02. Ordinary Day

It's an ordinary day. An ordinary day, that is, at Hogwarts. And an ordinary day where Rapunzel is resolved to tell Jack she loves him. (Hogwarts AU, featuring Hufflepuff!Rapunzel and a Sandman who is a Professor of Ambient Magic. As for what ambient magic is, brush up your Tamora Pierce.)

Rapunzel lay very still in her four-poster bed, staring at her canopy. She'd stirred into wakefulness a while ago, but she could see the sunlight peering in between the curtains. Soon it would be time to wake up. Get dressed. Accomplish her tasks. And…

'Today I tell Jack that I'm in love with him,' she thought, her heart hammering in the perfect stillness. 'No more fiddling, no more putting it off. Today.'

She took a deep breath, sat up, and pulled her curtains aside. The room – the Hufflepuff seventh-year's dormitory – was brilliant yellow with the sunlight and the spring morning. Her heart skipped. She felt braver already.

She brushed out her hair quickly, tying it back with a single black ribbon, telling herself with every stroke "I'm going to tell him. I'm going to tell him. Today, he's going to know."

Once dressed, she tucked Pascal into her pocket – "Today's the day!" she told him. He smiled and nodded to her, still half-asleep – and hurried down to the Great Hall for breakfast. The ceiling, when she reached it, had already darkened over with clouds and drizzle – clearly today was going to be a checkerboard kind of day.

Rapunzel always dined early, and this morning Merida was seated with the rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, dining on sausages with a bleary air. Rapunzel sat with them, confiding her plan for the day in whispers to Merida. Merida smiled at that, and punched her shoulder, saying "Good on you!" Rapunzel took heart.

Her first class today would be Herbology – perfect, something that calmed her and would give her a good grounding before she took the plunge – and then it would be Ambient Magic Tutoring. That was just her and Jack. Perfect. That's when she would tell him. At ten – no, no, when the class got out, at ten minutes to eleven. That way he wouldn't have it hanging over him for the entire class session. That was better. Right? Right.

Ten o'clock came. Running all the way from the greenhouses, Rapunzel arrived at the small, ground-floor classroom five minutes before Jack did. She got her first good look at him since that morning – framed in the doorway, waving half-apologetically at Professor Sandberg, his Slytherin tie undone and his shirt untucked, sitting down next to her and flashing her a smile.

She felt blood rush to her cheeks as she smiled back. 'Focus,' she commanded herself. 'FOCUS!'

But it was hard to focus, and even the drowsy Professor Sandberg noticed, as she fumbled up reading her report on the nature of sun-magic. When class got out, she trailed behind Jack out the door, but he turned and glanced at her. "You alright, Zellie?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she said, brightly, "I just wanted to talk to you for a minute—"

"Sure," he said, matching his stride so they were side by side. "Shoot."

She glanced down the hallway, and found a fairly private alcove some twenty feet away. She pinched his sleeve and pulled him towards it, her brain speeding ahead to the moment when she would tell him, and he –

He would laugh.

He would laugh just like he laughed at their professors, at Merida's anger, at Hiccup's wild ideas. He would laugh, and she would—

"Well?" he asked, bringing her back to the present. She hadn't told him. He wasn't laughing. But he was tapping his foot. He was impatient, she was annoying him.

She swallowed. "Um, you know, it can wait. I'm sorry to bother you."

"You weren't bothering me, Zellie—hey! Lovebirds!" He hollered this last, so loud it made Rapunzel wince. Before she knew it, he had bounded through the window and was racing across the courtyard to greet and embarrass Merida and Hiccup, who had been quietly canoodling under a willow tree.

By the time Rapunzel caught up with them, dragging her feet uncharacteristically slow, the lunch bell rang. On the way to the Great Hall, Merida disentangled herself from Hiccup's arm to walk alongside Rapunzel, then give incline her head and point to Jack, while wagging her eyebrows, in a way that would have telegraphed her meaning clear across the Quidditch pitch.

Rapunzel shook her head.

Merida stared in disbelief, and mouthed 'Why not?'

Well, there were about a million answers to that, weren't there?

Merida gestured to herself and to Hiccup, then to the door of the Great Hall as they all sat at the Ravenclaw table to eat, indicating 'Just say the word, and Hiccup and I will make ourselves scarce.'

