bruv

You stared at the parchment in your hand. The big, round writing displayed across its surface giving a chaotic look that contrasted with the polite tone of its content, obviously forced. You read it two, maybe three times more as an incredulous smile spread across your face.

“Oh, please” you groaned out loud. “Learn to take some criticism”

“That the letter that arrived for you?” you heard your brother yell across the store as he guided some new bats onto the shelves with a twirl of his wand.

The magazine you wrote for was really small, simply an accessory to your family’s store that you had been writting casually for a few years. It wasn’t popular, hell, it was barely a magazine despite the effort that you’d put into it looking presentable. Having someone read it, let along feel strongly enough about it to write back to you wasn’t a possibility you had ever taken into consideration. And yet, here you were.

“Where is Claws?” you asked down the hallway of Quidditch equipment.

“Dear Mr. Wood,

Thank you so much for reaching out to me with your honest thoughts about my piece. I’m sorry if my criticism came across as mocking. I was attempting to paint a charming and endearing picture from your wobbly flying. I’m sure our readers were able to interpret it that way, and to be fair you might be taking your playing more seriously than anyone did. I assume you went through every writting about the game looking for someone that had something to say about you and when you finally found mine it wasn’t to your liking. I’ll go further and say that the only reason why no one else wrote about your scarce five minutes on the pit is because no one bothered to pay any mind to an unknown rookie sent to help in a pinch, so in that way: you are welcome.

Best regards,

Ms. Whittaker”

That seemed good enough for you at the time, aware enough that your behavior wasn’t much more mature than his had been. You put the letter in an envelope with the address Oliver had scribbled on the outside of his own. Claws had eagerly picked it up with a pleased screech and leapt from the concrete windowsill of the store soon disappearing behind grey clouds. A few days later another letter with his name on it had been dropped by Claws on your bed. It left your room with a protest so loud you were sure your landlord would come complain to you again. You hadn’t been sure if he would answer, but given how temperamental his letter had sounded last time, you couldn’t say you were surprised. You were excited though, the situation as amusing as it was petty. The handwriting was not as rushed this time, making the lines thinner and letters smaller. You couldn’t tell if it was politeness or measured annoyance what you would discover, but nothing could have prepared you for what you would read next.

“Dear Ms. Whittaker,

First of all, I’d like to apologize for confusing you for a man; my cousin has the same name, and he’s a boy.”

You brought a hand to your mouth to suppress a laugh. The tone shift had almost made your animosity towards him disappear.

“However, I still think that your writing was childish and unprofessional. I agree I did not put on a good performance. I’m sure you remember your first game and can understand what pressure can do to even the most talented players. I hope next time I play I can change your mind, and that you can look at me with kinder eyes. I know you are a professional, so I know one day I’ll make it into your great writing.

Kind regards,

Oliver Wood”

You read the letter over and over, but not for the same reason you had done with the first one. You cocked your head to the side, confused and intrigued by some of the things written on it. Ever since you had sent your own letter, you had reflected back on what you had written about him and read it yourself, and you had to agree maybe you had been a bit harsh on him. You were confused as to why he had mentioned your first game, which you had never played. You read the word “professional” over and over again, flattered and feeling your chest swell with pride. Then the guilt seeped in.

“Dear Mr. Wood,

I want to open this letter with the admission that my words about you were in fact unnecessarily harsh. While the criticism I wrote about you was valid, the way I placed my words was not, and I’d like to formally apologise for that.” ... “ I have to admit I’d like to be able to relate to the stomach-turning feeling of stepping on the Quidditch Pitch for the first time, but I have never played myself. Maybe I was jealous that someone my age was already at such stage on his life and the bitterness got the best of me. My enjoyment of the sport is limited to the bleachers, the higher the better, which some people might say deprives my reporting of actual insight. I guess it's not that noticeable since you thought otherwise, which I will admit made me very happy. Thank you for the kind words about my writing and I hope that we can see each other as colleagues on opposite sides of the field from now on. I will be looking forward to seeing you at the next game.

Kind regards"

“Dear Ms Whittaker,

Are we really the same age? I had assumed you were way older because I have been reading Bloody Bludgers for years and I remember reading your articles back in school. How old were you when you wrote these? I thought I might have gotten it wrong but I looked for my old volumes and your name is written in them. Were you writing in school? I also had assumed you had played before because of the detail and insight you seem to have when it comes to your writings. Your dissection of equipment is one of my favourite corners of the magazine, and I learnt a lot from it (and I already knew a lot) Will you be at the next Puddlemere game? I doubt I’ll play, but I look forward to reading your take on it.

Best regards,

Oliver Wood”

That letter had found you on a downcast November morning. Oliver’s owl, which you had met for the first time, sat for a long time on the back of your chair as if waiting. You lay on the bed, feet fidgeting as you read the words over and over again. The overly polite tone had been dropped completely, and so had the animosity. You had in fact gone to watch the game, and as he had said he hadn’t played in it, which you refused to admit had soured your mood.

“Dear Oliver,

I did in fact write during my time in school. You probably know this, but our magazine is actually part of our family business, a Quidditch equipment store. It has belonged to my family for three generations, so of course even if I have never played, I’m well versed in all aspects of the sport. If I’m being honest I’m always surprised when someone not local reads our magazine since I started it as a hobby. I guess you must read a lot. I hope I get to see you play soon. I also hope you’ll read my article on the upcoming Warwick game and give me your opinion of it”

He didn’t reply to that one for the next few days. It started worrying you that you might have overstepped by calling him by his first name. Maybe that had been too much too soon. It was the first time in years that you had interacted with someone with the same enthusiasm for Quidditch that you had. Not even your brother matched your intensity, acting more as a resigned heir to the business than anything else. He was also your best friend, which wasn’t saying much, but given the circumstances was understandable. With your friends there was always a detachment, especially the ones you’d known since school. Maybe this was for the best, you thought; becoming friends with someone like Oliver would just start a ticking bomb. So you tried to not feel hurt when another day passed by with no news of him and pretended you couldn’t feel the hope sink down all the way down to the pit of your stomach.

That was, until the Warwick game.

You hadn’t even noticed him even after he had sat down next to you. You hadn’t bothered to turn around when you felt someone sit down, only readjusting yourself when you felt their knee bump against yours. Whoever it was, they were accompanied by the faint scent of leather and an unfortunate choice of cologne. As you finally turned to fetch your writing materials out of your bag, you saw him looking around with a pair of binoculars. However, he wasn’t looking at the pit; he was looking around the bleachers. Your face had already turned into one of mild discomfort when he had turned to you and jumped on his seat when the binoculars fixed on you. As he put them down and stared at you with big brown eyes blown in embarrassment, you felt the air around you still and the noise of the crowd fade away.

“I’m looking for a friend” he blurted out nervously, each word tripping over the next as the redness spread across his cheeks. You were too shocked to register whatever he was saying, though. There, sitting so close to you his cologne would linger on your scraf for hours after was Oliver Wood. You could recognize him from that Puddlemere game, even if the feeling he gave was completely different. His headset had been hiding his longish chestnut hair, and the clumsiness he exhuded back then was nowhere to be found as he sat with perfect, imposing posture next to you. His eyes were bigger than you would have imagined, long lashes softening the natural harshness of his stare. They shook a bit, alternating between the pit and you. You realized then that your silence and unbreakable eye contact were making him shift on his seat. “Well, someone that I know. Well, sort of”

“Oh” you said out loud.

You.

He was talking about you.

It seemed like getting a word out of you actually made him more nervous than your prolongued silence had.

“I’m not doing anything weird, I swear!” he explained, a few spectators turning their heads with interest at his choice of words. His shoulders slumped slightly, as if he was trying to hide himself from them.

He put the binoculars down on his lap and stared down at the game, and so did you. How much time did you have by then? How long until it was impossible for you to reveal yourself? You had the power to make it end right at that instant with nothing more than your silence. That’d make things easier for sure. There was no need to complicate everything and hurt yourself--

“Who’s your friend?”

The question caught him by surprise, but not as much as it did you. His body, while still stiff, relaxed at the friendliness of the question.

“Umh, someone I’ve been talking to. Calling her a colleague would be more appropriate. We’ve been exchanging thoughts about Quidditch, and I thought we could discuss the game”

“A colleague” you mumbled to yourself.

“Yeah, well, we are in the same field. I’m a Quidditch player” he looked around, looking conflicted about whether or not he wanted people to hear him or not “I, uhm, I play”

“Oh, that’s awesome” you bit your tongue “And your friend?”

“Colleague” he corrected “She’s a journalist. She writes for a magazine”

 Now your toes were truly tiptoeing at the verge of the cliff. If you stayed quiet now, there was no going back. A small quiet lie to stop many other ones that would come.

“And you?” He asked suddenly “I’m sorry I didn’t... I didn’t ask you anything. Are you a Warwick fan?”

You felt a painful feeling of relief when the universe seemed to have chosen for you what you knew was the right thing to do. You swallowed the bitterness and gave him a smile.

“No, not really. I find them messy”

“How so?”

“I mean, they’ve got really good players, but they don’t blend well together. I honestly don’t think they get along at all”

“I know, right?” Oliver’s voice rose as he turned to you on his seat with a small hop. His eyes seemed to shine impossibly bright under the grey sky “When they signed Forbes I thought they’d finally get a hold of themselves, but here they are” he pointed at the losing sign.

“People keep saying they need a new coach, but Sheersmith is fine really. What they actually need is a good--”

“Captain” he finished for you.

You both exhanged a smile “Yeah”

“You know, when I was captain I prioritised chemistry over skills. You can always polish someone’s skills, but you can’t force good rapport”

“You were captain?” you feigned ignorance, having already heard about him by the second letter.

“Yes, since my fourth year” his puffed his chest with pride “To be honest I hated it at times. I’m not good with people” he seemed to think about that before adding “I’m not bad at it either, though”

“So why did they make you captain, then?”

“Because I deserved it” he said matter-of-factly, not a sign of embarrassment on his face even when you stared at him wide-eyed “I knew what I wanted”

“To win?” 

He frowned, apparently deep in thought. His lips pressed into a pout.

“To play as long as I could” he finally said, then chuckled and looked away “That sounds silly”

“No. I mean, maybe. But I know exactly how that feels.”

His face lit up with interest.

“So you played”

“Yes” you bit your tongue, hard “Seeker”

He gave you once-over.

“Excuse my straightforwardness, but how old are you?” damn it, maybe he was sharper than you had been told, but that was on you for being a pathetic liar “I mean, I don’t think I remember seeing you at any games at Hogwarts, but you can’t be much older than me”

“I am not” you laughed, and you hoped he couldn’t tell it was due to nervousness “I umh, got hurt during a game so had to stop. That’s why I said I understood what you meant”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Not recognising you from school makes more sense now. To be honest I didn’t pay much attention” He was still staring at you like he was trying to figure you out, and you were terrified he might “What house were you in?”

“Hufflepuff” you replied without missing a beat, then held your breath in silent prayer until he said:

“Gryffindor. You don’t... remember me?”

He sounded almost offended and you had to stiffle a laugh.

“Vaguely”

Oliver nodded, the statement obviously hurting his ego a bit.

“I was a keeper. I am” he corrected “Puddlemere. Or I will be when I get to play”

“You are a professional, though”

“I’m very green. I messed up my first try” “It’s funny, someone commented on how disappointing my playing was, and I got so upset when I read it, but... I think I was more upset about the fact that it was true”

You laughed to yourself.

“You let them have it?”

“Embarrassingly, yes. I mean, I had my reasons! It was a very nasty article, but it was true” When he felt your eyes on him he straightened up and cleared his throat “It’s alright though. We worked it out. That’s why I was expecting to find her here”

“To let her have it?” you joked.

“No! Merlin, no. Well, I might have back then, but judging by her letters I assume she’d beat my ass”

That got a genuine laugh out of you, the first honest thing Oliver had heard from you since he had sat by your side. He reciprocated with a smile of his own. Then it dawned on you that his plan didn’t make much sense.

“Did you plan to meet here?”

Oliver scratched the back of his neck, looking away with a frown.

“No, uhm, I know it’s stupid but I just thought I could bump into her”

”Do you know what she looks like?”

Oliver made a face and looked at you out of the corner of his eye. 

“Not really”

“You didn’t think that one too well, did you?”

He chuckled, the way his lips stretched into a smile making your eyes unconsciously fixate on them “Yeah, I don’t know. I just... felt embarrassed to ask if she wanted to watch the game. I mean, she’s working, you know”

His voice lowered a bit, making it almost hard to hear beneath the roaring crowd. A subtle tint of pink spread across his cheeks, and you wondered it maybe he felt really cold. Whatever it was it made your heart skip a beat.

“I’m sure she’d be happy to bump into you” It felt awful to say, given the fact you were already lying to him. Still, in a twisted way, you were at least telling the truth.

“Yeah, well. Now that I have come to my senses, it might be a bit weird”

You nodded, amused yet flattered “Just a bit”

“I’m not making a good first impression, am I?” He extended his hand to you with an awkward smile. “Oliver Wood, by the way”

You grabbed his hand before you could even think of what false name you were about to give him. There was no way you could say the real one now. A small droplet fell onto your linked hands, and you thanked Merlin for his compassion.

“It’s starting to rain, I should go”

You stood up, way too excited to leave.

 “Wait, why?” asked Oliver, whose hand was still hanging in the air after you had let go.

“The game’s boring anyway”

“It’s okay, we can just...”

Oliver pulled out his wand and, as everyone else had done in the stadium, casted a protection charm around him to keep the rain away. 

“Right” you said, sitting down again next to him under the invisible curtain keeping you safe from the rain that was violently falling down upon the field now.

You felt his body stiffen when you sat down again, your body pressed against him so you could fit underneath his charm. You weren’t sure at the time if the sudden warmth you felt came from the ehat his body seemed to exhude, or from how the proximity made you feel. Suffice to say, you didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the game. Neither of you did.

“That was underwhelming,” was Oliver’s consensus of the game. “Henderik needs to give up the sponsorships and actually get a broom that works for him. You would think someone has hexed him!”

You felt the unpleasant feeling of feet sinking onto the mud on your way out of the stadium. Despite the rain having ceased a while ago, the wind was unforgivingly cold, contrasting heavily to how you felt inside. Oliver walked next to you, bumping into you from time to time and hands deep in the pockets of his leather jacket. You wondered if his hands were as cold as yours, and how would it feel to hold them. They’d probably feel rough after the hours of practice, maybe even weasty. But you’d never find out. Maybe in another lifetime, you thought. When you looked up at him after his brief yet unusual silence, you caught him looking over his shoulder.

“What is it?”

 He snapped back, looking embarrassed.

“Nothing”

You bit your lip, pondering.

 “Still looking for that colleague whose face you don’t know?”

“I know, I know” he protested with a sigh “I think you two would have gotten along, by the way”

You desperately needed to change the course of the conversation.

“Did you come by Portkey?”

“Floo Network down at The Red Hog. You?”

“Portkey”

“I usually prefer portkeys, but I’m worried about landing wrong and hurting myself. I need to be careful now that I’m playing professionally” he said proudly and you bit back a smile.

The short distance to the entrance of The Red Hog was spent in an awkward silence that could be excused by the fact that you both were freezing, every muscle on your body feeling tight by the time you reached the door. It was a small pub with nice food and usually a great and cheerful atmosphere. An ideal place for witches and wizards to chat about the games before going down the stairs and using one of the many chimneys in their impossibly wide basement to get back home. Not your favourite way of transportation, to say the least.

“This is it” Oliver said as he stood by the door, letting people pass him by on their way inside.

“Yeah”

The awkwardness was palpable. He fidgeted with his hands inside his pockets, shoulders almost raising to his ears. You assumed he was really cold.

“It was fun” He finally said “Watching the game with you”

You gave him a smile, making sure it wasn’t as big as you knew it could be.

“I had fun too”

“Actually I should walk you to your portkey, it is getting kind of late” he offered.

“Oh, it’s okay! I’m waiting for my brother” for once that wasn’t a lie “We promised to meet here after the game”

 Oliver couldn’t come up with anything else to say, so with a thin smile and a shrug he just said:

“Very well”

Oliver walked backwards towards the door, neither of you knowing how to properly say goodbye.

“I’ll be cheering for you” you blurted out, your face bright red.

You would have felt mortified if you hadn’t seen how Oliver’s forced thin smile softened into a surprised, genuine one.

“I won’t disappoint”

You let out a loud, deep sigh of relief once he was gone. Adrenaline was rushing through your system, and your heart was beating at an alarming pace. Suddenly someone grabbed the back of your sweater and turned you around with so much force that you knew right away who it was. Pushing the hair away from your face in annoyance, you were met with your brother’s shocked face, hands grabbing at your shoulders.

“Why on earth were you hanging out with Oliver Wood?”

“So you lied to him?” your brother asked.

“Yeah...”

“And then in the middle of that lie... you lied again?”

“...yeah”

You were both trying to walk through the narrow dirt path into the woods, making sure to not slip or step on deep puddles. A few wizards near you had already fallen, and while you two had been quick to stifle your laughs, you didn’t want to suffer the same fate. You were walking a few feet ahead of him, as if that would make the embarrassment more bearable.

“And what’s the end goal here, exactly?” he asked, his genuine confusion mixed with a hint of mockery.

“There is no end goal. I couldn’t even write anything for the article” you groaned.

“At all?”

“What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t just start writing notes. He would have put two and two together”

“I don’t know about that. He was never the most intellectually gifted” He stayed quiet for a few seconds before he asked “Why did you give him my story, though?”

“I don’t know! I was panicking and didn’t have the time to come up with anything, so...” You threw your arms in the air and finally, turning to him, said “We are twins anyway, so in some way it’s a shared experience”

“Yeah? You played seeker for Hufflepuff?” he mocked “You got named prefect?”

 Your hands balled into fists out of embarrassment.

“Yeah, I also got dumped by Genevive Hoggings in the middle of Hogsmeade and had to hide in Madame Puddifoot’s bathroom so no one would see me cry!”

“You--!”

