Important A/N: Okay. So. This isn't our final chapter. It's sort of a mini-chapter.
It's probably evident that this fic got away from me, length wise, from the beginning. When I do self-contained AUs like this (i.e. all the non-YB AUs), they're usually not supposed to be super plot heavy: it's all about world building (how do Alex and Piper fit into the AU) and then the only story is how, in this world, they'd find and fall for each other.
But this one got long. And there's more...tons more scenes I imagined, because obviously I have a soft spot for this world. But this chapter takes care of all the relevant plot. So I decided to go ahead and post it. I'll update the other scenes, too, probably post-season three...because I've got a project happening next week, leading up to the premiere, that I wanted to have focus for, but I didn't feel like leaving Lumos dangling for that long unupdated. More on next weeks stuff at the bottom, but hope this at least hold us over a little. Sorry it's so short.
Fifth Year (still)
Piper's not used to running on this little sleep - a few fitful half hours here and there in the hospital wing, and she feels jittery and disoriented when she hurries into her first class of the day with only a few minutes to spare. She'd skipped breakfast, just stopped quickly by the empty dormitory in time to grab her books.
It's Defense Against the Dark Arts, just the other Ravenclaw fifth years, and for once Piper doesn't remember to anticipate reactions - but there's a definite hush when she comes in. Too tired to worry about the staring, Piper drops into her usual seat beside Tasha and starts pulling out books.
Tasha wordlessly holds out a muffin wrapped in a napkin. Piper takes it gratefully.
"Thanks."
"Figured you'd be hungry."
Piper hides the food behind her bag on the table, breaking off small bites. She waits until the pre-class chatter picks up again around the room before mumbling, "Everyone mad about losing?"
"I guess," Tasha says neutrally. Then, after a moment, "You spend the night in the Hospital Wing?"
"Yeah."
"Your girl okay?"
Piper's also too tired to register the phrasing. Or at least, too tired to object to it. "Yeah. Concussion. Bones already healed."
The professor comes in, then, and Piper shoves what's left of her muffin in her bag, pulling out her book instead. As soon as the lecture starts, her exhaustion decides to really kick in. Even her stress over O.W.L.s feels put to sleep.
She'll have to check with Tasha later, see if she missed any important exam tips when they were going out the other ear, but right now she just wants to get through the morning classes so she can get back to Alex.
Piper knows, intellectually, that she won't be in the hospital wing for much longer. Madame Pomphrey will probably let her out by lunch at the latest. But seeing Alex seems very important right now. When Alex is actually in front of her, it makes it easier not to think about her falling that far, hitting the ground that hard.
Their last class before lunch is double Potions with the Hufflepuffs, and when Professor Parker splits them into pairs, Piper moves automatically in the direction of Larry Bloom's table, but then Poussey tugs the sleeve of her robe. "C'mon, Pipe, you're with me."
Tasha whips around, screwing her face in exaggerated offense. "Geez, what'd I do to you?"
Poussey smirks. "You were with her all morning, I wanna get a scoop, too."
Piper sighs and rolls her eyes, but as they start working, Poussey doesn't ask any questions. They don't talk about anything other than the potion they're working on until nearly forty-five minutes into class, when Poussey slides her gaze to where Tasha's impatiently working with Larry, before turning back to Piper. "So. Alex Vause. You like her?"
Piper keeps her eyes on the potion she's stirring - three strokes clockwise, two counterclockwise - ignoring the nerves fluttering in her chest. "Yeah, I mean. She's my best friend."
As soon as she says it, it occurs to Piper that she can't remember the last time she used that phrase. Until she and Alex started hanging out this year, Tasha was undoubtedly the person she's closest to, but Tasha and Poussey always had the best friend label, and Piper never felt like encroaching. But now she uses the term confidentially, for maybe the first time; she likes thinking of Alex as her best friend.
Poussey seems uninterested in this momentous moment for Piper, just rolls her eyes impatiently, lowering her voice a little. "You know what I mean. I'm not talking about friends. You into her?"
Cheeks warming instantly, Piper looks away, dodging the question. "What, just because of yesterday?"
"Not just. But yesterday didn't hurt the theory."
"You would react the same way if Tasha got hurt," Piper retorts challengingly.
There's a pause, and then Poussey answers, her voice even quieter. "Yeah. Exactly."
Piper looks up again to meets her friends gaze, slowly cluing in. "Oh..."
For a second, Poussey looks pained, but then she visibly shakes it off. "I'm just sayin'. If you like her, it's cool. She seems like she's into you, too."
Piper smiles without thinking. "Yeah?"
"For sure."
She can't stop the smiling, now, and Piper ducks her head to stir a random potion ingredient until she gets that under control.
After a few moments, Piper chances a look over again. Now Poussey's the one working too intently, pointedly avoiding eye contact. Piper feels a tug of guilt and sympathy in her stomach, and she murmurs, "If you ever need to talk about -"
"Thanks, but I'm cool," she cuts her off, voice clipped and dismissive. "But, you know. You get yours, girl."
