Hello everyone! It's officially been 7 months since I updated this fic, and for that I apologize sincerely. I have no real excuse, other than with school and loss of muse, I lost interest. Lately, however, my mom has been bugging me about how I should really continue it, and so today I sat down and re-read what I had so far and realized that I really do want to continue it.

So here I am. This is chapter 9. I hope you enjoy it, and I'll continue to try to update at least once a week, if I can. I'm not sure if my original plan for this story/how it will be told is going to be the same – i.e. I don't think I'll really alternate between POVs for it, I'll probably stick with whoever's inner trauma is greatest at the time.

If you're still around, fantastic, welcome, and I hope you enjoy this chapter that's been so long in the coming!

I can be found on tumblr at flightofdeathfrench, and I hope you don't hate me for taking so long to update.

These characters still aren't mine, they're CP Coulter's, and the world in which the characters roam is JK Rowling's.

Enjoy, and review if you think I still deserve it! :)

Chapter 9

Logan was buried in books, but he wasn't finding anything. It had been a few hours, all the lanterns had been lit in the library, and still he sat. He was starting to fall asleep but he needed to find the spell he needed before he went home on the Hogwarts Express the next day.

Everyone was done exams, so no one was in the library. It was all his. That was best, Logan liked being alone nowadays. His wand lay on the desk next to his pile of books, all of which had been leafed through and discarded when nothing of use was found. He turned a page, read about yet another form of love potion that made you fall in love with someone, but not out of love with an entire gender.

He slammed the book closed, a cloud of dust rising up into his face. Coughing, he shoved it away, angry. He picked up his wand and waved it, sending all the books back to their shelves. Julian had taught him how to do this.

Thinking of Julian made Logan's heart leap and fall in a way that was quite painful, so he just watched the books sailing back to their places and then pocketed his wand, turned, and left the library.

The stone corridors were so familiar and Logan found himself taking the long way back to Slytherin common room. He didn't want to go home for the summer. His father was at home. Cal was at home. It was confusing and lonely and so…Julian-less.

Logan stopped just outside the entrance to the Slytherin common room. He rested his forehead against the wall, his palms pressed against the stone.

It was alright, he didn't need to like girls anyway. They were unappealing and gross and quite frankly, Logan didn't want to like them. He lacked the desire.

But he did want to be normal. He wanted to fit in. He didn't want to want things that he couldn't have. If he liked someone he wanted to be able to tell them. He didn't want to have to tell his friends that he liked boys. He didn't want to have to tell his father…

This thought, the thought of his father and that, inevitably, he would have to tell him over the summer, sent a chill down Logan's spine. He pushed off the wall and murmured the password, 'Gryffindors suck.' The Gryffindors had won the House Cup that year, much to Derek's embarrassment, since he was convinced that it was somehow his fault.

Speaking of the devil…Derek was sitting in a chair in front of the green-glowing fire. He was using his wand to casually make a quill fly up and down in front of him.

"Hey," Logan said, sitting in the chair next to Derek.

"Hey," Derek replied. "Find the spell?"

"No," Logan grumbled.

"Did you need it?" Derek asked, letting the quill fall to the floor, then raising it up once more.

"No," Logan said, leaning his head back to rest against the top of the chair.

"Are you alright?" Derek turned to look at him and the quill floated gently to the floor, ignored.

"I'm tired," Logan snapped. "Where's Julian?"

"He went to bed. He was waiting for you to get back but he started falling asleep so I made him go to bed."

"Hm." Logan ground his teeth together, for lack of anything better to do.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Derek asked. "What was the spell you wanted?"

Logan looked around. The common room was nearly empty; there were a few sixth years performing spells on an unfortunate toad they'd stolen from a Hufflepuff, but they were in the far corner and well out of earshot.

"If I told you something, would you promise not to tell anyone, even Julian?" Logan asked.

Derek's eyebrows knit but he nodded.

"I think…I know…" Logan started, but then he stopped. "Nevermind," he said, standing up. "I have to go, I'm tired too."

"Wait!" Derek exclaimed, jumping up, grabbing Logan's arm as the taller boy turned. "What is it? Tell me, what were you going to say?"

"Nothing!" Logan said, annoyed, and he pulled his arm away angrily. "It was nothing, now forget it."