He took a big step towards you, and his shoe slipped on the ground. Before he could hit the ground, you held onto his arm and attempted to stop the fall, only to pathetically fall alongside him. Your butt hit the soft, damp ground, the feeling so unpleasant you couldn’t even bring yourself to protest.

“Very nice” he said, shaking his hands now covered in mud.

“Don’t say it like it was my fault”

“We are twins, so technically it’s a shared fault”

“That makes no sense” you both helped each other up, ignoring people's muffled laughter before continuing your trip “I don’t know, I just...” You sighed deeply, struggling to find an explanation that made sense.

“It’s alright.” His tone was lower, comforting. He put a hand on your shoulder. You didn’t even care that the mud it was covered in was staining your coat “I understand”

Your smile was very small but genuine. It was moments like this that made you feel like he was older. In a way he always had to be. He looked like it too, and it made you feel guilty, like it was somewhat your fault.

“Thanks for coming to get me”

“That’s what I’m here for” Your smile fell a little, and he knowingly raised his hand in protest without even having to look at you “No, I don’t want to see that look”

“Hello,

I went to the Warwick game today. I was thinking I might run into you since you said you’d attend. We didn’t run into each other, but I’ll be looking forward to your article. I’ve been thinking about the Puddlemere one you wrote, and I wanted to say thank you for at least having an eye on me. I think that in the future I will appreciate it more”

“It seems like you guys get along,” your brother said over your shoulder once he had finished reading the letter in your hands “Both versions of you”

You closed your eyes, inhaling deeply as you folded the letter back in half.

“So it seems”

You rested your back against one of the old mahogany counters. The store was surprisingly quiet despite the nice weather. Warm sunlight bathed the place in a subtle bath of gold, making the many particles of dust dancing in the air visible. There were a few kids eyeing Quidditch appliances, an early sign that August was coming to an end.

“Are you going to reply to him?”

You wanted to, that was for sure. Whether you should or not was a different story. Still, it would be odd to stop replying. Your shoulders rose with a shrug, and you could feel Patrick’s disapproving glare on you.

“What even is your plan?”

“I don’t know! We are just talking about Quidditch anyway...”

“He was looking for you” he said drily “At a game”

“Maybe he also wants to make friends who are Quidditch obsessed”

“So you are just going to exchange letters forever and pretend to be someone else when he shows up looking for you?”

“Yeah, well, what was I supposed to do!” You turned to him, and the increase of your volume made the kids turn to you “I wasn’t ready to have to go through all that out of nowhere”

“I mean, yea, not there”

“But it would come anyway at some point”

“Wrong, it will come eventually at some point”

”And you think I don’t know that?” Patrick closed his mouth, shoulders slumping a bit. You knew he meant well, he really did “We both know lying doesn’t suck as much as the other option. Can’t I enjoy this for a bit?”

“Listen, I have nothing against lying and plotting! I just sold an old man polishing cream for twelve gallons when it only costs eight! I’m just worried about what’ll happen when you can’t stretch this any longer”

“You scammed an old man?”

“It’s okay, he wasn’t that old. How are you going to write the Warwick article, by the way? You don’t even know what happened”

 You groaned onto your hands.

“Dad’s going to ask”

“We’ll say it was raining and you had to leave”

Your head perked up.

“That’s true! I’ll just write something else. The new Comet design just got released, so I’ll write on that”

“Good evening,

I’m sorry if this letter is excessive, but I think your reply might have gotten lost. Your owl did seem agitated last time it delivered your letter to me, so I wanted to make sure she’s okay. Anyway...”

The way the handwriting seemed to change at the end of the sentence caught your attention. The words that had been slightly tilted seemed to straighten up as if he had taken such a long pause after the full stop that his flow had been interrupted.

“I attended the Warwick game today. I wasn’t expecting to bump into you there, obviously, but I thought it’d be funny if we had. I was shocked that they put Diggings on the pitch when he has had a ratio of twelve out of fifty this season. I wasn’t surprised at the score at all, I could see it from a mile away. Where were you? I’m very interested to know your analysis of the game. I’m looking forward to it.

Oliver”

But he already knew what your opinion had been. You had told him at the time, sitting on the bleachers with your knees gently bumping against each other once and again. You could remember every word he had said and how he had said them, how his eyes would drift from one player to the other while animatedly giving you his very opinionated take on each play. Not like you were any better. The plan had been to not write to him anymore. Patrick was right, just how long did you think you could stretch this? You had already lied to his face, there was no way to ever come back from that. So why you picked up a new piece of parchment you were not entirely sure.

“Dear Oliver,

I haven’t been able to continue our correspondence as I have fallen ill these last couple of days. Due to this, I was unable to attend the game and also to answer your last letter. Thank you for your concern about Claws, but she is completely fine, she actually seems uneasy that she hasn’t had much correspondence to deliver lately, so she’ll be happy about this letter. I think she has gotten used to you. I will be writing a short article on the new Comet model, though. I’ll give you a small exclusive as an apology for not replying sooner: don’t buy it”

That would be it, the last time you’d write to him. You wouldn’t really have much time to go to your parents’ store for the next couple of days anyway as Patrick would be busy, so you were hoping that’d make things easier for you. That was until he had shown up at your door barely two days later. You had actually been scared to open the door, as he had rung the bell multiple times in a frantic manner. When you had peeped through the hole he had said.

“Stop looking at me and open the door!”

The safe that always got a bit jammed let go with a bit of resistance. When you opened the door, Patrick stood there, looking a bit annoyed and holding a small basket in one hand and a wrinkled envelope in the other.

“Home delivery” he announced, almost mockingly.

“What’s that?” you asked, but he didn’t reply as he walked past you into your flat. Instead, he had just handed you the letter and let himself plop down on the couch “You left the store unattended?”

“Sue me”

“Dad might”

Deep down you knew this was probably your fault , and when you opened the letter and read its contents you got confirmation of it.

“Hello,

How severe is the illness? Are you sure you should be forcing yourself to write while sick? I wasn’t sure about what was wrong with you making you sick, so I bought a few basic healing potions for malaise that the old lady at the store recommended for me. I hope this gets to you before it gets worse, and if you are feeling better, feel free to keep it all for when you get sick again. Of course I’d prefer if you never got sick again, obviously. Get better soon. Let me know when you do.

Oliver”

You folded the letter when you felt Patrick reading it over your shoulder again.

“Do you mind?”

“I do, actually! He sends them to the store, so technically I have a right to know!”

“Yeah, well. Can’t have an owl coming in and out of my flat, don’t you think?”

“Especially when the owl is mine” You had nothing to say to that “What even is this?”

“I told him I was sick, so he sent all this”

“I’m sorry. Are you dating this guy?”

The letter crumpled in your hand. You turned to Patrick, face red and eyes wide.

“Of course not!” you said, louder than necessary.

Patric’s eyed the letter in your hands, then the basket “And is he aware of that?”

“He’s just being nice! It’s called having friends”

“Oh, so you are friends”

 “Yeah”

“The two versions of you?”

You closed your mouth, brows coming a bit together as your gaze fell to the floor. Your shoulders slumped, and you felt the texture of the parchment on your hands.

“I’m not writing to him anymore” you announced, tone somber “I’ll thank him for the medicine, tell him I’m alright, and never write to him again”

“There’s no need for that but...” Patrick stared at you in silence for a short moment. There were many things he wanted to say, but they all had been said before, and he knew it wouldn’t help. He simply sighed “Okay”

“You should go back to the store” you took the small basket and handed it to him “Take this too, it is not like I can use any”

“I mean... you could”

“What if I explode?”

“That’d be fun”

“Wait, before you go!” you exclaimed as he was about to leave through the door. You disappeared down the short hallway and came back with a piece of paper in your hand “The new Comet model review”

Patrick eyed it for a brief moment.

“They are going to sue us for this”

“Dear Oliver,

Thank you kindly for everything you sent my way, it was very thoughtful. I’m currently feeling better, so you have nothing to worry about. Hope you are doing well too, as the Quidditch season is reaching the quarter finals.

Good luck”

“Hello,

I am really happy to hear you are all better now, especially as I have heard from the coach that I will be playing in the next Puddlemere game, December 12. I was hoping you could come watch it. Strangely besides my coach’s I think your opinion is the one I care about the most. Let me make up for my disastrous first game? I promise I’ll give you enough material for an awesome article we can both be proud of this time. I sent two tickets in case you wanted to bring someone. We can catch up after the game at The Meeting Point if you want. Hope to see you there”

A strong pressure weighed against your chest as you read the letter, and when you had finished it, you knew you wouldn’t be able to bring yourself to read it again.

You had swallowed all your pride when you had asked Patrick to go with you to the Puddlemere venue, unable to look him in the eye. You knew what he looked like anyway, his “I told you so” face and “what is wrong with you” face mashed together. You both parted through the sea of people until you had found your seat at the very top, Oliver had made sure you got the ones at the very top. Patrick complained about the view, but it made you so happy you felt like you’d burst. It also made you feel incredibly guilty. Oliver’s flying was nothing like it had been during his first game. His clumsiness had morphed now into perfectly timed manoeuvres, the boyish charm of his nervousness was now replaced by the determination and sharpness of a seasoned player. It was the unmistakable sight of effort and discipline, and your heart swelled at the realisation of simply how mistaken you had been. Your hands gripped your binoculars a tad tighter with every Quaffle he blocked from going through the ring, your heart beating with the infectious excitement of his playstyle.

“This is just cruel. Can we go?” Patrick sat next to you on the wooden table, his complain almost drowned by the loud chatter inside the pub. On a corner at the other side of it sat Oliver, an untouched beer in his hand as his eyes scanned the room every few seconds, his head snapping towards the door whenever someone came in “This is killing me”

Patrick dragged his chair back, ready to stand up when you had said:

“I’m going to tell him”

At first he thought he might not have heard you right, but judging by the look of determination on your face he new he wasn’t mistaken.

 “All of it?”

You couldn’t answer that, and you were unable to before Oliver’s eyes caught yours from the other side of the room. It made you stand up immediately, as if you were worried you would change your mind if you took only a second longer to think about it. You made your way across the sea of bodies in the packed pub, glass in hand, painfully aware of Oliver’s gaze on you. A smile spread across his face when you were finally in front of him, and he shifted in his seat, straightening his posture.

“Hey”

“Hi” you breathed out, your heart racing as if you had just run to him “Great game”

“Thanks” A moment passed between you two. Oliver's eyes were wide and kind, gleaming under the warm vibrant candlelight, but there was something behind them, a restraint of some kind. He seemed to struggle before he asked “Do you want to sit?”

“Is that okay?”

There was a weight on the way you asked him, and even if you knew he wasn’t aware of what you really meant, it somehow felt like he did. He had come to terms with the idea that you wouldn’t show up.

“Yeah, sure”

He stood up and moved the chair away from the table so you could sit on it. The gesture made you melt, feeling grateful for the chair as you felt your legs become weak. Your knees brushed for a moment before you dragged your legs away, embarrassed. His presence felt suffocating, every inch of your body begging you to run away, while his eyes were so kind when they fell upon you. There was a softness behind them now, one not of comfort but of disappointment, and it hurt to know that it was because of you. He was waiting for you to come through that door, and sitting there beside him you couldn’t help but hate yourself.

“I didn’t expect to see you again” he said, bringing you back to reality. The smile he gave you brough warmth back to the room, his smile seeming to lit it up.

“I didn’t expect you to be that good”

Oliver’s smile widened, pride and a bit of bashfulness tugging at his lips.

“Yeah, well, I had to make up for the fiasco that was my first game”

“Had something to prove?”

“Yeah” His eyes went to the door “Something like that”

You swallowed the lump on your throat, worseded by the way his eyes seemed to shine with hope.

“It was a really good game, Oliver”

His gaze snapped back to you and he cleared his throat.

“Are you a Puddlemere fan?”

You shrugged and unconsciously gave him a once-over.

“I might become one after seeing you play.”

His eyes widened in surprise before he let out a surprised chuckle, his brown eyes turning into crescents.

“I’ve always wanted to hear that” he looked over your shoulder, and his expression hardened a bit. “I’m sorry, there’s a guy that won’t stop staring at yo. It’s making me nervous” You turned on your seat, but you didn’t need to. You knew you’d see Patrick sitting there “He looks kind of familiar” Your eyes fell down to the table as you turned back to him, your expression somber. It made Oliver straighten up immediately “Do you know him? Do I need to have a word with him?”

“No, that’s... that’s just my brother”

“Oh, right. You mentioned” you could almost see the wheels turning in his head “Did he ever play Quidditch?”

“Yeah, he did” The grip on your glass tightened, knuckles turning white “Hufflepuff seeker”

“Like you?” he chuckled “That’s funny. You guys do look alike”

“He’s my twin brother” you said clearly, and Oliver was unaware of how heavy the revelation hung in the air.

It didn’t take him long to figure out that something didn’t add up, his eyebrows slowly downing over his eyes.

“So you were in the same year? Then how could you both be seekers? I don’t remember any house having a rotation system during my time”

“They didn’t” you thought you were brave enough to look him in the eyes, but you were wrong. A single glance at his confused expression was more than you could take, and your eyes flew to the other side of the pub “I didn’t play”

“I thought tou did” he asked quietly, confused.

“I said I did. I lied to you. I’m sorry”

“Wh-- So, you didn’t play?” You shook your head, and he was silent for a while until he announced rather  cheerfully “I understand. You met a professional player and felt like you had to say that. It’s okay, I get it.”

He was so pleased with himself and so kind to you. The reassuring smile he gave you made your heart ache.

“Oliver, that’s not--”

 “You didn’t have to lie, I can tell you love Quidditch. You don’t have to play it to love it.”

That made you still. Just how different things would have been if only you could have met him before. If you could not have met him at all.

“That’s what I would always say” your voice came out weak “I’m not sure I love it, though”

Out of all the things you had said so far that was the one that seemed to alarm Oliver the most. He leaned forward on the table, trying to hear you better.

“What?”

“I don’t know if I like it or if that’s just all I have”

His hands rested on the table now. If you had moved your hand just a bit you could have held them. Your fingers were shaking ever so slightly as you attempted to keep the grip on your glass steady.

“I’m sorry, what do you mean?”

“It’s me, Oliver” you braced yourself and held his gaze for as long as you could. His eyes widened ever so slightly, almost as if he was able to understand before you told him “It’s me you’ve been exchanging letters with”

You saw the bretah catch on his throat and his fingers twitch. He called your name in a whisper, you almost didn’t catch it among the noise.

“But-- Why--”

“I didn’t have the courage to tell you when you bumped into me and--” your voice was shaky, almost breathy “And then it was too late to backtrack”

“Why? And-- you already told me you didn’t play Quidditch, so why say that you did?” you couldn’t tell if there was any anger laced in his confusion, but it still scared you there might. There should be, you deserved it “To impress me?”

“I didn’t want to impress you. I--”

“Then why?”

“I...” you shrugged, a single tear falling down your cheek that was swiftly wipped away by the sleeve of your jumper. You should’ve become better at this by then “I really, really wanted to play. I just wanted to pretend for a moment that I could”

A million thoughts went through Oliver’s head, all of them attempting to leave his mouth at the same time only to come out as a confused groan. He flopped back on his chair and stared at you for a few seconds.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand what we are talking about” he said frustratedly “I mean, you can just play if you want it so much”

“I can’t. You don’t understand”

“Yeah, I bloody don’t!” he looked aroudn, embarrassed at his own outburst “You’ve been lying to me and I still don’t even know about what exactly”

“I should have never written to you. Or I should have never talked to you when you sat with me. This is my fault. I’m sorry”

You stood up from your seat, and Oliver followed suit. He saw the tears in your eyes, and his hand reached for yours without really thinking about it.

“Wh-- Hold on. Can we just take a moment to calm down? I’m really trying to--”

“I’m a squib”

The room seemed to have fallen silent, even if it was only in your head. A few wizards on the nearby table did turn towards you as they heard you underneath the loud atmosphere, but that wasn’t new. Oliver’s grip on your wrist loosened, and it felt like he was letting you fall into the abyss. This was on you. This was you. Your reality.

“Well-- That’s--”

Oliver cleared his throat, then seemed to struggle with something to say. This had been the only outcome possible from the beginning, the only one you’d ever had. It still hurt, though, his silence piercing through your chest like a knife. You felt someone grab your shoulder, then heard Patrick mutter behind you:

 “Excuse us”

He dragged you out of the pub and into the crisp winter air. You couldn’t even say anything as you both walked down the street and among the passersby that, while ignorant to your presence, still made you feel like you were being watched.

“Hold on tightl,” Patrick said as you got to the portkey: a thick, used book.

 You’d never gotten used to portkeys, and every time you used one, you couldn’t help but wonder if the nauseous feeling would disappear if you were actually magical. You held onto Patrick and shut your eyes tightly, welcoming the feeling of vertigo as it took your mind off the aching pain on your chest if only for a few seconds.

“Dear Oliver,

 Please accept this letter as my last. I don’t know why I bother with the pompous writing style when you already know how messy my lexicon truly is in person. Still, I think this is me attempting to hold onto the very little dignity I have left at this point. I want to apologise first for lying to you and my behaviour the other night...”

 The letter ended up being long. Three pages' worth of excuses that had made you take a few breaks in between memories. Your hands were still shaking when you sent Claws to deliver it. You didn’t come into the store for the next few days, not even when your parents had come back from vacation. You quietly turned in your article about Puddlemere and focused solely on your classes: your regular journalism ones. Patrick had tried to drop by on a few occasions to cheer you up, but he had just sat on the couch while you studied until he would give up and leave.

On Thursday the world ended, clouds so think you had casted no shadow as you ran under the pouring rain. Your fingers had been numb as you kept your umbrella from flying away, bumping onto strangers and and the bottom of your jeans damp and heavy as you stepped onto another puddle. You didn’t notice him when you got to the entrance of your building, too busy looking for your keys in your purse while holding your umbrella under your armpit. He took the liberty to lift it, making the rain stop falling on the back of your head. There in front of you stood Oliver, eyebrows sunken onto his eyes and soaked to the bone. He answered the silent question your shocked expression was silently screaming at him.

