Author's note: Hello friends, happy new year! I wish you lots of love and happiness, may 2023 be a healthy and successful year to all of you. This story is already a year-old. How time flies. Thank you to those of you who have been sticking around, and thank you for reading and supporting this story!
October 1944 - The Orange
A gust of wind rushed into the barren street, shortly followed by a driving rain that made the few passers-by heartily curse at the nasty weather.
Hogsmeade's main road was fairly empty for a Saturday afternoon, but Annabel knew better than to be fooled by the apparent deserted lane, that most students had retreated in the Three Broomsticks to shield themselves against the deluge.
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, a shiver running down her spine when a thick drop of water landed right on the crown of her head. She winced, but her frown quickly morphed in a feigned smile the moment her friend Elena turned to her with a grin.
"Thank you so much for being here" she rejoiced before she peeked over the few shoulders of the people that stood before them.
It was Elena's birthday, which - unfortunately - fell exactly on the weekend prior to one of the biggest exam the Seventh Years ought to take for their Transfiguration class, and such irritating news had become all the more disagreeable once Dumbledore himself had announced that the success rate for such exam bordered on the twenty percent.
Naturally, Elena had tried to coax her friends into sticking to the initial scheme, meaning throwing a huge and clandestine party in her honour but the moderate enthusiasm of her roommates would have discouraged even the keenest spirit. "Can't you postpone the celebration?" had tried Sophia, thus accidentally causing a flare-up in the blond girl who had moped around for days until Annabel, who could not stand the sight of the girl's sorrow any longer, had offered to go with her for a drink.
Which she had bitterly regretted when Elena had disclosed that she had invited Nott and his herd to meet…
Annabel had harboured the hope of having Tom accompany them, for they were his friends too after all, but when she had asked the young man if he would join, mainly - and even though she despised to admit it - because she feared Nott's spiteful comments, Tom had simply raised a disdainful eyebrow.
"With next week's Transfiguration exam? Certainly not" he had snorted contemptuously before he had advised her to spend some more time studying.
She had heaved a disappointed sigh then, and slipped out of his room in the morning coldness, for she had spent the night in his room once again after he had quizzed her the previous night about her weekly teaching, and passed the test with flying colours.
A jolt in the crowd ahead made the girls step aside as a group of middle-aged drunkards dressed in garish robes staggered out of the pub and finally allowed for the queue to move forward.
"There they are" beamed Elena as she waved at a stocky boy who was surrounded by a half dozen Slytherins. She recognised some faces, yet none that she would have liked to see and it was with such a dismay that Annabel followed her friend to their assigned table.
She sat down on the booth seat against the wall and exchanged niceties with the green and silver boys. She enquired about Alastair, for the latter had promised that he would do his best to join them, but she learned that he would not make it due to some last minute Quidditch appointment. And even though she knew that her friend's absence was the mere product of his obligations and in no case the wish to disappoint, she immediately regretted his presence.
Just like the others, she ordered a Butterbeer and some food, and she sipped on her drink quietly as she observed Nott interact with her blond friend.
He was kind to her at first, bringing his chair close to Elena's as to repose his arm on the backrest of her seat. Yet, there was something off-putting about the way he was staring her down, and past the second drink, he was grabbing her neck as he joked, in a domineering fashion that made Annabel quake. Elena pushed him away as she playfully asked him to stop, but there he went again, poking in her ribs as she fought back, and they wrestled for a while until he grabbed her wrist and forced her into submission with an armlock.
Bent down, Elena's face turned red and Anna - who could not stand such bickering much longer - cleared her throat, and asked cheerfully whether it was time to honour the birthday kid.
She pulled out of her magically enhanced purse a neatly wrapped gift and pushed it towards the blond girl. The latter picked herself up with a sheepish laugh and combed her ruffled hair with her fingers.
Once the paper was teared and discarded, it revealed a volume of poetry, as well as two tickets for a reading at Flourish and Blotts, bound to the cover with a periwinkle colour satin ribbon.
"Poetry" uttered Nott with a snide note in his voice.
"Roses are red, violets are blue, those will die, why can't you?" he sang perfidiously before he engaged in the impersonation of someone throwing up.
