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write-it-good-imagines · 8 months

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Nothing More(M) - Three

~5k words, in this chapter we see how Mark and Sam navigate being apart from one another and how rain washes over the souls. Enjoy and don't hesitate to let me know what you think about it!

Don’t you want to try it? Are you scared to start? There’s no one you’ll find that’s quite like me.

Do you wanna take my broken heart?

Fame, music, concerts, freedom, artistry. In a fruitless attempt to sum up all that being an artist meant to Mark, the ability to walk up on the stage in front of as many as 60,000 people was exhilarating. It never stopped being meaningful. To inspire another person enough to have them watch and admire thyself was not only a privilege but also a responsibility.

Each concert began with the same mantra, it would be safe to assume for each of the seven members was the same. Each time they would walk on and make sure they enjoyed themselves to the maximum, as much as they made sure they would do their best. In the tumult of the shows, there was now something different.

All the love songs sounded a little different.

When the love song was hopeful, Mark performed happier. When the love song was desperate, Mark performed sadder. It all played a bigger part in the tapestry of each performance, but it would never go unnoticed by those closest to him. With each show, the emotion grew little by little. And as much as Mark tried to dismiss it to the back of his head, it sneaked right back in when the lights turned down.

It always came back when he wanted to forget.

When the lights turned down over Jakarta, the boys were still bowing to the audience. Under the ravenous applause and the avalanche of confetti, the platform on the stage brought the boys down under the concert set. Another night ended in complete success.

Mark was the last one to dispose of his ear set. He stretched his arms above his head and felt a cramp starting to settle at his nape.

“Mark?” Jackson traced behind the group to match his pace with the other. “You good?”

“Yeah,” sighed Mark, massaging the tense muscles in his neck. “Just a little tired I guess.”

“Huh, we still have one week and a half to go, if you’re tired now... “ Jackson joked and nudged Mark with his elbow. “Getting old?”

Mark threw an arm around Jackson’s shoulder in a friendly hug. “No chance.”

“Passionate out there I’d say.” Jackson began, fidgeting. “Each concert getting only more passionate.”

“Yeah? Thanks. Aren’t we supposed to be like that?”

Silence.

“No?”

“I mean, sure.”

Jackson shrugged his shoulders. That’s when it hit Mark.

“Should’ve asked me to my face, Jackson.”

Jackson sighed. “I’m not good at subtleties!” He cleared his throat. “But you haven’t told us nothing in… ever since we left.”

“There’s nothing to tell, Jackson.”

Jackson stopped dead in his tracks, looking at the other with a much softer expression than he would have liked.

“There really isn’t.” Mark concluded, walking ahead of Jackson. “I am the sex. She was the sex. That’s it.”

Mark grabbed a bottle of water from an adjacent table to drown out the words, and the apparent reality. Spelling out loud that they never spoke after he flied out left a burn to his throat.

A couple thousand miles away, Samantha was jerking her body to the other side of the bed. She extended her hand to grab a hold of her phone. 2:15 AM. With a light groan, she threw her feet into her bed slippers, rose from the bed, and hugged her body into her bathrobe. Murphy perked an ear up in response to the sudden movement, but he was not interested enough to follow Samantha from his nest.

Samantha opened the kitchen window to fill her lungs with a breath of fresh air. When she unlocked her phone, she realized that her latest google search was still pointing to Mark’s band’s latest concert.

Jakarta: more than 20,000 fans delirious after boyband’s successful stop.

Live pictures from the concert were quick to flood the internet. Samantha’s finger hovered over a very flattering picture of Mark, half-naked on stage, his chiseled abdomen contracting with whatever movement he was making. One arm was lifted in the air to hype the crowd, the other holding up his microphone. The tattoo reaching over his right set of ribs was vivid to the eye.

The kiss in the locker of the club flashed into Samantha’s memory.

Samantha locked her phone and slid it across the kitchen counter, leaning herself against the window frame, with one arm hugging her side. To the contrary, what should have come to mind should have been the dirtier times, all the times her fingernails drew over his tattoos, reshaping them into muscle memory.

She sighed, her eyes fixated on the shimmering full moon. If she called, would he pick up?

“Probably not. He has all those girls to keep him busy.” Samantha lied to herself, unable to resist the urge to pick up her phone. She hesitated, reading Mark’s name on the screen over and over again. Until she tapped on it.

Once, twice… “Mark?”

The call went to voicemail. Her voice deflated in disappointment.

“All those girls to keep him busy.”

The next dawn, Samantha was already ready to leave for the hospital. Sleep was light and uncertain, and she tried to mask it with concealer and foundation. In a haste to leave the house, she grabbed her motorcycle helmet, to catch a ride in hopes of easing her mind.

Sun was cracking out on the horizon, tangerine hues intertwined with tamed shades of red. Samantha took a longer route to the hospital to enjoy the scenery. Chestnuts strands tossed out of the helmet were gliding freely in the wind in an enduring antithesis with her thoughts.

‘You’re going to have to find a replacement for me.’

Unbeknownst to her, Samantha’s hand switched another gear.

‘I cannot make love to you and leave the next day like I am the worst scum to have ever walked this Earth. I am not that guy.’

The motorcycle revved once again.

‘You are irresistible, you know that?’

Samantha reached the hospital faster than she anticipated. She took off her helmet and shook her head to the sides, ruffling her long strands in the process. She locked the bike and put her helmet under her arm, a high-pitched whistle distracting her from her thoughts.

“Nice suit, cat-girl,” Jonathan smirked, locking his Yamaha super sport bike some paces away from Samantha. “We should ride out together next time.”

“I’ll think about it.” She stated simply, taking the lead towards the entrance of the hospital.

“That’s it? No smart reply, no anything? Wow, did I do anything to offend you?”

Samantha threw out a chuckle. “Not necessarily, just didn’t get that much sleep.”

Jonathan caught up with her, entering the hospital at the same time. “Oh? Mind me asking why?”

“Yes.”

“Touche. But I can take a wild guess.”

“Don’t take a wild guess.” Samantha offered a polite smile to the nurse’s station, grabbing the medical documents of a case.

“How’s Romeo doing? Wait, is that a—”

“Yes Jonathan, I’ll take a consult today.”

Jonathan put a hand over his mouth in a mocked attempt to hide his shock. “No fucking way, are you actually coming back?”

“Wait and see!” Samantha chirped, walking away to her office, the bounce in her hair leaving Jonathan with a smile imprinted on his face.

“And I told him he should have bought Rome! If he’d bought Rome, he would’ve won that trade on the airport with you, Jinyoung!”

A hearty laugh filled the room as Mark and Jinyoung entered Mark’s hotel room. The sun was well up in the blue of Jakarta sky, sending its shimmering beams across the universe. A sleepless night passed for the seven boys, fighting one another to the death to the Monopoly title. Their departure was set in a couple of hours to Kuala Lumpur that left them at liberty to let a night’s sleep go by.

“Bambam’s sweet tooth for money, what can I say.” Jinyoung threw his body on the bed, eyes glued to the ceiling to revisit his winning strategy. “Truth be told, he never had a chance to win.”

“You just led him on.” Mark chuckled and walked to the bathroom. “I am going to take a shower to wash off the defeat.”

“You bet.” Jinyoung rolled over on his chest, hand reaching out for the phone in his pocket. His movement on the bed caused Mark’s phone to light up. The water in the bathroom was not running yet.

“Hey, Mark,” Jinyoung shouted for the other. “You have a missed call.”

“Yeah?” Mark’s voice echoed. “Text Joey and let him know I’ll call back.”

There was a delay in Jinyoung’s response. “It wasn’t Joey. It’s Samantha.”

The next thing he heard was the faltering sound of the water running in the shower. Mark stepped under the rapid droplets, closing his eyes. It had been 11 days since they’d last spoken and she only left an unpicked call behind. It was not like Mark was expectant of something else entirely to happen, but he did not know how to feel. Happy that she had reached out? Bitter that she had not tried more?

Mark slapped his hands against the cold tiles to steady himself. As vehemently as he tried to distance himself from Samantha, something tugged him closer. Mark felt like he walked one step ahead, and two steps behind. He kept reciting to himself that it was not real, the feelings he rejected to feel. He couldn’t allow himself to miss her.

Still, I miss you.

The bathroom door opened, and Mark walked into the room with a towel ruffling his damp hair.

“So?” Jinyoung spoke, thumb scrolling lazily on his Instagram. “Are you going to call her back?”

“Probably,” reacted Mark, almost choking on his own spit. Would it be pitiful to acknowledge to the other that, in fact, he was not as nonchalant as he wanted to let on? “when we leave later for the airport.”

“Huh.” Snickered Jinyoung, jolting himself to his feet. “Here I thought I’d get to hear that conversation.” He pursed his lips, tapping at his chin with an index. “Maybe some sort of a clarification for why she had not reached out until now?”

Mark rolled his eyes with a small smile on his lips. It wavered when Jinyoung stopped in the doorframe. “But I guess fuck buddies don’t really get such clarifications, huh?”

Two and a something hours later, the boys were prepared to leave the hotel and embark for the next stop on their tour: New Delhi. The lobby of the hotel was swarming with staff, luggage, and security, preparing for the group’s very public departure. The journey to the airport was as chaotic as ever for the boys, in a joyful and brotherly atmosphere which always eased Mark’s mind and heart. He was always beyond thankful for the company and friendship of all the boys. Each held their own piece of Mark’s.

While waiting for the private transport from the gate to their plane, Mark stepped aside from the group to make the call he owed. It should have been around 4PM in Seoul. He took an anticipative breath in his lungs and tapped on Samantha’s phone number. There shouldn’t have been a singular reason why he felt so expectant.

‘You aren’t making love to me Mark. We are having sex, it is just sex.’

“Do you really think about us like that?” he whispered under his breath, a hand reaching up to cover his face better with the mask.

Mark did not receive his chance to hear the voice of the person whom he wished to hear the answer from because the call got interrupted to voicemail. “Fuck.” The breath in his lungs rushed out, leaving blooming traces of disappointment attached to his veins. All at once, the 10-hour flight became burdensome. Mark switched his phone to airplane mode to join the boys, a wee piece of his heart shattering from the expectations that failed to come alive.

In an empty common room, Samantha was flipping through her patient’s chart, examining and re-scanning what the laboratory results and the obvious common sense were reiterating. Because of an unforeseen and tragic natural complication, her patient would have to choose to lose her pregnancy to save her life.

“How do you tell someone this?” Samantha mumbled to herself, resting her face in the warmth of her palm. She flipped the chart and sighed, closing her eyes for a loose second. She had grown too soft in the big shoes of a surgeon. But it ultimately was what made her a better surgeon.

“Hey,” Leena stopped by, in a rush to reach somewhere else entirely. “Did something happen? I was in a hurry to prepare for surgery, but I couldn’t ignore you here all sappy by yourself.”

“Yeah. This patient I saw today… I have to tell her she has to give up the baby to save her life. This is why I sometimes am at peace with my decision to step back from being a surgeon.”

“And all the other times when you are not at peace?” Leena seated herself by Samantha.

“All the other times are when I miss going in the OR. Like last time I went in with Jonathan. It was the thrill crawling back, until it made my fingers tingle.” Another sigh. “Then I try to heal and come back, and I have to tell a mother to kill her child. Is this fair?”

“No, it’s not. It’s not. But you must remember how many lives you’ve saved and how many you can save, still. Young lives, who don’t even know they are about to live.”

Samantha tilted her head to look at Leena who had a softened look on her face. “Yeah.” She concluded as Leena rose from her seat.

“I gotta go now, Sam. Think about it. We miss having you around the OR. My girl power team lost all that power.” Leena gestured dramatically with her hands. “Maybe it’s a stretch but I think Mark would say the same to you, if he were here.”

“What?” Samantha exhaled. “Why are you thinking about Mark?”

Leena perked in the distance, as she was walking away “Because you won’t!”

And true she wasn’t. Samantha leaned back down in the chair, eyes obsessed with the ceiling of the office. It pained a little, both her ego and her wishes. Reason would say he couldn’t have picked up in the middle of the night, through the thousands of little things he had to attend to in the middle of a world tour, on top of probably the fatigue kicking in. Against reason, Samantha would tell herself anything to keep herself from hurting. Lies were always easier. Truth was always justifiable.

Truth was, Mark was everything she didn’t picture him to be.

Samantha gathered the scattered chart off the desk and mustered her courage to fill the big shoes of the surgeon she knew herself to be. Ever since Mark stumbled in the bar that night, to curl her hair through his fingers in a cheeky endeavor to rescue her from a vulgar stranger, with the smooth smile and the glimmer in his eye, Samantha’s life felt like it finally took a seat, on a vast green plain under the night sky. When pausing for oneself started to matter.

The rest of the day felt differently after Samantha decided to take charge. She went ahead and had the talk with the family whose happy hope vanished from their fingers. Then she offered to take lead of the surgery. The way she used to carry herself was slowly returning, with all the responsibility and the dignity. It was then she realized she did miss saving lives.

“So I guess it’s time to ask again about riding together? On the bikes, of course.” Jonathan laughed at his own joke, which brought a smile to Samantha’s own lips.

“You know what?” Samantha said, turning up the engine and securing herself atop of the seat. “I’m going to say pass for tonight, but let’s do it some time. It’s just been a full day today.”

“So I’ve heard,” Jonathan said, climbing in his seat and undoing his helmet. “You have no idea how happy that makes me.”

Samantha chuckled. “I know I don’t really take you at your word, most of the time. But I do appreciate you being in my life Jonathan.”

Jonathan threw his head away to veil his content expression. There were times like that one when Samantha wished she knew what was going on through his head. “Someone has to stick around, until prince charming rides back from his tour. Saw he got all naked and whatever up there. Not cool.”

“Mhm. Not cool for someone who asks prince charming how sex with me is.”

Jonathan almost dropped his helmet to the ground.

“Why would you ask him that?”

He raked his hair with his fingers, the previous content expression fading into a longing one. “Because it is part of why I made that bet with you when you were hopelessly drunk and so was I and I hoped we’d wake up and forget.”

It was almost puerile that they both remembered an inebriated bet to sleep with one another when they both had the desirous impulse of the body to do that on the spot. And, somehow, they did not go through with it.

“Jonathan—”

“You should have lied to me and told me you forgot. I would’ve made allowances for how your skin felt against my own. You didn’t even kiss me on the mouth you know?”

Jonathan kicked the jack of his motorcycle. “And trust me, I am actively working on giving up on you but it’s one hell of a job. So yes, that’s why I asked him how sex with you was, to get some closure. And Romeo proved to be almighty with it.” He threw one last look at the girl, and it caused Samantha’s breath to hitch in her throat. Under the alabaster streetlight, Jonathan looked so vulnerable. “Bear with me as I’m giving up on you.”

Keys rumbled against the glassy surface of the living room coffee table. The helmet bounced on the cushions of the sofa in a hasty attempt for Samantha to undress off her riding suit. Samantha plopped into the depth of the couch, skin getting goose bumps from the cold material. It was already the depth of the night when she finally managed to catch a stable breath. The roughness of the day found refuge in her nape, pressing unpleasantly in her muscles. Murphy came running towards her, jumping in an agile motion on the couch beside her. The contact of his fur against her skin eased the pressure in her body. Samantha twirled Murphy’s coat through her fingers, and the dog snuggled closer into her side. He perked up at her, always receptive of her mood.

With the other free hand, Samantha hastily searched for her mobile phone. The silence in her house echoed loudly, in sync with her accelerated thoughts. Jonathan’s confession ripped a band-aid which she did not believe she had. She felt guilty for the impulsive decisions she took a long time before, which still reflected into their present. Almost like a butterfly effect. Had she chosen Jonathan back then, would she have suffered the same heartbreak by his side? Would they have parted, or would they have thrived? Would she have avoided the public humiliation in the hospital?

Would she have met Mark?

The silvery radiance of the moon tiptoed into the living room through the crack of curtains, settling on the black screen of Samantha’s phone. It was repelled by the quick motion to turn the gadget on, an even quicker one to reach Mark’s phone number. A very late observation that he had called her back.

Would she have felt the same need to reach out to any other man, same as she did to Mark? A sliver of a breeze trembled through the thin material of the curtains, disturbing the lull of the house. In that natural equilibrium, the moonlight painted Samantha’s features in an artificial calm. Her heartbeat picked up in her chest.

Samantha drew her breath in sharply when the call connected.

“Mark? Hey, I know it must be late wherever you are, I wasn’t expecting you to pick up. How are you?”

She must have spoken fast, precipitated, in a much too evident surprise and much too little preparation for the feelings raging in her ribcage. All the stupid childish reasons of Mark being and keeping away took the reins.

“I’m sleeping, babe.”

Mark’s voice was low and coarse, at times breathy. Unbeknownst to him, Mark played with her heartstrings, with the ease with which he called her that affectionate name. He could not have meant that.

“Sure, no I’ll let you sleep, I’m sorry I disturbed you—”

“…don’t go. Missed your voice.”

Samantha took her phone away from her ear reflexively to double-check it was indeed Mark whom she was speaking to. On the other line, a faded puffing sound confirmed he was still there, as if he was adjusting his position.

“You there?”

“Yeah, I am, I just… you took me by surprise.”

“Mhm. You, too.”

A gust of wind played with the calescent air in Samantha’s living room. Through Mark’s groggy voice she couldn’t tell if he was upset, sad, or even remotely happy with her for contacting him.

“Just know I’m kinda drunk, so I might say shit.” Mark snickered, which caused Samantha to emit a giggle of her own. She had a palpable reason to blame Mark’s drunkenness for her heart’s quiver. “Drank our minds off with the boys. Middle of the evening.” Another snicker.

He was devastatingly alluring.

Samantha’s voice eased to Mark’s, a lonely index tracing the naked skin of her abdomen. The moon shifted, as if following the movements of the hand in a trance. “You’re too coherent to be drunk. Any special reason for the celebration?”

“Guess we felt like. Don’t know about them but I had a reason.”

Samantha took the bait. “Oh? How so?”

A sharp breath echoed on Mark’s side of the line, closely followed by another sharp exhale. “Promise you won’t get upset with me?”

Samantha’s eyebrows rose with curiosity, yet the heart in her ribcage threatened to stop beating. “I won’t.”

“Okay, I’ll tell you.” But Mark stopped himself once again to prolong the anticipation Samantha prepared herself for. Maybe he would tear the scar open and confess he’d slept with others, that he went ahead and made good of their agreement, that he did not care. Or maybe that he was enough of a good guy to at least let her know he’d touched other women, that he’d heard other women scream his name in the intimacy of his sheets—

“I missed you.”

The sound of thunder reverberated in the infinity of the sky and a glim of lightning flashed in the darkness of the living room to put a halt to Samantha’s life. A strong current awoke goosebumps on Samantha’s skin, akin to Mark’s tender touch whenever he pulled her body to hide into his own.

Mark continued. “But I know you don’t miss me cause heck, you would’ve called a lot more than once, so cheers to me. You’ll say, ‘why are you an asshole cause you didn’t call either’, and you could be right.” A short pause. “I actually could be the asshole.”

What was Samantha supposed to say? How was she supposed to form coherent thoughts in her mind when Mark singlehandedly went and kicked away all rationality had to offer? In the tone of his voice, Samantha felt resentment. A resentment directed at himself for wishing he’d done better.

I should have done better, Mark.

“No, Mark, don’t say that about yourself. You could be anything but an asshole.”

I missed you too, Mark. And I didn’t want to.

“No, it’s fine. Absolutely fine. I’m just sex. You’re just sex. We’re just sex, nothing more, right?”

A sudden downpour started falling over the horizon, in a ghastly chase to envelop the night sky of Seoul. The sound of droplets played in a staccato rhythm, brushing against the tall glass windows of Samantha’s house. The restless curtains danced however the wind dictated, to cast shadows of the moon over her features, now rigid from the amalgam of emotions pirouetting through her being.

If she hadn’t met Mark, would she have wished to grant herself a second chance so easily?

Samantha rose lazily from the couch, leaving Murphy behind to meditate in his calmness. She carried herself to the windows, gripping the handle to open one of them, and ultimately seated herself on the windowpane. She extended one leg to feel the rain. “Do you hear that, Mark?” she spoke ultimately, tears gathering at her eyelids.

“Is that rain?” replied Mark, accompanied by a hissing sound. “It’s pouring in New Delhi, too.”

“It feels so cold on my skin.”

Another thunder trembled in the sky.

“I’m so jealous.”

“Jealous? Jealous on what?”

“All this rain is getting to touch you and I’m not.”

Samantha brought one knee to her chest to lean her cheek against it. If it was raining in New Delhi, it meant that maybe, just maybe, her and Mark could both look at the same sky.

It took a considerable amount of effort for Mark to push himself straight outside of bed. He couldn’t remember at what time the boys got back to the hotel, at what time he fell asleep, and he couldn’t remember why he recognized Samantha’s voice without even knowing it was her who called. With each reply exchanged between them, Mark was driving back to reality, a reality where both him and Samantha were looking at the same sky.

He walked over to the window of his hotel room, peeling it open to fully pick up the song of the rain. There was a tiny table adjacent to the window where he prompted his body, head leaning against the pane, and the free arm toying with the beads rushing down from the sky.

A reality where he was catching feelings for a woman who did not feel the same.

“It feels so cold on my skin too, beautiful.”

Maybe it was because of the same sky they both were watching but it felt like Samantha was smiling. “Why would you be jealous?”

“I should be, shouldn’t I? When something other than me is touching my fuck buddy.”

There was a pause on the other line. Rain was feeling tougher against Mark’s forearm.

“No one has touched me since you left, Mark. Don’t think anyone will.”

It was too good to be true. He did not believe her, could not believe her. Mark retreated his arm and raked his fingers through his hair. The coldness of summer rain made him flinch.

Mark was playing a game he knew he’d already lost.

“Do you think about us? Do you think about me, how I’m touching you?”

“Yeah, I do. I did today.”

Mark’s mind replayed their kiss in the club’s locker room.

Samantha’s mind replayed their kiss in the club’s locker room.

“Do you like the way I’m touching you?”

Mark’s mind replayed their hug in the club’s locker room.

Samantha’s mind replayed their hug in the club’s locker room.

“I do.”

“I guess you still want me to fuck you, then.”

Samantha’s lack of response gave Mark the opportunity to glue his eyes to an outward building which still kept its presence through the water veil. The buzz of the alcohol was still messing with his head, and with his emotions. He shouldn’t had gotten so attached to a game plan, he should had cared enough back in the club when Samantha stated she was not interested. There was just something about her that kept reeling him in, which only amplified with each touch they shared, doubled with each kiss, tripled with each moan she’d mewl, calling out his name.

At the end of the day, the heart wants what it wants. And the heart shuddered at the thought of her moaning any other name than his.

“Hey Sam, I gotta go. I’m supposed to be waking up in 3 hours to rehearse the setting for the concert.”