“Your brother gave me the adress. He said you’d be back soon”

“Patrick?” Your mind was trying to catch up with the situation, shocked as you were by the state of him. Clothes compeltely drenched and hair sticking to his face “How long have you been here?”

He took a moment to answer.

“A while” he finally admitted.

“Why didn’t you hide from the rain?”

“I can’t use magic in the middle of the street” he spoke in confidence, nervous eyes looking around at the multiple people on the street passing by you.

“I meant like, an umbrella or going inside a cafe or something”

“Well, I didn’t know when you’d be back, so I didn’t want to... it doesn’t matter” He pulled a hand inside his jacket and pulled out an envelope: your letter. To your surprise, it was still dry “I don’t want to read this” he said “Whatever it is, I want to hear it from you”

You felt so small underneath his unyealding gaze. Your shoulder was freezing, having forgotten to hold your umbrella properly and letting the rain fall on you.

“I thought you wouldn’t want to talk to me again”

“I’ll make that decision myself” he stated, and something about it made your stomach turn “So, can we talk?”

You fumbled awkwardly with your keys, te metal making your already frozen fingers turn numb.

“Do you want to come in?”

His expression became blank for a second.

“To your flat?”

“I mean, it’s pouring and you are soaked. I’m really cold and very tired, so... But we can go to the cafe if you want”

“No! I mean, yeah--”

“We shouldn’t discuss this sort of thing in public, though”

“Yeah, exactly”

You fiddled with your keys and opened the entrance while he stood behind you at a distance. He took a look at you: the soaked jeans, dirty boots and almost certainly broken umbrella He walked into the foyer after you, politely closing the door behind you. The sound of rain became muffled, and you were suddenly aware of how heavily the silence hung between you two.

“It’s upstairs”

He made a gesture with his hand, inviting you to go first. He stood behind as you unlocked your door, unable to see you fumbled to put the key in with how badly your hand was shaking. When he walked inside, he took a look around, taking in every detail he could catch. The scarce furniture, the somewhat clean kitchen, the ugly curtains.

 “Have you ever been to a flat?” you asked, attempting to make conversation.

“I’m from Glasgow” he answered, still eyein your place. Before you could offer Oliver a solution for his clothes, he took out his wand and performed a drying spell that left strands of his hair sticking out in all sorts of directions “Do you...?”

“No, thank you. I think I’ll just change out of these clothes” Oliver stiffened, his eyes dropping to the way your hands were pulling at the hem of your sweater “I’ll be back in a second”

“Okay” He watched you enter your room and close the door behind you as he pulled his wand away. He stayed close by it, trying not to think too much of what was going on on the other side “Are you not fond of spells?”

He heard your laugh from the other side, muffled by the thin walls separating you two.

“It is not like that. My brother has used a few spells on me more than once”

“Oh, so he is your brother” he sounded surprised, and despite saying it mostly to himself, you could still hear him “That’s good to know”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I didn’t know how much of what you said was a lie, so I wondered if maybe that brother of yours was like... a friend?” he hesitated “Of the boy kind”

You made a face he couldn’t see.

“What sort of crazy person would date someone with pretty much their own face?” he was glad that was the part of the question you had focused on. You opened the door, now changed into a more comfortable Canons jersey. He eyed you head to toe, eyes surprisingly soft, but said nothing “But I guess your impression of me is not the best, so...”

“You can change that”

A warm feeling seeped through your chest before you swallowed it with a bitter smile.

“Are you sure?” you asked, serious “What if I explain everything and you still hate me?”

“I never said I hated you”

“Wouldn’t be a stretch to assume... given the circumstances”

Oliver’s brow furrowed as he stared at you, deep in thought. He eyed the way you twisted your hands in an attempt to get some warmth.

“Why don’t we make some tea and you let me decide whether I hate you or not?” you simply nodded and attempted to pass by him towards the kitchen when he stopped you ”I’m joking. I won’t hate you” he said “I might think you are crazy, though”

It hurt you to smile, but you did nonetheless. It didn’t feel fair. It didn’t feel like you deserved to smile at him. To be forgiven.

“How do you like your tea?”

He followed you to the kitchen like a puppy, standing close to you and watching you as you filled the teapot with water. Neither of you said anything, letting the familiar sounds of tea making fill the air that feelt so warm now with the storm still roaring outside.

 “I read your article” he finally said “I could tell you were really sorry by how nice your words were”

“You did really well. I was being objective” You caught him smiling to himself as he set two cups on the counter “I almost didn’t go, but I wanted to see you play” you admitted “I had a hunch that you’d do great, and I didn’t want to miss it”

Oliver said nothing. He focused on your hands, wondering if they were as cold as his were. He could have told you he had been eyeing the bleachers, as if he could have once again recognised you without even knowing what you looked like. He just assumed he’d know when he saw you, and in a way, he had.

He realized he’d been staring at you for a tad too long “Maybe you have divination skills”

“That was one of the few subjects I could get a grasp on” you remembered fondly “My brother used to let me borrow his books”

There wass a pause, and Oliver stole a glance at you out of the corner of his eye, hesitating.

“When... uhm” he cleared his throat “When did you know...”

You didn’t reply right away, and Oliver started regretting even bringing it up. But you wanted to tell him. Maybe the sharp sting on your chest would finally go away. He made it feel like it could.

“When the letter didn’t arrive” you said with a bittersweet chuckle “For a while my parents thought maybe it was because Patrick and I are twins, so we just got one letter for the both of us”

Oliver let out a short laugh before forcing himself to become serious again.

“Sorry”

“It’s okay. It is funny” You lifted your hand about to pat his shoulder but you stopped yourself, letting it fall on the counter again, fingers drumming nervously on it “I feel bad for them when I think back to it.”

“Nothing compared to how you must have felt, I assume” he said as if he was trying to retort to that.

You looked at him like he had said the oddest thing, and he stared back at you with something akin to indignation. It was an odd thing for someone to be on your side. Most people would pity you, feel bad for your family, so Oliver being on your side felt foreign and strangely overwhelming.

“Yeah... I was small, so I didn’t really understand” You swallowed the unpleasant taste in your mouth. You always got it when you talked about this, even if it didn’t happen often. They were the words you always tried to swallow, and for some reason, in the comfort of your kitchen and Oliver’s undeserving understanding you finally let them out: “It sort of felt like I had done something wrong, you know”

“Yeah, but you didn’t” he replied, indignation making his accent dance wildly across his words.

Who could have thought compassion wout feel more overwhelming than rejection. You felt yourself smile, and the tears didn’t take long to pile at the corners of your eyes. The whistle of the kettle was a good excuse for you to hide this fact from Oliver.

“Can you get that?”

Oliver hesitated but finally pulled the kettle away from the fire and pretended to not see you wipe the tears away, carefully pouring the scalding water into each cup. Maybe he put a bit more on yours.

“Do you need sugar?” you asked him, opening the cabinet above you.

“No, thank you”

“Really?”

“Yeah” he was confused “Why?”

“I don’t know. I sort of assumed you were the extra sweet type”

Oliver shrugged and gave you a nonchalant smile.

“I can be” You felt the heat crawl up to your cheeks, and you were thankful the single lamp you could afford to decorate your living room with was so dim. This was wrong. Oliver Wood standing in your kitchen, making you tea and smiling at you like this could become a habit. But you were getting ahead of yourself, and you couldn’t allow yourself to daydream about such things “So...” he trailed off, the tips of his ears a bit pink “Do you use sugar?”

“Yeah, a lot”

You led him to the couch, letting the cup rest on the coffee table as you shifted on your seat when he sat next to you. He kept a polite distance but his whole body turned to you.

“My grandmother, my mum’s mum, she’s a muggle, so she did help. With all the school stuff”

 “My dad’s a muggle too” he chirped in “He’s really upset that wizards don’t seem to care about The Beatles and all of that” That made you laugh, which gave him a sense of pride “It’s a give-and-take situation: my dad rages to my mum about music, and she rages to him about Quidditch”

“So she’s the fan that birthed the famous Quidditch Monster?” 

Something flashed behind Oliver’s eyes, and he crooked his head to the side.

“Did you rbother tell you about that?”

“He might have mentioned a thing or two about your reputation.”

“You know what, I thought about him for a long time, and I remember him being an appalling seeker”

“Oh, I know that. Ironic, isn’t it?”

“Because you are an expert on it?”

“No, uhm... our parents are Quidditch enthusiasts, hence the family Quidditch store. I was shocked you were subscribed to our magazine. We have maybe only fifty regulars that do”

 “I’m subscribed to every Quidditch magazine” he stated proudly.

“Isn’t that a lot of money?” he simply shrugged, and you shook your head in disbelief “Is it worth it at least?”

You took a sip from your cup, the steam pleasantly caressing your face. When it had dissipated, you caught Oliver staring at you as if deep in thought.

“Yeah, I’d say it is” He blinked a few times, looking away and reaching for his cup “So, Quidditch?”

“After we came to terms with the fact I’m not magic, I held onto it because it was the only magical thing I could still... you know? Nothing stopped me from watching games and learning and reading about it...”

“But you couldn’t play”

“Yeah. My brother tried to get me on a broom once, my parents were not happy”

“I remember him from back in school. He was a year or so below” his brows furrowed in concentration “Lousy flying”

You left your cup on your table in a sign of protest.

 “You already said that!”

“It’s all I remember” he defended himself with a smile “I really tried to remember you, and it was driving me insane!”

Your gaze fell to his hands, holding the steaming cup of tea. The idea that Oliver had spent time thinking about you was flattering, the little joy it brought you was immediately swallowed by guilt.

“I’m sorry. I wrote that in the letter, but since you didn’t read it, I should say it aloud” You bit your lip, drawing in a deep breath “People are not... nice, usually. When they find out about the squib thing. People at Diagon Alley will still look at me weird if I happen to be at the store. They don’t say anything, but they don’t really have to. I can’t be there often anyway. I only go to help Patrick run it from time to time. He’ll be inheriting it soon”

“He is?”

“Yeah. He doesn’t even want it, to be honest”

“Do you want it?”

That caught you off guard.

“Doesn’t matter. I’ll have to distance myself from the magical world for good eventually anyway”

“Why?” He set the cup on the table, body turning to you even more.

“Can’t expect my brother to act as a driver for me forever” you explained, pretending the way he leaned towards you wasn’t making your heart race “I can use Flu Network and Portkeys when in the company of an actual witch or wizard, so he always has to be around me”

“Is that how you get to the Quidditch games?”

You nodded “He takes me in and out of the magical world. It’s such a hassle, it makes me feel bad”

“I’m sure he doesn’t mind.”

“He does. I just wish he’d say it sometimes” You admitted, for the first time out loud “I know he feels guilty. that’s why he won’t complain, ever”

 “That’s harsh. You don’t know that”

“Wouldn’t you?” Your eyes landed on him, not defiant but sympathetic “At some point he’ll have his own life... he can’t always be there for me. It is not fair.”

He sat in silence for a few seconds, pondering whether or not it was his place to get into your family business like that. He decided he shouldn’t, no matter how much he wanted to.

“You could also meet someone that would... you know, do all that” he left the idea hanging in the air and waited for the inevitable sceptical look you’d give him “What?”

“I already told you, most people are not fond of my kind” he grimaced at the term, and wondered if you’ve had it thrown at you often “I’ll just cross onto the muggle world completely. Get a job, take the tube every day, nine to five, microwave my food--”

“Do you want to do that, though?”

“Want what?”

“Live without being part of the magical world”

Your shoulders rose and fell with a shrug.

“It’s not like I’ve ever been part of it anyways” the sad look he gave you stung, so you gave him a resigned smile “It’s just the hand I’ve been dealt”

 “I can offer you my hand” he blurted, way before he could realise how odd it sounded.“Like I can-- if you need someone to keep you in touch”

“You would do that?” you asked sceptically. He answered with a shrug “Bring me in and out and from one side to another like a chauffeur at any time of the day, every day?” he seemed to think about it, and considering the argument won you added “It’s a lot, Oliver. Staying on this side permanently is the sensible thing to do”

Oliver bit the inside of his cheek and decided to take in a deep breath as he glanced around your apartment. Winning time until he got enough courage.

“You could always meet someone who wants to do all that for you” He knew the look you were giving him before he set his eyes back to you “What? You are talking like it’s impossible”

You wanted to explain to him how it truly felt like it was. For most of your life, it had been a quiet reminder that it wasn’t really a choice for you.

“It isn’t impossible, but it’s not very probable either”

“I just offered” he must have seen the look on your face, nervously backtracking almost immediately “Like, as friends. I could do that as a friend.” He got nervous when you said nothing, only stared at him in disbelief, and said, “What?”

“When I got your first letter I would have never thought you were this kind” you said, your voice quiet “All I’ve done is lie to you, and yet...”

“I’m actually being selfish. I can’t give up on the only person who can keep up with my Quidditch talk”

“Is that so?”

“You wrote very nice things to me in your last article too”

“Yeah, well, it was supposed to be a secret apology letter”

“What’s this supposed to be then?”

Your lips parted, despite knowing that you didn’t have it on you to tell him. Under his surprised exression you reached for the letter and ripped it into pieces.

“Nothing, really” you discarded of the pieces on the bin. His mouth was hanging slightly open, not really sure of how to react. You cleared your throat as if to say something important and he fixed his posture, ready for whatever you were about to say “Thank you, Oliver. For coming all this way to let me explain and for just... being kind to me, despite everything”

You both stared at each other for what felt a really long time. His features were soft, only a subtle smile adorning them. You stood there, hands grabbing the hem of your jumper for courage.

“No problem”

He saw the way your shoulders relaxed, your eyes nervously looking around the falt as if looking for something else to say.

“I actually have something to take care of...”

Oliver stood up immediately, making sure to place the cup gently on the table.

“Oh, yeah. I actually should be on my way to practice. It seems like the coach is letting me be a starter again, so...”

“Are you serious? That’s awesome!” you approached him with stars in your eyes, and he thought he wouldn’t mind the sight for a little longer. Then your smile fell “You shouldn’t have risked it to come here, though”

“Yeah, probably not” he admitted, a quiet settling between you two once again.

“You are going to be so busy from now on”

“Most definitely” he smiled “Can’t wait”

You smiled up at him and he followed your eyes as they seemed to commit every one of his features to memory. He could feel the warmth reaching his cheeks when you finally said.

“Goodbye, Oliver”

There was something in the way you had said that that had rung alarm bells in his head, but he figured he had just imagined it. There was no need to ruin what had been a pleasant moment with you with unfounded concerns. And so he said goodbye to you and walked down the staircase towards the door, the storm waiting for him on the other side.

“Did you tell him?”

You were standing by the counter of the Quiddtch store, eyes lost somewhere at the end of the maintenance aisle.

“No”

There was a sigh muffled by the gentle ruffling of clothes, and you could just picture your brother rubbing his face on his hands. You had been in the same position as him multiple times within the last few hours before you had made an emergency trip to Diagon Alley. You had paced around nervously waiting for him to pick you up, by then all your nails were bitten.

“Will you tell him then?”

“I don’t think that’d be necessary” you said, the statement weighing heavy on your chest.

“Really? The guy that barged in here demanding to speak to you. You don’t think you should tell him?” 

“He’s a Quidditch-obsessed, borderline-workaholic perfectionist that is about to become the youngest pro in the league. He won’t have time to remember me in a week”

Patrick scoffed and shook his head dismissively.

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that. Can’t you just cancel this whole thing?”

“I’m not having this conversation again” You raised your hands in the air “You were already okay with it”

“Yeah, well. That was for your sake, and still... You can change your mind. I don’t know...”

“There’s nothing new to talk about”

“Not even Oliver?”

“Yeah, not even Oliver” you lied.

 “You are just being stubborn! He’s good for you, if only you stopped lying to him!”

“Oliver is just a guy I talked to for a few months, okay? He’s not like, someone who is going to change my life. He can’t do that, and I don’t want him to do that anyway”

“So you are just self-sabotaging again”

“He can’t change anything! I’ve made my mind, and I don’t want to see him again, so just stop”

There was a familiar creak of wood, and despite being so used to the noise whenever people walked around the store, you both turned at the same time towards the noise. There stood Oliver, a basket with baked goods in his hand, bigger than the one he had dropped when he had believed you to be sick. When you had lied to him about being sick. Your heart sank to your stomach before you even heard the way his voice strained a bit when he finally broke the tense silence.

“I came to apologise for barging in the yesterday” he said and left the basket carelessly on the counter “Excuse me”

He didn’t even bother to look at you when he left, bushy brows sunk deeply over his brown eyes that stayed fixed on the floor, slamming the door hard on his way out. The loud noise made the few customers turns their heads with curiosity.

“Aren’t you going to follow him?” Patrick asked as you both watched him through the display window, his silhouette disappearing into the crowd.

“It’s easier this way”

Patrick’s chest rose with a heavy sigh.

“You are a coward and a loser” he stated, a bit more bitter than usual “Let me know when you want to get back”

Stepping onto the Quidditch pitch felt like entering the beasts’ den. It had taken you a week of isolation and sleepless nights to decide on this. The grey, gloomy days you had stayed inside looking out of the window, no lights on in the flat, contemplating what you should do had blended into each other. It had taken a bit of trickery, but you had scored an anonymous interview with Oliver through his head coach, who was happy to give him any sort of publicity. You knew he wouldn’t meet you unless he was tricked into it. You could lie to him at least one more time, if only for the sake of coming clean once and for all.

He had been sitting at the benches waiting for you, taking care of his broom. There wasn’t any sign of surprise when he saw you approaching him, but his eyebrows did get a tad bit closer together before he looked down to the task at hand again.

“I imagined it was you” he had said when you had got close enough.

“And you still came?”

“I still have to practise. It has nothing to do with you or whatever excuse you are planning to give me”

He didn’t sound upset nor bitter, just mercilessly distant. You took in a deep breath, bracing yourself by holding your own hands.

