Giddy Brew
Chapter 7: Out of Spite, Out of Mind
By: Jondy Macmillan
Sunday, following the Halloween Masquerade, Prue, Elanore, and Serendipity found themselves swamped with homework. Elanore, who took Arithmancy, was spotted trying to drown herself in the lake rather than fill out the extensive charts she'd been assigned by Professor Radian. She only stopped after Sylvester gifted her with an auto-answer quill he'd 'bought' on a midnight raid of Hogsmeade. This caused Serendipity to mention slyly how sweet he was on Elanore. The smaller girl huffed and turned away, still upset about Rufus's mysterious disappearance at the dance. Prue hadn't the heart to tell her about him and Seldom.
The Saints had a unique approach to homework in classes they shared. For subjects they all took, one person would do all three girls' work. That week Serendipity ended up getting the opportunity to do all the Potions homework, putting her in the worst mood anyone had ever seen. Considering Professor Esquiline had assigned four-foot essays on the restorative properties of quartz and its role in an explosion potion, no one was surprised. Quartz only had so many appealing attributes. Thus Prue wasn't all that shocked when Frank reported that he'd seen Serendipity bullying a first year known as Maxiuli Zen into doing it for her. Maxiuli already had a reputation as a genius, but her prices were higher than any of the Saints could afford. Fortunately for Sere the girl was a shrimp, and easily manipulated for all her genius. It didn't bother Prue; she had a third year named Reilly Porter doing her group homework on a daily basis, the smart little bugger. This week he was happily producing three beautiful Charms essays. Elanore and Serendipity were never the wiser.
Cheating was such a harsh word to describe what she was doing with poor Reilly. Especially since he'd volunteered for the job. Life was so much easier when you have three classes out of the way every week. If those classes turned out to be Potions, Charms, and Astronomy (her worst subject, Casey's best, Elanore's that week) then all the better. Three of her hardest classes. Who could blame her? And after all, she was trying to be good in the rest of her subjects by opting for a study group with Cerulean and his friends that very morning.
Sure, five a.m. wasn't her ideal study group hour, but at least that way she'd be bright eyed and bushy tailed for Quidditch practice at six. None of the other students looked all that awake either. Cerulean was leaning against the fireplace next to sixth year Winston Taft, a skin-and-bones, coke-bottle-glasses sort of guy. Also a nasty prefect. Prue wasn't really fond of him; he took too many points away from the Saints when they hadn't done a thing. But the way he kept tapping his wand against that brick reminded her of a few weeks earlier, when Casey and the Icemen had lead her down the secret passage.
Blushing guiltily at the thought of Casey, whom she hadn't mentioned the study group to, and who had been so serious the night before, Prue tried to focus on the rest of the group. Gislaine Ranfree and Loupe Barkley sat on a particularly squishy couch braiding each other's hair. Loupe was chiding Gislaine because her unruly red curls kept popping out of the braid she was attempting. A pretty blonde who wore her hair similarly to Whitney's was flirting with Paul Minnings, a dark haired seventh year boy. Prue recognized Paul because he'd been badly beaten by the Whomping Willow last year and almost got expelled. Except for herself and Winston, everyone was in their seventh year.
"Who's Blondie?" Prue plopped down next to Cerulean, watching in great interest as the girl drew her face closer and closer to Paul's.
"Prue!" Cerulean exclaimed, startled, "That's Sophia. Sophia McGinnis. Nice pajamas, by the way."
Hating herself for choosing to wear a panda bear patterned flannel set that morning, Prue leaned back against the cool fireplace wall. Luckily the fire wasn't lit, although the air was frigid.
"Gelliston, destroyed any hallways lately?" Winston asked snidely.
"Yup," she chirped back, "Check out the Transfiguration corridor." So she hadn't had anything to do with the Icemen setting off fireworks in that hall? Doubt they minded her taking credit. Especially when Winston snorted in disgust and stood up to go check.
"Chill Taft. You're only here to make sure we don't destroy your little science project over there," Cerulean gestured to some odd mechanical device in the corner of the room, "Muggle junk."
Prue chose not to question how Winston would get anything muggle-made working in the castle. Better not to pry, "So Prue, how are you doing on the homework front?" Cerulean grinned at her. Damn that smile, Prue thought, just like Casey's. But Cerulean had darker eyes, silkier, redder hair, less freckles and a much more masculine face. Plus, no dimples.
"Well, I have Charms, Astronomy, and Potions covered. Transfiguration, and DADA are both practicals I already practiced. Blimey, what's left? Oh, Bloody Muggle Studies."
"What about Divination, you take that, right? Pointless class."
"Pointless class with no homework," Prue pointed out, "Same with Herbology."