This time, it was Sam. Not ‘babe’, not ‘beautiful’, just ‘Sam’. Bleak, obscure, a name. Samantha feared a simple name that carried no meaning. It was supposed to carry a meaning.

“Are you frustrated with me, Mark?” she breathed out, the tears rolling down her cheeks at the thought.

“What? No, I’m not. I’m not. Promise.”

“How long will you be gone, still? I hope it’s not that long because I’m naked and I am sitting on the windowpane, hoping that this rain will make me recall how your hands felt against my skin, and it’s not you and I cannot recall how your hands felt against my skin, Mark.”

Clouds wrecked into one another to release a rambunctious roar.

Mark sighed, and it almost broke Samantha’s heart. Then he laughed, and suddenly, the world came alive.

“Okay, let me guide you to remember, hmm?”

“Guide me.”

“If you lay your hand to the side of your neck, cupping it, but not too tight, and a bit far back, you’ll remember it is my favorite spot to hold when we hug.”

In thorough obedience, Samantha did just as Mark instructed her to. She closed her eyes, picturing Mark’s silhouette right by her side.

“Now, if you lower your hand to your side, not too low on the hip, and drum your fingers against the flesh, you’ll remember it is my favorite spot to tickle you.”

The action made Samantha giggle loudly, almost the same as Mark used to. “I am ticklish there, yeah.”

Mark laughed, and Samantha couldn’t see, but he laughed heartily. “Yeah, I know. Now, if you go further and caress a trail from your lower belly all the way to your clit, you’ll remember it is my favorite spot to make you pant. Right before I slide a finger inside you.”

Samantha followed Mark’s voice until her middle finger caressed over her womanhood, a loud whine erupted from the back of her throat. “Oh no, no, don’t even think about doing it. The last part is left for me to do.”

She unexpectedly stopped, Mark’s charm still working strongly. “How did you know I wanted to do that?”

“I know what your body is telling me, angel. It’s just you I need to know more about. I’ll be back in a week and a half, can you hold out for me this long? I can always talk you through it if you think you can’t.”

Samantha scoffed jokingly, draping her hand around herself instead. A week and a half felt to her like an eternity. When Mark had her wrapped around his finger like a marionette, when he knew when to go back to calling her endearingly, when he so easily confessed it was hard on him, as much as it became hard on her, the time stopped dilating as fast. Another bolt of lightning pierced the night sky, casting a porcelain light over her body.

“When you come back to me, Mark, I’ll tell you about the more you want to know.”

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lunatriense · 11 months

Text

Purrfection (Pyrrha x Weiss x Blake) carnival date, for Mikazuki

"You're joking."

Pyrrha gave Blake an apologetic look.

"You're not joking?"

"I wanted to, but I never had the time. I was always training, touring, or fighting."

"Seriously?" Weiss leaned a little closer toward Pyrrha, for once able to meet her eye level. Even if Pyrrha was sitting.

"It isn't that surprising, is it? You know what it's like when everyone expects so much of you."

"Yes! Even I've been to the carnival a few times!"

Blake turned to Weiss with an arched brow.

"What…?" Weiss looked away, her hands fidgeting a little. "Okay, my family rented the whole place for the day for us, but I still went!"

"Uh huh." Blake's expression was as deadpan as her voice.

"We're not talking about me!" Weiss huffed and turned back to Pyrrha, pointing an accusing finger at her. "You're going," her tone brooked no disagreement, "and we're taking you." She glanced back to Blake and they gave each other a small nod.

"Really, it's alright. We have so much homework to do that-"

"No." Blake turned her unamused gaze back to Pyrrha. "She's right, we're going."

"But-"

"Tonight." Weiss half-stepped closer, close enough to touch Pyrrha's chest with her pointing finger.

"But we-!"

"Get. Dressed."

Pyrrha's shoulders slumped and she sighed heavily, but followed it up with a smile. "Alright, alright if you insist. Let me just finish this cha-"

Weiss huffed and looked to Blake, who rolled her eyes but reached to snatch the book from the bed beside Pyrrha where she'd set it when they came in.

"Nope, now." Blake held the book up. "I'm hanging onto this until we get back."

Pyrrha blinked in surprise at the brazen act. Of all people, Weiss and Blake were going to keep her from doing the assigned reading? She wouldn't have expected that in a hundred years. After a moment she gave a soft laugh and held her hands up. "Alright, alright, I surrender. I'll get dressed then."

"Good." Weiss gave a certain little nod. "Then we'll be back in… half an hour?" She glanced to Blake, who nodded assent.

The setting sun made a brilliant tapestry of the sky, reds, oranges, pinks, and purples casting long shadows over the city. Having exchanged their school uniforms for casual summer attire suitable for an impromptu date, the girls rode the skybus from Beacon down to the carnival currently set up on the Valish riverside. It didn't take long to bring them to the festival grounds — just long enough for Pyrrha to enjoy the view, and for Blake and Weiss to enjoy her budding excitement — and a few minutes to purchase tickets later, the trio found themselves standing just inside the entrance.

Pyrrha chuckled and nodded. "Half an hour."

***

Pyrrha marvelled at the lights and sounds of laughter and games. She'd seen carnivals from afar, and occasionally in movies and the like, but actually being there was entirely different.

"It's so very lively," she murmured mostly to herself. Blake and Weiss shared a grin nevertheless.

"So, what do you want to do first?" Blake tilted her head just a hair, stepping up to take Pyrrha's arm in hers.

"I don't know where to begin," Pyrrha admitted with a smile, looking down to Blake momentarily before her attention was drawn to her opposite side.

Weiss took her other arm and smiled up to her. "It's past dinner time. Why don't we get something to eat and walk around for awhile?"

"That sounds delightful!"

The trio wandered for a few minutes, garnering stares here and there — whether because the other revellers recognised them or were simply curious, or perhaps jealous, was hard to say — before approaching one of the food stalls. After a brief discussion they settled on sauce-laden kebabs, a big basket of fries piled high with toppings, and some far too sugary drinks.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Pyrrha glanced to her friends — no her girlfriends, she hadn't gotten used to that yet. "This isn't a very balanced meal."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Of course it's not a balanced meal, it's fair food!"

"I feel like I'll regret this later."

Blake smirked. "Oh, we're definitely going to regret it later." She nudged Pyrrha, then reached to take a dripping fry from the basket. "But we'll enjoy it now, and besides, it's not like this is an every day thing."

Weiss nodded her agreement. "Exactly."

The girls walked while they ate, taking in the sights and sounds. They'd finished eating and visited several souvenir booths before coming upon the game booths, where Pyrrha slowed to a halt.

Blake followed her gaze to the shooting game with its shelves full of plushies and other small gifts. "You… wanna try it out?"

"I don't know how it works…"

"You get a few corks, and shoot them at the prize you want. If you knock it over, you win it."

Pyrrha looked sceptically to Blake. "With a cork? That seems… unlikely."

"Well yeah," Weiss chimed in on Pyrrha's other side. "They wouldn't make any money if people won very much."

"I see…" Pyrrha considered momentarily before giving a little nod. "Yes, I think I'd like to try."

Blake and Weiss smiled up to Pyrrha, walking with her toward the booth but stopping several paces back.

"Young lady! Care to try your luck?" the carnie called to the approaching Pyrrha.

She smiled and nodded. "I'd love to."

"Excellent! A hundred lien gets you three shots; whatever falls is yours to keep!" He gave her a broad grin. "But go easy on me, eh? You look like you could leave me broke!"

Pyrrha giggled softly, trading a lien card for a gun and corks. She took a moment to peruse the prizes before setting her sights on a cute little black cat plushie, taking aim, and firing. The cork bounced off the cat's forehead without so much as budging it.

"Ooh, so close!"

Pyrrha frowned faintly. She'd thought for sure the cork would have enough power behind it. She set one cork on the table and weighed the other in her palm before giving it an experimental squeeze. It had the weight to knock the little cat over, she was sure, and it wasn't too terribly soft. Was the gun weaker than she thought?

"Go Pyrrha!"

"You can do it!"

Pyrrha looked back to her girlfriends, her smile returning. This was all just for fun anyway, she mustn't let her competitiveness get in the way. She loaded the second cork, took aim again, and fired, striking the cat a little higher on the forehead. Again it bounced off without noticeable effect.

"Almost!"

Pyrrha shot the carnie a look. There was no 'almost' about that, and she paid close enough attention to the shot this time to know it should've done more. She loaded the last cork and, exhaling slowly, fired. The third shot hit the cat just outside its left eye, and it twisted a touch, but its bottom stayed perfectly still.

"Aw, too bad, I was sure you had it!" The carnie gave her a toothy smile.

Pyrrha huffed, setting the gun down and stepping back over to Blake and Weiss. "I'm sorry, I was sure I'd get it. And the bunny on the corner, too."

"So was I."

"It's alright, as long as you're having fun." Weiss took her arm once more with a little squeeze.

Pyrrha glanced back over to the shelves. "It should've at least spun around…"

"It happens. Besides, a lot of these games are rigged. If you couldn't get it, I'm sure no one will."

Pyrrha blinked and arched a brow. "Rigged? You mean they're cheating? They're allowed to do that?"

"Not technically, but it's easy enough to change things around when they're being inspected." Blake shrugged.

"I see." Pyrrha looked back to the booth with narrowed eyes. "I think I'll give it another try."

"You want to try again… because you think they're cheating?" Weiss turned a quizzical look to her.

Pyrrha nodded, disentangling her arm from Weiss'. "I do." She smiled down to the much shorter girl. "I'm going to get those plushies for you two. I promise."

Weiss smiled up to her. "Somehow I think you will." Blake just chuckled and shook her head.

Pyrrha stepped back up to the booth. "I'd like another try, please." She held out another lien card.

"That's the spirit!" The carnie grinned and took the card, producing another trio of corks.

Pyrrha didn't set them down this time. She took aim at the cat and fired, then rapidly reloaded and fired the second and third shots. The corks struck one after the other, the first two twisting it and the third hitting high on its forehead. Landing in rapid succession as they did, they managed to off-balance the plushie and topple it over on the shelf. Pyrrha was quite sure she spotted a little square of tape on its bottom, but that wasn't enough to stop a determined hunter.

The carnie was openly startled. He blinked a few times, then shook his head, but made no move to fetch the plushie.

"I'd like my prize now, please." Pyrrha looked at him expectantly.

He pressed his lips together briefly, then put on that weaselly grin once more. "Ooh, I'm sorry there miss, but you didn't win!"

Pyrrha was gobsmacked. How could he even think to claim that she hadn't knocked the cat over when it was presently lying on its side?

"Hey! What do you mean she didn't win?" Weiss stomped up next to her. "Look at it! She knocked it over."

"She did, that's true!" The carnie gave a theatrically-sympathetic look. "But to win, it has to fall."

Weiss' eyes went wide and Pyrrha was quite sure she spotted a vein throb at her temple, but before either could reply, Blake stepped up as well, her voice low. "It did fall. She won."

"Au contraire, kitten." The carnie gave Blake a challenging look. "It's still on the shelf."

"It has to fall off the shelf!? You didn't say anything about that!"

The carnie turned his gaze back to Weiss. "You didn't ask."

Weiss fumed as the carnie turned away to stick the cat back up. "Come on, Pyrrha, let's get out of here." She stormed a few steps away before she realised Pyrrha wasn't following but rather fixing a pointed stare at the carnie.

He turned around with a start, clearly surprised the girls hadn't all left. Blake was too. She lay a hand on Pyrrha's arm and turned a concerned look up to her.

Pyrrha kept her eyes on the carnie. "I have to knock it to the ground, right? That goes for any of them?" She produced another lien card, holding it up between her fingers.

"That's right."

"And the only other rule is that I must fire from behind this table?"

"Yyeaah…" The carnie eyed her warily.

"Pyrrha…" Blake gave her arm a little squeeze. "It doesn't matter. We can just go." Behind them, Weiss looked on, confusion beginning to turn to worry.

"It's alright." Pyrrha turned a tight smile down to Blake. "I promised I'd get them, and I will." She turned her attention back to the carnie. "Another round." The carnie's surprise vanished as he quickly snatched her card in exchange for three more corks.

Pyrrha studied the shelves carefully as she loaded the first cork, then nodded sharply, flexing her hand a bit momentarily before firing. The cork didn't hit the cat, or anything near it, instead flying below the top shelf upon which the cat was set and striking the assembly itself with a metallic ping.

"What are you-?"

She turned and fired the second, which likewise sailed under the top shelf to strike the opposite support, but this time there was no ping. Rather there was, but it was immediately drowned out by the sound of groaning metal, which itself became a crash as the weight of the shelves pushed the supports ever so sightly apart, just enough for the top shelf to pivot and fall. Everything atop it cascaded to the floor, the rest following when the whole thing fell apart.

The carnie looked on agape, then cried out and ran to the shelves. "Wha-… bu-… what did you do!?!?"

Blake and Weiss, who had returned to Pyrrha's side, looked no less shocked. Pyrrha however wore a very satisfied grin.

"I believe I won."

The comment drew Blake and Weiss' attention and, after just staring at Pyrrha for a few heartbeats.

"Did you…?" Blake gestured subtly with one hand, the way Pyrrha would when applying her Semblance.

Pyrrha smirked and nodded, which set the other girls laughing.

"No! No that's-! You ruined my game!!"

"Your game was ruined from the start," Weiss commented with a snarky smirk of her own, stepping around the table to pluck the plushies out of the mess. "We'll be taking these." Pyrrha beamed at her.

"And this." Blake hopped over the table to fetch a little plush red fox. "What about the rest?"

Pyrrha glanced back over her shoulder to the crowd that had begun to gather in the wake of the commotion. Her eyes settled on a little faunus boy, who shied back as she approached and bent down to his level. "Would you like a prize?"

The boy looked up to his mother, who nodded and gently urged him forward. "Go on." He turned back to Pyrrha with a bright smile and nodded vigorously.

"Take whichever one you like," Pyrrha prompted with a gesture to the booth. She stood, looking over the crowd as a whole. "It's all yours."

"N-no, this doesn't count! They can't-!" the carnie was cut off by a trio of glares from the young hunters.

"It's theirs."

"All of it."

The girls sat together on a ferris wheel bench, slowly rising into the night sky. Below, carnival patrons milled about, albeit in much smaller numbers than they had several hours ago.

Weiss and Blake kept up their daggerlike stares until the man crumbled and gave a defeated nod. Pyrrha was met with a chorus of thanks and amazement from the crowd before they streamed into the booth to take the remaining prizes.

***

"Thank you for convincing me to do this," Pyrrha murmured, pulling her gaze away from the lights of the city to look to Blake and Weiss on either side of her. "It's been a lovely evening."

"Of course it has." Weiss' smile was truly radiant, her own eyes not having left Pyrrha's face since they sat down. "Except for that shady carnie."

"Especially the shady carnie," Blake corrected with a soft chuckle. "I would've come just to see that."

Weiss blinked, then laughed. "You have a point." She nestled against Pyrrha's side. "But I still like this part better."

"No argument from me." Blake followed suit, both girls resting their heads on Pyrrha's shoulder, their little plushies likewise nestled together at their feet.

Pyrrha's face might've been as red as her hair, but even so she smiled happily, slipping her arms around her girlfriends to pull them closer. "I couldn't agree more."

#purrfection #pyrrha nikos #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #rwby fic #pyrrha x weiss #pyrrha x blake #blake x weiss #weiss x blake #blake x pyrrha #weiss x pyrrha #Pyrrha x Weiss x Blake #fanfic #my writing

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the-lone-writer94 · 6 months

Text

We'll Meet Again (Part 7)

Rex Brown x Female Reader

Summary: Now that the secret is out, it seems like you and Rex are finally at peace... or so you thought.

Age rating: 18+ *Mature content and drug use*

Word count: 3,371

Scarlet snatched the poster before me and crumpled it up into a ball before she flung it across the room.

“Hey,” I protested.

“You’ve been staring at that all day and it’s driving me crazy!” Scarlet whined, as she ran her fingers through her hair. She then continued to focus on unboxing the stack of records as she placed them on the shelves.

I shifted in my position as I grabbed onto the counter in hopes to aid my balance. “I can’t believe Billy is seriously kicking me out just cause I’m with Rex.”

Scarlet sighed. “Lead singers, huh.”

“It’s just totally unfair man,” I groaned.

“You’ll find another band.” She shrugged.

“Ugh- all the other bands in town are shit,” I commented, “seriously, you should have seen some of the ones that I’ve auditioned for.”

“So form your own.”

I shook my head. “I tried, but they’re either too afraid to cross Billy.”

Scarlet paused as she wiped her hands against her denim shorts and stepped towards the counter. “Look, tonight after Pantera’s show we’re all gonna party at the Abbott house. We’ll get drunk, and it’s gonna be a good time.”

I stared at Scarlet. “Yeah, I guess.”

“That’s the spirit.” She said sarcastically.

I scoffed. “I still need to figure out this band thing… I can’t not be playing, it’s been a week and it’s driving me insane.”

Scarlet rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah… it’ll be fine, come on. Chill.”

“Fine,” I sighed.

“So… you and Rex, huh?” Scarlet cocked her head to the side, and smirked. “Tell me, is his hair down there as pretty as on the top of his head?”

“Scarlet!” I gasped, as I felt my cheeks flush.

“What? I’m curious.” Scarlet commented, then shrugged and added, “fine, don’t tell me.”

I huffed. “Let’s just say his natural hair color is a darker brown.”

“I knew he dyed his hair,” Scarlet hissed, “I figured that guy can’t have everything. With those pretty puppy dog eyes and golden locks.”

I shook my head. “Alright, can we talk about something else, please?”

—-------

The adrenaline I had caught from Pantera’s show remained lodged in my veins. The images constantly flashed in my mind, the way Terry’s voice gripped me, Dime’s fingers moved as the speed as light and the heavy beats which emerged from Vinnie’s drum set. But lastly, the way Rex played, the energy he had possessed, and the way his hand slid up and down against the neck of the bass.

After the show had ended, we had dispersed to make our way towards the Abbott house, which was commonly known as the party house. Whilst I had heard stories from Scarlet, I had never stepped foot into it.

Scarlet pulled up by the driveway, a row of cars had already formed. The garage door was swung wide open with a cluster of people surrounding it. The roaring sound of heavy metal seeped out from the speakers.

Just when I was about to get out of the car, Scarlet tapped my arm. I spun to face her as she drew out a row of condoms from her purse.

“Dude, what the hell?” I yelled.

“What? You never know.”

“Why do you have so many?”

Scarlet shrugged. “Take some.”

I stared at her, unable to conjure up the words. “I think I’m good.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Scarlet shoved them back into her purse. “Alright, well don’t come crying to me later.”

My brows furrowed, as I stalked out of the car and stepped around. I joined Scarlet by her side and we made our way towards the Abbott house.

The moment we reached the garage, the stench of beer and sweat lingered in the air. I watched the unfamiliar faces before me scattered around. The garage was where the band practiced, with their instruments and amps propped up in the corner. Posters of half naked girls were matted against the walls, and a huge tapestry of the band’s logo was hung up behind Vinnie’s drum set. I managed to spot the wonky lines on the tapestry and the image of the boys sitting around and painting it entered my mind.

I followed Scarlet on her heels as she led the way towards the kitchen, where we reached the counter and picked up two beers, which she handed one to me.

In the distance I heard a loud bang, which caused me to jump. “What was that?” I asked.

“Just the boys doing their usual.” Scarlet said and shrugged.

Just then, I watched as Rex, Dime, Terry and Vince stalked towards me. They all burst into laughter in unison.

“Dude, that was so cool.” Terry exclaimed.

“I think next time we oughta blow those fireworks out of Vinnie’s ass.” Dime suggested.

“Shut up, asshole!” Vinnie said as he playfully lifted Dime over his shoulder as if he weighed nothing and set him back down.

“Hey baby,” Rex said as he wrapped his arm around me and planted a kiss on my lips.

“Hey.” I responded.

“You’re the chick who’s in that band with Billy?” Terry asked.

Rex shot him a cold stare. “Guys.” He warned.

“No, no. It’s fine,” I said and added, “yep that was me.”

The others burst into laughter again. “Oh my god, Billy is a psycho, dude.” Dime commented.

“Right? He makes Steven Tyler look like Mother Teresa.” Vinnie said.

I pressed my lips together. Whilst I was still bitter for Billy kicking me out of the band, I had always admired Billy’s drive. “Well, sure, he’s dramatic… but he’s actually a great lead singer.”

“You don’t have to be so nice about him.” Terry added.

“Guys, come on- let’s drop it.” Rex said.

Vinnie cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Well, I don’t know about you A-Holes but I’m gonna get wasted now.” He exclaimed as he grabbed a six pack of beer and tucked it underneath his armpit, before he spun around and stalked off.

“Hey, wait man- I paid for those beers!” Terry argued as he chased after Vinnie.

“Actually, I’ve got a joint.” Dime said, as he drew it out from his jeans pocket.

Scarlet stepped forward and snatched it from him. “And you waited until now to tell us.” Dime shrugged, as Scarlet spun around to face us as she raised the joint in the air. “Shall we?”

We remained huddled on the couch in the living room, forming our own separate club from the rest of the party. Vinnie and Terry were nowhere to be seen, meanwhile, Dime, Rex, Scarlet and I remained motionless and scattered on the couch. Whilst weed wasn’t exactly my thing, I had taken one hit before passing it back, and had settled on consuming alcohol.

My mind had begun to cloud and my hearing had seemed to drain out most of the sounds which had surrounded me. The feeling of weightlessness had consumed me.

“I think I might try wearing those scarves like Steven Tyler does.” Dime commented, his eyes fixated upon the TV before him that wasn’t on.

“Dude… no,” Rex added, his words began to slur.

“You should do it too!” Dime added, “you know you wanna man. Remember when you said you refused to put on spandex, well,” he said and gestured to Rex.

“You guys pressured me into wearing spandex, man.” Rex argued.

“I think it looks good on you.” I commented, as Rex tilted his head to face me. I closed the gap between us and planted a kiss on his lips.

Dime and Scarlet made oooh sounds, which I scoffed and raised my middle finger at them. “I like a guy with spandex.” Scarlet added.

“Really?” Dime asked, as he raised his eyebrow.

“Oh yeah, you can see everything.” Scarlet teased, as her gaze scanned Dime up and down, which caused him to avert his eyes elsewhere.

I shifted in my position to face Rex, my legs pressed against his. It was then that I noticed he hadn’t changed out of his stage clothes. He wore tight charcoal gray spandex that had a faint leopard print, which he had placed a chunky leather belt across his waist, paired with a silky material black shirt with the top few buttons undid.

My fingers trailed along his chest, before my hand reached up towards the side of his face, gently angling him to face me as I planted a kiss on his lips. Then my fingers found its way into his hair as I deepened the kiss.

“Jeez, get a room, you two.” Scarlet scoffed as she chucked an empty beer can at us.

