#All I have to worry about is coursework and that will sort itself out like the coursework before it.

[diplexchimera]

Hey people considering college-

I have some tips for you. Now, take into consideration that I am technically a college drop-out (didn't have enough money for a second semester).

- my college required Freshman to be in a campus dorm. We got to select whether we preferred someone quiet, someone loud, or someone in between. In my experience, someone loud = an extrovert who will have many people visit them, someone quiet = a person who prefers to keep their room more private, and someone in between = a person who wants their roommate to be okay with a noisy room & people over, but also wants to be able to say they need quiet time (or they aren't sure what they want, but want neither a silent room or a busy room).

- if you have to eat from the cafeteria, that's okay. They tend to have a wider selection anyway but! I would suggest memorizing the breakfast/lunch/dinner availability hours. Some schools are very strict, and will lock the doors which = a skipped meal for you.

-I would also suggest getting the app 'MyPlate Calorie Tracker'. College meals will most likely be different than what you've eaten at home and school. The MyPlate app is pretty simple, and can help you make sure you're getting the right amount of food into yourself, as opposed to too much or too little. If I remember correctly, it also keeps track of how much protein and stuff your food is supplying you.

- sugars, fats, calories, and carbs are not bad for you. Your body requires them. Your brain literally will not function if you cut out any one of those items. Remember, you don't need to avoid being fat, you need work today being healthy. Your body will sort itself out (over time dude, give it time) if you supply it with the necessary nutrients and such.

- dude, vitamins. They can be expensive, but if you have insurance, ask your doctor how much of every vitamin you should be having. They can tell you, give you a list, and they can ask your insurance if vitamins are covered. If you can't get to a doctor, try to do research. Here is one from Harvard that I think is good, but you should always cross check things. Getting all the vitamins and minerals you need is exceedingly important. They help you go to sleep, stay asleep, and wake up, help your brain and body to function and adjust, help keep you feeling healthy and happy. If you feel tired and depressed, it can be really difficult to accomplish tasks and enjoy/ appreciate being alive.

- I would not suggest starting your year by completing assignments before the start date of said assignments. For one, doing assignments as they come helps you get a feel for a natural schedule. Another reason is because it helps to be in the moment, instead of too far ahead to be able to keep track of what's going on and when. Wait until you have a hang of how and where to research, and a firm idea of how much you can hold onto mentally, so you don't fail tests. You'll also likely feel guilty later on when you begin to struggle to stay ahead as assignments get longer and more difficult.

- yo if you can get a used textbook that comes as a three ring binder instead of a hard or soft back, do it. It's cheaper, and so much easier to handle and copy. Heck, you can even take the pages out of the section you're using and put them in a folder -- boom, no more 40lb back pack. Also makes more room in any bag you use for the essentials, which I'll list next.

- here are some backpack essentials:

• earbuds, Bluetooth if possible. It's okay to have more than one type of listening device. "I prefer headphones!" You say. You can't hide over-the-ear headphones if you end up in a classroom which doesn't allow something like that. Sometimes you're just having a sucky day, sometimes you need extra stimulation to concentrate, sometimes you want to spend your time listening to a podcast that explains the current subject better than your teacher does. Sometimes you want to watch a movie casually. Earbuds also take up MUCH less space.

• an extra charging cable for every portable device you use. Roll them up, and secure each one individually with cable ties or bread bag twist ties. I say extra, as in, keep your original cords in your dorm room and Don't Take Them out. Get a secondary cable and charger for each device, and let them live in your backpack.

• 3 or 4 different colors of pen. Multiple colors, for whatever reason you want-- easily scanned notes, for different subjects, etc. These can serve a variety of purposes, and you never know when you need them.

• 3 regular pencils, and a good hand sharpener or silent mechanical sharpener. 3 in case the other two get broken lead or happen to suck. Regular pencils can be finicky.

• 2 mechanical pencils. 2 in case one of them fails, runs out of lead, or the lead breaks up.

• decoy pens and pencils! Get as cheap or expensive as you want. At some point, someone is likely to ask for one, and you don't want someone else using your favorites. You also may not get them back, or they get broken. I would suggest a couple of each, as it may happen in more than one class. You don't have to have decoys, but that way, at least you don't have to choose between either feeling guilty for not loaning out the items you like, or being uncomfortable that you did have to loan one. If you loan the decoys out, and don't get any back, and someone asks you for a utensil later that day, you have both a convenient reason you don't have an extra you're willing to share, and you already put the minimum effort towards being prepared.

• Water! You're going to get so dang dehydrated! You're going to have full days, much of the time, from trekking across campus, to class time, to meal times, to study time, to hang out time -- you need to have water with you, as opposed to having to track it down, and possibly have to pay for a bottle of water. Hydration is a main component in bodily functionality and brain processes. I would suggest a minimum of a 30-ish ounce container of any sort. A plastic water bottle you refill, a thermos, a sippy cup, a hydro flask, a camp flask, whatever works for you.

• I would say snacks. If you're eating meals throughout the day, I guess they aren't "technically" essential, but can confidently say, they are useful. Snacks can be an energy boost, a brain function boost, a hunger soother, a friend-maker, or just plain stimulation. Cut up some apple slices, maybe grab some peanut butter, or a portion of nuts, or a tangerine, crackers, pretzels, chips, the choice is yours. It helps if you can get ahold of some of those cheap reusable silicone ziplock baggies. You can wash them to be used again, and you don't have to deal with carrying plastic trash around with you.

• a pair of socks. I know that sounds weird, but it doesn't take up much space, and weird stuff happens. They get wet, or it's hot and your feet get sweaty and yucky, or food get spilled on your feet. Stuff happens.

• b12 tablets. They work with your system in a healthy way, as opposed to caffeine, and does the same trick. Just follow the directions on the bottle, and may I suggest, start with half the recommended dose. It affects different people more or less. My husband takes the recommended two, while I only need a half. We both have adhd, and are closely similar in body weight. If you need a wake up boost, don't slam your system with caffeine.

• baby wipes. You can get a small pack, and they can help clean up almost anything. Someone spill sticky tea? Got it. Fell and scraped a knee, and it has dirt all over it? Baby wipes and a little water. Need to blow your nose, and there are no tissues, or just feel like you need to rinse your face off in class? You're covered.

• chapstick is a very small item, but Lordy Lord if those classrooms aren't parched of all moisture in the air. You gone get cracked, chapped lips.

That's kinda it for now on backpack essentials. There is definitely more you could have, so supplement whatever helps you. You could add a hairbrush or comb, a hat and rain jacket for cold weather times, sunscreen during the hot times, hair ties and bobby pins, etc. It's all for you pal.

- keep in touch with your professors. Make yourself known to them. An occasional casual compliment is often helpful, and a good way to connect (you explained stuff really well today/your teaching style is helpful/I appreciated you taking time to answer my questions). They are people after all.

- if you have stuff going on, let your professors know. If your pet is sick at home and you're worried about them, give your professors a heads-up that you may seem less attentive that week, but that it isn't disinterest. If you figure out you have depression, and you're struggling to complete assignments/sleep/wake-up, tell them. Let them know you don't expect special treatment, you just wanted them to know that it isn't due to immaturity or lack of interest.

- always do studying and homework first. If you're able to accomplish these things while with friends, that's great, but if you can tell you're struggling, prioritize schoolwork. You'll have time for fun stuff later, usually later that evening.

- it's okay to drop a class. In fact, if you severely dislike a class, don't understand the coursework, or you realize you've taken on too much at once, it's better for your overall wellness and your grades if you drop it. If you have a professor suggest you drop a class in mean way, don't feel like you have to prove them wrong. This is your experience, and they can stuff it for being a rude brat. You don't need to prove yourself to them, and you cannot control their thoughts or actions.

- try to take classes that happen twice a week, which start later in the day than 8 am, at least for your first semester. There is a lot going on in college. A lot of changes to acclimate to. Take it a little easier at first, to give yourself time to work out what all is where, and how everything works.

Well, that's the end of 'dip's (college) tips' for now.

[unfortunatelysirius]

My Cauldron’s Bubbling For You // Remus Lupin x Slytherin! Reader

「 ❁ 」PROMPT 「 ❁ 」 

Y/N L/N loves pranking and she loves flirting. The two go hand in hand. When she starts flirting with Remus… he fears for his life. 

「 ❁ 」AUTHOR’S NOTE 「 ❁ 」

wowowowow I'm on a role huh??? :o 

Remus wasn’t sure when exactly it started.

        From first year to fifth year, Y/N L/N was just a bold, self-assured Slytherin girl who barely gave him or anyone else the time of day. Remus thought she was pretty and sure, admired her confidence, but she wasn’t really part of the crowd he hung around. She had her own—a group of girls from all the houses who liked to joke around and play tricks. Several of Y/N’s friends were flirty and had a tendency to flirt with their victims right before they came in for the kill. Sirius was no exception; he foolishly let them reel him in, then he was left speechless when he charmed to make gas noises anytime he sat down.

        Remus always found it funny when the girls did what they did to innocent blokes. He would have been mad not to. They made it clear what they were up to, but raging hormones surely enticed their victims enough that they didn’t pay clear attention. Boys all around him, boys in different houses, would be charmed into a false sense of safety only for it to shatter the next day. After a while he began wondering when his turn was, but he found that to be too presumptuous of a thought. He settled for watching his peers flounder and thinking nothing of it.

        Then one day in sixth year, Y/N L/N came up to Remus in Potions, leaned in close to his ear, and whispered, “I think it’s sexy, watching you write your notes like that.”

        Remus had blushed furiously and looked down at his parchment. His notes could have been likened to columns, the way they so neatly went across the page. His scrawl was slow, meticulous, and tiny, the best of his friend group. “O-Oh… thank you?” Remus didn’t want to fall for her charm, as much as he liked her. Maybe he wanted to be Y/N’s victim eons ago, but that was eons ago for a reason; the thought secretly terrified him.

        “It’s perfect,” Y/N purred, leaning away from Remus to smile beguilingly in his face. “But that’s to be expected with Remus Lupin, isn’t it? He is perfect.”

        Remus tried not to choke, hearing his heart beating loudly behind his ear drums. He didn’t know how to respond so he just stayed silent. His face was beginning to burn.

        Y/N raised her brows, her smile widening at the sight of Remus’s ablaze cheeks. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret safe so the girls don’t go into a frenzy,” she mock-whispered. “I want you all to myself.”

        She walked to her seat without another word.

        “What—” Sirius whipped around in his seat—like he hadn’t just eavesdropped on their entire conversation—and gaped at Remus. “Mate!”

        “Don’t,” Remus croaked, burying his head into his parchment, feeling doomed.

        Maybe that’s when it all started. Yeah, that’s when it all started.

       Remus stayed alert all day, thinking her flirtations were all fun and games, but when a prank never happened….

       Well, Remus couldn’t help but wonder why.

-

        “Hi, Remus,” said Y/N, waving a hand at him and grinning wolfishly when he ducked his head in a blush. “You look good in red!”

        He was wearing a red Gryffindor Quidditch jumper to show nonexistent spirit for the upcoming game with Hufflepuff.

        “T-Thanks, Y/N,” Remus said, feeling Sirius and James’s equally wolfish grins behind him, Peter’s subdued excitement just as much of an annoyance. He wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole. Wouldn’t that just be great?

        “I’ll see you at the game,” Y/N said, giving him a wink before she went in the opposite direction of the boys, two of her Ravenclaw friends following like ducklings. Giggling ducklings.

        Remus felt feverishly warm. Maybe it was from Y/N’s advances or a fever itself; either way, the game didn’t feel like such a good idea anymore. He turned to look at his friends.

        “It’s been three weeks, Remus,” Sirius said, looking over at James and Peter. They shared the same incredulous face. “Why hasn’t she pranked you? They never do this.”

        “I don’t know…” Remus shrugged helplessly. It wasn’t like he talked to her any more than his friends did; he was just as clueless, if not more. “Maybe it’s her biggest and takes longer than a few weeks to plan.”

        James rolled his eyes, but there was a grin tugging at his mouth. “Or… maybe she like-likes you.”

        Don’t be ridiculous, Remus felt like saying. How could Y/N like someone like him? He was quiet and awkward and he wasn’t very funny. Not witty like her, or as confident.  She was a beautiful thunderstorm and he was barely a raincloud.

        “I know that look, mate,” Sirius said, waggling a finger. “She has to bloody like you; she never sticks this long to one victim.”

        “She had this schoolgirl look on her face,” James continued.

        “Yeah, Moony—she made an effort to say, ‘Hi,’ to you, too! That has to mean something,” Peter chimed in.

        Remus rolled his eyes and shook his head, refusing to let his friends implant this stupid idea in his head—or else he’d start thinking and then he’d start hoping. “No,” he growled.

        He walked off to a sour serenade of James and Sirius making kissy sounds.

-

        “Remus, you’re not a Pureblood, are you?” Y/N asked him once during Potions class. She sat right behind him, always leaning into his nape and saying things that made him blush for the rest of the period. He sometimes wanted to up and move, but after he got used to her incongruous flirting, he began feeling comfortable. Soon after he began liking it.

        Remus felt uneasy by the question, but he didn’t see any logic in lying. “I’m a Half-blood,” he said.

        He could almost feel her smiling behind him. “Good, good… well, I wish this were science class so you could see the chemistry between you and me.”

        Remus now saw why she asked him about his blood.

        “I always have my eye on you,” Y/N continued, getting closer until her lips were a breath away from his ear. “Makes for a… distraction, if I’m honest. Can’t say I’m disappointed.”

        Remus lurched forward, away from her, getting a strange look from the Ravenclaw girl a few seats away from him. He heard Y/N chuckling behind him.

        “Cute,” she muttered to herself.

        Remus didn’t stop blushing until he passed out from exhaustion later that night.

-

        “You steal my heart every time I see you,” she said in his ear the next time she saw him.

-

        She walked by him when he was sitting with his friends in the Great Hall and told him he had a beautiful smile the day after that.

-

        “I didn’t believe in love at sixth year until I saw you at the Sorting,” she said randomly one day in Potions.

-

        “Do you feel yourself falling in love or should I give you a push in that direction?”

-

        “I bet you’d make for a great cauldron to brew Amortentia in.”

-

        Eventually Remus started smiling at her flirtations and instead of just blushing and feeling embarrassed, he felt warm instead, like her words were hugging his insides. He wished he was like Sirius and could flirt back, but he wasn’t anything like Sirius. He was too awkward and anxious for that. He just sat and said, “Thank you,” and looked forward to what she’d say the next day.

        Remus knew her pulling a prank on him was long overdue.

-

        “You have a crush on her,” James declared.

        “You look all sappy and loopy, mate,” Sirius said in agreement, twisting his head this way and that as he analyzed his friend.

        Remus didn’t feel very sappy or loopy, and he was already disappointed enough in himself, so their words did nothing but irk him. He frowned and said, “I don’t fancy her.”

        Liar.

        James smirked. “Oh, really? Looks like Alex Green is over there flirting with her now—”

        “Wait, what?” Remus snapped his head over to the Slytherin table. Instead of what James painted in Remus’s head, he saw Y/N sitting with one of her friends, smiling and laughing. “Oh.”

        James snickered and Sirius roughly patted Remus’s shoulder. Peter would have taken the piss out of him, too, if he were there—but he was fortunately holed up in the dorm doing Potions coursework.

        Yeah, if the ground could open him and swallow him, Remus wouldn’t complain.

-

        Professor Slughorn was sick and unable to hold class, so Remus was sat outside the classroom door, working on an essay for Transfiguration. He would have just walked up to his dorm instead of sitting in the dust, but the corridor was empty and silent. A contrast to his boisterous dormmates who didn’t know the definition of settling down.

        Remus didn’t mean that. He loved his friends. They could just be too much at times.

Like the past month, for instance.

Remus had sat and been furiously scribbling out paragraph after paragraph, using his wand as a makeshift lantern in the darkness, when he felt something his leg. He jerked and fumbled for his wand, quickly flashing the light over on his other side.

He felt like booking it when it was Y/N’s embarrassed—Embarrassed? What?—face his wand came inches from prodding.

        “Oh—I’m sorry!” Remus quickly jerked his arm back. “Sorry… um… Y/N.”

        Y/N smiled, but it looked unusual on her face. It had a different look to it, almost embarrassed. Remus felt like taking his fingers and drawing her skin up into a grin, and he usually didn’t feel like touching another person. She just looked weird with her eyes dim like that, a weird that he didn’t like.

        “It’s okay,” she said. “I just came to say something. I looked for you in the Great Hall, even asked your friends where you were, but you weren’t anywhere, so… It was this or your dorm.”

        Remus felt puzzled. Why had she gone through so much trouble looking for him? Whatever she had to say was important; it had to be, all things considered.

        “I fancy the pants off you,” she said, words all jumbled from how fast she spoke. “Like,really fancy—but I don’t want your pants off. I don’t know how to like someone without flirting with them and I know you’re nothing like that, I do, but I’m a twat. I realized after my mates pointed it out earlier, I’ve been entirely too forward with you. You’re just so cute and quiet and I just don’t know how else to like you—”

        Remus, awkward Remus, backwards Remus, didn’t know how to say words without messing them up, and he knew he’d probably just sit there and stare at her until she got frustrated and left, so he did all he could think to do in that moment.

        He closed the space between them, kissing her as clumsily as a six-year-old would his recess crush.

        Merlin, what am I doing?

        Merlin, what have I done?

        Her lips were chapped, Remus’s were too, but that didn’t stop from Y/N’s words dying in her mouth and the two of them sharing a short-lived smooch.

        Remus pulled back as fast as he lurched forward.

        Why did I do that?

        Y/N was staring at him with a reddened face. Remus didn’t know at all what to say.

        He ended up saying, “I fancy you, too.”

        Y/N had regained her bravado, it seemed, because she let out a small laugh, telling him, “That’s a relief, Remmy… I’d hate to have to play a prank on you.”

        Remus flushed and smiled at her, taking longer than he felt comfortable admitting to catch on that she was teasing him.

        They held hands for a while. She even stole a kiss while he was concentrating hard on his parchment.

        Remus felt strangely light.

Bonus:

        James and Sirius threw a dorm party that night for Remus’s lip virginity getting taken.

        “Now you’re ready for third base!” Sirius cheered for him.

        Remus tried smothering himself with a pillow, swatting at his dormmate’s hands when he tried tearing him away from his bed. “Dear Merlin, Sirius, leave me alone!” he cried.

        Sirius didn’t leave Remus alone.

[astralaffairs]

voltaire to versace 02 | thomas jefferson

title: voltaire to versace 02

pairing: professor!thomas jefferson x reader

words: 8.7k

warnings: honestly not much. sex jokes n references, dolley simping for james, broke college student meals

desc: from francis bacon to foucault, descartes to dante, your political philosophy seminar doesn’t promise to be a blowout — and yet, one mysterious stranger and a risqué evening later, your burberry-clad professor gives you the feeling it won’t be quite the snoozefest you’d expected.

tags: @lunariasilver @tinywhim @nyxie75 @wreakhavoconmacroissantdiggs @checkurwindow @katierpblogg — let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future parts!

"Dolley, holy shit; please tell me you're already home." Y/N's words were breathless as she hurried across the quad, muttering under her breath into her phone. She'd darted out of her lecture hall the moment they'd been dismissed, having no desire to stick around for the confrontation she knew was inevitable.

"I'm just getting out of class, dear," Dolley responded, but when she continued, her words were teasing. "What sort of trouble did you manage to get yourself into while I was gone?"

"I cannot begin to explain." Y/N let out a huff, glancing over her shoulder and ducking her head as she whispered, "but it's not good."

"Oh, good lord, Y/N; I was joking." She could hear the genuine worry begin to creep into Dolley's voice and couldn't help but wince.

"Yeah, I wish I was, too." She chalked the subsequent rush of static through the line up to Dolley's sigh. "Where are you right now? Can I meet you somewhere?"

"Want to go to dinner?"

"Too broke for that."

"Packaged ramen from the drugstore on the east side of campus?"

"Now you're speaking my language." Y/N grinned, and she could only picture Dolley rolling her eyes from wherever she was. "I'll be there in a few."

"You'd better. I can't wait much longer to hear what sort of nonsense you've been up to."

-                              

"You slept with a professor?!"

"Shh, Doll; not so loud," Y/N hissed, pulling her back into the soda aisle and frantically checking for any prurient eavesdroppers. Her voice was low when she added, "It was the guy at the bar last night. I had no idea he was a professor here."

Dolley let out a dry, disbelieving laugh, pinching the bridge of her nose. "This is... a mess."

"You're telling me."

"So, what's the plan going to be?"

When Dolley folded her arms, raising an amused eyebrow (a little too amused, in Y/N's humble opinion), but Y/N furrowed her brow. "What d'you mean, 'what's the plan?'"

"What are you going to do the next time you run into him?" Dolley asked. There was a pause; Y/N hadn't thought that far. "You don't really think you can make it through the semester ignoring this, do you?"

"I... Maybe? I don't know!" Y/N let out a frustrated huff. "That's what I need you to help me figure out. What else are you here for?"

"Oh, you make an excellent point," Dolley sighed. "All I do is pay half the rent and help you get laid at bars downtown."

Y/N scowled. "You helped me get laid by a professor. Just help me."

"Mmh, I don't think I heard a 'please' in there."

"Please, Dolley, my white knight to whom I owe my life," she pleaded, clutching her roommates arm and sighing wistfully. Dolley's lips were pressed into a line, but that didn't stop her smile from showing through. "I would be nothing without you; just please, do me this one final favor."

"Alright, alright," she conceded with a huff, shaking free from Y/N's grip. "Drama queen."

Y/N shrugged shamelessly. "I bring excitement into your life. Don't be ungrateful."

"Whatever you say, dear." The defeat in her words made Y/N grin. "So back to your excitement, then."

"I'm so lost," Y/N groaned, finally emerging from the soda aisle with shoulders slumped in defeat. "If the sex hadn't been so good, I'd probably just pretend it never happened."

Dolley creased her brow. "Was it really that good?"

Y/N turned to her with a serious demeanor, a hand on her shoulder as she looked her in the eye. "Dolley. I am covered in hickeys from my neck to my hips. That man damn near threw my back out. I won't bullshit you; there's no way I'm gonna be able to sit comfortably for—"

"Okay, alright! A 'yes' would've sufficed," Dolley cut her off, pushing past her to the shelf of instant noodles. Y/N looked disproportionately self-satisfied when she followed. "That's about enough details for one evening."

"You asked!"

"But you can't spend the entire semester ignoring him, Y/N," Dolley continued, ignoring her words. "That class is notoriously difficult — the only people I know who didn't frequent his office hours were the ones who got 'C's."

Y/N sighed, rubbing her temples as her roommate pushed cup after cup of beef ramen into her basket. "So then shouldn't I just put this whole thing behind me? I can't really start asking him to help me analyze Kant if I open the conversation with, 'hey, good to see you again, you're almost as good at teaching as you are in bed.'"

Dolley laughed at her dry tone. "I don't mean that, of course."

"Then what do you mean?"

"If you never agree to put this all behind you, I think it's going to be on both of your minds for the rest of the semester," she said matter-of-factly, hesitating when the freezer at the side of the room caught her gaze. "Should we pick up pizza rolls, too?"

"What kind of question is that? Of course we should," Y/N scoffed, brushing past her toward the Totino's section. "But if he and I both just ignore it, wouldn't that be an easier way to put it behind us?"

"Oh, grab a bag of the cheeseburger flavor, would you?" Dolley leaned in to look over Y/N's shoulder, ignoring her words altogether, and she glanced back with a raised eyebrow.

"Can you focus for five seconds?" She dropped three bags of pizza rolls — pepperoni flavor — into her basket with a huff. "Anyway, the cheeseburger flavor is disgusting. Get some taste."

"Don't discount the nostalgia of it!"

"Dolley." Y/N fixed her with a pointed look, and she sighed.

"We both know ignoring it is a poor idea, even if it is the easier option." Dolley didn't waste a second in pushing right past Y/N when she stood, grabbing a bag of the cheeseburger pizza rolls (an oxymoron in itself, as Y/N would've told her) before the freezer door could fall shut. "Just talk to him after class one day. Don't make it take more than five minutes."

"I don't even know where I'd start with that. I've dealt with awkward fallout from one-night stands before, but never with a professor." Her footsteps stalled within the last yard of the frozen section. "I've just gotta ignore it and focus on the coursework, Dolley. Wanna get some Ben and Jerry's?"

"Are you trying to distract me with a pint of chocolate fudge brownie?" Dolley asked incredulously, before adding, "Because it's working. Let's get two."

She grinned. "Excellent."

Y/N figured that was the end of it, that two pints of ice cream and an incredibly vague game plan would be enough to satiate her friend for the time being, but after they checked out, trying to figure out how many meals they could extend one pack of ramen to (because, really, if you just add more water, doesn't it make the servings bigger?), Dolley felt the need to return to it as they walked through the sliding glass exit doors, her words holding an air of finality.

"If you really want to insist on not just communicating with the poor man, Y/N, then fine." Y/N raised a quizzical eyebrow, not yet following where Dolley had abruptly turned the trajectory of their conversation. "But after his lecture on Wednesday, when you realize that leaving the subject untouched just makes it more unbearable—" ("'When'?" Y/N muttered dubiously.) "—then I need you to agree to go talk to your professor."

Dolley didn't wait for her response, squinting at the nutrition facts on the ramen labels as her focus drifted elsewhere (sure, it said two servings, but she was fairly sure that only the bourgeoise couldn't have stretched it to three), but Y/N let out a surrendering sigh.

"Wednesday's going to be just fine," she said, realizing but not caring that Dolley was no longer listening. "But if it isn't, I'll talk to him."

-                        -         

Wednesday was not 'just fine.'

Y/N spent the entire class on edge, trying futilely not to let her thoughts drift back to the other night in the bar, then on the street in front of her building, then in the elevator, in her living room, even in the kitchen— but no, she was getting off track. Little did she know, Thomas was having precisely the same issue.

She jotted down his words almost robotically, the meaning of them going into one ear and out the other, more focused on the sound of his voice than on what he was actually saying.

Only once did she manage to focus for long enough to actually process a thought, but when he was fielding questions about the material, Thomas conveniently managed to miss her having raised her hand from where she was seated. She supposed she'd just positioned herself too far back and thought no more of it.

Despite how 'not fine' that day had been, she dismissed it as a fluke, showing up the next Monday with her head on straight, her readings prepared and annotated, and took a seat several rows further forward. Her motivation may have been misplaced, leaning a bit too far toward wanting to impress her professor and not far enough toward a desire to understand the material, but she was familiar enough with the content to feel comfortable giving her input on the questions he posed to the class throughout the lecture.

Again, her efforts bore no fruit. Her notes were better that day, so that was certainly something to count as a plus, but she left feeling put-out by the fact that she hadn't even had a chance to participate. Usually, she wouldn't have been so perturbed by this — sitting through a Socratic seminar playing tetris on her laptop was no unfamiliar experience — but this class accounted for six of the twelve credit hours she still needed for her chosen major. She didn't suppose that it'd be a good look to have the class dragging down her GPA to be the same one she was supposedly most passionate about; generally speaking, that wasn't what graduate schools were looking for.

Besides, she liked the subject, too. Surely that had to count for something?

And that was how she kept pushing off the inevitable conversation with Thomas — sorry, Professor Jefferson — and coming up with increasingly creative excuses as to why her efforts were being so plainly ignored, not only that following Wednesday, too, but also the Monday and Wednesday after. She'd made it through three weeks of classes before she could finally work up the nerve to confront him.

Unfortunately, that task proved to be no easier than her previous one.

Thom— her professor was always the last one into the lecture hall and the first one out, leaving no opportunities for chatter, or in her case, a supposedly inevitable clash she'd already begun arming herself for. She'd nearly caught him in the halls at various times, but he always seemed to have somewhere he urgently needed to be. The same doctrine followed in his office hours; apparently, another student had scheduled a meeting with him three minutes after every single time she arrived, without fail, so could she please just come back another time? Surely, another time would be better for both of them.

That time never came.

It was near the end of the fourth week that she was entirely fed up. They'd moved from Kant to Machiavelli, and so far, The Prince had her ready to tear her hair out. It didn't help that they'd all just finished the book, their first paper of the year on it due the next Monday.

She was far past lying to herself about her motives being purely academic while she continued to privately just want his attention — no, by then, she was hopped up on forty ounces of sugary coffee and just a touch of RedBull, and she hardly had a thesis for her paper. She'd read the same passages time and time again — she likely could've recited them word-for-word by the time she demanded feedback — and any shallow, vain desires for recognition were the furthest thing from her mind. She needed a professor, and she was pissed that Thomas didn't seem to have any interest in acting like one.

It was late Thursday evening when she marched across the green from the library to the building that housed his office in a fury. Yes, it was the last week of January; yes, the entire city was still coated in snow, but no, she could not bring herself to care about the very real possibility of frostbite as she trudged through the snow in sweatpants, slippers, and a tank top. Practicality wasn't her priority. Finishing her paper was.

Thomas's office hours were from 7 to 10 PM every evening, a schedule he stuck to religiously. It was 9:24 when Y/N began tracking snow through the bottom floor of his building, and 9:31 when she finally managed to locate and reach his actual office.

It was reluctant when she finally knocked, struggling to resist the urge to simply bust in and rip him a new one, but to her relief, it was simply met with a 'come in.' That was when she threw the door open in a fit of annoyance.

"You've been avoiding me," she said, eyes narrowed and tone accusatory before he could so much as react to her presence.

"Y/N, I—" His eyes were wide; he seemed to be at a loss for words as his eyes drifted down to her sweatpants and Hello Kitty slippers. He couldn't have convinced her it wasn't a dignified look even if he'd tried. "What are you doin' here?"

"We need to talk." She dropped her bag into one of the chairs in front of his desk, though she chose not to take a seat, instead glaring down at him, arms folded.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, and though his head was down, his shadow of a grimace told her everything she needed to know: he'd been dreading this conversation far more than she had. "Look, right now really isn't a great time. I've got—"

"Don't bullshit me, Thomas."

"Professor Jefferson," he corrected her, the words hissed through gritted teeth, and she huffed, rolling her eyes.