Rapunzel imagined that that statement included an implicit 'Whether he likes it or not.'

The Great Hall was the last place on the school that one could look to for 'Privacy.' Rapunzel said little throughout lunch, trying to get the imagined sound of Jack's laughter out from between her ears.

As they moved on, getting ready for their separate classes, Merida found a reason to be very interested in talking to Hiccup out of their earshot, which gave Rapunzel a few stolen minutes alone with Jack.

"So—um – what are you doing this afternoon?" she asked him.

"Double Potions, coming up right now, a Care of Magical Creatures, and then I'm done. Then, flight practice. I just added some new Braking Charms to Silverfrost, and I've been meaning to test them out. I think she's almost up to professional levels of trick flying," he added. "Hey, what was that thing you wanted to say earlier?"

Rapunzel gripped her bag tightly. This was a crowded hallway, not very private, not what she'd imagined, but sometimes you had to grit your teeth and say it, say "I'm in love with you," and wait for him to respond –

"Likes you? Please, Rapunzel, that's demented—" she could hear her mother's voice in the back of her head now, "What on earth would impress him about you? He probably just keeps you around because he feels bad—"

No, that wasn't true, none of that was true, Rapunzel knew that now, her mother was wrong—

A memory arose, as swift and complete as if she'd stepped into a Pensieve: her first day of classes with Professor Sandberg, to study and understand her ambient magic, she had made a mistake, and Jack had rolled his eyes and asked, "Do I really have to take a class with this dimbulb?"

Jack had been young, he'd been stupid, he'd grown out of it, he'd even apologized, but the words held her back, and she squeezed her eyes shut. "It's not important," she said, "it doesn't matter."

"You sure?" he asked, and she knew without looking that he'd bent down to get a bit closer to her. The thought of him, with his cool skin and his white hair and his eyes, so near to her, made her heart beat even faster ('I could kiss him right now, but what would he do then?'), and spun on her heel, and headed straight to Charms without looking back, waiting for the blush to fade from her face.

A few hours later, she was in the Divination classroom, lulled almost to sleep by the smell of incense and spicy tea, staring at the clock on the wall with her head propped up on her chin. Her thoughts chased each other in sad, wide spirals.

Some day this had been. Just an ordinary day, but it was supposed to have been so much more. It was supposed to have been the day her life began – but she couldn't bring herself to even be honest. What kind of a Hufflepuff was she? Here she had this secret, eating her alive, eroding her friendship with Jack, all because she didn't have the courage –

'Because inside you know he'd never see you that way, you're not good enough, not brave enough, not reckless enough for him—'

She bit back tears, rubbing at her eyes.

"If the smoke is bothering you, dear," came Professor Trelawney's voice through the gloom, "feel free to open the curtains."

Rapunzel stood up automatically. She always sat near the window, and when she pulled the curtains aside, the sunlight dazzled her. The afternoon's showers had cleared, letting the sun shine in. And it cleared her head.

Rapunzel did some quick re-evaluation.

No one could have lived with her mother – her adoptive mother – her mother from whom she was separated, thank you very much – for so long and not been at least a little touched by her abuse. Now shadows still clung to Rapunzel's mind, like sticky cobwebs in the corners, but she could recognize them and, recognizing them, brush them away. And with the sunlight warming her hair, the image was very nearly literal.

'Ambient sun magic,' she thought, smiling. 'I really should live somewhere brighter than England.'

Jack was a light to her, helping to show her that those shadows her mother had surrounded her with were just that, shadows. He listened to her, and he encouraged her, and he believed in her, with all his heart and soul.

He told her, last year, that she'd been the one to change the arrogant and angry boy he had been, as a first year, and show him a better way. His maturation into the young man she loved had been her doing. At least in part. And he was her friend, even if – if – he didn't see her like that. He would want her to be happy. He would want her to be true to herself. And that meant –

"Er, Miss Coronet, I think you can close the windows now," Professor Trelawney's voice sounded as close as it ever came to irritation, "that's quite enough fresh air."

Rapunzel jerked the windows shut. Her hands trembled on the canvas.

"Are you sure you're alright, dear?" Professor Trelawney asked.