Paul and Sophia were groping each other on the couch, "What is it with the hormone levels in this school? I have to research and summarize the link between the methods of muggle and wizard communication," she added.
"Want to make the hormone levels in the school even higher?" Cerulean wound and arm around her waist and winked. Snorting, Winston scooted away.
With Cerulean's face looming in front of hers, Prue was tempted. His lips had been so soft the last time. However, as she thought about it, Casey's visage flashed in front of her. If only the bloody tosser hadn't been so damn intense the previous night, Prue resolved, "Maybe not."
Cerulean didn't seem too offended as she shied away, "If you ever decide otherwise, my answer will always be absobloodylutely."
"Good to know," Prue replied, noticing he hadn't withdrawn his arm. It felt nice, right, around her waist. As always, when things feel right, they blow up in your face. The perfect moment was ruined by Elanore storming into the common room, sobbing.
Never knowing the tiny girl to even be awake that early, Prue shrugged off Cerulean's arm and ran over to her, "Ellie?"
"It's- it's horrible," she sobbed, raking her hand through her black hair as though to veil her face.
"What is?" Loupe asked kindly from the couch. Ignoring the sinking feeling in her stomach, Prue listened attentively.
"Rufus!" Elanore choked out, which confirmed Prue's fear.
"You found out about Seldom Rose, didn't you?"
Head snapping up, Elanore looked shocked, "What?"
Knowing she'd slipped up, Prue sighed, "Seldom Rose and Rufus…at the Masquerade."
Through a steady stream of tears, Elanore responded, "He broke up with me. I never thought it would be over another girl. He never even mentioned her, the slimy git."
"I'm sorry, I thought you knew."
"Well you should have told me earlier. You know I hate being broken up with!" Elanore was angry now.
From her perch in Paul's lap, Sophia nodded, "It bites being dumped. Better to be the dumper than the dumpee."
As though noticing everyone for the first time, Elanore wondered, "Who are all these people?"
"You know Winston," Prue started, "Cerulean and Loupe. There's Gislaine. That's Paul, remember the Whomping Willow guy? And Sophia's next to him. Umm, we're studying."
The last part sounded too guilty to be true. Always keen on these things, Elanore managed, "Does Casey know? That you're down here so early with Cerulean? And in your pajamas?"
"Why should my little brother care? Prue's business is her own," Cerulean replied.
"I never said it wasn't," Elanore rejoined evenly. Which wasn't a good sign. Prue knew instinctively that news of her little study session would be relayed to Casey as soon as possible. She should have told Elanore about Rufus and Seldom. Elanore's wrath was always spiteful, and she'd made such a stupid mistake.
"Ellie," she tried. The girl turned towards the stairs.
"Have a good Quidditch practice Prue," Elanore stalked away, leaving Prue to dread the upcoming session.
Practice flew by, despite Prue's wishes. Especially once she saw Casey and Elanore sitting calmly in the bleachers. Serendipity spared a glance at Prue while Whitney yelled at Matilda, "What's wrong with you today? You're flying like the devil's at your heels."
"You'll see. I pissed off Elanore," she replied sadly. Looking grim, Serendipity returned to goal keeping. When Elanore was mad, she was not someone you wanted to mess with. God only knew what she'd told Casey. It was a shame, too, Prue reflected. After the other night, despite his skirt, Prue had sort of started to wonder if maybe it wasn't all jokes to him. If maybe he wasn't really interested. But now Elanore had probably killed anything he may or may not have felt. Stupid cow.
When it was all over, Serendipity retreated to the locker rooms, but she managed to goad Bobby into following Prue down to the bleachers. Prue almost wished she hadn't. Even if the boy hadn't had a crush on her, she didn't want him to know about Cerulean.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't the little tramp," Casey remarked lightly as her feet touched down.
"What the hell are you talking about, Hargrove?" Bobby, already sweaty and exhausted from practice, demanded.
"You mean she hasn't told you? I'm not surprised. Prudence, tell Stone how you've been slutting around with my brother. Imagine, my own flesh and blood doing this to me."
"Doing what to you?" Prue asked incredulously, so upset that she was disinclined to even correct his misuse of her name, "I don't belong to you Casey. And I have definitely not been 'slutting' around. I don't know what Elanore told you, but it was just a study group."
Dabbing at a tear making its way down her face, Elanore put in, "Don't you dare call me a liar Gelliston."
"I'm not saying you lied, Ellie. I'm just saying you have a knack for warping the truth," Prue snapped. Her idea of a good practice ended in a hot shower, not an argument with two of her best friends. Since when did Casey become one of my best friends? Prue wondered.
"Stop it," ordered Bobby, "Stop badmouthing Prue!"
