Fabian slips out of the mess hall unnoticed. He trudges along in the shadows behind Austin, following him down the hall and out to the main quad. When Austin slips out of sight over the hill Fabian props himself up onto one of the concrete banisters to keep an eye out. Danger lurks on these grounds. You have to look out for people sometimes.
His right hand reaches behind his left ear and he pulls out the blunt. Pressing it between his lips he lights it, "Incindio." a whisper. Then leans against a podium to wait for Austin Moon's return.
Austin Moon who stumbles down the stone path and doubles over the pumpkin patch to round up at the door of Hagrids hut where he finds Ally waiting alone on the steps.
There's green paint under her eyes like football players wear. Her hair is frizzy, which despite living in miami, is unnatural for her. She looks like she's angry.
"A-Ally." He whispers.
She licks her lip where a gash is still bleeding and looks up at him, "Austin..." She cries. Her arms wrap around his neck as she stands, "I don't have much time. Things have changed. The Muggle world went crazy. After the 2020 election and the assassination people lost their minds. Started killing each other in the streets. Seventeen hundred children went missing over night. I spotted one, followed it out into the forest." She trembles in his clutch, "I watched it happen..." Her tears drip onto his robes.
"That doesn't explain why you're here." He says in a steady tone.
She takes a deep breath. Pulls away and looks at him. In a quiet voice she says, "I joined a group of runaways. Four guys who were in a band together. They're waiting for me out at the gate entrance." She giggles a little at the sight of Austin's face, "Don't worry. Pretty sure they're all gay... and most likely, with the way they act, they're all... ya know... together."
"Big Time rush?" He asks.
She nods, "Yeeeaaaah." Then she shakes her hair, "They're cool. That one guy, Logan is pretty scary with his scientist technology but apparently he's escaping the tyranny of the elites and their vaccines. Kendall keeps offering me weed and I'm probably about to give in. The days been stressful."
"You're leaving?" Austin whispers.
She nods, "I have to Austin. I can't stay here... and I promised Carlos we'd get some corn dogs in hogsmead. They have that right?"
"Might have some phoenix feathers in it but yeah..." He tells her.
She takes his hands, "Austin... it might be a while before we-"
"No stop." He jerks away, "I don't- I wont- I can't handle a goodbye Ally."
She sighs, "Austin I want you to be happy. I'm going to do what I can for those children and it might take a while. Since you're here you should learn some ways to put good into the world and you can't do that if you're worrying about me all the time."
"Ally!" He snaps.
Her lips press against his. They hold like this for a while with only the rain to come between them. He squeezes her tightly. Praying to God he will never have to let go.
They both know he will have too.
When he does. She sighs and grabs her bag. Unzipping it she pulls out a binder, "Our songs. I want you to have them."
He breaks. Silently his tears gleam down his cheeks. Purple falls onto the pages and he slams it shut, "ALLY." Teeth grit, brows furrowed, hands shaking.
She turns, "Goodbye Austin..."
Ally Dawson walks away.
"I love you!" He screams, "I fucking love you."
Around the curve of the tree line she peers back at him, "You'll always be my moon Austin. Forever." Then she vanishes from sight.
"AAHHHHH!" He swings his foot to bust open a nearby pumpkin.
The energy in him depletes and he turns to look at the hill. In defeat he makes his way back up.
The moment Fabian spots Austin he hops off the wall and turns to walk back inside.
For some reason the sight of the Ravenclaw makes him angry, "What's your fucking problem?"
Fabian pauses. Then turns and says, "Following orders. Mcgonagall said to look out for each other."
"But I'm seventeen." Austin Sneers.
Fabian shrugs, "Sorry... I just got worried." He ashes the blunt and tightens the hoodie around himself to walk back inside.
Austin stands there allowing the rain to wash over him. And... since this is Disney... the music starts to play.
I'll make it quick for you though. Check out the minor key version of Someone You Loved by Chase Holfelder on Youtube and Austin does that in the rain in the foyers and corrals of the quad in the rain with lots of lightning and an epic guitar solo because he's Austin Moon. I'm going easy on you now because it's early in this story but next time I wont be as gentle.