“I have no excuses. I meant everything I said” he scoffed incredulously “But the context... I should at least give it to you”

There was a brief pause, then he said:

“I don’t care.”

He got up broom in hand and brushed imaginary dust out of his clothes. He walked up the stairs to the pit, and you knew that’d be the last time you’d see him.

“I wish I had met you before” is what you wanted to yell at him, but instead it came out in barely a broken cry “If I had magic, meeting you...” you swallowed, picking at the skin around your nails. You thought about the idea of meeting Oliver at some other time, at some other place, under other circumstances you had daydreamed about so often “So I hate that you showed up now. Not being able to meet you... that’s what I hate the most now”

You were sure you had been talking to yourself, but he was still there. He stood tall at the top of the stairs, back to you. The grip on his broom tightened as he spoke.

“After the other day I thought we were...” His steady tone withered before falling to a short silence. “On the same page” His head turned ever so slightly“I have to practise. You should leave”

His foot had just stepped onto the soft, freshly cut grass when you spoke again, a bit louder to make sure he heard you.

“I’m getting the Obliviate charm next week. I decided on it a few days before your letter arrived, and I’ve been preparing for it ever since”

 The sound of Oliver’s heavy Quidditch boots stomping on the grass stopped at once, and all the indifference he had been carrying himself with washed away just like colour on his face as he turned to you.

“What?”

“I explained it on the letter I wrote you last time. It was supposed to be a goodbye letter, but...”

He reached you in only a few steps, but as he stood in front of you, he was breathing like he had just run a full lap around the pitch. You were sure you could almost hear his heartbeat, but maybe that was because of how close he was standing.

“Wha-- wh--” he stammered, suddenly frantic “Is your family okay with it? Patrick?”

“Mum and Dad were fairly easy to convince. Patrick not so much, but eventually he got around it”

“But, why? If it’s because of what you said the other day? That’s--”

“Of course it is because of what I said the other day” You cut him off “I don’t want to be a burden anymore. To my brother or...” Your eyes left his, busying themselves on a random corner “...anyone”

Oliver’s breathing stilled, and the next words that came out of him did so in a low mutter.

“Is that what you meant? About me?”

Your face flushed immediately, feeling exposed and embarrassed.

“It is not like I assumed you would-- like... I was just explaining to him why it’d be better not to be... friends”

“Oh right, because I’m a useless meathead that can’t help?” he asked bitterly.

“Because you are kind” you answered, and the harshness of his stare softened before he composed himself “Because you would waste your time and energy to help me out, and I don’t want you to do that”

“So what?” He retorted drily, his voice steady. It took you aback, and you unconsciously leaned back.

“What do you mean?”

“I will make my own mind up about that”

“Oliver--”

“You can’t tell me what I can or can’t do, alright?” he finally snapped. The stoic expression he had made sure to maintain until then dropped completely “What, you don’t want to be a burden to me? Tough luck! If I want to stand in the rain for hours waiting for you, that’s on me!” He pointed his finger at you, actually poking you on the shoulder and throwing you off your balance “If I am late for practice because I have to take you somewhere, that’s my decision! You don’t have the right to decide whether I fancy you or not!”

The silence felt louder once Oliver’s outburst finished, and the echo of his voice died between the walls of the pit. His face was hot, his eyebrows deeply sunken over his eyes that were fixed on you. They shook slightly when reality started to dawn slowly on him, but he kept his cool. His chest rose and fell with heavy breathing, and this time you were sure you could hear his heartbeat.

“Okay,” it’s all you could say, still trying to process all he had said.

“Okay?”

There was a brief second of hesitation before you grabbed onto his face so you could kiss him. It was surprising, just how soft his skin was, it felt hot under your touch. He tensed up before he relaxed with a content sigh when your lips met his, and his arms held you closer when he felt you pulling away. He made a noise you could only interpret as a protest before he kissed you again, just as soft and airy, letting it linger, a bit drunk on the taste of your lips and your body pressed against his. When he finally decided he had had enough for the time being, he allowed you to take a small step back, but his arms were still firmly wrapped around you.

“I’m sorry,” you said, breathless.

“It’s okay” he reassured, trying to catch his breath “I’m sorry I raised my voice”

Your head rested against his chest. He felt you relax with a sigh as his hand stayed on the back of your head.

“It’s alright. I liked everything you said”

Oliver chuckled, his face breaking into a smile. You wanted to look up and stare at it, at the wrinkles that formed at the corners of his eyes when he did.

“I could have said them better”

“Good enough for me” you mumbled onto his chest, and he squeezed you tighter for a second.

“So..” you cleared your voice “You fancy me?”

To your surprise, he didn’t look embarrassed, even if his face got a bit red. He looked as proud as ever when he stated, almost nonchalantly:

“I thought that was obvious by the third letter”

“Not really” you pondered.“If anything, I might have thought that when we met at the Warwick game... when you thought I was someone else”

“Yeah... it was definitely a weird feeling” he joked, conflicted “But in the end I guess I can’t help myself”

Your head turned to the side in confusion; his fingers threaded a little deeper into your hair.

“About what?”

Truthfully, the two of you might be too like-minded to argue. Nothing is ever morally confusing between you, all of your ideas about the universe make perfect sense to the other. Your few objections were over the best Christopher Nolan film and the best band from childhood, but nothing intense, nothing ridiculous that made you want to rip your hair out of your head. Things were right and well, and if they weren't, it was nothing a few deep breaths couldn't fix.

And perhaps you're both just too busy to disagree with each other. You were an English teacher, constantly grading and revising papers, tutoring after school, hosting office hours before school, receiving emails at godforsaken hours of the night, and responding to them, because you're awake, too, putting in scores and notes until the sun comes up. And of course, Higuruma can't help but pick up the hardest cases known to man, for his own peace of mind. He puts his entire soul into his work, slaving away over files, pictures, anecdotes, and charges, hoping to save as many people as he can. His head is always buried in some textbook, as if he'd need to fact-check anything—things like fairness and honor come to him with ease, like it flows through his veins.

You're a Hiro, you'll sometimes joke with him, at night when nothing's actually as fun as it would be otherwise. And he says that you are too, and you believe it, sometimes, in your own roundabout sort of way. A defense lawyer and an AP literature teacher, saving the day, one crumbled-up paper at a time.

And given that you've been together for almost a year now, there really hasn't been any time to argue immensely.

Until the other day.

You'd both made lots of time.

Often, when things as rare as this happen, people are quick to say they don't know how it got to that point exactly. Not you though. You can picture it very quickly in your mind, just last Sunday, the slow start of something terrible, brewing.

You'd both had something stuck up your asses all week, notable in every call and text, stressed and stretched out beyond comprehension, and you both were handling it, individually, in your own sense of the word and as best you could. You'd meant to have dinner Friday, like you usually did, but you'd had so many meetings about essay revisions and had to get them done before the weekend started, lest you put them off too long. So, you postponed to Saturday, you got all prettied-up early that morning, the eagerness seeping over from the night before. Dinner was exactly what you needed after such a horrifyingly long week, and then all of sudden, Higuruma's asking to reschedule, too, caught up researching this new case he'd just planned to pick up, an emergency of sorts. That phone call had ended very quickly, the man rushing off while he was still in his office, and you, on the other line, in his favorite dress, with your hair done up and mascara smudging at your waterline. But it wasn't anything to cry about. You'd rescheduled too, and you were busy people, it was a busy week for you both. Your tears were only so readily exposed because, usually, when a week had been especially hard, Higuruma had a way of making it all better.

But no matter, Sunday might've been good for you both.

Until it wasn't—Higuruma had yet to call since Saturday, yet to respond to your texts, and Sunday went by painfully slow, just as the rest of the weekend did. Still, there was no time to pout about it, you had classes to teach, kids to tend too, and you were sure once he explained the case the next time you both saw each other, there'd be thousands of details to pour over. That would hold you over until Monday. Until he finally texted back, you were starting to itch at the thought of him never texting back, though that had never quite been an issue before. You're rushing back home after work, caving before he can.

you: I know you're busy with the new case, but I would really like to revisit our date plans soon! Hope work is going well!

It's simple, you think, and true, give or take a few words that would make it sound just as urgent as the situation did in your head. The days were starting to blur together, and your desire for his company was growing stronger by the second.

hiro <3 : So sorry I've been MIA! Still busy with case, can't wait to tell you all about it

You're quick to snatch your phone up, quick like a school girl when you hear that ping. You smile at his name on the screen, shoveling sad leftovers into your mouth. You'd just gotten off of your period, and the after effects were still tumbling over—you could eat a horse, amongst other things.

hiro <3 : Will definitely revisit date soon. Will call later.

You sigh at the message, scrolling through the rest of your texts with him to fill the slowly growing hole in your heart. You think you might be going insane, hanging out with a bunch of high schoolers during your lunch breaks. You miss him in ways that are potentially unspeakable, and it irritates you the way hunger does. You remind yourself that you're a grown woman, seeing a grown man. You both have responsibilities, hobbies, things that you have to do with your time other than see each other. You take this thought with you to bed and hope it soothes you the way his hands do under the covers when it gets cold.

Your date plans are finally revisited on Wednesday. The dinner has been rescheduled to Sunday—his place, he cooks the main course, you both help with dessert, and you're in bed at a reasonable hour to get ready together for work the next morning. It's your dream night, really, and you would be absolutely jumping for joy if it weren't going to take so fucking long.

But you're patient, and people need you, and all you have to do is wait a few more days before you can fall into the arms of the love of your life, and weep, if necessary, into his collarbone. Just a few more days of 'hope your day has been good' and 'can't wait to see you,' it's a little grotesque how quick the back-and-forths are, but you suppose you'll manage. Classes will still go as planned, and you're on the brink of having a panic attack from the way this month has basically kicked your ass while you're already down, but never mind that! Sunday is around the corner, creeping closer tauntingly, and the dress you'd worn last Saturday is laid out so particularly by your vanity, it's almost provocative. The waiting is almost unbearable.

｡𖦹°‧

Sunday is here.

You've taken your own car like you always do, blasting all sorts of 2000s dad rock to keep you awake and hype you up even a little for the nerves that are speedily coursing through your veins every five seconds. Your fingers drum against the steering wheel, steering into his driveway by memory alone. This is the very moment where things start to blur for you. Higuruma lets you in, leads you to the dining table. He usually looks you over like you're a piece of meat, but tonight, your eyes both bore into each other, tired, restless, and not thinking about a whole lot else other than sleep. His kiss to your temple is tender but quick as he seats you both, pours your glasses of wine, and the conversation is simple, unimpressive as you both try not to nod off and roll your eyes as you recount the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week you've both seemingly had.

You're quite sure you started the argument. Maybe those adults should've called you at least something a little closer to a bitch in childhood, would've knocked that stubborn tone out of your mouth—but here you are, and the stubborn tone is here, potentially unappeasable. You make an off-handed comment about his refusal to see the world around him outside of his work. It was meant to be quick, witty, and instead came out as some snide remark that you'd been biting back for a week and a half now. Higuruma makes a rebuttal about his work being important, as if you wouldn't understand what important work really means. More words—no longer mumbles, you would say—about differing schedules, the intensity of work, and suddenly, you don't know what it means to be busy, or what it means to have such intense, soul-sucking responsibilities.

Suddenly, you start to remember all the guys you'd dated before Higuruma, and that feeling of deja vu makes you kind of sick. They're always the same, they always say the same thing.

Those who can, do. Those who can't...

Teach.

Now, Higuruma doesn't say it outwardly (he would never, lest he see that terrible pout your lips make when someone tells you the education system is in ruins), but as he's washing the dishes and you're drying them, putting them away, he says something about your high school days, how you'd once mentioned wanting to be a pediatrician when you were sixteen before landing on the teaching route. He notes that you said you wanted to be a professor once, too, and the sharpness in his voice says that either of those paths would've been even slightly more respectable than what you're doing now.

It is so hurtful, the concept of being silently demeaned by someone with a quote-unquote "more sophisticated" profession than you.

So, after a not-so-thoughtful pause, you say: "At least teachers are able to understand people. Lawyers, on the other hand...Maybe if you understood people better, you'd actually be able to defend them."

God, the fucking horror.

As soon as you say it, you regret it—Higuruma is a wonderful defense attorney, the best you'd ever seen, and all he ever did was save people, and save people, and save people, in the most passionate way possible.

This is when the yelling match begins. You remember it, crystal clearly, but this is also the part you'd been trying to block out.

"You think you understand the world around you more than me—you're surrounded by the dumbest adolescents in the entire country, every fucking weekday—"

"And your clients are all guilty—you just love to defend the absolute worst human beings on the planet, solely on the basis of playing devil's advocate, it's useless work!"

"Really? You wanna talk about useless work?"

"Don't."

"No, no, we don't even have to talk about the pay—which should be a tell-tale sign that whatever the education system is doing is not really people's top priority right now—"

"I make enough."

"Yeah, enough to hold you over until they finally come to the life-altering conclusion that maybe, just maybe, we don't actually need the teachers who went through their secondary education major with a ring by spring and a shotgun wedding—"

"I have an English degree just like you do, Higuruma, don't you ever pretend that I'm some sort of fucking bird-brained idiot—"

"And maybe you should've had your little shotgun wedding, because when they do fire all the teachers, you'll need someone with a job to pay those bills of yours—a fallback marriage for your fallback job!"

"And for you, sir, a loveless marriage given your profession of choice."

Ah, you've won here. It's not satisfying like it usually is, but you've won. And you're about to really give the final blow:

"To marry you...with a temper like that...and words like yours...while you hide behind your work of justice, and integrity, and grit. My profession can absolutely be fuckall useless. So long as you admit that you and yours are soulless."

Absolutely brutal, you two.

He's got this shot-dog look on his face as he stares at you from the other side of the kitchen. He's in the same predicament you were in just before, remembering all the exes, all the dates, and the horrifying feuds that left him sitting alone at his dining table. Wondering if maybe his job really had kept him from all the "important" things in life. You'd never made him feel that way, not in the entire time you'd known him. And the thought of you leaving him at that dining table alone again was making him feel like he was going to puke.

"You don't mean that," he whispered, hand running through his hair as a nervous tick.

You stand firm, pretending you're not secretly faltering. "You do."

"No—"

"You're not obligated to like my job, Higuruma, but it is my job." You grab your purse and your coat, heels clacking against his frigidly cold floor. "Which I have to go to tomorrow, so...I'll see you later this week."

Higuruma lunges forward before his words do, grabbing your wrist before you can pass him completely. "No, it's way too late—or- dark, it's pitch black out, and we've both had enough wine to be inebriated." His thumb rolls along your wrist bone, tugging you away from the entry, taking your coat from your arm despite your protest. "Let's just...let's just go to bed like normal, and we can..."

You stare at each other for a moment before he takes your purse too, leaving briefly to set your things on the kitchen island. You let out a heavy sigh through your nose, looking between the hall and the door. You could just leave, you're not that drunk. And you think maybe a car crash might actually be better than sleeping in this house with Higuruma, with all the aggravation that's stuffing up the place. If you told your girlfriends about any of this, they'd probably throw real life tomatoes at you for staying, but...

Higuruma steps back into the hallway, hands on his hips. "Please..." he sighs, motioning to the other side of his house where his room awaits you both.

You slip your shoes off at the door, shuffling past him to the bedroom. You stay.

The night is so dully unimportant, it's not even worth talking about. You both shower, separately, given the still festering tension. He gives you some pajamas of yours that you'd left sometime before, during some other, much better sleepover (the shirt is his, and he apologizes for it very quickly before his face contorts as if he doesn't really know why he'd apologize for you wearing his clothes, especially when he liked it so much, every single time you did it). There are very few words exchanged as you both get into bed, and when he turns his bedside lamp off, you can feel him staring at your back, your back which faces him and will face him the entire night to save you from showing off the tears brimming your eyes (God, you really had been waiting to cry all week and this was kind of the perfect moment for it). You hear him sigh from behind you as he lifts the covers, adjusts them over you just slightly. His fingers brush down your spine before they fall to his side again. And he turns too.

Neither of you gets much sleep that night, and for all the wrong reasons.

You wake up inexplicably early, at least two hours before you and Higuruma usually do. His arm is draped across your mid-section, finding itself in its rightful place sometime during the four or five hours of sleep you both had actually gotten. You watch him for a moment next to you. He is so peaceful like this, calmer than usual, if it were at all possible. His eyes are able to rest, and he allows his brows to drop and relax. The muscles of his back aren't so tense as they are in his dress shirt and coat. He breathes through his perfect nose, face half-stuffed in his pillow. You lean over to kiss his temple out of habit, freezing when you think it might've woken him. He stays sleeping, still snoring lightly. You carefully slide out of his hold, fingers grazing his own against the sheets. Despite the words you'd both thoughtlessly shared with each other just hours ago, you're still...very much in love with him.

You gather your things and leave silently, texting a quick goodbye. Better to get ready at your own place, you think to yourself. Tensions might still be high, and you hate greeting your students with the attitude of the night before.

On the drive home and while you get ready for work, you check your phone maybe a dozen times, just in case he wakes up and wants to speak. The reality is, there's really no time to speak about the night before. If anything, a conversation might be had this Friday or next Sunday, when you're able to see each other again, and by then, you would hope this had all blown over. You really did pray it would all blow over. You hadn't meant a word of what you said to him last night. And maybe he had, but...well, that tight feeling in your chest lingered, made you seasick, and you kind of wished you'd never gone to dinner in the first place.

｡𖦹°‧

"Miss L/N, do we really have to read this chapter, or can I look it up on SparkNotes for the test?"

"Miss L/N, I can't read what's on the board, can you write it bigger?"

"Miss L/N, I finally turned my homework in—yes, it's two weeks late, but I told you, my dog lowkenuinely ate that shit—THING, he ate that thing!"

"Can I go to the bathroom, Miss L/N? No, my boyfriend's not in the hall, I literally swear on my dead grandma, I swear."

"Miss L/N can I show you a TikTok edit? Do you know Zuko from Avatar? No, not the one with the blue people."