Alex is back at the Slytherin table at lunch - she grins and flicks her eyebrows at Piper in greeting - and Piper spends a few minutes just enjoying the relief at Alex being upright and okay before her thoughts wander back to what Poussey said.
She doesn't actually get to talk to Alex until double Transfiguration that afternoon, when she slides into the seat next to Piper's looking no worse for the wear. "How you feeling?"
"Good as new." Alex shakes her arm out, making a face. "Still can't get over this fucking bone healing thing, but whatever. Would've sucked trying to take O.W.L.s with my wand arm in a cast."
O.W.L.s. Merlin, Piper had nearly forgotten, hasn't given them a single thought all day.
"Janae came to visit before they left me out."
"That's nice of her."
"You didn't tell me you ran onto the pitch."
Piper tenses a little. "I did tell you I thought you were dead for a second. What'd you think, I just waited in the stands to make sure you weren't?"
Alex smirks a little, apparently thinking the possibility of her death by deliberate Quidditch foul is amusing. "Fair point. Wish I'd be conscious to see the freak out."
Piper exhales a sharp, huffing sound, feeling pissed off for some reason. She stays mostly quiet for the rest of class, and Piper can tell Alex notices but she doesn't say anything about it until they're packing to go. Lifting one eyebrow, she asks, "You good?"
"Yeah," Piper replies shortly, barely looking at her. "Just thinking about how much studying I have to do to make up for last night."
She starts toward the classroom door, not checking to see if Alex is following her, but a second later an edgy, sarcastic, "Sorry," hisses right by her ear. "I told you you didn't have to stay."
"Don't be stupid, of course I was gonna stay." It comes out harsher than she intends. Piper quickens her pace, eyeing Tasha several paces ahead, sparing one glance back at Alex and forcing a smile that feels more like a grimace. "I'll see you later, okay?"
At dinner that night she catches Alex's eye and waves across the Great Hall, but for the first time practically all year, Piper doesn't meet up with her after. She eats quickly and heads back to Ravenclaw Tower even before Tasha or Flaca or anyone else is halfway done.
When Tasha shows up in the Common Room a half hour later, Poussey sneaks in with her. They settle next to Piper in front of the fireplace, spreading out textbook and parchment full of notes, and Poussey gives Piper this knowing look.
It's incredibly annoying.
It's quiet in the Common Room, as is usual as exams approach, so Piper can't blame the atmosphere on her lack of focus. Her mind keeps meandering away from old Herbology notes and onto Alex, and occasionally Tasha and Poussey: she keeps glancing over at them, trying to read something in Poussey's eyes when she looks at her best friend.
She's been studying with Alex, most nights, working around Alex's Quidditch practice schedule, and even though she hadn't outright ignored her today, it was still a change in routine and would feel like a blow off. Piper's trying not to feel too bad about it, but the out of nowhere she gets a late onset sense of déjà vu: this is what it was like in all the years before this one, barely acknowledging Alex from a distance before escaping with her other, easier to deal with friends.
Piper's chest tightens. She abruptly starts gathering up her notes.
"Where you going?"
"I'm supposed to meet Alex."
"Now?" Tasha asks skeptically; there's only about an hour before curfew.
"I'm late," she explains lamely. "I'll see you later."
Piper drops her thick stack of study materials in her dorm before heading out. The library is closed, but she hopefully checks a few of the empty classrooms Alex likes to work in. They're empty. Running on a strange urgency, Piper heads down to dungeons, going lower and lower on stone steps until she gets to the stone wall she's seen Alex entire the Slytherin Common Room through. The door's concealed right now, and Piper does't know the password, isn't even sure it would work for her if she did.
She stares stupidly at the wall, annoyed. They live in the same castle, for Merlin's sake. It shouldn't be this hard to track someone down to talk.
A few older students, seventh years by the look of them, walk past Piper and give her narrow, suspicious looks.
"I'm just waiting for someone," she mutters, leaning against another wall and trying to seem casual. The Slytherins glance at each other, then mutter the password with a quiet quickness that feels like overkill, shooting her pointed looks as they go through the revealed door. It's gone before Piper can work up the nerve to walk into the common room by herself.
A few more minutes crawl by, and Piper's starting to deflate. She's debating heading back to bed when a little twelve year old Slytherin girl comes running down the stairs and toward the door, obviously flustered and trying not to be late.
Piper steps in front of her, ostentatiously adjusting her prefect badge, and the little girl's eyes go wide. "Do you know who Alex Vause is?"
Surprise chases away the caught expression on the kid's face. "Yeah...she's one of our Beaters."
"I need you to tell her to come down here," she says, tone crisp and authoritative. Unnecessarily, she adds, "Prefect business."
No longer worried about getting in trouble, the girl's looking up at Piper with a disdainful expression. "How am I supposed to know where she is?"
Piper rolls her eyes. "I don't think your common room's that big. Can't be much of a search. And if she's not in there, she'll be in the fifth year girls dorm."
The kid's heading for the wall. "Whatever."
"Hey." Piper pulls her back by the sleeve. "What's your name?"
"Tricia Miller," she spats.
"Great. Now go find Alex for me, or I'll give you detention."
"You can't do that!"
