Hello!

So I'm sorry this chapter took so long to post – I was on vacation for a little over a week with zero internet access. So I wrote this while on vacation and now I have it to give to you!

As always, CP Coulter and JK Rowling own everything and I own next to nothing. :)

Chapter 7

Logan slammed down his book, green rage in his eyes. "This," he said to Julian through clenched teeth, "is the most boring thing I've ever read."

Julian glanced up slowly. "It's about mountain trolls, Lo," he drawled, "what do you expect?"

They both looked up as Derek sank into a seat next to them. "I'm bloody tired," he said without preamble. He motioned to his dirt-speckled robes and sighed. "And now I have to clean these. Great." He rolled his eyes and handed his wand to Logan. "And this is chipped, I fell on it."

Logan took it and inspected it closely. "Here?" he pointed to a little place in the wood where part of it had come off.

Derek nodded and Logan pulled his own wand from his pocket. "Reparo," he muttered under his breath and flicked his wand and Julian looked up from his book as the dent smoothed out.

"Thanks." Derek took it back and pointed it at Logan. "You really shouldn't have fixed it."

Now it was Logan's turn to roll his eyes. "It was this morning, get over it!"

Derek lowered the wand slightly. "But Logan, you told Amelia that I kissed Clara!"

"I was just telling the truth!" Logan twirled his own wand in his hands.

"Sorry to interrupt," Julian said loudly, "but I have a question about this."

Logan leaned in to peer over the book. "What?"

"It says that mountain trolls like to-"

"I don't know, I haven't gotten there." Logan turned back to Derek. "I maybe shouldn't have told Clara but I think that you should have."

"Couldn't you guess?" Julian insisted. "You're smart, you pay attention in class."

"I don't know, Julian." Logan looked steadily at Derek, not looking at Julian.

"Hey, chill, I didn't know you were so insecure in your intelligence." Julian looked at Logan levelly and Logan lasted two seconds before he grabbed Julian's book and threw it across the common room, almost hitting a first year, who glared at Logan.

Logan glared back, baring his teeth.

"Go get it," Julian said coldly. "Go get it for me."

"No, it's your book." Logan stood up and walked across the room to another empty chair, which he sat in and stewed.

Julian sat in his own chair for a few minutes, complaining loudly to Derek about Logan and his 'mood swings' before standing up and going over to retrieve his book, apologize coolly to the first year, and then sit down on the floor next to Logan's new spot.

"I'm sorry for whatever I did to you," he said angrily. "I don't know why you threw my book across the room though."

"When I'm mad at you," Logan said calmly but with a tone that chilled Julian through and through, "please don't talk to me. You wait for me to talk to you. Got it?" He stood. "Good." He disappeared through the doorway to the dormitories.

Julian caught Derek's eye and shrugged. Derek shrugged back.

.

Logan punched a pillow, alone, alone at last. Finally. But he didn't want to be alone… It scared him, what he wanted to be. To do. When he leaned closer to Julian, to see Julian's book, he wanted to…

To kiss him.

Like he kissed Cal.

But it would be nicer with Julian, Logan just knew it, he could tell, and that scared him. So much so that he had to get away, he had to leave, be far away from Julian. Because Logan didn't want to want Julian. He wanted to be like Derek, with Clara and Amelia. But he just wasn't.

And if he had to be like that then why did it have to be with Julian? His best friend? Who was probably definitely not like that.

He punched the pillow again, glared at it, hissed. As if the pillow embodied, for right now, who he was – what he was – himself.

Logan sighed, his anger diminishing quickly, and sat down heavily on the bed. He made a face at the wall – what if the wall told someone? What if the pillow did?

Suddenly he was paranoid. What if someone found out? What if Cal told someone…?

.

"Where is the Hufflepuff common room?" Logan demanded.

Derek looked up at Logan guiltily. "How should I know?"

"Cut the crap," Logan said, annoyed. "I know you know, you've snogged enough Hufflepuffs."

"Sometimes," Julian said lazily, twirling his quill, still looking at the book about mountain trolls, "I think Derek forgets that he's 12 years old."

Logan glared at him, at his perfect features, his perfect hair…

"It's near the kitchens." Derek blinked at him. "Just go down there, there'll be Hufflepuffs going in and out probably, you can find it."

"Thanks." And Logan was running out of the Slytherin common room, across the stone floor of the dungeons, and up toward the kitchen. He skidded to a stop when he got to the hallway behind kitchens, looking around with big green eyes. So…now what?

Should he wait? Just stand there and wait for Cal to come out?

What if Cal just went to bed? He probably wouldn't just come out of the common room…

Logan started and whirled about as he heard voices at the opposite end of the corridor. He looked frantically around for someplace to hide, but saw nowhere. So he stood his ground, in the middle of the corridor, hand in his robes, holding his wand.

And who should come walking up the corridor to greet him but Cal Johnson? Logan visibly shrunk. He hadn't seen Cal in less than a ten-foot radius for two months. Logan looked around, shy all of a sudden.

Cal walked up to him and stopped, and the other three Hufflepuffs he'd been with kept walking. They entered the common room but Logan barely even realized they were there and it didn't matter anymore how they got in or where because Cal…was out here.

"Logan, what are you doing here?" Cal asked in a hushed voice. "I told you, don't talk to me when we get to the castle, and here we are, at the castle… I mean, you're a fun guy and we had a lot of fun together when we were kids and I really like you but when you tried to make it more than just…running around the neighborhood together…that wasn't cool. I didn't like it. I'm sorry."

Logan's heart was in the bottom of his stomach and he just looked at Cal, not nearly as good-looking as Julian.

"Why are you here?" Cal asked softly, he wasn't mean, he wouldn't be rude, couldn't be, but he would be final and for Logan that sometimes felt like a punch to the gut.

"I…" Logan swallowed, his lips were dry, why was he nervous like this? "Look." He took a step forward and Cal took a step back. "I'm not going to kiss you, alright? Calm down," Logan snapped. Cal's eyes widened but he nodded. "I just need to know – have you told anyone?"

Cal looked surprised. "About…" He motioned between them with his hand. "No. Of course not. Not my secret to tell."

Logan nodded, satisfied, but there was one other thing.

He surged forward, pinned Cal against the wall, and took his wand from his robes. He calmly held it to Cal's neck and hissed, "If you ever so much as whisper a word about anything that happened last summer to anyone, I'll shove this wand down your throat and perform all the spells I know on your stomach."

Cal gulped. "I won't tell anyone, I swear."

"Good." Logan let him go, Cal crumpled against the floor, and Logan walked off, satisfied.