"My bad. Don't bullshit me, Professor Jefferson." Y/N scowled as she took another step towards him. "Your office hours don't end until ten. There's no way you have time for a meeting between now and then if you haven't already started one."

He let out a heavy sigh. "Alright. Alright, fine. And I know what you're gonna say, but—"

"Do you really?" she challenged him, head cocked to one side. "Because the fact that you haven't given me one chance to speak to you in almost a month tells me pretty clearly that you don't. Generally, you find out what people have to say by listening to them."

"We can't have this conversation here. You've gotta come find me some other time." The urgency in his voice only served to infuriate her further. What right did he have to be dictating this when he'd tried to stop the conversation altogether?

"Oh, believe me, I've tried," Y/N huffed. "I'm done accommodating. If you wanted to talk about this some other time, I would've been happy to, but we're well past that."

He held her burning gaze warily for another moment, but she didn't let up. Finally, he sighed. "Fine. Say your part. I'm listenin'."

"You've been completely freezing me out. You haven't been answering my questions in classes; you haven't been letting me contribute to discussions; you, most recently, haven't let me talk to you for more than five seconds, hence why I'm here." She launched into an irate monologue without any further encouragement, and to his credit, Thomas at least had the decency to look guilty. "You've been turning me away at your office hours; for fuck's sake, Thomas, you haven't even answered any of my emails!"

"I know, I know," he said, and though she could see the exhaustion written across his face, she didn't let him continue. "But you've gotta understand—"

"I'm not done," she cut him off, and it was then that he raised an affronted brow. "Anyway, I get why you're keeping your distance. Really, I do. And honestly? I can't really blame you for it."

"Well, great, so—"

"But with that said," —she gave Thomas an expectant look as she continued to speak over him, challenging him to try and interrupt— "You've been doing more than keeping your distance. You've been outright ignoring me, and that's where I'm drawing a line in the sand. Refusing to engage with me doesn't help either of us."

She let out a heavy breath when she finally reached the end of her rant, and though he was certainly taken aback, Thomas looked unimpressed.

"May I speak now?" he asked mockingly, and she scowled. "Or are you just gonna keep cuttin' me off?"

"Depends how much bullshit comes out of your mouth."

He rolled his eyes. "Sure." He put his pen back into the cup on the edge of the desk before drawing himself up to the fullest height he could reach in a rolling chair. With how he was looking at her, with how cross his tone was, Y/N may have backed down in another context, but quite frankly, she was beyond having anything to lose. "I understand that you're hurt, Y/N, and for that, 'm honestly sorry, but—"

"I'm not hurt, I'm ticked!"

"Y/N." That time, his hard voice, his barely-contained anger, did make her shrink away, just a bit. "You've gotta realize that what happened is in the past. It was a mistake. I didn't know you were a student here — you even told me you went to school in Chicago."

"I did, for two years."

"Doesn't matter. Moral of the story is that you've gotta leave that in the past. I'm your professor now, and that's a boundary that can't be crossed. We both need to stop dwellin' on it." His saying 'we' rather than 'you' certainly didn't go unnoticed, but Y/N deemed it not worth addressing.

"Great. It's behind us. Can you stop ignoring me now?"

"Come on, Y/N—"

"Seriously? You're gonna argue with that?" She threw her hands up in a huff, beyond exasperated and crossing the line to indignance. "You wanna remind me that you're my professor? Then stop acting like I don't exist. It's that simple, Thomas."

"It's Professor Jefferson. And I'm not tryin' to ignore you," he defended. "But don't you see the position this puts me in? My job's at stake here. This can never happen again!"

"And who said I wanted it to?" she bit back immediately, and for just a moment, Thomas was rendered silent.

"If that's not what you're lookin' for, then what are you here for?" His voice was quiet, his gaze searching, and Y/N sighed.

"Seriously? I haven't made myself clear enough?" She raised an eyebrow, but his blank look told her all she needed to know. The tension in her shoulders dropped; her combative stance went neutral when she reached into her bag, pulling it from the chair in front of his desk. "You're the one who keeps emphasizing that you're my professor — and that's what I need you to be right now."

He raised an eyebrow, clearly lost as she withdrew Machiavelli's The Prince from her bag, beaten up and slathered in colored tabs around the edges. She added in a small voice, "I've been struggling with the reading. I did it all, but there are just a couple passages that... I need help with."

Thomas — no, Professor Jefferson (god, was she ever going to struggle with getting that down) — looked stunned, plain and simple. Y/N had expected all of his assumptions for why she'd shown up there. Two weeks earlier, they may have also been accurate ones, but ultimately, she was still just a student. He'd really had to have had a big head to think he'd take priority over that for any extended period of time.

His eyes were wide. He continued to look toward her, but his gaze was blank, slowly drifting to his desk, until finally, he sighed. "Well, shit. I, uh... I'm really sorry, Y/N. Really." If the growing guilt behind his shock hadn't been clear enough in his demeanor, it was woven tightly into his voice. His stare flickered back up to her, and despite her lingering irritation, the apology in it softened her. "I got so caught up in my own problems that I didn't even consider. I didn't mean to assume that you... y'know."

"Came here to try and get dicked down?" Y/N supplied, voice dry as she watched him expectantly. He cracked a sheepish smile.

"Somethin' like that."

"As though it'd be worth the effort," she snorted. "There are, like, thirty frats on campus, and I have a paper due Monday — in case you'd forgotten. If I wanted to get laid, I'd do it much more efficiently."

"Mm, but would it be as good?" At the clear ego in Thomas's playful stare, Y/N's eyebrows shot toward her hairline.

"Now who's crossing boundaries?"

Despite the skepticism in her voice, Thomas laughed. "'M just kiddin'. Promise."

"Hilarious." Her small, persistent smile undermined her sarcasm, and his gaze was soft.

"Alright, alright, come take a seat. Show me which pages you're strugglin' with."

"Yeah, so it's less full pages and passages than it is key phrases I just can't seem to connect to the rest of the work." Y/N lowered herself into the chair that wasn't already holding her bag as she flipped open her book to her third pink tab, turning it to show him. "Like, here. Chapter 19."

"Mhm."

"I understand what the whole page is getting at, but look at this..."

They sank easily into the text, despite being focused more on one another's voices than on the writing itself. Ten PM had long since come and gone, but as the night stretched on, the pair only continued to pass Y/N's book back and forth, bouncing from passage to passage, idea to idea as though no time had passed at all. Neither of them bothered to check any sort of a clock until Y/N let out a loud, drawn-out yawn. Thomas raised an eyebrow.

"You gettin' tired?" Y/N gave a halfhearted shrug as he finally checked his watch, and his eyes widened. "Shit, it's past eleven. We should get you outta here."

"Yeah, yeah, you're right." Her voice was weary as she lifted herself out of her seat, tucked her book back into her bag. "I've got everything I need for my paper, anyway."

"Glad to hear it." Thomas reached for his coat as she made her way to the door, but she paused when he asked, "You're not thinkin' of walkin' home, are you?"

She glanced back over her shoulder. "What if I am?"

Thomas furrowed his brow. "Tell me that's a joke. That's gotta be a joke." Y/N shrugged, and Thomas groaned lightly. "In that outfit, you freezin' and gettin' abducted are equally likely, you know that?"

"Aw, thanks for letting me know! Now I feel so much safer," she said, plastering on a mocking smile.

"Lemme call you an Uber," he offered, and Y/N quirked a brow.

"Are you that much of a one-trick pony?"

"If makin' sure women get home safe is my only trick, I think it's a pretty good one to have," he said matter-of-factly, and Y/N had to laugh.

"I can appreciate that. An Uber would be great." Y/N pulled her bag up her shoulder as she returned to his door. "I'll see you Monday?"

"Mhm. Your driver's named Amy, and she's drivin' a blue Camry, by the way," Thomas informed her, and Y/N smiled. "G'night, Y/N."

"Night, professor."

             -           

From then on, Y/N began frequenting Thomas's office hours, only hesitantly at first. While her motives were genuine, all of them being centered around getting into grad school, she didn't want to become overbearing, especially with the one night, the sixteen stolen hours that still hung over their heads. She stopped by twice the following week, neither time staying long as other students began to trickle in, peeking nervously around the corner toward his office, knocking so quietly at first that neither Thomas not Y/N realized someone was there. She didn't need him any more than her classmates did, so she yielded her time gracefully.

Moreover, she knew that only very little of the time he offered to students wasn't already occupied, and while the reason for that was certainly clear to her, she wasn't sure whether it'd gone over his head. It wasn't until the fourth time she went to meet with him that she found he was every bit as aware as everyone else.

"Hey, Thom—" Y/N cut herself off with a wince. "Professor Jefferson, you around?" she called down the hall to his office, nose still buried in the email from the anthropology department that she'd pulled up on her phone (apparently they were having a bake sale on the east green; Y/N didn't bother to read further and learn why once she saw they'd have caramel brownies). She only glanced up when she didn't receive an answer, instead hearing chatter drift down the hall, and her footsteps slowed as she neared his doorway. Her eyebrows shot up.

Y/N recognized the woman seated — well, hardly still seated, at that point — with her back to her as Lucy Hart, who sat front and center during every single one of their lectures, who was now all but draping herself across Thomas's desk, leaned onto her forearms and with a pen between her teeth.

Though she seemed to find whatever Y/N had just missed to be hilarious, Thomas's amusement was forced, uneasy as he eased his hand away from where hers had fallen to cover it, holding the book open by one of its ends.

"Alright, Miss Hart, we'll see." Whatever the question was, Thomas wasn't about to give her a straight answer, but Lucy seemed to take that as a challenge. Her cleavage finally spilled back into the neckline of her dress when she sat back in her seat, but she traced one finger up Thomas's forearm.

"I guess we will," she replied. She hadn't seemed to have caught on to how wildly uncomfortable she was making him — Y/N could only assume Lucy had decided she'd left him 'flustered.' She reached for his copy of Hobbes's Leviathan, her perfectly manicured fingers brushing over his as she did so. "Now, where were we?"

Ahem.

From the angle they were seated at, neither Thomas nor Lucy had noticed Y/N standing in the doorway, an eyebrow raised — when she cleared her throat, though, they both jumped. Their reactions to her presence couldn't have been more disparate. The relief written deep in Thomas's tiny smile was obvious, but Lucy was looking her over with a scowl.

"Hey," Y/N finally said, taking a step forward. "I hope I'm not interrupting?"

"'Course not." It was Professor Jefferson who answered, tone formal and body language neutral, but how quickly he'd answered, overtly cutting off Lucy, told Y/N she wasn't misreading the situation. "What can I do for you, Y/N?"

"Yeah, Y/N," Lucy furthered, eyeing her dubiously. "Why are you here?"

Y/N's gaze flickered between the pair of them, the tension in Thomas's shoulders subtle but clear as he inched his arm further from Lucy's. "Last I checked, Professor Jefferson, we had a meeting scheduled for right about now."

Her smile was genuine despite how Thomas knit his dark brow; she hadn't yet moved past finding the ordeal wildly entertaining. "Do we?"

"I thought so," she added with a shrug, and when her pointed gaze fell to Lucy, who still looked irate sitting in the small tufted chair across from him, Thomas sighed, and Y/N felt confident it'd been a sigh of relief. He seemed to have realized the escape rope she'd thrown into his lionness's den. "Unless I got the time wrong? It could've been tomorrow evening, I—"

"No, no you're in the right," he cut her off a little too adamantly, and though she'd already begun to dig through her phone for the nonexistent calendar event, she looked up with her eyebrows raised. "'S my bad. I took the timing down wrong."

Y/N had to bite down her self-satisfied smile. "Are you sure? Because really, we can reschedule; I'm also available—"

"No. Now's just fine," he assured her, and the indignant look Lucy shot him had the beginnings of a smile creeping past Y/N's innocent mask. "Made a promise, and it'd be only right to keep it, wouldn't it?"

"It is your responsibility to model integrity, professor."

"Then I guess I've gotta make sure I don't give anybody the wrong idea."

Y/N wasn't sure whether the words, 'the wrong idea' were pointed at her or at Lucy, or whether they were even pointed at all, with her simply reading too far into a nonexistent subtext to take them at face value. She didn't dwell much longer.

"Well, thanks for stoppin' by, Miss Hart—" Vindication flashed in Y/N's eyes when she noticed his electing not to use Lucy's first name. "—I hope all this discussion's deepened your understandin' of Hobbes's view on human nature."

"Oh, I've learned quite a bit about human nature," Lucy said as she stood, and Thomas's discomfort hadn't faded. Y/N was struggling to comprehend what about her words possibly justified her tone being so suggestive. "I hope I can come back another night for you to teach me a little more of it, Thom— oh! I mean, Professor Jefferson."

She glanced bashfully at Y/N with her final few words, her sheepish front fooling no one. Y/N wasn't sure to what end, but this was a clear ploy for her jealousy — she'd been around the block once or twice. Y/N genuinely struggled to contain her amusement as Lucy shot him a wink before turning to leave, exaggerating the movements of her hips. The door fell shut behind her.

It wasn't until Lucy's footsteps were out of earshot that Thomas let out a heavy sigh, sinking down in his chair, and Y/N let out the laugh she'd spent the past ten minutes swallowing.

"So, Lucy Hart, huh? That's who you've been spending all your alleged 'office hours' with?" she started, and Thomas's glare was weak.

"C'mon, Y/N."

"Is that why your door's locked half the times I show up here? Today wasn't very subtle, you know."

"Y/N." His voice was hard when he gave her a pointed look, but with how tired he looked, she didn't push it further, just smiled.

"Relax; I'm just kidding." She shrugged off her jacket. "I know that if you were to sleep with a student, it wouldn't be Lucy. Don't worry."

He raised his eyebrows at her audacity, her smug grin, but he couldn't prevent the amusement that showed through to his expression. "Really? You're gonna go there?"

"Go where?" When she knit her brow, plastered on a confused frown, Thomas had to swallow his laugh. "Now, I'm just not sure what you're implying, professor. Do you plan on sleeping with Lucy?

"Hilarious, Y/N." His rolling his eyes left her undeterred. "In all seriousness, though, I think she really believes she is bein' subtle."

"Unfortunately, I'm well aware," Y/N sighed. "I've seen her at a few too many parties to have any illusions about what a painfully tactless flirt she is."

"You're tellin' me."

"Has it been like this all semester?" she asked. Sure, Y/N had seen how shameless Lucy was during lectures, leaving no stone unturned to draw attention to herself, but this seemed a new level of egregious. Yet, Thomas nodded.

"Once a week, every week. Least, when it isn't more than that."

"Sometimes it's more?" Y/N let out a breathy, disbelieving laugh, and Thomas nodded his solemn confirmation. "Jesus. So this is why you look pissed every time she participates in class. I figured you just hated the sound of her voice as much as I do."

"Believe me; I've been startin' to."

"That's so harsh!"

"Aw, c'mon, and you wouldn't?"

Y/N shrugged, pursed her lips, but her eyes glinted with hubris. "Well," she said, "It'd depend on how hot the student was. I mean, in my opinion, if Lucy was me, it just might be a different story."

Thomas couldn't bring himself to look annoyed. "Yeah, yeah. Alright," he said, shaking his head at her words. "You think you're fuckable. I get it."

"Glad we agree." Y/N's lips quirked up into a smug smile, but Thomas raised his eyebrows.

"Hang on, now. That's not quite what I—"

"But if she's really bothering you," Y/N continued, altogether disregarding his protests, and Thomas sighed. "You know you could just, like, talk to Lucy about it, right? You're the one with the power, here."

She couldn't put her finger on exactly why he winced at the latter sentence.

"Guess so, I just... I dunno. 'S really no big deal; I'm just gettin' fed up with all that." He gave a halfhearted shrug that made her raise an eyebrow. "But don't worry 'bout that. Why're you here, if not for the meetin' we've supposedly got scheduled for tonight?"

His tone was light, playful with the question, but Y/N was still stuck on what he'd started with. "Hold on; you can't just deflect that easily."

"Deflect from what?" He furrowed his brow, but Y/N just huffed, walking toward the near side of his desk.

"From whatever you're getting 'fed up with all of,'" she said, and when she eyed him skeptically, his fatigued sigh told her she wasn't imagining things. "Can I sit?"

"Yeah, sure, join me." Thomas beckoning her toward his empty chairs was almost absentminded. "But really, it's nothin'."

"No offense, but I don't know if I believe you." As she sank down into one of his guest's seats, a conflicted look flickered across his gaze, building further on the concern in her words. "What's up? C'mon; talk to me."

He hesitated. "'M serious, Y/N; it's not—"

"Thomas."

He raised an eyebrow, but it took her a moment to notice her own error. "Excuse me?"

"Professor Jefferson, I mean. Of course." Her smile was sheepish, but it just made him chuckle.

"Alright, alright. 'S nothin' serious, anyway, but 'm just gettin' sick of not bein' taken seriously."

Y/N's words were hesitant as she raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean? People take you seriously."

"Mm, but do they?" He sighed as he sat back in his chair. "I'm the youngest professor on campus; half my office hours are taken up by undergrads hittin' on me. It's hard to feel like I'm gettin' a lot of respect when you don't even treat me like a professor."

"Hey, come on, I respect you," she defended, and he shook his head.

"I don't mean you, specifically, Y/N. Just... your whole class. I'm already hardly old enough to be teachin' at a university, but it also kinda sucks to see how many people pretend to care about learnin' just to get my attention," he said, and his voice was soft. His quiet sigh made Y/N frown, especially as his absent gaze wandered through his own office.

"I'm sorry," she said, and he glanced back over to her. "Keep in mind, though, you made the first move on me. Not the other way around."

Despite her having been entirely serious, her words made Thomas laugh — a full-bodied laugh, too, one that couldn't help but make her smile in return. "Thanks for lettin' me know," he said, and though she rolled her eyes at his sarcastic tone, she was glad to see him lightening up. "Sorry to say it, sweetheart, but not everything's about you."

Neither noticed his casual term of endearment. "What a shame," Y/N sighed.

"Mm, I'm sure. I guess I just..." When he trailed off, Y/N raised a brow, and the concerned look in her eyes was what prompted him to continue. "I know I'm smart, 'n all, but it never feels great to feel discounted. Especially bein' new to the faculty."

"I hear that," Y/N said, her tone light but gaze solemn. "For what it's worth, I do come to your office for help because I know you can and want to provide it, not because I have some ulterior motive."

"Glad to hear it." Though his tone almost suggested he may have been being facetious, Y/N could tell that he wasn't making fun. "But on that note, thanks for givin' me an out with the Lucy fiasco. What'd you need, comin' here?"

Y/N's smile was small, all but apologetic as she unzipped her bag after pulling it into her lap. "Right. So, I know this isn't your job, and all..."

When she trailed off, Thomas eyed her suspiciously, especially as her lips only seemed to stretch further into a grin. "What's this about?"

"Is there any chance you'd be willing to read over my paper for my constitutional law seminar?" At the hopeful look she wore as she withdrew her printed essay from her bag, he had to laugh.

"Really? You're not even here for somethin' about my class?"

"Yes or no, professor?" She raised a brow, waving the packet back and forth expectantly.

"And why'd you decide to come see if I'd look through it? What makes you think I'm gonna?"

"You read over my French paper last week!" she pointed out, and Thomas sighed.

"Yeah, 'cause I speak French."

"You speak English, too. And you worked in government." Y/N shrugged, putting the paper down on his desk regardless. "So, please? I'd ask my roommate, but she's studying business, and you must know how that goes."

"You trashin' on business majors?" Thomas raised an eyebrow.

"If I was, would I be wrong?"

Her deadpan stare made him laugh. "Can't argue with that. Give it here."

He held his hand out for the essay, and she gave it to him with a wide grin. "You're the best."

"What else is new?" he asked, and despite how dry his tone was, his eyes were teasing. "You wanna go through it with me now, or should I get it back to you some other time?"

"Any chance we can go over it now?" she asked. "It might sort of be due in two days."

His eyebrows shot up. "Are you tellin' me I'm some kinda last resort?"

"Of course not!" she defended, but she hesitated before continuing, "Just an eleventh-hour supplementary resource who's going to help me get a diploma."

"I'm sure," he said, and the skeptical look he gave made the corners of her lips twitch. "You owe me, y'know that?"

"Really. I should start paying you, one of these days."

"To be fair, you do pay my salary."

"Mm, maybe some students do, but I wouldn't be so sure about that if I were you."

Thomas furrowed his brow, confusion permeating every aspect of his expression as he looked back at her. "What, you 'n Elizabeth Warren linked up in a personal campaign for free college?"

"No, but the president of financial aid and I did." She shrugged. "Honestly, they saved my ass. Sorry I'm not raising your salary, or anything, but I hardly pay to go here."

When he slowly nodded, she could see the small, subtle smile tugging at his lips. "I'll try not to hold it against you. 'M glad you ended up here anyway."

Y/N's grin was exaggerated, a fact she did nothing to conceal. "Aww, professor, I knew you secretly liked having me here."

He rolled his eyes, but his smile mirrored hers. "I meant that I'm glad that money isn't holdin' you back from gettin' a good education."

"I'm sure you did."

Thomas cocked a brow. "D'you want me to read your paper or not?"

At his words, Y/N had to bite back her cocky grin, and she nodded. "Yes, please."

"Then get off your high horse 'n listen." Despite his words, amusement sat heavy in the way he was skeptically eyeing Y/N.

"Of course, professor."

-                         

"It's been shockingly chill."

Y/N was sprawled out on the carpet of her living room, a styrofoam cup of ramen in one hand and chopsticks in the other, while Dolley sat curled up at the end of the couch flipping through Netflix on their TV.

"No lingering sexual tension?" Dolley challenged, glancing down to where Y/N was slurping her noodles (she'd asserted that ramen on the couch was too high of a stain risk). Y/N shook her head, and Dolley raised an eyebrow. "Really? No secret desire to end up bent over his desk?"

"Okay, listen, what I want and what I act on are two very different things." She pointed her chopsticks at Dolley accusatorily. "I can have it both ways."

"So you're still looking for another night of fun?" Dolley raised a playful eyebrow, and Y/N only grinned.

"Are you offering?"

"I could be convinced, dear." The wink Dolley sent her made Y/N laugh, broth sloshing down the side of her cup that she didn't hesitate to lick off of the back of her hand.

"Mhm, because my sex appeal is through the roof, I'm sure."

"Alright, I'll confess. I am only joking, after all," Dolley sighed, a wistful look in her eyes as she scrolled through the Netflix TV dramas category. "But only because things with James are going better than I expected."

Y/N's eyes widened; she spun in her spot on the floor. "Dolley, oh my God, spill! You've been holding out on me."

"There's not much for me to spill, really." She shrugged, and the smile she wore was coy. "He and I have just been getting on well. Nothing more to it."

"No. Uh-uh." Y/N shook her head, setting her near-empty instant ramen onto their coffee table. "You're gonna give me more than that. You have to. Clearly something's been happening."

Dolley bit her lip. "So, would we rather watch Stranger Things or The Good Place?"

"Don't you dare change the subject!"

"Alright, alright," she finally sighed, and her gaze was soft when she finally met Y/N's eyes. "So, we've been seeing each other more often. Getting coffee, grabbing lunch between classes. He's even had me read over different drafts of his thesis."

"Aww, he's using you as an editor? How romantic!"

"Make fun all you want, but he trusts me with it. Isn't that worth something?"

"Of course it is, Doll." Y/N smiled, unable to tease Dolley further when she had such a sappy look in her eyes. "But if you've been dating, why am I just finding out?"

She didn't meet Y/N's gaze, fiddling with the cuffs of her sleeves. "We haven't been going on dates, really."

"Oh yeah? This is how you talk about hanging out with everyone else you aren't dating?" The challenge in Y/N's tone made her scoff, roll her eyes, but they both knew she had a point.

"It's nothing official."

"But do you want it to be?" Y/N quirked a brow. Dolley's smile was faint.

"Maybe a little," she said quietly, and Y/N's grin broadened.

"That's adorable. I'm thrilled for you," she said, but there was a heavy pause before she hesitantly added, "but be careful with him."

Dolley furrowed her brow, finally turning toward where Y/N sat. "What d'you mean?"

"You have a habit of quickly getting attached to men who turn out to be terrible for you. Remember Henry?"

"Knox or Clay?"

"Either. You're making my point." Y/N gave her a knowing look, but Dolley didn't seem overly offended. "You're just too quick to give people the benefit of the doubt. Not everyone deserves it."

"But that's what you love about me, dear."

"Don't you turn my undying love and affection for you against me!" Y/N protested, and though she rolled her eyes, Dolley appeared to be entertained. "I adore you for what a sweetheart you are, but it's also what men take advantage of."

"Yes, I know; you've given me this talk before," Dolley sighed. "But really, I think this time might be different. I really like James."

Y/N pursed her lips. "It'd better be. Otherwise he's gonna have hell to pay."

"I'm not too worried."

"I am."

"Would you feel better if I gave you a chance to screen him?" Y/N raised an interested eyebrow at Dolley's words. "Because I invited him to come over Wednesday night for dinner. If you'd like, it'll be a prime time for you to interrogate him."

She sighed. "I dunno, Doll. I don't want to third wheel."

"You live here. You won't be third-wheeling," Dolley pointed out. "And you wouldn't have to stay! You could just pop in, say hello, and either leave or just go wait him out in your room."

A small smile grew across Y/N's lips at her words. "And you'll seriously let me interrogate him?"

"Have at it."

"I'm in."

-                                  

Dolley 🥺💋 sent: James is coming over in five minutes, so get home whenever

Dolley 🥺💋 sent: unless of course you've decided to grant him your tacit approval

Y/N sent: be home soon 😪

Dolley 🥺💋 sent: see u 😘

"Y/N?"

It was Wednesday evening, around 6 PM. Y/N's political philosophy seminar had just been let out, but she'd really spent most of her focus over the past three hours on figuring out exactly how to determine whether or not James was a piece of shit. Apparently he was bringing takeout to her and Dolley's apartment for all three of them, which she saw to be a point in his favor.

However, as her classmates filed out of the lecture hall, Y/N stood idly, taking hesitant steps forward out of her row as she tried to multitask, neither eager to stop texting Dolley or to trip all the way down the steps to the front of the room. It was Professor Jefferson who knocked her out of the reverie that'd been induced by the promise of James delivering what she imagined to be the best food she'd had in weeks.

She looked up with a brow raised, tucking her phone back into her pocket. "Hey, professor."

"You have a second to talk?"

"Oh, um..." Despite her deep-seated motivation to get home before dinner was cold, she supposed it could wait just a little longer. She nodded. "Yeah, sure. What's up?"

She pulled her bag onto her shoulder as she stepped out onto the hall's staircase, maybe three rows up from where Thomas stood at the bottom floor.

He leaned nonchalantly against the first row of desks. "So, the TA I've had since first semester's leavin' in a week or two. He's goin' abroad to South Korea for the fourth quarter, 'n he's decided to resign from bein' my assistant at the end of this week, so that he can make sure he's got everything in order for the next three months."

She frowned. "That's too bad. I'm sorry to hear it." She folded her arms, paused before adding, "So what, you want me to break the news to the class that we aren't getting those papers on the Enlightenment back anytime soon?"

At her quirked brow, her playful smile, Thomas had to give a light laugh. "Mm, I'm hopin' it won't come to that."

"You should probably get to grading instead of keeping me from dinner, then."

"Oh, 'm sorry; how dare I, really?" He responded, a hand over his heart, and she had to bite back her entertained smile at the irony in his indignance.

"Honestly. I can't imagine why I put up with it."

"I'll make it up to you," he said dryly. "But seriously, 'm not just tellin' you that for the sake of small talk. What I'm sayin' is that I have an openin' to find a new TA."

"I see," she said, raising an eyebrow. "And where, pray tell, do I come into all this?"

It wasn't that his train of thought was hard to follow, nor was his implication, but until he said it outright, Y/N had no desire to make any sort of an assumption.

He smiled. "You have any interest in becomin' a TA?"

"Seriously?" She furrowed her brow. "I mean, I appreciate it, but why?"

"First off, your work's consistently at the top of this class," he said matter-of-factly. They both knew she was well aware of this, after the hours in his office she'd spent grilling him on the historical context of every one of Voltaire's assertions and the implications of every early revolution. "You're a good writer, 'n you're more than capable of reviewin' other students' work. You've also already taken most of the other classes I teach, so you're familiar with all the material."

She nodded slowly, folding her arms, and though her expression would've conveyed that she was deep in thought, she couldn't suppress her growing smile. "I see. So it doesn't have anything to do with how attractive or charming I am?"

When she raised a playful eyebrow, he laughed outright. "Whenever your charm can start gradin' thirty ten-page papers a day, I'll start takin' it into account."

"Don't underestimate it."

"Alright, alright, I'll keep it in mind." He shook his head, and his lingering smile made the corners of her lips twitch. "'M serious, though. If you've already got enough on your plate, and you don't wanna take on another commitment, that's cool 'n all, and I can always ask someone else. But would you want the position?"

She pursed her lips, eyed him hesitantly. "Will I need to apply for it?"

"Nah," he said. "By the university's policy, you've gotta send me your resume and transcript, but if you wanna be my TA, you've got it. So?"

When she bit her lip, his eyes flickered down to her mouth so briefly that she almost didn't notice it. "I don't know, Thom—" He raised a brow. "Professor. Is there any chance I can think on it and get back to you?"

"Yeah. Yeah, 'course. I can give you 'til the end of the week, if that's enough time?"

"That'd be great." As she held his gaze, she couldn't help but ponder exactly what she was being asked. She was sure his motives were pure; she couldn't imagine for the life of her Thomas giving her a job with the intent of breaking down professional boundaries so he could sleep with her, but that was where her mind was going regardless. "I'll stop by and let you know on Friday."

"I'm countin' on it." He wore a wide grin that shouldn't have and usually wouldn't have put her on edge. Her mind had fallen down the rabbit hole of fixating on just how much more time she'd be spending with him as his TA — he saw enough of her during his office hours, but she was of two minds with that. On one hand, what would a few more hours change? However, on the other, all she was hearing was that he didn't mind spending a few more hours with her. "I'll see you then?"

When he raised an eyebrow, she finally realized she'd spaced out for a solid minute, and she fixed on a smile, though it was tense. "See you then."