Rex and I drew away from each other. “Hey!” I retorted, then added, “but yes we will.” I said as I grabbed Rex by the hand and pulled him up.

“Woah,” he said, as he stumbled to find his balance.

Dime and Scarlet once again made ooh noises. “You can use my room, man.” Dime added, and laughed.

I smirked at him, whilst I tried to guide Rex away.

“Oh, Rex if you ever want to get your hair dyed just tell me-” Scarlet yelled.

“What? I don’t dye my hair-” Rex stuttered.

“Yeah sure,” Scarlet added and snickered beneath her breath.

Rex turned his attention to me, and I responded,“she’s drunk.”

We stalked through the house as I navigated my way up the stairs, before we reached a long narrow hallway. A floral print wallpaper was plastered surrounding us, filled with framed photographs, the faces staring directly at us.

“Where’s Dime’s room?” I asked.

“Down here.” Rex added, as I followed him on his heels, before I tripped over myself and tried to find my balance. “Are you alright?”

I snickered. “Shit, I’m so drunk.” My words began to slur.

“Me too.” Rex commented and chuckled.

We managed to stumble to the room at the end of the hallway, as Rex pushed open the door I was immediately hit with the whiff of sweat infused with a lingering smell of cigarette smoke. Posters had covered every inch of Dime’s bedroom, his bed was obviously unmade, with piles of clothes scattered across the ground.

“I’ll open a window.” Rex commented as he trudged across the room and tugged at the window, as he freed it open which allowed a gentle breeze to seep into the bedroom. “So, what do you wanna do?” Rex asked.

I smirked and stepped towards him, as I wrapped my arms around him. “Oh, I think you know.” I said before I pushed him down onto the bed.

I knelt down in front of him as my hand slithered up his legs and paused over his belt. “Oh,” he murmured. I gazed at him through my eyelashes as I unhooked his belt. “You don’t- hmm-” he said, and paused.

“You’ve been such a good boy.” I teased, as my hand grazed over the bulge in his pants.

Rex’s breathing quickened as he threw his head back. His hands knotted in my hair as he grabbed a fistful and tugged on it. I released a gasp, as he said, “you’re always pulling on mine.” He smirked.

My hand continued to stroke Rex’s crotch as I watched his breathing quicken, his fingers grabbed and tugged at my hair. “Oh god.” He muttered beneath his breath as he closed his eyes and threw his head back.

Slowly, I pulled his pants down exposing his hardened cock, before I lowered my mouth down onto him, as my tongue slid across his length. Rex squirmed beneath my touch, as I placed my mouth onto him and went down and up, then up and down again. I paused, before my tongue flicked in circular motions on the head of his length.

Rex’s grip tightened, as his lips pressed together and his chest heaved. “Fuck.” He hissed, as his fingers ran through my hair as he pulled my hair back and held it tight into a ponytail.

He pushed my head against him as I felt him quiver, before he released the grip on my hair and I wiped the corners of my mouth. Just then Rex held me in my arms as he hoisted me up as I straddled him. Our lips collided into each other as my hands ran across his neck and then his chest as I unbuttoned his shirt.

Suddenly the image of Scarlet pulling out a row of condoms out of her purse, and the realization had hit me that I didn’t have any on me. I drew away from Rex. “Shit, you got a rubber?” I asked.

“Hmm, I think Dime keeps them in the drawer over there,” Rex said.

I removed myself from him as I stalked towards Dime’s nightstand. My hand paused on the wooden knob, somehow afraid of what I may uncover. Hurriedly, I pulled the drawer open as I rummaged through several dirty magazines, loose coins and other junk. Right in the bottom, I found a pack of unopened condoms, and tore open the box.

“Either he goes through them super quick, or he’s never opened them before.” I commented, as I chucked them back into the drawer.

“He’s probably waiting for Scarlet,” Rex scoffed.

“Scarlet?”

“Yeah, Dime’s had a crush on her since like the ninth grade.”

“I didn’t know that.” I said and cocked my head to the side, then shook my head. “Anyway, where were we,” I added, as I stepped back to Rex and straddled him.

He smiled at me as I lowered my head and kissed him again, he immediately deepened the kiss, as my lips parted and he slipped his tongue inside, both of us feeling the urgency and passion. It wasn’t long before I tore apart Rex’s shirt and cast it aside, as he hurriedly removed his pants. He sat up as his hands grabbed at my breasts, as he pulled down my top exposing myself to him. He placed his head in between my breasts before he pushed them together, then he drew away and placed his mouth over my nipple, his teeth gently tugging at it.

I moaned, as my fingers found its way knotted into his hair, pushing his head closer towards me. Just then, Rex’s hands slithered down my back as he cupped my ass and pulled me down with him. He grabbed a fistful of my hair as he nuzzled his face into the side of my neck.

“Fuck me, now.” I yearned for him.

Rex slipped the rubber onto himself, as I then lowered myself onto him as I felt him inside of me. Rex’s breathing quickened, as his hands held onto my hips, slowly my hips moved. Rex closed his eyes and he pressed his lips together.

I continued to ride back and forth, as I found my momentum and the bed beneath us began to creak. My fingers gripped down onto Rex’s chest, the sweat had begun to form and had matted against his body. Rex reached up as he grabbed my breasts, squeezing them down, before his fingers twirled in my hair and pulled me down towards him, as he grunted into my neck. Whilst his other hand found its way to my ass as he slapped down onto it hard, I flinched as my hips continued to move.

“Do it again.” I hissed.

Rex’s hand collided against my ass once again, as I moaned into him, before he slapped me several more times. I continued to ride him, as I watched Rex grunt beneath me, his hands grabbed at my breasts, before I felt the pleasure possess us both.

I sunk down onto him, our sweaty bodies plastered against each other, sweat matted against my hair. As he brushed it aside and planted a kiss on my forehead, I could still hear his heartbeat palpitating beneath me, as we fought to catch our breaths.

We continued to lay there, as we stared at Dime’s ceiling that had a poster of Farrah Fawcett, and I immediately giggled at the image.

“I should probably head back home.” I said, not wanting to leave.

“Do you have to?”

“Yeah,” I groaned, “my mom’s still mad that I didn’t come home and not call the other night.”

“Alright.” Rex said and frowned, “let me walk you back though.”

—--------

Once Rex and I had gotten back into our clothes, we found ourselves strolling down the neighborhood under the black abyss of the night sky.

We stalked on the empty roads hand in hand, and I saw the familiar looking house in the distance. My heart sank, as I knew this moment alone with Rex would end.

As we reached my house, we paused and I wrapped my arms around Rex. “I don’t want to go in.” I whined.

He released a low chuckle beneath his breath. “I don’t want you to go too, but I’ll see you in the morning.”

I groaned. “I guess so.”

“Do you want me to walk you to the door?”

“Sure, my mom’s probably asleep.”

We ascended the steps before I drew out my key from my pocket and quietly slipped it into the lock. However, just when I was about to turn it, the door swung wide open.

To my dismay, my mother stood in the door, as if she were guarding it. My gaze looked over her expression, and I knew that something wasn’t right. Her brows furrowed, and her jaw was clenched.

“Mom, hey, you’re up?” I said.

“Hey, hmm… Mrs-” Rex stuttered.

“Get inside,” my mom ordered.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” I said to Rex, as I turned to him.

“Yeah, see you.” He said, as he reluctantly kissed me on the cheek instead, before he stalked off.

My mom stepped aside, and allowed me to cross over the threshold. “I know… I should have called, I’m sorry.” I immediately said, the lines I had constantly spoken had failed to give any meaning to me anymore.

My mom cleared her throat. “Do I even want to ask about his black eye?”

I released a nervous chuckle. “Oh, hmm- it was an accident he had.”

“Uh huh,” she said, and then added, “we need to talk.”

“Oh,” I responded, as I rubbed my eyes, “well, can it wait… I’m really tired.”

“I’ll bet you are,” she growled, and placed her hands on her hips, “with all this partying you’re doing with Scarlet and gallivanting with that boy.” She spat in disgust. “This ends now.”

“Oh come on, it's summer. I’m allowed to have a little fun.”

My mom sighed. “The only reason why you’re here and not in college is because of the deal you made with us. We allowed you to follow your dreams of being in a band, and because you were on the way to getting signed, but now that I hear you’ve been kicked out of that band.”

“Look, it’s a really long story… yes, there was an issue with Billy, but I’m trying really hard to find another,” I explained, then added, “actually, I’m gonna form my own.”

My mom shook her head. “That wasn’t part of the deal,” she challenged, “you weren’t able to hold up your end, so, you’re going back to California and enrolling into school.”

The words rang in my ears. “What? Woah, no!” I protested, “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yes you are. You’re going back to California, that was the deal.”

“Be reasonable mom, just because I got kicked out of the band doesn’t mean that my life is over here.”

“I know exactly why you want to stay,” she hissed, “that boy. I’m not going to let you throw your life away for him.”

“You don’t even know Rex, how can you judge him?”

My mom scoffed. “Believe me. I know boys like him. He’ll only break your heart.” She sighed, her face suddenly softening, “I know you think I’m a monster for doing this, but I only want what’s best for you.”

My chest ached, as I tried to swallow back the tears. Images flashed in my mind of my time with Rex, knowing that it was about to be cut short.

“I’ve bought your plane ticket. You leave in the morning.” My mom ordered.

#fanfic #fanfiction #pantera fanfic #rex brown fanfic #rex brown x female reader #rock music fanfic #pantera fic #rex brown fic #rex rocker fanfic #rex rocker fic

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icarusthelunarguard · 1 year

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This Week’s Horrible-Scopes

It’s time for this week’s Horrible-Scopes! So for those of you that know your Astrological Signs, cool! If not, just pick one, roll a D12, or just make it up as you go along. It really doesn’t matter. Better yet! Check out “Heart of the Game, Fredonia” and see if they can sell you those D12’s with the symbols on them. Tell them “Shujin Tribble” sentcha. And “Hail, Hail, Fredonia!” Home of the Blue Devil!

This week we’re generating random numbers from 1023 to 2023 - and looking to see what’s so special in each of those years. Look, it was either that or search for Animated GIFs based on those numbers, and that really doesn’t work in a spoken or print medium. So let’s go!

Aries

The year 1202 started on a Tuesday… otherwise known as M. Bison’s favorite day of the week. Lots of notable things happened during your year, mostly centered around various Crusade battles in what is now Western Europe. Nothing specifically sticks out as memorable, so we’ll use that as inspiration. This week remember that you are important in the grand tapestry of life… even if you’re otherwise a forgettable face. It’s a nice face, don’t get us wrong! It’s just… you’re more Best Supporting Actor than less Best Actor. Know what we mean?

Taurus

Your year of 1501 started on a Friday - which means everyone got to enjoy the weekend off! (*Beat Pause*) No, no one was able to do that. It was winter in 1501 and people were trying not to freeze. In your corner though, the first printed collection of polyphonic music was published by Ottaviano Petrucci in Venice. Just for that, this week, learn to read music again… and look up what “Polyphonic” means.

Gemini

1052 - a leap year starting on HUMP DA-A-AY! Ok, ok. Enough of all that. Here’s a GREAT item that happened that summer. Godwin, Earl of Wessex, sails with a large fleet up the Thames to London, forcing King Edward the Confessor to reinstate him into his previous position of power. So this week learn from Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and sharpen up your blackmail skills. And try to remember which side is PORT and which side is STARBOARD.

Cancer Moon-Child

Also starting on a Wednesday, 1505 had the first recorded use of a Tennis Racquet. One of the people credited with using it was, and this was his full name and title… “Philip the Handsome, Duke of Burgundy” in the Netherlands. He was also known as “Philip the Fair”, since… you know… he was a handsome fellow. So this week, brush up on your backhand swing… and grant yourself a posh regal-sounding title.

Leo

1636 was a leap year starting on a Tuesday, and we’re not going to invoke the ghost of Raul Julia again this time. But this time we get to invoke the evil chuckle of Tim Curry! You see, in France, Cardinal Richelieu persuaded King Louis XIII to issue an ordinance excusing the French nobility from military service if they paid a tax which allows the hiring of paid cavalry. Now picture this - Tim Curry’s version of Cardinal Richelieu from the 1993 movie “The Three Musketeers” whispering in your ear, feeding you evil thoughts as only he can. This week keep imagining that and let everyone wonder why you’re smirking like that all day.

Virgo

Starting on a Saturday, 1757 had a bloody awful start. There were no Saturday Morning Cartoons, no NPR News, no matinee movies to watch. Honestly it just sucked. BUT! Something good did come of it: The Rigshospitalet, national hospital of Denmark, is founded at Copenhagen. Its name translates as “The National, State or Hospital of the Realm” and is a teaching hospital, STILL IN OPERATION TODAY! So this week, do something long-lasting.

Libra

Wow, Libra. Starting the year 1553 on a Sunday. Got to sleep in that year, huh? Again, no! ‘Cause it’s the 1500’s and you’re trying not to freeze. Born that year was Beatrice Michiel, a Venetian spy, who died in 1613. Now as any good spy would do, her actual birthdate is unknown. But is it fair to say when she died… she folded up? (*Pause*) This week, play You Laugh You Lose to some Dad Jokes playlists on YouTube.

Scorpio

Another Tuesday-Starting year, you get 1353! In this year the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta makes the first recorded visit to Timbuktu and Kabara, when returning from a stay in the capital of the Mali Empire. And just like that, this is THE FIRST TIME The Horrible-Scopes have Zero’d the DJs! This week, try to do something that was never done before because nobody said you could.

Sagittarius

1504 starts off crappy and doesn’t improve much, since it started on a Monday without coffee. Well, MOST of the world didn’t have coffee yet. Anyway, in your year, Michelangelo's sculpture of David is unveiled in Florence. And if you’ve ever seen it, or a copy of it, it is magnificent! And he’s got a properly-proportioned penis. Yeah, we said it. Nudes are art and anyone that doesn’t accept that can just avert their eyes. This week… don’t take a cold shower.

Capricorn

Starting on a Friday, 1440 was a leap year - and statistically you’re right where you ought to be! Something else got started this year that’s still in existence. Eton College was founded by Henry VI of England, and how cool is this?! It’s got a coat of arms with a lion, three lily flowers… and a Fleur-de-lis… maybe because Henry was also the disputed ruler of France for a bit. So this week, take over someone else’s work-place zone by claiming it as your own. And just shrug to answer why you did it.

Aquarius

1884 was another Leap Year, and another Tuesday. Weird, no Thursday starts in the bunch. Oh, well. How about this weird nugget? William Price attempted to cremate his dead baby son in Wales… the town. He was tried and acquitted on the grounds that cremation is not contrary to English law, thus allowing him to carry out the ceremony (the first in the United Kingdom in modern times), setting a legal precedent. So let this be a lesson to you, Aquarius… someone needs to be dead BEFORE you set them on fire. Good Talk, man!

Pisces

Another Friday start, ending us at 1199. In YOUR weird history moment… A short-lived truce is declared, between the Kings Richard I (the Lionheart) and Philip II (Augustus). Two of Europe's most powerful rulers meet on the banks of the Seine River, while shouting terms to one another. Just think about it - screaming back and forth across a river to exchange data… just the same way that computer modems used to scream at each other on telephone lines. With the occasional, “WHAT?!” thrown in for good measure. This week look up the movie quote, “I hear you! I hear you! A deaf man could hear you!”

And THOSE are your Horrible-Scopes for this week! Remember if you liked what you got, we’re obviously not working hard enough at these. BUT! If you want a better or nastier one for your own sign or someone else’s, all you need to do to bribe me is just Let Me Know! These will be posted online at the end of each week via Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Discord and BLUESKY.

#parody #horrorscope #funny #horoscope #humor #comedy #history #world history

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fantasywriter19 · 1 year

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1. Melody Riddle and the Sorcerer's Stone Ch.11 First Week of School

I woke up to the alarm clock ringing in my ear again. I couldn't figure out where it was in order to turn it off — even throwing my arm around on my new side table in a blind search for it gave no results — and blearily opened my eyes to look. Becky was holding my alarm clock right in front of my face with both her hands, and was already wearing her uniform.

"Good thing you actually repaired it after you broke it," she said brightly. "Now if you'd just remember to set it."

“Why? Are we late?" I asked, slowly sitting up.

"No, breakfast is in another half hour." Becky said, placing my alarm clock on my bedside table. “I have an inner clock that makes me wake up early. So, lucky for you, you’re in good company.”

Dangling my legs off the edge of the bed, I finally had a good look at the room around me. “Marvelous. And I think I'll be in heaven every time I set foot in this room.”

I had been sleeping in a fairly ancient four-poster bed with pretty green silk hangings, and the bedspreads were embroidered with a silver thread. The medieval tapestries along the walls showed the adventures of who I supposed were past Slytherins, and silver lanterns, like the green ones in the common room, hung from the ceiling.

“I know, right?” Becky asked, looking around in amazement. "I think I like Slytherin a lot more now, especially with you here — but don't tell Draco that. I don't want to give in and tell him that I actually like the House yet…. However, I can’t help but wonder how Addy's doing."

“Me too. We won't be able to hang around in the common room with her… we’ll just need to find her during breakfast to see what her schedule is. We have to have at least one break with her,” I said.

"Yeah… pity she was put in Hufflepuff. No one has any respect for that House. She always did show sympathy for it when we were kids, though I bet she never thought she’d be placed there,” Becky chuckled. “Thankfully, our House won’t be as focused on them as they are on Gryffindor. Draco seems to really hate them; you should've heard him at the table when Harry Potter was placed in Gryffindor.”

“I don't even want to know,” I said decidedly. “But I’m sure you’ll always mess around with him as a way to make up for the things he says. It is admittedly a very nice quirk of yours.”

"And one of the reasons is that he hates me and likes you,” she said, a little too cheerfully. “So long as we don’t tell him you gave me permission. Honestly, Addy would’ve never allowed it.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “He’ll never really be paying attention to me, regardless. He seemed way more interested in making fun of other people than helping me know more about wizarding history."

“Quidditch doesn't count as history,” Becky said, bouncing up and down as she chuckled.

“Isn't it a regularly played sport?” I asked, in which she nodded. “Then wouldn't it count as history depending on where it starts? I mean, it didn't just start a few years ago, now did it?”

“Ah —” Becky said, looking for an argument. “Huh, you make an excellent point. Never mind then.”

“Point given then,” I said, looking at the other beds as I started to look through my trunk for my uniform. What were the other girls’ names again… Oh, right. “Where'd Millicent and Pansy go?”

"I suppose they already went to breakfast. They weren’t here even when I got up,” Becky said, her eyebrows scrunched. “And I wake up early. You can ask Addy.

“Huh. Lovely roommates,” I said sarcastically. “Joyous people that I will get to know oh so well.”

Becky chuckled softly. "Hopefully Addy doesn't have the same problem. She won't have us to turn to in the mornings… and she sleeps about as deeply as you do.”

⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛

After breakfast that first day, we had gotten our schedules and found all first year Slytherins had the same classes together. And, luckily, all first years in general had the same free time. Becky and I walked over to the Hufflepuff table and talked through it with Addy about where we'd meet during our shared free time and what we'd do. For the first week, we wanted to make the most of our free time since the rest of the time would likely be reserved for studying.

After that, searching through the building for our classrooms was the hardest even though I'd already been there for a few months. Of course, the only routes I’d memorized over the summer were from the dungeons to the library and Professor Dumbledore’s office. Maybe I should’ve listened to Fred and George when they offered to help me memorize where all the classrooms were… why didn’t I take it? I can’t even go ask them now — what Slytherin would take me seriously for turning to Gryffindors for directions?

Everything was so confusing, and it was very easy to get lost considering that Hogwarts had a hundred and forty-two staircases of many kinds of shapes and sizes. Some apparently led to a different place every Friday, and some had a vanishing step about halfway up that everyone had to remember to jump. I almost never remembered where I had to watch my step or where I was going.

The doors were the most confusing because there were some that would only open if you asked politely, some that opened if you touched them a certain way in the correct spot, and there were some that were just plain walls pretending to be doors. The latter got on my nerves the most that week.

As for Peeves the Poltergeist, who I remembered the ghosts talking about on that first night, he got on everyone's nerves. Or so I heard… I never saw him, personally. And I had no idea what he did to annoy other students. Gemma told Becky and I that Peeves would only listen to the Bloody Baron, and this was why we were lucky that the Bloody Baron was our House Ghost.

I just thanked my lucky stars and stayed far away from the Poltergeist’s favored, rumored haunts. Though I couldn't be absolutely positive that I wouldn’t run into him eventually.

Argus Filch… he surprisingly took a liking to me and my friends (the girls, might I clarify.) We were the only ones who, when passing him in the halls, smiled at him and asked him about his day. He seemed to really enjoy our fun-loving attention compared to the other students' extreme hate and wariness. Especially for Mrs. Norris, his scrawny cat, who liked how much attention we offered her, and became friends with our own cats. My cat Bedouin, Becky’s cat Nightmare, and Addy’s tabby Riddick.

I felt lucky having classes with Addy and Becky. I actually had people to talk to for once while the teacher lectured. Something I never got in Muggle school. Classes ended up being the best part of my day.

We were actually scheduled for class at midnight on Wednesdays to look at the skies through our telescopes to learn the names of all the different stars and of the movements of the planets around the sun.

Three times a week we would go to Herbology in the greenhouses behind the castle with Addy and the Hufflepuffs with Professor Sprout, who was the Head of Hufflepuff House. In it, we were learning about all the strange plants and fungi there were and what they could be used for.

History of Magic was taught by Professor Binns, the only ghost teacher in the school — and the only one I've ever had, of course.

Charms class was taught by Professor Flitwick, which completely suited his name, I found, in consideration to the subject of the class with flicking the wands — in which he was so short that he had to stand on top of a pile of books just to see us over his desk.

Transfiguration was taught by Professor McGonagall, who was proven to be a very strict teacher but very, very clever. I enjoyed the practical direction she took for teaching, which was to leave us to our own devices with our objects to transform after she performed the proper way to pronunciate and wave our wands.

Defense Against the Dark Arts, again by Professor Quirrell, was mostly a joke as I’d feared. It was very easily my least favorite class, because his stuttering grated away at my brain… and there was always the overwhelming smell of garlic.

When Friday came along, I almost felt excited for the weekend so I could study and just spend some time outside with Becky and Addy. What Becky and I had yet to do was Potions class, which was what we were scheduled for that day with the Gryffindors. Addy mentioned how strict Professor Snape was, but so long as we followed instructions we would be okay.

"Oh!" Becky said with an unhappy sigh as we sat at the breakfast table.

”What?" I asked, eating some porridge, and wondering about how Professor Snape would be like in class. Knowing he was Head of Slytherin House did nothing for my nerves. I was certain he didn't like me or my mom, and I felt like it could lead to him thinking I shouldn't be treated with kindness in House points.

"We have double potions with the Gryffindors,” she bemoaned.

I grumbled. A double period with Professor Snape... that makes it so much better.... Not.