"I literally love you, Miss L/N—how is that inappropriate? I genuinely love you bro—Miss, I meant Miss, I literally said Miss."

The day had been dragging on for what seemed like centuries, and despite having felt like you'd lived a hundred lives since you'd gotten to work, it was only midday, just after lunch, kids filing in and already asking questions before the bell had even rung. You were rewriting the agenda on the board (a little large this time, so it could be clearer for people in the back), and two of your students, girls who were always in your office during lunch, were sitting at your desk, messing with your little photos and trinkets, asking if you'd ever wanna hang out socially. A few other boys tried joking with them on the other side of the desk, asking them about plans for this weekend and having conversations that you'd have to shut down in about .3 seconds.

"Girls, please go to your seats, and take your friends with you," you say, shooing them off as you readjust your belongings. You shake your head at the boy walking up to your desk now that it's free. "No, Yuji, you can not grab snacks from my office again."

"But- but- but, Miss L/N!" The pink-haired boy has got a big pout on his lips, hands clasped together to beg. "I won't even take a lot, I promise!"

"Last time you said that, you brought six other friends from other classes—students I don't even have." There are a couple of students in the back of class asking you to repeat the number you just said, and you wave them off, shooing Yuji away too. "Maybe some other time, kid."

"If you do, I can get you a date with my uncle, Miss L/N, he's super cool!"

"Miss L/N doesn't need a date. I hear he's got a pretty boyfriend."

Your brow cocks as you look to the rest of the class, many of them gossiping and giggling about your personal and romantic affairs. The kids are staring fondly, waiting eagerly, whispering in each other's ears about what they think your pretty boyfriend looks like and if he might be better than Yuji's uncle. "I do not," you deny hesitantly, printing out some extra papers and handouts for the class. You’re really not supposed to talk about your personal affairs with your students, and while you’d love to shout about your love for Hiromi from the rooftops, but there’s a certain level of workplace privacy you have to uphold. “And you guys shouldn't be talking about it if I did have one either."

"Then who's the guy that brings you lunch on the first Wednesday of the month?"

"The one who usually drops you off on Mondays."

"And picks you up on Fridays every now and then."

"And he calls during your lunch break sometimes—we can tell because you smile at your phone really big and blush a little."

You scoff, hands on your hips as you properly assess the class. All eyes are on you and your shocked expression now, waiting for your prompt answer that they know you're not allowed to give. "You guys are ridiculous—I do not blush, first of all, and that...man is—"

"Is he the guy that's standing at the door right now?"

You all but freeze in your spot, blank-faced as you turn to the open classroom door. Higuruma is stood, perhaps just as frozen, if not more, in the doorway, taking up an unnecessary amount of space with his height and stature. Holding a bouquet of your favorite flowers, and two little lunch bags—one, which he carries every single day without fail, and the other, which he bought for you to keep at his place, since you were always forgetting yours at home. His eyes were wide (as much as they could be, those droopy, Eeyore eyes he always wore, that stared lasers into your fast-beating heart). His eyes dart between you and your students, nodding carefully to greet a silent hello.

"Hiro," you breathe, setting your markers down carefully. You clear your throat, fingers tapping against your pants, thinking of literally any words, but they're just not coming to you. You turn on your heel quickly to face the class, putting on a bright, happy face. "Class," you clasp your hands together as you take small steps towards the man. "This! Is my good friend, Mr. Higuruma—let's all say hi to Mr. Higuruma, yeah?" You glance at him briefly, his eyes only meeting yours for a second as he greets the buzzing class and their bright hellos. You place your hand on his coated chest, patting softly to soothe. "Um, Mr. Higuruma is here...because..."

He brings his voice down to a whisper, shaking his head apologetically. "I thought you had lunch—I totally fucked up the times—"

"You can't say 'fucked up' in my classroom—" You turn back to the class, speaking at your normal volume again, “Mr. Higuruma is just here to bring me a little late lunch—"

"Are you a math teacher, Mr. Higuruma?"

He looks at you with furrowed brows before turning back to the students, stuttering a little as you take the flowers from him, your body trying to shuffle further in the entry. "Uh, no. No, I'm not, I'm—I was actually an English major, in college, like your teacher...here, that's how...Miss L/N and I met." You remember it clearly, the two of you in undergrad, the only English majors in your friend group, never really that close until after graduation, when your group had met up and the secretly charming Higuruma had gotten even more charming. He thanked you for essentially helping him pass Modern Philosophy and asked if he could repay you sometime. Over dinner. The rest is a blur, the rest of your lives up until this moment. The students whisper amongst each other some more, nodding and debating what questions to ask next. You hope maybe they'll be bored by his overall drab tone of voice, but even you were watching him with sparkly eyes.

To be fair, you were always watching him like that.

"But, um...Miss L/N was always much better at reading and writing than me—she's still revising my papers for work, it's a gift I think." He peeks over at you for a second, straightening his posture to instill a bit more confidence in both of you. "She's... your teacher is a real gem at that kind of stuff—you guys are really lucky. To have her." Oh, your heart practically flutters at his words, and now you're shifting in your stance, trying to stay calm and collected. But of course, it's near impossible for the both of you. He clears his throat after a few more too-personal questions. "What are you guys learning about?" You look at him with wide eyes, and he shrugs, unsure of what to say otherwise.

"We're reading All-American Boys."

"And writing papers about social injustices—Miss L/N says one of her, like, best friends is a lawyer, so we're working on, like, injustice, and our rights and stuff."

Higuruma looks at you for a long while, rendered speechless. There's a soft silence between you two as you wait for him to frown, or smile, or nod, or blink—literally anything other than this staring contest you both are having in front of your impatient and keen class.

"Miss L/N says it's been her favorite unit so far."

You smile softly, shyly—and would you look at that, Higuruma does the same, nodding at the students and their words! His hand drifts to your shoulder, gently rubbing the bone of it with his thumb.

"Don't you have to go get those papers you printed, Miss?"

You turn back to the class, slightly unsettled by their mischievous, plotting faces. They were giggling again, staring at the increasingly intimate scene before them. Somehow, you and Higuruma had drawn even closer to one another, his hand on your back, your hand on his shoulder, and you could probably hear his breath next to you if you were quiet enough. And surely, your face was glowing with some sickly sweet sort of joy, because that's how you always looked when Higuruma was around, you couldn't see to help making a fool of yourself.

And now, your students were giving you a way out.

You glance at the man next to you briefly before turning your sweet gaze back to the class. "Yes! Yes, actually, I...I do—and I want to catch up with Mr. Higuruma here, in my office, so. So...alright—I shouldn't be long, guys, I'll have the agenda—"

"Yes, Miss L/N, we follow the agenda on the board until you get back."

"And we'll save our questions that we have until you get back."

"And I'll make sure everyone behaves until you get back."

Oh, God bless the higher powers that gave you this absolutely angelic group of kids.

You try your best to hide your smile as your students band together, getting into groups, arguing about who gets to use their computer, setting up spaces for the peer-reviews that need to be done, and you’re slowly pulling yourself and Higuruma out of the room before this wonderful dream is cut short by a question about the agenda or someone asking to use the bathroom. You’re both smiling giddily like the school children you teach, sneaking him into his office. You both take a long, deep breath, standing before each other. Alone now. That giddy feeling wears off a little and the sickly taste in your mouth that you’d been having since you woke up this morning resumed, inflaming every good thought you’d just procured in your mind.

This is the man that you are in love with. This is also the man who said your job, which he is standing in, was useless work. This is the man whom you practically berated for half an hour in his own kitchen. This is the man who brought you flowers the next day to make up for it. This is the man that you really want to apologize to, if you could release that stubborn personality of yours.

"I'm sorry."

You both stare blankly at each other, surprised at the sound of your voices in unison. You're both opening and closing your mouths like fish, waiting for someone to make the first dominating move. You look around your office for help with conversation, your eyes landing on the things he brought. Your brows furrow, and all of a sudden, your apologies have to wait for just a second.

“Higuruma, why are you at my job?”

He stills, clammy hands wiping themselves along his suit. He stares between you and the lunch boxes you’ve now set on your office desk. “Lunch,” he says simply.

“Right.” You nod, leaning against the desk, arms crossed in hopes that he’ll continue to explain himself further, but he doesn’t. For the first time in Higuruma’s whole life, he seemingly can’t plead his case. You smile at the thought, looking down at the floor to focus on something other than that lost, puppy look on his face. “Usually you text…when you’re coming by, no?”

“On a whim.”

“You packed me a lunch on a whim?”

“I have been thinking about you every second since I woke up this morning, and you weren’t next to me." Higuruma has now flipped dynamics, or at the very least shared his with you. You straighten up a bit, lips in a flat, nervous line. You hadn't expected him to say that. “I…couldn't pay attention, I couldn't get ready—I managed to put on the same exact suit I wore Friday, and just my luck, someone in the office actually noticed—”

“Shimizu?”

“Yes, Shimizu—“

“She’s a really sweet girl, she probably didn't mean anything by it.”

“I could not function, baby, are you hearing me?” He steps forward, kneeling down before you—actually kneeling like some sort of rabid man, like an actual dog. His hands reach up to rub at your clothed legs, his voice faltering beneath you. “I couldn’t think about my case for even a millisecond without thinking about you, I have been beyond stressed out thinking about you, and us not going to work together, and so I left work—!”

“You did what?” A rarity for Higuruma, he is never eager to leave an ongoing case in the middle of the day, not even for holidays, not even for bereavement, even you know that.

“I just fucking walked right out.”

“Keep your voice down,” you fuss, quickly parting from him to rush and lock the door. Still kneeling, he pulls you back over to him, holding onto your calves with a firm grip. The sight might be considered pathetic if you weren't so disgustingly enamored with him. Still, your eyes travel quickly across his face, searching for corruption. “Are you sick?” You lean down with him, the back of your hand on his forehead and cheeks, watching him lean into your soft touch. “Do you have a fever or something—"

"Did you really mean it when you said you'd never marry someone like me?"

You hold onto his arms with both hands, guiding him back into a standing position with you. Your eyes dart again, squinting aggressively.

You were absolutely positive you hadn't said that.

"I've been thinking about it all fucking day—in fact, I think, I maybe even dreamt about you saying it, over, and over, and over again, it's been stuck in my head like some really horrible song on the radio—"

"Higuruma!" You shake your head at his frantic state, holding his face in your hands to calm him down. "I never said that—I can say with absolute certainty that I never said that." He relaxes in your touch just slightly, leaning into the warmth of your palms as his mind recalls your tormenting argument. You tilt your head at him, face scrunching. "Is that all you've been thinking about? You're not...angry?"

"Of course I'm fucking angry," he scoffs, hands sliding to your hips to pull you a little closer despite his words. "I'd been waiting to see you for days, and then the moment I do, we get into some petty argument about the exact thing that's been keeping us apart—I'm absolutely livid, sweetheart, I've been fuming ever since you left this morning. Without a word, I might add, so I can assume you're angry, too, no?"

"I'm angry about the same thing you're angry about—I don't know why I even mentioned your workload during dinner, it ruined the whole thing!" You laugh into the sudden kiss that he gives you, trying to swat him away as his lips move across your cheek, and jaw, and temple. "It's my godforsaken attitude, I ruined a perfectly good dinner."

He shakes his head quickly, speaking in between kisses. "No. I ruined it. You tried to make a joke, and I'm...really unfunny, that's on me. It got out of hand from there—you know how much I support the education system, I'm such an idiot for pretending I don't, because you know how many cases I take for teachers, too. And for saying your kids were dumb, obviously they're goddamn prodigies if you're teaching them—"

"And I don't actually think your clients are guilty, sometimes I think more of your clients are innocent than you do."

"And that was rude of me, the assumption about education majors, and the whole stereotypical bullshit—I sounded like such a guy, I really can't believe myself." His hands are all over you now, still leaving open-mouth kisses across the bare skin that he has access to, gripping at your hips to keep him from wanting more.

"Anyone would be lucky to marry you, Hiro."

He stops, tilting his head back to look at you fully again. He stares as your lips curve into a soft smile.

"I'm so sorry for making you think otherwise," you admit, sighing slowly. "I was being a brat. Because I had a bad week. And I missed you, and I took it out on you and your job. But really, I think your job is what allows you to express how passionate you are. You know, because you understand people so well, what they're going through. And I think how passionate you are is...maybe one of my favorite things about you." You lean up to give a quick peck on his warm, slightly swollen lips. "Definitely husband material, would hate to lose something like that."

Higuruma steps back to lean against your desk, slowly pulling you closer between his legs. He makes an almost-pout with his lips, hands caressing your forearms, your wrists. "Remember when I was the worst person ever and...basically disparaged your job, all for your students to tell me that I'm your best friend?" You nod carefully, biting back a smile as he groans, head tilted back in agony. You place a soft kiss where his veins sort of protrude at the jugular, and his shifts almost imperceptibly. Almost. "I've never felt so horrible in my life—Miss L/N says it's been her favorite unit so far—I think I died, right then, just died and disintegrated."

"Karma is so sweet when you don't have to do it yourself," you shrug, massaging at his tense shoulders, feeling his hands grip at your hips and waist. “And I got some pretty nice apology flowers out of it. You sure do know how to woo a girl.” He lifts his head to look at you again, watching as your eyes try to avoid his piercing, languid gaze. "Speaking of my students...I kind of have to get back to work, I've been gone way too long." He sighs again, rolls his eyes like a teenager just to hear you laugh. "And you shouldn't have left the office either, not in the middle of a case. You're gonna be really upset with yourself later."

You kiss him one last time before parting from the warmth of his body, backstepping towards the door. Higuruma reluctantly follows, sluggishly standing and grabbing his lunch bag, heavy feet making slow motions towards the doorway. He stops you before you open it completely.

"I think you forgot something at my place," he whispers, kissing your temple. "Maybe you could...come over tonight, I could give it back to you?"

Your eyes shoot him a blank, warning look. Your Teacher Face, he calls it.

"I'll take that as a yes. Miss L/N."

｡𖦹°‧

You're standing at Higuruma's door, foot tapping nervously at the pavement, fixing small pieces of your clothing to keep your mind occupied with other things. Still, all you can think about is how you might possibly fuck up this dinner just as you did the last one. There's really nothing to be completely afraid of. You'd both taken back what you'd said, cleared up what you hadn't, and there's a very real possibility that this is you guys going back to normal, just as you'd hoped. And yet, you're reluctant to knock your knuckle against the door, shivering in your coat and gripping your workbag like it might fly away, and you with it. One could dream.

Higuruma opens the door violently, steps his disheveled figure back as soon as he sees your polite smile, welcoming you in. His hair is even messier than before, his button-up is untucked and rolled up at his forearms, and he's loosening his tie as you walk in, trying to breath properly despite the choking at his neck.

You slowly walk through the house, setting your things down on the kitchen island like you usually do, already placing stray things back where they belong as he follow in, stuffs his hands in his pockets.

"You don't have to do that," he smiles, hesitantly creeping up next to you to stop your movements. "I went home after I came by your school, and..." He scratches at the back of his neck, looking about the kitchen. "I meant to clean after my lunch, and...after I started working...in the kitchen, but—"

"It's okay, Hiro."

He lets out a deep breath, nodding assuredly. His eyes gloss over you carefully and you're nervous all over again from the way he's examining you. His fists tighten in his pants pockets, shifting from one foot to the other, and soon enough, you're doing the same, filling in the silence with just your breathing and the occasional apology when you both accidentally bump into each other with your swaying. You are both too petrified to ask about work. But given that most of your life is your work, if the conversation is to progress any further, someone has to ask. One of you has to jump the hurdle. You're almost too anxious to do so—you and Higuruma have never argued like that, you couldn't bring yourself to potentially cause it again—but you're both adults, proper adults too, and someone has to make the next move.

"How's the case moving along?" you try breathily, leaning against the kitchen counter to broaden your space amongst each other, maybe make room for less tense discussion.

He laughs a little under his breath, one hand leaving his pocket to touch the fabric of your shirt, relaxing him enough to speak too. "Uh, yeah, it's...it's going. Maybe too early to know but...I have a feeling about this guy—I know I say that every time, but...I mean, he's young, and he's been so patient with us so far, and...things aren't adding up the way they usually do for the other side, so. So, I think we're gonna be able to help him."

You can't help but smile at the way he describes his work, even if it makes him nervous, makes him blush. It's cute, you think, the way he'll get so serious about it, the way he'll mull it over in his mind right in front of you, as if you're part of the case too. He'll use terms you don't quite recognize, and names you've never heard of, but he always ends with how well he thinks it'll go. And you're always so happy to hear when he thinks he might be able to be a hero again.

"I know you'll be able to help him," you assure with a sleepy nod, smiling a little further when his hand moves up, cups one side of your face.

He tilts his head to pout at you, thumb stroking over your cheek bone. "You know...the more I think about it...you were right to make that comment at dinner." He continues before you can argue, shaking his head softly. "I think I'd been babbling on about my new case the whole night, and...I left no time to talk about your week." His thumb moves to rub over your eyebags, growing just slightly, though you hadn't really had to the time to notice. "You were right. I don't pay attention to the world around me. My tired girl."

"No, I’d actually rather not talk about my shitty week. And last night doesn't count," you refute. "You're very attentive, you know that. And I'm not usually so cranky."

He hums as he lets both hands rest against your shoulders, rubbing softly. "Still cranky?" He nods as you relax your shoulders in his touch, turning you around to lead you to his couch, still massaging as he sits you down together. He places light, feathery kisses against your back, calloused hands squeezing. "Those kids, always overworking my woman. Sending her home exhausted, poor baby." His teases rumble against the nape of your neck and you're forced to roll your eyes playfully, swatting your hand at him. "You should just quit. Quit that stupid job. And I'll take care of you—you'd never have to work a day in your life with me."

You turn quickly, shoving at his chest with a grin on your face. "Stupid job? Seriously?" You push until he's lying on his back on the couch, watching as he pulls you by your forearms, up and over his lap to straddle him. Your hands sit firm against his chest, your eyes squinting over him. He's smiling at you, eyes dark and low, hands wrapped around your wrists for control. "You really think quitting is an option after yesterday?"

