Anything that rings a bell belongs to JK Rowling
Chapter Eighteen: Dirty Dreams in Divination
"Oh, come on Stacey!"
The portrait looked down at her, affronted. "That is not my name!"
"I highly doubt it's The Fat Lady!"
"How rude! How dare you call me that!"
"Everybody calls you that, Jane!"
"If you don't know the password, best you get comfy."
"Give me a clue?"
"There are no clues, no hints, no anything."
"What does that mean, there's no anything. What kind of English is that? If there's no anything, then there's nothing. Why can't you just say nothing! You know…."Ky leaned toward the painting, and it was a testament to what a gossip the Fat Lady was that she bent down eagerly, "I saw that horribly skinny Melinda the Medieval, the one with no curves, in the portrait of Sir Hawthorne the Third and they looked quite cosy."
She gasped, "Nonsense, Sir Hawthorne is a real man and therefore needs a real lady, not some sack of skin and bones. Balderdash!" The portrait let out a gasp, and a cuss word, and flung open.
Ky laughed and entered her new common room. She just meant to swap gossip for the password, but she guessed the woman let it slip.
She took in the empty room, and launched herself into the first scarlet armchair she spotted. It was huge, next to the fireplace, and had a good view of the grounds from a nearby window; she decided that this would be her spot from now on.
"Enjoying yourself I see," She scooted up and Mi filled in the space, she was already in her pink striped flannel pyjamas. Ky leaned her head on her friend's shoulder.
"Realised I didn't have the password?"
"Yes, and I rushed down, seems there was no need though."
They sat in silence for a while, just enjoying the warmth of the fire.
"Ky…."
"Mi?"
"You know I'm here, if you want to talk about anything. These past few weeks…your whole life has been turned upside down."
"I like to think of it as being turned the right side up. And I know that Mi. I miss Linus and Lenzo. It's weird not seeing them every day."
"You'll get used to it; it took some time for me too. Being an only child and not having many…well any friends growing up, I was really close to my parents. And now I see less and less of them as the years go by. I I love them to bits but it's hard splitting myself between these two worlds."
"Then maybe don't split yourself. Maybe you should be merging. That's the problem with this world, there's too much division."
"Well, it's like that for a reason, they tried your approach in the past and it wasn't a success."
"Different times. And I'm not saying shout it out to the world, I'm just saying why can't they make things a bit more inclusive... Are we really meant to only see our family once every three months?" It was a testament to how much she truly liked Mi that she was being this vulnerable with her.
"Ohhh." The brunette witch threw an arm around Ky sympathetically, "You could always tell the boys to meet you during a Hogsmeade trip?"
"I suppose." Ky then turned to her, "It sucks that your parents can't do that. Actually, why not? Surely they should be allowed to be more exposed to magic so it doesn't seem such a foreign concept when you speak to them about it?"
"Thinking about a future in politics Miss Thornton?"
"That might just be my calling. I heard there's a lot of delegating duties and very less actual work, just my style. Of course, you'll have to be my right-hand woman."
"Well, the real leader is always the second in command, the playmakers backstage. I don't mind the position. This world does need change."
There was a grumbling sound and Ky laughed at her friend, "Was that you?" She blushed slightly but responded quickly,
"Well, that's the noise of rebellion. Of fighting oppression. Of-"
"An empty stomach?"
"Well, it's not my fault I have too much of a conscious to full my belly on food made from slave labour."
"And starving yourself will change things?" She cocked a brow at her but smiled, very few people in the world were compassionate enough to give a damn about their fellow humans, let alone their 'inferiors'.
Linus always said judge a man by the way they treat their inferiors, guess Hermione Granger must be a woman above men.
"Fine, you convinced me, I'll join your little rebellion. I shall not eat the house elf made food either. But you need to feed me! I love food a bit more than I like you."
She laughed at that, "It's a deal. I know how to make a thing or two."
"Well, you best learn to make more than a thing or two, I bore easily."
She nudged Ky playfully, "Well I've been thinking about diversifying my culinary skills. How about I try and get together ingredients and we do Chinese tomorrow night!"
