Chapter Twenty-Six

Tensions Rising

Louis bounded into the Inter-House Common Room after dinner on Sunday night, full of stories and photos.

"She fell asleep in my arms," he told anyone who'd listen. "She's so light and her fingers are the tiniest things you've ever seen... except for maybe her toes. She fell asleep holding my finger and she wouldn't let go, so I got to hold her for ages more than Dom. Gran's knitted her this teeny cardigan, look, it's so small but it's still massive on her!"

Ailie left him to his baby worship for about ten minutes before she slowly walked over to the group.

"Louis, can we talk?" she asked.

"Sure," Louis said. He reached for her hand, but Ailie didn't allow him to take it. The two of them left the Common Room, and none of their friends saw either of them again that evening.

Louis stayed in bed as long as possible the next morning. He didn't feel like breakfast or lessons or people, or anything much. Eventually, however, he dragged himself out of bed and headed down to the Common Room. He made it halfway across before he spotted Piers Aikers sat at a table finishing up some homework.

"Aikers!" he snapped.

The younger boy got to his feet. Louis had never realised quite how tall he was – he was at least a head taller than Louis. "Look, Louis," he began.

Louis had never hit anyone before but something inside him just snapped. He drew back his arm and punched Aikers hard in the face. The younger boy was knocked backwards but just about managed to stay on his feet. Blood was streaming from his nose as he tried to back away.

"Louis!" Through the haze of anger, Louis barely registered his sister shouting his name, hardly felt her grabbing his arm as he drew it back for another swing at the boy who had stolen his girlfriend. "What the hell was that for?!" Dominique demanded, holding her little brother's arm in a pincer-like grip.

"Get off!" Louis growled.

"Detention," Dom told him. "You can see Flitwick to arrange it. Aikers, Hospital Wing."

Aikers fled, wiping his bloody nose with his sleeve. Dom maintained her hold on Louis' arm.

"C'mon – we're going for a walk," she said firmly.

"Leave me alone!" Louis said, but his sister wouldn't be moved, and Louis found himself marched out of the door, down seven flights of stairs and out into the weak February sunshine. Only when the front door had swung shut behind them did Dom relax her grip on his arm.

"What was that?" she demanded.

"You saw," Louis shrugged.

"I saw you just walk up to a third year and about break his nose," Dom said. "There you go then," Louis said. "I did it, you gave me detention for it, there, done."

"No, not done," Dom said. "C'mon, Lou, what happened?"

Louis crumpled. Only his sisters had ever called him Lou, and the sound of the old baby-name made him feel young and vulnerable. "Ailie cheated on me," he said in a small voice. "With him. She told me last night. We broke up."

Dom hugged her little brother as he fought back tears.

"I really liked her, Dom," he said. "The other girls I dated, we were just kids playing at having a relationship. But I really liked Ailie. And now... I'm so bloody angry! And I can't hit Ailie cause she's a girl, so I hit him instead."

"You shouldn't've hit Aikers either," Dom chided gently. "You know I had to give you detention, right? I'm a Prefect, and if Aikers had gone to Flitwick and he'd found out I'd been there and hadn't done anything..."

"It's fine," Louis said, still letting his sister hug him. "I deserved it. Still felt good, though – hitting him."

"Well... just don't go around publicising that," Dom said drily. "You might have broken his nose."

"Good," Louis said savagely.

Dom stopped hugging him and held him at arm's length. "Are you going to be okay?" she asked seriously.

"I'll be fine," Louis said dismissively. "I've had breakups before. I'll live."

"Yeah, but this was your first serious relationship," Dom reasoned. "You know I'm here if you want to talk."

"I know – thanks," Louis said.

"Now, promise me no more punch-ups," Dom said firmly.

"I promise," Louis sighed.

"Ready to go to class?"

"I guess..."

"What have you got first?" Dom asked.

"Charms," Louis told her.

"Perfect – I'll come along and have a world with Flitwick," Dom said. She tucked her arm into Louis' and they walked back up to the castle together. When they reached the third floor, the class was already filing into the Charms classroom. Louis joined them, whilst Dom asked Professor Flitwick for a word outside.

Louis sat down in his usual seat beside Ben Finch-Fletchley, who was his cousin on his mother's side.

"D'you have any new photos of Dotty?" Ben asked.