Dez and Trish stand behind him. He knows they're there but doesn't care. The final chord plays out and he sighs, "I need some weed."
"We're in Hufflepuff. As in puff puff pass..." Says Dez.
Trish nods, "Come on. We have to be in the common room in twenty minutes."
Flashforward.
He's sitting in his windowsill beside the one of five four poster beds he occupies. His velvet cat Angelica curls in and out of his hairy legs trying to comfort him but to no avail. Only one other student is awake and it's a fifth year across the room pumping his meat with a steady hand knowing good and well Austin can hear him. It isn't until Austin looks away from the fog tinted glass and makes the bad decision to lock eyes with him that the young man decides to but a nut streaming his paint all over the golden tapestry that usually divides them from one another for privacy.
Eli Makin doesn't like privacy. He likes to be watched.
Things like that upset Austin. Especially with his eyes bloodshot, his mind swimming, and his heart aching for Ally.
He rises, throws his rob over his body bare of all but the pink heart white boxers hanging loose on his thin hips. The black and yellow fabric drape over the garden hose attempting to swing out below the hemline. He pulls the drawtie around and knots it glaring at Eli with a subtle yet determined hatred that makes the young man pop the chord and let fall his tapestry.
Austin leaves the dorm.
Down stairs he finds a single student is still up and about. Pindros Myhill, a year younger than Austin, working feverishly on something that couldn't be homework because classes don't start until the end of the week. Beneath stone badgers he rests on a golden yellow rug scribbling away with his quill by the firelight.
His eyes pop up at Austin for a split second, "Ah. New kid. Can't sleep?"
Austin shakes his head and sits down, "I got a roommate that wont stop touching himself."
"Eli." Pindros laughs, "Yeah he's a case. Last year he got caught in Professor Mcgonagall's class and she turned him into oil lamp. Crazy thing was there were other oil lamps on the table." He's giggling so hard tears are streaming down his face, "They couldn't figure out which one... was... him. They had to burn them all down. Lesson for the day was on how to tell the difference between a person and an inanimate object." He looks at Austin with this wild teary eyed face complete with a stupid grin, "There was another kid that had already been turned into a damn lamp. Two of them! He'd been stuck that way for a week."
Pindros fights for his breath but doesn't stop writing.
"What are you doing up so late?" Asks Austin.
Pindros smirks, "I've been working on this for a while. These images pop in my head and don't leave me alone until I write them out. I talked to the professor about it and she shifted me to night classes. The images only affect me during the day and it was disrupting my work so they set me up a schedule I could work with. Awfully lonely though, seeing as how I'm the only one in them."
Even when he looks up at Austin that hand never stops moving.
"Night classes huh?" Whispers Austin, "Ally and I used to stay up all night writing songs together."
Pindros pauses and shifts to sit on his knees, "You know... you seem very emotional for a Hufflepuff. You sure you weren't meant to be in Ravenclaw? Come to think of it, considering you came from a place like 'Miami Florida' you'd think you'd be very..."
"Frat boy status?" Asks Austin.
Pindros nods, "A prude, pro sex."
That phrase, why does it churn Austin's stomach 'Pro sex'? All of a sudden the sadness and sympathy leave an in it's place is a pot of boiling water. He clears his throat, puts on his best poker face, and walks towards the small tunnel that leads to the portrait of Princess Diana. He pushes it open and slips out without waking her.
Pindros only shrugs and returns to his writing.
Austin takes a seat on the stair case and his mind begins to swim with images that combine both what he loves and what he hates and soon his pupils are so small he can't see anymore. Ally, how sweet it felt to hold her in the middle of the night and touch her so gently. Someone, that looks a lot like Austin pile driving her from the back and the sight of this in his head causes his leg to shake in a fury. Him, tied up, dangling from the ceiling as he glares with hatred at someone in a leather suit that cracks a horse whip over the base of their palm.
A noise, across the pit below, pulls him back to reality.
His face is red and his fingers are clenched in a tight fist.
It's repetitive, the sound. Fast. Quick. Animalistic. Not to mention a little wet.
