the cage he'd owl ordered for Toby. Toby in particular seemed very excited about the change of scenery and was hopping around the cage like mad, almost knocking it off Justin's trunk more than once.
Once they were settled and the train was moving, there was still one piece of business that the two Gryffindor boys had to sort out.
"We need to split up the homework," Louis declared, deciding to just get things over with before they ran out of time.
Justin sighed. "We do," he agreed.
Louis opened his trunk and pulled out the stack of parchments that he'd been holding onto since that day at the lake and laid them out on the bench opposite them.
"So, we've got seven subjects," Louis summarized. "Potions, herbology, charms, transfiguration, defence, history of magic, and astronomy."
"Do you want to split it up by subject, or by student?" Justin wondered.
Louis thought about it. If they divided it up by student, then neither would be stuck writing six different potions essays, nor completing six different herbology papers. But if they split things up by subject, they could each focus on a particular set of topics and really master them.
"What's the best way to maximize our learning from all this?" Louis wondered aloud. If they were stuck doing all this extra work, the least they could do was get some kind of benefit out of it.
Justin contemplated this for a moment and then answered. "Probably splitting things up by student," he decided. "Otherwise we'll each be seriously neglecting half our subjects."
"Alright," Louis agreed. "So how about I take Roper and Reed, you take Pearle and Pritchard, and we split the work for Flint?"
"Sounds good," Justin nodded. "And as for Flint, I'll take charms, defence, history, and astronomy – those are slightly shorter assignments. And you can take transfiguration, potions, and herbology?"
"Sounds fair," Louis agreed. Though his three subjects had longer assignments, Justin would be completing one assignment more. It was as even a split as they were going to make.
"And we'll keep each other updated as to how things are going?" Justin verified.
Louis nodded. "And we'll have it all ready and organized to hand over on the train on September 1st," he added.
With that settled, the two boys split the parchment according to their plan and stowed the assignment instructions in their respective trunks. Then, they made themselves comfortable, spreading out and even purchasing some candy from the trolley when it passed by.
Though the summer wasn't going to be as luxurious and stress-free as Louis had hoped, he could still make something of it. He wasn't going to let all of this get him down. He didn't have to see Flint, or any of the Slytherins, for two whole months. He was going to enjoy that as much as possible.