She left without another word.

James proved to be a nice guy when Dolley had him over; he brought burgers and milkshakes for all three of them. However, Y/N knew she'd only find herself on Dolley's bad side however many hours later. As much as he was talking, Y/N didn't retain a single word he shared about himself, despite having promised she'd use the evening to formulate her opinion on him. So much for protecting Dolley.

Instead, Professor Thomas Jefferson occupied every one of her thoughts.

[thevividgreenmoss]

My grandfather was awake and lucid for a longish while between late Friday night and Saturday morning apparently first time since this past Sunday when we all thought that was It and crammed ourselves seven people in one sedan that got a flat on the way over of course (as we were leaving the handle of the screen door came off in my hand as I was closing it behind me so the vibe was very on the nose things farcically falling apart that whole goddamn day lol) but then when we made it he was smiling and laughing and talking to and teasing everyone that was there, albeit with much more effort than it would have taken him even just a week earlier when he was already in a really frail state because of his hip surgery. My sister happened to be up later than she usually ever is and got to video call and chat with him for a bit I wanted terribly for my cousin in Colorado to be able to also but by the time he could get through my grandpa's blood pressure had suddenly spiked or something and he'd drifted back into that borderline unconscious state so they didn't get a chance to talk which makes me want to claw my fucking skin off of my face but who knows maybe another opportunity will present itself hopefully it does like he suddenly became really talkative and energized the other day after not having said more than maybe a couple sentences over the few previous days like I was there with him for several hours on Thursday and the entire time he didn't say a word and only opened his eyes once for like half a second and even that I might have been imagining after sitting there sleep-deprived and holding his hand trying not to cry because then my mom would start crying and then my aunt and on and on and if he's conscious at that point he'll start to get worried and his heart rate will destabilize but after that for this one stretch without anyone expecting it he was really talkative and alert and joking around with the nurses and doctors and all that for a while but then later yesterday afternoon he started to get disoriented and drift in and out of the present in between dreaming and waking again at one point apparently he kept saying 'look at my shoes' to my mom and her sisters and they thought it was just just the medication/pain-induced delirium talking but he kept insisting and eventually said 'you're not taking me seriously' and I guess gave up? Or said it a few more times I'm not clear on the course of events I only heard all this secondhand when my younger aunt, who also got diagnosed with cancer late last year but thankfully is more or less in the clear now, got back home last night and she and I went into his room and took all the shoes out of the cabinet he keeps them in and like looked inside and turned over and examined the soles of every pair, took the cushion insert things out of the ones that had them, checked for scooby doo-esque hidden doors, all that but there was nothing there just shoes. Her kids flew back out yesterday morning, the older one's tentatively returning to Toronto in the next week or so she had a painfully rough time in some ways her first couple of years and then abruptly had to be uprooted and leave because of covid then everything with her mom and in time honored eldest daughter tradition bearing the brunt of the familial frustration and insanity associated with that and now everything with our grandpa I really really want her senior year to go smoothly and be enjoyable and memorable in a manner opposite to how this past year+ has been I'm so worried about her and her little sister's starting freshman year there in the fall and I'm terribly worried about her in a whole different way like she's still really attached to her parents in this innocent way that still strongly resembles like a baby's adoring my mom hung the moon type attachment and it can be especially hard being away for the first time ever when that's the case...like she's hyper hypersensitive even by my family's standards lmao but she does have this sort of self-possession and inner groundedness that no one can quite pin down but it's

definitely there and maybe that

could carry her through I really hope so...they were saying to come up to visit them in the fall hopefully I can find a job soon after returning to Texas and like be able to afford to do that and also like keep paying the bills and shit lol in either case I hope so so badly that they'll be okay like I think they will be the women in my family are all really strong but they've also had to be because of various fucked circumstances and I don't want that to keep having to be the case...my grandpa's a Strong Woman in a certain way also honestly lmao like my mom's aunts have always been like your father raised you in a way beyond even most mothers which like who fucking receives let alone genuinely deserves that kind of praise from their in-laws lmao let alone a man from a notoriously patriarchal culture of a generation when fathers from any culture barely had any involvement in their children's upbringing at all which I mean most still don't but even more so back then and like literally everyone we've been hearing from or seeing drop by at the hospital has a story of how at one point or another my grandpa was there for them when no one else was like distant cousins variously removed and loose family friends all with something about how he comforted me when no one else could, I remember word for word what he said to me when I suffered some loss of my own, he's the strongest man in our family, the best times we ever had were when he was near us, when he'd take us out, his youngest brother's children saying he cared for and spoiled them as if their were his own after their dad died suddenly when they were just kids, my mom's third cousin whose own father was with her till a late age saying that he was even more of a father to me than my own father, his other brother's son who was ostracized for decades by his immediate family on some straight up racist ass bullshit on the part of his mom and older brother because he married a black woman but my grandpa stayed in touch and made sure my mom and uncle did as well and made sure we all got together when he'd came to the states, like even now lying there on what very well might be his literal deathbed when he can barely talk he was telling my uncle he's worried about him and he needs to go home and rest, asking who's taking care of the house, are the kids all okay even at this point his thoughts are for others. After I put his shoes back in the cabinet I closed it and opened the one beside just in case I guess just in case what I don't know but it was just like standard cabinet stuff clothes a shaving kit and a couple of what I assume are photo albums that I didn't feel like I should open for some reason and a few old books, a collection of Ghalib's which I can't really read very easily if at all because it's in Urdu lol, a history of government college of Lahore where his father was teaching at the time of his death and the two philosophy textbooks my great grandfather had written himself, Inductive & Deductive Reasoning, and inside the latter I found a handful of yellowed pages torn out of an old notebook upon which mostly seem to be translations of french poems and I think maybe a song or two? I guess old coursework or just for funsies I'm not sure whether written by my grandfather or his own father. My khala was mentioning just the other day that she'd kept one of my grandpa's old notebooks marked as having been designated for biology but inside it were no actual notes just urdu poetry which she wasn't sure whether it was his own original tossed off work or something the lifelong frustrated creative transcribed while bored in class. The night I got here I was looking through his bookshelves after everyone had gone to bed and then a couple of weeks ago I was sitting in the living room by myself watching archer when my cousin came and sat down next to me upset and unable to sleep on her own first night here and I held her and tried not to cry and then went through the same bookshelves again, this time with my cousin who we came to Pakistan for the first time after moving to the US

to see being born who turned three

the day we arrived on what until this current trip was the last time I was here her little sister having just been born earlier that same year (whose life I may or may not have saved when I caught her after she was dropped by the person holding her (the fact that (parentheticals within parentheticals!) I may or may not have been the one who dropped her in the first place is immaterial imo not that I'm the one on trial here but what's important is that I caught her and if anything this would be an even more athletically impressive and frankly heroic incident if I'd been the one that was holding her to begin with since I was 8/9 years old at the time and there wasn't much of a distance for her to fall and yet I kept her from hitting the ground like talk about reflexes like that's what's important and what's more important than even that @ my year older cousin (whose younger sister was the first baby in the family after myself whose arrival in this world when I was three had me positively giddy in the way that young children get when witnessing the miracle of even younger children, who's the only other one of the cousins that's been here during all this, just me and the three I got to see as darling little babies) who was the only other person in the room with me at the time, is that we take this to our fucking graves no one can hear a word of this least of all any adults in the house who like not that they're the ones on trial here either but like who allowed for this scenario to transpire in the first place where two children and an infant are in a room by themselves unsupervised in retrospect that's somewhat irresponsible not that I'd ever hold it against them or even mention it because then they might get mad and not let me hold my little cousin anymore and I do love holding my little baby cousin and carrying her around everywhere, mostly without incident)) neither of whom I'd see in person again until we visited them in Canada the summer after I graduated college the trip during which I finished the last of the Neapolitan novels the day after landing and turned 22 the day after their mother, my younger khala, turned 43, looking through my nana's bookshelves with my baby cousin no longer a baby but a U of T classics major entering her senior year, noting the overlaps with our own, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, George Eliot, the same exact copies of Cheever and Kafka's collected shorts, Umberto Eco, Proust, wondering what the various titles meant to him or what they might say about him, wondering how much of even the version of him that can be hypothesized based off his library I'm missing now that I'm limited to the much reduced version of what had been in his old home in Lahore (when he visited us after my junior year of hs and my mom was trying to convince him to downsize and move in with my other aunt with whom he's been living the past several years, the one who most resembles my grandfather the only one that has his cheekbones my khala whose eyes have sunken all the way into her skull before my eyes with exhaustion and grief over the past two weeks, when my mom was like what's the point of just hanging onto a bunch of books that you've already read: I look at them [dramatic pause], and I feel happy [my mom sighing equally dramatically in.exasperation, me cracking up in the background]) the city I was born in the house where I spent the first almost five years of my life before we moved to the US to join my dad who'd moved back shortly after my mom became pregnant with what turned out to be me, abu nana's house with the garden we'd walk through every morning holding his hand and following along as he puttered around with his plants in the garden in the house in the city he had to leave to move into my khala's house in Islamabad where I've been the past almost a month now where two weeks ago he suddenly came down with pneumonia and had to be dragged to a hospital in Rawalpindi where he's been since, not in his house, my nana's house, with the garden in the city I haven't seen since the last time I was in this country the

summer I

turned nine the day after my khala turned 30 the day before my other khala turned 32(?) the summer I first remember obsessive compulsive disorder becoming an overwhelming aspect of my consciousness although it was there before, the first summer of the Iraq war and being terrified watching the Iraq war unfold on the BBC evening news my nana would turn on

at dinner time and hearing for the first time or maybe just the first time I remember the night we left the phrase 'the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer' from my younger khala talking to her sisters and some family friends that had come over to see us off feeling terrified and cold then embarrassed because she noticed my face visibly fall from across the room and told my mom and I was like godammit everyone knows I'm scared now smhead then crying the entire flight back home because I missed everyone and maybe had a little kid premonition that I wouldn't return to my nana's house and I would be years and years till I saw any of them again some I still haven't or maybe there was nothing premonitory about it but in either case that's the way it turned out. I do feel grateful I got to see him again at all, when he last came to the US late 2016-early 2017 I was sure it would be the last time we would be in the same room. I'd make breakfast for us every morning and we'd eat together and the entire day I'd sit next to him inhaling secondhand smoke and talking and reading. I was in the midst of my initial aborted attempt to read Swann's way when he arrived. I'd gotten to Guermantes way last summer but I couldn't find a secondhand copy so I had to read it via ebook and that didn't feel right so I abandoned it until now I've been reading a copy pulled from his bookshelf. Last he visited was the first time I learned we were both Garcia Marquez-heads which I'd kind of assumed before and I showed him Mad Men which he heavily fucked with and also every John Le Carre adaptation I could track down online. From the first time I read one hundred years of solitude the summer after freshman year of college the passage describing Colonel Aureliano Buendia's death already absolutely and unbearably heartwrenching enough immediately brought thoughts of my grandfather, aching aching sorrow over the solitude that he himself existed within in all the fucking pain his life has been inordinately filled with grief over the knowledge of this inevitable final separation from him after so many years and so much distance already having separated him from the people he loved and cared for and he loved and cared for so many people so deeply with such sincerity and beauty and endless endless warmth and compassion and humor when Gabo wrote of the colonel trying to reach back through to his memories and being unable to after previously recalling that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice even years later, as he faced the firing squad, at the moment of his death like a 'baby chick' my poor frail beautiful grandfather appearing exactly the same way when he'd take off his dentures and curl over to the side to sleep, then when awake but still half asleep hearing your voice having brought his apple cider vinegar and garlic concoction or a cup of tea or just coming by to hold his hand or play with his beard the way all of his grandchildren have at one point or another and smiling with his eyes still closed smiling bright and wide the expression of a precious little cat purring as you scratch under its chin always the most beautiful smile and even as his hair turned white and his body withered and wrinkled and shrunk his cheekbones while still not bad long ago ceased being the way they were in that picture from his wedding day back when he he looked like young Robert De Niro's much much prettier Kashmiri cousin from then until now always that same radiance and those same quick-witted and kind and bright bright bright sparkling eyes. The past month and a half I've been feeling like I'm seeing my own mother dying before my eyes along with her father, my adorable beloved abu nana, I can't even begin to comprehend how she must be feeling right now I feel like I'm witnessing her death in advance through all of this and losing the part of her that is him even though I know that's not actually the case. Things have been so fucking painful and complicated between us but the one thing we've shared that's never

been painful is our love for him. When he left after his last visit four years ago I spent the next two days barely able to even talk. Compliments or like any positive comments directed in my directions have almost always caused me this reflexive discomfort and uneasiness but whenever he or anyone else would say that I'm his favorite grandchild I'd want to hold on to that as closely as i possibly can. I don't want him to leave us and more than that I want for whatever happens to at least happen with him back at home but neither of those things seem likely right now although who the fuck knows. I hope his last thoughts can be of flowers, like Kafka's, and Lispector's, or of love, wherever he is I hope it's not asking too much to hope for that at least. For someone that spent his life so deeply immersed within that Garciamarquesian solitude he never made those around him feel any way other than at home, safe and warm and loved and adored and adorable and lovable and at home not because of a place not even the garden at the house in Lahore but with him always always I've never felt more at home than during the times I spent near him, and his love and his flowers

[war-sword]

needy

(Draco x  female Hufflepuff reader)

summary: (inspired by the song 'needy' by Ariana Grande) Draco Malfoy has been made a Death Eater and given the task to murder Albus Dumbledore, something that would make any normal person have constant breakdowns. Draco is no different. In the solace of Moaning Myrtle's company, he gets attached to someone else in the process. words: 13.9k warnings: cursing, implied sex, blood (sectumsempra curse). a/n: Hi! I've had the plot for this imagine in my head since January, started writing it in February, and now in May it's finally finished :) I Hope you all enjoy. If you've never heard this song, I really recommend it! lot's of Ariana's recent music makes me think about Draco. I tried to incorporate as many lyrics as possible, and also some from her song 'ghostin'' (an alternative title I considered) p.s. to my knowledge, brushing bugs are not something in the Harry Potter universe, I just came up with them on my own. I figured pureblood witches and wizards would have found alternative, magical means to cleaning their teeth, maybe considering toothbrushes for muggles, muggleborns and halfbloods. (there will be no second part to this imagine. it’s already super long) taglist: @clockworkherondale @mayorofzillyhoo @hockeyandmarvel @mdgrdians. this fic is deadicated to @socontagiousimagines who i know has been going through a tough time, loves ari & draco, and writes amazing stories ♡

Part of him couldn’t believe he was back in this bloody bathroom again, confiding in what was possibly Hogwarts’ most annoying ghost. And yet.

Myrtle was actually… not so annoying. Maybe she thought he was cute, but then again, from most of the stories it seemed she found all boys cute. Regardless, she was one person Draco could safely vent to, seeing as A) this problem would be trivial to her in twenty years and B) the Dark Lord couldn’t exactly kill a ghost, no matter how powerful he was. Myrtle had all the time in the world, and was very willing to listen to Draco come and complain or cry. She also gave surprisingly comforting advice, even if she couldn’t give him any physical comfort.

“...not your fault, he’s always sticking his nose into others’ businesses.” Myrtle’s high pitched voice echoed around the tiled room, pulling Draco’s thoughts back to the topic at hand.

“Myrtle?” Draco heard a female voice call. Myrtle immediately shut her mouth, and Draco tensed up. The girl came walking into the bathroom and turning the corner to where the rows of toilets were. “Sorry I’m...” Her voiced faded as she finally looked down the aisle.

Draco hoped it was someone he didn’t know, but instead found himself slightly surprised. It was Y/N L/N, the only Pureblood of their year to be sorted into Hufflepuff. Draco had always been vaguely aware of her presence– she was Hufflepuff Prefect, and her father worked at the Ministry like his own father. Draco had never had any reason to talk to her though, since they were sorted into opposing houses and young Draco had seen no reason to keep up with her.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Y/N started, clutching the book she was holding to her chest. “Normally no one’s up here.” Draco averted his gaze quickly, looking down. He rubbed his sore and puffy eyes. His pale complexion did not make his panic attacks any easier to hide. Maybe if he continued to look like this all the time, people would stop noticing.  Myrtle pushed her fingers together awkwardly as she looked between the two living students. Y/N gulped. “Um… are you alright?” She asked.

Draco let out a short laugh that echoed around the tiled room. “What’s it look like?” he sniffed, rolling his eyes. He still didn’t make eye contact with her.

Myrtle looked nervously back and forth between her friends as Y/N stepped closer. Y/N perched on the edge of the bench the other side of Draco, who was too tired to tell her to piss off. “Would you like a hug? You look like you could use one.”

Draco finally looked over at her with his reddened eyes. “What?”

“I know Myrtle is a good listener,” Y/N said gently, “but sometimes a hug is nice. They’re scientifically proven to help, you know. I give very good ones.”

Draco looked away again, absentmindedly rubbing his arm. This was a very strange encounter and he was quickly getting self conscious. “I think I should just go,” he said quietly, his voice catching. He jumps up, grabbing his cloak from beside him, pulling it on as he walks quickly down bathroom hall.

“Malfoy?” Y/N calls just as he’s about to turn the corner. He stops short and looks back. “I won’t tell anyone. Don’t worry.”

Draco feels a little surprised. “Thanks,” he sighs in relief, then disappears.

 ༄

 Draco felt like he started to see more of Y/N after that. Slipping through the halls, walking through the dungeons late at night. Despite her Prefect status, she never inquired to where he was going at odd hours, or even attemptted to get him in trouble. The first few times was just awkward eye contact, but then she decided to offer him small smiles. Draco would just nod in acknowledgement, and turn away. He wondered if she was following him, or if he was just more aware of her. It was hard to say.

“What’s your deal with L/N anyway?” Draco asked Myrtle one day, trying to be casual. For once he hadn’t come to the bathroom on the first floor because he was hyperventilating, he was just bored.

Myrtle shrugged, flying in slow circles around the sinks in the middle of the bathroom. “She just likes to hang out with me.”

“What’s her tragic backstory, then?” Draco deadpanned.

“I’m not sharing yours, so obviously I can’t share hers.” Myrtle said. Draco looked over at her, and caught Myrtle’s sly smile.

“She really just comes to hang out then, huh?”

“You would be a lot more fun if you were easier to fool, Draco.” Myrtle pouted.

I might be dead if I was a fool, Draco thought to himself.

“She just knows I’m lonely, is all. Unlike most people, she likes to take time out of her week to come visit. We read books together, since I can’t enjoy them now that I’m dead.”

Draco just hummed in response. So she hadn’t been sneaking around him that day, she had just come to see Myrtle. That made him feel a little more relaxed. Hopefully Y/N would just fade back into the background and he could stay focused on his task.

 ༄

 Draco was fuming. He’d had a tough week with classes– Snape exempted him from all assignments, but that was only a small reprieve from his other coursework. Wasn’t it enough he was only attending school this year for a murder operative, but he still had to do all the regular homework too to keep up the act? He’d been slammed all week and was unable to get to the Room of Requirement once. Tonight he was planning to catch up for lost time, but of course Filtch had to catch him on his way. His lie about Slughorn’s lame Christmas party had only gotten him so far. He would’ve been able to handle the situation just fine, he was the great Malfoy liar after all, but of course Snape had swooped in. That was enough in itself to piss Draco off, but Potter was right there– and Draco had seen the look on his face.

He continued down to the dungeons, leaving Snape in the corridor. He didn’t want his help. He could do this… couldn’t he? As he descended down the many staircases, he became more and more fretful. Maybe Snape was right.

Draco found a quiet corner in the hall and leaned against the wall. Familiar despair crawled up his spine and into his mind, and tears started to prick his eyes. If he kept crying this easily, he was just going proving Snape’s point more. Draco unbuttoned the top two buttons of his dress shirt in an effort to make it easier to breathe. He closed his eyes and tried to do the controlled breathing exercise that Myrtle had suggested he do when he felt a panic attack coming on. In, and out, very slowly as he counted to five. In….. out….. In….. out. Draco was so focused on his breathing that he didn’t notice the footsteps.

“Malfoy?”

Draco jumped. He opened his eyes and looked up to see Y/N standing around the corner of the corridor. Since it was past curfew, he expected her to be in uniform with her Prefect’s badge prominently displayed. Instead, she was dressed in casual clothes- black shorts and a big grey Hufflepuff sweatshirt, her hair up in a bun with pieces falling out all over the place. She had her feet pushed into her uniform shoes halfway, like she’d just slipped them on to walk a short ways. In her hands she was holding a small bundle. Her eyes were wide in surprise he felt mirrored on his own face.

“Are you… um….” Y/N faltered. “Would you, er, like a cookie?” She held out the bundle in front of her.

Draco paused a moment. “Why not?”

Y/N shuffled over and sat down next to him, leaving a healthy bit of space. She unwrapped the bundle of cloth to reveal five chocolate chip cookies, looking soft and warm. Draco broke off half of the one on the top. “I’m in the middle of a long herbology essay,” Y/N explained. “I have a bad habit of snacking when I take homework breaks, and I probably shouldn’t eat all five of these.”

“Well, in that case...” Draco took the other half of the cookie. Y/N smiled.

“They’re good, I promise. There always seems to be plenty of them in the kitchen, even at this hour.” Y/N re-wrapped the remaining four cookies and then took her hair out to redo her twist. Draco watched as she smoothed her hair back into a sleek new bun with no flyaways. She looked cuter with the little pieces out, he couldn’t help but think.

“Maybe I should start coming down here, too. Eat my feelings instead of talking to a dead person.” Oops. Draco closed his eyes and inwardly cringed at his own slip-up.

But Y/N didn’t seem to react at all. “Like I said, Myrtle is a good listener. I don’t blame you. She’s a pretty good secret keeper, too.” Y/N played with the edge of her sock, looking down. “Myrtle wouldn’t give me any hints. But uh… if you ever want to talk to someone who’s not dead, I’m usually not too busy.”

“Thanks, but it’s nothing really.” Draco brushed her offer away. “Just a bad day is all.”

Y/N nodded. “Are you okay right now?”

Wow, was he really getting this bad at being unreadable? “Yeah, just got kicked out of Slughorn’s stupid Christmas party.”

“Ah,” she said. “I should’ve guessed, that explains the suit. I didn’t know you were invited.”

“I wasn’t.” The edge of Draco’s mouth quirked up.

Y/N grinned. “Well, the next time you go sneaking around make sure it’s not on Wednesdays, Fridays or Mondays. That’s when I patrol.” Y/N grabbed her bundle and pushed herself into a standing position. “Hope your night gets better, Malfoy.”

“Thanks,” Draco said, genuinely.

Y/N continued down the corridor and disappeared around the corner in the direction of the Hufflepuff dorms. Draco looked back at the two halves of cookie in his hands, and took a bite. They were really good. He leaned his head back on the stone and let out a sigh. Maybe he should just go back to his dorm and sleep, for once. He could go to the Room tomorrow; he still had time.

 ༄

 Draco’s panic attacks were becoming more and more frequent, and he found himself spending more time in Myrtle’s bathroom than the Room of Requirement. This only caused his anxiety to rise more, a vicious cycle he was desperate to escape.

Myrtle hovered nearby, helpless as Draco dry-heaved over a toilet. He was sweating and shaking from cold at the same time, his teeth chattering while he watched sweat roll off his nose and into the murky water below.

“Draco, are you listening to me? You need to breathe, try to take slower breaths.”

He tried to listen to Myrtle, and successfully managed to get his hyperventilating under control. Draco sat back against the wall of the stall he was sitting in, and pulled his cloak over him like a blanket.

“See, look, much better,” Myrtle said. “Can you tell me what happened? Was it Harry again?”

Draco nodded. “He… Slughorn never delivered the wine to Dumbledore. He gave some to Weasley on accident, and he would’ve died if Potter didn’t give him the antidote. Fucking Potter,” he spat. “Why is it always him? He knows Myrtle, he must! This is the second time he’s been there when my plans went wrong. He’s going to figure it out. Merlin, if I just had more time…” Draco could feel his knees begin to shake again. He leaned his head back against the wall, pressing into it, trying to use the pressure to ground himself.

“Draco, please be reasonable. Harry can’t know-“

“YES HE DOES!” Draco screamed. It felt good to scream. “He might as well have seen my fucking Dark Mark, Myrtle!”

In the moment after Draco’s echoing yell, there was deafening silence. Draco glanced out of the door of the stall and noticed saddle shoes peeping out from around the corner. His blood froze.

Someone was in the bathroom.

Draco stood suddenly, the cloak falling from his knees as he drew his wand. He slid around the corner and pointed his wand near the neck of the eavesdropper, using his other hand to pin their shoulder back on the wall.

“Draco, don’t!” Myrtle cried.

Y/N had her eyes squeezed shut, her arms raised up around her upper body instinctively. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“What did you hear?” Draco shouted. “What did you hear!”

Y/N cowered at Draco’s loud voice. “N-not a lot! I just… heard…” She gulped. “You said you had... a Dark Mark.” Y/N whispered the words.

Draco shrank away, putting his hands up to his face. Y/N was so nice… what would happen to her now that she knew? He felt the familiar fear grip at his chest again, and he leaned over one of the sinks to take a few steadying breaths. “I have to Obliviate you.”

“What?” Y/N said, fear in her voice.

“I have to!” Draco said, turning around to look at her. “You can’t know anything about this, anything about me. It’s dangerous— it’ll get you killed.”

“You don’t have to,” Y/N said, taking a step towards him. “I can help you, with whatever is wrong.”

“No,” Draco said. “You shouldn’t. You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

That was the first time she touched him. Her warm hands wrapped around his clammy, shaking ones. It had been so long since another person had touched him in such a gentle and comforting way. His wand steadied in his hand as her fingers settled over his.

“Just tell me,” she said, almost a whisper. “I’ll promise.”

They were tucked up in one of the bathroom stalls, backs against opposite sides with their knees brushing. They clasped each other’s wrists and looked into each other’s eyes, Y/N’s hawthorn wood wand casting the spell that wrapped around their intertwined hands like a golden rope as Myrtle said the words.

And then Draco told her everything.

“I’m so sorry Draco,” Y/N said, putting a hand on his knee. The combination of his first name and her touch made him shiver. “I can’t imagine the pressure you’re under, to save your family.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to,” Draco sighed, wiping a tear off his cheek. “The necklace has already failed, and I haven’t made any progress on the cabinet. And now the wine, another dead end.” He leaned his head back on the bathroom stall and stared off into space.

Y/N moved her hand away, and immediately Draco missed the warmth of her touch. She opened up her arms ever so slightly. “Would you like that hug now?”

Draco obliged, crawling over to lean into her chest. Y/N wrapped her arms around his shoulders and braced her leg against the toilet to support the rest of his body. It had been months since Draco had had this much physical contact and felt so safe, he immediately started to sob again. As he cried into her shoulder, Y/N gently rubbed his back. Myrtle looked down at them and wiped away a ghostly tear of her own.

When Draco had cried until he could cry no more, he felt exhausted. He became aware his left arm had fallen asleep from leaning on it, and Y/N probably was even more uncomfortable, seeing as she’d been holding him like the child he was acting like. Draco pushed himself into a sitting position, but Y/N kept hold of his wrists as he pulled away.

“Ugh,” Draco groaned, disgusted, as he spotted the tear stains he’d left on Y/N’s white uniform shirt. “That’s so gross. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Y/N shrugged. “I’ve had plenty of younger Hufflepuffs cry on me about loads of things.”

Draco pulled his right hand free of Y/N’s grip to retrieve his well-used handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “Yes, I’m certainly acting like a bloody first-year, aren’t I?”

“Draco,” Y/N cooed. “Don’t downplay this. If I was in your position I would be crying all the time, too. This is something no one our age should ever have to do. It’s okay to feel weak sometimes.”

“But recently I feel this way all the time.”

“And that’s okay, too,” Y/N said sincerely. “If you ever want to talk or need help, I’m here. Please don’t hesitate to ask.” She squeezed his wrist gently.

Draco just nodded, wiping his nose one last time. Y/N glanced at her watch. “Come on, it’s dinner time. If we splash some cold water on your face no one will be able to tell you’ve cried by the time we get to the hall.” She stood and offered her hands to help Draco up. As they left, Y/N called goodbye to Myrtle. “I come here on Thursday afternoons and we read. You should come, if you have time to relax for a bit.”

“I’d like that,” Draco said. “Thank you, Y/N. You’re being really nice about this while I’m a mess.”

“Don’t worry about it. My lips are sealed.” She said it casually and walked off, leaving Draco in the corridor so they didn’t go in together. Her words resonated with him, though. She’d made the unbreakable vow to him, someone she barely knew. Draco would have found this suspicious if it was anyone else, but Y/N just radiated positivity, and Draco felt drawn to her like a moth to the flame. If he wasn’t more careful, he would burn.

 ༄

 On Thursday, sure he was too late, Draco burst into the second-floor bathroom. Myrtle and Y/N we seated on the bench at the end of the room. Myrtle cocked her head to the side in interest, while Y/N smiled. “You came.”

The afternoon sun was filtering in through the old windows, causing her yellow tie to glow golden. Her hair was down today. Maybe I shouldn’t have, Draco thought.  “Yeah,” he said instead.

“Come on, Draco.” Myrtle encouraged. “We’re reading The Little Prince.”

“French or English?” Draco asked as he approached.

“French,” Y/N said. “I’m learning.”

“Well, I speak French,” Draco responded. “I can help.”

From that day on, Draco joined Y/N and Myrtle in the bathrooms on Thursdays to read, and just generally enjoy each other’s company. It was a nice break from brewing deadly potions in his room and researching new hexes in the library, or doing otherwise untowardly things. He was beginning to associate the girl’s second-floor bathroom with more than just panic attacks.

Y/N was teaching him all sorts of lovely things. She could play the guitar very well. Singing, not so much, but she did her best anyway. Draco didn’t mind listening to her off-key voice, because she had a great time playing for him and Myrtle. Sometimes if they met up after later in the evening, Y/N would bring cookies from the kitchen and she and Draco would share them as they walked, finishing them before getting to the bathroom so Myrtle wouldn’t get jealous.