"No!" Rapunzel answered blithely. She slammed her book shut and stuffed it into her bag. "I feel quite, quite ill. Awful, really. If you'll please pardon me –" her bag over her shoulder, her overrobe back on, she raced out the class and down the ladder. Hitting the stone floor, she took off at a run –

She was still running when she left the doors of the Great Hall, unencumbered by her bags and racing with the wind, even as the sun disappeared behind more drizzly clouds. She stopped at the standing stones outside of the southern gate to catch her breath. She scanned the grounds, and spotted Jack. He was flying by the shore of the lake, a dark fleck against the sky, a bright gleam against the forest.

Rapunzel felt a tickle on her shoulder as Pascal, dizzy from the rush, emerged from her pocket. She smiled at him. "Sorry," she said. "Would you like to rest a bit here?"

He nodded enthusiastically. She carefully lowered him onto the grass, and then straightened up. She lifted her wand (beech and phoenix feather), and called, "Accio Merida's Firebolt!"

Rapunzel's mother had forbidden her a broomstick of her own, while Merida had received one for her thirteenth birthday – and had allowed Rapunzel full use of it whenever she needed, as long as she asked permission.

A whistling filled the air. From the direction of Gryffindor tower, Rapunzel saw the mahogany broomstick flying towards her, landing at the perfect height for her to mount it. She prayed that Merida would be in a forgiving mood.

"Thanks, Merida," she said as she clambered aboard. She kicked off and sped towards the lake, urging the broom on as she did.

Jack was practicing absurdly dangerous maneuvers – but he was always especially reckless in flight. His broom lent him undue confidence. It was a 1964 Silver Arrow that he'd bought for cheap at an estate sale, and spent the better part of five years refurbishing, magically and by hand, until it was a gleaming, one-of-a-kind beauty, dubbed "Silverfrost."

Rapunzel remembered something Hiccup had said once – "That broom is his baby. Some Muggles get like that with their cars. My dad knows a few. If he ever gets a girlfriend, she'll have to compete with 'Silverfrost.'"

Rapunzel laughed at the thought, even though the fear was creeping up again – 'No, I'm going to tell him. I'm going to tell him. I'm going to –'

Then, the growing dark fleck against the sky began a loop-de-loop, with a tailspin. He came to a sudden stop – or would have, if the brand new Braking Charm hadn't failed at that moment, right as a stormy wind blew in from across the lake.

Rapunzel didn't see clearly, but the broom went one way and Jack went the other, and suddenly he was out in midair, at least forty feet above a stony beach.

Rapunzel's heart stopped. Then, following her will, the Firebolt doubled its speed.

Her wand was still in her hand; without thinking she pointed forward and shrieked "Arresto Momentum!" – and Jack floated, his wide blue eyes still fixed on the ground. He seemed to be in shock.

The Firebolt raced ahead, and Rapunzel took Jack's hand – cold and covered in sweat – in hers. As she flew them both down to earth, her spell weakened, then broke, and the two of them tumbled to the ground, the Firebolt flung aside to avoid bruising them.

Rapunzel, with a healer's instinct, asked Jack at once "Anything broken? Are you all right?"

Jack, dazed, could only shake his head. Behind him, Silverfrost clattered onto the earth harmlessly.

"Good. You're an idiot!" Rapunzel flung her arms around him, hugging him tightly. She felt Jack's arms close around her, desperately tight, and he was breathing too quickly. She would have worried, but in a moment his hyperventilation turned into laughter, and he pushed her back, his eyes shining with admiration and wonder.

"You saved me," he said, "but what were you even doing here?"

"I came here to tell you," she swallowed hard, staring into his eyes and loving him with all her might and hoping that would do for courage, "I'm in love with you."

A blink, and his joy had been replaced with shock. "Y-you're what?"

"I'm in love with you," she said. Oh, no, here came the blush, and she tried to staunch it with her hands, which were almost as cold as his. "I'm – I know I might not be your type, and you might prefer Silverfrost, and, I know our Houses don't mix, but ever since New Year's I've just, I couldn't ignore it, and I've gone completely mental, but – "

Jack didn't say anything. Instead, he smiled too big for his face, and a light grew in his eyes. A chuckle, disbelief and delight mixed, escaped him: it wasn't the laugher she'd feared. He was full of light, and he reflected her love, and she felt like she could have flown even without a broomstick.

"Jack," she whispered, beaming, before pulling him close, to kiss.