"No, I actually think we have to stay on these career paths for the rest of our lives," he smirks, eyes still searching yours. "To prove each other wrong."

You nod in bubbly agreement, watching him lick his lips beneath you, his fingers sliding away to tug at his tie again. You lean up against his lap, watching him slowly slip off the thin fabric, dropping it on the floor.

"Was getting uncomfortable," he gave an excuse, hands wrapping around your thighs.

"Your shirt too?"

Higuruma smiles as you start to unbutton his loose and wrinkly dress shirt, slipping it away from his chest to expose his milky soft skin. You kiss his collarbone gently, delicately, and you hear him shiver a little, his breath shaky as it leaves his parted lips. When you sit up again, you watch his muscles flex as your fingers patter against his torso, his hips twitching just slightly. You take your time in admiring him, despite knowing how self-conscious he gets under your careful, probing stare. Still, Higuruma is one of the most beautiful people you've ever been blessed to see, to touch. He doesn’t look so muscular from the outside, when you’re both having dinner or grabbing a quick breakfast, when you’d taken him home to meet family and friends. His clothes cover him very well, that sickening, gorgeous physique he selfishly hides. A part of you wishes people knew about how lovely he looked, but you suppose it is better that everything underneath his work attire is meant for you and your eyes only.

"Same outfit, huh?" you ask, recalling the frenzied account of his morning that he gave in your office. "You've done that before, haven't you? You've really gotta start taking care of yourself better, sir." You smile when he mumbles what sounds like a 'yes ma'am', though it's only a shaky whisper as you continue to tenderly rake your nails down his chest and abs, tracing the definition, the grooves. You love when he calls you ma’am, and you hope to every higher power that he can’t feel how wet you are through your layers. "I think we're both a little too accustomed to putting our needs and feelings aside for our work. At least...well, for me, I have a pretty long lunch period to cry during. You, on the other hand...all that pent-up anger and irritation. It's going to get to you one day."

He shakes his head, pressing your hips into his own, grip tight through the fabric of your pants as his own creates a bulge up under you. "Not if you're here to help me...release some of the tension."

"Oh, is that what I'm here for, Mr. Higuruma? Your human stress toy?"

He blinks up at you, and it's almost erotic the way it makes every particle in your body flutter. "Is that what you wanna be?"

Your breath hitches but you recover quickly, pretending to think. "What kind of perks does it come with?"

"For you, Miss L/N? Thousands—all sorts of insurance and benefits, deductibles.” His hands travel up to push your own dress shirt sleeves up your forearms, fingertips grazing the goosebumps against your skin. He takes a moment to revere the smoothness of your arms, the plushness of your thighs. “And I know a pretty good lawyer friend, in case you get screwed over."

"Ah, but I thought your friend only did criminal defense?"

"He makes exceptions, I think." Higuruma's thumb pulls at your bottom lip, tugging you down closer to him. "When the crimes are against someone so goddamn extraordinary."

"And this is where I come in?"

"Yes, honey, that’s where you come in."

"You think I'm extraordinary?"

He looks at you like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, like he’s told you a million times before, and he has, a million times and more. His fingers find their way to the back of your head, slipping into your hair, and he finally slots lips with yours, leaning up just slightly to deepen the kiss. He groans into your mouth, simply nodding at your question, not very interested in complete reassurance now that he can taste you—he hasn’t tasted you in a millennia, that’s what it feels like. “You’re a gem, sweetheart,” he mumbles into you, licking at your bottom lip for more, more, and more. “My little gem—my little English prodigy.” He smiles against your lips, kissing down your jaw and neck to tease and tamper. “You’re my smart girl, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”

You whisper out what might be a yes, hands against his chest as he kisses down your shirt, unbuttoning slowly and then slower.

“Don’t ever let me forget it, yeah? You have no idea…how horrible it was. Going into work without seeing your pretty face, my pretty woman’s face. I feel like we should make it up to each other, it’s only fair.” His fingers hook along the opening of your top, sliding it off of your shoulders in a glacial pace, a painful sort of motion for you both. But he’s loving the way you’re squirming above him, right down on his crotch that he’s trying so desperately not to push back up into you. “What do you want from me?” he asks sweetly, his pointer fingers tucking themselves into the waistband on your work pants, tugging you back and forth, and back and forth along his growing erection, watching your polite, civil face start to falter on top of him. He smiles at the simple scrunch of your brows, the almost-pout in your bottom lip as he all but glorifies you. “What do you want me to do to you, baby?”

You continue to grind yourself against him, feeling his own hips shift underneath you to meet you halfway. He nods at the motion of your answer, hands flush against your hips and fingers digging into fabric as he guides you with him at the same rhythm, still following your lead. You can see an erratic nature creep up in his facial expression, his knuckles going white with how he’s pulling at your waistband, never quite ripping the pants off, but holding on just in case he has to. His bulge rubs up against your clothes cunt, the soak seeping through your underwear—he’s eyeing the space between you so carefully, imagining what that damp spot looks like on your panties, what it would taste like on his tongue. He humps up into your pussy a little quicker now, watching as you bounce up and down, shirt slipping further off, and tits threatening to pour out of your bra. He unclips the garment, tosses it off to the floor somewhere to free those beauties, immediately leaning up to suck on one as his hand makes its way to the other. He moans around your hardened nipple, still looking up at your whiny face. He sucks relentlessly and licks in swirls around both mounds before leaning back, hands returning to your hips. He watches your tits carefully as you move, feeling the tightness of his pants become almost unbearable. His brows furrow at the sight of you, letting pleasure take over as he stares, admires, nearly folds under the pressure.

“Can’t- fuck- can’t cum like this. I would, definitely could but. Too soon, don’t wanna cum too soon,” he notes, watching you slow to a stop while he’s still jerking up into you.

You laugh at the state of him, pressing your hands against his hips to offer aid, and even then he’s involuntarily trying to press closer, chase his high. You’ve stopped, but he can’t, not while you’re looking at him like that. “I’m not edging you, Mr. Higuruma. Take me how you want me.” You feel his warm knuckles glide along the skin of your waist, still pulling lightly at the fabric. Either he’s teasing or resisting, and neither will do. “You know, unless you’d like to get back to your work, I know how much you value it.”

“Oh, so that’s how it is!” he laughs, and it startles you a little, lights a fire up through your now exposed spine. He lifts you up then, flings you right over his shoulder like a bag of hay, like you weigh absolutely nothing, hoisting you both down the hall to his bedroom. “You’re gonna be in so much trouble, Miss L/N, I can’t believe you.”

“What, defense attorneys do arrests now?”

He places you on the large bed, hovering over your body to cage you in while he nods. “You’re a delinquent,” he mumbles, lips dragging down your abdomen, careful to place soft, wet kisses along every inch of shivering skin. His hands find purchase on the back of your knees, lifting to fold you just slightly. He has this look about him, something not quite brooding, bordering on the line of lustful, and it's so intimate it almost scares you. It is adoration, it is ardor. “Hanging out with those teenagers too much. They’re corrupting you.”

You laugh, shoving at his head a little, breath faltering when you feel his chuckle against your pants that he’s practically ripping off. “Oh, yeah? What are your clients doing to you then?”

“Corrupting me.”

Higuruma hums as he lifts your legs with one hand, tugging your pants off with the other. He tosses them to the floor (the crime scene is scattered everywhere), immediately kneeling to reach for your lace panties that he’s been thinking about all night, all week, every day since he last saw you. “This is where you want me?” he smiles, finger grazing over the wet fabric, pushing it to side to slide one finger against the slick. “She’s all ready for me, too, so well-behaved. Been staring at papers all week, almost forgot how easy she is for me—“

“Fuck you,” you groan, encasing your bottom lip in your teeth as his finger runs dangerously close to your entrance.

“Oh, I want you to, truly. Thought it be nice to be a gentleman, though—ladies first, right? Lift your hips for me.” You oblige, propping yourself up on your forearms to see him clearly as he tugs the lace down and off your legs. He holds them up to his nose while he watches you squirm, takes a deep inhale that almost makes him rolls his eyes all the way to the back of his head. He hadn’t gotten to smell you like this is days, it might’ve been considered cruel and unusual punishment. His free hand parts the lips of your cunt so he can examine, and he moans, letting your panties hang in his mouth by his teeth. "Fuck, it's been too long. A week is way too fucking long to be missing this.”

You’re whining, "Hiro, please,” as he insists on teasing you, stuffing your panties into his mouth as his own personal gag, a little treat while he takes care of the real thing. Your hips press up into his hand and he laughs around the fabric on his tongue, sucks at the slick with a near pornographic groan.

His two fingers slide in easily, palming himself through his dress pants with his other hand at the mere sight. He nods with you as his thick fingers push forward, the gummy walls of your pussy tensely squeezing him around him. He shushes at the pretty noises you’re making, curling his finger further. Higuruma is absolutely filthy like this, not so poised as he usually is when he’s near cumming in his pants just from watching you moan into the open air of his room, the noise filling his ears like sweet infestation. But he simply can’t help himself.

Can’t help himself from talking dirty either. “Missed this pretty pussy,” he mumbles, ripping the fabric out of his mouth to breathe properly. He licks another long stripe on the panties in his hands, trying not to grope himself with it. "Had to- fuck, look at you- needed you so bad last week when you rescheduled. Had to handle it myself with the last pair you left me, can you believe it?" His knee spreads your legs that are threatening to close, nodding at the familiar clench of your pussy around his fingers, the growing squelch of wet surrounding the point of connection. His voice grows husky as he watches you arch your back. "Imagined you just like this, letting go for me. Can you believe it, love? How desperate I was, and now I get to see you like this?" He smiles as he picks up the pace of his pistoning fingers, watching your eyes glaze over as you practically convulse. "You're so good to me, making my dreams come true."

And suddenly, it's all you can think about. Higuruma, in the shower, jerking his long and throbbing boner in the shower with one of your lacey panties you always seemed to forget at his place. His head tilted back against the shower tile, picturing you and only you while his rough hands tug and tug. Finally falling off the edge when he pictures your sweet orgasm, when he can practically taste it in his mouth. And his thick white cum is shooting against the shower wall, your name falling from his lips in breathy whines, over and over like aching prayers.

Your moans are as lewd as ever as you release around his fingers, sitting up to watch with him, the way everything spills out around his calloused hands. He never once lets your mess drip onto the sheets, what a waste that would be. You slump back into the bed, hands over your face as you try to catch your breath. He's speaking to you, asking you something so gently, but you can barely hear him, much too buzzed and deluded to come up with coherent thoughts and sentences. His hands glides up the warm flesh of your stomach and you feel his freed dick gliding against your thigh, a slightly cold contrast to the way your body is burning all over. His leaking tip trails along your skin as he hovers over you, letting his erection slide through your folds once, twice.

"You still want me inside of you?" he asks, lips against your ribcage. "Or did your hard work tire you out before I could get to you?"

His mocking tone vibrates against your skin, but you're pushing yourself up in spite of it. He laughs lowly, just under his breath, at your delirious, cock-drunk state before sinking into you, moaning when he feels you clamp around him. He works slowly and carefully to bottom out, making use of the already slick and slippery state of your pussy before he's kissing your cervix with his tip. He folds one of your legs over to give himself more space, allow for a better angle, and then he's letting you suck him in, reeling his hips back and forth to hear the way you moan, hear the way you haul him back in.

He moves your hands from tired face, watching the furrow of your brows, nodding with a cooed "I knooow, love, I know" as he watches you, picks up his pace.

His dick pulsates inside of you as he kisses up your chest, sharing that same fucked out look that you had. “Remember when I said you’d always be my smart girl?" he begins, grip on your hips growing tighter just slightly. "I’m starting to think I like fucking you stupid.”

But his words are a little unfair, a little hypocritical when you think about it. Because Higuruma, perhaps the smartest and most driven man you know, is babbling like a lovesick imbecile every time he's this deep inside you. When he's not huffing with every drag of his thick cock, he's a muttering mess, voice against your neck and in your ear, saying things that would usually make you both blush. But he's drunk off the way you're garnering him in, how messy it is, and whatever comes out of his mouth is essentially your fault, he thoughtfully concludes. It's all your doing, the reason he acts this way, and looks this way, and fucks you just right this way. Maybe if you weren't so perfect for him, neither of you would be in this predicament. You can feel the pressure all throughout your body like military explosives, leaning into the wet and sloppy kisses he leaves, just where your neck and shoulder join. His fingers digs into your sides and hips, and he gasps in between smooches and moans, losing himself in the way he's whispering to you like a frenzied idiot.

'You take me so well, my good girl.'

'Let me fill you up, just this once.'

'That's why you were so mean on Sunday, huh baby? Saying all that stuff about- oh fuck yeah baby, i've got you. Saying that stuff about my job. You just wanted me to fuck you like this, wanted my attention.'

'You're gonna take every last drop of me, aren't you?'

'Can't get enough of you—I've never loved anyone like I love you, I swear.'

The last one catches you off guard just slightly, not the content of his praise, but the way his own breath hitches when he admits it like all the times he's told you before simply weren't enough. You wrap your legs around him to keep your brain steady, but his pace is already faltering, and you're growing closer to your own orgasm again, quicker than the last time. And louder too. The slap of wet skin echoes throughout the room like music to your ears, and you're begging him to cum inside you before you can even really think about it. Your arms wrap around his neck to pull him closer, and you press your lips against his cheek when you ask, voice soft and smooth like honey in his ears. His voice is strangled as he nods against the crook of your neck, kissing the skin quickly and fervently as his thrusts turn sloppy, veins still dragging against your walls and tip still pressing up against that sweet spot of your cervix as he moans into you, holds onto you for balance.

He chases his own high, gasping for air when he finally spills into you. The feeling alone has you following close behind, your nails clawing into his shoulder as you continue to milk him dry for everything he has. His hips keep a slow routine, stuffing the hot ropes of cum further into you, really letting it stick. He huffs above you, holding himself up by his forearms as he kisses around your face, moaning into the kiss on your lips like the soft feeling might make him cum all over again. His lazily peppered kisses slow to a halt and he leans his forehead against yours, eye searching your own.

"Wanna marry you...Miss L/N," he whispers suddenly, kissing you before you can even looked shocked. "You know I do. You know how much I love you, how much I mean it." He watches you nod slowly beneath him, trying to keep your eyes from widening so much. "Gonna marry you. Would quit my job to marry you—"

"Hiro—"

"If it got in the way of us even once...I'd find a way to make it work."

You shake your head and he almost freezes at the sight. "Our work means way too much to us, Hiromi. So there'll be no quitting." You thumbs glide against his cheeks gently and he leans into your touch. "Because we're not quitters. We're problem solvers, yeah? So...we'll just have to be ready to solve some problems. Come what may."

Higuruma smiles, sitting up and dragging you with him, right into his lap. He stares at you carefully, holding you close to him, chest to chest. "And you'd wanna do that? Work, and...problem solve?" No one had ever been willing to do that for him, with him. Not until you.

You nod like it's the most obvious thing in the world, the most sure idea you've had since you decided your calling was to teach. "I'm your smart girl, remember?" you tease, kissing his temple as he relaxes. "We're always gonna figure it out."

And this is enough to reassure him. He absentmindedly takes your hands in his town, thumb rolling over your left hand's ring finger.

He'd been uses to losing cases, it came with the trade. But losing you was not an option, not in the slightest.

Because he means it when he says he wants you in his life forever.

He laughs to himself, rolling his eyes playfully. “I was so sad we didn’t watch Real Housewives last night…”

You scoff at the confession. Your little Sunday night routine that he claimed to hate (too dramatic, those women). And here he was, missing it. Missing you.

“Hiro…you are so fucking weird.”

guess who's back! and feeling much better than i did last week.

i am a higuruma truther, he fills my nanami-filled heart, i can't even lie. so, hope you guys enjoy this and my future jjk stuff that's coming up (#can't stop thinking about season 3). let me know what else you guys would like to read and PLEASE give recs for jjk stuff bc i'm in a bit of a drought.

love, your pretty princess!

Tom has always been smart, top of the class, but there was also you - someone dangerously on his heels, and sometimes getting the upper hand, burning Tom one too many times in your rivalry against one another. He hated admitting defeat. His hatred - at least, he thought it was hatred, he didn’t know what else to name it - for you simmered hotter and hotter with every passing year, every class you had together, racing to be the first to finish tests, answer questions first, get the better grade. 

You breaking curfew was exactly what he needed to get you in trouble, not permanently, but it brings a sickening smile to his face at the thought of you losing house points, and receiving detention. It was the last thing you wanted, so he could use this to his advantage.

“A little late for an evening stroll, don’t you think?” Tom calls out from the trees. 

Your figure whips around, but you do not raise your wand. Your arms remain wrapped around your middle.

Tom’s shit-eating grin falters when he catches the traces of tear marks glinting on your cheeks. He has never seen you cry before. You’ve never shown weakness. The only two emotions he ever saw from you was your smugness at besting him, and anger for losing to him. 

Feeling like he’d walked in on something he shouldn’t have, Tom takes a step back, suddenly uncomfortable at catching you in such a vulnerable moment. 

“Tom Riddle?” you call out, squinting in the darkness. 

He could just leave. Pretend like he hadn’t seen you breaking down alone, in the middle of the forest, late at night. You were a private person, and this felt like the worst moment anyone, especially Tom Riddle, considering your history, could interrupt. 

But apart of himself doesn’t want to leave, maybe curious to know what had brought down his mightiest rival. 

“I know it is you,” you say hotly, that trademark tone you’d use on Tom bleeding back into the softness of your voice. “Come out.”

He does not come out because you had told him to, but rather for himself. 

The night was especially chilly tonight, a layer of fog creeping along the forest floor so thick that it does not even part for Tom as he makes his way to your side. You were not dressed for the weather, apparent by the way you were shaking slightly. Unless you were just that upset. It was probably both. You were in nothing but your nightgown, and it looks like you have been crying for some time. 