Y/N wore thick socks all the time, since she self diagnosed as being cold-blooded. She owned a collection of knit sweaters in earth tones. She always wore a set of small earrings of a matching moon and star that glittered mysteriously in dim light. She had perfectly shaped fingernails. She said ‘fluxweed’ with an Irish accent despite having no Irish upbringing. Every time her fingers made contact with his bare skin, he felt electrified and instantly calm all at once.

Draco was forming a terrible, terrible crush on the Hufflepuff Prefect.

He felt awful about it. Even though they only ever talking about his task to kill Dumbledore if Draco was the one who brought it up (he still panicked over it often), he couldn’t help but feel as if he was dragging her down with him. Draco was quickly becoming attached to her. His emotions were like a rollercoaster, up and down at the littlest inconvenience or kind gesture from his new friend. Draco knew he was obsessive and would easily fall hard, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. Her touch was the most intoxicating thing about her, and he needed it.

She could read him like no one else. One day, they switched robes just for fun. Draco’s emerald tie jumped out against her skin, and made his own tingle with want. His robe swallowed up her frame since she was so much shorter, and he watched as she spun around the bathroom.

Draco admired her yellow tie as he adjusted it around his neck. Her yellow-trimmed robe ended just below his knee, and he looked like an overgrown third-year. Draco looked at his reflection in the mirror. Yellow was definitely not his color, but he couldn’t help but wonder what he would be doing if he wore it every day instead of green.

Y/N almost immediately caught onto his somber mood, and joined him in looking in the mirror. She gazed at their opposite reflections. “I dunno if yellow is really your color.” She totally read his mind.

“I was thinking the same. But, maybe if I was a Hufflepuff, my life would be better,” he said honestly.

Y/N hooked her arm around his. “Maybe,” She mused. “But think about all the other great things you are that you wouldn’t be if you were a Hufflepuff. ”

“I feel like there used to be lots of things about myself I took pride in, but now I feel like they’re all a curse,” Draco mumbled.

“Think more simple,” Y/N said. “You’re a quick thinker. You’re super smart, and you learn things so fast. I think all your housemates helped you cultivate those things when you were younger, whereas in Hufflepuff it might’ve been different things.”

Draco felt floored. He’d never even considered that. He just assumed his last name and blood status would carry him no matter what house he was in. As her words still rattled around his skull, he checked his watch on instinct. They’d been here for and hour and a half– he needed to work on the vanishing cabinet today and he had to get new books from the library. “I’ve got to go,” he said to his friends apologetically.

He and Y/N switched back their robes. The collar of his now smelled faintly of her lavender shampoo. They bid their goodbyes to Myrtle and walked together down to the dungeons. “Not to like, be Snape or whatever, but are you sure you don’t want any help?”

“Oh, I’d love help, just not from him.” Draco chuckled dryly. “That doesn’t mean you should come up though, this isn’t your problem to worry about and I don’t want you to be involved in… this.” He quickly amended.

Y/N narrowed her eyes at him. “Hm.”

When Draco went up to the room later that night after dinner, Y/N was waiting on him, casually doing paces in front of the wall where the door to the Room would appear. “Y/N, you need to leave.”

Y/N shifted the two thick books in her arms. “No. You said you want help, and I’m here.”

“I’m serious, Y/N.” Draco stood his ground. There was no way he was going to let her get in this deep with him. “I’m not getting you this directly involved.”

“I can see how stressed you are over this,” she argued. “I won’t let you suffer alone over fixing this dumb piece of furniture.”

As her voice echoed in the corridor, Draco heard steps coming from the opposite direction. He quickly summoned the door and yanked Y/N in with him before whoever it was could find them standing there. The door turned into wall behind them, and Draco spun around to face Y/N. “Wait five minutes and then you can leave through here again,” Draco instructed. “I’m not letting you come with me.” He turned to go find the cabinet among the towering stacks of junk, but Y/N caught his arm.

“Draco! Stop, just let me help you.”

“You already help me plenty,” Draco replied, exasperated, not turning around to look at her.

Y/N’s grip softened, and she walked around to stand in front of him. “Please, just show me where it is?”

Oh, Merlin. How the bloody Hell was he going to say no when she was looking up at him like that? Draco swallowed a lump in his throat and closed his eyes for a moment. “You’re not touching it, okay?”

Y/N followed him through the narrow paths between the piles until they came upon the cabinet. It was deep in the room, and after spending hours in this one spot Draco had moved most of the junk out of the way so he could work. In the cleared area around the cabinet, there was a ancient looking couch and a table pushed off to the side. Draco set the book he’d brought on the table and pulled the cloth off the cabinet.

Y/N set her own books down on the table and took off her cloak. She joined Draco in front of the cabinet and they peered inside at the empty interior, always gently illuminated. “So what’s exactly… wrong with it?” She asked.

“I can only transport inanimate objects. Anything living dies.” Draco closed the door back, not wanting to look in anymore.

Y/N crossed her arms and considered it a moment longer. Then she sat down on the floor next to the table, rolled up her sleeves and cracked open one of her spell books. “Have you tried checking the cabinet for external damages? Magic seeping from the inside can cause transportation to be disrupted or loss of limbs.”

I can’t believe I’m letting her help me, Draco thought as he knelt down to look for any cracks on the bottom of the cabinet.

 ༄

 Y/N came to the Room with him often after that. On days she had Prefect patrols, she would slip pieces of parchment into his school bag that had notes or ideas she’d written down for him, or leave a book waiting for him in the library checked out in her name. On days she didn’t, Y/N would accompany him. Just as Draco had asked, she never worked on the cabinet directly. She would just add notes in Draco’s notebook, and help him with wand movements for new spells.

The more time they spent together, their friendship grew. On especially long nights, she would sit on the couch and he would sit on the floor between her legs, so she could massage his tight shoulders while he studied a new book. She would remind him not to bite the edges of his thumbnails, and he would let Y/N rest her head on his shoulder. When that happened, it was hard for Draco not to nap also. Sometimes he did, head on the table while their legs were pressed up against each other, or he would doze while she worked the tension out of his muscles. It was always peaceful sleep.

When she fell asleep, Draco always made sure he never woke her up until he was going to leave. She would drift off with her nose in a book or sprawled out on the couch, lips slightly parted. She looked so calm while she slept. Draco would sometimes brush her hair back and lay her cloak across her shoulders so she could be more comfortable.

One night, Draco sighed and flopped down on the old couch next to Y/N, laying his head in her lap. He hadn’t realized he’d done it until she rested her hand on his hair, smoothing it back ever so gently. She was still engrossed in the spellbook, and Draco allowed himself to close his eyes and enjoy her intoxicating touch. Each brush of her hand eased away his anxiety and replaced it with a sense of calm.

He snapped his eyes open, suddenly aware he’d fallen asleep. Y/N smiled down at his disoriented face.

“How long was I out?”

“Not very long, like twenty minutes or so,” she said as he sat up. “I figured you could use a bit of rest.”

Draco rubbed his face and ran a hand through his hair to shake off the grip of sleep. He was loath to leave her lap and her gentle touch. “I couldn’t help it, the way you were touching my hair just put me to sleep,” he admitted.

“I know.” She grinned. “My mum used to do it to me when I was younger, when I was too excited or nervous.” Y/N put a hand on Draco’s shoulder. “I think we should get back. You need to rest, and we can look for new spells tomorrow.”

Draco sighed, defeated. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

As the two of them walked through the empty halls, Y/N glanced at her watch. “Merlin it’s late. I’m glad I don’t have anything to do tomorrow.”

Draco looked over at her. She was holding the spellbook they’d borrowed with both arms, and her hair had begun falling loose from its bun like it usually did, short tendrils of her locks begging for him to wrap his fingers around them. The words spilled out before he could stop them. “Do you want to sleepover?”

Y/N looked over, eyes wide with surprise. “Sleepover? Like, in your dorm?”

Shit. “Er, yes. I mean, obviously you don’t have to. Sorry, it was stupid of me to–”

“It’s alright.” Y/N interrupted. “You don’t have to apologize.”

“Right.” Draco shoved his hands into his pockets and squeezed his eyes shut in embarrassment for a moment. “It’s just–”

“I’ll–”

They both said at the same time. They had reached the bottom of the stairs to the dungeons, and Draco stopped and turned to her.

“You go ahead,” Y/N said, looking up at him.

“No, it’s embarrassing, just forget I asked.” Draco averted his eyes.

Y/N let out a quiet laugh. “It’s okay Draco, just tell me. You don’t have to feel sorry around me,” she reminded him again.

Draco let out a sigh and rested his hands in a fist on his forehead. The more he thought about it the more he’d wished he hasn’t said anything. He closed his eyes, too self-conscious to look at her while he said it. “I have nightmares every time I sleep. Except... when I fall asleep when I’m around you.” He cracked open his eyes to see Y/N staring up at his with a wide, expectant gaze. “You don’t have to, I could understand if that would be weird or crossing some friendship boundary, and it’s really selfish of me.”

Y/N smiled gently. “Of course it’s not. I’m… glad I can help.” She shifted on her feet. “I’d love to sleep over.”

“Really?” Draco asked, dropping his hands down in disbelief.

“Sure. But, I can’t sleep in my uniform.” Y/N gestured to her button-down and skirt that she was still dressed in.

“You can borrow something of mine.” Draco said quickly. Eager much?, he inwardly cringed.

“Alright.” Y/N nodded. “You lead the way.”

They passed the entrance to the Hufflepuff dorms and went down further, under the lake. They stopped between two columns on what looked like a blank wall. Draco whispered the password, and the bricks shifted to open up. “Fancy,” Y/N muttered.

The common room was empty and quiet, only embers left in the fireplace. Draco quickly walked over to where the boys dorms were. “I’ve got to carry you,” Draco breathed, almost inaudible. “The charms.” Y/N nodded, and pointed to his back. Draco bent down and she climbed on, and together they made their way up the steps. Draco’s heart was racing― he couldn’t imagine the trouble he would be in if Crabbe or Zabini saw him carrying a Hufflepuff girl into his dorm room at one in the morning. Draco was vaguely aware this would become a problem come morning, but he decided to focus on getting to his room first.

Draco unlocked his door with his wand nonverbally, and shuffled in the small door. Y/N slipped off his back and he closed the door behind them. He quietly reveled in their success before he turned back to Y/N. It wasn’t until then that he remembered the state of his room.

“Oh, Draco,” Y/N sighed, sounding sad. Indeed, his room looked exactly how one might expect someone in his mental state to be living in. Snape had ensured Draco had a room all to himself to work on his task, and while the privacy was nice, it just gave Draco more space to make a mess. He’d left the candle next to his desk alight all evening, and the wax filled the tray below. The two small dorm beds he had pushed together to create one big one was unmade and badly needed fresh sheets. Papers and clothes littered the floor. Books and parchment rolls filled one desk, while his second still had his cauldron on it and all the ingredients strewn about. Draco walked over to his work desk and quickly closed his diary, setting it to the side.

“I know, it’s bad,” he sighed. Y/N set their spellbook next to where he was leaning on the desk and walked over to his cauldron.

“What were you brewing?”

“Wideye potion, it keeps me awake during the day since I don’t sleep much at night,” he confessed.

“Why don’t you just brew a sleeping draught instead? You know the effects of long term Wideye use,” Y/N said, concerned.

“Believe me, I do know,” Draco said. “I tried the sleeping draught first, but it puts me in such a deep sleep I can’t wake up when I have a nightmare. Three nights of having to sleep through excruciating dreams was more tiring than sleeping four hours and drinking Wideye the next day.” He looked over at her.

Y/N looked so sad. She walked back across the room and wrapped her arms around his middle. Draco sighed as he pressed his nose into her hair. “Well, let’s see if not sleeping alone can help,” she said into his chest. She pulled away and patted him. “Can I have some pyjamas?”

Draco waved his wand and opened two drawers of his wardrobe. “You can get something clean out of there. They might be a bit big when you put them on.”

“That’s fine.” Y/N walked over to the wardrobe and began to shuffle through the clothes.

Draco picked up his own pyjamas from the last night off the bed. “Take your time, I’ll wait in the bathroom. Just tell me when I can come out.”

“Okay.”

Draco closed the bathroom door behind him and slumped against it. Merlin, he’d really done it now. Invite her to sleepover? What was he thinking? He was doing a horrible job of trying to keep her safe― in fact, it was getting worse every time they hung out. Draco threw his pyjamas on the floor and rested his head on the cool tile of the sink, and sighed. He was so, so selfish. And needy. Y/N was so nice, and didn’t deserve to be caught up in all this.

Draco changed clothes and put some Brushing Bugs in his mouth to clean his teeth. Y/N’s voice broke him out of his thoughts. “I’m ready,” she said softly from the other side of the door.

Draco opened the door and saw Y/N waving her wand, cleaning the mess of his room and putting things back in order. She’d let her hair down and put on one of his white tee shirts he wore under his uniform button-downs and a pair of his black silk pyjama pants. And her butt looked really good. His jaw went slightly slack at the sight of her, a stray Brush Bug almost escaping his lips. Y/N turned to see him staring helplessly from the door of the bathroom.

The last few parchments shuffled themselves into a stack and she walked over, the long pant legs swishing around her feet. “Do you have any toothpaste?” She asked.

Draco wordlessly held out his glass container of Brushing Bugs, and she gasped. “You have Bugs? Oh, I should've known, since you’re a Pureblood. I’m the only girl in Hufflepuff who uses them still, everyone else thinks they’re gross.” She took the tiny spoon out of the holder on the side of the jar and popped a spoonful of the small bugs in her mouth.

They waited for the Bugs to finish, standing in the bathroom in silence, taking turns making faces at each other. Draco eventually got to laughing too much and spit his Bugs out into the sink. Y/N followed suit. “ Am I shiny?” She asked, baring her teeth.

“Very shiny. Me?” Draco made a similar face.

“Squeaky clean,” she replied. “Just like your room.”

“Thanks for doing that. You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to.”

God, Draco didn’t deserve her. He turned off the bathroom light, and they walked out. “Which side do you sleep on?” She asked.

“Well, usually the middle. But I can sleep on the right.”

“Oh good, I like sleeping on the left anyway.”

“Sorry it’s a mess. I haven’t had time to make it in a while,” Draco said as they settled into the pushed together beds.

“Remember what I said about apologizing?” Y/N chastised, laying down and looking at Draco as he extinguished the candle and carefully placed his wand on the bedside table.

“Hmm, no. Having trouble recalling it right this moment.”

“That’s more like it.”

The room was mostly dark except for the dim moonlight filtering through the water and into the window that looked out into the lake. A fish swam by, casting a gentle shadow as it passed.

They both laid on their backs and stared up at the ceiling, a distance of about eight inches between them. Draco tried to take a quiet breath, painfully aware they were both awake and aware the other was also awake and knew they were both thinking about how awkward it was. So awkward. He didn’t feel very relaxed anymore.

Y/N shifted beside him. Draco decided to just go for it.

He lifted up the covers so he could move and scooted across the space in the middle of the bed. He pressed his body up against hers, resting his head near her shoulder. Her arm that his torso was touching twitched just the smallest bit. “Is this okay?”

The second it took Y/N to respond seemed to stretch on forever. “Of course,” she whispered. “Just, do this instead.” She moved up just the slightest bit and slipped her right arm under Draco’s head, so he rested on the flat spot of her shoulder just above her breast. She pulled his right arm over across her torso.

Draco felt instantly more comfortable. He moved his left arm so it wasn’t quite so squished underneath him and pulled her closer. Y/N’s right hand came up to his head and she gently started to smooth his hair like she’d done in the room an hour ago. “Goodnight.”

“Night.”

Draco feel asleep almost immediately.

 ༄

 The next morning, Draco woke up first. Awakening felt like he was dragging himself from the deepest most thick depths of sleep, and the second he opened his eyes he felt the need to close them again.

But oh, he would never.

Because Y/N was tangled in his arms, his legs, the tips of her fingers were settled gently against his chest, and her soft breaths were hitting the bare skin of his neck. He wished he could see her face, but what he could see of her body from his limited view of being cuddled up next to her was more than enough.

He strained his eyes to look at the clock on his desk, not wanting to move his head. It was just past nine. Draco hadn’t slept this late all school year. And he was still tired! He gently ran his fingers over Y/N’s hair, enjoying the feeling of her chest rising and falling against his own. He felt a little guilty, but not guilty enough to move.

Draco was only able to enjoy the feeling for five, precious minutes. Three sharp knocks on his bedroom door were enough to make his heart stop.

Y/N sleepily opened her eyes at the sound. “Wh-” She started, but Draco pressed a finger to her lips.

“Hide.” He whispered urgently. Y/N was instantly awake. They detached from each other and Draco went to the door. He didn’t see where Y/N hid, just heard the whoosh of the sheets being thrown.

Draco opened the door and gave his best pissed off stare to an equally disgruntled looking Snape. “What.”

“Watch your tone, Malfoy.” Snape drawled. He brushed past Draco and into the room.

“Come in, why don’t you.” Draco rolled his eyes and shut the door. “You’re the one who woke me up. What do you want?”

“Oh, have time to sleep in, do we?” Snape asked, condescendingly.

“I told you, I’ve been working on it. I’ve got it handled, alright?” Draco raised his voice. “I don’t care how much you wish this was you. Stop acting like you care about helping me.”

Snape grabbed Draco roughly by his arm. “You think the Dark Lord is patient, Draco? If you take much longer, he might decide your family doesn’t deserve any mercies, regardless whether you succeed or not.”

Draco wrenched his arm out of Snape’s grasp. “Get out of my room,” he growled.

“Good to see you’ve finally cleaned.” Snape left the room and slammed the door behind him, robes swishing.

Draco let out a sigh. He looked back at the bed, where the sheets were messed up. A small lump was in a spot where the sheets should have been smooth, so Draco walked over and pulled the covers back.

Smack in the middle of his bed was a grey and brown ferret, staring back up at him with beady eyes. No sooner had Draco processed this, the ferret grew and morphed until he was staring at Y/N, laid flat out on her back, instead.

“Um, surprise?”

Draco’s jaw was slack. “Bloody hell… you never told me you were an Animagus.”

“I dunno… it never really came up.” Y/N sat up and gave a hopeful smile and a shrug.

Draco rubbed his face. “Okay. Alright. No offense to you at all, but this would be a lot easier for my brain to handle if your animal wasn’t a ferret.”

Y/N looked back blankly for a moment, then burst out into laughter. “Merlin, I totally forgot about that!” She kept giggling, falling back into the bed. Her laugh was so intoxicating, Draco found himself laughing a little, too.

“It was actually a very traumatic experience, I’ll have you know.” Draco tried to hold down his laughter with a pout.

“I’ll tell you about traumatic! How about waking up and having Snape walk into your friend’s bedroom in the span of five seconds, and then only have a single sheet to hide under.” Y/N countered.

“Uh, last I checked,” Draco said, pointing. “I was there too, except I had to talk to Snape instead of getting to hide.”

“Fine!” Y/N groaned. She sat back up and dangled her legs over the side of the bed, poking Draco’s shins with her toes. “Maybe next time we should sleep in my dorm. Professor Sprout never checks on me.” The shock Draco felt from the invitation must’ve shown on his face because Y/N started stammering. “I-I mean, if I helped, that is. With the sleeping. With your dreams, I mean.”

“No. Yes. Yes, it definitely helped.” Draco put his hands on her shoulders. “I haven’t slept that well in months.”

“Really?” Her voice was a mix of excited and sad.

Draco nodded. “If there’s ever a day like today where you don’t have anything to do–”

“Nope,” Y/N cut him off. “We can have a sleepover anytime. I want to make sure you’re getting rest, and if it’ll get you off Wideye, even better.”

Oh, how badly Draco needed to turn her down. “Y/N, I can’t impose on your personal time like that.”

But she was shaking her head at him. “I don’t care. I sleep every night, might as well be useful while I’m at it.”

“Are you sure I wasn’t too clingy?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t crowd you?”

“Nope.”

“I didn’t bother you at all?”

“Nooooope.”

Draco threw his head back. Here I go again, he thought. “Alright. If you’re sure.”

Y/N grinned. Draco’s heart clenched. “Come sleep in Hufflepuff tonight. I’m excited for you to see my room.”

“Okay.” Draco couldn’t help but smile. The urge to kiss her was becoming almost overwhelming, so he stepped away from her and sat in his desk chair.

Y/N peeked at the clock behind him. “It’s past breakfast, but lunch will be soon. I really need to shower, so I’ll just see you there. Maybe we can go to the Room and try more spells later.”

“Don’t you have something better to do with your afternoon?” Draco tried to discourage her.

Y/N shrugged. “Not really.” She scooped her neatly folded stack of clothes off the floor and disappeared into the bathroom. She emerged dressed in her robes from the day before, and put her borrowed pyjamas on the bed. Draco handed her her wand. “Last night I was worried about how I would get you out of here without anyone noticing, but I see we’ve solved that problem.”

Y/N threw him a wink. “I still need someone to open the door.”

 ༄

 Draco had come to another selfish dilemma. He and Y/N were now having platonic sleepovers three, and sometimes four nights a week. Y/N didn’t mind. Draco certainly didn’t. Except once he was alone in his bed back in Slytherin, he realized how attached he was to her. She was like a drug for his calmness and stability, and if he went too long he felt himself falling into his destructive habits again.

Oh no.

As much as he would scold himself when he was alone, when they were together, he couldn’t help but feel as if this was what he’d been missing all this time. Someone who cared about him, who was nice, and uplifting. Someone who found his presence just as enjoyable, instead of feeling like they needed to be friends, were expected to keep each other’s company. Y/N was a lovely girl and the perfect friend, and Draco was desperate to keep it that way, despite wanting more. He was very good at overthinking with his heart.

Draco loved hanging out with her alone in their rooms. While he appreciated Myrtle and what she’d done for him, she was mopey and cynical. Not really her fault, he supposed people just got that way when they died. Spending time in the Room was what had brought him and Y/N closer, but being in there was always a somber reminder of his horrible assignment. Her coming to his bedroom under the lake made his lonely room more bright, but it always seemed to get more depressing every time she left. Y/N’s room was Draco’s favorite place to be.

She had the wide, comfy, four poster bed all Prefects had the luxury of sleeping in. Big windows overlooked the hills behind Hogwarts facing the Forbidden Forest, making her entire room glow warmly in the fading sunlight. Above her desk were strings laden with photographs, newspaper clippings, and quotes neatly written with the book they came from below. She had plants on her window sills, even though she said she was no herbologist. She had a record player and lots of vinyls, and she would put them on and play along with her guitar sometimes.

Draco and Y/N stood in her bathroom having a staring contest in the mirror while they did their brushing bugs. They had on what Y/N had called their “matching pyjamas”. Y/N was wearing her pale blue nightgown and Draco was wearing one of her soft long-sleeve shirts that was almost the same color, and a pair of his own pyjama pants he kept in her room.

Y/N finished with her bugs first and rinsed her mouth. She glanced down at Draco’s hands resting on the counter. “Can I see it?” She asked gently.

Draco froze for a moment. Despite having slept together and sharing clothes, Y/N had never seen him without his shirt off. Y/N knew Draco had a Dark Mark, but even since that first day in the bathroom she’d never asked him more about it. Draco gave her a small nod and spit out his own bugs.

He gently pulled his left sleeve up to his elbow to expose his scar. Right now it was pale red, stamped into his skin with magic. If the Dark Lord was to call his followers, it would burn and turn black and the snake would writhe, something Draco had learned from experience. Y/N stepped closer to take hold of his arm and gently traced her finger along the Mark. Draco suppressed a shiver.

“When I look at it,” Draco said quietly, “I don’t see what other people see. I don’t think about him, I just think about my parents. Especially my mum. I just want to protect my family.”

Y/N looked up and gave him a sad smile. “That’s what I see, too.”

A knock at the door made them both jump. Y/N recoiled away from him and Draco quickly drew his sleeve down. “One second!” Y/N called.

She grabbed her cardigan off her desk chair and pulled it on. A loud sniffle could be heard outside the door and Y/N gestured that Draco could come out from hiding in the bathroom. “It’s not Sprout,” Y/N mouthed.

Standing at the door in her pyjamas was, what looked like to Draco, a first year, tears streaming down her face and a wet handkerchief clutched in her fist. “Hey, Eloise,” Y/N soothed, gently guiding her into the room. “What’s wrong?”

Eloise caught sight of Draco leaning against the bathroom door frame and looked nervous. “Oh, I’m sorry Y/N, I didn’t know your boyfriend was here.”

Y/N smiled good naturedly while Draco bit his lip to contain a chuckle. He and Y/N exchanged a glance. “It’s fine, Eloise. And Draco’s not my boyfriend, don’t worry about it.”

“Oh.” Eloise squeaked. “That’s just what Angelica told me.”

“What’s going on?” Y/N asked, sitting down in her desk chair and putting a hand on Eloise’s shoulder. “Potions work again?”

Eloise nodded. “Professor S-Snape was mean to me t-today and g-gave me extra work. B-But I already have s-so much as-stronomy homework…” Eloise sobbed again.

“Hey, hey, take a deep breath, El.” Y/N rubbed her hands up and down Eloise’s arms. “When do you have Potions tomorrow?”

“Two.” Eloise sniffed.

“What! That’s plenty of time. Tell you what,” Y/N said. “Just do your astronomy homework tonight. Tomorrow during lunch I can sit with you and help you finish your potions work, okay? I don’t care how much it is, we can get it done.”

Eloise nodded.

“Here.” Y/N unwrapped the bundle of extra cookies she and Draco hadn’t eaten earlier and handed one to Eloise. “Now go get cracking on that astronomy, I know you can do it. And make sure you get some sleep, don’t worry about Professor Snape tonight.”

Eloise fell into Y/N for a hug, and then Y/N ushered her out the door with a goodnight. She closed the door and leaned back on it to look at Draco.

“What are you making that face for?”

Draco put his hand over his heart. “That was kind of sweet, I have to admit. Is this what it’s like to be a nice Prefect?” He teased.

Y/N rolled her eyes. “Yeah, believe it or not, I remember how mean you were.” She slumped into her desk chair. “Maybe I’m too nice. You wouldn’t believe how often they come up here. Even the boys! No one ever goes to ask Renie to help with herbology essays or go tell their dorm mates to stop stealing their socks!”

“Is that why you let them think I’m your boyfriend?” Draco grinned, raising an eyebrow.

Y/N wrapped her cardigan around her and tucked her legs up on the chair. “They never come up here when they see you walk in with me.” She mumbled.

Draco laughed and laid on the bed on his stomach, propping his chin on his hands. “It’s alright, I don’t blame you. Now you see why I just yelled at all of my lower-years.”

“Maybe you’re just scary,” Y/N teased. “Did you see how bad you scared her?”

“Yes,” Draco said slyly. “And I’ve never even seen her before. Must be my reputation.”

“Good thing you dispelled that cold-hearted reputation when we first met.” She shot back.

Is this flirting?  “Which time? The time I cried or the time I almost hexed you and then cried?” Okay, if we were, I definitely just totally and completely ruined that. Draco tried to play it off with a smile, but Y/N just got up and joined him on the bed.

She took hold of his left forearm again and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Even if everyone else thinks you’re cold hearted, just know that I don’t.”

Draco’s pulse was racing. “It’s nice of you to think that.”

“I know it.”

Y/N liked to rub her feet against the sheets or his legs while she slept. She always let her hair spill up across the pillow because she hated the feeling of it on her neck. Draco knew Y/N was deeply asleep because she would put one arm above her head and throw one of her legs across his own. Draco only knew all this because he would fight the urge to sleep so he could have as many memories of her as he could.

It was possible Draco had more than just a crush on her.

 ༄

 He heard it whispered in the hallways. Katie Bell. She’s back. Her name alone made Draco want to puke.

Yet he had to see her. Was she the same? Or had his awful curse he’d put on that necklace damaged her permanently? He needed to know. He booked it down the staircases towards the great hall, bumping shoulders the whole way.

Breathless, he stopped when he got into the hall, scanning the crowd. It wasn’t hard to spot the large group of girls between the Slytherin and Gryffindor tables. Standing in the middle of them was Katie herself, looking a bit pale but otherwise fine. She was talking to everyone. She was okay. Draco’s relief didn’t last long, however. He’d been too busy looking at Katie to realize Harry Potter was staring right at him. And now he was walking over. Quickly.

Draco immediately broke out in a cold sweat, turned, and started to speedwalk. Too fast to notice someone else get up and start following him, too. Hide, hide, I’ve got to hide. Where can I hide? Where does no one go? Draco was feeling dizzy, but he pushed on. He knew where he could go. He thought back to the time he had told Y/N everything, when he screamed to Myrtle that Harry knew he was a Death Eater. He knows.

Draco burst into Myrtle’s bathroom with blurry vision, gasping for air. He stripped off his uniform sweater and pulled at his tie, which felt like it was choking him. Myrtle heard his crying and flew out. “Draco? Draco, what’s wrong? Let me help…”

“No one… no one can help me Myrtle. Not you, not her…” He squeezed his eyes shut and felt his tears roll off his nose and into the sink. “He’s going to kill me… I’m going to die, Myrtle.” Draco choked out.

The bathroom door banged shut. Draco snapped his head up and looked into the dirty mirror to see Harry staring right at him. All his anxiety twisted into anger.

Barely thinking, he drew his wand and threw a hex. It narrowly missed Harry’s head, instead landing on the lamp behind him, causing it to explode. Harry was quick to return the favor and his own missed hex hit the faucet behind Draco, creating a waterfall.

“NO!” Myrtle screeched. “NO, NO!”

Draco dodged the spray and Harry ducked around to the other side of the bathroom stalls as Draco fired more curses at him. Water was quickly filling the floor of the bathroom.

“Fucking Potter,” Draco muttered, dodging another hex as it came his way. He was about to throw another curse when the bathroom door banged open again. Draco’s attention shifted, and he was horrified to see Y/N run into the bathroom.

Draco watched her face contort from confusion into fear as she took in the scene. Draco was so focused on Y/N he didn’t see Harry’s spell.

She did, though. Y/N drew her wand at the last second and flicked it, causing water to spiral up from the floor with a swoosh and intercept Harry’s curse. Water exploded across the bathroom in all directions. “Both of you, stop!” Y/N cried.