Casey snarled, "Why, because you have a little crush on her? So what? Icemen crushes never amount to anything. Remember how Quant liked Serendipity in first year? It never worked out."
"He kept putting flobberworms in her hair!" Bobby protested.
Casey shrugged, "Frank liked Elanore, remember? He even got in that fist-fight for her third year. She started up with Rufus, and now he's over her. And Sylvester-"
Not able to finish about whom Sylvester adored, because as Serendipity had previously suspected, the girl stood next to him, Casey cut himself off. Then he said bitterly, "So you see, there's no way she'll ever like you. My brother always manages to get the girl."
"Even so, you don't have to be such a horrific jerk," Bobby yelled hotly.
"I'll do whatever I like, Stone," Casey replied icily.
Prue looked back and forth between Casey and Bobby. The looks on both their faces was lethal. Seeing the impending explosion, she wished desperately for her wand, even as the two boys drew theirs. If things got out of hand, she'd be damned if she ever spoke to Elanore again, the bint. How could she do this?
Glancing around frantically, she looked for anything that could help. Elanore was wiping at more crocodile tears, shaking a little. Unable to find much sympathy for the girl, Prue spotted her broom. It was a fairly new model SkyRocket12, sitting placidly next to Bobby's first class Lighteningrod. Lucky boy. Except brooms wouldn't be much use in this fight.
Then Prue noticed Serendipity, digging through her robes for her wand, damning Rufus for the whole ordeal before her. The redhead's first order of business after this whole thing was over would be to hurt the boy and his little girl-whore, Seldom badly. She spotted Prue looking at her expectantly and nodded curtly. There was no way she was getting involved in a cockfight unless the wand work got too nasty.
Getting the message, the taller girl realized she'd have to deal with the boys on her own. If only she hadn't bragged all those times about how she could take care of herself, maybe Serendipity would be a little more willing to help. No, that wasn't true. Serendipity would look out for her if things took the wrong turn.
"Prue, get out of the way," Bobby commanded in a voice so soft it screamed.
"I can't Bobby," she replied a little fearfully. Why the hell was she defending Casey? Why? Because the look on Bobby's face was one she'd never seen before, and she was positive it wasn't good, "You don't want to hurt Casey."
"No, you're wrong. I do."
"The only hurting that's going to go on, Stone, will be your own. Prudence, be a good little witch for once in your life and back off."
"Excuse me? Why do you two have to be such drama queens?" Before she could say anything else about his misuse of her name or his threat to Bobby, Casey pushed her lightly out of the way. She stumbled back into the bleachers, looking up just in time to see Casey shout, "Cryokesio!"
A wisp of silver smoked formed at the tip of his wand, finding its way through the thick air just in time to wind its way around Bobby's feet. The air shimmered as the smoke tendril solidified into ice.
In return, Bobby shouted, "Incendio!"
Flames shot towards Casey. Prue struggled to untangle her feet, managing to loop one around Casey's leg and pull him off his feet. He collapsed on his back, landing hard on top of her.
"What the hell did you do that for, you twit?" Casey demanded, and then yelled, "Cryoketos!"
Icicles shot from his wand, pinning Bobby's robes into the locker room wall behind him. He shrugged out of them easily. Prue hissed, "Idiot. Do you want to spend the next month in the hospital wing?"
"Stay out of it. Shouldn't you be getting in his way? He's the one trying to defend your honor," he roared, batting her arm away as she attempted to smack him. His wand had effectively fallen from his hand after the last spell, but he had pulled out that damned blue kerchief from Zonko's. Struggling up and damning her all the while, Casey turned to say something nasty when an odd look graced his face, "Your hair's on fire."
"Very funny," Prue mumbled, rubbing her sore abdomen. The boy weighed more than he looked. Plus his elbow had gotten her nicely when he fell. That was going to bruise. She grasped his shoulder and hopped to her feet gingerly, sniffing the air, "Is something burning?"
"Prue! I'm serious, your hair's on fire!" Casey exclaimed.
"Blimey!" Serendipity shrieked from her spot near the locker room entrance.
"Aquaexe!" Elanore shouted desperately, water shooting from her wand, dousing Prue's entire body. And in that moment, Prue forgave her, sort of. Bobby and Casey were a different story.
"Blast," muttered Casey, "That looks singed as fuck. You can um, hit Bobby if you want."
"Why me?" Bobby demanded, "The only reason she caught fire is because she was trying to save you Hargrove. It's always about you, isn't it?"
Viciously, Bobby tore at his robes while Prue touched the blackened ends of her hair. A few strands disintegrated, ashes falling to her feet.
"Prue, I'm sorry," Bobby apologized, "You really can hit me with any hex you like. And Casey."
Prue proceeded to drive her fists as hard as she could into each boy's gut.
"I hate you both," she shrieked.