"I'm not in the mood for Chinese, but you should ask Harry, he seems to be a fan." Ky attempted to sound light hearted, but her voice dipped in the end so she may have missed the mark.
"Ahhh…I wondered whether you noticed that. He's liked her from last year. Well, I don't really know if you can call it like because I'm not sure they've had a proper conversation, but he looks at her often. And he is quite obvious about it…"
"As obvious as I am evidently." It was clear that Mi understood Ky's jealousy, so must have had an inkling of how she may feel for Harry.
Her friend sighed, "No you're not. I doubt anybody else noticed. Not even him. He's-"
"Don't worry. It was just a passing crush. Actually, I think it could have been anybody. I mean if that Neville had been the one that I ran into in the corridor that day we'd be having this conversation about him. I never really spoke to a boy my age before, and I guess I was a bit drunk on the experience. I'm sober now though."
The perceptive girl didn't look convinced but dropped it, and Ky appreciated her for it.
The way Harry treated her, he didn't even have a passing crush on her. He barely spoke to her at dinner and when they did make eye contact he looked more annoyed with her than anything else. Ky wondered whether he was sensing her crush and non-verbally letting her down.
Mi stood, pulling Ky up with her, tugging her to the stairs, "We better get to bed. We don't want your first day of your new life to be in dregs because of lack of sleep. Not on my watch."
Ky glanced to the door opposite the one they were entering, that must lead to the boys' dormitories. Up there somewhere, Harry was fast asleep, his sparkling emerald eyes hidden from the world, his thin nose fluttering as he breathed deeply, his dark hair probably messier than ever, falling over his scar which Ky had once traced with her fingertips…her face was flushed thinking of him, and her tummy had been doing somersaults…yeah…
It was just a passing crush.
-x-x-x-
The Great Hall doors banged open, and heads snapped to it like puppets led by strings, she the puppeteer. His heart momentarily stopped, and his face paled as all his blood flowed south.
Fuck.
Harry tried to ignore Hermione's incessant babbling about "Where is she?" which now turned into, "I can't believe she-"
Though, it wasn't hard to ignore Hermione right now.
Ky didn't proceed down the centre aisle as expected, instead she turned right and made her way to the Gryffindor table. She walked towards them, and Harry wanted to shout at her, what was she doing? She needed to be sorted first… but he couldn't move his mouth, he felt parched and like his throat was unusable.
Words could not be processed.
Dark flowing hair was processed though. Big, bold smoky grey eyes were processed along with plump pink lips, but nothing was processed faster than what was below her neck. Kyrianna Thornton filled out that simple white shirt as if it were painted onto her skin, and that demonic skirt… fuck.
It just covered her bottom and exposed her well defined thighs, that always had that glow about them as if she had spent all her life lying on tropical beaches…
Godric…to see her in a bikini.
Harry's head snapped up when she stopped walking. He didn't realise but he had turned towards her, legs hoisted over the bench facing away from the table which his back now rested against, attention completely on her.
Suddenly he was flush against the hard edge of the table as her hands slithered through his hair, and her legs which should be illegal wrapped around his torso, their lips united and his skin ignited.
Kyrianna Thornton moaned his name with every panting breath.
"Harry!"
He groaned, still not able to process words, "Harry!"
Suddenly he felt a jolt and his eyes snapped open. A wide-eyed Ron in his face.
Harry turned and the whole class was looking at him.
Fuck.
He dosed off in Divination.
He responded vaguely to whatever Trelawney was saying and fidgeted in his seat, trying to get the blood to pump to other regions of his body, and hoping to the Founders that he hadn't been speaking in his sleep.
He was seconds away from excusing himself from the room so as to pull himself together when thankfully, at that precise moment, Neville bent over to pick up his dropped quill, and unintentionally flashed his butt crack to Harry. Like an antidote to a poison, his blood finally began to disperse.
He paid little attention for the rest of the lesson, trying to wrap his head around the situation he found himself in.