But Draco just took advantage of the momentary distraction to fire another curse at Harry. He was too angry to listen to Y/N right now. Unfortunately, Harry had the same idea, and ended up quicker than him. He screamed a curse Draco had never heard before.

“SECTUMSEMPRA!”

Immediately, Draco felt his skin open all over his body. His face, arms, chest, everywhere exploded in pain, and he could see the blood instantly. What did Potter do?

Draco staggered and fell back into the water on the floor. Y/N screamed.

“MURDER!” Myrtle screeched from above. “MURDER! MURDER IN THE BATHROOM!”

Draco grabbed weakly at his chest, already feeling himself fading from consciousness. He heard splashing and Y/N’s trembling voice.

“Draco? Draco! Oh, Merlin.” She knelt down beside him in the water, feeling a little dizzy herself as Draco’s blood seeped into the water covering the floor.

“No– I didn’t–” Harry tried to come closer, but Y/N turned on him, angrier than she’d ever been.

“What did you do! WHAT DID YOU DO!” She screeched, her voice cracking. Myrtle continued to wail overhead.

The sound of the door opening again drew everyone’s attention. Standing in the doorway looking absolutely murderous, was Snape. He strode in and pushed Harry out of the way, eyes trained on Malfoy. He didn’t have to ask Y/N to move back.

She trembled, tears rolling down her face as Snape moved his wand over Draco’s body, muttering a counter curse to Harry’s mysterious spell. Slowly, the blood subsided, she could see the cuts across Draco’s face and arms knit together and close completely.

Snape took Draco by the arm and got him standing. “Come, you need the hospital wing. There may be some scarring, but if you take dittany immediately we might avoid even that. You,” he pointed at Harry. “Do not leave until I return.” Draco’s pale blue eyes were unfocused, and he clung to Snape’s arm as they left the room.

Myrtle had finally stopped yelling and was slumped over one of the bathroom stall walls crying. Y/N lifted her wand again and pointed it at the broken sink. The parts of the faucet flew back into place and the water ceased its spray. The rest of the bloodied water was slowing going down the drain on the floor. Y/N reached down into it to retrieve Draco’s forgotten wand, not minding much. The cuffs of her uniform shirt were already covered to the wrist in Draco’s blood. She cast Harry one last burning glance and left the bathroom.

In the hallway on the way to the infirmary, Draco was regaining his senses. Halfway there he was able to walk on his own and let go of Snape’s arm. “What the bloody hell is sectumsempra,”  Draco muttered, feeling his face for the cuts absentmindedly.

“A spell that was never intended to be shared with anyone,” Snape growled. “Especially someone like Potter.”

Snape swept Draco into the hospital wing and brushed past Madame Pomfrey, who did not question their haste. “Dittany,” was all Snape said as they passed.

Snape sat Draco on one of the beds. “Do it yourself.” Then he left.

When Madame Pomfrey arrived with the small bottle of dittany, Draco snatched it from her hands and drew the curtain on her, muttering a weak apology. He just heard her huff and walk away. Draco drank some dittany, then opened his soaked shirt to look for the deepest wounds. The biggest one he could see was across his chest. He slathered the dittany on anywhere he thought he saw a scar.

Draco was deeply absorbed in his dittany application, and reminiscing on the details of his almost death when he heard a familiar lilting voice carry across the empty infirmary. He held his breath to hear what she was saying.

“... just wanted return this. Will he be alright?”

“Just fine, miss L/N. It would be wise of you to not bother speaking of this again. Now, I must find out why mister Potter is instigating fights, again.”

“If it means anything to you, professor, I was only there because my responsibility as Prefect-”

“I don’t care what your intentions were, miss L/N. I said do not speak of this incident again. Are we clear?”

“Yes, Professor.”

Sharp footsteps that probably belonged to Snape faded away. He heard some more whispering, too low for him to hear, and then Y/N left as well. Draco watched his faint new scars fade away, then looked at the few drops of dittany left in the glass bottle. He wondered if it worked on Dark Marks, or hearts.

 ༄

 It was a Monday, which meant no matter how awful Y/N was feeling, she still had Prefect rounds to do. It had been hours since Draco and Harry’s fight in the bathroom, and she’d showered and changed shirts long ago. Yet she still kept looking down at her hands and expected to see them covered in Draco’s blood. Torrential rain had started during dinner, which seemed to reflect her mood.

Her conversation with Snape had scared her, and she dared not go hovering around the entrance to the Slytherin common room for fear of being caught by him. Draco hadn’t come to dinner though, and she was getting worried.

She walked through the barrel tunnel into Hufflepuff, where Reine, her fellow Prefect, nearly jumped her. “You’ve got a visitor.” That was all he needed to say.

Y/N ran up the stairs to the Prefect dorms and saw Draco waiting in front of her door. She didn’t stop, just ran right up to him and jumped into his arms.

“Merlin’s beard Draco,” she whispered into his neck, “I thought I was going to watch you die.”

Draco wrapped his arms around her and held her close, finally feeling safe. “I didn’t, don’t worry.”

“Worry?” She pulled back and took his face into her hands. “It’s been five hours and you were all I could think about.” She whispered.

The pair were oblivious to the group of lower years crowded around the base of the stairs, craning their necks to get a good look at their Prefect and her Slytherin ‘not boyfriend’. “She’s holding his face!” Angelica hissed. “Eloise, are you sure she said they’re not dating?”

Draco put Y/N back on the ground and she grabbed his wrist, pulling him into her room. The group at the bottom of the stairs let out a collective groan of disappointment. “I thought they were going to kiss for sure that time!”

Y/N slammed the door shut and she immediately attached herself onto Draco again, wrapping her arms around his middle and clinging for dear life. Draco rested his arms around her shoulders and buried his nose in her hair. They held onto each other for a moment, until Draco felt Y/N shudder against him.

“Y/N? Y/N, are you crying?” Draco tried to pull away, but Y/N just held on tighter. “Y/N, please look at me.” He could already feel his own eyes getting misty at the thought of making her cry.

She reluctantly pulled away, but didn’t look up. Draco watched a tear roll down her face and felt his heart get tight in his chest. “No, no, Y/N,” he whispered, wiping the tear away. “Look at me. I’m here, I’m alright.”

“It’s just–” She sniffed. “There was so much blood Draco. More than I’ve ever seen in my life,” she whispered, horrified. “I should’ve disarmed Harry faster, then maybe–”

“Y/N.” Draco dipped his head down to look her in the eye. “Listen; first of all, I haven’t gotten to properly scold you yet for following us in there.” Even though she was crying, that got a chuckle out of her, like Draco knew it would. “Second, there was nothing you could’ve done in that short amount of time to changed what happened, okay? That was all Potter’s fault, Snape said he doesn’t even know where he learned that spell and… Merlin, I can’t believe I’m saying this but… I don’t think he knew what it would do.”

Y/N bit her lip and nodded, rubbing her eyes. “I just… I can’t lose you, is all.”

“You won’t.” It only took Draco half a second to realize that was probably a lie. Y/N didn’t seem to think about it too much though, because she just took up his hands.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You’re the one that got hurt, do you want to talk about it? Did the dittany work?”

“Yes, the dittany worked,” Draco said. “My face is perfect as ever.���

Y/N smiled through her tears, and ran her fingers across his forehead and down his cheek. “Yeah,” she chuckled again.

Draco took a breath. “I… I don’t know. It happened pretty fast. I just felt… open. I could hear you. And then Snape was there and I started to feel whole again. It happened very fast. I just remember it being cold and feeling heavy.” He shivered at the memory, still very fresh and vivid.

“Is there anything I can do for you? Anything you need?” She asked earnestly.

“I just want to sleepover. And feel warm.” He said, feeling like a child asking his mother when he would be allowed to go play.

“Of course,” Y/N said. “Whatever you want.”

 ༄

 Draco woke up for the first time in a long time in the middle of the night. He was away from Y/N– maybe that was why. Their legs were still pressed together under her loose covers, but in his sleep he’d turned over and rolled away from her. Probably how it should be.

Draco carefully sat up in the bed, crossing his legs. Rain was still pouring outside, gently tapping on the glass windows. There wasn’t much moonlight out tonight with all the clouds. Rain was different up here in Y/N’s room, as opposed to under the lake where you could only hear the rain hitting the surface of the water above. Then again, everything was different when he was with her.

A raindrops rolled down the windows, Draco felt a familiar hopelessness fill his chest. Potter was onto him, badly. He’d nearly killed two of his classmates now with his less direct attempts on the Headmaster’s life, and now he’d nearly died himself. And he still wasn’t sure if the cabinet was ever going to be fixed. He was running out of time for his task.

There was also the matter of her. The girl who was currently sleeping peacefully in her bed, the only person who was the reason he wasn’t dead or insane yet. The one he so selfishly clung to, but also the one who wouldn’t leave him alone. Intrusive thoughts of all the horrible things that could happen to her at the hands of the Dark Lord began to fill his head, and he could feel the tears beginning at the corners of his eyes.

“Draco?”

He jumped a little, looking back to her spot still under the covers. She sleepily sat up, rubbing her eyes. Draco’s heart did a flip in his chest. “Are you alright?” She asked, her eyes focusing on his face as she became more awake. “Did you have nightmare?”

“No,” Draco replied, quickly wiping the moisture from his eyes with the sleeve of Y/N’s borrowed sweatshirt. He’d been unable to shake the cold feeling of the water and losing blood, but wearing the extra layer that was so deeply ingrained with the smell of her helped.

“You’re crying.” She noticed. “Tell me, what’s wrong?” She scooted over so her legs wrapped around his sitting body, resting her arms on his thigh.

“Just thinking.”

“About what?” She gently put her hand on his forearm, rubbing her thumb back and forth across his sleeve in a comforting way. Her touch, so calming, was always the thing that helped him ground himself the best.

Draco let out a deep sigh. “You.”

Y/N was quiet for a moment. “Really?”

Draco looked down into his lap, where their hands were. He nodded. Y/N moved her hand away to shift  a little closer. Draco gathered his courage and straightened up to look at her.

Their faces were close. Y/N’s eyes, full of concern for him looked straight back in a way that made his breath catch. Her hair, even though messy from sleep, was still so enticing to his fingers. He made a mistake to look at her mouth.

Their lips connected in the softest, most tender kiss Draco had ever experienced. No grabbing of hair or slotting of mouths, just gently pressed against one another. The only part of them that was touching was their lips, but Draco had never felt more excited to touch her.

Until he realized what he’d just allowed to happen.

“Sorry,” Draco squeaked, pulling back just as quickly as he’d leaned in. “Oh my God, Y/N I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” He looked up at her, ready to apologize again, but the words died on his still-tingling lips when he saw how absolutely stricken she looked. “Fuck,” was all he could manage.

Her legs recoiled around him as she pulled them up to her chest. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have thought you’d want–”

“No, please don’t say that. I do want to,” he stammered. “I want you. I just…”

He couldn’t get the words out. Y/N’s face started to go blurry. He gripped the sheets of the bed in front of him to try and steady himself, but he could already feel his breathing starting to get shallow.

“Oh, Draco…”

He felt the bed move as Y/N sat in front of him, and she draped her legs over his so she was almost sitting in his lap. She took both his hands in hers, and Draco laced their fingers together with need and squeezed. He rested his head on her collarbone and tried to breathe in time with the rise and falls of her chest. “Merlin, this is so embarrassing,” he choked.

“It’s alright,” Y/N soothed. “It’s okay, Draco. Take your time.”

He managed to get his breathing back under control and he let go of her hands. He needed to focus. “We can’t… I can’t let me be with you,” Draco started. “It’s too dangerous. Do you know how bad it is already that we’re friends? That you sit with me in the Room every other night and help me with spells?”

“Of course I know,” Y/N answered.

“Yes, but look at me, Y/N. I’m going to be a murderer. And If I’m not them I’m going to be dead. And that almost already happened! I can’t do that to you. Us being together would be a doomed relationship. You deserve someone who’s so much better than I am.” Draco pushed his fingers against his chest.

“You don’t think I haven’t thought about that, too?” Y/N said breathlessly. “I can’t help myself either, Draco. The heart wants what it wants.” She put her hands up to rest on his cheeks, her thumb wiping away a stray tear he couldn’t stop from falling. “It would be nice if this was easy, Draco. But that’s life.”

“This isn’t life,” Draco mumbled, feeling too defeated to push her hands away. Instead he just leaned into her touch, wondering if it would be their last. “It’s fucked up.”

“Okay, yes, you’re right. It’s very fucked up. But it’s the fucked up life we’re living.” Y/N tilted his head up so he would look her in the eyes. “Why can’t you just let yourself enjoy this one thing, Draco? Why can’t we just enjoy each other?”

“Because I don’t deserve you,” he said. “I come with too much emotional baggage for me to feel okay with sharing it with anyone. And I notice how sad you get over me when I’m sad. I make you sad, not happy. I’m putting you through more than one ever should to another person.”

“But you make me so happy,” she countered. “Draco, I’m strong. You know this. You don’t have to protect me, you’re busy enough protecting yourself and your family. And I do get sad too, sometimes. But that’s just what happens when you care a lot about someone.”

Draco closed his eyes, trying to hold back his tears. “I care about you so much. I just want you to forget about me and not get caught up in all this.”

“I can’t, Draco.” She moved her fingers back into his hair and rested her palms on his jawline. “Can’t we just make each other happy for a little while?”

“You already make me happy.” He put one of his hands over hers.

“But we can’t just go back to the way things were.” Y/N whispered.

“No, I guess we can’t.” Draco finally looked back up at her.

“So can you please kiss me again?”

Draco could practically hear the the nails being hammered into his coffin as he whispered the word “Okay”.

Even though they’d both just been crying and Draco nearly had a full panic attack, he’d never had a better bloody kiss in his life. Her fingers were caressing his face and his neck with such love and care it made his toes curl and his breath sigh. He could finally press his fingers into her hips like he’d fantasized about for months, and the hitches in her breathing made his pulse jump.

Draco pulled Y/N further into his lap. Not a single item of clothing came off the entire time, but never had Draco ever felt so satisfied and happy after kissing than he did when they flopped back onto the pillows together.

“I’m such a mess,” Draco whispered into her hair as he smoothed it back like she did to help him sleep, pressing kisses along her hairline.

“A very smart, handsome, and caring mess.” Y/N amended.

“Your smart, handsome, and caring mess.”

“See, that’s not so hard.”

Draco gently pushed her onto her back and then hovered over her by bracing against his forearms. “I’ve had the most terrible crush on you for so long,” he said. “But I kept telling myself it wouldn’t be fair to you. I still don’t feel like it is, but please don’t ever feel like you can’t go. I want you to put yourself first.”

Y/N nodded. “I will, don’t worry.”

 ༄

 Y/N had the most enticing collar bones Draco had ever laid eyes on, and he loved to leave his mark on the delicate skin that covered them. She was shy and liked to put her shirt back on as soon as they were done. She had thirteen stretch marks on her left hip, and seventeen on her right— he’d counted them. The sensitive spot right behind her ear was the best place to kiss her.

For the first time all school year, Draco was feeling good. He was eating more than one meal a day. Wasn’t having panic attacks every four hours. He had the best girlfriend in the whole world, and finally, the cabinet had been mended.

Draco had caught another bird that day by bewitching a bush, and when it came back from the cabinet in Knockturn Alley alive and flapping, Draco had never felt more relieved. He and Y/N hugged in momentary excitement, but for Draco was quickly replaced with a sense of doom. Now that he’d succeeded, what would happen?

Y/N, as always, sensed his mood. “It’s out of your hands now, Draco.” She got up on her tip toes and kissed his cheek. “Come on, let’s go.”

They returned their spellbooks to Y/N’s dorm, then snuck to the kitchen to get cookies. Y/N suggested they do something different other than hang out in her bedroom, and go to the astronomy tower instead.

They laid on their backs side by side, munching on the cookies, watching the stars from the open observation porch and taking in the pleasant fresh air. “Are you up there?” Y/N asks.

“No, Draco is only visible in July. Ironic, because my birthday is in June,” Draco muses.

“Aw, school will be out then. You won’t get to point it out to me.”

“I know you have an astronomy textbook, you can figure it out.” The pair lapsed into silence.

“Hey Draco?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s gonna happen now?”

Draco wasn’t sure, actually. It was scary. “I’ll have to send an owl… then he’ll plan the rest, I suppose. I’ll just sit here and wallow in anxiety in the meantime. And… well, I don’t know about after.”

Y/N turned her head to look at him, and Draco did the same. She had that sad smile on her face when she took his hand into her own. “Will I get to see you again?”

Draco was quick to squeeze her hand reassuringly. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Y/N wigged so they were closer together and turned her gaze back up to the sky. “... Do you think you’ll really do it?”

Draco blew out a slow breath through his nose. “I can’t imagine myself doing it, but it’s not like I have much of a choice. I always knew I would have to.”

Y/N didn’t say anything to that for a moment. “I hope Harry can stop him.”

“Merlin, me too.” Draco sighed.

The letter with the date came from Draco’s mother. Y/N held him like she had so long ago while he cried over it. Every day, he made sure he kissed her like it was their last. They spent as much time together as they could, and Draco even surprised her by getting her a bracelet when they went to Hogsmeade.

Draco insisted she sleep alone in her room the night of. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep, and while he hated to leave her alone that last night, he couldn’t imagine anything worse than leaving her to go commit the worst crime of his life. They cried together in a corner of the third floor corridor, clinging desperately to one another.

“I’m so sorry I did this to you,” Draco couldn’t help but say.

“I’m glad you did.”

“I’m the neediest person ever.”

“It’s feels good to be needed.”

They parted ways, and Draco rubbed the tears from his eyes knowing he had something equally as difficult as leaving her ahead of him.

Y/N returned to her room that night sadder than ever. When she went into the bathroom to get out her brushing bugs from her medicine cabinet, a little piece of paper fell off of the bottom. She unfolded it to see the words ‘love you always’ in looping cursive, and cried anew. She clipped it to her strings above her desk, next to the only picture she had of him— an instant photo of him in her Hufflepuff sweatshirt, his hands covering his face except for his eyes peeping in between his long fingers. It barely moved, but if you looked long enough, the Draco in the photo would blink his long beautiful lashes.

She put on the pair of his pyjama pants he’d left in her room and fell asleep without cleaning her teeth.

 ༄

 The day after, Y/N laid on her back on the observation porch, looking up at the cloudy sky, arms and legs spread out wide. Since this was where it happened, she assumed no one would bother her up here. Footsteps on the stairs told her otherwise. She didn’t move to see who it was, but as soon as they reached the top someone spoke.

“Y/N?”

To her surprise, it was Hermione Granger. And Harry Potter, and Ron Weasley. Of course; were they ever apart? She sighed and turned away. Draco’s cold attitude towards them must have rubbed off on her. “Hello.”

Hermione came to stand over her and looked down. “Harry told us you were in the bathroom that day.”

“Just doing my job as Prefect,” Y/N answered. “Dueling is strictly prohibited.”

Hermione walked away, but the three of them didn’t leave. Instead, the moved to the other side of the telescope and looked over across the courtyard in silence.

“Did he do it, Harry?” Y/N asked, unable to hold back any longer.

“What?” Harry said, sounding surprised.

“Draco. Did he do it?” She looked over to see Harry’s face.

He looked confused, but didn’t question her knowledge of his involvement in Dumbledore’s death. “No,” Harry said finally. “It was Snape. Draco couldn’t.”

Y/N turned back to looking at the sky and let out a short exhale, not quite a laugh. “He didn’t… he didn’t do it after all.”

[cryxmercy]

Backdraft || Mercy & Arthur

When: A couple of weeks before New Year’s Eve. Immediately following this. Where: Arthur’s office @ the University. Who: Mercy and @arthurjdrake

TW: one mention of preventing potential head trauma, but no actual head trauma; possible memory loss tw (for a few brief moments of confusion)

Sometimes the simplest solution is not the right one. 

By the time Mercy had driven the distance from the house to the University, she’d managed to pull her scattered thoughts into some small semblance of order. She could still feel the unsettling pins and needles sensation across the skin of her arm, and her anxiety thrummed like a swarm of angry bees, but the former had at least faded a bit as she’d distanced herself from the cause. For now at least.

She didn’t linger too long in the parking lot, but also tried not to look hurried as she made her way towards Arthur’s office. As always, she entered without knocking, except this time she closed and locked the door before settling heavily into the chair opposite his desk. Mercy sat there, legs crossed, foot shaking up and down as she worried her lip with her teeth. 

“How’s marking?” she asked after a bit, indicating the enormous pile of papers on his desk (and promptly avoiding the real reason for her visit). “Want some help?” 

Arthur reclined in the aged leather chair a crisp winter breeze stirring some of the coursework papers stacked in piles upon his desk. His eyes tracked back and forth across each line of text as he read, still and quiet save for the lo-fi music drifting out of a bluetooth speaker on the shelf. Occasionally the stillness was broken with a reach for his fourth freshly brewed cup of coffee, a sip before its return to the ornate coffee mat off to one side of the desk. 

The process was methodical, reading through the coursework before a second read through was taken with pen to paper marking addendums or eliminations of unnecessary or particularly insightful details. And then the tedious task of checking each citation list for formatting errors - the most boring part of the process admittedly.

It wasn’t surprising for Mercy to arrive unannounced and deposit herself in the chair opposite and Arthur didn’t look up initially though the click of the lock was different. A flicker of his eyes followed, a quick track from the door to Mercy and then back in a fraction of a second until he finished reading and set the paper aside. “Honestly I’m actually almost done with them,” it wasn’t entirely true but it was clear as day she was skirting around something. “I’m surprised you came down. I’m almost done for the day to be honest.”

Mercy wasn’t bothered when Arthur didn’t immediately look up from his marking. It wasn’t as if her presence was anything unusual at this point, even if her behavior was slightly out of the ordinary this time. His decline of her offer to help was acknowledged with a distracted hum instead of Mercy’s usual sarcasm or witty retort, and although the rest of what Arthur said wasn’t phrased as a question, they had known each other long enough to know when one was being asked.  

This time it was Mercy’s gaze that flickered towards Arthur before sliding over the papers on his desk, and then to the other neatly stacked piles of letters and correspondence that sat here and there. She even glanced towards the rubbish bin, but there was nothing that caught her eye. Best get on with it then. 

“A letter came for me today.” At first, it sounded like nothing unusual. Everyone received letters in the mail on occasion. It was the addendum to that statement that made all the difference. 

“A Black Letter.” 

Arthur knew it was simply a matter of time, he didn’t need to probe or ask to know that eventually an answer to why she was here would present itself. He waited, giving her time to process and search for the words she wanted to put together, and as expected it came not much later. A letter. Not all that strange but he was sure there would be something that set this mail apart. 

The scratch of his fountain pen stilled with the further clarification; a dark blot staining the paper as the ink bled out his hesitation. The stark proof of his conflicted thoughts and feelings towards this revelation laid bare. 

Firstly: relief over the simple fact he hadn’t received such a notification himself. Wasn’t apparently still bound to a contract he too had signed and agreed to.

Secondly: ire that Mercy was still beholden to a contract signed such a long period of time ago which was somehow being seen as something she was beholden to act upon. It was nonsensical and illogical and made his blood steam in his veins. 

The ink continued to run for several long moments before Arthur finally retracted the pen and set it aside, cracking his knuckles individually as he finally looked at Mercy across the desk. “What do they want?”

A small furrow appeared in Mercy’s brow as she watched the ink blot spread across the paper. Further proof that Arthur hadn’t received a letter of his own. If he had, he would have already been aware of the fact. So she knew he had to be relieved. Why wouldn’t he be? He was a different person now, wasn’t he? The man that had signed that contract so many years ago now had long since died and been reborn. Many times over. 

Unlike Mercy. Who was as she’d always been. And always would be. 

But even so… surely there was a statute of limitations on such a thing? Surely she wasn’t beholden to a contract signed nearly half a millennium ago. Surely there was some mistake. 

The ache in her arm told her otherwise. 

So Mercy waited as Arthur absorbed the information. All the while, a voice in her head whispered ‘See? It doesn’t matter what you do… or who you try to be… how you try to live… you will never find peace… you will never be free…’ 

Fingers pressed against her temple as she forced the voice into silence. As she did, Arthur asked his question, to which Mercy could only shake her head. “I don’t know. I didn’t touch it yet.” Her hand flexed. “I thought you might’ve-” But she stopped short, letting out a sharp huff of air. Mercy set her jaw, her next words coming far steadier than she herself felt. “But I don’t suppose you would’ve. That’s good. That’s-” She nodded once, flexed her hand again. “- good.” And it was. She wouldn’t wish this on Arthur. Not ever.  

A bit of silence followed, until finally Mercy seemed to deflate.

“I don’t want to read it. I don’t… want anything to do with it.” She looked up at him finally, her eyes full of shadows. “I’m tired, Ren. I’m just… so fucking tired…”

Absentmindedly Arthur started to lightly pull at the sleeve of his jumper, worrying the fabric in thought now that his pen was out of his hand. It was an old habit, one that seemed to transcend lifetimes. To fiddle with any one of the many little knick knacks scattered across his desk and failing that stretch the sleeves of his jumpers into paws when his brain started to work overtime.

His eyes fixed on the letter, wondering just what the contents might pertain to. What they would want after all this time. Surely their contracts were done. Null and void to the dusts of time. But apparently not. How many more times would this happen across their lives? Something from centuries past cropping up to haunt them with living nightmares. “No it isn’t,” the words came out sharper than intended and a scowl marred his expression “no it isn’t good. This” he punctuated jabbing a finger at the letter “isn’t fair.” 

The silence that followed was deafening and Arthur’s scowl only deepened the more he looked at the letter.

“Then we burn it. We get rid of it. No letter no message.” It wasn’t that simple. It never was, but he had to suggest it at least. 

Mercy’s eyes drifted to Arthur’s hands, watching the familiar habit with a mixture of fondness and worry. Her thoughts moved in the same vein as his: how many more times would their past come back to haunt them? How many years - how many lifetimes - would they have to live before they were allowed to simply… be? Obviously 400 years didn’t mean that particular quota. 

It wasn’t until Arthur spoke that Mercy looked up again. Her frown deepened, and for just a moment she wanted to explain that she’d meant it was good that he hadn’t received a letter as well. But Mercy knew Arthur was perfectly aware of what she’d meant. So his anger wasn’t surprising. Part of Mercy was even glad for it… needed it even. But only because it solidified what she already knew: that they would find a way through this. Together. 

“No. It’s not.” Mercy’s scowl grew to nearly match Arthur’s as she watched him stare at the letter. 

The suggestion of simply burning the damn thing gave Mercy pause. Had they tried that before? Gods it had been so long ago… But the letter was still sealed. So whatever ‘contract’ lay inside was still inactive. Perhaps with enough of the right sort of fire, they could be shot of it. 

“It’s worth a try,” Mercy said. Though it was never that simple, was it? “We should go home. The firepit on the back porch should work fine.” Mercy stood, knowing Arthur would never be able to concentrate on his marking now, and feeling a wash of guilt - and the stirring of old fears - that couldn’t be helped. “I’m sorry, Ren, I- I thought this was behind me. Behind us.” 

There was something to be said about his tactile nature, a need to always have something on his person to keep his hands occupied and distracted. On the occasions he didn’t have any such object or item to fiddle or fidget, his fingers often sought out other alternatives. Such as his jumper, though it was typically the rotating dial on his iron plated watch. Today in his distraction though the cotton stretched over his fingers as he proceeded to rub his scruff lined chin idly with his thumb. “No,” he agreed, echoing her own words in his contemplation of the scenario, “no it’s not.”

He released the sleeves with a final huff and leaned forwards, snagging the letter and bringing it up to study intensely while Mercy answered. Why couldn’t they burn it? Surely that would be enough. If the letter wasn’t opened. If it simply… ceased to be. Perhaps it would buy them time to figure out what they needed to do in the interim. “Don’t be sorry,” his eyes flickered up from the intense stare he was currently directing towards the letter, the intensity of his expression easing into something softer. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” 

Without another word his attention returned once again to the thick folded parchment, the wax seal pressed in to hold it shut and the intensity of his focus narrowed to a pinpoint. He imagined each particle of the paper vibrating at an infinite frequency beyond what the eye could see, gradually building in frequency. He thought of the countless firesides the two of them had sat beside, sometimes in jovial jest and others in sorrowful grief, the warmth of drink in their cups and laughter in the air. But each fire began with a spark and he willed that spark to ignite here. To burn the very paper in his hands.

What Arthur failed to notice was the creeping drop in temperature, the heat being drawn forth and consumed, much as stars are crushed in the void of space. Infinite and precise, but where typically a flame would spark, curling the edges of the paper into a burning cinder his brow furrowed. 

Nothing. 

No spark. 

Absolutely nothing. 

There were few things in the world that could unsettle Mercy quite so abruptly as a Black Letter. Once, it had been a means to an end. A way to serve a purpose. A way to put her unique ‘talents’ to good use. Or so she’d thought. So they’d both thought. Arthur had been there too, right alongside her. Looking for something to help make sense out of so many lifetimes come and gone. And they had done good things back then, thievery and subterfuge aside. They had saved lives in keeping what wasn’t meant for humans out of their hands. But the altruism had eventually turned to something else. Something greedy and wicked that she and Arthur had been bound to regardless of their personal feelings. 

But they had fulfilled their contracts centuries ago. The agency was long disbanded, and the other creatures they’d worked with were long dead, barring perhaps a scant few that had been fae or undead. It simply made no sense. 

Mercy was silent again as Arthur picked up the letter. She tensed, expecting something to happen, but the letter remained quiet. Only when his gaze softened as he turned it towards her did some of that tension ease. Her expression followed suit, softening the tightness around her eyes, but she remained standing once their decision had been made. 

She’d seen Arthur do this thousands of times, and it still never ceased to amaze her. Yet in the countless lifetimes they’d spent together, Mercy had never seen him call forth the flames… and fail. Until today. The thought rested on her tongue that perhaps the letter simply couldn’t be burned. That perhaps whoever was sending it knew Arthur was with her and that he would try to destroy the letter. Perhaps it was simply charmed against phoenix fire. 

But Mercy never got the chance. 

