Chapter 15: Squashed Bug
Like pushing the boundaries wasn't going to get you in some kind of trouble. Like doing this was good for you at all. Like you didn't secretly desire the attention.
Louis didn't even realise they were talking to him at first. The pounding in his head, the hunger in his stomach. His focus blurred, mind scattered.
"Should we call the nurse?"
Then his name, a hand on his shoulder. "Louis."
Timothy Peters's face came spinning into view. "Huh?"
"Are you alright, man?"
Louis tried to nod. It hurt. "Yeah, I-" He tried to stand up and fell back down, never noticing he left his sentence hanging.
"I'm going to get someone." It was a different voice.
Louis shook his head. "No, no. I'm fine. Really." None of his dormmates were convinced. "What- what time is it?"
"Breakfast. Do you want to come down with us? I think you need to eat..."
His tongue flicked across his chapped lips, throat dry when he opened his mouth. "Just some water..."
Tim looked concerned. "I'll bring something up."
It hurt. It hurt so much. Louis nodded feebly.
At breakfast, Lucy was dragged over by Cassie to meet up with her boyfriend ("I feel so awkward going on my own!"). Tim smiled at the two of them, standing at the Ravenclaw table, piece of toast in hand and befuddled expression on his face as he stared at the plates of food before him. "Lucy," he said. "Would you mind doing me a favour?"
Lucy furrowed her brow. "Sure," she said, uncertainly. "What would it be?"
"Could you take some food up to your cousin? I'll give you our password."
"Louis? Is he okay?"
"Er, yeah, I hope so."
"That really doesn't sound reassuring," said Lucy, worry filling her. "What's wrong with him? Should he see the nurse?"
"You'd be a better judge than me," said Tim, as he heaped a variety of foods onto a plate and transfigured another into a tray to hold it. "You know him better."
Lucy's first reaction was to open her mouth, to disagree, because she hardly knew him, but he was her cousin and didn't that sound bad? So she kept her mouth shut and nodded, accepted the plate and tray from Tim and made her way up to Ravenclaw tower alone, feeling odd and awkward with the tray of food hovering alongside her
They were almost in the Great Hall before James screamed and Rose stopped like she felt her heart had for a moment. "Spawn of the devil!"
Rose hit him. "James, they're children!"
Her cousin gave her a pointed look. "They're Slytherins."
"Your brother is a Slytherin."
"Exactly."
Rose rolled her eyes. "You're such a dick."
"Hey," said James. "Don't be mean to me. It's almost your birthday."
"That doesn't make any sense at all," said Rose, but smiled, thinking of her birthday and of Teddy.
"Fine," shrugged James. "Dismiss me and see what happens."
He tried for an evil, threatening look but it just made Rose laugh. She smiled sweetly. "Are you sure you're not the Devil's spawn?" she asked.
"Hey," objected James. "The results came back inconclusive."
Rose linked her arm through his, checked the path for any more Slytherin first years that might startle the poor Gryffindor seventh year, and led the two of them inside to breakfast.
"Don't you have your own bathroom?"
Jez smudged black lines around her dark brown eyes. "I don't answer to you, Scorpius."
"No, but you do take up all the mirror space."
"Are you calling me fat?"
"Yes."
Albus ambled in, topless. His hair stuck up worse than normal, a dozen different directions. "I've got three bottles of liquor and I'm trying to work out which'll make the most appropriate breakfast." He wrapped his arms around Jez's thin waist, pressing a kiss against her neck. She giggled and swatted him away.
"I find orange juice works for me," answered Scorpius.
"You're doing it wrong."
"No, Albus. You are."
Al sank to the floor, resting his head back against the tile wall. "I just don't want to, anymore. Can we run away? Leave everything and everyone."
Scorpius and Jez exchanged a look, concerned.
Crouching down at his level Scorpius said, "Sure thing, buddy. As soon as school's down."
Jez sat on the floor beside him, makeup complete on only one eye. She slipped her arm through his and he rested his head on her shoulder and snuggled against her. "Now, please," he muttered.
Jez kissed his hair. "You're not going to run away, Al," she said. "There isn't a single thing here that you can't face."