Yes, he was attracted to Ky, but how could he not be, she was an attention seeking devil what with her flirting and seductive laughter and that infernal skirt stunt she pulled yesterday. Okay, his dream took liberties with how scantily clad she actually was last night, but she clearly just wants attention – surely that extremely unattractive quality should cancel out her other many attractive ones…
Harry was frazzeled, he had a sum of three sexual dreams prior to the harpy's arrival, to having a whole night of them, and now they were seeping into his day. He wasn't this guy. He wasn't the guy that had to stare at every other person in the Great Hall to avoid making eye contact with her. He wasn't the guy that ignored a friend just because his soldier couldn't help giving her a salute.
Harry needed to get his shit together.
He sighed in relief when he saw Ky today with a normal length skirt, shorter than Hermione's but not torturous like last night. It's not like she's the only pretty girl in this castle – arguably there are lot of just as pretty, just as funny, just as fit girls at Hogwarts. Objectively, Harry had never felt quite as comfortable with any of them as he did with Ky…but if he felt comfortable with her then surely that must mean he liked her as a friend more than anything else? Cho used to make him feel so shy he could barely get words out, but he didn't feel nervous at all with Ky - on the contrary he felt a lot more confident, as if her bravado was contagious.
Harry snapped his head up, they had left Divination and he registered Malfoy's voice calling out to Ron. He didn't even realise they had walked all the way to the Entrance Hall. Malfoy had been rattling on about an article in the Daily Prophet that mentioned Mr Weasley's involvement as a first responder to the Death Eater attack at the World Cup Final. Harry ignored the burning surge to strangle the little twat and grabbed Ron, stopping him from acting out the 'Death of Draco' which was playing in his head.
Harry told Malfoy to get stuffed and tried to ignore his retort, attempting to drag Ron away.
"-is his mother really that porky or is it just the-"
He didn't hear the end of Malfoy's sentence as the hall echoed with the piercing sound of a smack. Harry turned around just in time to see Ky standing in front of Malfoy, her knee moving up towards his groin.
He let go of Ron and quickly grabbed her before she could do more damage. He held her against his chest and ignored the rise in temperature that provoked, and swung her around, she was much easier to control than his best friend.
BANG!
Harry felt something white hot graze his face, processing the surrounding screams and had his hand dig into his pocket for his wand.
"OH NO YOU DON'T LADDIE!" He spun around, spotting Mad Eye Moody limping down the staircase and pointing his wand at a white ferret?
Harry was distracted by a sharp pain in his abdomen as he felt Ky's elbow in his tummy.
He forgot that he was still holding Ky and let go of her quickly, not processing that she had been squirming in his arms a he was so engrossed with Moody and Malfoy.
Ky backed away quickly from him, a look of pure fear on her face that made him move towards her. She turned quickly, running for the dungeons and Harry made to follow but Moody's voice cut through his attention.
"Did he get you?" Harry replied to the teacher in the negative just as McGonagall arrived on the scene, keeping him hostage with her questions.
By the time he reached the Dungeons, Ky was nowhere to be found.
-x-x-x-
Harry had been avoiding Ky for days. This was near impossible considering Hermione and she were practically attached at the hip and Ron seemed to like her enough to invite her to remain with them whilst Hermione was in the library, but thankfully, she usually declined.
Harry knew this was his fault, he had freaked her out. He didn't know what he had done when he grabbed her that day Moody turned Malfoy into a ferret, he didn't mean to hold her so flush against him, so aggressively intimate he felt sick just remembering the look on her face…he didn't want to scare her, and contemplated telling her this but didn't know how to bring it up, especially when she was avoiding him, just as much as he was her.
Fortunately, his list of distractions were increasing. Moody's class was insanely creepy, the first introducing them to unforgivable curses.
Harry noticed, unsurprisingly, that the old Auror liked Ky. He called her out in class, something akin to amusement sparkling in his only human eye at her witty quips.
McGonagall of course never exhibited favouritism, but Ky was a natural at transfiguration. Everyone chalked it up to her being a descendant of Dumbledore, who of course previously taught the subject. If Harry was being honest, he was the slightest bit jealous of this, but he didn't understand why. It wasn't so much that Ky was good at things, Hermione was brilliant and he never envied her…it was the Dumbledore comparison. This didn't make sense to Harry as he didn't want to be compared to the Headmaster - far from it. It was enough pressure being compared to his dad, who had been a popular, quidditch playing Head Boy.