Unwillingly his legs lift him to a standing position and he begins to climb down the staircase. His pearphone ready he shines his light down the hall. How cleaver of him to bring this, no one can detect a cell phone like they can a wand at least no one in charge of him. A tap of a button, when he reaches the lower level, suspends him in darkness.
His brain begins to pick up on the rhythm as it does with everything he experiences. A tune that drives his mind in a flame of red rather than it's usual adventurous greens or passionate purples or teal timidity. He pauses just before a classroom and peers inside. Students. Up after dark. Like him, only doing something he can't imagine himself doing willingly.
Griffindors, he can tell from the robes thrown over the teachers desk.
A feeling washes over Austin who watches as the young man slaps her on the ass and the phrase, "Daddies little whore." slips from his pink lips. Austin blacks out and wakes up twenty minutes later sitting in the teachers desk, his pajamas coated in a thick coat of red paint, his face is peeling, and there are two naked mangled bodies on the floor.
He stares wide eyed at his hands. Why does he not feel shame? Why does this make him feel better?
The bruises on her neck, Austin knows, aren't his handy work. The partner, probably three years older that this second year girl, is responsible for that. Tight fingers as his ten inch member rearranged her insides. "People find that 'hot'?" Austin thinks, "Abuse." and insane smile spreads across his face, "How weird. I'd never hurt Ally. I don't have it in me to hurt someone and..." The glare returns, "get off to it."
His eyes roll from the mess on the floor to the boy standing in the doorway, Fabian.
Fear centers in Austin's eyes, "Did you see what happened?"
Fabian enters and walks over to the supply closet to begin pulling out cleaning supplies like a mop, a couple sponges, and a bucket. He throws them on the floor and huffs, "I don't know what you're talking about Mr. Moon." He pulls out his wand and aims it at the bucket, "Aquamente." water rushes from the tip and into the confines of the pale.
An hour goes by before they've managed to scrub away all traces of blood and cleaned the bodies. A couple quick stitches with a paperclip and some of the fabric from the useless Griffindor robes have stopped the bleeding completely thanks to Fabian and now the two boys are wrapping up the bodies in a rug they found in a neighboring lounge.
"We have to get to the third floor." Says Fabian, "There's an abandoned set of rooms that lead to the forbidden forest."
They creep through the hall guided only by the lights of the stars and the moon through the windows down the following corridor. Up a flight of stairs and down another hallway they enter a room.
"There's nothing in here." Says Austin.
Fabian chuckles, "This used to be the domicile of a three headed dog named Fluffy. Trap doors on the floor. Massive hole beneath it that used to hold a set of intricate devil's snare roots until one Miss Hermione Granger eradicated them with an incidio charm."
Together they rest the bodies on the floor and work open the four foot by four foot square of wood and peer down into the void.
Fabian looks up at him, "I say we sling them inside and find the time to properly bury them in the morning. What do you say?"
"Why are you helping me?" Austin shakes his head, "Wont people notice two students have gone missing."
Fabian tilts his head to the side with an insulting smile, "Aren't students already going missing?" His brow arches.
Austin laughs. A maniacal hysterical laugh. Then the purple tears begin to drip down his cheeks only for him to wipe them away with the sleeve
Fabian eyes him for a moment. Then with a sigh he says, "Your pajamas got to go too."
Austin nods and together they reach over and pull the rug towards them. They hang the heavy mass down the shoot and start to sway until they've worked up enough momentum to release it and they hear it hit the forest floor with a strong thud. Then Austin raises his shirt up over his head, stands, and drops his pants. A gruff comes from his lips as he sees the stains have also reached his underwear.
"Damn..." He whispers.
Fabian rises, turns to face the wall and begins taking off his own clothes. When he's done he gives his boxers a swift kick back to Austin who takes them and pulls them up to his hips after disposing of his own. Fabian redresses and the two of them close the trap door and leave the room going there seperate ways back to their common rooms. Not a word was shared between them as they parted.
Yet, as Austin is rousing princess Diana to give her the password, he can't help but think that maybe now he has a new friend. Or at the very least an ally. Of course Diana wont say anything, she got to see a strapping young american lad in his boxer shorts. Don't usually get to see much of that on this wall when the students are only out and about during the day...