He smiled against her shoulder and when he spoke the words were quiet and muffled. "Please don't leave me," he may have said. And, quite possibly, "Not for him."
Curling up in bed, exhausted, cuddling into the pillows, enjoying the silence, so rare and sweet; Louis quickly fell back into sleep. A weight on the bed caused him to stir slightly, face scrunching up before he hid it in the pillow.
Lucy hesitated at his bedside, plate in hand. With one eye barely open, Louis surveyed her with the confusion of his dreary state.
"Lou," she said softly, appearing not to want to wake him. In her hands was a tray. The aroma of toast and egg and bacon drifted towards in him in the air from the open window. His stomach rumbled.
Stretching he sat up, yawned and ruffled his hair. "Hey cousin," he smiled, slightly, voice thick with sleep.
"Umm, I brought you breakfast?"
He let out a small laugh. "I can see that."
Lucy gestured behind her. "Umm, Lorcan let me in here. Tim sent me up..."
"Lorcan?"
Lorcan's face appeared in the doorway. "Hmm?"
Louis squinted. "What are you doing, hiding out there?"
Lorcan blushed. "Oh, I'm not hiding- I..."
"Just come in here," he said, focussing on anything other than his hunger. He sat up and patted the free space on his bed. "We'll all have breakfast together, it'll be really cute."
Both Lucy and Lorcan stared at him with either shock or concern or a little of both. "Louis..." said Lucy, but trailed off. Lorcan hesitantly entered the room. For one moment he glanced at Lucy but blushed so violently that he then persisted in staring at the ceiling like the secrets of the universe were scribbled across it.
"I'm sorry," said Louis, in a way that his words all seemed to trip over themselves and each other, "I'm just... Sorry. I'm fine, really. I'm fine." It was doubtful that either of them had ever heard anything less convincing and Louis wasn't blind to that. He sighed and tried not to wince at the ache in his head. "I'm just tired. Really."
"What's this?" asked Lorcan suddenly.
Louis looked. His friend had picked up a piece of paper from Louis's bedside table, and was rotating and squinting at it in turn.
"Oh," said Louis. "Um, that'd be the reason I'm tired. It's that story you told me, about the blind prince and the dragon."
Lorcan was almost laughing. "I can see that," he said, "But this," he pointed at Louis's drawing at the bottom of the page. "What is this? It looks like a squashed bug."
Louis flinched. "That'd be the dragon."
This time Lorcan really did laugh. "It- it- it's so bad."
"Let me see!" exclaimed Lucy and Louis literally face-palmed.
"Shut up," he said, but he was kind of laughing himself, "I drew it at, like, 3am."
"Haven't you heard of sleep?" Lucy asked, hiding her giggle behind her hand as she inspected the drawing.
"I'm familiar with the concept, yes."
Once again, Lorcan's eyes were wide and serious. "You should get more of it," he said, and with the honesty he never neglected added, "You look awful."
"So I keep hearing," said Louis, running a shaking hand through his hair. His eyes couldn't leave the tray before him.
"Let's eat," said Lucy, with sympathy in his voice.
Louis took a shaky breath and nodded. "Okay."
Isabelle Griffin's dark eyes regarded Rose curiously in Charms that afternoon. "Where were you at lunch?" she asked. "You disappeared right after Ruins."
Rose, looking uncomfortable, didn't look up from the paper she was scribbling on. "Um, I was with Ma-Scorpius."
From the row behind them, Scorpius interrupted. "No, you weren't. I was with Al."
Rose shot him her most scathing glare, to which Scorpius responded with only a smile. Al was sullen and silent beside Scorpius, green eyes flicking from his friend to his cousin with the smallest spark of curiousity.
Trying once again, Rose began, "I was with..."
Louis had arrived late and the only place available had been amongst the very last collection of people he had wanted to see. "Me," he said, and Rose's eyes lit up with surprise and gratitude. "I was helping her with her homework."
Isabelle didn't look entirely convinced, but their professor passed beside her at that moment and as she launched into the questions she needed answered.
Rose hissed at Louis, "You were helping me with my homework?" Good Merlin, she was proud.
With a small smirk he replied, "Yes. Either I was helping you or everyone finds out who you were really with."