"Yeah, show you later," Louis said dismissively, realising he didn't have his bag. He'd be alright for this lesson – he had his wand in his pocket and was sure he'd be able to borrow from Ben if they needed to take notes – but would need to make a detour back up stairs before Transfiguration.

"You okay, mate?" Ben asked.

"Yeah, fine," Louis told him.

Professor Flitwick came back into the room. "I'll see you after class, Mr Weasley," he squeaked as he walked past Louis and climbed onto the platform which enabled him to see over his desk. "Good morning, fourth years. Today we will continue our work on the Colloportus charm."

"What have you done, mate?" Ben asked with a grin.

Louis said nothing, just turned his back on his cousin and tried to concentrate on the lesson.

"What do you think's happened to Louis?" Lily asked Mia in a whisper, five minutes into Transfiguration when he still hadn't appeared.

"A thought you'd like to share with the rest of the class, Miss Potter?" Professor Duncan asked sarcastically.

"No, sir," Lily muttered.

"Then perhaps we can turn our attention to our Transfiguration," Professor Duncan continued. "Last week, we began our work on Cross-Species Switches. Today-"

He broke off as the door opened and Louis walked in. Mia immediately noticed his eyes were blotchy and his knuckles red.

"Ah, Mr Weasley, how nice of you to join us," Professor Duncan said.

Louis ignored him, walking straight over to the empty seat beside Hugo and sitting down.

"Mr Weasley, I was under the impression that you got back last night – or am I mistaken?"

"No, sir," Louis said shortly.

"Then why is it that you are almost ten minutes late to my lesson?" Professor Duncan asked icily. Louis remained silent. "No reason?" Professor Duncan asked. "Detention, then. My office, 7pm tonight."

"Can't, sir," Louis shrugged. "I've got detention with Professor Flitwick tonight."

"Tomorrow night, then," Professor Duncan snapped. "And twenty points from Ravenclaw for your attitude. Now, as I was saying..."

"I wonder what Louis is doing in detention," Mia mused. By the end of the day, everyone had heard how Louis Weasley had broken Piers Aikers' nose. Louis had been avoiding his friends all day – he'd sat alone at the Ravenclaw table at lunch, and had dinner with Dom before heading off to his first detention of the week. Lily, Mia, Mac and Reuben had gone up to the Inter-House Common Room after dinner to make a start on homework; what with Quidditch and the HEC meeting and then Valentine's Day on Friday, followed by a Hogsmeade weekend, they figured this was probably the best chance they'd get all week.

"When I had detention from Flitwick in third year he had me tidying out the cupboards in his classroom. He's a messy bugger," Mac said, looking up from his Potions essay. "No word of a lie, I found an old essay Professor Reuben had written for him when she was doing her OWLs!"

"My mum's like that," Reuben grinned. "She keeps everything and when my dad wants to throw anything away she says, 'It'll come in useful someday'."

"Lily's like that too, aren't you, Lil?" Mac grinned.

"What do you mean?" Lily demanded.

"You found your Standard Book of Spells, Grade One in your bag last week!" Mac reminded her.

"Yeah, well, I actually had that for a reason!" Lily retorted.

"Uh-huh," Mac nodded.

"I did!" Lily insisted, elbowing him in the ribs. "I needed it for an essay!" Mac retaliated and soon the pair of them were embroiled in a full on tickle war.

Reuben rolled his eyes. "Children, children," he tutted.

"Mac's older than you," Mia reminded him; Mac had turned sixteen last month whilst Reuben's birthday wasn't until May. "Anyway, are you ticklish?"

"Nope," Reuben said firmly.

"I bet you are," Mia grinned, beginning to tickle him.

"Mia, stop!" Reuben protested, starting to laugh.

"I knew it!" Mia laughed.

"Stop it!" Reuben repeated, louder. He pushed her off and managed to stand up and move a couple of steps away. "I told you to stop it, Mia," he said. "Why would you keep on tickling me when I asked you to stop?"

Mia raised her eyebrows. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't realise you were serious – you were laughing."

"That's what happens when you tickle someone who's ticklish," Reuben snapped. "It doesn't give you the right to ignore what they're saying, though."

"You're a fine one to talk!" Mia retorted, feeling her own temper rising. "When you went after Javan I told you to stop and you didn't."

"Why are you bringing that up again?" Reuben demanded. "You said that was over and we were good, so-"

"Well maybe I'm not as over it as I thought," Mia said. "And now you're trying to take the moral high ground, and-"

"Whatever," Reuben said, gathering up his things. "I'm going to the Library. See you around."