"Oh, don't worry so much,” Draco said, scarfing his porridge down quickly. He seemed very excited to get the day started. "Professor Snape is a close family friend of my parents and Head of House, so he'll be nice to us. Also, as older Slytherins have told me, he drops points pretty much every day for Gryffindors. Never for Slytherins. He favors us too much."

"So there's no way he'll drop any points for Slytherin?" I asked, my confidence rising.

"No way in his class. There may be times where he'll have to drop points, but he'll avoid it when he can,” Draco said.

“Thank God,” I said, eating my porridge more easily now that my stomach was no longer twisting itself in knots.

Owls came in at the regular time every day, and Draco always got one from his parents. It was mostly a bunch of sweets and toys. I hadn't gotten any until that day when a barn owl came and dropped a letter on my lap and settled down in front of me.

I opened it, finding it was from my mom. Shoot! I forgot to write to her after I got here.

It said:

My dear Melody,

I hope you've been doing all right during your first day at school. Don't worry about forgetting to write me. I knew it would happen. The aura of Hogwarts makes you forget anything else. Even if it is school, it’s also a home away from home.

Speaking of home, your grandma and your uncle just returned. You can finally meet them over Christmas vacation. I can’t help but laugh at your uncle, because he’d gotten stuck in the Himalayas with no passport to get back home and mommy had to go save him. HA!

Your grandfather is very picky about asking me if you've written yet. He really wants to know what House you got into. Knowing him he's hoping for Ravenclaw, but just write when you can.

Sincerely,

Your mother, Orele.

P.S. Watch out for my owl, Ebony, she has a bad attitude problem. I’ve had her since I got accepted into Hogwarts at your age, and her personality is admittedly NOT the best to deal with. She’d just come back from a long trip your grandfather sent her on when I wrote the letter, so she won’t be much happier by the time you get this. Love you, sweetie!

Unluckily for me, I had begun to pet the darn owl before seeing the p.s. and ended up with an extremely sharp beak biting down on my thumb. “Ouch!” I said with a glare at the owl, who hooted and took a step back.

"What is the letter about?" Draco asked, watching my face closely as I read the letter.

Taking out another piece of paper and a quill — with a glare at the owl that had obvious anger issues — I said, "My grandpa is going to be very unhappy when I write back saying I got into Slytherin."

"Why?" Draco demanded.

I looked up at him pointedly. "My whole family on his side — my mom's side — was in Ravenclaw. And I’m almost certain he didn't like my dad, so he might assume that I'll turn out just like him."

"What did he turn out like?" he asked, his initial feelings of offense immediately dashed by curiosity.

"That's just it," I said, starting to write out the letter, "My mom won't tell me anything about him, so my grandpa’s also keeping his mouth shut. She begrudgingly told me his name, and that he was in Slytherin, but won't tell me anything else. And any time I mention his name, somebody always has to look freaked out.”

Draco seemed to ponder that as I wrote:

Hi mom,

Everything's going well as far as classes. I already have a bunch of homework from Transfiguration and Charms for the weekend, and today I have my first Potions lesson with Professor Snape. Wish me luck.

As for my House, give my full apologies to grandpa, but I came out in Slytherin. I was very surprised when it placed me in this House, saying that I have a very dark family history and that I am clever and cunning, I was so, so close to Ravenclaw, I swear! However, I am glad that I still have Becky and Draco with me. Though I’m sad Addy ended up in Hufflepuff.

One question: how much of a kid are you going to be with your brother back around you?

Anyways. Give grandpa, grandma and uncle whoever my regards. Everything is also going well here.

Your loving daughter,

Melody

P.S. Can you give more immediate warning next time you have information as important as an owl with a nasty attitude? She bit me.

I enclosed it in an envelope and told the owl, “Send this back to my mom… please.”

The owl hooted in an irritated fashion, and swiftly flew away.

⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛

With Professor Snape’s class, it went better than I thought… for me. All my thoughts about the professor hating me went away as soon as I saw how he treated the infamous Harry Potter.

He started out with a roll call and paused at Harry's name. He said, very softly, "Ah, yes, Harry Potter. Our new – celebrity."

I was seated next to Becky and Draco, Vincent and Greg were on Draco's other side, and all three boys sniggered at Professor Snape's wording against Harry. The professor went on. No one but myself noticed how at my name, which was right after Harry's, he glanced up at me. I automatically raised an eyebrow back in response.

Here was his speech to us, in such the quietest tone possible that if anyone had been talking.. no one would've heard it: "You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making.

"As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses…. I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death — if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

I listened to the silence after this. He made it seem like his class would be the most dangerous to learn. The way in which he described the potions as “liquids that creep through human veins,” and continuing on that caused me to think twice about ever taking a potion from him, even if he said it was all right to drink.

Professor Snape scared me suddenly when he instantaneously said, "Potter, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Draught of Living Death, I thought to myself smugly. Harry, however, had no idea... that much was clear.

Hermione's hand shot straight into the air. Professor Snape ignored her, watching Harry closely.

“I don't know, sir,” Harry said, fairly stumped by the question.

Professor Snape sneered at him, “Tut, tut – fame clearly isn't everything. Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?”

The stomach of a goat, I thought. I sat watching as Harry, again, had no idea what Professor Snape was asking of him, and Hermione stretched her hand into the air as high as she could. She clearly wanted some House points.

Next to me Draco, Vincent, and Greg were just shaking with silent laughter. Becky, though, was like me, sitting there quietly. Likely wondering how badly this was going to end.

“I don't know, sir,” Harry said once again.

“Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?” Professor Snape sneered at him. I couldn't imagine how humiliated Harry must feel with the man, picking on him like this and still ignoring Hermione's hand.

Professor Snape tried again. "What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

They're the same thing, I thought as Hermione then stood up, waving her hand in the air, just dying to answer the professor's every question. I thought to myself with a realization that the way he seemed to dislike me was nothing like the way he hated Harry Potter.

Harry replied very softly in the still, quiet classroom, “I don't know. I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try her?”

A few people in the classroom actually laughed, but Becky and I, however, just looked at Harry, mortified. Is he crazy? Telling the professor that, of all things to say? He could've just said ‘I don't know, sir’ again.

I knew he realized his mistake just by looking at Professor Snape's expression.

The professor snapped at Hermione first, “Sit down,” and proceeded to bully Harry a little more. “For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?”

Everyone started rummaging for quills and parchment, but Becky, Hermione and I were already done scribbling down what he said before anyone else got theirs out. That ‘for your information,’ sounded like an obvious demand for notes despite the fact that I knew each fact already. I could hear Professor Snape’s voice cut through the air, even as Draco asked if he could copy off of my notes — having forgotten what he’d said.

“And a point will be taken from Gryffindor House for your cheek, Potter.”

As the lesson continued on, Professor Snape placed us all into pairs to brew a cure for boils, putting me together with Draco, Becky with Greg, Vincent with Pansy and so on. It was actually a great first lesson for me, because I learned that Draco and I worked very well together.

Draco would read what we needed, I'd get it, and then we'd both take turns putting the different ingredients in either the mortar or the cauldron. Draco only asked me one thing, and that was how much I thought the snake fangs needed to be crushed. The rest of the recipe was pretty simple.

Professor Snape criticized everyone's potion in the classroom except ours. Our potion was literally perfect. He even used ours as an example to the class as to how they should stew the horned slugs. During this time, I looked around at all the other cauldrons; each had weird, different colored smoke misting the air while ours was completely clear.

It was just then that clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon. Neville Longbottom and Seamus Finnigan were the partners that stood in front of a twisted blob: their cauldron. Their potion was moving its way across the floor, burning holes in students’ shoes. Everyone was on their stools before the two could say 'oops.'

Poor Neville had been drenched with the potion, and he moaned in pain as everyone could see angry red boils springing up all over him… so much for the cure for boils.

“Idiot boy! I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?” Professor Snape snapped at Neville. At Seamus he said, "Take him up to the hospital wing." Then he rounded on Harry, who'd been working with Ron next to the pair. “You — Potter — why didn't you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he'd make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That's another point you've lost for Gryffindor.”

Draco chuckled softly. “They're going to lose so many points this year. There’s no way we'll lose. We'll win for the seventh year in a row.”

I actually smiled at this, so as not to worry him. But inside I thought this was so cheating.

After class I got Becky and — surprisingly — Draco, Vincent, and Greg to wait for me while I talked to Professor Snape.

“Did you want to talk to me, Professor Snape, sir?” I asked him, adding extra emphasis on the ‘sir,’ and causing him to raise an eyebrow at me. Oh, should I have stood silently, waiting for him to acknowledge me? No, thank you. It definitely helped to know that he didn’t want to take points from his own House, otherwise I wouldn’t have dared be so forward.

“I would dock a point for your cheek, but I will let it slide for now.”

“Sorry,” I said sheepishly, with a large smile. “I just… felt like the look you gave me earlier when roll-calling names was that you wanted to see me.”

“You're just like your mother,” Professor Snape said. And it wasn't meant to be a rude comment. Okay. Progress.

“So I've been told,” I said.

“She had a way of knowing when I wanted to talk. Just by looking at my expression.” I swear the professor must be purposely trying to get me to worm out of whatever he has on his mind, I thought as the man tried hard to return his gaze to his work.

“I'm pretty sure the look you gave me was for something more than simply seeing how alike my mom and I are, sir,” I said, hoping I wouldn’t have to go too far in worming it out of him so as to really lose Slytherin points. It wasn't likely, though, I supposed.

“Fine. I wondered how your first week of school went. And don't tell any lies, I will ask all the teachers,” Professor Snape said, sitting at his desk while I stayed standing.

“Good, good,” I said. “I got a couple points in each class, one example is in Transfiguration for being the first Slytherin to turn a matchstick into a needle.”

“How about in my class? Did it suit you?” he asked.

Why is he so interested in this? “Great, actually. I think being partnered with Draco was an upside. And the questions that you asked Harry… I knew them all.”

"You did?" he asked, his eyes turning up curiously towards me.

“Um, yeah,” I said, a little offended. “I read every single school book this summer to memorize everything I needed to know.”

“You mem —”

I cut him off, thankfully I knew he’d let it slide. “Not like Hermione Granger, though. I met her on the train, and she claimed she learned the school books by heart. So, she will most likely quote the book in class.”

“Plagiarism,” he said instantly, looking back down at his papers. “She will lose points if she quotes anything in my class.”

For some reason, I would’ve defended her case, but I didn't open my mouth. Professor Snape luckily didn't seem to notice my inner battle. If I was caught sticking up for a Gryffindor, I would be trampled by all the other Slytherins and lose my brand new friends. Besides, I gave him valuable information, he's a teacher; he knew what was right and wrong.

So, why is there a pit filling up my stomach?“Hm,” I said. “Well, my friends are waiting outside. I should go.”

“I see you made friends with Malfoy,” Professor Snape said, as though finding another reason to keep me there. His eyes did not leave the paperwork on his desk.

“Yeah,” I said, curious as to why he was so interested in that.

“Best kind of friends you can have here at Hogwarts, believe me,” Professor Snape said softly. “Don't be around students from Gryffindor. It’s not a safe reputation.”

“I… wasn't really planning on it. The only friend I have that isn't in my House is Addy,” I said.

“Miss Gentz?”

“Yeah, what other Addisons are there?” I asked.

“She is the only one in your year,” Professor Snape said.

Why did this conversation start? I asked myself. “Okay,” I said slowly. “So, um, can I go?”

“Yes, Riddle, you are dismissed.”

“Don't call me that,” I muttered softly as I turned to walk away.

“Why not?”

Crap, he heard that? “It's just.. weird to call me by my last name. It’s… uncomfortable.”

“I do it with everyone. Get used to it. It’s both professional, and last names are not likely to be repeated,” Professor Snape said, as though it was a perfect reason.

“You can't really do it with Fred and George Weasley in class, though, now can you?” I asked. “Not only are they twins, but they’ve also got brothers going to this school at the same time, so your logic doesn’t really make any sense….”

He finally looked up at me, “You are dismissed, Riddle. Follow directions.”

I smirked and walked out of the room, chuckling. I wasn’t sure why that was so funny to me. Perhaps it was the look on his face as he told me to get out.

“What's so funny?” Becky asked as I walked out.

I explained what he wanted to talk about to my friends, and they were very interested as to not only what we said, but how he talked to me. “I think it has to do with my mom. They knew each other when they were younger. That much is certain.”

“He knew all of our parents... except perhaps Becky’s,” Draco said.

"Don't worry, leave my family out. This is interesting,” Becky said with a wave of her hand, her eyes sparkling.

“I don't know how it is he'd know your mother so well, though. She was a Ravenclaw,” Draco said.

“I know,” I replied thoughtfully. Could it have something to do with what he meant when he’d said Draco was the best kind of friend I could ever have here at school?

⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛

Later that evening, during our free time, Addy met up with us and we sat around on the grounds underneath a tree. Well we all were until I started climbing it, something I hadn't done in a while. I sat on a trunk a little ways off of the ground, and we all just listened to Draco talk about Quidditch. His most favorite subject.

“I can't wait until next year. I'll be on the team in an instant.”

“How can you be so sure about that?” Addy asked him.

“My father will talk to the Quidditch captain. But it'll most likely still be Flint, so I'll get in anyways. Flint knows I'm great at it,” Draco said, leaning against the tree with a smile of satisfaction.

I decided to test him further. “So let me ask you this. If you were allowed to be on the Quidditch team this year for your amazing skills, what role would you want to play?”

“Ooh, that's a good question,” Draco smiled up at me, then he stared off into space. “I would be best as seeker, I think. Yes, that would be the role I'll play in the game, the seeker. I'm great at it back at home.”

“Nice,” I said, thinking that to be a great idea. I at least learned from him that the seeker had to be a really small person in order to catch the snitch, and even in our second year he’d probably still be small enough for the role.

“That reminds me,” Draco said suddenly. “I never did finish explaining to you about Quidditch, now did I?”

“No, but it’s fine. I think I have the basics down. I can watch the upcoming game to see more about how it's played. That'll give some good observation skills for me, I should think,” I said.

“Hm.. when's your birthday?” he asked, surprising me.

“The thirty-first of May,” I replied.

“I guess I'm a little late then, but happy belated birthday,” Draco said, taking a book out of his backpack. “I — erm — can't exactly get this to you if you're up there.”

I took it as a joke, “Hardy har har.” Taking out my wand, I waved it, "Wingardium Leviosa." The book levitated up to me, and I grabbed it in midair. The title read Quidditch Through the Ages. “Thanks! This'll help,” I said with a grateful smile.

“How d’you know that spell?” Addy asked. “We aren't supposed to learn it for another few weeks.”

“I read the books and practiced the month before school started. Not actually casting the spells, of course, but I practiced the movements and incantations for them.” I said, poring over the book already. I could see out of the corner of my eye that Draco was very pleased with himself. “Thanks so much!” I said again.

“You're welcome,” Draco said. “At least I know what to get you for all of your birthdays to come. Books.”

I chuckled, “That you do.”

“Oh, take this, too. It's the Daily Prophet. Mentions a break-in the day we went to go get our school supplies,” Draco said, taking out a newspaper with moving pictures.

I levitated that to myself as well and read aloud:

GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST

Investigations continue into the break-in at

Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the

work of dark wizards or witches unknown.

Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing

had been taken. The vault that was searched had in

fact been emptied that same day.

"But we're not telling you what was in there, so

keep your noses out if you know what's good

for you," said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this after-

noon.

“Oh wow,” I said, levitating it down for Becky and Addy to reread. “That's… not good.”

“They'll catch the culprit. They're goblins, they always do,” Draco said with a shrug.

It's as if he doesn't care that something terrible could have happened, I thought to myself. It is possible that something more is happening, I can feel it, but the thing is… I don’t know what it is.

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#melody riddle #harry potter fandom #voldemort's daughter #becky figsund #addy gentz #draco malfoy #harry potter #orele ollivander #severus snape #hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry

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mercurypyrite · 1 year

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ok so i finished book 6 last night so this is a bit belated but whatever. longass masterpost of my thoughts on everything post 6-81 incoming

i felt awful for vil (3hrs of crying, he’s gotta be dehydrated) but it was lowkey kinda funny how malleus just popped up and was like “i’m in your debt (according to lilia) (pretty sure this was just for their own amusement?? idk man they’re fae) so i’ll help 👍” and just kinda poofed him back to normal.

i think this is the… third time we’ve seen him do smth like that? first at VDC, then during endless halloween night, and finally now. (though EHN came first canonically.) he seems to be making a habit of it. and that joyful squeal? love that. (vil’s normally so poised, though — goes to show how deeply book 6, and being rudely confronted by his fear of aging, rattled him)

leona: i’ve been fighting all night and i’m dead on my feet

ruggie & jack: sorry what. PLEASE elaborate

once i saw adeuce the only thought left in my head was “MY BOYS THEYRE HERE” i’m so glad they’re okay like damn. it feels like everyone’s been gone longer than 2 days lmao

“Human lives are as ethereal as silk thread on a spinning wheel — and just as easily cut short. But their fragility can be a boon. Interweaving and layering those threads creates the strong, resilient tapestry of their history. Such is the creature called man — neighbor to we creatures of the night.”

so so tempted to make part of this my blog quote but it sounds so pretentious. not like the current one isn’t i guess. also sleeping beauty ref goes brrr

ortho (lovingly) dragging idia is one of my new favorite things i think

“You don’t have any close friends who can keep you in line yet, and I don’t know if you ever will. Not to put too fine a point on it, but leaving you to your own devices is a terrible idea. So… I want to stay with you. Is that asking too much?”

“You’ve been my real brother for a long time now, Ortho.”

“Let’s go back to Night Raven College. You’ve got people waiting for you there.”

“…Yeah, I do, huh.”

LIKE GOD. THEM. i want to stay with you. you don’t have to act like my little brother but you’ve been my real brother for a while now. you don’t have close friends but you DO have people waiting for you. they won’t forget. (and then he ends up gaming with vdc gang and bantering with ortho around them, slowly coming out of his shell if only temporarily, and i’m so soft over that)

refurbished ramshackle was nice to see but… not really surprising, lol. looks directly at the guest room feature. twsten rlly likes doing things out of order huh.

also yuu spent “a few weeks” at pomefiore?? honorary heartslabyul student yuu is out, honorary pomefiore student yuu is in. they even got a uniform!!

jk they can coexist

(i will make them coexist. i love them both sm)

(i wanna see riddle and vil fighting over yuu /hj)

“I was called before parliament in the Land of Dawning. Bigwigs from STYX, the Department of Education, AND the Department of Magic all bombarded me with questions and glared daggers at me… ‘Why are so many consecutive overblots happening on your watch?! How do you explain this?!’

“That’s what I want to know! What have I done, except run this school as diligently as I could?! Night Raven College has resident counselors and medical mages appointed by the Department of Education as it is!

“Since the assembly saw no major issues with the school’s leadership, the inquiry came to a close… But I certainly didn’t expect one of our students to bring about an off-campus catastrophe even as we convened!”

crowley actually getting in legal trouble (or at least being threatened with legal trouble) actually surprised me a lot??? i’m so used to thinking stuff like this would more or less get covered up for plot convenience or wtv that it’s nice to see crowley get smacked with it. rip headmage

ALSO rip therapist yuu memes bc NRC HAS THERAPISTS (tho theyre not rlly dead bc. no one SEES the therapists. probably. stubborn kids.)

seeing ortho again = no thoughts left in my head redux, “BABY BOY” edition!! he looks so nice!! i love the lil buttons!! rlly i love all the details, looking like an NRC uniform while still being undeniably ortho

“‘I don’t get it’ is a perfect encapsulation of my current state!”

LOL. he’s not wrong though.

…of course crowley took a bribe. i dunno why i’m surprised to hear that.

though in vil’s words, “It’s hardly our place to interject if it’s a win-win for both parties, I suppose.”

crowley’s inquiry about grim’s health makes me side-eye him more strongly the more i think about it. yes i know why (grim attacked yuu, was more strongly affected by the blot, etc) but i’m still suspicious, i wanna know if there’s more to it.

“I’m truly glad that you — ah, that is, ALL of you — made it back to the school safe and sound.”

the way he added “all of you” made it seem to me like they were an afterthought compared to grim…

twst rlly put aaaall the fluff at the end huh. not like i’m complaining though!! it’s like a reward for getting through all the angst. idia’s gift is very him (lol) and idia and ortho playing video games with everyone is adorable

“We should probably make Idia play holding the controller backwards or something, though. He’s super good.”

“I see what you’re doing, Ortho. Trying to skate by without any handicaps for yourself, huh? YOU’RE the one who needs extra restrictions, like no items allowed.”

play for a crowd! is also up there on my list of favorite twistunes but i can’t play it while sleep deprived or my score goes down the toilet. ask me how i know. half the time normal mode is harder than hard mode.

also i haven’t said it anywhere yet but idia’s battle theme is a banger too. ignihyde osts killed it

and rook and vil’s discussion of ortho’s soul!! screams!!

“He — or rather, they — chose to try and boost their brother up from the depths below to the skies above. What do you call such love and affection, if not a soul?”

the “dream” sequence was so interesting!! yuu and mickey can’t see anything but each other. grim can’t see mickey either, and vice versa.

but. mickey could see silver. why was silver at ramshackle at night? a reasonable assumption is that silver went to ramshackle to find malleus, couldn’t, and left, but really…

why could mickey see silver at all?

i’ve heard (though i haven’t got a source for this unfortunately) that silver says — somewhere — that he’s seen yuu before, or that they look familiar, or something along those lines. i wanna know if this is connected to that. also, silver’s curse. that too. sleep/dreams vs reality etc.

and last but not least, lilia is dropping death flags left and right and malleus is Concerned. to be fair, so am i. what’s going on, dude?

(sidenote: damn it riddle’s hair went back to normal. i was hoping he’d just have white hair now 😭)

(also, eagerly awaiting the “gloomurai is idia and muscle red is lilia” reveal in book 7. yana pls.)

(i… may have gotten spoiled a bit. unintentionally. so now i know that in book 7, [REDACTED].)