“Getting sick will earn you no pity points from me,” he tells you.

“I am not trying to get sick.”

“Then, where is your sweater?” he asks, and nearly grimaces at how it had come out. He was not worried for you. He didn’t care that you were out here alone in nothing but a thin cotton gown. 

“I did not realize you were concerned about my health.”

Tom narrows his eyes. “I am not.”

The silence that followers has Tom scanning the area. You were the last person he expected to see out here. He hadn’t expected to see anyone, but you would have been the last on his list. You were always careful. Never stepped out of line in fears of getting in trouble. You played by the rules, studied hard, and being caught out here would most definitely land you in trouble.

“What are you doing out here, this late at night?” Tom asks.

Before you can answer, you let out a sneeze that echos deep within the landscape of the forest. He glances around, almost like he was waiting for something to leap out and attack. When nothing happens, he zeros in on you with a hard stare before he begrudgingly shucks off his jacket. 

“Take this before you freeze to death,” he says with clenched teeth.

You look at the jacket he’s holding out for you for a moment, mouth parting in surprise, but ultimately take it without saying anything. He watches as you slip it on, the materials setting nicely upon your shivering frame. You’re quiet for a moment as you fiddle with the buttons.

“I couldn’t take the pressure,” you answer truthfully. Your voice is like gravel, maybe experiencing some level of pain at admitting anything to your rival. “I have been studying for hours. I… I felt suffocated in the dorms. I needed air.”

Tom knows well of the expectations your family held for you. A pureblood line, family running back to the families of old. It is why you tried so hard. It is why you wanted to be the best. You had family expectations to up hold, while Tom was trying to prove himself to the world. He didn’t need to be the best; but you did. 

Of course, Tom held some respect for you and your family’s name. If only you weren’t his biggest opponent, he would recruit you into his mission. He’s thought about it countless times. You’d make a good ally. With your combined smarts and magic, it would give him an unfair advantage above those lower than him. Your magic was strong, like his. Your pureblood magic was to thank for that. 

He did not have the same family as you did, not the same weight on his shoulders, but he understood to a certain degree. He himself had his own expectations. He had plans. Dreams. Things he wanted to achieve - no, needed to achieve, otherwise he was as good as nothing. He’s never given much thought to how you felt in all of this. He’s never seen this… human side of you. It felt too intimate considering the nature of your relationship. 

And he had given you his jacket.

Tom did not like others touching his things. But this was someone he held in esteem, reluctantly. He wished he could hate you, truly hate you, but there was always some form of excitement when you were neck and neck, fighting to come out on top.

“Studying for hours? There are no tests tomorrow, and the homework was nothing out of the ordinary. Trying to one up me again?” he throws out, in his weird attempt at trying to lighten the sullen mood. 

The setting was only adding to the mystery that was dripping from your form. He could see the marks of exhaustion and defeat in the eyebags carved into your smooth skin. 

“I am falling behind,” you say, bottom lip trembling. “My family will kill me.”

Tom does not know if you’re exaggerating, but he doesn’t think you were lying for sympathy. 

“You got higher marks than me on our last test. You are not falling behind, sadly.”

Trust Tom to know when he’s lost to you. 

You bring a hand up to wipe at the tears that have just begun to fall, a forced laugh escaping your lips. “Because I have been killing myself studying. I can hardly eat, sleep, without worrying that… if I do not come out on top, my parents, they will -” your hand finds its way to your throat, where it rubs absently into the skin. 

“It is not like you’re failing. You score perfect on nearly every exam,” he says in somewhat annoyance. 

“It is not enough,” you say quietly. “If I am not the best, I am losing in their eyes.”

“Why are you telling me all of this?” Tom asks then, uneasy, not know what to even say to what you had admitted. He wasn’t good at consoling people. No one has ever even cried to him, and for you to be the first one, well. He just wishes he knew what to do. He feels like he is doing a poor job at trying to consol you. If that was even Tom trying to consol you.

“I don’t know,” you say, shrinking further into his jacket that he was beginning to regret giving away. It was freezing. “You are quite possibly the worst person I could talk to about this.”

Toms lip quirks up in amusement, his sentiments exactly, but he hides it. “I agree.”

“What are you doing out here, anyways?”

“Business.” 

“Business? What business does a Hogwarts student have at this hour?” 

“Nothing of your concern,” he tells you snippily.

“I could report you for being out past curfew, you know.”

“I am the Prefect here. Who do you think they’ll believe?”

You give a shrug, defeated. 

Tom feels a chill go up his spine. He was tired. The night was a complete loss - except for this odd encounter. 

“And don’t expect me to go easy on you because of this,” Tom says.

For the first time since he’s known you, you give a small laugh. A real laugh, not the bouts of laughter brought out from your own arrogance or anger. It rings like bells in his head, and pulls an involuntary feeling in his stomach that has always taunted him. That same feeling he always gets with you. Not hatred, but… something else.

“I didn’t expect anything of the sort. And we should be heading back, it’s late.”

The walk back to the castle is quiet, but it is no longer awkward. He throws you a few looks, confused on how to feel about the situation, just wanting to make sure you were really still there. He didn’t know what to make of it. You’ve never spoken anything more than heated words between wins and losses, gloating or making promises that you would win next time. 

Tonight you were honest with him. You were real.

It was the most human connection Tom has ever had, and it has an odd feeling swirling in his chest. Ever since you’d laughed. You’d smiled at him. You’ve smiled at him before, but the self-satisfied kind for one upping him. This smile was genuine. 

And you give him that same smile when you stop to part ways, both not knowing what to say. Neither of you were worried about getting caught. It was a regular occurrence for the both of you to slip out past curfew, it seemed.

“Thanks for… listening to me,” you mumble, hands still playing with the jacket.

“I did not have much of a choice.”

Your eyes roll. “You’re acting like you couldn’t have just walked away.”

“I wouldn’t leave you there like that,” Tom says. You had been a pitiful mess when he’d seen you. He had thought about leaving - but he knew he wouldn’t really. Any thoughts of reporting you are also forgotten.

“Why? I thought you hated me.”

Tom chokes up for a second, almost feeling like he was caught. With what - caring for you? He does not care. He regains his composure. “There would be no one left to challenge me, if anything happened to you,” he says dismissively. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” you echo, turning and leaving him standing alone in the hallway. 

He does not even think of his missing jacket until he gets to his room. He finds himself not minding. He trusted you to look after it. You knew how to take care of things; you were probably one of the only competent students in the school.

The next day, when he sees you, the usual crackling of tension just… isn’t there. Not until a week later, when a test is announced, one that is worth a good chunk of your grade, and the odd truce you two had unanimously agreed upon goes up in smoke. 

He catches you in the hallway after class, slinking up to where you’re already furiously scribbling away in a notebook.

“You should know,” Tom tells you, and you glance up with a scowl. “That I am extremely well versed in the exams topic.”

“You should know that so am I.”

“Then why do you look so worried?”

Your expression falters for a moment, your fear showing through the mask of anger you’d been wearing, and Tom’s delight dissolves into a heavy sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He doesn’t carry on walking with you after that. He lags behind, watching as you dart for the library to study. 

Your words from the lake play in his mind. Your family wanted you to be the best, and if you weren’t the best, then… he wonders, briefly, what they do when they’re unhappy with you. You seemed scared. He does not know if its because you simply do not like being talked down to, or if they hurt you in other ways. Some pureblood families were extreme. On the outside, your family was regal, pristine, but he doesn’t know what goes on behind closed doors. 

The test was in a week from the day it was announced, and Tom does not see you much, like usual, before a big test. He of course spots you in the library, but you never see him. You never do notice when he’d watch you from between the books, even before you’d talked. He had an odd fascination with you, and how your mind worked. He’s always wanted a glimpse inside; but now that he has, he almost regrets it. 

He thinks back to when you’d met. 

Your rivalry had started from the very first class you’d had together. 

Tom has always been smarter than anyone he’s ever met, so when he learned that he did not score the highest on a test, he’d immediately looked into you. He was pleased that you were a pureblooded wizard, and even more so from such a prestigious family. He’d thought about recruiting you, but then he’d notice that you fought to answer questions faster than he could in classes, and how you were always fighting for the number one spot he usually always claimed. It felt like you’d started a war with him. 

He’d hated you at first, thinking of all the ways he’d get rid of you, having you expelled, but over the years, he’d grown used to it. He had started looking forward to the push and pull of your relationship. Who would win and who would lose. Tom loved to gloat in your face and make you mad, but that was before he’d learned about just why you tried so hard. It felt different, now. He’d seen how worried you’d been at the lake. And now, he just sees that same girl from that night standing at the waters end, crying, at your wits end. 

When the test starts, Tom is almost nervous to begin. He glances at you from the corner of his eye, but you’re as composed as ever. 

Maybe he was overthinking it. Maybe you had exaggerated. 

The test isn’t easy, but it isn’t the hardest test he’s ever taken, either. He finishes it in record time, and sets down his quill with a sense of accomplishment when he notices that he’s completed it before you did. Only by a few minutes, as you are second to finish. Your eyes meet his, and he raises the corner of his lip into a sharp half grin. I win, it says.

“A little slow today?” he asks you once class is over, and students filter out of the room. He can’t help it, so used to poking fun at you anytime he had the advantage. You always did the same. It was just as annoying as it probably was for both of you. 

“I was merely checking my work,” you snap at him, but you’re soon wearing a smug grin of your own. “Are you so obsessed with me that you noticed I finished three minutes after you did?”

Tom tilts his head down closer to you, amused. “I never said it was three minutes.”

Your eyes widen, mouth opening with something to say. “I - I was guessing.”

“Oddly specific for a guess.”

That is the end of that, you decide, because you simply walk away. Tom doesn’t stop you. He carries on to his next classes, the test forgotten, until you’re given them back a few days later. He’s received top marks, 100%, to his satisfaction. He immediately looks to you, ready to rub it in your face, until he sees the unmistakable quiver of your bottom lip. Your expression was wrecked, unable to conceal your horror, only schooling your features when you finally look up to see Tom staring. 

For the remainder of the class, Tom keeps his eyes on you. And you do not look his way once. 

He’s never seen you react like that to any test. 

When class ends, you tear out of the room, with Tom hot on your heels. He knew you’d make a quick escape so he’d planned ahead to be ready once dismissed. He does not run, but he keeps a brisk pace to keep track of where you were darting off to. He loses you around a corner, and he stands there, lost, until he hears the unmistakable sound of someone crying. 

Up a flight of stairs and into a concealed room, Tom finds you curled up by a window sobbing into your knees.

“That bad?” Tom asks. 

You startle again, jerking your head up to see who had dared follow you. He almost thought you’d be happy to see him, maybe, but your reaction is one of disgust.

“Chased after me just to see me cry again, Riddle?” you snarl, angrily wiping your tears. “Do you like seeing me upset?”

No, actually. Not like this. Not when you were actually upset. He loved to rile you up, but not to the point of tears. This is only the second time he’s seen you cry, and it is just as uncomfortable as the first time. He doesn’t know why, but it brings a sickening kind of churning in his stomach when seeing you like this; truly upset. 

“No, I don’t,” he says, matter of fact. 

“Then why are you here? Did you really come to see if I was ok?”

You’re saying it like you’re saying something unbelievable, because it was. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t care. And he doesn’t. 

At least, that’s what he keeps telling himself. 

But seeing you crying, miserable, doesn’t bring him the pleasure he thought seeing his rival like that would bring him. 

“What was your score?” Tom asks instead of answering your question. 

You huff, reaching into your pocket to pull out a crumbled piece of paper and throw it in his direction. He catches it with ease, and smoothes out the paper. You’d gotten 15 points off a 30 point test. You’d failed it.

“I don’t understand…” Tom frowns at you as he brings the paper down from view. “How is this possible? I saw you studying all week.”

“I couldn’t remember anything,” you say lowly. Your head hangs between your shoulders in defeat. “I… I’ve been having trouble sleeping. I visit the lake every night to think.” 

Tom bristles. “What?” 

Not sleeping, and going into the forest, alone? You had a death wish.

“It is the only place I can go to be alone. Truly alone. Not surrounded by people who know me, and my parents.”

“You’re making yourself sick going out in the cold.”

You tuck a stand of hair behind your ear, looking almost sheepish. “Actually… I wear your jacket to keep me warm. I still have it, you know. I can, um. Give it back.”

Tom inhales a breath at that, surprised. He knew you had his jacket, but he hadn’t actually thought about what you were doing with it. You had plenty of your own clothes. Coming from a wealthy pureblooded family, you had whatever you wanted at your disposal. He was surprised you found something from him, a poor orphan, appealing. Comforting. 

“Keep it,” Tom says.

You glance up at him, calmer now. “Why?”

“If it provides you even the smallest bit of comfort, then it’s yours.”

Your eyes are red from crying, but it seems that you’ve regained your composure. You even offer a small smile. “It really shouldn’t, but it smells like you, and, well…”

Tom’s heart unexpectedly kicks in his chest at your confession. He didn’t know he meant that much, if anything, to you. Being comforted by his smell alone made Tom feel… confused, more than ever. 

“I - I mean, it’s just - it’s comfortable too,” you’re quick to tack on, like that’ll make Tom forget what you had just said. 

“Of course,” Tom says stiffly. 

Neither of you say anything for a moment, both struck by what you had admitted, before you give a sigh. 

“My parents are going to kill me,” you tell him. You’re no longer upset, but seem to be in a state of acceptance. There’s a faraway look that enters your eyes when you glance up at him. “You’ll get your jacket back soon enough, when I am gone.”

Tom balls his fists. “You don’t mean that.”

You drop your gaze to peer out the window. “I do. You don’t know my family. I have never gotten such a low score in all of my years at Hogwarts. I fear they will pull me from the school, saying they’re not teaching me anything, and have me home schooled.”

There’s a second where Tom pictures it; you, gone, no longer the first person he looked at in class - the first person he looked for, period, at the beginning of the day, and at the end of the day. No one else could keep up with him. No one else excited him to even a fraction of how you made him feel. 

“I won’t let that happen,” Tom swears. “Leave it to me.”

“What? Tom!” you call out, but he swoops out of the room with a swish of his robes. 

He scales down the stairs quicker than you can scramble to chase after him, and makes a beeline back to the classroom, where he finds the teacher. He’s preparing for the next class, and greets Tom, his favorite student, with a proud smile. Unbeknownst to the teacher, Tom locks the door behind himself, effectively keeping you out when you tug on the doorknob. 

Minutes pass in which you are outside of the classroom, nervously biting at your fingernails, when the door pops open with a click and Tom comes breezing out into the hallway.   

“What did you do?” you ask, trying to peer around him into the classroom, but he guides you away from the room with a hand to the small of your back.

It’s the first time Tom has ever touched you, and you’re both a little jittery from the contact. He leads you around a corner and stops you once you’re out of earshot from other students. 

“You need not worry about the grade you got on the test,” Tom says quietly. 

You blink up at him, stunned, not knowing what to say. You manage to splutter out, “what does that mean? What did you do?”

“I fixed the problem. You’re safe from your parents, and more importantly, you will stay here, at Hogwarts,” Tom says with finality. 

A silent “with me” lingers in the air.

You search his eyes, but he’s as firm as ever, not even an ounce of hesitation or fear in his expression. 

For the first time, someone has solved your problems. Your parents never offered their aid. They expected you to figure everything out on your own, using that smart brain of yours, and acted upset when you were less than perfect. 

You sigh out, relieved, so relieved. You trust him when he said he’d fixed it. You didn’t know what he did, you’d find out soon enough, but he had helped you. You, his rival. His sworn enemy. 

“Thank you, Tom” you say. To his shock, you grab hold of his tie, and pull him down to plant a kiss upon his cheekbone. “I owe you one.”

Toms mouth hangs open as you walk off, his hand absently coming up to touch at the warmed spot where your lips had been. He hadn’t expected any kind of reward from what he had done, you staying here was enough. But that kiss has his heart racing, breaths slow and almost labored, from a mere kiss to his cheek. He was reacting in such a way that when a boy receives a kiss from someone he liked. 

But Tom did not like you.

He loathed you.

But he hated the idea more at you not being at Hogwarts anymore. He couldn’t imagine how dreadfully boring school would become. It’s such a stark contrast to how he first felt about you, wishing you’d get expelled, no longer there to bother him. Funny how feelings evolve. He never thought himself as one to get attached to, well, anything. Whether it be other humans or objects. But he can say with certainty if anything happened to you - if an outside force, other than himself of course, got you upset, he wouldn’t stand for it. He loved those moments where your eyes were alight with fire. He loved when you spoke cruelly towards him, and only him.

He… loved you.

Somewhere in the battle, he’d unknowingly given apart of himself to you. You were his equal. You were his best match. 

He thought you were his enemy, but you were something to be valued, not discarded. 

It’s a hard thing to come to terms with, especially after all the years of what he thought was hatred, but was really the love he’s tried masking. 

Tom Riddle didn’t love. Not like a normal person would, anyways. His version of love was twisted. Warped by his upbringing and just how his mind worked. He wouldn’t settle for just anyone; and you were better than anyone he has ever met. By brains, magic, and status alone. He cared little for looks, but the slope of your nose, down to the shape of your hair, just made sense.

And physical contact was not something he went looking for. There were students who made passes at him, hinting that they would love to date, kiss, do anything with him, but he’s never been interested. 

Never interested till now. 

Till you’d kissed him, kissed his cheek, and now he is being consumed by thoughts he has never had for another before. He knows how to focus on his school work. He is a master at self control, but even you have him skirting the edges of those restraints. 

The day after he’d helped you, after you’d kissed him, he watches you like a hawk. He spots you from the moment you enter the dining hall for breakfast, and throughout classes. He does not think he’ll speak with you that day, until it is after the class you’d failed the test in. You’re there before him, so he assumes you’d talked to the teacher before class started. Your expression is blank throughout the entirety of the class. Eyes forward and focused, like you didn’t dare miss anything.

Afterwards, though, you level Tom with a look and nod for him to follow after you. And he does, he listens, following you through the halls until you lead him to the stairway, and up to the small room with a window. 