The air she sucked into her lungs burned. Not with fire, but with ice. Mercy frowned deeply at the sensation, but it was so sudden and so frigid that it set off a violent coughing spell that left Mercy gasping for air - both hands braced against Arthur’s desk - before her healing factor kicked in. “Arthur, what -” She coughed again, and her breath rose in a white cloud as the temperature continued to drop. “- what’s happening?”

It was sudden and without warning that the snap-frost hit; sucking the very essence of warmth from the room and layering the windows in a thin striated pattern of ice crystals. It was a blast of energy, too much for his body to cope with and where typically he might’ve been able to absorb it at present it was too much. The overload caused a wrack of shivers to shudder through his frame where he sat his senses fried from the force of sudden adjustment.

The soft flutter of paper falling through the air broke the silence, brushing the wooden floor and vanishing under the desk forgotten for the moment and rather unimportant by most accounts in the moment. These strange bouts of power fluctuations had been growing increasingly more sporadic, first around the house but now any attempt to summon a flame practically short-circuited him for several hours at a time leaving him weak and so very cold.

He shuddered unable to support himself even sitting as he was and half slipped out of the chair, a rag-doll without a spine. Dark eyes slipped shut, eyelashes fluttering in sync with the chatter of his teeth and the rattle of his fingers “I- I-” but nothing more came, dissolving in a short cloud of cold breath.

The sluggish attempt of his supernatural constitution did little to help while attempting to pull himself back into the chair, trying to kickstart an engine that had presently flooded itself. All Arthur could groan, in a deep, grating rasp is “fuck.” 

The black letter was all but forgotten as Mercy watched Arthur start to crumple under the magical blowback of whatever had just gone horribly wrong. Her own breath still rose in a white cloud, but her supernatural healing factor was quickly pushing back at the cold. The same should have happened to Arthur, faster than Mercy honestly, but to her horror, it didn’t. 

“Arthur- Woah! Hey…” She bolted around the desk, trying to catch him before he could crack his skull open. He was trembling so badly that for a moment Mercy thought he was having a seizure. “Sshhh, it’s alright… don’t try to talk...” Then his eyes started to close. “No… no, hey. Ren… Hey! Stay awake…” she said, taking his face in her hands. Gods above, but he was so cold. “Just… don’t move, okay? I’ve got you.” 

She held him close, trying to warm him as best she could until whatever the hell this was passed. She tucked his arms beneath her jacket and sweater as best as she could manage with Arthur barely able to help. Then she pressed her palms to the sides of Arthur’s neck, over the great arteries that pulsed just beneath his half-frozen skin, in an attempt to keep the blood flowing to his head warm. She was shivering a bit herself, but she was still far warmer than Arthur. Though for how long?

Having spent the majority of her 1200 years with Arthur, Mercy knew how to care for all manner of things that had afflicted him over the years. But this was a first. So Mercy was at a loss. Other than trying to keep him warm. She would have to call for help if this didn’t let up. But the list of people she trusted was short. It contained two, maybe three people. Thank the gods she’d locked the door earlier. The last thing they needed was someone walking in right now. Arthur groaned, and Mercy rubbed a hand down his back.

“Where does it hurt?” she asked gently, hoping to keep him focused on staying awake if nothing else.  

As a general rule of thumb, Arthur prided himself on his resilience. The ability to withstand bad things when they happened; riding them out until they reached the other side or at least long enough until a semblance of light shone through. Right now there was naught save the bone-deep chill that had shot through his body in an instant. One moment he could recall being sat at the desk and the next he’d felt so tired and then there was a voice. Familiar yet distant.

The hands felt like searing points of heat against his skin; which itself was covered in a sheen of cold sweat. Too hot. It was too hot and frantically he attempted to push her hands away, writhing and fighting between tremors of his muscles. 

Arthur could swear the room was closing in on him, the walls growing increasingly confined and constricting. Or maybe that was just his airway, it was hard to tell in the mounting panic that was sinking into his current state of consciousness. The air rushing in and out, faster and faster until his head began to spin, every frantic blink causing the room to shift first to an office, then a library, a bar and eventually a dark cell. The sudden shock to his system had him scrambling, reaching for whatever was nearest (Frey’s arm if he had any recollection or understanding in his panic).

Each breath felt more laboured than the last, struggling to fill his lungs as he clawed and gasped. Please. Please. Oh Gods make it stop.

Mercy didn’t understand. She didn’t understand any of it. Other than it was all wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. Only the scar on her hand throbbed and flared as it always did when Arthur was in distress, though the fact brought little comfort.  

She didn’t know her touch was hurting him, and could only assume that in his bleariness he was confused and frightened as he seemed to fight against her hold. But then as suddenly as he’d been trying to push her away, something shifted, and he was grasping for purchase instead. His clawing, scrambling hands seeking anything to hold onto, anything that would hold him steady as the world spun out of control and he started to panic. Sucking in lungfuls of air that would never be enough to satiate his shell-shocked body’s desperate need for oxygen. 

“Breathe, Aren…” Mercy said, holding onto him as best she could without making anything worse. “Breathe for me…” She clasped his hands and pressed them to her chest as she spoke, hoping the deliberately slow  rise and fall of her breathing would help him slow his own. “Breathe in…” Inhale. “Breathe out…” Exhale. Mercy would’ve used her power to try and influence his psychological state, but her Fury magic had never affected him. So she didn’t waste her energy. “Breathe in… breathe out… I’ve got you… you’re safe…” Mercy would repeat the mantra as long as she needed to. As long as it took to bring him back to right. 

The panic was instantaneous as shock began to set in, bewilderment at his own sheer inability to control himself. The room dropped several more degrees as Arthur’s body shuddered. He was left gasping to try and draw in much needed air while utterly unable to stabilise its core temperature that was steadily beginning to creep higher and higher steam rising in the cold air of the room before it would plummet just as quickly as a candle being snuffed out. “W-What’s g-going on?” 

In an instant he was plunged into the memories of a similar time of panic, an alternate dreamscape, a different time - in aid of a friend that had ultimately been for naught. For that friend was long since gone. Yet it was a time that he’d felt water for the very first time without pain, only to realise his inability to swim and almost drowned in the process.

So he clawed and grasped at the only anchor that existed in the moment, the only anchor that had ever existed across all of time until with time his mind began to quieten once more and the white noise began to fade into the rhythmic instructions of a familiar voice. 

Breathe in. 

Breathe out. 

Breathe. 

Several more minutes passed until the room gradually warmed, Arthur’s breathing growing calmer until he could turn his face into her arm. Another full minute came and went before he was wracked with another bout of shivers before weakly attempting to push himself back into a sitting position. “What happened?”

Mercy opened her mouth to tell him… something… anything… that might explain what was happening. But the truth was, Mercy had no idea. As long as they’d known one another, something like this had never happened. Was it the letter? Had trying to burn it caused some… critical disruption of Arthur’s magic? But no… there had been episodes of his powers malfunctioning - for lack of a better term - for a bit now. Whatever it was, it couldn’t continue indefinitely. Mercy’s breath shuddered as the temperature dropped again, but she ignored it. She would be alright, despite the way the cold made the few scars she had ache miserably. As for his question… “We’ll figure it out, I promise… but right now you have to try and breathe, okay?” 

The minutes seemed to stretch into hours until Arthur finally seemed to stabilize. When he was breathing normally again - or as close as he was likely to get at the moment - Mercy fell quiet. She stayed by his side, gently stroking his hair and then pressing a hand to his forehead to check his temperature when he shivered. When he tried to sit up, she gave him a bit of space, but kept a hand on his shoulder to steady him. Again, came his question. This time, Mercy was honest. “I don’t know. You tried to burn the letter, and then...” She frowned, but eventually relayed the short version of what had happened. 

“How d’you feel?” she asked, though it was clear he did not feel great. Not one bit. “Does anything hurt?”

Arthur blinked slowly, his head throbbing with each breath he took to fill his lungs and he rolled his tongue across his teeth, the parchment dry space of his mouth an uncomfortable sensation as he listened to Mercy talk. He wanted a drink and yet the very thought of having anything made him feel like his stomach would turn over on itself. There was little else he could do but sit and try to do as instructed.

“No,” he answered the question after a few moments of silence, his voice cracking when he chose to speak and he had to close his eyes for a moment to fight against the wave of sudden nausea that overcame him. “I-” he shivered again pulling his jacket tighter around his body “cold and sick.” Certainly not fit to stay here, eventually he opened his eyes looking tiredly at Freyja. “can we go home, please?”

Mercy frowned, unable to keep the concern from her expression. That nothing pained him was a small blessing at least. But the fact did nothing for the tight knot of fear that twisted in her gut. Or the helplessness she felt as Arthur shivered, his normally heated skin terrifyingly cold and pale. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him sick or hurt, but this was different. “Of course…” She took off her scarf and tucked it gently around his neck. “Of course we can go home.” 

As she buttoned his jacket so it wouldn’t slip loose, Mercy refused to think about what might happen if he had another episode like this. Or gods forbid… one that was worse. Instead, she turned all her attention to the here and now. To taking Arthur home and making him better. Everything else - the letter, Arthur’s marking, and the growing ache in Mercy’s arm - could wait.

~

[notquitejiraiya]

Chess [29] - {ShikaTema AU}

A long one for you today. Over 5k. I did this instead of my calculus coursework so I hope it’s to everyones taste. Once again, trying to keep it light, and I hope you’re all safe and happy :)

Enjoy!

[READ/COMMENT ON Ao3]

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“What about Chōjūrō?”

“Gaara, please,” Temari groaned, sipping yet another gin as she buried herself into the sofa. She looked over the back of it to her brother, over-stirring his second cup of tea of the evening—as he always did. “He doesn’t need Chōjūrō.”

“He can speak for himself, I think, dear sister.” Gaara turned and frowned slightly. “Do you take sugar in your coffee?”

Shikamaru, from his spot on the rug, shook his head. “And black, please, mate.”

Temari rolled her eyes. “Chōjūrō is no more qualified than me.”

“Exactly.” He stepped over to the pair and leaned down to pass Shikamaru his mug, who nodded a simple thank you. “I thought that might be a good thing.”

“I’m not sure Shikamaru wants to be talking about this at half-twelve in the morning,” she sighed. “I certainly don’t.”

Gaara plopped himself down beside her, cuddling his cup of tea close. “As I said previously, I’m sure he can speak for himself.”

The perfect speed and timing at which the two turned to look at him almost made Shikamaru feel uncomfortable. He felt like he was in a sitcom or something, and wondered if there was some way he could get the show to proceed without him having to say his next line. But suddenly he caught sight of the intent behind their eyes—it wasn’t some kind of persecution or intervention. This was just two, weird members of the same family, who knew each other so well that it was weird to be on the outside, not knowing the intent of every word they said. He didn’t know who they were talking about, but he could easily assume what he did, and thus it didn’t take long to put two and two together to get:

“He’s trying to help, Tem,” said Shikamaru. He shrugged his shoulders and blew gently across the rim of his mug. “Who’s Chōjūrō?”

Temari’s eyes rolled. “He graduated just before me—he’s friends with some of Gaara’s friends,” she told him, begrudgingly. “But Gaara’s just trying to—”

“Help, as your boyfriend rightly said.”

“You know it’s not like that Gaara.”

He’d heard her say it plenty of times—hell, even he had said the same when faced with the terminology—but this was the first time it stung as the words sunk in. Granted, she didn’t look entirely convinced by herself, and Gaara merely smiled and took a drink, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t hard to hear. He was here, at her house, sat with her brother who had just effectively just walked in on something that he would say, in his position, probably looked like a relationship. Hearing that it wasn’t, even though deep down he already knew, hit hard.

Then again, here he was sat on the floor. He could’ve taken the spot on the sofa next to her that was free when he’d pottered downstairs, but he thought against it despite the hug he wanted to encase her in. He’d seen the slightest hint of disappointment in her eyes when he’d sat down, but now he realised: he’d made his bed, and he had to lie in it.

“Like that or not,” Gaara continued, “I was only wondering. Shikamaru, what about my sister do you like?”

Shikamaru raised his eyebrows. “Um…”

“As a professional, I mean. As what she is supposed to be.”

Temari gave him a swift whack to the back of the head, and Gaara chuckled as his tea spilt into his lap. The pair of them started to giggle together, and Shikamaru started to smile along.

It was difficult, at this point, to distinguish what about Temari had made him like her in the first place. Without a doubt, he did like her—this evening had, in fact, established that quite heavily—but the line between therapist and whatever she was to him now had blurred so long ago, he could barely recall. Now, when he looked at her, he could think only of the qualities that he could only assume had made this ‘love’ feeling surface itself, and it was safe to say he didn’t really want those qualities to carry over into the next person who helped him with his mind.

“I don’t know, to be honest.”

The blonde snapped her head to look at him and frowned. “Incorrect answer, Nara.”

Shikamaru chuckled. “Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t think.”

“Think harder.”

He had to purse his lips to keep a laugh spitting out.

“She doesn’t take herself too seriously,” he started, ignoring the affronted expression that covered her face, “and she makes people feel like they’re talking to a friend not a doctor.”

Gaara rolled his eyes. “That’ll be cause she’s not a doctor.”

“I’m closer than you’ll ever be, so shut up.”

Shikamaru shook his head. “She knows her stuff,” he continued, “and she caters to everyone specifically. She saw I was more comfortable talking if it wasn’t all I was doing, so she let me play chess as we talked.” He took a sip of his coffee and cleared his throat. “But most of all she makes you feel like you’re not weird or crazy. She doesn’t make you feel broken, but she just makes you feel like you’re able, with her help, to sort everything out.”

He looked at Temari with a soft smile, and within a moment her eyes started glazing over. It hadn’t crossed his mind even once, that someone in her position might not often hear the good they do summed up like that. He knew from his own experience that as a client he was more likely to express the bad than the good in those plush little rooms. Sure, he assumed the odd little thank you was exchanged, but many people—like himself—weren’t always grateful for the help they were receiving.

Immediately he felt guilty, and wanted to return to that first day he’d met her. On her first day, after she’d told him everyone had already treated her like she was awful, he’d strolled in and done the same. Today, as he looked back at that, he felt like a completely different man. That rude little git who stepped into her office that day had been given a good seeing to, and his attitude hadn’t been trained by medication or techniques for calming—it had been righted by being treated like a person by another who believed he was good. All thanks to her.

Temari rubbed her eyes a little and took another swig of her drink as she whispered a gentle, “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. You treated me like any other person, not just some sick puppy,” he explained aloud, staring deep into her eyes. “Tem, for that, I—”

There was a click, and a shuffling of feet on the doormat, and instantly Shikamaru shut up. He stared at the siblings, who—unbeknownst to them—looked fear-stricken. Temari’s eyes didn’t move from Shikamaru’s for a second as she struggled to form words, and Gaara scrambled to his feet. 

“You guys in?” called Kankuro’s voice, raspy and harsh—or was that Shikamaru’s imagination getting the better of him?

Need to go. Right now.

Temari was still just staring as Shikamaru silently hopped up and grabbed his coat from Gaara’s loose grip.

“You guys? Gaara?”

Oh, fuck, he knows.

The sound of footsteps on the stairs was undeniable. Undeniable, and utterly horrible.

“Kankuro?” said Gaara, calmly, as he scurried over to the top of the stairs. “Weren’t you meant to be staying at Suki’s tonight?” He turned to Shikamaru and mouthed a very animated, “Hide!”

Shikamaru’s mouth fell agape. How was he supposed to hide in a room where the only furniture was in the very centre of the room? Was he supposed to worm his lanky arse into a kitchen cupboard or something?

It didn’t help that Temari was still just staring at him, fumbling for words. He frowned at her helpless eyes, and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, as he took up the least obvious of the few terrible hiding spots available, behind the arm of the sofa furthest from the door. “I’m so sorry.”

“Shut up,” she finally got out, hissing. “He’ll hear you.”

“For fuck’s sake, Tem, my boots are downstairs. He’ll have seen them.”

She took a breath out so shaky he worried she might faint.

This was it. This was the day he died.

“Gaara, is Tem in?”

From the spot he’d picked out, Shikamaru could see Gaara trying his best to block off the top of the stairs, his face gloomy. He pushed his glasses up his nose. “She still doesn’t want to talk to you, brother. Why are you not with your girlfriend?”

Kankuro let out a huff. “Stop with the ‘brother’ thing, okay? I want to talk to her. Please.”

“Kankuro, why are you—”

He was interrupted by his older brother bursting into tears, and Shikamaru watched as Gaara fell back at the weight of his brother overwhelming his small frame. Temari turned her head to look at the pair of them, and Shikamaru saw her shoulders soften. In the instant it took her to turn and show him her saddened eyes, he mouthed a firm, ‘Go.’ She nodded, and ran to her brothers, engulfing Kankuro in a massive hug from the side.

Shikamaru quickly peered over, to see Gaara’s eyes darting from him to the stairs. “Come on,” said the redhead, “come have a cup of tea.”

“I don’t want tea,” Kankuro whined into his brothers shoulder, must like a little boy.

“Well, our sister appears to have drunk us dry of alcohol for now, so—”

Kankuro pulled away from the group hug to look at Temari, and within an instant Shikamaru was hidden behind the sofa once more. He commando crawled around the front as he heard footsteps approach, and tried his best to hold his breath.

“You don’t seem that drunk,” he heard Kankuro say through sniffs. 

“I’m not,” Temari chuckled. “We just didn’t have much left. All we have is whisky and gin. You like neither.”

“I want both.’

Wow, Shikamaru thought to himself, we’ve all been there, man.

After a moment of silence, Temari cut through with a cough and a calm, loving tone. “Why don’t you and Gaara go sit down in your room, and I’ll bring you some stuff down and we can talk about whatever’s made you upset. Ok?”

“Okay,” Shikamaru heard him say, feebly. “I love you, Tem.”

“I love you, too. Now go cuddle up in bed.” There were footsteps. “Go sit with him,” she added, presumably to Gaara, before more footsteps joined in, eventually fading into silence.

Shikamaru let out a mighty sigh and rolled over onto his back. “That was close,” he whispered.

She didn’t reply. 

“I thought you two weren’t getting along?”

“Yeah, well, he’s my brother,” she sighed, leaning over the back of the sofa and looking down at him. “He needs us.”

He nodded, smiling, and swiftly got to his feet, brushing the lint from his jeans. “I guess I better scoot.”

“Scoot doesn’t suit you.”

He chuckled quietly. “It doesn’t, does it?”

Temari looked to her feet before looking up at him with a sigh. She didn’t look upset, or downtrodden—she didn’t even look desperate like she had earlier in the night. Frankly, she just looked strange, confused, and he had no clue why.

“I’m off then,” he whispered, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket and backing slowly towards the stairs. “I’ll go quietly, don’t worry.”

She nodded and shuffled towards the bottles still littering the kitchen side. “He interrupted what you were saying.”

“What?”

“Shh, he hears almost everything down there!”

Shikamaru cleared his throat quietly, blushing slightly. “Sorry,” he whispered. “But interrupted what?”

“You were talking about what I did for you,” she mumbled, measuring out a shot of whisky. “Kankuro coming in kind of cut off what you were saying. What were you going to say to me?”

For a while he froze. Or, at least, it felt like a while. In reality it was likely no longer than ten seconds, but ten seconds of silence while the woman you love stares at you with sad, concerned eyes feels like it goes on forever—especially when there’s no answer to her question. What Shikamaru wanted to do was walk up to her, pull her into the most honest kiss, and tell her how much he cared. He wanted to tell her not to worry—he wouldn’t leave he’d just wait upstairs for her and they could talk to Kankuro eventually.

But he didn’t. Shikamaru scoffed and rubbed the back of his neck. He shook his head and muttered, “Nah, it’s nothing—I’ll tell you another time.” He raised his eyebrows. “Some other time your psychotic brother won’t hear me?”

Reluctantly, the corners of Temari’s mouth pulled up into a smile. “He’s not psychotic.”

“Your calm brother told me to hide and go…”

“True.” She chuckled, and poured the last of the gin into her half-finished glass. “I’ll call you, if you’d like.”

Shikamaru smiled warmly, and tip-toed down the stairs, leaving her alone with her gin, his unfinished coffee, and an almost full bottle of whisky. With her glass and the bottle in hand, she stepped closer to the window and stared outside into the gloomy night. All of a sudden, out from the front door he scampered, huddled in his hoodless coat and his boots in one hand.

“Oh, you utter moron…”

Her eyes followed the figure who’s flailed about in the wind as he weaved between puddles up the pathway onto the pavement. The streetlights would go out soon, and he’d be stuck walking home in the rain and the darkness. She wished she’d asked him to stay—to hide upstairs until early in the morning when he could make his escape. She didn’t want him to be alone out there, letting his socks get soggy to save her arse.

She waited to see if he’d turn and look up at her window—if he’d remember which window on this terrace of identical houses she’d be stood at, if any. She didn’t expect him to, she expected him to power through the rain or stop to throw on his boots. But, out of nowhere, he turned and started to walk backwards, a dumb smirk on his lips so clear she could see it from so far away. He raised his hand in recognition, and waited for her to return the gesture before huddling back into himself and continuing on.

“Tem?” she heard Kankuro call out. “You coming?”

Shikamaru shot back one final glance from halfway up the road and stuck up his middle finger to the sky.