#py liveblogs twst book 6 #twst #twst book 6 spoilers

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drawlfoy · 3 years

Text

detention, retention, and draco malfoy being a little shit

masterlist request guidelines

pairing: draco x reader

request: no not really

summary: golden trio friend y/n y/l/n tries to extract information out of draco malfoy after being placed in detention together.

warnings: swearing, panic attack kinda stuff, just the dark war things that would come w having the task that draco does

a/n: ayo so i started this as a fic i was originally planning on writing in a week. i discontinued it bc i didn’t think anyone was that interested, but i’ve written for it on and off. it’s about 16k words right now standing, but i’m reposting this as a 2 part series. here are the first ~12k words....enjoy :) IMPORTANT: if you’re like “hey i started reading this in october why tf are you reposting the first two parts” just keep reading ok lmao i promise there’s more there’s about through part 6 in here hehe. i just wanted new readers to be able to pick up on it without being turned off by the fact that it was part 3. this will b e 2 parts and at least 20k words

word count: 11.6k

taglist: @gruffle1 @missmultifandommess @cleopatera @hahaboop @accio-rogers @geeksareunique @eltanin-malfoy @war-sword @cams-lynn @itsivyberry @ayo-cowbelly @nerd-domland @yesnerdsblog @shizarianathania @evanstanfanatic @strawberriesonsummer @hariosborn @night-ving @straightzoinked @imintoodeeptostop @naiomimoonshard @jejegu @ophelia-enthusiast @alwaysbeanunknownfan @nearly-memories @litty-dumb @callieclearwater @malfoy-wife15 @charlenasaxen @belladaises @fiantomartell

happy reading y’all

For legal purposes, the york pudding she lobbed at Pansy Parkinson’s head on Monday evening was simply meant to be a joke. She didn’t know that her aim was bad enough that it was going to get in Snape’s hair instead--honestly, it wasn’t even supposed to get past the Ravenclaw table, much less veer to the left to make a beeline for the professors--but no matter how much she tried to explain this to McGonagall, her sentence remained the same: detention every Friday. For two months.

Her life was ending for sure.

“I honestly don’t know what you were expecting,” Hermione told her as she gently wiped off the nib of her quill later that night in the common room. “Even if you had hit your mark, that’s still technically assault.”

“Did you even hear what she said to me? She told me that I looked like the type of kid that bit people in primary school,” complained Y/N. “I didn’t even think she knew what primary school was!”

Hermione snorted. “How long ago?”

“Two days. I’ve been waiting until there was something throwable on the dinner table.”

“How very analytic of you.”

“I’m going to hit you.”

“And you wonder why you’ve got detention.” Hermione tsk-ed at her, her face stone serious but her tone light hearted. “Maybe take this as an opportunity to, I don’t know, do your homework for once? So you won’t have to have a breakdown over the next Potion’s essay and beg me to write it for you?”

“I’m going to go to sleep and think terribly mean thoughts about you.”

“Have fun.”

Detention.

Something that Y/N wasn’t completely unfamiliar with--she’d done her time organizing Snape’s cabinets, just like every other Gryffindor--but it was different when it came to McGonagall. An impressive old lady, she thought that McGonagall saw something in her. She was always the first to chuckle at Y/N’s jokes and hesitated to reprimand her stupid behavior. And she never gave Y/N detention.

Until now, she supposed. 6th year was changing a lot of things--even their Potions professor--so McGonagall turning a new stone shouldn’t have been anything shocking.

At least, not as shocking as the first thing Y/N saw as she walked into her house head’s office.

“Malfoy?” she spat.

The platinum blonde didn’t even bother to look up from his desk.

“Miss Y/L/N,” Professor McGonagall chided. “I think we would all prefer if you restrained yourself from getting into any more physical altercations with Slytherins.”

She huffed, plopping down in the chair furthest away from that foul git and reaching for her satchel.

“I’ll be back in two hours,” said the elderly professor. “If I hear anything, and I mean anything, other than the sound of studying, consider your sentence doubled.”

With a swish of her robes, McGonagall was gone, leaving her with Malfoy.

“So what’d you do to get in here, huh? Did the administration finally get a hold of that video of you licking Voldemort’s toes?”

“What the fuck does that mean?!” he snapped, whipping around to glare at her.

“‘s just a joke,” said Y/N. “Like--how everyone says your family houses him and everything--but whatever. I can tell it’s a sore spot.”

His gaze, never withering in intensity, remained trained on her face. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Apparently so. What’re you here for?”

He exhaled sharply. “If I tell you, will you shut up and let me think?”

“No promises, but maybe.”

“Late work. I forgot to turn in the Transfiguration exam last week.”

She made a tutting sound as she lazily shuffled through the crumpled parchment in her satchel. “I expected more from you. Aren’t you gonna ask me how I wound up here?”

“No. I am going to ask you to stop talking now, though.”

“That’s terribly unfortunate,” Hermione said over breakfast the next morning. Ron and Harry were nervously chit chatting at the other side of the table over the Saturday Quidditch game against Hufflepuff--supposedly it was supposed to be quite a high stakes match. Not like Y/N cared much, though.

“Yeah! And the worst part was that he won’t even tease anymore. Like, he just sits there all broody and woe is me. We’re all witnessing our nation’s descent into war--he’s not special!”

“Who are you talking about?” asked Harry.

“Oh, just Malfoy,” said Y/N. “We have detention together with McGonagall. He’s such a nasty little greaseball, don’t you think? I mean, look at him right now, glowering over his cereal.”

“Wait! That’s it!”

“What’s it, Harry?” Hermione asked.

“It’s genius, really,” he said. “Y/N has to spend time with him alone every week, and we know that something is up with him. Malfoy is absolutely a Death Eater and has connections to You-Know-Who, but I just need to find a way to prove it.”

“I vaguely forecast where this is going, and I hate it already.”

“Listen, Y/N. It’s not for that long, and it’s for the health of the wizarding world. If you just get to know him--”

“Ick!”

“If you just get to know him, maybe get him to trust you and find out his secrets...we’d finally have enough to turn him in and throw him out of Hogwarts for good.”

“Is that really necessary, Harry?” Ginny butted in from her seat further down next to Dean. “Malfoy’s probably just exhausted like the rest of you. 6th year is difficult, and we have no solid evidence that he’s a Death Eater. I’m sure being stuck in a room with him for 2 hours is hard enough without pretending to be nice to him.”

“But what if Harry’s right?” said Y/N. “What if he is actually a Death Eater? What if he’s an active danger to the student body?”

“Exactly!” The joy written across Harry’s face at the prospect of someone else finally agreeing was infectious. “So will you?”

“Er…” She dragged her spoon across the top layer of her porridge. “In theory, sure. In actuality, I’m not sure how I could do it. Malfoy doesn’t want anything to do with me, either.”

“Love potion?” offered Ron.

“I don’t care how much of a prat he is, I’m not roofying him.”

“I rarely agree with you, Y/N, but I think you’re right. If you want to do this, you need to get him to trust you for real.”

“Your back-handed compliment skills never disappoint, Hermione. Do you think you could help me out with a plan?”

A slow smile spread across the girl’s face as she nodded. “That’s my strong suit.”

The plan they laid out over the remainder of the day was ambitious but at least do-able. Each week was split into different subtasks, the end goal being a somewhat tentative friendship between the two.

“If you can flirt with him and get him to have a crush on you without scaring him off, you’d be in the best possible position,” Hermione told her as they walked back from the Quidditch pitch among the screaming Gryffindor fans. They’d won--yet again. “Obviously I don’t foresee that being likely, but if you pull it off somehow he’d probably be willing to tell you anything. The fact that you’re a pureblood is going to carry you through this whole ordeal. He’ll at least be accepting of your existence in the wizarding community.”

The bitter edge in Hermione’s tone made Y/N’s blood boil. There was no reason for Malfoy to be as prejudiced as he was--he’d spent his adolescence in Hermione’s academic dust. She was obviously smarter than him.

“You got it, ‘Mione,” she said. Her voice barely carried over the cheers of her peers as they ascended the steps to the common room. “We’ll take this little ferret down. I can’t wait.”

“Don’t get too cocky, now.”

The Gryffindor after-party was crazy...per usual. The charmed self-filling goblets, the blasted playlist of Wizpop pumping through the air, and the buzzing energy of the room was giving Y/N a giant headache. She stood with Hermione and Harry by the edge of the crowd, watching Ron get hoisted up on the shoulders of the chasers.

“No wonder the Slytherins think we’re Neanderthals,” Y/N mused. For once, Hermione didn’t respond. “Hermione? Is everything okay?”

The second she turned away to look at her best friend, gasps and whistles filled the room. She whipped back just in time to see Lavender Brown, a sweet but slightly ditzy girl in their year, pull away from a kiss with Ron.

“Oh shi--Hermione!”

Harry and Y/N shared a glance before darting after the witch--who had impressively already made it to the door.

“Hermione, wait!” Y/N called as they jogged after her, throwing open the common room entrance and finding her sat by the tapestry on the other side of the hall, knees to her chest.

“‘Mione, what’s wrong?” asked Harry.

“Don’t be daft, Harry,” said Y/N. “You saw exactly what the rest of us did.”

“I don’t understa--”

“Harry.” Her voice was taut. “I know you’re just trying to help, but I think that it might be best if you let us be. Go back and enjoy the party.”

He gave her a tight, grateful smile before darting back through the door. Y/N wasted no more time in walking over to Hermione and throwing her arms around her shoulders.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, hugging her tight. Hermione made no move to detach them, so she continued. “Ron is an idiot. You deserve so much better--your first kiss was Viktor fucking Krum, after all. You’re hot stuff and this place is just unfortunately running dry of men who are impressive enough for you. Once you’re out of here and working in the Ministry, you’re gonna have the time of your life with men actually in your league.”

Hermione managed a sniffly laugh as she wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “It’s just so fucking embarrassing, you know. Like, I have a crush on him because I think he understands me and I smelled him in my Amortentia and I thought he’d like me back, but…” She hiccuped. “Then he goes off and kisses Lavender Brown, of all people. There’s nothing particularly wrong with her or anything, but she’s so different...I’m so bookish, and she’s so girly and everything I’m not…”

Y/N took the opportunity to tuck a lock of Hermione’s hair behind her ear as she listened.

“And it can’t help but make me think--was I ever anything to him but a friend? If the girl he ends up choosing is the opposite of me?”

“Girly, don’t think like that,” murmured Y/N. “He’s a teenage boy. They don’t think of love the way that we do--to them it’s a game of availability, not of choice. At least for Ronald. You intimidate him, and by extension, you’re not available.”

“That shouldn’t matter!”

“You’re right. It shouldn’t.” Y/N drew a long breath. “So you should find someone who always has you as their first choice--someone who isn’t intimidated by your intellect. They’re out there. I promise.”

Hermione managed a shaky smile. “Thanks, Y/N. I mean it. Do you mind if I have some alone time? I don’t think I’m ready to go back to the party but I just want some quiet.”

“Of course. Let me know if you need me,” she said, brushing herself off and making to walk down the hall.

“You’re not going back to the party?”

“Nah. It hurts my head and I want fresh air. If I’m not back here in a half hour, assume that I’ve been kidnapped.”

With that, she started her walk. She wasn’t planning on going on a long stroll--there was a small balcony that she often went to when she needed to clear her head. It was beautiful, especially on a snowy night like this.

But the walk was creepy.

There was only one way in and out--a narrow, damp hallway that had absolutely no light fixtures. If Y/N really wanted to, she could cast a quick lumos, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to see what lived on the walls. The stairs were steep, too, but she managed to bound up all 40 of them in record time.

“Who’s there?”

The sudden voice ripped a scream out of Y/N’s throat as she reached the top, catching a glimpse of the shadowy figure at the edge of the balcony that spoke. She clasped her hand over her mouth and she crept forward to the opening, getting a better look at the person that was in her secret spot.

The clouds shifted in the sky to allow more moonlight to cast a soft glow on Malfoy’s face, hardened with irritation.

“Malfoy?” Y/N asked, rather dumbly.

“What stellar observational skills,” he drawled.

She felt her cheeks grow hot. “What are you doing here? This is part of the Gryffindor tower. Shouldn’t you be...I don’t know...playing hide and seek with the sewer rats in the dungeons?”

“Very funny.” His flat tone exposed the fact that he did not, in fact, find it very funny. “There’s no rule barring me from coming up here.”

“But why? This is my spot!”

“Because I wanted to get out. Now, I was here first, so unless you want your detention extended, I suggest you leave.”

Y/N bit the fiery comebacks on the tip of her tongue as the memories of her plan with Hermione began floating back to her.

Week 1 -- Hold one neutral, civil conversation with Malfoy.

“I’ll be quiet. You won’t even know I’m here,” Y/N decided upon. leaning up against the balcony. The rogue snowflakes that made it past the overhanging roof melted on her cheeks.

“That isn’t a suggestion,” said Malfoy. “I’m demanding you leave.”

“Beautiful night, isn’t it?” Y/N asked, pointedly ignoring his words. “I’ve always loved the snow. It’s so quiet.”

“And it would be even quieter if you left.”

“Aren’t you the conversationalist?” said Y/N.

“If you don’t leave, I will hex you,” Malfoy told her through gritted teeth.

“I just love how the moonlight reflects off of the snow,” continued Y/N. “It’s so...pure.”

“Please leave.”

On her walk back down the dank stairwell, she allowed herself a little smile.

Task 1? Technically done.

The first week went largely as planned. Malfoy was cold and certainly suspicious of her, but he wasn’t completely venomous when Y/N asked where he got his quill from in Potions. It was silver, charmed to shimmer with flecks of forest green. He told her Barnaby’s in France, and that was that. She walked away from his table with all of her limbs attached. Perhaps that was all the progress she was going to make in the next few weeks, but the task at hand certainly made the prospect of her lost Friday afternoons more bearable.

Harry was going completely batty, rambling on about how Malfoy was behind the mysterious cursed objects that had been floating about the castle without explanation.

“And why would Malfoy bring cursed objects to Hogwarts if he has aspirations other than being expelled?” Hermione would ask over their books.

“You don’t understand, Hermione! You girls need to be careful walking around at night--especially you, Y/N. I don’t want you going missing after detention because of that slimeball.”

Y/N always gave him a laugh, berating him for his slight misogynistic commentary and turning back to whatever her task was, but the truth was that she was worried for him. The mental weight of the impending war and the fact that he couldn’t do anything about it was certainly getting too difficult for him to bear. It was heartbreaking to see the vivacious boy she’d grown up with crumble under the responsibilities of something he should never have to worry about in the first place.

Friday came much sooner than expected, and Y/N reluctantly left her friends in the common room to trek to McGonagall’s office. The walk was frigid and the wind bit at her cheeks as she rounded the last outdoor hall.

Why was this castle so dark?

A thump behind her made her jump, and Harry’s words came floating back to her.

Remember all those cursed objects? What if there’s someone just...stalking the school grounds, waiting for someone like me to snatch?

She shivered, throwing herself at the office door and slamming it behind her.

“Miss Y/L/N,” Professor McGonagall greeted, her eyebrows raised in amusement. “Something giving you trouble?”

“No, Professor,” she answered, setting her bag down on the desk next to Malfoy. He sent her a curious look as well. “It’s just cold outside.”

She chuckled. “I need to go speak to Headmaster Dumbledore. I expect that, upon my return, you both are in one piece and alive.”

“I’m not sure if I’m the one who needs to be given that speech,” said Y/N, bored and testing the waters.

“She’s right, Professor,” added Malfoy. “There’s no projectiles here.”

McGonagall exhaled a long, shaky breath before brushing herself off. “Please. Behave yourselves.”

“You got it, boss,” she said as she watched her Professor walk out the door. “So, Malfoy. How was your week?”

“I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’d way prefer if you didn’t speak to me,” he said, refusing to make eye contact.

“I’m not up to anything! We’re in detention together and, I dunno, since I see you sometimes at balls, I thought it’d be nice to be on good terms.”

“Good terms?” He scoffed. “You’re a Gryffindor. I’d rather you be a bloody Hufflepuff.”

“How about neutral terms?”

Even though he wasn’t looking at her, she could catch a glimpse of him rolling his eyes. “If neutral terms mean you being quiet, then, yes. Please.”

“I’ll be plenty quiet. After I hear about your opinion on what happened in Potions today with Brown and Weasley. When Snape yelled at them for holding hands.”

He let out a sharp sigh. “Believe it or not, I actually have better things to do than keep up with whatever stuff your house does.”

“But…?” Y/N pressed. She may not’ve spent her time at Hogwarts as Malfoy’s best friend, but she had grown up with the boy, and she could tell when he was holding back.

He stared blankly at her.

“Come on. I’m literally the only person in my house who’ll openly admit that they’re disgusted by that dynamic. I’m begging you.”

She wasn’t sure if she was imagining it, but she thought she saw a flicker of amusement dance across his face for a moment. “Your house sounds more like a cult than a student group.”

“Oh, says the one from Slytherin,” said Y/N.

“We only act like that because our families are close. What’s your excuse? Hormones and Quidditch culture?”

“Touché.” As much as she wanted to fight back, she bit her tongue. Whatever she was doing was making progress, and quicker progress than she was expecting. Her next task was to make him laugh, and she was emboldened by the fact that she could potentially be able to kill two birds with one stone.

They sat in silence for a little bit, but this time, it was a comfortable silence. Malfoy wasn’t staring at the clock on the wall or rolling his eyes at her every move, so she had time to plot.

On one hand, she could make a fool of herself--drop her inkwell, say something stupid in class, fall down the stairs--but she had a sneaking suspicion that her sorry attempts at slapstick humor wouldn’t land well with Draco anymore. He’d become so serious lately, so solemn. This was the most light hearted she’d seen him, even compared with how he acted with the rest of his Slytherin lackeys.

On the other, she could try to sell out her friends. She could confide in him how “big” Hermione’s teeth were (they weren’t even big) or tell him that Ron smelled of eggs (true, but that was a low blow). Something told her that this would be much more successful, but she wasn’t willing to turn to that so quickly--she was already a week ahead as it was.

“What is it?”

Malfoy’s bored drawl cut through her flurried thoughts. Her cheeks turned pink as she blinked, noticing that she’d been staring at him for far too long. “Nothing. Sorry. I just spaced out.”

“Sure,” he mumbled, giving her another suspicious look before turning back to his work. “Can you maybe space out somewhere other than my face?”

“Where’s your vanity, Malfoy?” she pressed as she leaned back in her chair, hair swinging over the back.

“Shut up,” he snapped. She could tell that whatever connection they’d had in the fleeting moments beforehand was being burnt by the second, but her embarrassment and pride drove her forward.

“Merlin, what’s got you so wound up?” she prompted, noting how deliciously unraveled he looked at this. “Where’s my cool, collected Slytherin?”

He slammed hands on his desk at this, whipping around to glare at her. “What’s your angle, Y/L/N?”

“What?”

“Why are you bothering me?”

“Because I want to.” She beamed.

Malfoy ran his fingers through his hair, mussing up the usual neat manner in which it normally laid on his head. “Compelling. What do you want from me?”

“What do I want…?” She tilted her head at him, narrowing her eyes. “What?”

“You never talk to me,” he explained. “Obviously, I prefer it like that. I can’t help but wonder why suddenly you want to be making small talk. So, what is it you want from me?”

“Malfoy,” she said. “I think you’re a spoiled prick who thinks far too highly of himself and drives me insane. But I also think that you’re funnier than what my friends give you credit for. Granted, you’ve always been annoying, but I don’t want anything from you. I just want to, I dunno, make these next few months less insufferable.” Somehow the lie slipped through her teeth easier than any of her previous bluffs.

He frowned, his mouth opening once before firmly screwing shut into a scowl. “Oh.”

“No offense, Malfoy, but what else can you offer me other than your dazzling personality?” she teased. “You know my family. I don’t need to blackmail you to pay for jewelry I’ve had my eye on or anything.”

He scoffed. “As if I’d say yes.”

“Exactly my point. It’d be fucking weird. Merlin, I’m not trying to butter you up to buy out Borgin & Burkes for me. Do I give off gold-digger vibes? Is that what this is about?”

“Fucking hell.” Malfoy turned to her in disbelief. “Do you ever shut up?”

“Answer my question. Or better yet, pull out your wallet. Wait, did I say that out loud?” She mimed surprise and covered her mouth. “Oh no! What will my mother say now that I’ve squandered my last chance of hitching you? There’s no way I can go home for Christmas break now.”

He rolled his eyes so hard she found herself worried for a moment that they were going to just permanently get stuck in the back of his head. “Hate to break it to you, but you didn’t really have a shot to begin with.”

Ouch.

She huffed and dramatically flopped over the back of her chair, hoping he couldn’t see that she’d flinched. “So you don’t think I’m pretty??”

“Y/L/N,” he snapped, his voice a low warning. “Can I please just work? What is with you today?”

Y/N sent him a sour look before giving her Charms work another look. Malfoy was awfully quiet, and when she snuck any glances at him later on, he was angled to face away from her.

Why did she feel like such shit all of a sudden? She cataloged the past events, trying to pinpoint the exact moment that her stomach dropped. It all made sense when the words “You didn’t really have a shot to begin with” echoed around her head once again. She’d failed Harry. She’d failed Hermione. There was no way that she was going to be able to get him to reveal his secrets now--it’s not like he was confiding in even his closest friends as Harry made apparent when he explained how vague his statements were to his fellow Slytherins on the train. Her only chance would’ve been to somehow get him to fall for her, and that wasn’t going...great. And it had been a pipedream to begin with.

When McGonagall swished back into the classroom to dismiss them, Y/N shot out of there without even looking at Malfoy again. It felt like something was lodged in her throat and she was not going to cry in front of him. No, no. She had to make it to Hermione to tell her what was going on.

“Y/L/N?”

Malfoy’s voice made her pause in her flee as she nearly rounded the corner in front of her, but she refused to look back. It was far enough away that it was possible she didn’t hear him.

“Wait!”

She was up the stairs and speed walking as fast as her legs could carry her to the Gryffindor tower before he even saw which way she went.

“I don’t think you understand,” Y/N wailed by the fire as Hermione rubbed her shoulders and Harry sat awkwardly perched on the couch. “I can’t do this. The only way this was going to work was if he had a crush on me, and I don’t think he ever will. I fucked it up! The one time you guys need me, I fuck it up! I let you down!”

Hermione’s left hand stopped its rubbing to rest firmly on her shoulder. “Please don’t be upset. You didn’t let us down. Plus, you’re only, what...two weeks in? You don’t need him to like you to make it work. Just getting him to trust you will be enough, and you’re good at that.”

“I don’t think so,” continued Y/N. “Harry said that he wasn’t even that open on the train when he overheard him talking to all of his friends. And those are purebloods that he likes! That he’s trusted and known for years and years! I’m a friend of you guys, and he knows it. I think he’d figure it out quick.”

“We should take every chance we can get,” said Harry from his spot a few feet away, his eyes lazy and unfocused on the fire crackling in front of them. “You won’t let us down if you can’t get anything, Y/N, you know that! But if you got anything from him, it’d be incredible. It’s a win-win. I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”

“I’m not upset,” she said, her tone becoming defensive. “I just...don’t want to mess this up. I know how much it’d mean if I succeeded.”

“So just try!” Hermione said. “There’s nothing wrong with it. I’m sorry he was kind of mean to you today, but I don’t think that should bother you too much. He should be more afraid of what you’d say if you didn’t care about being a good person.”

“Fucking right on there,” she said, wiping away the frustrated tears. “If I was honest with him, he’d leave crying. He should be grateful that I’m taking this bet so I actually have to be nice to him.”

“That’s the spirit.” Harry leaned over to smack her back like he did his Quidditch teammates after a winning match.