Did she really expect him to be kind to her in the face of this? Her lack of family loyalty prompted none from him in return.
Rose scowled but of course could raise no opposition. Scorpius let out an audible whoop of celebration, and Rose's quill threatened to break in her hand.
Scorpius leaned forward between the two of them, and Rose looked at him with expectation, but it wasn't to her that he spoke. "Are you sure you shouldn't have been a Slytherin?" he asked Louis.
Memories flashed before Louis's eyes; himself as an eleven-year-old in robes too big, Al's face, pale and wide-eyed, a kiss from the night before.
Al replied for him before Louis could formulate a response. "The hat would have put him there if that was so."
Scorpius dismissed him with a wave of his hand. "Not necessarily. Did it consider it?" he asked Louis, sounding genuinely curious.
Louis shrugged, unable to meet his eyes because how could he do that now? "Yeah," he said. "But it considered all the houses."
Slap.
Everyone turned to face Al, who'd somehow darkened even further, looking murderous. "Oh, you are fucking kidding me," he said. He must have slammed his textbook shut. His hand hovered on the cover, shaking.
"What's wrong?" Scorpius asked, but Al shook his head, and didn't answer, no matter how much Scorpius probed for a response.
Lucy was studying alone in her free period. Unlike most of her year level, she no longer did potions. She was -to say the least- entirely awful at it. And so she studied Herbology and somewhat begrudgingly because it was hard to do without the plants actually being there, but she was managing with the textbook. The subject wasn't particularly hard, but it was a little dull, and Lucy's mind couldn't help but wander. As horrifying as it would be to admit, that was exactly why she thought she was imagining it when Will Taylor sat down beside her.
But he was as warm and real as his smile and Lucy could just feel her promise to Matthew Davies slipping to the back of her mind once again. There was something intense in the way Will looked at her and Lucy was captivated by those hazel eyes and thick curly lashes that mirrored the curls of his hair. She could tell that for a moment she'd stopped listening to him, and he was so kindly helping her with the nuances of one particular plant, so she shook herself out of it and zoned back in once again to his words, not his looks. She screwed her face up and tried to understand exactly how the venom tract worked but she just couldn't puzzle it out without actually seeing the plant. She said as much.
"Would you like to go look at one then?" Will suggested. "I could show you properly."
Like Lucy could have said no. "Sure," she grinned, and he grinned back. They both knew they were meant to stay in that hall for the length of their study period, but that didn't stop them from sneaking out and running down the corridor like criminals, with no one on their heels.
Lucy may have blamed it on the Gryffindor's influence, rash acts of rebellion were their specialty, even ones as minor as this, but there was enough Gryffindor in her for it to be all her own doing.
In stark contrast to their last of this class together, Jez barely spoke to Louis in potions. They cut and lit and stirred practically in silence, and Jez's eyes barely seemed to leave Al, who was across the room working with Blair Parkinson. For what it was worth, Al barely seemed to notice. Jez looked sad and her neither her hair nor her makeup looked as flawless as usual yet Louis didn't comment. They all had their problems.
Louis himself was being good, or so he tried to convince himself. But even as he watched his girlfriend work across the aisle, or when the exchanged friendly words and he made her smile and she made him laugh it didn't make him faithful or honest in any way and yeah, the guilt was really pressing in.
Scorpius was absolutely no help.
When Rorie was preoccupied with an exceptionally busy part of the potion brewing process and Jez was sulking over the way Al and Blair almost touched or whatever she was doing, Scorpius learnt in from the row behind Louis and whispered into his ear. "So, effectively," he said, like they were in the middle of a conversation, "Rose and I aren't really dating at all."
Louis managed to keep his face straight as he turned to face the Slytherin. "Why do I care?" he asked. He'd been trying for emotionless but he instead he sounded icy. That would do.
"I'm just saying," smirked Scorpius in a way that suggested it wasn't all he was doing.
Louis stared at him. "Noted," he said, and turned back to Rorie. "Ror," he said, and she looked up and smiled as her copper coloured hair fell across her face. "Would you like to do something after class? With me?"
Louis heard the sound of Scorpius falling back into his seat, but it didn't please him like he thought it would.