The boys around him began to chuckle and Elena rolled her eyes. She thanked Annabel with a sincere smile, ignoring her boyfriend who kept making discourteous noises, his palm in front of his mouth as he bent forward, a guttural sound coming from the depth of his throat and provided much hilarity to the group of kids.
Annabel felt her face grow hot, and she repressed the urge to stand up and leave before a familiar voice chimed in.
"What's so funny?"
The laughter stopped immediately and Annabel lifted her eyes.
Tom was standing behind Leonus, his head tilted to the side as he curiously watched the gesticulation of his former dorm-mate.
He looked calm, placid even as he raised his eyebrows while he patiently waited for the boy to answer, yet there was something strangely frightening about his collectedness. Silence ensued, long and heavy during which nothing moved except for Tom's eyes. They wandered on each of the Slytherins' faces, stared them down until they finally landed on her.
—
The pub's noises were loud around him - a mixture of drunken grunts and of clinking glasses - and Tom glanced at the table where his fiancée and his friends formed a curious gathering.
He had witnessed the whole scene, how Nott had proven himself as abusive as usual, which he had feared, and it was that foreboding that had forced him out of the library on a whim. And now here he stood, irked by his incapacity at making his former dorm-mate regret his deplorable attitude, because his hands were tied from the secrecy about his engagement with the girl, and he knew the boy would have never dared treating her in such an irrespectuous manner if he had known how she was linked to him.
However, if he could not hex that idiot of Nott, he could at least keep him in line, and it was with that mindset that he strutted towards Annabel, resolute to mark his territory. He slipped on the seat booth next to her, have her shift several inches to accommodate him as he got comfortable on the bench.
She was stiff, he could tell from how upright she sat, and by the way she desperately tried to stay as far away from him as she possibly could. Her blond friend shot Annabel a look full of innuendo when he leaned slightly towards and when he glanced at his fiancée's untouched food and drink - a Butterbeer and a big portion of chips on some greasy newsprint - he helped himself with some of her meal, causing the blond girl in front of them to widen her eyes some more.
He accioed the book, relishing the anxious air on Nott's face when he said:
"So, Leonus, you're not so fond of poetry?"
He weighed the gift in his palm, resentment slowly creeping in as he recalled the shy smile on Annabel's face the night before, once he was done quizzing her about her weekly teaching, how she had declared that she had found the perfect gift for her friend, a volume of poetry, and asked if she could recite one poem to him.
"It's a bit silly, it's about a grapefruit" she had hesitated. "But I feel like I can relate to it"
He scoured the pages, going past the poem that he now also treasured, because it was the one she had said she cherished, that she had read as she had lay bare next to him, and he searched for something different, preferably floral and feminine, something Nott could spoil with his coarse tone and evil mind.
A feral smile parted his lips once he found the perfect sonnet and he pushed the opened book in Nott's direction.
"Read it"
The latter sat motionless, seconds ticking slowly in a silent contest before he scoffed.
Tom's jaw clenched and he stood up right away, clapping his hands loudly as to get the attention of the pub's customers. Heads turned towards them as people brought their conversations to a halt and Tom threw the crowd his most charismatic smile.
"Come on mate" grumbled Nott as silence fell over the room, thick and suspenseful. Turning a deaf ear to his henchman's pointless complaint, the Head Boy's voice boomed:
"Excuse me, folks, but my friend here would be pleased to share with you one of his favourite poems"
Some Slytherins shouted in a supportive yell while Leonus was looking down, fingers gripping the edge of the table before he slowly, and with a painful quaver, began to read.
—
Tom exited the pub shortly after the applause, only stopping to settle the two girls' bill on his way out. The wind had eased off, but the rain was still pouring, and he strode towards the castle, his heart resonating in his ears as the result of his past anger. He almost did not hear the hurried footsteps behind him until a feminine silhouette appeared by his side.
They walked quietly for some time, hands brushing in a short-lived caress, discrete proof of their affection for one another until Annabel, despite the cohort of students that headed to the castle just like them, slipped her hand in his.
And he remembered her words then, the ones she had uttered in the dim-light:
"At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.
And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It's new.
The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I'm glad I exist."
- Wendy Cope