"Reuben, wait!" Mia called after him, but he didn't look back as he strode across the room, scattering a group of first years as he pushed through them in his haste to get to the door.

There was an awkward silence for a moment or two before Mac said brightly, "Well, homework time!"

He and Lily returned to their homework and after a minute or two Mia did to. She knew she and Reuben both had hot tempers and figured there was no use going after him until they'd both had a chance to calm down.

The following morning, Lily, Mia and Hugo went and sat with Louis at the Ravenclaw table. Lily had suggested inviting Louis to sit with them at the Gryffindor table but Hugo had reminded her that he wouldn't want to risk running into Ailie.

"What's this – an intervention?" Louis demanded, looking up as the three of them approached.

"Nope, just your cousins coming to pull you out of your post break-up funk," Hugo said, sitting down opposite him.

"How was your detention?" Mia asked.

"It was detention," Louis shrugged. "Had to listen to Flitwick telling me 'we use words to solve disputes in Ravenclaw, not wands or fists,' for ages," he said, in a pretty good imitation of his Head of House's squeaky voice.

Lily laughed. "If only you were a metamorphmagus like Teddy and Dotty and you could make yourself look like him too..."

The mention of Dotty was a good one, and Louis was soon talking about his niece and showing them all the extra photos he'd got from the weekend. By the time they parted ways in the Entrance Hall after breakfast – the three Gryffindors were heading downstairs for Potions whilst Louis was going up to Defence Against the Dark Arts – he looked much more like his usual self.

Mia met up with Reuben at dinner, and by the time they walked down to Quidditch practice together they had made up, both vowing to be better listeners from now on. Samuel had called for the team and reserves for his practice and once everyone had changed he divided them into two teams. Mia found herself on a team with the three reserve Chasers, as well as Roxanne and Mary, with Emma acting as the team's Seeker. The play was fast and furious, with both teams determined to get into good enough shape to deal with whatever Hufflepuff threw at them in June. Mia managed to save about half of Lily, Reuben and Kyle's goals, which she reckoned was a good thing, although she had her suspicious than Reuben was sometimes letting her block him to make up for their argument last night.

At one point, when the Quaffle was right up the other end, Mia allowed herself to watch the other players. She marvelled at how much stronger JJ had become in just the past few weeks – the second year boy now hit Bludgers nearly as hard as Roxanne and Mary – and at how sharply Emma could pull out of dives. Mary had definitely done a good job with 'her' team.

Mia had just saved a carefully set up goal from Reuben and was flying down to retrieve the Quaffle which she'd punched out of the way when she heard Reuben shout,

"Mia! Look out!"

Mia turned around and saw a Bludger speeding toward her. She turned her back on it and tried to fly out of the way, but the Bludger was too quick for her. It hit her hard on the back between her shoulder blades, winding her. She fell forwards and might have fallen off her broom had Roxanne not swooped in and helped her to the ground. The rest of the team soon landed around Mia and Roxanne; Samuel must have called a halt to the practice.

"You alright?" Samuel asked.

"I think so," Mia nodded.

Reuben landed beside JJ, dismounted his broom and advanced angrily on the younger boy. "You did that on purpose!" he yelled.

JJ looked confused. "I didn't mean to hurt her," he protested. "But we were on opposing teams, so yeah, I did mean to hit it at her... are you okay, Mia?"

"Yeah," Mia said, but Reuben wasn't having any of it.

"The Quaffle wasn't even in play-" he began, still angry.

"Reuben, chill," Mia said, but he ignored her.

"Everyone knows you don't attack the Keeper when they're diving down to retrieve the Quaffle! Mary, what have you been teaching these kids?"

"Reuben, you need to calm down," Samuel said firmly. "No harm done-"

"He hasn't even apologised," Reuben snapped.

"Sorry, Mia," JJ said, clearly very uncomfortable.

"It's fine, JJ," Mia said. She turned to Reuben. "Maybe JJ would've apologised already if you'd given him a chance rather than jumping down his throat. I don't need you to fight my battles for me, alright?"

"Alright," Reuben said. He took a deep, calming breath. "Sorry."

"Do you need to stop practice, Mia?" Samuel asked.

Mia shook her head. "No, I'm fine. Good to continue – let's go."