Piper touches her prefect badge again, even less subtle, and smiles challengingly. "You sure?"
"Fine." The girl groans and turns away, muttering under her breath before biting out a password, "Parseltongue."
The door appears, and Tricia Miller throws Piper a scornful look over her shoulder as she disappears into it. Piper can't help but smirk, pleased with herself, as she leans back against the wall to wait.
It takes five slow, impatient minutes before the door appears again, swinging outward as Alex emerges. She draws her eyebrows together, bemused. "This should be good."
Piper isn't sure how to respond to that. It's suddenly occurred to her that there was no real reason for coming here. "Sorry," she says finally. "I wasn't sure how to let you know I was here."
"This is why you people need cell phones."
You people. Piper's noticed Alex does that a lot, still refers to the magical world like she's not part of it. Most Muggleborns don't do that.
Quiet stretches out between them. Alex lifts her eyebrows, expectant. "Did you need something, Pipes?"
"Not really." She doesn't offer up any other expectation. Alex's robe is on but open, over black shorts and a white tank top. Piper catches herself staring at Alex's legs and quickly snaps her gaze upwards. "Have you seen Leanne?"
"Yeah. She's up there drooling at Doggett's feet. Literally, almost."
"Did you say anything to them?"
"No."
"Are you going to?"
"Haven't worked that out yet." Alex's voice is infuriatingly calm.
"Did you talk to Professor Parker or anyone?"
Alex laughs, once. "Why? Everyone saw what happened. Am I supposed to fill out a report? "
"So, what?" Piper asks harshly, crossing her arms over her chest. Her whole body feels wound tight. "She just gets away with it?"
Alex shrugs, still not looking particularly fussed one way or the other. "I haven't figure out how to deal with it yet. But I'm not forgetting."
Piper makes a scoffing sound. "Oh, great, that's a real comfort."
Tilting her head, Alex squints at Piper, expression caught between exasperation and amusement. "Why are you getting mad at me?"
"I'm not," Piper snaps, the volume of her voice leaping a few decibels. But she is. Wild, irrational anger is gripping the back of her neck, hissing in her ear. Turning her skin hot. Making her want to wipe that maddening smirk of Alex's face.
Making her rush forward, toward Alex, sending her backing instinctively into the stone wall just before Piper takes her face in her hands and kisses her. Just to see what happens. To see what it's like.
It's like magic, swallowed whole.
Alex kisses back immediately, her hands coming up to hold Piper's face, a mirror. It's like she was ready, somehow. Like she'd been waiting.
They get through their O.W.L.s, somehow. Alex still feels half drunk on her own dazed, disbelieving happiness, and she forgets to be stressed. She's near perfect on every practical exam, she's sure of it: she feels more powerful than ever.
Piper kissed her.
Piper is her girlfriend.
If that's possible, there's no spell that could give her trouble.
They make plans for visits over the holidays, which is good, because for the first time ever Alex doesn't want to go home, and it makes her feel guilty.
One of their last nights in the castle, Alex takes Piper to see the mirror. She doesn't tell her what it is, just that's it's old and magic, and mostly Alex likes lazily wandering the corridors holding Piper's hand, sometimes tugging her into corners to make out before Peeves bursts through a wall and yells at them. Piper yelps and practically sprints away, and Alex laughs and innocently denies knowing he was nearby.
"Here it is..." Alex's voice takes on an instinctive, hushed tone. She's never been here with anyone else. She glances back, sees the curiosity gleaming in Piper's eyes.
Alex doesn't let go of her hand, nudging Piper gently in front of the mirror, watching her instead of the reflection.
"Okay...so, is there a spell or something?"
"No, you just - " Alex stops talking abruptly, finally getting her own look.
It's just her and Piper, hands joined between them.
In the mirror, Piper smiles at her. Alex looks beside her, finds the same smile waiting. Confused, expectant. But happy. "I don't get it. What's supposed to be happen?"
Alex shakes her head, throat narrow. She doesn't know how to explain this without it sounding like too much.
She touches two fingers to Piper's chin, lifting it just a fraction before their lips meet.
Their reflections do the same.
Alex knows it won't always be like that, that she'll come back later and still see her mother, the money, her own status and power. That she could bring Piper later and see who knows what that has nothing to do with her.
But tonight, in that moment, there's nothing either of them want more than exactly what they have.
A/N (cont'd): So! As you can see...we've got two more years left, but those are intended to be more like the second, third, and fourth years were...just vignettes of moments. I WILL be writing those. I have them planned already.
I've been taking prompts on my Tumblr (alxvse) for missing scenes and drabble prompts to go within my existing AUs, all to be posted next week leading up to season three. So that's what will be coming up. They are overwhelmingly in Young Blood 'verse and You Little Shit/Monster 'verse, as well as a couple for the theme park AU. Nothing super lengthy on their own...at most, I wanted lengthy scenes, but some are shorter drabbles. But there are a lot, and I wanted to get to as many as possible, hence updating this one with less material than I intended. I'll get back to it post-season three, but didn't want it to be even long than a month since I'd touched it. If I'd planned better, this probably should have just been included in the last chapter, so sorry about all the weirdness.