“Yeah!” she shouted back, holding back a giggle. “Just coming!”

~~~

Shikamaru sighed as he hopped up the final kerb of his trek to work, exhaling a large cloud of smoke into the face of a stranger with a wave of apology as he hurried on. Desperate to avoid his gaze, he whipped his vibrating phone out of his coat pocket and read the notification:

Gaara: Chōjūrō just texted me. He said he spoke to you on the phone a moment ago?

He sighed. Of course, he would rather the message not be from Gaara, but rather his sister. After all it had been Temari he had been waiting for a call from since he’d got home the other night. Over twenty-four hours and nothing from her was weird to say the least, but he was trying his best not to worry about the situation too much. After all, Gaara was texting him, unworried by it all.

Not that that really made him feel any better about not speaking to her.

—> He did. Booked in for Wed

He immediately felt like he sounded ungrateful, and added:

—> Seems a nice bloke. Cheers for helping me find him

Gaara: My pleasure, I appreciate you accepting the offer. I’m sure he will help you. See you shortly!

Shikamaru shoved the phone into his pocket, well aware he was currently two minutes late for his shift, and chuckled at the tone of Gaara’s texts. It was like texting his mother—not frustrating, just very awkward.

He missed texting Temari, and the way that after a single text she would often get fed up and just call him cause the waiting around for replies just ‘took too long’. He was grateful for what Gaara had done for him in giving him a number to call, but there was no denying that he was disappointed.

“Shikamaru!”

His head shot up to see Chōji at the far end of the high street, waving his arms like a lunatic to attract attention. Shikamaru watched him jog—pathetically, but he wasn’t really one to judge—to meet him as he drew to a halt outside the Yamanaka Flower Shop.

“Oh, Christ, what’re you doing here?”

“My ma ordered some stuff, so I’m here to grab it.” Chōji smirked. “How goes things?”

Shikamaru shrugged, taking a long drag as he rolled his eyes. “‘Things’ go fine.”

“Come on—details, man.”

Throwing open the door, over the bell chiming loudly, Shikamaru called out, “Can’t work Wednesday morning, Ino.”

She popped up from the corner of the store. “What?”

He didn’t answer; just took one final puff and put out the butt on the threshold before shuffling in.  

Ino lunged out from behind the counter and reached to brush the ash that lingered on the wood to the floor. “If I see you do that one more time, Shikamaru,” Ino hissed, “I’m going to kill you.”

Shikamaru watched her prod the three dark spots on the wood and shook his head, before effortlessly turning back to his best friend with a shrug. “I’ve got no details to give, mate.”

“Details on what?” Ino let the door fall shut with a frown. The bell sounded again. “What’ve you done?”

Chōji perched himself on the staircase, eyes following his friend’s ascent. “Liar,” he called up, as Shikamaru disappeared upstairs.

“Details on what, Chōji?”

The pair, torturously, heard Shikamaru’s nonchalant chuckle echo down the stairs. “I’ve got nothing,” he told them. “Literally—I’ve spoken more to her brother than I have her since I last saw you.”

Chōji nearly fell from the second step as Shikamaru peered his usual emotionless eyes round the top of the staircase. “Her brother?”

He nodded, and in tandem the other two snapped their necks towards the carpenter’s across the street. He watched as Ino dashed to the window, peering around a bundle of bright white chrysanthemums, and chuckled at the pair squinting as they clearly tried to spot Kankuro. Despite her efforts, however, Ino didn’t seem to spot him and kept staring, face almost flush against the glass as she asked: “Doesn’t he want you dead?”

“The other one,” he answered, plodding down the stairs, creased up apron in hand.

“But why?”

Shikamaru scrunched up his nose a little at Chōji and shrugged. “He recommended someone else for me to see. Just exchanging numbers and stuff.”

“But you’re seeing his sister, aren’t you?”

“He obviously means a therapist, Chōji,” Ino groaned, turning back to face the two of them for a moment before facing the window once more, like a mirror. “Does my hair look stupid? My dad said that two braids looks cute, but do you not think I look about ten with them?”

Chōji didn’t seem to be listening, but stood up, out of Shikamaru’s way and sidestepped closer to Ino. “Has he told you he went to see Kurenai Sarutobi yet?”

“Mr Sarutobi’s wife?” Ino spun around, her plaits whipping Chōji in the neck. “No, you didn’t. No way—that’s where you were on Saturday?”

Shikamaru hopped off the final step, throwing his apron on, and frowned. “Chōji, man, shut it.”

The blonde followed him, a shadow on his way to the service counter. “Why did you do that?”

“It was Temari’s idea.”

“Oh, of course it was.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, backing away behind the counter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ino shrugged, twirling one of her braids around her index finger. “It just means that you just go along with anything,” she said. “You do everything your therapist girlfriend tells you to—”

It was safe to say having this conversation was becoming more than just a little tiresome at this point. “She’s not my therapist anymore,” he groaned, eyes rolling to the back of his head. “Nor is she my girlfriend.”

Chōji chuckled from the bottom of the stairs, shuffling towards the two of them. “Oh, shut up. You still do whatever she says.”

“I don’t.”

“You do,” Ino insisted. She hopped up onto the counter, sitting crossed legged between the two men. “She’s got right into your head, Shikamaru; you’re just too tangled up inside the whole thing that you can’t see it.”

“What happened to you cheering them on?”

“I am, Chōji, but isn’t that a little far? Going to her house?”

Chōji shrugged and held out his hands, clearly at a loss. “You should’ve seen him the other night—the man was basically flying.”

“Well, do you see him ‘flying’ now? Look at him.”

She pointed to him, and Shikamaru suddenly scrutinised: her finger looming closer to his face and two pairs of eyes firmly fixed on his expression as it shifted from uncaring to agitated. He shook his head as he looked away from Ino’s condescending stare to Chōji’s dark, apologetic eyes. He shrugged a little and Shikamaru couldn’t stop letting out a bitter spit of laugher, directing his gaze back to Ino.

“Finished yet, madam?”

Ino smirked and shook her head. “Looking firmly on the ground to me, Chōji,” she said triumphantly. “He’s the same asshole as always.”

“Well,” Chōji argued, resting his elbows on the desk, “she obviously hasn’t called him yet, so—”

“So, what?” Ino nudged Shikamaru with a mischievous grin. “When did you last speak to her?”

Shikamaru checked his watch and slumped behind the desk, looking up at the looming woman as he felt around for the plastic measuring pot he’d left there last week. “After I left hers.”

The blonde’s jaw dropped, and she had to contain her giggles. “You went in?”

He looked away. “Have you moved the measuring pot again, Ino?”

“You slept with her?”

A snort came from across the desk, and Shikamaru peered over at Chōji, finally grabbing a handful of muddy plastic.

“Again, you mean,” he jeered.

Shikamaru let his forehead fall, bashing against the wood.  “Chōji! Seriously, man? Why?”

Ino’s eyes widened. “You mean this wasn’t the first…” The laugh in her voice was unbearable. “Shikamaru what is wrong with you?”

He wanted to push her right off that counter as he got to his feet. “Oh, would you just give it a rest, Ino?”

Clearly her hearing was very selective. “Have you considered she might be using you for sex?”

He rolled his eyes, stepped back, and reached into one of the two large tubs behind him to begin scooping four litres soil into a cardboard carton. “She is not using me for sex.”

“’Course not—he’s not nearly good enough at it for that,” Chōji grinned.

Shikamaru’s shoulders started to tremble as he held back laughter. “Would you just fuck off?” he scoffed.

The other man tried his best to keep a straight face cocked his head to one side. “Ino,” he tried calmly, “you seriously should’ve seen them Saturday night. They get on like a house on—”

Ino sighed and fiddled with the laces of her Chucks mindlessly. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “It’s all well and good joking about, but I just don’t want him to be dealt another shitty hand. That’s all.”

Chōji nudged, forcing her to break out into a smile once more. “Don’t say sorry to me,” he chuckled. “If you can’t be positive, how will he—” He nodded towards Shikamaru, who was wrestling with the cardboard lid. “—ever be positive, eh?”

Ino shook her head at the jet black baby hairs falling out the back of his ponytail. “I don’t want to see my boys get hurt.”

Shikamaru tutted, craning his neck to look her in the eye. “We’re not, and never have been, your boys.”

“You totally are,” she smirked.

He turned and scribbled something on top of the now full carton of soil, placing it carefully on the service counter. “She is a good person,” he said calmly. “Far better than me, than anyone—trust me.”

Chōji smiled. “We get it, man, you don’t have to prove—”

“Choj,” he gulped, twiddling his pen between his fingertips as a small smile formed on his lips. “I think I might love her.”

The bell rang, and while Ino would usually have hopped to attention, desperate to appease each and every customer, neither her or Chōji were quite able to process the words that had just fallen from their friend’s lips. Never had he said anything with such sincerity that held as much weight as that. She didn’t even budge from her unprofessional position on the desk when the customer edged closer.

“Hi, Shikamaru,” he said, smiling fondly, and immediately she recognised the voice.

A young man, surely about the same age as them, moved into her view, tapping his fingers on the wood. His hair burned red—the sort of impossibly bright box-dye red Ino had begged her mother for in her early teenage years but never received—and his eyes were perfectly lined with eyeliner, with far more talent than she herself possessed. As her eyes drifted from his upwards, she momentarily forgot about what her friend had just said.

Now that only one of his friends were staring at him like he’d committed a crime most unforgivable, Shikamaru tried to ignore the remaining look Chōji was giving him and pushed the soil carton across to Gaara. “There you go, man,” he smiled warmly, replicating what he saw as best he could. “Four litres, right?”

“Perfect, thank you very much.” Gaara watched as Shikamaru poked and prodded the cash register. “Her phone is dead, by the way. If you wondered about the radio silence.”

Shikamaru frowned at the till. “Dead?”

Gaara nodded. “They’ve gone down to see our godfather for a few nights. She left charger behind by accident.”

“Baki?” he asked, turning his head slightly, and watching for another nod to answer him. It did. “It’s cool, man. Most people get homesick when things go tits up.”

He nodded once more. “I suppose we do.”

Shikamaru rubbed the back of his neck, and bit down on his lip. “Can I ask…” He paused. “Why aren’t you with them?”

“I had classes I couldn’t miss.” He chuckled, lifting the carton with a grunt. “And, besides, I wanted my soil.”

As Chōji finally registered the presence of another human being, and pleasantly said hello—the barman was recognised as soon as he spoke, and Gaara greeted him with only warmth—Shikamaru fished a five pound note from the pocket of his jeans, tucking it neatly into the till. “On the house.”

“Oh, no,” Gaara sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Shikamaru, I can’t let you—”

“Listen, you’ve been good to me when you didn’t have to even be civil,” he shrugged, dusting crumbs of dirt from his chest. “Just take the soil, man. Please?”

As he took a small step back, Gaara mouthed a solemn, “Thank you.” He turned, simply to be polite, to his left and caught sight of the name badge on Ino’s apron before her eyes, and shot her a smile. “My name is Gaara—I believed we spoke on the phone last week.”

She looked totally taken aback, but slowly formed a smile and nodded. “We did. It’s good to put an, um…a face to the voice, I guess.”

Gaara nodded, looking between the three friends fondly. “I’m sure I’ll see you soon, all of you. I’ll definitely be back—both to the pub and here,” he chuckled.

“Sure, man,” Chōji said with a wave. “See you around.”

“Yeah,” Ino managed, eyes following him, her neck twisting until she heard the door opening, the bell chiming.

Shikamaru rubbed the back of his neck with a sigh before letting his elbows fall to the desk.

“Shikamaru?”

He rose with a start, staring into Gaara’s bright eyes at the door. “Yeah?”

“Please don’t be disheartened,” he urged, adjusting the box in his arms. “She wants to talk to you, I’m sure, but she can’t risk texting you on Kankuro’s ph—”

Shikamaru smiled, giving him a firm nod and letting his elbows back down into his slouch. “Mate, it’s okay—don’t worry.”

Gaara nodded, and with one final expression of gratitude gracing his lips, the bell sounded, and he was gone. This, of course, meant Shikamaru was thrown back to the two wolves that stared him down from their positions either side of him.

“So…” Chōji started, clearly unable to comprehend the escalation of the morning so far.

“Yes, that was her brother,” Shikamaru said, filled with hope that would keep them silent. “Shut up.”

But they just kept staring at him, and it was difficult to decide who’s eyes were less intimidating. Though, he had to admit, something had changed in Ino’s expression in the time Gaara had been here—the concern had subsided, and something else had come to the forefront which made her look a hundred times more confused. Chōji, however, still had that terrified happiness in his face—the little smirk and mischievous tint in the rosiness of his cheeks—which told Shikamaru he hadn’t forgotten.

His was the stare to worry about. Happier, yes, but his intent was clear, and he wasn’t ready to talk about this yet; whether that was seriously or in jest. More than anything, he wished he hadn’t mentioned that terrible l-word at all.

“Chōji,” he tried, desperate to pry him away from the question that lingered in his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that—you’ve met him before.”

Ino raised her finger, and the both of them looked at her instantly. “Why didn’t he have eyebrows?”

Shikamaru scoffed, frowning as she turned to Chōji. “What?”

“I said, why didn’t he have eyebrows?” She spun towards him, turning dangling her legs off the edge of the counter, swinging them like a child. 

“Ino, really?

She frowned. “Did you not see them?”

“Are we really going to ignore what Shikamaru said before?” Chōji laughed, extending a dumbfounded arm in exasperation. “We’re complaining about a guy not having eyebrows?”

“It’s not a complaint,” she said, far too enthusiastically, “he’s actually a really pretty guy…”

Shikamaru threw his head back with a sigh with an antagonising mixture of gratitude and irritation. “Ino, please stop…”

The blonde jumped off the edge of the counter, leaping a lot further than Shikamaru expected and forcing him to back into the pots of soil behind him. “But has he shaved them off? Burned them off?” She hopped closer and pointed at her own. “Look at mine, Shikamaru. Look!”

He cleared his throat as he ducked his head further away from her. “Very nice.”

“I know,” she sneered, edging slightly closer, “but that isn’t what I mean. I shave the tails of mine off to draw them better, do you see?”

“I see.” He didn’t see.

“But he literally had nothing—not even drawn on.” She stepped back, crossed her arms, and looked from him to Chōji. “Why?”

Shikamaru skirted round to the other side of the desk, making a beeline for the other side of the room. “I don’t know, Ino. I didn’t even notice until you said so.” He grabbed the bannister at the foot of the stairs and raised his eyebrows—now painfully aware of their existence for the first time in his life. “What exactly do you want me to do about it? Text him for you?”

She nodded, almost without control.

“Yeah, I’m definitely not doing that,” he scoffed.

“What? Why offer then?”

Chōji coughed, and Shikamaru noticed he was still giving him that same shocked look. “Reckon he was joking, don’t you, Ino?”

“Obviously,” he sighed, biting his lip.

As he weaved his fingertips into his pocket, Shikamaru considered asking Chōji outside to chat but he knew that no matter what, he’d be interrupted by Ino. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, nor that she wasn’t his friend also—he did and she was. But it was his longest, firmest friend who’s eyes held such worry, and it was his word that Shikamaru felt would be most genuine. It was his opinion that he wanted to hear.

But for some reason, the embarrassment he felt for blurting it out so casually was still gripping him—controlling him—and he had nothing but an overwhelming desire to get away from the both of them. Ino would still be here for the next three hours, but she was already far too focused on the hot topic of Gaara’s facial features to be too much of an annoyance. Chōji however, had somewhere to be, and he didn’t have to stay.

“Get Chōji his order, would you?” he asked Ino, finally tearing his smokes from his pocket. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

“You just had one,” she huffed. “You’ve barely even been here ten minutes!”

“What’re you gonna do?” Shikamaru chuckled, balancing a cigarette between his lips. “Fire me?”

He didn’t listen to her grumble, only to the bell chiming as he opened and closed the door. His eyes drifted across the road to a shop empty of customers and definitely empty of Kankuro. As he sat down on the bench outside and felt the heat of his lighter flash across his chin, he wished he could ring Temari and brag about how much Gaara seemed to like him, for the simple reason he knew it would annoy her.

“Lay it on thick, why don’t you?” he could just hear her saying. Oh, he would, most definitely, but after that came the stark contrast of Kankuro. Shikamaru couldn’t quite pin what it was the man loathed so much about him, after all they knew nothing about each other barring what Temari must’ve said. He wondered what might have upset such a brutal character as Kankuro, but more than that he hoped he was alright—that Temari was, too. As he stared over at the empty shop he realised, for the first time, there was nothing he was going to be able to do to make the man like him. She liked him, that’s what mattered most, and Gaara even respected him, too.

“Two out of three ain’t bad,” he muttered to himself, slouching, but that didn’t mean he didn’t still yearn for two to become three.

[finnigan-arc]

FULL NAME: Seamus Finnigan

FACE CLAIM: Tarjei Sandvik Moe

AGE: 21

GENDER & PRONOUNS: Male, he/him.

SECOND PREFERENCE: Not really interested in anyone else atm, haha.

OCCUPATION: Part-time help at the Hog’s Head.

SEXUALITY: Homosexual

AMORTENTIA: Fresh dirt, cigarettes, shepard’s pie.

BOGGART: Banshee

CURRENT POLITICAL POSITION:

Seamus is feeling conflicted at the moment. On one hand, he still harbors a lot of hatred for the Death Eaters and all who aided them, and very much wants to see them brought to justice. On the other, the events of the war and his experience at Hogwarts during Snape’s reign has left him deeply distrustful of, and aggressive towards, any form of authority or group of people considering themselves to be the “good guys”. Part of him remains loyal to Dumbledore’s Army, and another part of him resents what, in his opinion, a group of purebloods put halfbloods and muggleborns through in their desire to play hero. In summary, I’d say he belongs to the New Order but is questioning his belonging there.

REASON FOR REDEMPTION:

Seamus has been struggling with a lot of anger since the war, and has become unsure of his belonging in the magical world altogether.

PERSONALITY TRAITS: (+,-)

+ Outgoing — Seamus has never had a problem with shyness, that’s for sure. He’s able to make conversation with just about anyone (whether or not they’re left with a good impression of him, however, is another matter entirely).

+ Determined — When Seamus decides he cares about someone, he’ll stick with them even being all logic and reason. When he makes up his mind to do something, he stops at nothing to get it done. He knows what he’s about, and he sticks to it.

+ Adventurous — When the opportunity for a good time or a cool story presents itself, Seamus doesn’t hesitate to accept. He’s willing to take on more than his fair share of risk, and after all, it usually turns out okay in the end.

- Volatile — Seamus doesn’t always have proportionate reactions to things. He can be quick to anger, but also quick to sadness, quick to joy, or quick to excitement. He’s also particularly bad at hiding his emotions, no matter how much he wishes he would have a better poker face.

- Irresponsible — Seamus will be the first to tell you he’s not the best at making good decisions. And as determined as he can be about his own decisions, he’s not usually worried about taking care of traditional responsibilities, which he tends to avoid with a passion.

- Cruel — Whether through his carelessness, his desire to stir up trouble for the occasional amusement of it, or his honest-to-god cruel streak, Seamus has been known to hurt those around him.

HEADCANONS:

— Seamus’s parents had him very young, and, as he used to be fond of saying, he’s half-and-half. The stress of a muggle-magical marriage, and his father’s resentment of such a secret being kept until after marriage, led to them splitting up when Seamus was a small child. He spend almost all of his childhood just him and his mother, and barely knows his dad. He’s considering getting to know him more now, but, like a lot of things, Seamus is still harboring a lot of anger over the situation.

(I’d like to change the skeleton so Seamus’s mother is still alive if that’s okay. I have some plot ideas that require her around haha.)

— Seamus’s favorite subject in school was transfiguration. You wouldn’t know it to look at his marks (worst in his year Gryffindors, in most subjects!), but he was actually pretty good at the practical coursework. The long essays McGonagall used to set, as well of the difficult exams, were another matter entirely. Seamus has had rather explosive, uncontrollable magic his whole life, which has gotten him into some trouble more than once. But something about the precise, focused control required in the subject gives him more powerful magical results than he’s typically used to.

— When they were fourteen, Dean came to stay with Seamus in Ireland in preparation of attending the Quidditch World Cup. One day while his mother was at work, Seamus talked Dean into taking the family car for a joyride into the big city, where they spent the day. Amazingly, they got away with it.

— After the war, Seamus began hanging out in the Hog’s Head, doing (more than a little) drinking. Eventually, he managed to talk Aberforth into letting him help out a bit at the Inn, including introducing a very limited menu which excercises Seamus’s newfound interest in cooking. Besides Aberforth, he’s developed a few new friendships with some of the other regulars, including Winky who sometimes visit when she’s looking for something a little stronger than what the Hogwarts kitchen has to offer.

CONNECTIONS:

⚔ Dean Thomas: best friends

Within the first few weeks of their Hogwarts careers, Dean and Seamus had become best friends and have been ever since. There’s no one in the world Seamus would rather spend time with, and no one he feels understands him better, than Dean. But their vastly different experiences during the last year of the war seems to have driven some sort of wedge between them — try as Seamus might to pretend it doesn’t exist.

⚔ George Weasley: close friends

Seamus knew George a bit during school, but he’s gotten to know the man even more since the war. He likes George, and considers him in some ways to have a lot of the best qualities of Ginny (who he also considers a good friend) with none of the baggage of the worst year of his life that comes with the former students who were with him in the revamped Dumbledore’s Army.

⚔ Roderick Flint: suspicious of

Roderick has many of what Seamus considers to be the worst qualities in a person: pureblood, wealthy, Slytherin. He doesn’t know much of the man, as they’ve never run in similar circles or been involved in similar activities, but he can’t imagine anything good about him.

⚔ Gregory Goyle: annoyed by

The nice thing about Goyle, if there was such a thing, is that Seamus has always understood exactly the sort of person he was. The worst thing about Goyle was everything else.

ANYTHING ELSE: Not atm!

[kabhinakabhi001-blog]

How I started my own successful YouTube channel reviewing tech products

To do a viral video, buy software from here.

Get it now

CNBC’s “College Voices 2020” is a series written by CNBC summer interns from universities across the country about coming of age, launching new careers, and job hunting during a global pandemic. They’re finding their voices during a time of great social change and hope for a better future. What money issues are they facing? How are they navigating their student loans? How are they getting work experience, networking, and applying for jobs when so many opportunities have been canceled or postponed? How important are diversity and a company’s values to Gen Z job seekers?

Covid-19 has rocked the economy in ways this world has never seen. Many people have found their lives turned upside-down, including students. I know right now a lot of students are finding themselves in challenging situations. Many are stuck at home, have lost a summer internship, or can’t find a job. However, even if the path ahead is not clear right now, it’s important to remember there is always something you can do to move forward — even when you’re stuck at home!

To do a viral video, buy software from here.

Jennifer Frick, a career consultant in the Career & Professional Development Center at Carnegie Mellon University, suggests using this as an opportunity for students to focus on their professional development. There are many ways for students to go about this. Students can:

Do remote research or coursework to get ahead on their studies. A good resource for this is LinkedIn Learning.

Write a blog on a topic you’re passionate about — so you become an expert yourself, instead of waiting for someone to offer you a chance to become an expert.

Start a YouTube channel on something you find interesting or enjoyable.

Contribute freelance articles to online publications.

Network in online forums for topics you’re passionate about.

For me, the choice was a YouTube channel. I decided when I was a sophomore in high school to make my own path — and not wait for something to be handed to me in college or beyond.

Where to begin - Get it now

I’ve always been fascinated by consumer technology. Ever since I was a little kid, I would get extremely excited whenever a new phone or tablet was released, and I would do just about anything I could to get time to interact with them. So the idea to start a YouTube channel where I get to explore all the latest in consumer technology and review it for others to see and learn about, came naturally to me. Especially after seeing other fellow tech enthusiasts like Marques Brownlee and Unbox Therapy find so much success on the platform.

The catalyst was a new printer I received that year as a holiday present. I thought this would be a perfect time to start a YouTube channel where I could talk about the printer and about another future tech I might receive. So I popped up my phone, sat down on my bedroom floor, and walked through the unboxing and setup of this Brother MFC-J450DW printer. You could definitely tell I was a newbie!

More From Invest in You: It’s a tough outlook for graduates in the Class of 2020Job hunting amid the coronavirus pandemic: How to network … from your couchHere’s what one resourceful grad is doing to find work in this tough job market

But the more I worked at it, the better I got at making my videos. I saved up money from various little jobs and birthday presents and bought myself new tech to unbox for the channel. I started to get more and more interested in the production aspect of making these videos and would challenge myself to make each new video better looking and more engaging than the last. I watched hours of YouTube tutorials on lighting, sound, editing, and storytelling to try to consistently improve upon my craft. Not only did this allow me to improve my videos, but it also let me build up valuable expertise and experience in the process.

To do a viral video, buy software from here.

At the same time I improved my production skills, I also improved my SEO (search engine optimization) abilities. I would consistently study analytics YouTube provided me on my audience. I learned that the vast majority of the people watching my videos were men between 20 and 34 years old, so I started finding products and video ideas that would better suit that demographic’s interests. As I did this, I noticed my organic traffic from YouTube’s recommendations began to grow. I continued to refine and optimize my videos to garner as much organic traffic as possible.

I finally knew I was on to something after I made an unboxing video of the iPhone 7 that got 100,000 views in the first month it was life! I kept creating more and more content over time, and I’ve been fortunate to have a few videos perform really well on YouTube’s platform. I was super excited when last summer, just 5 years after I started the channel, I hit the 10,000 subscriber milestone.

Ben Boxer in Paris, France, vlogging during his semester studying abroad.

Source: Anthony Aldana

Not only am I doing something I love, but my YouTube channel has acted as a sort of living portfolio of my work, and has been a major factor in me getting into my dream university, landing an amazing first internship, and acquiring my first video clients when I started my own production company, Boxer Video Productions.

Extra income

My YouTube channel has also acted as a form of passive income which has given me the flexibility to focus on my studies and other hobbies like music, without having to worry so much about acquiring work to fund the channel. After years of building up YouTube ad revenue, sponsorships, and generating Amazon affiliate links, my channel now pulls in about $15,000 per year that I use to cover the cost of the products I review in the videos as well as reinvest into building an arsenal of film gear that I use to make even more videos for the channel and for my company’s clients.

The mechanics behind starting something like this was quite simple and is really a repeatable process for any starting YouTuber. I simply:

Figured out what I was passionate about and wanted to make content around — new technology.

Set up accounts with YouTube, Amazon Affiliates, and AdSense.

Ordered an affordable tripod to start filming videos with my phone (This is a good one for beginners).

Learned to edit in iMovie (a free piece of editing software included with Mac) through the plethora of free tutorials available on YouTube.

Shared new videos with my friends and family to get in some initial views, which helped the algorithm pick up my videos and share it with a larger audience.

Placed Amazon Affiliate links for the products I talked about in the description of the video to generate some income that would fund future videos.

To do a viral video, buy software from here.

It wasn’t until I got really comfortable with this starting setup that I slowly expanded into buying more professional film gear and experimenting with different editing techniques. It was a process that took time, persistence, and dedication. It didn’t happen overnight.

The point of all of this is not: “You should go start a channel like I did.” What I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t wait for someone to hand you an opportunity. And there is no age limit on when you can start! Don’t overthink it. Find something that interests you and just jump in. If it doesn’t work out or you don’t like it — you can stop anytime. Trying new things and learning in the process is valuable in and of itself. Whatever it is that you decide to do, you never know where it will lead you in the future! At the very least, you have some experience for your resume that you can talk about in a job interview. And it shows you have initiative. That will set you apart from other candidates — and it just might land you a fantastic job.

[snarkysims]

Narrated by Shonice Armstrong

I was still fuming over my earlier conversation with Scarlett as Jin-Sang and I got ready for bed. I hadn’t shared with him what Scarlett had said, because I knew my man would catch a cab over to their apartment and have words with Andreas. Scarlett and I were close, so our boyfriends tolerated each other for our sakes...barely. Andreas said if Jin-Sang were any more animated, he’d be a cartoon character. I can’t even repeat what Jin-Sang said he’d rather do than hold a conversation with Andreas. I’ll just say it involves tweezers and hair, and he wasn’t talking about the hair on his face or head! I knew there would be no love lost between them if Jin-Sang blew up at Andreas, but I didn’t want to put a strain on my friendship with Scarlett.

Jin-Sang had been quiet the past couple of days which wasn’t like him. I love my man with all my heart, but even I feel like he needs an Off switch at times. However, this serious, focused version of him was new territory, and I missed his jovial personality. He was working on his first cases at Social Services, and he was throwing himself into them completely. He was taking calls from his clients at all hours of the day and poring over documents on standards and guidelines at night. On top of all that, he had his coursework to complete as well. He was definitely in save-the-world mode as many people are on their first job, but I was worried he was going to burn himself out. I desperately wished I could talk to him about his work in order to relieve his stress.

He, Jonathan, and I had grown accustomed to eating our meals together, and we rather enjoyed it. None of us had grown up with the traditional sit-down family meal. My parents and Jonathan’s dad had always been too busy, and of course Jin-Sang grew up without his parents at all. During our meals, we’d often discuss our days and bounce problems off each other, so it was ironic that all three of us were now in fields where confidentiality was paramount. We had agreed it was best not to discuss work at all so that we wouldn’t risk committing an ethical violation. Still, I sensed something about work had to be eating at Jin-Sang, and it was frustrating not being able to ask him about it. 

My mind was conjuring up different scenarios, so I was startled when he looked over at me and said, “Baby, I need to talk to you about our marriage. It’s important."

His voice was low and flat. It completely lacked his normal boisterous inflection. I could feel my pulse quicken as my mind raced with thoughts. We had only begun seriously talking about marriage a few days ago when we went out to celebrate our third anniversary. Was he already getting cold feet? Did I do something? Was Andreas right? Was Jin-Sang having second thoughts about Ashanti? Did he want to break up with me?

I didn’t answer him, so he continued. “These cases I’m working on are effing with my mind. They’re stirring up feelings that I thought I had buried a long time ago.”

“Feelings about?”

“My parents.”

I looked over at him sharply. I had been concerned his line of work would lead him to think about his parents, but I wasn’t seeing the connection between his parents and our getting married. Jin-Sang didn’t talk about his parents much. He’d told me all about them freshman year. We were both night owls, and we would often stay up late watching TV in the common room while our dorm mates slept...or engaged in other bedroom activities, as in Jonathan and Jerilene’s case. Soon, our late night TV watching led to long conversations about ourselves. Through these conversations, I formed a connection with Jin-Sang that I didn’t have with Mark whom I was sort of seeing at the time. Jin-Sang became my best friend and eventually my soulmate. 

Jin-Sang kissed my forehead and gave me a reassuring smile. “Don’t freak out, baby. I can see your wheels spinning a mile a minute. It’s all good. We’re good. There’s something I’ve been considering for a while now, and working on these cases has made it clear to me. When we get married, I want to take your last name.”

Relief washed over me. He did still want to get married! “Are you sure? Your name is your last connection to your family.”

He shook his head vehemently. “No, it’s my last connection to the people who donated their DNA to me. They threw me away, so why should I hang on to their name? You are my family, and wherever you are is my home, so I want your name.”

Jin-Sang’s voice broke near the end of his statement. He didn’t get vulnerable often. In all of the time that he’d been my friend and lover, I’d never seen him cry. Even when he had talked about his parents in the past, he’d managed to maintain a level of cold indifference towards them. Seeing this little bit of emotion from him made my heart melt. And it did things to other parts of me as well. I ran my fingers through his spiky, black hair. “Oh, baby, I can tell this is important to you.”

“It is.” He reached for the hand that had been caressing his hair and brought it to his lips. He kissed the palm and then held it to his heart.  “Are you okay with this?” My heart was still melting at his tender gesture. Jin-Sang would deny it, but I could tell Jonathan’s romantic nature was rubbing off on him. I liked it. A lot.

“Well, I have to confess. I did like the sound of ‘Shonice Armstrong-Lee, Attorney at Law.’”

Jin-Sang chuckled. “It does have a nice ring to it. I’ll give you that.”

My eyes lit up. “Hey, why don’t you become Armstrong-Lee too? And our kids could have that name as well.”

I caught a hopeful glimmer in his eyes at my mention of kids, but then he looked at me with a wry smile. “Baby, think that one through for a minute.”

Realization quickly dawned on me, and I felt silly. “Sorry. I suppose having both of your names hyphenated is asking too much, isn’t it?”

“Way too much. I love you, woman, and I’d do just about anything for you.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “Except that.”

“Okay, point taken. I’d be honored for you to have my last name then. Jin-Sang Armstrong it is. Wow, that’s really going to take some getting used to.”

“You’ve got a lifetime.” He pulled me closer to him and kissed me on the temple. He held me for a few minutes, and we didn’t say anything. We just enjoyed each other’s company. 

After another moment, Jin-Sang squeezed me again. “So, that was pretty romantic what I said a few minutes ago, huh?”

I gave him the side eye, so he quickly added, “I meant it, of course!” 

“I know you did. And, you’re right. It was romantic.”

He waggled his eyebrows. “Romantic enough to get me laid tonight?”

I laughed in spite of myself. Only Jin-Sang could make such a crass come-on sound endearing. But that was his gift. Even when I wanted to give him a piece of my mind, he had a knack for teasing a smile or laugh out of me. I gave him a sultry look and said, “I got you.”

Jin-Sang gasped and let out a few choice words. He gazed at me reverently as he eased me down on the bed. “Damn, woman! I don’t think anything has ever gotten me as hard as hearing you say those words.” There he was. That was the Jin-Sang I knew, the man with a heart absolutely in the right place and a mouth with absolutely no filter. 

My man was back.

***

I’ve been wanting to write a scene with Jin-Sang and Shonice for a while, but I’ve always struggled with writing these two together. I find it much easier to write Jin-Sang and Jonathan. They bounce off each other so well that their dialogue practically writes itself. But I’m happy with how this turned out. 

I had always intended for Shonice to hyphenate her last name when she got married, so I’m gutted about losing the Lee name. However, this is a case where I need to listen to the character. The more I got into Jin-Sang’s background, the clearer he became about wanting to cut all ties to his birth family, including giving up his last name. 

And while I’m on the subject of Jin-Sang’s name, I want to address the elephant in the room. Technically, the S should probably be lowercase. The name generator that I got his name from capitalized the S, so I followed suit. Also, I have a friend originally from Seoul named Hye-Yun.  I’ve known Hye-Yun for over fifteen years, and she’s always capitalized the Y.  I should ask her if she started doing that because we Americans were always capitalizing it. Anyway, I’ve done some reading up on Korean names, and it’s essentially at the discretion of the individual as to whether the name should be capitalized and/or hyphenated, so I will keep capitalizing Jin-Sang’s and Hye-Sook’s names the way I have been doing it.

By the way, Hye-Sook is named in honor of my friend, and Jin-Sang is named in honor of Daniel Dae Kim’s character (Jin-Soo Kwon) on LOST.

[thecoroutfitters]