After they’d parted their ways with Harry, Hermione and Y/N made their way slowly up the stairwell to the girls’ dorms.

“Y/N?” Hermione asked, breaking the silence.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think, er…” She paused. “Do you think you were really upset about failing us today? Or was it something else?”

“What do you mean?” Y/N furrowed her eyebrows. “I don’t see what else it would be.”

“I’m sorry,” responded the bright witch. “Forget I ever asked. It was a stupid thing to wonder about.”

“Weirdo,” she teased as she waved her a goodnight and made her way to her dorm.

The next morning, Y/N busied herself with revising her Charms essay over her breakfast--a cup of tea and a half-buttered piece of toast--while Hermione leaned over her shoulder, nodding or grimacing at the corrections she made.

“Did you work during detention? Like, at all?”

“‘Mione,” moaned Y/N. “It’s too early for this. I don’t want a lecture. I just couldn’t focus.”

Her warm brown eyes narrowed as they bore into Y/N’s face. “Why were you distracted?”

“Oh, I, uh…” She stumbled over her words as Hermione drew closer. “Merlin, Hermione. I told you last night. I just felt like I was letting you all down.”

“Mhm,” was all she got in response before her best friend tilted her head back down to the parchment in front of her.

Y/N sat, completely puzzled. What was Hermione on about? She’d been straightforward with what was hurting her--she didn’t want to mess up the only task the Golden Trio had ever given her--and, even if she hadn’t been, Hermione was smart enough to deduce things for herself. So what was she thinking about?

Her eyes drifted over to the Slytherin table where the usual 6th year pureblood gang loitered about, drinking black coffee and sulking--but Malfoy was not to be seen. She jumped when her eyes met Parkinson, her dark eyes burning into her soul as a deep scowl was written across her face.

“Malfoy, what the fuck do you want?” Ron’s voice pulled her back to reality to see him glaring somewhere behind her.

“I wasn’t here to talk to you,” a familiar voice drawled.

She turned to see Malfoy standing behind her, a sneer written all across his stupidly pretty face.

“Miss me already?” asked Y/N as she raised an eyebrow and cocked her head to the side.

“For fuck’s sake, stop doing that,” he mumbled, reaching into his pocket and throwing a box at her. “You forgot your quill. I took the liberty of properly storing it, because it seems like you lot like to just throw them in your bag. Makes me physically ill to watch.”

“Oh.” Y/N studied the intricate box in her hands before tucking it away in her knapsack. “Thanks? I guess?”

He nodded curtly, contorting his face into one last scowl to send to Ron before turning and leaving,

“So,” Hermione began, cutting her omelet at a much brisker pace, “I think we need to have a little chat. About...all of this.”

“Why?”

“Not right now,” she said, her voice low and her eyes flicking at Ron and Harry sitting across from them. “I don’t think it’d benefit us for them to hear.”

“Ok?” She cautiously took a bite out of her toast and continued staring Hermione down. “You’re scaring me.”

“It’s...I don’t know. I thought I was crazy for thinking this, but it seems like we need to talk about it anyways. For this little mission of yours to work, we need to be totally open and honest with each other.”

“Sure.” Y/N took another bite. “I honestly have no clue what’s got you so on edge, though.”

“Who’s on edge?” Harry asked, leaning over the table and stealing the croissant on Y/N’s plate.

“Hey!” she exclaimed. “Do you not see the entire plate of them over there?”

He laughed, sending her an easy grin and dunking a piece into the hot chocolate in his mug. “Finders keepers. Say, Y/N, are you busy next weekend? Ron and Lavender are going to Madame Puddingfoot’s together, and I know Hermione isn’t going to want to take a weekend off studying to go to Hogsmeade, so I thought that maybe we could go cause some trouble at the Cauldron.”

“If you stop stealing my food we can talk about it,” replied Y/N, the corners of her lips tugging up into a grin.

“Deal.”

Hermione tugged at her arm. “I just realized I need to get something out of my room before we watch the Quidditch game. Will you come with me, Y/N?”

“Sure!” said Y/N. “Gee, I’m rolling in invitations today.”

Once they exited the dining hall, though, it immediately became evident that they were not actually heading up to the dorms. Hermione dragged her into the nearest bathroom before casting a quick silencing charm.

“Myrtle! Are you in here?” Only when she was sure silence was the only response to her question, she seemed satisfied to turn to Y/N and begin talking. “When were you going to tell me that you have a thing for Malfoy?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Y/N felt the heat that had risen to her cheeks from the last quill-encounter re-emerge.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” said Hermione. “Are you seriously going to expect me to believe that you nearly sobbed over some random pureblood git telling you you never had a chance with him because it might slow down your progress with helping us? Actually? I’ve seen you look more ecstatic about hearing that your dear granny passed away.”

“To be fair, she had really good life insurance,” Y/N cut in. “And she was an old hag. Never had a nice thing to say to me.”

“Life insurance or no life insurance...you can’t seriously expect me to believe that you were just upset about not being able to help us as much. That was ridiculous. I don’t buy it. And the way you blushed like crazy when he came over to talk to you--the way you try and pretend like you can flirt...please. Y/N, it’s clear as day. I know you, and I know you have a crush on him.”

“Hermione!” hissed Y/N. “You have no clue what you’re talking about!”

“Yes, I think I do,” she pushed. “And you need to be honest with me if you want to be of any help right now.”

Her bossiness lit a fire of rage in Y/N’s chest, but she sucked in a deep breath, shutting her eyes before releasing it. “Believe me when I say I haven’t ever acknowledged any feelings I may or may not have towards him.”

“Ok.” Her face softened. “I know it might take time, but I honestly do think I’m right. Please just...be careful. This is a really odd situation to get caught up in if you actually have feelings for the other person. You’re trying to manipulate him, for Merlin’s sake.”

“And if I have these feelings for him, I’ve done a pretty damn good job of suppressing them for however long they’ve been here.”

Hermione sighed. “That’s true. I’m just saying that spending this much time with him is probably only going to make things worse. Will you please tell me if anything changes between the two of you?”

“Anything changes?” Y/N’s voice was dripping in disbelief. “You’re joking. Even if I was obsessed with him I don’t think there’s ever a chance of hell in anything ‘changing’ between us. He said it himself.”

“You know what I mean, Y/N,” responded Hermione. “Just promise me, ok?”

“Ok,” said Y/N. “I promise.”

That seemed to satiate Hermione as she nodded approvingly at her friend. “I think it goes without saying that Ron and Harry shouldn’t hear about this.”

“There’s nothing to hear about, but yes.” She shuffled her feet before meeting Hermione’s eyes again. “Er, I’m sorry for this being a weird question, but would you mind coming along with me and Harry to Hogsmeade? I don’t really see him like...that...and I don’t want to read into it too much and reject him if he is doing it just platonically, but just in case. Y’know.”

“Sure,” said Hermione, even though her face took on that curious expression yet again. “Anyways, you actually did forget something--you’re not wearing a single piece of Gryffindor colors for our game today. You should probably run back to your dorm before Harry and Ron notice.”

After they said their goodbyes, Y/N found herself turning over the things Hermione had said to her in her head. Did she like Malfoy? No, no fucking way. But a part of her really did think he was funny. And of course it was natural to feel rejected when anyone insinuates that they’d never consider you as a romantic interest without jest.

Once she’d made it up to her room and grabbed a few scarves, Y/N made to put her red cloak into her satchel. Her fingers ghosted over the box that Malfoy had given her and scoffed once she saw the Malfoy crest engraved into the rich wood.

Narcissistic snot.

Her curiosity got the better of her as she reached over to open up the elaborately decorated box. What met her was not just one quill but two--one of which was most certainly not her own.

She took them both out, tossing the old one in a pile with her other trusty familiar white feather quills and picked up the other one. It looked familiar--identical to the quill that she’d complimented Malfoy on in Potions about a week ago. Butterflies began to flutter like crazy in her stomach as she turned it over in her hand, watching the gray and green glitter together and the magic sparkles cast a gentle light over her bed. She generally avoided dipping into her family’s pockets to get school supplies any more than she had to--it’s not like it made her friends feel good about themselves when they were reminded how rich her family was--but this might be what she could consider to be an exception. She hadn’t even liked his quill all that much when she first saw it in Potions--but it was one of those things that was so noticeable that it made sense to compliment him.

She gave it one last look before tucking it back away into the elaborately decorated box. Perhaps she had spoken too soon when she’d told Hermione all hope was lost.

When Monday morning Potions class with the Slytherins rolled around, Y/N wasted no time. Malfoy was alone--even his Slytherin lackeys seemed to know not to bother him. Just what she needed.

“Malfoy,” she greeted, setting her bag down on his table and looking him dead on. He raised to meet her eyes, his eyebrow raised.

“Can I help you?”

“I just wanted you to know that I also really like your immense fortune,” she said. “And your manor.”

“Well, a lot of people do,” he mumbled as he looked away to dig through something in his bag. If she didn’t know any better, she would’ve thought he was blushing.

“I’m just letting you know,” she continued. “In case you were wanting to give them away. It worked for the quill, so I thought, well, why not?”

He exhaled, a deep and annoyed sound escaping his lips as he rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. “I knew I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You really didn’t have to.”

“I was getting sick of it,” he told her. “I never can stick with one quill for too long, and I thought it’d be a shame to toss it. I thought it’d be better to be charitable--it’s not like your family could get an appointment at Barnaby’s if they tried.”

“Hey!” Y/N said indignantly. “You don’t know that!”

“I’ve heard your parents try to speak French,” he said. “If you’re anything like them, you'll be barred from ever entering the country.”

“Malfoy!”

His lips turned up into a smile, a soft laugh escaping his lips. Y/N suppressed the urge to grin in return. Task 3? Done. “What?”

“I can’t even argue with you,” she said. “It’s tragic.”

She stared at the empty stool next to him, wondering if she should just take the leap and sit with him. Malfoy seemed unbothered by her presence as he opened up his Potions book and set it next to his cauldron. “Do you want a partner?” The words left her lips before she could stop them.

He cast her a curious look before glancing at the empty stool. “It depends. Are you going to be annoying?”

She gasped in faux-offense. “What makes you think I could ever be annoying?”

“On that note, I think you better get back to Potter.” He motioned with his head towards the side of the room where most of her Gryffindor friends were chatting. Harry was staring at her, his fists clenched by his side.

Y/N smirked and sent him a wink.

“On that note,” she said, careful to imitate Malfoy’s drawl and sending him a smug grin, “Maybe I better sit here.”

“Hm.” He awarded her one more uninterested look before rolling up his sleeves and setting out the ingredients for the potion they were brewing--Amortentia.

She tried not to make it too obvious that she was staring at his left arm, but there was nothing on it like Harry had told her. It was just pure, unblemished pale skin that shimmered under the light. Before he could catch her looking, she quickly sat down and started pulling out her own things. After a short pause, she decided to take out the silver quill. She’d left his box back in her room--she wouldn’t be caught dead with something that had the Malfoy crest on it--but she’d wrapped it in a pouch with her own family’s emblem on the front, shimmering in gold and red.

“Why don’t you just buy your own charmed quills?” asked Malfoy after they had chopped all of the gillweed.

“You already know. We’re an abomination to the French. We aren’t allowed entry.”

“That’s not what I mean.” His tone was meant to read as exasperated, but his words still seemed good-natured.

“I...well.” She frowned. She’d never confessed this to anyone, but she supposed that Malfoy wasn’t going to find a way to use it against her. “I don’t like to flaunt my family wealth. I think it makes people, at least in Gryffindor, like me less. I learned that pretty early on.”

He hummed something in response before sliding all the gillweed into the cauldron, turning the clear liquid into a bubbling forest green.

“Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?” she asked.

He took his time finishing the note he was jotting down before he answered. “I’m not being nice. It’s just called being civil. You said it yourself, we see each other at balls sometimes.”

“We probably won’t anymore, though,” she mused.

Malfoy’s eyebrows shot up, but his voice remained low and steady. “No. I suppose that we probably won’t. Is your family part of the Order?”

“Hm. Are you a Death Eater?” she asked brazenly. He had no business asking her something like that, and he knew it. Especially not with his family connections.

“What do you think?” he drawled, waving his bared left arm in front of her face.

“Bullshit. That doesn’t mean anything after we learned Glamour spells last year.”

“Guess you’ll just have to trust me, then,” he responded, focusing intently on the bubbling liquid in front of him instead of her face.

“I guess so,” she replied. The weight of her Glamour comment began to sink in--she was right, after all. How had she not thought of it before?

But he was right when he told her she just had to trust him. Could she? Y/N rested her chin in the palm of her propped hand as she watched him work. A piece of disobedient moonbeam blonde hair dangled over his forehead as he diced up the unicorn tail, his eyebrows furrowed in focus.

“Is this why you want to be my partner?” he finally asked after a few moments of silence. “So you can just stare at me while I do all the work?”

“There’s the vain Draco I know,” she said, grinning as she leaned over to punch his shoulder.

He rolled his eyes again, scooting out of arm's reach before flipping back to Amortentia in his book. “You’re insufferable. And it’s Malfoy to you.”

“Fine, fine, Malfoy,” said Y/N. “What do you want me to do, then?”

He shoved his cutting board towards her, the half-diced unicorn tail staring up at her. “Finish dicing this and then stir it in. 9 times clockwise. I did almost all of the work, but it should be finished after that.”

Y/N sent him another glare before doing as he said. The glittering quill kept catching her attention from the corner of her eye, and she couldn’t help but notice that Malfoy was writing with just a plain white quill for the time being. HE really did just give it to me.

After the final ingredients were diced, she began to stir, each rotation around the cauldron turning the potion to a different color. It began as the bubbling green, then a deep sea blue, then a royal purple, a crimson blood red, a glimmering gold--before settling into a pale silver.

“Wow. It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “It’s like...liquid starlight.”

“All thanks to me,” said Malfoy. “You didn’t even have to crush the Mandrake root.”

“You’re such a gentleman, Malfoy.” Her voice dripped in fake sincerity. “So, what do you smell?”

Y/N was expecting him to scowl at her and tell her that it wasn’t any of her business, but he actually leaned over the cauldron and shut his eyes.

“I’ve never been good at explaining what things smell like.”

“Fair.”

Once he leaned back, she took his place, shutting her eyes and breathing in a tendril of the beautiful potion. “Whoa.”

“What’s it for you?”

“I don’t...know,” she admitted. “It’s not something I can describe note by note. It kind of reminds me of something, though.”

“Something with Potter, I presume?” he said, casually twirling his generic white quill around his fingers.

“No,” she answered, surprised at how honest she was being. “It’s…I’m trying to think. Er, it’s very lavish. It reminds me of when I was younger and my parents would drag me to galas and balls and whatnot.”

He stared at her in silence.

“What about you? Does it remind you of anything?”

“Yeah.” Malfoy reached forward to put a lid on the cauldron, effectively shutting out the steam from reaching either of them.

“Ooh, have you figured it out yet?” she teased, crossing her legs and turning to face him head on. “Let me guess. Is it someone like…”

She paused, a wicked smile stretching across her face. “Oh my god, is it Hermione? Or Luna? Or...help me out here!”

“No.” His voice was sour.

“Ah, it’s Parkinson then, isn’t it? Tell her I’m sorry for throwing food at her if you ever have the chance. Make sure to add the part where I’m more sorry that I missed.”

“Y/L/N!”

“It’s okay. I’d be a little let down, too.”

“Can you please just…” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Please just stop. I haven’t figured it out. Okay? Happy now?”

“I’ll leave you alone,” said Y/N. “Under one condition. You give me a hint. I’ve given you everything I know! This isn’t fair.”

“This doesn’t have to be fair,” he hissed.

Y/N kept the easy smile plastered on her face while she waited, her eyebrows raised in anticipation.

“You’re not going to let up until I tell you, are you?”

“You’d be right on that,” she said, sugary sweet.

“Fine. It’s something kind of floral.”

“How descriptive,” she snorted as she slumped back in her stool, thinking hard. Where had she smelled it before? Y/N shut her eyes, leaning her head back and trying to immerse herself into the memory that had surfaced. It smelled like grandeur, like an open ballroom full of guests wearing expensive perfumes. She could feel spinning, spinning like she was with a dance partner. Who was it? She couldn’t quite remember--the last ball she’d been to had been years ago--but after she leaned forward and smelled the Amortentia once more time, she came to a conclusion.

“I had to have danced with him at a gala before,” she announced to Malfoy, who was looking quite unimpressed. “So I know it’s no one from Gryffindor.”

“Interesting,” was all he said before turning to his parchment and jotting something down.

Late that night, while Y/N was settling into bed, a strange idea struck her. Sure that the thought that was nagging her was completely fruitless, she had no trouble with reaching into her desk and pulling out the Malfoy box. She just had to check if she wanted to sleep well.

Here goes.

She closed her eyes, imagining the expensive scent of her Amortentia. Then she opened it, stuck her nose into the fabric, and breathed in.

Well, fuck.

The internal debate going through Y/N the next day at the breakfast table was intense. On one hand, she really, really wanted to just tell Hermione that Malfoy had been in her Amortentia and she was completely fucked, but on the other…

She glanced at the witch next to her as she methodically sliced her toast into perfect, equivalent squares before dunking them in jam. Y/N liking Malfoy was not going to fit into her toast cubes. If she said anything, she would lose her excuse to talk to her about him. And her excuse to try and get close with him.

Perhaps I can figure it out tomorrow.

When tomorrow came, she still hadn’t made progress. Y/N was beginning to think that her so called “revelation” after they brewed Amortentia was truly just complete and utter bullshit. So what that his quill box smelled like it--all rich people kind of smelled the same at some points, and so did their houses. There was a reason why she couldn’t immediately pin the scent to anything--it wasn’t like she even knew what Malfoy smelled like.

But the truth remained that she was still attracted to someone who happened to be a rich Slytherin--so naturally, her mind began to wander. There’s no way it was Zabini--his mother owned a fragrance line, and she would’ve instantly recognized the cologne that she knew Mrs. Zabini made him wear--and there was absolutely no way that it was Crabbe or Goyle, so the only other Slytherin it left was...Nott? But that didn’t make sense either--she’d never spoken to him before in her life, even less than Malfoy. So perhaps it would be better if she didn’t think on it.

The next day of potion brewing came on a stormy Wednesday. Malfoy and Y/N worked silently together to brew a Draught of Dreamless Sleep. She was surprised to see how practiced his movements were--he didn’t even have to reference the book to recite the exact measurements and directions.

“Do you have bad dreams or something?” she asked, mostly as a joke. He didn’t seem to pick up on the light-heartedness and stiffened up.

“No?”

“Gee, you’re talkative today,” Y/N said, trying to ignore how her hand brushed his by accident when she added the scoop of anjelica.

“Excuse me for not entertaining you,” he drawled. “I wasn’t expecting to have such a needy potions partner today.”

“I am not needy!” she gasped, smacking his arm. “I’ve sat in silence for a full hour!”

He rolled his eyes (he was always rolling his eyes) and gave the potion one more final stir before setting the lid on the cauldron. “Think you can do that again? It needs to simmer for that long.”

“Just because you’re so sweet to me,” crooned Y/N before pulling out a heavy book from her satchel. Her Charms exam was tomorrow, and, naturally, she had decided to save all of her revising work until the night before. The textbook stared back at her as she jotted a few notes onto a previously blank sheet of parchment. The quill in her hands was light and glided across the paper like the tears of Merlin, something that she had forgotten quills could do. All of her familiar basic quills were okay, but they were prone to skidding and breaking. This nib hadn’t worn down in the slightest, still at a smooth and defined peak.

Y/N couldn’t believe that, out of all people, the person to give her such a thoughtful gift was Draco Malfoy. She tried to sneak a glance at him then, moving her curtain of hair away from her face. It took all she had in her to not be startled at the fact that he was already looking back, a slightly concerned expression etched into his face.

“Is something wrong?”

He snapped out of it the moment the words left her lips, his face hardening. “No.”

“Forget I ever asked,” she responded, turning away from him for good and focusing on her textbook. No, there was no way he could be what she smelled in her Amortentia. She liked to think that her subconscious wasn’t secretly a masochist.

Friday evening swung around again, much to Y/N’s dismay. She’d had a talk with Hermione later on in the week, confirming that no, she did not smell Malfoy in her Amortentia, and that yes, she was still abiding by the plan that Hermione had so carefully laid out for her. It did bother her a bit that she could be lying to her on both fronts--but at the end of the day, she was going to get the answers that Harry wanted, no matter what.

She just had to get through the scary ass castle first. She’d forgotten how spooky Hogwarts was after her previous sprint to the door, and this time she was positively trembling by the time she turned another dark corner on her way to McGonagall’s office. Yet another cursed item had been found in the girl’s lavatory on the 3rd floor, right by some of the classes that she had taken earlier in the week. The fact that whoever was out there was capable of dark magic and actively wanted to hurt people terrified her, all that Gryffindor bravery be damned.

So when she heard footsteps suddenly right beside her, it was no wonder that she jumped feet in the air.

“Fuck!” she sputtered, turning to see a very familiar blonde in Slytherin robes. He was frozen in place, curiously looking her up and down.

“Am I interrupting something?”

“Malfoy,” Y/N said, resisting the urge to melt into a puddle of relief at the sight. This wasn’t right--wasn’t he a suspected Death Eater? “You scared me.”

He scoffed, digging his hands into his pockets. “You’re supposed to be the brave ones, right?”

“Huh?”

Malfoy motioned to her Gryffindor jumper.

“Oh.” Heat rushed to her cheeks as she realized what he meant. “I dunno. I just get jumpy around the castle at night.”

“No shit.” They’d begun to walk now, side by side. Y/N couldn’t remember ever walking with him before--she’d always been late. “Do you think I forgot the way you screamed when you saw me at the tower?”

“Shut up,” she grumbled, reaching over and giving him a healthy shove.

They walked in silence together. Malfoy moved noticeably slower than he normally did so he wouldn’t leave Y/N’s shorter legs in tow. McGonagall seemed pleasantly surprised to see Malfoy hold the door open for her.

“I’m glad to see you two getting along,” she said, giving Y/N a hesitant nod before grabbing the stack of papers on her desk. “I’ll be back momentarily.”

After she exited the room with a swish of her deep maroon robes, Malfoy turned to her. “Are you scared of the dark or something?”

She turned, ready to send a biting retort his way, before she noticed how gray his pallor looked...and how big the circles under his eyes were. “You look like shit, Malfoy. Is everything okay?”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t change the subject.”

“Oh. Um…” Y/N pause before deciding that the little tidbit of information she was about to reveal wasn’t that important anyways. “I’m just on edge at night at Hogwarts is all. Especially with all that weird shit going on with all the cursed objects. So I kind of hate walking to and from detention.”

Malfoy let out something that sounded like a strained laugh.

“You didn’t answer my question. Is everything okay?”

“None of your business,” he snipped. “I just had a bad night.”

