I'm never changing who I am

She supposed that if he wasn’t okay she would have noticed by now, so she let herself relax into their shared kiss. There was something so infinitely comfortable about being with Andrew, even with the butterflies trying to escape her stomach, and she had fallen in love with the feeling. She let him pull her closer and grinned up at him when he pulled away. “Good. I was hoping you wouldn’t mind that… And I think this is a pretty solid start.” 

“I’m pretty sure I’ll never mind that, Katie love.” He winked at her, backing toward the nearest table. “Good. I should warn you that I may have another trick or two up my sleeve.” Glancing around to be sure no one could overhear, he added in a low voice, “Very glittery and noisy tricks.” The first one or two should be going off soon but he wasn’t sure entirely when. “Just so you’re prepared.”

At his apology, Lucinda shook her head in disagreement. It wasn’t thoughtless, he couldn’t have known she would react badly to such an innocuous question and it was innocuous. “It’s not your fault. Simple question.” Or it should have been. It appeared to be simple for Andrew – We’re in the same house and year and I like her. “Is that all it takes?” She hoped so. There was so much Lucinda hoped for:  Rosmerta’s safety, which was obviously the most important; her friendship, which worried her all the same. But hoping was equivalent to uncertainty for her and that she despised, even feared.

“I don’t think anything is simple right now.” He considered her question for a minute; honestly, Andrew had always been good at making friends so he wasn’t sure how to give advice about it. “Yeah, I think so. You have to work at it after that too, to make sure it lasts, but that’s the important part.” He stepped forward and put a hand on Lucinda’s shoulder gently. “She’ll be okay.” It was probably partly his own optimistic nature but he also really believed she would be.

Kate wouldn’t have expected to feel so comfortable swept up in Andrew’s arms, but somehow it leeched away so many of her worries and fears. She burrowed her face into the crook of his neck for a moment before pulling back so she could search his face. She wasn’t sure if she was just searching for signs that he was okay or if she just needed the glimpse of those eyes of his, but it made her feel better. “I’m fine. Worried, but fine. And don’t be sorry about that. Are you okay?” She probably should have waited for his answer but she simply couldn’t. Before she could rethink her actions or worry about all of the people watching them she had risen on her toes to press her lips to his in a frantically fond kiss.

Andrew had about a hundred things he wanted to say to Kate but didn’t have a chance to get any of them out - not that he was upset by the kiss. Far from it. Letting out a satisfied sigh, he dropped his arms to curl around her waist gently and pull her closer. “I’m okay. Better now that I’ve seen you.” He murmured when he broke the kiss. Resting his forehead against hers, he added, “Think we’re making enough of a distraction?”

And so, for Kate, it came down to being a distraction. She was happy enough with that. As much as she wanted to go find Rosmerta herself, she couldn’t leave her sister. If her sister hadn’t been at Hogwarts she might have gone, but that wasn’t the case this time. So she steeled herself to do whatever necessary to get the group out of the castle. She wasn’t a fan of Peter’s plan, even if it would work well enough; She thought blowing things up would just scare people more than anything and possibly give a bunch of students and professors heart attacks, but that would indeed be a distraction. She was mulling over the plans and looking for the few loved ones she hadn’t yet found when he caught the sight of Andrew’s hair almost towering above the crowd. Her breath hitched in her throat before she was able to let her voice leap from her. “Andrew!”

Andrew had debated for a long time on whether he should join the rescue mission but in the end, he thought he had a responsibility to the younger students here. The others would be able to take care of Rosmerta. He already knew what he was going to do but when he heard someone call his name, he thought he could postpone his plan - especially when it was Kate. Somehow, he’d suppressed his worry for her while he tried to calm his younger housemates but now that he saw her again, his fears hit him full-force. “Kate!” Pushing through the crowd, he ran toward her and swung her into his arms. This almost definitely qualified as a distraction, since he could feel eyes on them - a lot of eyes. He was used to it though. “Are you okay? One of the little ones needed me so I couldn’t come looking for you but I was so worried.”

The timid lioness

"Where do we go from here?"

Greta took a deep breath and gave Andrew a tight hug. If she came off as just panicked and worried rather than deadly serious about her intentions, that would bode better for her plans. “Sorry. I’m normally better but I am so bleeding mad…” She took another breath and gave him a nod. “Thanks.”

“No need to apologize.” Seeing that the professor was satisfied and Greta wasn’t taking his head off, Andrew found a deserted corner of the room. “I know. Don’t go losing your head though, that won’t help anything. Is anyone planning to do something, or are we just sitting around until . . .” He couldn’t even finish the sentence.

“For her sake I hope you heard wrong, no offence.” The Aurors would must have been on there way by now, they couldn’t ignore this. Wilkie just had to hope that his brother wouldn’t be among the Aurors sent up to Hogsmeade. They wouldn’t send a newly qualified Auror in at the deep end, would they? Well, Pollux had told him some stories about the department that gave Wilkie some doubt. “If she is missing, maybe she’s hiding out somewhere?”

“Well, god, so do I. I don’t want her to be missing - or anyone.” Andrew ran a hand through his hair. Maybe he could go hang around one of the professors again, see if he could get any better news. “I guess she could be but that doesn’t seem really smart - especially with the alarms going off and all that. I mean, it could happen but I just don’t think that’s really likely.”

Rosmerta broke out into laughter at Andrew’s comment. Whether he knew it or not, he was funny. The two were considered the artsy type at Hogwarts, sometimes looked at weirdly for their hair color choices among other things. His face was classic, and Rose took out her camera quickly, “hold on, hold on, keep that face,” taking off the cap and adjusting everything she needed to, she took a picture. “It’s cinnamon sugar coated Challah bread with chocolate chips. I baked it.”

Andrew beamed at Rosmerta as she laughed; he had really great friends but not all of them got him the same way she did, which made talking with her even better. “Hold it -” He barely kept from making a ridiculous expression when she told him that, but he managed. “Am I going to regret that picture soon, Rosmerta? I have this feeling in my bones that I’m going to regret it.” Shaking his head, he tore off more of the bread and ate it with a loud sigh. “This is good. Can you teach the house elves to make it? Or . . . I dunno but I think I’m going to need to eat this on a regular basis now.”

Were you – are you friends? The words dizzied her. Lucinda’s mind alternated between the frightening words (were? are?) so quickly, she felt she was spinning around. The other grounded her – friends? Did she have people she could call friends? What constituted friends? Was Rosmerta one of her friends? The word recurred and recurred, always a ｑｕｅｓｔｉｏｎ . Lucinda swallowed. When she thought of the girl, she thought of warmth and generosity, openness. Proximity. All the things her daily life lacked. Then maybe they were. “I hope so.” Merlin, I hope so. A desperation thickened her voice. If  when Rosmerta came back, she’d talk to her about it. “Are you?”

“Sorry,” he said, almost instinctively. It wasn’t a very thoughtful question to ask at a time like this. He definitely should have said something better - maybe asked if she knew Rosmerta or something. “Hey . . .” something was definitely going on and he didn’t know what, but he didn’t like seeing people upset. “I’m sure you are. And she’ll be back. Uh, yeah. We’re in the same house and year and I like her.” They had bonded when it became apparent they were both a little odd and thinking about her gone . . . it was killing him.