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from Patriot Prepper Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. Are you ready for any situation? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

[notalwaysthevillian]

A Different Side of Hogwarts

A/N: The Hufflepuff common room is described a little differently than it is on Pottermore. This is how I would like it to look.

Beta Readers (that I love with all my heart): @hi-disappointed-im-daughter and @infinitesimalsolemnvow

Let me know if you want to be added to the tag list.

Word Count: 1.5k

Pairings: None (yet)

Warnings: Slight anxiety

Masterlist

Chapter 1 | Chapter 8

Chapter 7

“In this room, we have Jonah Erickson, Logan Page, Aiden Taylor, and Noah Williams.”

The prefect swung the door open to the room and the boys headed inside.

“If you want to change beds, feel free to do so. The nightstand next to your bed has a built in bookshelf. It listens and it’ll give you the book it thinks you need,” he explained. “Any questions?”

A jumble of voices filled the room as the other boys began talking at once. Logan, who preferred to figure things out himself, simply sat down on his bed and began examining the shelf. He figured that it was some sort of conjuring spell, but he wasn’t sure how they were able to personalize it to each student. Maybe the bookshelf was alive?

“Lights out at 10,” the prefect said, having satisfied Logan’s roommates with answers. “Until that time, you are all are free to do whatever you choose.”

“Where is the Hufflepuff common room?” Logan asked, looking to his prefect.

He smiled. “I was heading down to the kitchens, so I can lead you there.”

Logan left his roommates squabbling over the remaining beds. He’d been lucky enough to get one assigned nearest the window.

“Why do you want to know where their common room is?” His prefect, Xander, asked.

Logan followed him out into the hallway. “I made a friend on the train here. He was sorted into Hufflepuff and looked upset. I was hoping I could visit him and see what was making him feel that way, although I have my suspicions that it may be family related.”

“Are you talking about the Night kid?”

“Yes.”

Xander sighed. “Look, I know that you can’t judge a book by its cover, but he seems a little too like his brother.”

“Which brother?”

“Devin. That kid is a grade A Slytherin.”

Logan looked up at his prefect. “Slytherin, just like any other house, is not defined by the type of people they put out. They value cunning and ambition. Compared to the other houses, I dare say that they are most like Ravenclaws. The other houses act impulsively. The two of us weigh out our options.”

“Spoken like a true Ravenclaw,” Xander said with a laugh, putting his arm out to stop Logan. “Careful, there’s a trick step here. See how it’s not quite as solid as the others?”

Bending down, Logan examined the step. His glasses slid down his nose, before falling off completely and through the step.

“Accio, glasses!” Xander said, flicking his wrist.

“Thank you,” he said, putting them back on his face. “It’s hard to see, but the step is slightly translucent.”

“There’s a few here and there, but they’re actually one of the few constants in the castle.”

The two continued on in a comfortable silence, before reaching a picture of fruit. Xander reached out and tickled the pear, which giggled before swinging open.

Logan saw the kitchen to his left, but Xander headed into the corner on their right. He tapped on the barrel two from the bottom, in the middle of the second row in a steady rhythm. The barrels rolled to the side, revealing a hole in the wall.

“Here we are. Hufflepuff common room.”

“Xander, what are you doing here?” Another boy asked, as he walked down the passage.

“Just dropping someone off. I’m headed to get snacks, but he said he has a friend here. One of the Night kids?”

“Oh, yeah, I just got him settled in his room,” the boy said, smiling at Logan. “I can take him from here.”

Xander nodded. “Goodbye.”

Following the boy, Logan was lead down a passage that sloped upwards. It reminded him of a hobbit hole, from the muggle movies he’d watched with his mother as a child. The passage then opened up into a large room.

The room was shaped like a circle, with a staircase along the wall that lead to the different levels. The walls emitted a golden glow, making the place feel homey. A large fireplace was burning brightly, though it didn’t heat up the area.

The center of the room had a sunken area with couches and floor pillows, colored yellow and black. Students milled around, eating out of bowls of miscellaneous snacks. Logan watched curiously as one of the bowls refilled itself.

“It’s nice in here,” the prefect said, gesturing around. “Hardly anyone comes to visit though, so it’s nice that you’re here for Virgil.”

“I wanted to make sure he was alright. He seemed upset when he was sorted.”

“Not a lot of people want to be sorted into Hufflepuff, but once they get here they love it,” he said, heading to the staircase. “My name is Derek by the way. Derek Anderson.”

“Logan Page.”

“Any relation to Remy Page?”

Logan groaned. “Yes. I am nothing like my brother.”

“Don’t worry, I was just making the connection,” Derek said with a smile. “Trust me, I know all about how different siblings can be. Even if they’re in the same house.”

“Do you also have siblings at Hogwarts?”

“No, but I do have cousins.”

“Which houses are they in?”

“Two are in Gryffindor and one’s in Slytherin. My older cousin was in Hufflepuff last year, but he was a seventh year. He’s working at the Zoo of Mythical Creatures now.”

Logan nodded as he kept pace with Derek. “My family visited this summer. My mother was fascinated by the erumpets. She’s a muggle, and they were having a special family day.”

“Even wizards can be fascinated by magical species. Care of Magical Creatures is my favorite class for just that reason,” Derek said, stopping outside a door. “Here we are. I’m heading back to my room now, but let me know if you need anything. And make sure you get back to your own common room by 9.”

Logan nodded, before knocking on the door. “Virgil?”

The door swung open, revealing Virgil. “Logan? What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to make sure you were alright,” he said, looking at his friend. “You seemed upset with your sorting.”

“Virge, who’s this?”

A boy popped up behind Virgil. Logan noticed that he was around three inches shorter than Virgil, who stood at Logan’s own height. His brown eyes were flecked with gold, and he had a huge smile on his face.

“Uh, Pat, this is Logan,” Virgil said, introducing the two. “We sat together on the train. He’s in Ravenclaw.”

“Oooh, so you’re smart?” Patton asked, bouncing on his toes.

“I think so,” Logan said. “I’ve skimmed through most of our assigned books, and the coursework seems easy.”

Patton nodded, before pulling Virgil away from the door. “Come on in! Our other roommates are in the common area.”

Logan walked in, noticing five beds. “I only have three roommates.”

“There’s probably less of you. Not a lot of first years were sorted into Ravenclaw,” Patton said as he smoothed out a blanket on his bed and sat down. “What do you think of Hogwarts so far? My sisters said that they fell in love with it as soon as they got here. Oh, my sister Missy is in your house! Her name is Missy Foster.”

“Hogwarts is very appealing,” Logan said, trying to remember everything the energetic boy said. “It has astounding architecture. As for your sister, I don’t believe we’ve met, but I will remember her name.”

Patton opened his mouth to speak once more, but Virgil put a hand on his arm. “Pat, let him breathe. He’s kind of like me.”

“Oh, okay.” Patton stilled, turning to Logan. “Would you want to come explore the castle with us tomorrow?”

It seemed to almost pain him to refrain from bouncing. Logan smiled at the two. “It would be beneficial to know the way to our classrooms before Monday. What time would you like to start?”

“Noon.”

“After breakfast!”

The two Hufflepuffs gave each other such horrified looks that Logan couldn’t help but laugh. “How about we meet here at 9? Virgil, you can get your sleep, and Patton, you don’t have to wait half a day.”

“Do you mind if I invite one more person? My friend Roman was sorted into Gryffindor,” Patton asked the two, his speech starting to speed up once more. “We rode in on the boats together, and he’s really fun, and-”

“I am not opposed having a fourth member of our party,” Logan interrupted. “Virgil? What about you?”

“I mean, I don’t know the guy.” His gaze was trained on the floor and he was tugging at his hoodie sleeves. “But if Patton’s friends with him, I guess it’s okay.”

“I wouldn’t want to do anything to make you uncomfortable,” Patton said, his eyes filled with concern as Virgil pulled the zipper all the way up on his hoodie. “If you don’t want him along, I can meet up with him by myself later.”

Virgil flicked his hair out of his face, shaking his head. “No, it’s okay.”

A knock sounded at the door.

“Come in!” Patton called out.

Derek opened the door, looking at Logan. “Not to be rude, but you should probably be heading back to Ravenclaw Tower. It’s starting to get late, and I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“You’re right. See you tomorrow, Virgil, Patton.” Logan said, nodding to the other boys.

Patton gave him a smile and waved. “Bye Logan!”

Virgil looked up, his hoodie muffling his words. “See ya, Lo.”

Tag List: @devilishrianna @philspreciousplants @kitto-fuyu2018 @super-confetti-cannon @aroundtheriverssbend@thegreyacefromspace @i-am-virgil-sanders@tinysidestrashcaptain @surviving-an-ocean-of-fandoms @xx-this-is-a-mess-xx @chemicallyimbalancedromance@ninjago2020 @cloudchaser7 @pokelover68@strangegaycandy @hi-disappointed-im-daughter@thatgaydemigodnerd @theresneverenoughfandoms@octopushugs @importantrunawaystudentstuff@sombraplayslazertag @sassywithasideoftrashy@icouldhaveabettername @jadedragon1903 @nienna14​ @maybeitsmaybeliiiiiiinnnnneee​ 

[anotherimaginescollection]

Imagine going to college with Simon (Shadowhunters)

‘Have you goteverything?’ your mother asked, trying to peek into the back of Simon’s caronce more, the worry etched onto every line of her face. Beside her, Simon’sfamily were fussing over him, Clary amongst them. Everyone seemed to haveturned up to say goodbye to the two of you, rather than helping you move in. Itwas something that you and Simon had asked of them, wanting this new chapter ofyour lives to be for the two of you – you had wanted Clary to join you, but youknew that she had other things to try and sort out for herself.

‘It’s gonna befine,’ you said, detaching yourself from your mother and smiling at herbroadly. You knew that she was worried about you, knew that she’d insist upon amillion texts a day, and that despite all your complaints you’d oblige, but forthe moment you just wanted to get on the road, to head to college to start withthe sign up and everything.

‘C’mon,’ said Simon,moving to your side, rubbing a mark from his cheek. ‘College isn’t going tostart itself.’ There was an excited energy about him that you knew you musthave been mirroring. You could tell that he was as eager to try something newas you were, and having your best friend beside you for the whole thing wasonly going to make it that much more entertaining.

You slumped ontothe sofa and rested your head on Simon’s shoulder with a soft groan. A week.You’d only been at college a week and already you were beginning to feel thedrain of the work, of the socialisation and everything that came in between.

‘You’re notslacking on me now are you, (Y/ln)?’ he teased, wrapping an arm around yourshoulders.

‘I feel like atoddler coming down from a sugar high,’ you told him, closing your eyes butrealising that that only made the tiredness all the more prominent. Instead youtried to focus your attention on a mark on the wall that you hadn’t noticedpreviously.

Simon chuckled, hisshoulders shaking gently and earning a groan of protest from you. ‘At least wecan officially say we’re college students now.’

‘Sometimes I wonderif this was worth the lack of sleep.’

Simon shifted,forcing you to sit upright and look at him. There was a kind of determinationbehind his eyes that you were more than used to, the look that he got when hewas determined to remind you of all the good things that were going to come.Even though you knew that he was suffering from too many assignments in toolittle time as well; that he was tired from the constant nights out that therest of your housemates were insisting on dragging you to.

‘Because we know it’sgoing to be awesome in the end. I mean, who wouldn’t want to spend this muchtime with me? Stressing over different coursework and that.’

You chuckled,settling your head back on his shoulder. ‘One night in with movies and thingsthough?’

‘I thought you werenever gonna suggest it,’ he sighed, and you could tell that while the both ofyou were loving college you were still missing home as well. Having a littlepiece of it there in your best friend was helpful, but it didn’t compete to thenormality of a night in and reminiscences of the things that you missed.

[harriesflowers-blog]

left in the hallway

He wanted to stay. He wanted to stay with her.

Her dorm was warmly lit from the glowing fairy lights, and the mess of blankets and quilts atop her bed were the softest he’d touched. Her desk opposite the bed was scattered with highlighters and textbooks, old sprays of her perfume had wafted around the room and mixed in with a vanilla candle, and save from the angry wind outside and the ticking clock, it was quiet. A sanctuary hidden away from all else. She was tucked under his arm as they both cuddled into each other, tiny shaky breaths leaving her lips that she didn’t think he could hear, when she said, “You can’t stay, H.”

He’d closed his eyes and swallowed. A deflated swelling arose in his chest and flowed and ebbed through his body, to the tips of his toes, and he pulled her closer; it was almost as if he was drinking her in as much as possible, lest he went insane before he next saw her, like she was a drug and he needed it in his system at all times. He thought about the way her soft skin felt beneath his fingertips, the way she always smelt of amber and jasmine, and the warmth she radiated that washed over his bare body and left him toasty for ages. He also thought about how she wasn’t his and how much that killed him, and maybe it killed her, but he didn’t let his mind drift too far.

Harry’s eyes reopened when she lifted herself up, his arm around her crumbling back to the mattress, and walked a couple of steps across the room to fetch a shirt and fresh underwear. Her hair was knotted, her eyes were glassy, and her chest was still crimson from her orgasm, and she walked with a slight waltz that made him smirk a little. The wind picked up outside and knocked against the windows, trying to seek warmth itself, and the flickering streetlight outside was even more noticeable. Laying there for a few more moments, with the duvet pooling around him and his hair flopped sleepily onto his forehead, with long breaths escaping him. He eyed his jeans on the floor, his shirt, his wallet that had slipped from his pocket. Sitting up, he tugged off the condom and tied it at the end, before tossing it into the bin. “What time’s your roommate coming back? Still don’t even know her name, you know.”

YN grinned, fitting her feet into some teal, fuzzy socks. “She’ll probably be on her way now, I need to quickly clean up a little before she comes back,” she said, slotting her hands on her hips, “Room’s a mess.”

Smiling, he stood from her bed and stretched, his fingers grazing the ceiling, before hunching over to retrieve his Stones shirt and sliding his arms through the sleeves. “Won’t take you long I’m sure, I’ll help if you like.”

“No, that’s fine,” she sighed, leaning against the wall, “It’s all my stuff anyway. Mainly coursework I need to sort out-- fun, adult things.”

“Joys of university.”

There was a silence that grew between the two of them whilst Harry was stepping into his jeans and whilst she was gathering up sheets of paper and colourful binders: forgotten essays, old handouts, notes that she’d already written up. That was when the thoughts started drifting back to him again, and when he finally let them follow through. It started with lust, he must admit: he’d just had sex with her and he was already watching her again and craving to kiss all over her body and her lips and push her back onto the bed and taste her, and feel her whimper and moan beneath him. Then it went to what really hurt, that they were friends and when they fooled around it was exclusive with no strings attached, but he liked her. He fucking loved her.

And it fucking stung, it stung like a thousand nettles were digging into his skin all at once. He always thought about those tiny, short moments that they had, however mundane, and how much he wanted to revel in them and stay in them forever; like when they sat in silence studying anatomy but somehow it meant everything; or when she’d call him in the middle of the night because she couldn’t sleep and she wanted him to know about this brownie recipe that she’d just seen on Pinterest; or if they went out for the night with a group of friends and maybe she’d had too many tequilas, and she’d hold his hand and whisper in his ear the entire walk home.

But then he thought about how maybe that wouldn’t last, and that maybe they would both graduate university in two years and never talk again. She’d get married, have kids, have a strong career, and have a whole new group of friends that didn’t involve him-- and she’d never think of him. And if she did, it would be ‘Harry: the boy who I was friends with and sometimes had sex with when we were bored, nothing serious’.

And he wanted to scream. He wanted to scream and yell so much that his throat was sore, because his heart had been aching for way too long. Way too long.

“Bloody hell, I’ve got all of these handouts from English and they’re so useless!” she groaned, “This school really need to consider the effects of deforestation.”

He stifled a chuckle. “You should start a protest, go around the school with a sign and let everybody know.”

“I actually will, the number of these handouts would change in no time. Just you see.”

“So does that mean that in the morning I’m going to wake up and see you marching around campus?” he said, traipsing over to stand behind her, snaking his arms around her waist and nudging his nose behind her ear. “That’ll be a sight.”

YN hummed and a little flutter burst in his stomach as the sensation of his lips over her skin knotted something inside of her, and she shut her eyes when his lips parted as he pressed kisses over her earlobe and down her cheekbone. His other hand was gathering her hair against her back and bringing it over her shoulder, fingertips slowly massaging the nape of her neck for a few seconds before he turned her face to look at him. She giggled when the tips of their noses bumped against each others, and he scrunched his up teasingly and grinned, before watching her lips part when he hooked a tendril of hair behind her ear. Chests pressed together, feet sandwiched, hip against hip. He pressed a small kiss to her chin and moved his way back up to her pouty lips, buttoning the pair together as sparks bubbled all over his body; they moved together so achingly unhurried that it felt every second that ticked by was an hour long, and he let out a hushed whimper from the way her lips tasted and how badly he wanted her again.

As his hand was lowering down over her stomach to run his fingers over the hem of her underwear, he raspily mumbled, “Please let me stay. Please, baby.”

Her eyes drunkenly opened and sighed, his mouth becoming more passionate against her skin, before clearing her throat and ducking away from him, taking a few steps forward. Her chest was tight and the ball in her throat was hard to swallow around, but it was harder to see him before her, looking soft and lovely in his tee shirt and mussed hair, his eyes so brilliantly yet so tiredly green. Lips pouted.

“We can’t.” She paused and shut her eyes for a brief second. All she could see was a film roll of him laughing and smiling and dancing around her bedroom on past evenings burnt into her eyelids. “...Harry,”-- she hesitated, “I know what you’re doing.”

He looked down at his feet.

“It’ll make everything so complicated.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

“Complicated?” he scoffed, “You don’t understand, do you! This is already complicated enough! We’re two best friends who fuck each other when we’re both lonely, and we know that once the other person has found someone else, it’s all going to end. And when we talk about that, we go insane and fuck again, because we don’t want to lose each other. But then at the same time, we want to find other people because we want to feel loved by somebody else and not just for them to have sex with on the weekends.” He kicked the leg of her desk chair and raised both of his hands to his face. “It’s fucking messed up and we’re killing each other.”

“Let’s go back to being friends then. Stop all of this and forget about it!”

“Oh, and pretend nothing ever happened? Pretend that we were never like this?”

“Well, that’s what you sound like you want to do.”

“It’s not,” he mumbled. He was silent for a few moments, and in the corner of his eye, he could see her foot tapping against the carpet and the shape of her hands on her hips. His ears were ringing and a pound was drumming against his temples. “I lo--”

Tears were rolling down her cheeks, her eyes drowning. “Well, maybe you should fucking leave then and not come back. Because clearly, we’re just messing with each other’s emotions,” she said, spinning on her heels. “Go and find someone who makes you feel loved and not like they only want you for sex on the weekends.”

He choked when she opened the door to the hallway, the fluorescent lights and the smell of antibacterial filtering in from the outside, tainting her dorm. She was looking down at the floor and twirling her finger around a piece of her hair, sniffling and her shoulders shaking from the silent cries, and he wanted to take everything back; because all of this was better than nothing. Was it?

Harry stumbled across the room with a dark cloud engulfing his chest and spreading toxins everywhere in his body. His heart was beating and his muscles ached, his bones felt like they were about to shatter and his veins were coursing with regret, as his body was whimpering don’t leave, don’t leave, but he didn’t have time turn around in the corridor before the door was slammed shut behind him. When he rested his head against the white wall and looked through his eyelashes at her door number, it was only then that he realised he was really crying. His shoulders were shaking and his lip was worrying, his eyes were squeezed shut and sobs were tumbling from his mouth like the cloud was coming out, and it felt like all of his insides were being dragged from him and he was all of a sudden a walking piece of nothing. His head ached.

And when he got back to his dorm, the small one at the end of the other corridor that he shared with Fionn, it was when it kind of really hit him. Every other time he had come home he’d known that he was going to see her again, and he always felt good, so good, but now it was hitting him that that was it. She wasn’t going to call him, she wasn’t going to run over to him when she saw him on campus, she was going to forget him and move on.

Fionn was sat on his bed, in the middle of the dark grey sheets in a pair of plaid pyjamas. The glow of his laptop screen lit up his face and the dorm was cold, messy, and smelt of cologne, and the dark walls seemed to be closing in on everything and driving all of the furniture closer together; he frowned when he saw Harry, taking deep breaths with his eyes sealed shut as he leaned against the door, and tentatively asked, “You okay, man?”

Shoulders shaking, tears streaming, knees knocking. “Give me some morphine.”

[yaldev]

As of today, we’re celebrating: 365 Yaldev posts, 4 years of this nonsense, and being exactly 7 years behind Beeple!

CELEBRATION:

365 posts! That’s one year of Yaldev! Well, if I had been writing one every day, which I absolutely haven’t.

It continues to be the case that looking back on posts even from less than a year ago, I think “man this sucks,” and I either know how to improve it at least a little bit while I’m there, or I can’t stand to even look at it and I just have to escape from it. I don’t feel too much pressure to fix the bad posts at this point; as of today, Yaldev’s been going for exactly four years now (if you skip leap days :thonk:), and in a sense it’s chronicled my progress as a writer during that time. Some entries have been modified since them, some changed entirely except for the name and art chosen. I think it only makes sense that reading through it in storyline order will be like traveling through different points of my creative skill, in much the same way as it means traveling through different points of Beeple’s art quality.

CIRCUMSTANTIAL UPDATES:

People I know in real life are bugging me to start a Patreon. It’d certainly be reasonable to start one now that I’m four years in, but I can’t justify setting one up without:

A more consistent creative output than I’m currently hammering out, so I’m not taking your money for less utility than I’m giving you

Something to offer patrons without compromising the project for non-patrons

Existing interest from some of my audience in throwing cash at me (dance, monkey!)

A possible solution to the first one is setting myself a bar: if I don’t write at least X words by the end of the month, I don’t receive anyone’s money for that month. Hopefully that makes people feel more comfortable backing someone inconsistent, since they’ll still receive their benefits during the down periods but not have to spend anything. For the second, I have ideas for what to offer, but they’d have to be on top of my current output rather than replacing it, so at present I can’t really work ahead on them without detracting from the main project. It’s hard juggling part-time school, full-time job, getting enough sleep, Yaldev, another creative project I have a stronger obligation to, a paper I’m writing for a conference, relaxation, and generic life stuff. That said, I could be happily coerced into making a Yaldev a higher priority if I have a financial obligation to a couple supporters. The real question is whether there’s any interest in that. I worry that when the project has gone on as long as it has, interest actually decreases over time if it’s seen as old news. On the other hand, maybe older followers have a sense of being with me since the early days, like they’re invested in this ride as well. I have little clue.

In any event, if a Patreon goes up, I absolutely won’t be shoving it in people’s faces at every opportunity, since I’m not in a position of financial need and money was never the point of this. The main project would continue to be 100% free, and benefits would only be for additional goodies; nothing you can currently see would be moved behind a paywall.

STATISTICS:

This is the fun part, lads! Get ready for some stats and some commentary!

Total Stories: 365

As should be obvious, all numbers are only for the point at which I'm writing this post. These only include the posts that are canon and which I wrote.

Project Age: 1460 Days

Exactly four years! I think it’s a fun coincidence that it lined up with the 365th entry.

How Long You Have to Wait, on Average, For the Next Post: Approximately 4 Days

My output has slowed down since the last update. Feelsbad, but I don’t hear much complaining and I hope that higher quality makes up for lower quantity. Even still, I’m trying to blitz through my to-do list and speedrun my coursework to make more time for this. I hope to eventually bring that down to 3.5, for an average of two posts per week across the project's history.

Readers Across All Platforms: 536 (107 on Tumblr, 135 on Facebook, 140 on Instagram, 154 on Reddit)

Howdy y'all! Thanks for being here and reading my steadily-improving crap. I really struggle with talking about my creative projects in real life, including Yaldev, primarily out of a self-trained instinct to shut myself up about it on the understanding that nobody cares—especially not other creative types, since we're all too invested in our own creation to pay much attention to others. I've been trying to overcome that, and you're helping me just by being here to read. That tells me there's potential in this and that it's something that at least some people genuinely want to see. Artists shouldn't attach their sense of self to their creations, but I can't help but feel validated through that.

At the same time, I do often fear that mine is the sort of content that just gets a like tossed at it for the pretty visuals on the way down the endless content scroll, without having made a real impression on anyone or created a lasting memory. I'll probably always have that worry, which comes as much from a disdain for general Internet culture as anything else. Late in 2020 I took a step away from social media, and I’ve only partially returned, with the result that scrolling through newsfeeds takes up much less of my time than it used to. Feels good. I’d encourage you to do the same, but then you wouldn’t be seeing my own crap as often. :^)

Stories Per Reader: Approximately 0.68

Makes it sound like a decent growth rate, if on average I'm getting one new follower per story half the time, and two new followers the other half of the time. I guess "good growth rate" is somewhat subjective and depends on your goal, but for me, having a tangible unit of increase for each feels good.

It’s actually a lot more variable than that, of course. Usually a given entry will either attract no new followers because I only put it up in my own spaces, or it’ll draw in a few if I post it to a space for content like mine.

Total Word Count: 89,721

I typically operate under the assumption that most novels are about 75k, while sci-fi and fantasy novels tend to be longer since their authors are physically incapable of shutting up, putting them at around 100k. We’ll definitely reach that, and it probably won’t even take that long.

Average Story Length: Approximately 246 words

The 245-255 range is what feels good to me. Part of Yaldev’s appeal compared to books, in theory, is that if you’re consuming it the normal way, you’re getting it in bite-sized chunks as part of your scrolling experience. So I theoretically prefer to keep them on the short side, even if in practice I actually go ham and write stuff that’s quite long. The average here is really being dragged by 100-word posts previously being a lot more common than they are now.

STORY PLANS GOING FORWARD:

So the most recent entry, Gemstones as Mana Sources, was Beeple’s art from February 15, 2014. Today’s exactly 7 years from then, so I actually have an easy bar now for whether I’m catching up to the dude or not. 

When I started this project, I began with his art from July of 2014 and then started moving forward. I got to about September 2015 before I decided that I wanted to go hardcore and go through all his art from the very beginning, at which point I warped back to his art from the very beginning in 2008, and started going through it in chronological order. I think I made that shift back in 2019, and now we’re getting back to the era of his art that I actually started this project with. All of this is to say that soon you’re probably going to notice an uptick in the art quality, either to something new if you’re new, or to what it was like in the Good Ol’ Days™ if you’ve been following this for a long time. As mentioned earlier, I no longer feel super bound to what I’ve written before: I prefer maintaining consistency, but some threads not being tied up and some contradictions are fine. I think the biggest one is that the state of magic’s legality in the Ascended Empire has never been made super clear, but I’m actually okay with that. I know that in the Imperiomancy entry I mentioned how its use by officials varied depending on who held power in government, and magic as a whole could be an even more complex issue that varies by time as well as region. I unironically think that Yaldev is the kind of world that has room for headcanon, so while I’ll try to fix egregious errors, you’re also quite justified in having your own handwaves for my screwups.

I don’t have any updates for any of the storylines really, except for the stuff with Inzohm and the Lone Traveller, for anyone keeping up with that: consider all of it to be in rough-draft at the moment. It’s the kind of long-con story that I really can’t coherently tell the way I do with the rest of Yaldev, so everything I write for it is more like notes that I can later on collect, shuffle, remix and rewrite until it’s semi-coherent. Turns out that Yaldev has helped me develop a number of skills as a writer, but telling better character-driven narratives isn’t one of them—partially because my chosen process, medium and inspiration-artist doesn’t lend itself too well to such stories.

Thanks for being here. What I always wanted as a kid was for other people to be as excited about my worldbuilding as I was, and while I doubt I've hit that extent with Yaldev, I hope my work's had some impact on you, or that it has parts you remember and enjoy. If you have any questions or comments you’ve been too shy to put elsewhere, feel free to drop them here! If not, just stick around and I’ll see you again at post number 400!

[nny11writes]

NaNo Snippet- College AU/Fake Relationship AU Passing- Chapter 1

Next

Barriss surveyed the background view that the holocall would be able to pick up and hummed thoughtfully. The pictures were all leveled and she was displaying only the best ones she’d taken. She’d even remembered to put a few images in that had people in them. Her desk was clean and bed was made, she’d left out a few tastefully arranged datapads, and had a cup of steaming tea placed for herself. The tea was a functional prop for the call, Barriss was beyond nervous to talk with her mother.

It wasn’t that her mother was a mean person, but she was smart, to the point, and in perfect control of herself and her life. In person Barriss usually felt more like she was a growing tree being nurtured and seen to. With distance that felt a lot more like struggling, faking, and generally trying to look better off than she was. All she needed to do for this call was appear happy, confident, and relaxed.

Barriss nervously smoothed down the front of her sweater and double checked the holoprojectors range.

Her room was immaculate, her studies were going well, she had several “in class friends” that she could talk up as if they were real friends, and she was getting on well with her roommate.

Happy, confident, and relaxed.

Barriss gave one last look in the mirror to make sure she was presentable before taking her seat. There were several traits that she shared with her mother, and timeliness was one of them. Precisely thirty seconds later Barriss accepted the transmission and waited for it to connect. While she had remained on Coruscant to attend one of the many universities packed into level 1000, her mother’s work had called her away. They’d agreed that Barriss would live in the shared university dorms. By “they agreed”, of course, actually meant that her mother had eventually agreed to finance a dorm room for Barriss to help alleviate stress from a job but required that Barriss not live completely alone. A two person apartment style dorm had eventually been agreed on, Barriss had a single room that was hers and hers alone, and Luminara got to know her daughter would get some social interaction. As if university was about personal growth instead of growing one’s foundation of knowledge.

Barriss exhaled sharply through her nose. If she was already getting worked up about that old argument before the call even started…

The transmission finally connected, her mother appeared fizzing and crackling for a few seconds before snapping into some sort of clarity. Kashyyk was a beautiful world with a rich history and not very promising infrastructure deeper into the forest where her mother was no doubt camped with her wookie guides.

“Hello mother,” Barriss paused and was pleasantly surprised at the lack of delay as her mother smiled.

“Barriss, how are you doing?” Luminara’s voice itself was enough to actually put Barriss at ease.

She didn’t slump with relief but it was a near thing. Barriss loved her mother and missed her terribly, no matter how nervous she was about these calls. “I’m doing well, thank you.”

“Good, I’m sure your classes have been going well. Any new friends to speak of?” Luminara prompted, one eyebrow raised in hopeful expectation.

Barriss had prepared for this, without any hesitation she began to answer, “Actually yes, I’ve met a few people in my classes and we talk frequently.”

Nailed it.

Her mother smiled softly before speaking, “I am so glad to hear that. Any adventures so far?”

Blast it!

“Not yet no.” Barriss had not planned on this side conversation, why hadn’t she thought to plan for this side conversation?

There was a pause as her mother’s smile slowly faded. “You are friends with them outside of your coursework yes?”

Barriss had only ever discussed their coursework, plans for future classes, and career goals. “I believe we are well on our way to becoming better friends, yes.”

“Barriss…”

Barriss’s shoulders slumped, that disappointed tone was the worst thing that had ever happened in her life since the last time her mother had been disappointed in her.

“I know that your coursework is important to you, and I commend you for taking your studies as seriously as you have. That said, you know how important social integration and social networks are for collegial success-”

Oh no. Oh no, they were not doing this again. Finding her frustration and anger over this particular argument wasn’t hard to do, and gave her enough of a confidence boost to interject. “Yes mother, you never fail to remind me.”

Luminara jerked, staring at her as if she’d been slapped, then she leaned forward with a terrible frown. “Barriss, you know that I ask because I love you, because I want you to not just succeed but to be happy as well.”

“I’m plenty happy thank you,” Barriss mumbled into her mug of cooling tea.

“Barriss!” Her mother gasped.

Barriss had had enough, this debate was literally almost as old as she was! No more, Barriss decided. I am a full grown adult living in my own place. She practically slammed her mug down and took a deep breath ready to simply unleash her real opinions when her bedroom door opened.

“Hey babe, where’s the whipped cream? You know the one we were using for…” Ahsoka froze in the doorway, her eyes going wide in mortification before she yelped, “Hello Ms. Unduli! How are you?”

Ahsoka was normally a good roommate. She was surprisingly quite, made sure to keep the shared spaces clean, was willing to rotate out shared chores, and respected Barriss’s need for privacy. Ahsoka was also always inviting her out places, would talk incessantly when started, had no clue what she wanted to do after college, and had a very bad habit of giving everyone nicknames and pet names. Barriss had nixed her use of “Barry” and begged her not to call her “Ree”, and had eventually given up when Ahsoka resorted to a series of pet names. Kitten had already had it’s turn, then sweetling, but when she’d started calling Barriss “bae”...well she’d at least gotten her to agree to babe instead.

Barriss had never wanted to be called Barry more than she did right now. Especially with the way her mother was now smirking at her. The smugness radiating off of the holoprojector was palpable.

“I am well thank you. ...well, aren’t you going to introduce us Barriss?” Her mother spoke with a calm and even tone, but Barriss knew. She needed to end this, now.

“Mother this is-”

“I’m Ahsoka Tano. It’s wonderful to finally meet you Luminara.” Ahsoka gave a slight bow and leaned on the back of Barriss’s seat, practically putting her chin on top of Barriss’s head.

“I assure you the pleasure is all mine, although I’m afraid Barriss hasn’t mentioned you to me yet.” Luminara leaned her chin onto her hands as her eyes flicked back to Barriss’s flushing face.

Ahsoka laughed, “It’s not a problem, Barriss is a private person after all.”

“I-look-mother this isn’t what it-”

“Barriss Offee I am shocked! Did you really think that I would care if you are attracted to a different species?”

Oh NO, that was the look of Actual Hurt and Deep Suffering and NO!

“No! Of course not!” Barriss clutched at the edge of her desk, wild eyed and honestly grateful for Ahsoka’s supportive arm squeeze.

“Then what in the world…?” Luminara was giving them both a searching looking when Barriss got a Very Bad Idea.

Hey, it said, what if you just let this go? Your mother would be happy thinking you are happy and Ahsoka is kind enough to let it go. You can get her off your back. You can let her relax and stop worrying about you. You could maybe even weasel a hug out of the deal with Ahsoka. With Ahsoka!

“I just,” Barriss swallowed hard before starting again, determined to do the right thing, “I just-”

“Surprise?” Ahsoka more asked then said.

Luminara laughed, before covering her face. “Surprise indeed.”