“Do you have trouble sleeping?” she asked, unable to keep herself from prying.

“Something like that.”

“Have you tried lavender?”

“I’m sorry?” He frowned.

“Lavender. Like the essential oil. It’s nothing magical,” she explained. “I just like to spray it in my bed sometimes before I sleep. Or I’ll use a few drops in a diffuser. I have trouble sleeping too, all the time, actually.” She shut her mouth before she had any chance to ramble further.

“It sounds a bit too floral for my taste.”

“Here.” Y/N dug around in her satchel, searching for the tiny spray bottle she kept with her at all times. “Borrow this and spritz your pillow with it before you sleep, and then tell me it’s too floral. I promise it helps.”

He glared at her. She extended her hand with the white bottle that was covered in purple decor, raising her eyebrows expectantly. “I won’t tell anyone that you have it if that’s what you’re worried about or whatever.”

“Fine,” he snapped, snatching it from her hand and dragging his fingers over her palm for just a second. “Don’t expect me to actually try it, though.”

“Just give it a sniff.”

He huffed, but to her surprise, he actually uncapped the top and held the spray hole up to his nose, inhaling in once.

The effect was immediate. Malfoy’s face completely drained of color, becoming even grayer than he’d been when she first saw him under the light. The briefest expression of surprise fleeted over his face before he wiped it off, replacing it with something unreadable and tossing it back at her. “I’m not using this.”

“Why not?”

“Not quite my taste,” he spat.

Y/N was shocked by the sudden outburst, watching as he continued to glower at his desk. “I don’t understand. It really does help you sleep. I know it seems stupid, but I...really think you should try it. Just once, if anything.”

“Why does it matter so much to you?”

“Because I--” Y/N stopped herself before she let her mouth run without check. “I know what it’s like is all. I feel like shit if I don’t sleep. Plus, I have to spend time with you every Friday. I imagine that you’ll be slightly more tolerable if you sleep more.”

“Hm.” He sent her a particularly venomous glare. “Thanks for your concern. Consider me uninterested, though.”

“You break my heart,” she teased, pulling back her hand and placing the bottle on the corner of her desk. An idea struck her.

“And just what are you smiling about?” Draco said. His lips were turned into a sour frown.

“Nothing, nothing,” she responded, her voice adopting a sing-song quality. All she had to do now was wait.

He exhaled, a deep and exasperated sound. Then he turned back to whatever was in front of him.

McGonagall entered the room a few minutes later, nodding cordially at the comfortable silence the two students were in. What she didn’t know was that Y/N was waiting, just waiting for Malfoy to dig through his satchel and stop paying attention to his quill.

She got her opportunity a few minutes later, when McGonagall called him up to look over his latest Transfiguration homework.

“Mr. Malfoy, I’m happy to see that you’re taking more initiative in getting your assignments done...I have to say that you had me a bit concerned…”

While her professor kept Malfoy occupied, Y/N darted over and grabbed his quill.

Ha.

Malfoy frowned down at his desk when he returned, giving Y/N a suspicious look.

“What is it, Malfoy?” she said, hoping her voice conveyed nothing that might hint that she took something of his.

“Nothing.”

“Hm.”

The rest of detention passed without any more discussion. Y/N was eager to run up to her dorm and set up her plan to be carried out the next morning, but she calmed her bouncing leg and forced herself to keep a straight face when McGonagall dismissed them.

“Got somewhere to be, Y/L/N?” Malfoy’s voice called after her as she sped down the hall towards the Gryffindor tower.

“What’s it to you?” she fired back.

He didn’t respond. Instead, he picked up his pace until he was walking next to her.

“Aren’t the Slytherin dorms the other direction?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Are they?”

She allowed herself to be amused by the way words flowed out of his mouth when he was slightly out of breath. “Why are you walking with me?”

“You said it yourself.” He kept his eyes cast on the cobblestones below them. “You don’t like walking alone at night.”

“Uh...oh.” Against her will, her feet froze and she was glued to the ground. “You’re joking, right?”

If the lighting wasn’t so dim, Y/N would have good reason to believe he was blushing with how intently he was studying his fingernails. “By all means, I can be.”

“No! No, I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, the words tumbling out of her mouth. “Er...I’d like you to. If you want to, that is.”

He shrugged, an elfish expression spreading across his face as he took in how nervous she was. “Well, come to think of it, you didn’t ask me to. I suppose I better get back to the Slytherin dorms anyways. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near the Gryffindor Tower right now.”

“Why?” she squeaked.

“Oh, you know, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most of the cursed things showed up on your side of the castle, yeah?”

She gulped.

“I gotta get going. Don’t want to stand around here too long. This place gives me the creeps.” With that, he turned and began walking away.

“Malfoy?” She hated how timid her voice sounded. “Consider this me asking you to walk with me.”

He slowly faced her, a sly grin plastered all over his face. “Oh? Did I hear that correctly? Do you want me to?”

“I’m only going to say this once,” she said, putting her hands on her hips and trying her best to look intimidating. “Walk with me. Please.”

“I guess I’ll take it.” Malfoy glided down the hallway to her in just a couple steps, sending her yet another smug look.

“You made up that whole ordeal about Gryffindor Tower being targeted, didn’t you?” asked Y/N as they rounded the corner to reach the staircase leading up to the common room.

“You bought it, didn’t you?”

“Who says I didn’t just want you to walk with me?” pushed Y/N. This was as close to flirting as it would ever get for her--but it looked like, somehow, things were falling into place. The heat in her cheeks must’ve been from the excitement of making progress.

Malfoy’s toe caught on the first stair and, if it weren’t for Y/N’s steady grip on his arm, would’ve made him go sprawling across the stone steps.

“Merlin, Malfoy,” she said, immediately dropping her grip from his shoulder. “What’s gotten into you?”

He responded with an unceremonial snort and a withering glare. The rest of the walk was done in silence, and Y/N noted how careful his footwork became around the Gryffindor steps.

“This is me,” she finally said once they reached the tapestry for the Gryffindor dorms. He seemed surprised, and only then did it strike her that he’d probably never seen the entrance himself before. “Thanks for being such a gentleman.”

“I live to serve,” he drawled.

And just like that, he was gone.

Her plan was simple. She had located an extra monogrammed pouch in her cabinet, a rich mahogany color with her family crest in a vivid gold, and placed both his quill and the lavender bottle. She would corner him after breakfast or follow him out of the Great Hall and show him then.

However, it was becoming increasingly obvious that Malfoy was not coming to Saturday morning breakfast. Many people didn’t, but Y/N had never known him to miss it. His normal spot was vacant, and it certainly wasn’t a house-made decision as all of his Slytherin friends were present and accounted for. Y/N couldn’t say for sure, but she could see Parkinson turning her head to the entrance every time the doors thudded open before glancing back to Malfoy’s empty seat when it turned out to be someone else.

Where was that loser?

“Excuse me,” she said to the trio as she stood up and brushed off her skirt. “I think I’m going to go get some fresh air. I have a bitch of a headache.”

Hermione and Harry expressed their sympathies while Ron gave her a characteristic mumble through his mouthful of bread, and she was off with the pouch secured in her cloak pocket.

It was a clear November morning, clearly Mother Nature’s attempt to slowly move the world from the crisp autumn to a cold winter. The sky was clear and the sun’s rays warmed her skin at a slanted angle, casting weak shadows across the courtyard.

If I were Malfoy, where would I go to sulk?

The obvious answer was either the Slytherin common room or his own dorm, but that was without a doubt out of question for her. She wasn’t even sure if she possessed the knowledge to guess which corridor the entrance was in, much less work out the password herself. Beyond that, just getting into the common room and waiting would be...She shivered. It would be a terrible idea while she was clearly wearing a cloak in Gryffindor red and gold trim.

As she continued her aimless wander around the castle, she heard the slightest sound from the girl’s bathroom on the second floor. It wasn’t ever really in use--no one came in there to actually use the loo unless they wanted Myrtle to materialize and tell them her supernatural troubles while they were in the middle of their personal business--but it was often the source of strange happenings.

Like the cursed objects she thought to herself, her nails digging into her palms. But did she care about that right now? Surely cursed objects seemed somewhat...suspicious. Dark magic was difficult to hide, and to a pureblood eye that grew up around magical objects, cursed things shouldn’t be impossible to spot.

And, plus, it was Malfoy she was looking for. None of the students had died from the curses so far, and if she was able to break through and learn something, or at the very least gain his trust, the reward to the Order would be more than worth it.

She stepped in, expecting to see an entirely empty bathroom with perhaps a ghost rattling around at the sink. Instead, a different sight awaited her.

Draco Malfoy was clutching the edge of the cracked sink basin in front of him, rocking himself back and forth and shaking. From her vantage point, she could see that he was dressed in his normal garb--a black ensemble--but his hair was unruly and messy, sticking up in the back like he’d hurriedly tugged something over his head.

A strangled gasp grounded her and halted her curious observations. Malfoy began to make these awful sobbing sounds, like he could barely manage to breathe.

Y/N was frozen in place as she surveyed her options. If she stayed and tried to talk to him, he might react in anger or hurt her. But if she just left him, like this, all alone...She swallowed once before stepping forward.

“Malfoy? Are you okay?” Obviously he’s not, you bint said a voice deep in her brain. She pushed it aside as he swung around, his wand raised and his eyes blazing. “Whoa! I’m not going to...Put your wand down!”

He stared at her, his eyes wide with horror as he continued to shake, so much so that his wand slipped out of his hand and clattered to the floor. Without thinking, Y/N reached into her pocket and flung her wand away, holding her hands up.

“I’m not going to try anything. I promise.”

As she drew closer, she could see the remnants of tears on his wet cheeks and the way that his silver eyes were rimmed with a bloodshot red.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he hissed, his voice weak and cracking.

“Neither should you. This is the girl’s bathroom.”

final a/n: ok so lmk if you guys wants me to continue. i really did not edit the last half fjkdsal;f also kinda made this an au where malfoy tried to assassinate dumbledore. with more than one cursed object but dw it’ll all make sense ill clear that up 😭

#draco malfoy #draco x reader #draco malfoy x reader #draco imagine #draco malfoy imagine #draco x you #draco #draco malfoy x you #draco x y/n #draco malfoy x y/n #draco x oc #draco malfoy x oc

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janetbrown711 · 3 years

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“Why are you so nice to me” wakko or yakko max

To Wakko's delight, his brother kept good on his promise. Weeks passed and his brother devoted several days to restoring their bond just as it once was (the other days Yakko spent with Dot or with the both of them).

Heck, Wakko was so secure in his brother not abandoning him when Yakko asked if he could start up writing to Max again (at a much slower pace than before, he promised), Wakko said yes (barely) without hesitation. He knew that Max made him happy... and that he kinda owed it to Yakko to let him hang out with him again, as their little "not exactly falling out" was his fault (to him, anyway).

Everything was starting to seem... good- perfect, even.

However, Dot's birthday was rapidly approaching and Yakko was starting to get ideas.

"You know what we should do?" He said, lounging on the couch in the sunroom. "We should throw a ball for your birthday, Dot."

Dot perked up from her book. "What? Why? We never held balls for our birthdays before."

Yakko rolled his eyes. "That's because Grandma ruins everything. In this book I'm reading it says it was tradition for the royal family to hold big celebrations on their birthdays. I think it'd be fun- plus a great opportunity for you two to start making some friends."

Oh.

This again.

Wakko tried to laugh it off. "You'd have to get mum and dad to agree, and they've been pretty busy with the flooding in the west."

"Bah, that's mostly dealt with at this point. I'm sure they could use the break too," Yakko countered.

"B-but mom's coronation wasn't even that long ago," Wakko argued.

"It was over three months ago," Dot rolled her eyes. "I think a party would be fun," she looked to Yakko.

"Didn't you have fun at mom's coronation?" Yakko asked his middle sibling.

"Well I- I suppose I did..." Wakko thought back to the massive chalk drawing he had covered the floor with. It was pretty fun, and it made a lot of people happy.

"See? I'm sure a party in Dot's honor would be fun all the same- plus, making friends is great, I'm sure you'll love it," Yakko said with a reassuring smile on his face, though Wakko still wasn't quite convinced. However, he could see how much both of his siblings wanted this (even though the idea was only seconds old) and who was he to say no?

"Alright, I guess we can do that," He said, which made Dot clap in excitement as she began to detail everything she'd want for a party in her honor.

Wakko had a feeling this was going to be interesting.

.o0o.

As expected, their parents were ecstatic at the idea, and they spared no expense in attempts to create what they believed a much-needed celebration for the people of Warnerstock and their allies.

And to say it truly was Dot's creative vision would not be false. There were a lot of pinks- a lot, a lot of pinks. Though mostly tasteful, if you saw it it was hard to look away from.

But still, Wakko was happy for her, she was having the time of her life planning it all out with their dad, who was equally happy to spoil his little girl.

However, he knew deep down that despite what Yakko had sworn, her party was probably going to be very different from the coronation. He hoped it would be fun, but the more he watched decorations being put into place and talks about the guests and feasts the more he was beginning to worry.

He didn't say anything though, as the rest of his family seemed far too happy for him to want to bother them with his plight. They deserved this break, he was probably just being dramatic anyways. He'd be fine- and maybe make a friend just like Yakko said he would.

Wakko did his best to remain optimistic, despite the knots forming deep within.

It wasn't too long before the grand day arrived. Wakko had thought they had pulled out all the stops just for decorating but the day itself was insane too. Dot was showered in presents and even was taken out to town with William to go shopping for anything her heart desired, meanwhile Yakko, Wakko, and Lena stayed behind and supervised the final touches on the decorations.

Okay- really only Lena supervised, but Yakko and Wakko were technically there too. They didn't stay with her long, as she gave them a list of things to check up on so she could talk to some people which they were fine with.

Together, the brothers walked through the massive dining hall, checking curtains, flowers, vases, tapestries, etc. to make sure they were in the exact right places (not that the list really said where they were supposed to be) and checked them all off.

"So... are you looking forward to tonight?" Yakko asked, checking off 'left-most curtains'.

"Oh- uh- Yeah! I am... are you?" Wakko quickly said.

"Oh yeah, totally, it'll be great to see Max. It's been a while... you're still cool with that, right?" Yakko glanced down at him before checking another thing off.

Wakko nodded. "I won't try to prank or drive him away this time, I swear."

Yakko snorted. "I know you know better, I'm just asking if you're okay with me hanging out with him for tonight instead of you."

"Yeah, I am. You did say I should make friends after all," Wakko said, fiddling with gloves. Yakko looked away from the checklist and gave his little brother a side hug.

"I'm proud of you, you know that?" Yakko asked.

"Yeah, yeah," It was Wakko's turn to laugh.

"I'm serious-" Yakko let go and punched Wakko's arm lightly. "You're doing great. You should be proud of yourself too, you've come a long way."

Wakko smiled a little. "Maybe."

Yakko chuckled. "Well, it looks like we're just about done with this list. Wanna go turn it in to mom and go get changed into uncomfortable suits and greet guests for hours on end, or do you wanna just double and triple check the list until the last second?"

"Definitely check the list," Wakko laughed too.

And so the brothers did, until Lena caught wind of their shenanigans and forced them to start getting ready for the party (though they did cut a lot of time so technically they still regarded it as a win). At least those outfits weren't the worst they've ever worn (they were pretty confident nothing would ever top how itchy and miserable their funeral outfits were). Still, standing around and greeting people was a dreadfully boring job, not to mention awkward until their father and Dot eventually came to join them and actually do their job properly.

They knew their mom was busy, but leaving the two of them in charge was a little questionable.

Plus, after all that interaction, Wakko was starting to feel weird. Tired, but also not-? It was complicated. All he knew was that he wanted to be alone and maybe pace for a while, that'd be nice.

However, the party was to start in not too long, so he really didn't have time for that. He followed Yakko around for a while to the main party room where the people they had greeted before were all chatting amongst themselves. It wasn't too loud yet, but Wakko's tail twitched nervously as he weaved between people and conversations.

He hadn't been this nervous at the coronation- Wakko really wished he could figure out why he was feeling this way. Alas, he was unable.

He did feel a little better as Yakko and he found a spot of their own to chill in for a while, away from all the people.

"A lot of people came to this shindig, huh?" Yakko joked, "though probably no more than those who attended mom's coronation."

"Yeah..." Wakko said, trying to compare them mentally.

"More kids though, which is really good for you and Dot to make friends," Yakko said.

"Yep, yep," Wakko feigned enthusiasm.

"Are you okay..?" Yakko asked, causing Wakko to straighten out his act instantly and nod.

"Of course," he said. Yakko frowned.

"You don't have to lie you know," He remarked. Wakko bit his lip.

"M'just a little tired," he shrugged, figuring it was close enough to the truth.

"Are you sure you'll be okay?" Yakko asked worriedly.

Wakko nodded again. "I'll be fine, I'm probably just hungry."

Yakko laughed a little. "Alright, but you'll tell me if anything is wrong, right?"

"Mhm."

"Good."

The brothers stood in a bored silence for a while, before the rest of their family walked in and the festivities officially began.

It started with the feast, which was pretty harmless, as Wakko enjoyed talking with his family and the food was "quite excellent". The hall was filled with good cheer and hearty laughter, which he could appreciate.

However, after that, things began to blur.

It seemed only moments ago he was eating when suddenly everything was taken away and it turned into social hour. and Dot and their parents disappeared once more. He recalled Yakko asking if it was okay for him to go to Max, to which Wakko nodded and even pushed him away some. Oh god- he hoped that wasn't too aggressive.

Now he was alone. People were talking, walking, dancing, all sorts of activities. Wakko tried to take it all in, but all of the colors and sounds were starting to burn his eyes.

Friends. He was told he had to make friends.

He tried looking around for kids his age, but just turning his head made him dizzy.

Hmph.

Still, he was determined to function as a normal child would so he began weaving through the rapidly shifting crowd as he had earlier, just with a much louder and more busy crowd.

Suddenly his suit was starting to feel a lot more uncomfortable than before. God- if he could just find someone-

He bumped right into a lady in a bright purple dress. He quickly stuttered an apology before scurrying away as fast as he could, not even waiting for a response.

Seriously- was his suit trying to choke him? He pulled on it desperately, but if anything it just made the pull tighter. Wakko growled to himself as he walked further and further away from whoever that lady was, until he hit the wall.

At least the marble was cool, it was starting to feel like it was a million degrees in here.

Still, it wasn't enough. he still felt hot, and stuffy- was he even breathing anymore?

...Yes, yes he was. Rather fast though- oh dear, was that his heart? oh god- what was happening? Why was the music so loud? Why was his collar so tight? When was the last time he blinked? Where were these "kids" Wakko was supposed to make friends with?

Wait- no, he could see those. A group of them- shit, they were looking at him. Wakko noticed his nail was twitching nervously- he grabbed it and forced it to stop, but the kids laughed.

Wakko ran away again, covering his ears, his face turning red and the knot in his stomach transporting itself to his throat.

"No, no, no, no. Please, not now..." He pleaded with himself, but he didn't listen, and tears started to form. Wakko looked desperately for a quick way out, but still couldn't find any- curse the size of this place.

However, as his eyes darted around anxiously, he spotted something- a table covered in a white cloth that went to the ground. Without hesitation, Wakko went to it, making sure no one saw him before crawling underneath.

Wakko stayed there, covering his ears and rocking back and forth awhile, cursing his stupid brain for making these stupid tears that wouldn't end. He also cursed the stupid music for being too loud and the guests for being so many.

He wanted Mom.

He wanted mom to come and find him and scoop him up and take him to the playroom and sit in the rocking chair and rock him to sleep.

However, she didn't come.

No one did.

He was alone, and these tears weren't making him any calmer. Everything still felt so loud- it wasn't this loud before- he loved mom's coronation. Why was his brain so stupid?!

The young prince continued like that for a while, before someone came and lifted the tablecloth. He tried to make a run for it, but the someone grabbed his arm before he could- Wakko turned to look at their face and-

It was Max.

"S-sorry, I probably shouldn't... grab you," He let go, and Wakko scooted back, though he didn't leave. Max saw this as an invitation and joined him under the table.

"A-are- uh... Are you okay?" Max asked. Wakko looked away and shrugged.

"Right... not much of a talker..." Max recalled. Wakko nodded once, though he instantly regretted it, as it made his head feel weird.

Max tapped his fingers on his knee as he tried to figure something out. Wakko avoided any looks the Disney Prince gave him.

"Do you want some water? I can go get you some water," Max offered. Wakko sniffled and thought about it, before nodding once more (and regretting it once more).

with that, he disappeared, though not for too long.

Wakko noticed he stopped crying.

"Here, take this," Max handed him the glass. Wakko accepted the offering, taking a long drink.

Well, that felt at least a little bit better.

He glanced at Max.

"A-aren't you supposed to be with Yakko?" he asked.

"Dot was practically begging Yakko for a dance and I let him, it's her day after all," Max chuckled.

That made sense.

Wakko looked down at the glass, tapping his finger against it and looking at the water ripple.

"Do you need to step out of the party for a sec?" Max asked.

Wakko shrugged, taking a sip.

"Here- I'll help you find an exit," Max said, getting up and holding the cloth open for Wakko.

He hesitated.

He didn't deserve this- such kindness from the guy he locked in the tower mere weeks ago- it didn't make sense.

Then again, he'd give anything to get out of here.

Wakko listening to his senses and got out.

Carefully he followed Max through the gigantic room until they eventually reached a door, through which both of them slipped out of and into a calm and dark hallway.

Instantly, Wakko felt calmed, taking a deep breath.

"Wanna sit down?" Max asked, gesturing to the couches nearby. Wakko nodded. However, instead of sitting on the couch, he chose to lay on the cool floor, even taking off his gloves so he could feel the marble with his fingers.

Max didn't say anything for a while, not seeming to mind the silence. Which was good- because Wakko didn't feel like breaking it.

After a while though, a thought nagged at his brain.

Why.

Why on earth would Max help him? After everything he did? After everything he jeopardized? It didn't make sense.

Wakko sat up. Max looked at him but didn't say anything.

Wakko sighed.

"Why-?" He paused.

"Why... are you being so nice to me?"

"You were in trouble, I couldn't ignore that," Max shrugged. Wakko frowned, putting his gloves back on.

"I-i... Aren't you mad? At least a little?" He asked.

"It wasn't my first time being locked in a room for hours on end," Max snorted.

"Y-yeah, but I tried to hurt you. And Yakko..." Wakko looked at the ground. "I know how much you mean to him."

Max blinked.

"I- uh... well-" Max struggled with his words a moment.

"I don't... blame you, I guess. It's as new to you as it is to me and with a past and family tree like yours, I guess I don't blame you for lashing out? I dunno," Max shrugged, looking away.

Huh...

"Still... you didn't have to do this."

"I wanted to. Trust me, I would've helped any kid I found under there, but I'm glad it was you," Max said.

Wakko looked at him, deciding whether or not he believed that. Ultimately, he did.