His next distraction came in the form of Sirius' reply, letting him know that he was heading North because he was worried about Harry's scar hurting. Thankfully Ky was down in detention when he got the letter, he wasn't ready to tell her about Sirius. It's not that he didn't trust her…quite the opposite. Even though he was avoiding her, when they were together something made Harry want to tell her all his secrets… but his pragmatic side reminded him that he only really knew her for two months and he should pace himself.
Harry looked up as Moody called out her name, his knees still stinging from the constant assault it had been under. Harry had finally managed to throw off the Imperius curse.
Ky stepped forward, her back straight, something he always wondered about considering how she slouched when she sat. Moody suddenly sent a jet of red light at her which she nimbly blocked; he smiled that lopsided grin of his.
"Take notes class, CONSTANT-"He sent a blue streak at Ky which she dodged easily,
"-VIGILANCE." He finished with a wheezy laugh. "Imperio."
Every eye was on her, and she was still for a while. Then she started to sing, sing so melodiously. Moody laughed his wheezy laugh and she stopped with a smile and a wink; he must have lifted the curse.
"Interesting, very interesting Miss Thornton."
"Constant Vigilance, Professor Moody." Ky smiled and walked away, nobody, not even Hermione, understanding this exchange.
-x-x-x-
It seems all the professors were coming together to help with Harry's avoidance and increased their workload. There usually was enough distraction to at least keep Ky out of his head during the day.
Unfortunately, his mind did not afford him that courtesy at present, as the whole student body except Ky, was watching the arrival of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang schools.
Harry's perusal for her was not interrupted by the huge horses or the ship that rose from the lake. Nor by the giant lady or the yellow toothed man.
His ears pricked as he heard simultaneous voices,
"Ron isn't that your boyfriend?"
"Harry, it's Krum!"
Harry found the first voice and stared at Ky, transfixed. She was a right mess; her hair was pulled into an unravelling knot at the back of her head, her face sweaty. She smelled different, usually fruity, but now spicy, and her shirt was not tucked in properly. Hermione was fussing over her state, Ky ignored her and went on her tip toes in an attempt to spot the arrivals. Her head was snapping here and there as if her mind couldn't process where to look first. Lucky her, she was that easily distracted.
Hermione continued fussing with her robes and her hair trying to adjust them, chiding her the whole time.
"Chill Mi, relax. I didn't realise the time."
"I wonder how, you know…. there's a nifty new invention that straps on your wrist and it actually…. wait for it, tells the time. Genius, right? They're calling it a watch." There goes Harry's two-day streak of not speaking to her except for greetings.
Ky looked at him blankly for a second and then turned to Hermione, making her way up to the castle.
Did she just ignore him?
What the hell!
With a shove from somebody behind him, Harry started walking, barely listening to Ron. He looked at Ky closer, her shirt was damp and clung to her a bit and her hair looked greasy, not its usual flowing self. Then it hit him, what makes someone all damp…sweat. And what makes people sweat…. He was no stranger to this, waking up drenched from just dreams of such activities these past few weeks.
She obviously was 'getting heated' with somebody. So heated she forgot to show up to the biggest fucking occasion of term. It's not surprising, the night of her arrival the boys could not shut up about her. Harry had even seen a few older students giving her that look.
Ky of course reciprocated this attention with flirty words and throaty laughs. Harry glanced around as they took their usual seats at the Gryffindor table; his first guess would be one of the Twins. He noticed her spending a good deal of time with them. His eyes narrowed at Lee Jordan, he remembered seeing Ky and him talking alone the other day, and thought it odd. And then to Dean, who had been asking an annoying amount of questions about her the first night back.
Oh, Godric just listen to him! He sounded like some needy little bastard. His scar had been hurting, a link to the evilest Dark Wizard that has ever lived, and Harry is sat here agonising over who some girl is making out with and why she was ignoring him.
Wait…why was she ignoring him now?
Harry shook his head, trying to rid himself of all things Kyrianna Thornton, and focused on the welcoming feast for their new guests.
A/N: Thank you for reading! What do you think of Harry's perspective ?