"This is completely your fault," Bobby informed Casey as they watched Prue stomp away, huddled between Serendipity and Elanore. It seemed in the advent of Elanore's dousing the fire, all was forgiven. Girls were strange.
"Well," Casey countered, "Technically it's yours. You're the one who used the fire jinx."
Bobby just glared at him and stalked off. His chances with Prue were ruined, and he knew it. If only Hargrove didn't always get in the way. Of course Prue probably didn't even realize how much she stood up for Casey. Not that it mattered now, he mused. At least if Bobby couldn't have Prue because of this incident, Casey wouldn't be able to either. That was good news, in his opinion.
Back in her room, hours later, Prue fingered her new do. The short white and brown locks were cute, but they hardly did her justice. God, what would her parents think? Elanore had apologized, and Prue had resentfully said sorry in return. Choosing not to go to class, she'd visited Madame Pomfrey, who'd taken her into Hogsmeade to see the hair stylist there. Prue wondered what Casey would think, and then wondered why she should care.
It was the stupid git's fault her lovely hair had been burned off in the first place, because of his stupid sibling rivalry with Cerulean. She didn't see what the big deal was between the two. One would think with the massive amount of brothers and sisters Casey had he'd be able to cope with them better. This caused her to wonder what Cerulean would think. It seemed as if she was starting to think of him even more than she thought about her puppy love for Noah Weslen.
"Is it possible I'm getting over my crush?" Prue asked the mirror she stared into aloud. Her green eyes widened slightly.
The mirror-reflection of herself responded, "Girls these days are so silly. Whoever he is, he's not worth it. And what happened to our hair?"
"Sorry," she glared at her reflection, running a hand through her hair, flipping the ends out in a cute way. Cute. Prue could deal with cute.
"I'm going to see Cerulean," she decided.
Her reflection shook its head in remorse, "Our hair was so lovely, too."
Prue found Cerulean around dinnertime, chatting with Casey and Cherridy. Heart skipping a beat when she saw Casey, Prue pointedly ignored the boy, whose mouth was hanging open rudely.
"Nice," Cerulean grinned at her, "Heard you tried a new hair dryer. Worked a little better than you intended, didn't it?"
"Yeah. Burned the moisture out," Prue quipped, "What do you think?"
"Adorable. So what can I help you with? Come to see Casey or take me up on my offer?" He winked.
"Actually, I've come to take you up on your offer."
Boldly, Prue walked closer to him, ignoring Cherridy and Casey, breathing in his spicy scent. She was aware that the gazes of half the Great Hall would be on her in a second, and wanted to do this before she lost her nerve. This would show them, all of them, that she wasn't anybody's possession. Quickly, she pressed her mouth to Cerulean's.
The older boy seemed surprised, but not at all unwilling. Absently, Prue hoped Helen Carter was nowhere around, waiting to bash her head in. Cheering broke through her thoughts, and she pulled away. Seemed the kiss had lasted a whole five minutes, without her even paying attention to it. Cerulean was grinning like a maniac, and half the Great Hall was predictably making catcalls. Cherridy slapped his brother on the back in a congratulatory manner. Geez, you'd think we're getting married or something, Prue thought giddily.
It was Casey's face that interrupted her excitement. He looked stricken; there was no other word to describe the hurt written across his features. Stiffly, he said something to Cerulean and cast another sad glance in her direction. Prue couldn't bring herself to stop him as he walked away.
"Gee, does this mean we're going study or something?" Cerulean joked. She giggled appropriately, but didn't respond.
Her mind was, as always, on Casey.
Later that night, she found him sitting alone in the common room. Casey was looking pensively at the fire, his guitar discarded next to the large, comfy chair he resided in.
Prue hesitantly sat cross legged on the floor in front of him.
"What do you want, Prudence?" Casey asked tiredly.
"Just to talk, I guess," Prue leaned her head back onto his knee, "I don't like it when you're all moody like this."
"So talk," Casey suggested, closing his eyes.
"Are you really disappointed that I'm dating Cerulean? I mean, I don't want our friendship to breakup over sibling rivalry," Prue breathed.
"That's what you think this is?" Casey's eyes snapped open, "Sibling rivalry?"
"Isn't it?" Prue asked, puzzled.
Something in Casey seemed to deflate. His blue eyes went flat in the firelight, and he stood, "Yeah Prue. That's all this is. I'm jealous because Cerulean gets everything."
The way he looked at her, even though it was only for a second made her feel like she was his everything. Before she could say a word, he had already started up the stairs. Prue wondered what in the world he was thinking. She wondered if she'd ever know what he was thinking. She doubted it. A Hargrove's mind seemed to be an interesting place to live. Especially if that Hargrove was Casey.