"You know... Yakko talks a lot about you," Max said, piquing Wakko's interest.

"He worries a lot, but he says you're a really sweet kid, and I believe that," Max smiled a little. "You should be easier on yourself, you're still growing up you know?"

Wakko thought about that.

"I guess," He said. Max snorted.

"You know... you do seem like a pretty cool kid. I'm sorry if you ever felt I was ignoring you, I promise I'll try to make up for it too," He said.

Wakko thought about that too.

"Thanks," He said.

"I really do hope we can grow to like each other. Yakko means a lot to me and you mean a lot to him... you know?" Max blushed a little, scratching the back of his neck.

Wakko nodded, grinning a little.

"So... are we... cool?" Max asked.

Wakko thought about that as well.

"Yeah, we're cool," He said with his signature smile.

"Cool," Max grinned back. "Because I'm pretty sure Yakko might lose it if his dance with Dot ended and he can't find me."

Wakko laughed.

"Will you be alright?" Max asked, standing. Wakko nodded, getting up as well.

"I'm feeling a lot better... though I think I'll look for mum and dad," He said.

"Fair enough," Max nodded once. "Well- uh... see you around, I guess."

"See you around," Wakko laughed at his awkwardness before going back through the doors and back to the party.

Max followed soon thereafter, hoping Yakko wouldn't be too mad or worried at him for his sudden disappearance.

.o0o.

Yakko couldn't believe that a year ago today he thought his parents were dead. It baffled him honestly- he could turn his head and his parents were right there. They were never really dead- it shocked him to remember sometimes.

He also couldn't believe that only a year ago the most celebration they could share for Dot's birthday was a mini cake they had to sneak late at night.

And now look where he was- dancing in the middle of the ballroom with his little sister having the time of his life- despite the fact Dot couldn't stop giggling and he almost dropped her that one time.

However, he had to draw the line after three songs, which Dot understood, and he gave her back to their parents, hoping Max wouldn't be too mad about Dot taking up so much of his time.

"Ah, Max, there you are- sorry for dancing so long, I have a hard time saying no to her," Yakko laughed between pants, scratching the back of his neck.

"You just got done?" Max teased.

"Yeah, she really liked dancing," Yakko shrugged, putting his hands in his pockets.

"You look like you could use a breather," Max raised an eyebrow at him.

"Who, me? Whatever would give that idea?" He played back, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"C'mon- let's go to the balcony," Max said, taking his hand.

When they got to the door Yakko paused as he looked back at his family, unsure. However, his parents looked at him, and after giving a fair look of warning, they both gave him a thumbs up and nod of approval, and Yakko went off with his prince.

However, they didn't pick a random one, they went all the way through the halls to the usual one they'd go to when Max visited Warnerstock (the kid had a thing for balconies).

"Ahh, fresh air," Yakko embraced the cool night.

"Yep," Max embraced it too, immediately going and leaning on the rails.

"Are you liking the party?" Yakko asked.

"It's pretty good- though a little crowded, but I always know how to find some space," Max answered.

"I feel that- when my birthday rolls around, I'll make it a lot less crowded. I don't know what Dot had against having it outside, but what are you gonna do?" Yakko shrugged.

"I think Wakko would appreciate a smaller shindig," Max said, looking at the garden.

"What makes you say that?" Yakko decided to take his place next to Max also leaning against the railing.

"Ran into him- he wasn't having the best time so I helped ground him again," Max said like it was no big deal.

It was.

"Grounded him? You- managed to calm him down? Is he okay? What happened?" Yakko asked quickly.

"Woah, woah, it's okay. He's totally fine, just... overwhelmed." Max said.

"Oh... well... I'm glad he's okay," Yakko took a deep breath. "And I'm even more glad you were able to help him- that's huge... really."

He looked at him when he said that last part. Max blushed.

"I would've helped anyone, seriously," He looked away.

"Mhm, sure," Yakko teased.

"I am serious though- it probably means a lot to Wakko- he doesn't accept help easily and to allow you... it means he's starting to like you," Yakko said in all seriousness.

"That's good," Max nodded. "I really do want your family to like me- I just... don't have the best ways of showing it, I suppose."

"Hey, you're doing great so far," Yakko held his hand.

There was a moment before Yakko realized what he was doing and both boys broke the gesture.

"Haha... yeahhhh," Max looked at the wall away from Yakko.

There was a stretch of silence between the two, neither knowing what to do. Sure they knew what they wanted but... things are never as easy as just doing what you want.

"My dad and uncles like you too- if you care about that," Max decided to say.

"That's good," Yakko smiled a little, rubbing his thumb on the railing.

Another pause.

"You know- It's funny to me how when we met you thought I might too cool for you," Max remarked.

"When did I ever say that?" Yakko said.

"You called me cool at least fifty times upon first meeting me," Max play punched his arm.

"As I recall, you called me cool, so who's the real cool one here?" Yakko punched him back and the princes laughed.

"Alright, alright, you got me," Max chuckled. "I was just trying to say you were totally wrong, I don't have a cool bone in my body."

"God- you're so cool you don't even know how cool you are. Typical," Yakko sighed teasingly.

"Hey, didn't I just say you're pretty cool too?" Max accused playfully.

"Oh please, you're way cooler. No trauma and with fluffy, luxurious hair like that? Please," Yakko rolled his eyes.

"Oh puh-lease yourself. Trauma is just a cool backstory and you're home is a lot more fun and a lot less crowded and your family is a lot more cool too," Max pointed his finger at Yakko.

"You're exaggerating," Yakko pointed back.

"Nope- not at all. You're one of my first true friends and that automatically makes you very cool," Max crossed his arms.

"Oh yeah? W-well-" Yakko paused, looking at Max carefully.

A pause.

Max's dark brown eyes shined back at Yakko, reflecting the stars that surrounded them wonderfully. His fluffy and luxurious hair framed his face with perfect ease. His signature smile slowly turned into that of curiosity.

Yakko felt his heart flutter.

"I'm not as cool as you think," Yakko stepped down, looking at the ground.

Coward.

Another pause.

"..."

"Well maybe you are right- maybe I am cooler than you."

"Wha-?"

Before Yakko could finish the sentence, Max grabbed his shoulder and pulled him into a kiss.

"S-see?" Max was internally "fjdkaf;sfj"-ing in his brain. "You've won- I'm a lot cooler."

"Y-yeah," Yakko could barely speak his face was as red as Wakko's hat. "You're... yeah," his face melted into a goofy grin.

"Oh god- I'm sorry- d-did you not mean that..?" Max panicked, quickly becoming embarrassed.

"N-no!" Yakko snapped to life. "I-i... I- uh..."

"I liked it," He managed to say. Max smiled.

"W-... Wanna do it again?" Yakko proposed, and Max nodded, and they shared another kiss.

Yakko knew it was corny to think, but it truly felt just like fireworks in his chest.

He liked Max- Max liked him. A part of himself was realized- and he felt alive. A good kind of alive- not the kind of alive that came from life or death situations.

"So... I guess that makes us even," Max joked. Yakko laughed.

"I guess so," He couldn't get himself to stop smiling- neither could Max. They looked at each other before bursting into laughter again.

"Man, we really should return to the party," Max said.

"Yeah, you're right," Yakko's face was starting to hurt from the smiling.

"Do- uh... do you think your parents will be cool... orrrr...?" Max asked.

"Psh, I'm sure they'll be fine," He said without hesitation.

"Cool," Max said, opening the door out of the balcony.

Yakko looked at him for a moment, trying to absorb the moment as best he could.

"You okay?" Max asked.

"Yep," Yakko said, taking a deep breath as he implanted it in his memory in his brain forever.

"C'mon, let's go before they think we've done something stupid," Yakko said, quickly joining Max and grabbing his hand before running back to join his family.

however, right before entering the party room once more, Yakko paused.

"Does this mean our friendship is basically ruined?" He asked.

Max thought about it.

"I wouldn't think of it as a ruining per se... maybe think of it as an upgrade of sorts," Max winked.

God, he was so much cooler.

"Cool," Yakko grinned, squeezing Max's hand.

"Well... uh- shall we?" Max let go and offered Yakko his arm.

Yakko thought about it.

Taking it would mean no taking it back- it would mean the whole party would basically know that they kissed (holy shit- they kissed! that was a thing that happened!). His parents, his siblings, practically the whole kingdom, and their allies.

Yakko couldn't imagine any other way to walk back in.

He took his arm.

"We shall."

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 The End

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makeste · 4 years

Text

BnHA Chapter 299: No Chains Left

Previously on BnHA: Horikoshi was all “and then AFO broke out all of the inmates from six other prisons and took a nap. well anyways, here’s the hospital angst.” Kacchan woke up two days later and was all, “WAIT BUT HOW ARE DEKU AND TODOROKI AND ALL OF THE OTHER CHARACTERS EXCEPT IIDA DOING” and then we cut to Shouto’s room where the other U.A. kids were sitting around being Mutually Traumatized and giving each other moral support and such. Everyone was alll, “...”, and then the rest of the Todofam showed up, INCLUDING POSSIBLY REI?! which, omg. The chapter ended with Kacchan STOMPING THROUGH THE HALLS all “WHADDYA MEAN DEKU HASN’T WOKEN UP YET”, dragging along Satou and Mineta behind him, fueled by the power of ALL OF THE FUCKS HE NOW GIVES. He gives so many fucks now you guys. This boy cares so much he can probably deduct it on his taxes.

Today on BnHA: SPEAKING OF PEOPLE WHO GIVE A LOT OF FUCKS, the story cuts abruptly to Hawks, freshly recovering from his near-death experience, and pondering the threads that have weaved the tapestry of his life and led him to this moment. Basically he grew up in poverty with his Jerk Dad and Jerk Mom until his dad got arrested one day and his mom sent him off to go Find Money Or Something, and so he rescued a busload of people and found himself a new career. Back in the present day, Hawks and Jeanist ride around town in Jeanist’s Jamborghini having awkward encounters with civilians in a country on the brink of social collapse, and visiting Hawks’s mother’s home. Hawks is all “I know from an outsider’s perspective it must look like my life currently sucks, but now that the HPSC is gone, my public image is shot, and my parents are finally out of my life, I’m actually feeling SURPRISINGLY GOOD.” Anyway so he’s gonna go meet up with Endeavor now, and p.s. this chapter was fucking fantastic though, damn.

oh my god?? is this Hawks narration?? something about him growing up watching the heroes on TV and thinking of them as fictional characters

okay I scrolled down a little bit more to see the rest of that “Keigo” panel, and wow

this is basically a shed. poor boy definitely grew up rough. let me tell you guys, I came in here ready for some BakuDeku shenanigans; I was not prepared for Hawks Flashback Angst. I AM HERE FOR IT, but also wow I gotta brace myself now lol

HELLO MISTER HAWKS’S JERK DAD, SIR

BnHA sure does have an array of Jerk Dads, doesn’t it. makes me appreciate characters like Masaru and JirouDad all the more for bucking the trend

anyway. so Horikoshi, you really thought that one itty bitty chapter of hospital catharsis would be enough to calm us all before you went right back to showing us child abuse huh. my god man can we rest

BABY HAWKS

swear to god this kid can’t be more than five or six, and yet he has this completely blank look on his face even with his dad looming over him being all threatening and shit. like he’s shut down his emotions to protect himself. imagine what has to happen to a child for him to have learned this at such a young age. fuck

AND MEANWHILE THIS GUY

don’t mingle with humans?? not “other” humans, just humans?? what is this implying here?? and also holy shit Hawks definitely didn’t inherit his looks from his dad orz

then again he doesn’t really bear much of a resemblance to his strung-out mom here either

omg omg omg. and this child is basically trapped here in this environment with these two people. this explains a SHITLOAD about Hawks’s personality though you guys. his ability to completely separate his real thoughts from the face he presents to the outside world. his pragmatic approach to analyzing and solving problems. his layers of emotional walls. turns out almost none of that came from the HPSC training -- that was all learned hands-on in his own personal do-or-die survival nightmare childhood!! oh, boy

and small wonder then that he latched on to Endeavor so strongly if he really is the one who brought down his dad and inadvertently saved him from this. also, just putting this out there, I know people are always talking about him and Dabi being foils, and I think it’s very interesting how Touya grew up in a household where he saw firsthand the dark side of hero society, and so ended up becoming a villain in order to bring it down. whereas young Keigo had almost the exact opposite experience, growing up experiencing the dark side of villain society and becoming a hero in order to bring about a world where no one else has to experience that. just. both of them are so determined not to become their fathers. some interesting parallels there

so Hawks was sort of an accident after his parents had “thanks for helping me not get caught after I killed that guy” sex, and now this little boy is growing up in squalor and being beaten by his father for things like Sitting In The Wrong Out-Of-The-Way Corner Trying Not To Be A Bother To Anybody. holy fuck. this is so rough to read through you guys

wait so does Jerk Dad have a an eyeball manipulation quirk?? because he doesn’t have the wings like his son, but wth are these things??

this presumably also means that Keigo has never been to school or anything either. he basically doesn’t exist. he thinks heroes are fictional characters, he doesn’t realize that they’re real people. these are people who could help him if he could escape and find them, but he doesn’t know, and they don’t know about him

OH MY GOD HE’S JUST SITTING IN HIS CORNER HUGGLING HIS ENDEAVOR PLUSH OH MY GOD

how could this child possibly have an anti-fandom when he’s done NOTHING WRONG HIS ENTIRE LIFE. huh. just explain that to me. lol I mean I’m not looking to pick a fight with anyone, but also, MAYBE I AM, idk?? this kid has gotten me all riled up lmao

anyways, Protect Keigo 2021, and thank you Horikoshi for these three very terrible pages. I am pleased to inform you that you’ve effectively gotten your point across and you may now commence saving this kid already

YAY

oh no, Keigo’s dumbass jerk dad tried to steal a car and the popo nabbed his ass and now his mom can’t just sit around neglecting her VERY YOUNG SON all day long, oh horrors. sorry lady my tiny violin is on backorder. just imagine that I’m playing a very sarcastic song on it for you

anyway so what are you gonna do now, abandon him? I can hardly imagine he’d be worse off, if anything it might be a near-instant improvement

LMAO HE’S ALL “WAIT WHAT ENDEAVOR’S A REAL FUCKING DUDE?!”

AND THEY SAY THAT A HERO CAN SAVE US~~~~ I’M NOT GONNA STAND HERE AND WAAAAAIT~~~~~ I’LL HOLD ONTO THE WINGS OF THE EAGLES, WATCH AS WE ALL FLY AWAAAAAAY~~~~

lol what a randomly pivotal moment in his young life. TIME TO GO MAKE THESE MEMES INTO DREAMS YOUNG ONE

anyway so his mom freaked out and grabbed him and they wound up at a train station with her TELLING HIM TO GO GET HER SOME MONEY, oh my god. SURE MOM LEMME JUST WALTZ RIGHT ON DOWN TO THE “JOBS FOR FIVE-YEAR-OLDS” STORE AND TELL THEM I NEED SOME CASH. ffff manifesting someone to come help him in 3... 2...

...

SIGH, JUST GO RESCUE THE PEOPLE FROM THE BUS, KEIGO. is this the outfit he was wearing when that happened?? it must be, right?? I can’t imagine them surviving more than a couple days out here unless this starts getting REALLY dark in a way I know that even Horikoshi won’t explore, so yeah. cut to the HPSC now please. never thought we’d be glad to see them. I mean sure, it may be an “out of the frying pan...” case, but good god

THANK YOU!!

and I guess it was his mom’s eyeball quirk then. anyway, whatever, see you again never, hopefully. lol oh man. thaaaat, was upsetting. need to center myself here for a sec. NAMASTE

OH YAY THE PRESENT

so we cut from Baby Hawks Angst straight to Present Day Hawks Angst, huh. not that this exhausted and traumatized lil lad isn’t still a baby to me too, I’ll have you know

BEST JEANIST, ALWAYS WITH THE JOKES

“WHEW, THOUGHT YOU DIED ON ME FOR A SEC THERE KID.” lmao. Caleb will no doubt ruin this by making his word choice all stiffly formal as usual, so I’m just going to treasure this “WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT, I’M FRESH OUT OF FUCKS” version of Jeanist while I can

look at him, driving his Jeanistmobile

again, is it any wonder Kacchan was bitching about Endeavor’s dinky little car when he was used to riding around town in style like this. anyone else staring at this panel trying to figure out how this car is somehow secretly made of jeans

NOOOOO

FUCK YOU DABI LMAO. PUTTING THESE VOICE ACTORS OUT OF A JOB ONE BY ONE

anyway so Jeanist is all “GOOD THING IT’S THE FUTURE AND WE’RE SO GOOD AT MEDICAL SCIENCE” to handwave how Hawks went from one step shy of being a very handsome corpse, to sitting around texting Jeanist in a car all of two days later

OH MY GOD, AND FINALLY AN EXPLANATION FOR THIS

wait a minute. I’m so confused lmfao. soooo, was Hawks all “anyway, here’s Jeanist’s dead body, you can examine it but please don’t look at him too closely and also I’m gonna need that back unharmed.” how tf did you pull that off lmao

(ETA: also isn’t this technically confirmation of the ol’ Noumu Jeanist theory lol. I’m gonna go ahead and say it is.)

NO BUT PLEASE, CONTINUE. I unironically love reading Horikoshi’s overly convoluted “SEE IT’S NOT A PLOT HOLE” explanations

lkldslfk so wait, you’re telling me Hawks convinced Dabi and the League to put Jeanist’s body in storage, and basically just hoped they wouldn’t use him for any experiments until he could put his plan into action and have the HPSC’s people break in and find and revive him?? WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG. A FOOLPROOF PLAN IF I’VE EVER HEARD ONE

fff this man really asked Jeanist to risk it all to prop up his little cover story, and Jeanist was all “sure why not” omfg. anyways, thanks for recapping all of this out loud for no particular reason in your car conversation you two

LMAO NOW WHAT

TROUBLE YOU SAY? GOOD THING THE NEW NUMBER ONE HERO IS ON THE JOB THEN

okay no it’s just some random thugs strolling around terrorizing the downtown. fuck ‘em. so Jeanist is making short work of them now

uh oh

won’t come? not can’t, but won’t?? what???

WOW

well I guess that makes the local heroes A BUNCH OF SHITHEADS now doesn’t it?? jesus

and okay, serious question, if the cops are spread too thin and the heroes have literally walked out on the job, what exactly is stopping everyone from deciding to use their quirks to defend themselves, legal or not? nothing, as far as I can tell. society just got a hell of a lot more chaotic

anyway so this is an interesting panel here

man, Dabi really did pull it off, didn’t he. well anyway so here’s that better world all of the villains were wanting, you guys! isn’t it so great?? everyone’s terrified and angry and losing hope and society is inches away from collapsing into total anarchy! but hey, at least we exposed the number one hero as a hypocrite

anyway so what are these guys up to

fucking hell, he’s visiting his mom. I really wasn’t prepared to commit this much emotional energy towards reading this chapter today. BUT VERY WELL, WE PRESS ON

?? wait she’s not there?

is this supposed to explain how Dabi knew who Hawks really was? except that there’s the little matter of how he even know where to find his mother in the first place. feels like we’re still missing something there, but oh well

OH MY GOD

RHA I TAKE BACK EVERY WORD I EVER SPOKE AGAINST YOU. YOU ARE A SCANLATION GROUP FILLED WITH ANGELS LMAO. I WILL TAKE THIS PANEL IN MY HANDS, AND TREASURE IT AND KEEP IT SAFE

ANYWAY, BECAUSE MY TIRED BIRD SON’S LIFE SUCKED SO MUCH ALREADY, IT TURNS OUT HE’S ACTUALLY PLEASED WITH THIS NEW TURN OF EVENTS LOL HOW ABOUT THAT

GOOD FOR YOU BBY. YOU GO OUT THERE AND BE YOUR OWN PERSON

and in all seriousness, I love that identity he chooses -- chooses, because it actually is him making a choice now, possibly for the very first time in his life -- is “guy who helps people”, though. it really is nothing short of miraculous that he held on to that kind of optimism and desire to do good even with everything he’s been through. there were so many times he could have chosen to turn his back on the world in retaliation for the way it treated him. but he didn’t!! and here he is now, finally free, and what he wants to do with the rest of his life now is simply to help others. anyway please excuse me for a moment, I need to go find some sort of basket or a big vase to put all of my fresh new Hawks Feels in, pardonne-moi

YEAH BOIIIIII

“FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS, MISTER JEANIST, WHERE DID YOU FIND YOUSELF THAT SWEETASS CAR.” hey, all I’m saying is if this boy’s wings really aren’t growing back, he’s gonna need to find himself a new means of transportation y’know?

oh my god you guys it’s a flashback to his mom buying him the Endeavor plushie when he was like two because, and I quote, ALL MIGHT WAS TOO EXPENSIVE

oh my god oh my god. my boy out here with a new lease on life finding hope in the darkest of times

wasn’t your throat supposed to be all fucked up lmao. Horikoshi was suddenly all “oh shit the VAs are gonna be pissed at me if I keep this up huh”

“that’s why Bubaigawara was such a great guy” motherfucker IT IS A TERRIBLE DAY FOR RAIN. FORECAST SAID NOTHING ABOUT THIS

:’)

yes ma’am. yes indeed. confirmed, I really will straight up fight some motherfuckers for this child. well not really, but YOU KEEP YOUR DISCOURSE OFF MY LAWN AND OUT OF MY BLOG YOU HEAR. THIS IS A HAWKS-FRIENDLY SPACE. WE RESPECT TAKAMI KEIGO IN THESE STREETS

and he’s saying (or is he thinking?? what a weirdly shaped speech bubble this is) that even if what Dabi said about the Todoroki household is true, “I’m not sure it’s the same now.” which happens to be ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. man this whole chapter really is all about saying “fuck the past” and moving forward and I am living for it

SON!!!!

“the first step is at my beginning” fklkjlk. what an iconic fucking line??

AND HIS WINGS!!!! THEY ACTUALLY ARE GROWING BACK AHHHHHHH. “PUT A RAINCHECK ON THAT CAR, JEANIST-SAN.” THE HAWKSMOBILE CAN WAIT, RIGHT NOW HE HAS TO GO INSERT HIMSELF BACK INTO THE TODODRAMA WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT

you guys. I came here ready for some BAKUDEKU HOSPITAL ANGST, and I got DIDDLY SHIT of that, and none of my other kids were even in this chapter, but!!! ASK ME IF I CARE LMAO omg. because bird son is hanging with his new best friend, and he’s out here Finding Himself and picking up the pieces and putting them back together stronger than ever because RESILIENCE HAS A NAME, AND IT’S SPELLED H-A-W-K-S, and you guys. profound, my love for this child. holy shit. hey google, play Silence by Marshmello

#bnha 299 #takami keigo #hawks (bnha)#best jeanist #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #I found peace in your violence #can't tell me there's no point in trying #I'm at one #and I've been quiet for too long

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