"I can't just forget it!" Derek said, following Logan as he walked brusquely toward their dormitory.

"You can if I make you," Logan said, spinning around, pulling his wand from his robes, and pointing it at Derek.

Derek just rolled his eyes. "You don't know that spell," he said, and he saw the tip of the wand quiver, as if Logan's hand was shaking but he was trying very hard to keep it still.

"Of course I do," Logan said, and there was a silence in which normal practices would demand that he would then say 'Obliviate!' and Derek would forget everything.

But he didn't.

"I wouldn't tell anyone," Derek said quietly, ignoring the wand pointed at him and looking into Logan's Christmas tree eyes.

Logan shook his head. "I'm not ready to tell you," he said quietly, and there was vulnerability in his voice that Derek had never heard there before. He'd heard everything: anger, happiness, stress, just…everything. Everything but vulnerability.

Logan always had a wall up around himself, a hard outer shell that couldn't be easily broken into. Derek knew this and he wondered if whatever it was that Logan wanted to find, the spell that probably didn't exist, that he'd said he didn't need yet had spent hours looking for, would help Logan. If it would help him with whatever it was that made him put up that wall.

"Okay," he whispered, nodding. "Okay. You can go to bed now, and I'll forget this ever happened."

Logan nodded and just before he turned, Derek thought he saw the blond's lip quiver, just like the wand had.

"You'll write me?" Julian asked as the train pulled up at King's Cross.

Logan nodded. "Of course I will. It's probably all I'll do, I have nothing to do at home anymore."

"Don't you have your friend?" Derek asked from across the compartment.

Logan shook his head but offered no explanation whatsoever.

Derek and Julian looked at each other, and Julian hesitantly reached out his hand to touch Logan's knee in a comforting gesture from his seat next to the now-miserable blond.

Logan's leg stiffened but he didn't pull away like Julian had sort of expected him to.

"What about your girlfriend? At home?" Julian asked Derek, who shrugged like he barely remembered. "Hilary," Julian added.

"Right, Hilary. Yeah, I don't know," Derek mumbled, twirling his wand with his fingers.

"What, you just forgot about her?" Logan asked, his voice cutting through the air between him and his friend.

Derek looked down at the floor. "No," he said, in a way that made it clear that he had.

"That's awful," Logan said, anger building, eyes flashing, and Julian pulled his hand away for fear it get in the line of fire between his two best friends. "You were so in 'love' with her and now you've forgotten about her? How can you do that? How can you not love someone so completely, so fully with your whole heart that it consumes you? You may be twelve years old but that doesn't mean that we can't love! And when we do – when you do – how could you ever just forget the person that you loved? How could you possibly do that? How?" He stopped and a thick silence fell across the compartment. It was a little awkward and full of the possibility of either Julian or Derek asking Logan what he was talking about and how he knew what love was supposed to be like. But neither of them did because they were afraid.

Logan had never mentioned loving anyone, but now it seemed like he did. The way he talked. The indignance in his voice. The way, even now, his cheeks had turned a light shade of red and he refused to look at either of them.

Derek wondered if this was what Logan had been going to tell him the night before… But what spell would he need? A spell to make the girl he loved fall in love with him back? Maybe. But those were easy to find…

"I don't know," Derek said after awhile. "I guess she isn't the one."

Logan didn't respond. He drew his legs up and wrapped his arms around them, resting his chin on his knees, and he stayed there until the train had stopped and everyone had gotten off, including Julian and Derek. (After a moment of hesitation, they'd stood and gathered their things and paused in the doorway. Julian had said, 'I'll write to you, Lo,' and Derek had said, 'Yeah, me too.' Logan hadn't responded, so they'd both left the compartment.) Logan sat there while the train emptied, thinking about how he'd have to face his dad, and maybe sometime during the lonely days that were sure to follow, he'd have to tell him that he loved boys. A boy. A brunet boy who had just stepped off the train and who could be seen out the window greeting his mother and walking off. After Logan stopped looking, Julian turned to look back at the train, at the window through which Logan could be seen, standing finally and gathering his own things. Julian turned and bit his lip, concerned about his best friend. Logan sighed heavily and walked through the corridor and off the train and onto the platform.