“You used a memory charm?” you ask him, incredulous. “Do you know how dangerous that is?”

“You dare doubt my ability to perform a memory charm? I have been using more advanced spells since I was in my first year.”

“What if he remembers? What if he - what if he tells Dumbledore?”

Tom scoffs. “He will not remember. You should be grateful.”

“I am, Tom, it’s just… I don’t understand why you would put everything at risk over me. I thought you despised me.”

He did despise you. He despised you in the way that you did not look at him how he looked at you. He despised that you did not feel the same. He’d only come to realize his feelings only yesterday, but he burned for you the same he has always done. He just had a name to it, now. It is why he had protected you. It is why he has risked his own expulsion so you could stay at Hogwarts with him.

“The only thing I despise, is you not being by my side,” Tom admits lowly. 

Your eyes widen. You’re at a loss for words, Tom can see, but there is no disgust in your expression. It is hard to tell what you’re thinking, until your eyes drop to his lips, the surprise melting into something that has Tom’s stomach rolling over in his abdomen. 

Like when you had kissed his cheek, you are first to initiate. 

Tom allows you to grab hold of his tie again, and bring him down, closer, his eyes slipping shut at the first brush of your lips against his. He sighs out through his nose, allowing everything to happen slowly, so slowly, so he doesn’t lose control. He’s trembling where he stands as he fights to have some composure, but when your lips press firmly into his, he lets out a soft groan that was hiding at the back of his throat. 

All those years of watching, fighting, rivalry, hatred that turned into something closer to admiration, bleed into the desperation of the kiss. 

You’re just as frantic, soft hands leaving trails of fire up his arms and scorching burn marks into his cheek and chest where they come to rest. 

It is you telling Tom that, just as he has watched you, you have watched him. You have noticed him in those quiet moments where he thought no one was looking at him. You’ve seen how hard he worked. You’ve seen how dedicated he was. It inspired you, just as you inspired him. You pushed each other to be better. Work harder. 

Tom bites at the plushness of your bottom lip, and your mouth opens up to let out a gasp, but in doing so you’ve only allowed Tom in. He kisses you hungrily, deeper, both of you fighting each other to be the dominant tongue. Like everything, you’re at war. You’re just as skilled, just as angry, as Tom was. 

At some point he’s backed you into the wall, and really, you should have just given in to losing this round. He can feel himself pulling ahead. His hands drop to your breasts, where he pinches and squeezes along your skin. With every pleased noise you make, Tom earns another point in his head. 

His concentration is shattered when you unexpectedly press your hand into his cock, jolting him in place. His eyes snap open only for them to screw shut when you beginning rubbing into his pants, the hands he’d been using to fondle you with twitching to a stop. He has to bring them up to plant on either sides of your head, nearly losing his footing as you use your nimble fingers to make him dizzy. 

Tom can’t hold the kiss any longer, breaking it to rest his head against yours, breathing heavily as he struggles to stay upright. He’s losing himself of the feeling of your hand petting him through his pants, maybe thankful for the barrier there, but it was like you’d heard his thoughts, and unbuckle his belt. He tries to muffle the noise he makes when you make contact with his bare skin, but it slips out between clenched teeth. 

“Still think you’re winning, Tom?” comes your silky voice. 

He was losing, badly, but the feeling of you stroking him has him not caring about that. Only for that moment. Only until you make him orgasm seamlessly, and he comes down from his high. He hadn’t lasted long at all. It was probably the most embarrassed Tom has ever felt. And for it to have been him who deepened things, started touching you, only for this to be the outcome? Embarrassing. He’d lost at his own game.

To make things worse, you’re grinning madly, watching as he hurriedly cleans himself up with a spell and quickly buckles his pants. 

“You had an unfair advantage,” Tom gives as an excuse.

“And what was that?”

You were, well, you. That put you at an advantage no one else had. 

Instead of telling you that, because that would surely inflate your ego even more, Tom levels you with a look he attempts to make fierce, but there is no anger to fuel it. He just stares at you for a moment, maybe in awe, before he says, “meet me in the library after class. We’ll study together, from now on. I cannot fix your problems every time you fail a test.”

“Wha - that was one time, Tom!” you shout after him, as he trots down the stairs. 

A soft knock hits the bedroom door.

“Mummy?”

Y/N looks up from where she’s curled against Tom’s chest. “Come in, sweetheart.”

The door creaks open just enough for five-year-old Mattheo to peek through, clutching his stuffed dragon dramatically.

“Mummy,” he whispers sadly, “I’m scared.”

Y/N immediately softens. “Oh, baby”

Tom groans quietly beside her.

Mattheo pads into the room, climbing straight onto the bed without invitation. “Can I sleep with you?”

Y/N brushes his curls back gently. “Matty, you’re growing up now, sweetheart. You need to learn to be independent.”

Mattheo blinks at her, then slowly turns toward his father.

Tom is practically wrapped around Y/N, one arm locked around her waist, face buried against her shoulder like he intends to stay there forever.

Mattheo points immediately. “But Daddy is bigger than me,” he says. “He should be independent first.”

Y/N bites down hard on a laugh.

Tom glares at his son instantly. “Excuse you.”

Mattheo gasps dramatically. “See? He’s awake. He can sleep alone.”

“I can,” Tom says flatly. “I just shouldn’t have to.”

“That’s not independent.”

“That’s marriage.”

Mattheo narrows his eyes suspiciously. “I think you’re just clingy.”

Tom looks personally offended. “I am not clingy.”

Y/N snorts softly. “Tom.”

He looks at her immediately. “Don’t betray me.”

Mattheo takes advantage of the distraction and crawls closer to Y/N. “Mummy said I’m growing up.”

“You are.”

“So Daddy should grow up too.”

Tom’s glare sharpens. “You came into my room at midnight to attack my character.”

“You stole my mummy.”

“I married her.”

“That sounds fake.”

Y/N is fully laughing now, hiding her face against Tom’s shoulder.

Tom tightens his hold on her immediately when she shifts like she might sit up. “No,” he mutters.

Y/N blinks. “What?”

“You were about to comfort him.”

“I am comforting him.”

“You were going to leave me.”

Mattheo points accusingly. “Clingy!.”

Tom looks genuinely betrayed. “Why are you yelling?”

“Because you’re being dramatic.”

“You got that from your mother.”

Y/N gasps. “Rude.”

Tom just buries his face against her neck again, tightening his arms around her waist possessively when she laughs.

Mattheo watches this carefully, then sighs like he’s exhausted by both of them. “Mummy,” he says seriously, “Daddy needs therapy.”

Tom immediately points at him. “Go to bed.”

“You go to bed.”

“I’m literally in bed.”

“Then sleep independently.”

Tom stares at his five-year-old son for a long moment. “…I don’t like you.”

“Yes you do.” Unfortunately, Tom said nothing because the child was right.

Y/N was already lifting the blankets invitingly. “Come here, Matty.” Mattheo looked unbearably smug as he immediately climbed into the bed beside her.

Tom watched his son settle comfortably against Y/N like this was entirely normal behaviour. “…This is my bed,” Tom said flatly.

Mattheo grins victoriously against his mother’s shoulder. “Our bed now.”

Y/N laughed softly, stroking Mattheo’s hair once. “Be nice.”

Tom stared at both of them in complete disbelief and groans the second tiny feet hit his leg. “Oh for merlins sake.”

“Mummy,” Mattheo whispers loudly, “Daddy’s grumpy.”

“I can hear you.”

“I know.”

Y/N is still laughing softly as Mattheo cuddles into her side while Tom refuses to loosen his grip on her for even a second. Now both of them are attached to her.

Tom sighs dramatically into her shoulder. “This is unbelievable.”

Mattheo smiles sleepily. “Goodnight, Daddy.”

Tom stared at the ceiling for a long moment before exhaling quietly. “…I appear to have lost control of this situation entirely.”

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He had stretched out his hand to you, and despite finding the formality odd, you had reciprocated it nonetheless. It was cold to the touch and slightly rough. His hair was a tad bit too short you though, his features soft and eyes big and warm with a gleam behind them that you could only describe as presumptously confident.

“Gryffindor team?” you had asked, eyes on his scarlet and gold scarf that was on its way to the floor.

“Not yet, I’m preparing for the upcoming try-outs”

He hadn’t mentioned your father once during the conversation that had turned so long, he had to sit down in one of the stone benches with you following suit. The only time he had brought him up was when he had asked if your father was hard on you about the sport, which you had reasured him wasn’t the case. Then someone had called for him and he ran down the corridor to his next class, waving at you with a "see you later!" After that you had started looking for him during meals and in the hallways, but even when you did find him, you hadn’t dared to actually go and greet him, or even wave your hand. One time he had locked eyes with your at lunch before you had looked away, going completely red in the face and accidentally dropping your goblet of pumpkin juice.

You did however go to the Gryffindor Quidditch try-outs and sat on the section of the bleachers closest to the rings. When Oliver stood in front of them, a serious look on his face, you couldn’t help but think that he looked beyond cool, even if you had always found the Keeper head gear to look funny. He didn’t look at you, matter of fact, there didn’t seem to be anything that demanded his attention more than the quafle on the aspiring Chaser’s hands. You could still remember how many shots he stopped and how many he missed -seven and one- and that had only been because his broom had lagged slightly. You recognized the model, a Comet 260 that while well regarded had a tendency to lose it’s touch with time, and it looked like Oliver had been using his for a lifetime. When the trainning had been over you had walked down the stairs of the bleachers and towards the exit, where you heard someone call your name followed by:

“Came to watch?”

Oliver stood in front of you, his hair sticking to his forehead and still catching his breath. He was beaming.

“Yeah! You did really well”

“I don’t know, I failed the last shot”

“That was only one!”

“Every point counts on the pitch”

You had wanted to laugh at his seriousness, but he would have probably not taken it well. And you wanted him to like you.

“I’m sure you will get the position” you finally said, and it felt like the words were leaving your mouth in slow motion “They’d be mad to pass on you”

Oliver laughed and lightly tapped your shoulder. The adrenaline was still running through him, and something told you he wouldn’t have a wink of sleep before they announced the results in a few days.

You remember how heavy your eyelids had been feeling by the time Madame Pomfrey carefully shoke your shoulder.

“You ought to go, child. It’s late now”

You had stired on the chair you had been sitting on for a few hours, Oliver still unconscious in bed. The strange goo that Madame Pomfrey had put on his temple to treat the gash on it was still there, and yet you thought that he looked peaceful. The bludger had hit him barely twenty minutes into the game, and you had been running down the bleachers faster than they had picked him up.

“Go, don’t make me call a prefect”

Madame Pomfrey practically lifted you up from the chair and walked you to the doors of the Hospital Wing before closing them in your face. For days you would visit him in the morning before class, and bring your homework and reading to the Hospital Wing in the afternoon until dinner. The more days that passed, the more you couldn’t shake the worry that built up in your chest. Madame Pomfrey had started leaving the chair next to his bed, no longer bothering on putting it back on its place. Then on Saturday you had walked in to visit him and found that he wasn’t there anymore. You never told him you had been keeping him company, and if he had heard he hadn’t commented on it.

Of course the word “love” was far away from your vocabulary at the time, and you would only become aware of its meaning when it had started to eat you from the inside out. Oliver’s indifference while not on pourpose had  started on your second year after you had made the Hufflepuff team. While the year before - and during the summer - you had spent almost every free second talking Quidditch, loyalty to his team was something he took very seriously. As such, mending with someone from the opposing team meant Quidditch talk was way more scarce, and Oliver did not have many other conversation topics. Despite that, your friendship remained, your footsteps following him with animated chatter and casual study session on subjects both of you were awful at. After all, Quiddicth was the only particular thing you excelled at, aside from Charms and Transfiguration, which was the cause of many long evenings helping him out of his barely passable grades.

But there was no other memory as pivotal to your feelings for Oliver, so bright that would find you on your darkest times, than your first Quidditch game. You had played Gryffindor, and despite putting up a decent fight your team had been defeated by fifty points by the time the snitch had been caught, Charlie Weasley waving it in the air victoriously. Shoulders slopped and surrounded by the deafening cheers of the Gryffindor side of the bleachers you hadn’t heard Oliver call your name. You remember trying to take off your gloves, pushing the thick taste of defeat down your throat when his hands had grabbed your face with a bit of force, making you look at him. Sweat shinning on his forehead like dew on an early morning under the bright sun, a halo forming around his head.

“That was brilliant!”

You could remember the hot and damp touch of his fingers, the scent of leather as he held you in place. How you had notcied in that moment he seemed to have grown a few inches taller as his big glistening eyes, only narrowed by the weight fo his smile, looked down upon you with something close to admiration. His breath smelled strangely sweet, hitting your face as he panted in front of you.

“You won, though” you managed to mutter, feeling your legs start to quiver.

“No” he had said “Not to you”

And that right there had been the moment, the first time your child mind and young heart had felt the sharp sting of love. It had been things like these that had been seeding inside of you, blooming with every passing spring, not even the cold of winter able to make your feelings wither. It pained you however how casually his hands had found and held you close like that, as if it was nothing, as if you could just do that back without setting your heart aflame. Oliver Wood was for all intents and purposes, a dense idiot; and you had just fallen in love with him.

It had been your third year that had set the tone for the inevitable situation you would find youself in eventually; Oliver and you passing each other by like strangers, stolen glances all you had left. Fred and George Weasley while annoyingly good at Quidditch were not particularly good with subtlety, and they would never know how influential they had been at accelering the process of your eventual heartbreak. You had to admit you refused to like them because as they played opposite to you, you found yourself envying their technique and how in sinc they were during plays, shooting yours down every time. That’s why it was easy to get mad at them instead of Oliver, or even yourself, when Fred had asked:

“Won’t you introduce us to your girlfriend?”

You had approached the Gryffindors as all the teams waited on the pitch for one of Madame Hooch’s official meetings that took place once a month. There was a History of Magic exam comming up, and while you knew you wouldn’t pass, pretending to study for it would be better with Oliver keeping you company.

“Not my girlfriend”

Maybe if the twins hadn’t been such a constant headache, as he had expressed uncountable times to you, his tone would had been less harsh.

“But--”

Despite Fred’s teasing tune he had actually meant it, completely under the impression that Oliver was just acting tough whenever you talked to him in front of them. Especially ever since their first game against Hufflepuff.

“Merlin, her arms will break” George had joked to Fred once they were in the air, having stood in front of you as the teams greeted each other.

However there hadn’t been much laughter on their way back to the locker room after the game, Oliver in an espacially foul mood.

“Weren’t you listening yesterday during practice?”

Fred and George had been, in fact, not listening. As a result, despite Gryffindor winning the game, they saw themselves floored and unprepared for both Cedric’s agility and the reckless yet effective way you’d directed your bladgers at the Gryffindor players to keep them out of his way.

“Thought she’d be nicer” said George when they had walked into the cluttered dark room.

“Why?” Fred made a face “She doesn’t even look nice”

“You could learn a thing or two” the twins winced at Oliver’s stern voice behind them. While happy that they had won, he was beyond satisfied “She’s an Under19 contender you know? I told you to watch out for her, flew Alicia out her bloody broom twice”

Alicia Spinnet had been busy trying to apply a reparation charm she was reading from a book on her shattered broom.

“Under19?” George looked betrayed “Why didn’t you say?”

“I did! Don’t you read Monthly Snitches anyway?”

“Do they look like they read?” had asked Angelina, looking at the twins. Fred found that particularly funny.

“You should have seen how bummed out he was when she was sorted in Hufflepuff” Charlie, who was carefully taking off his gear, chimed in “You could tell he had planned the program for the next six years in his head the moment he heard her last name”

Oliver had too much respect for Charlie to talk back to him, so he just scoffed and took off his head gear with a bit too much force.

“Whatever, would you really like us to play like that?” asked Fred, making a face “Because I think she ought to be re-sorted into Slytherin. She was all over the place!”

“You get to be reckless when you are that good” he muttered, not bothering to look up.

“Seems like someone has a crush” Katie hummed from beind Oliver, her eyes locking with Angelina who giggled behind the twins.

“Shut up” was all Oliver had said, and so Fred had been under the impression that there was obviously something between the both of you.

But it was only after George had elbowed him, signaling towards you, that he saw that he had made a mistake. Your smile was frozen in place in an almost unnatural way and your body had turned stiff. He could swear you had stopped breathing as well.

“You planning for next year?” Oliver had asked you, completely ignorant to what had just transpired “That captain spot is looking really easy”

“Oh” something heavy was finding it’s way to the pit of your stomach, dense and suffocating “Yeah”

“You need to start planning ahead, much to do with your lot”

“Yeah, right. See you later”

Fred and George watched as you walked back to your team, Fred earning another elbow to the side that he didn’t bother to complain about. Oliver also found himself staring at you as Cedric Diggory leaned over to whisper what seemed to be a joke in your ear. A very funny one it seemed, as you playfully slapped his arm. He had made a fuss about Diggory the moment he had seen him at the Hufflepuff try-outs, almost earning you a scolding from Ms. Pince a few weeks later.

“There’s only one reason why he’d want to be seeker” he had whispered indignantly, gripping his quill so hard it almost broke the parchment “He wants to stand out”

Sitting opposite of him on the table you had abandoned your Potions book, no longer interested in pretending that your attention wasn’t somewhere else. Oliver’s hands holding the quill in a peculiar way between his surprisingly slender fingers, the apple of his neck bobbing up and down occasionally, and in this case the way his accent thickened when he got upset.

“What are you talking about?” you had asked, almost absent minded, bitting the end of your own quill like an idiot.

Oliver looked up from his paper and stared hard at you, his eyes momentarily looking down before shooting right up again, then away from you.

“Seekers have to be light, and fast. He just wants to be the center of attention by going against that”

“He is fast, though”

“Pretty boy, that’s what he is” he muttered as he went back to his paper.

You hummed in response, his stubborness making you swing your feet under the table at how endearing you found it.

“What” Oliver had risen his head in a swift motion, staring at you as if you had just said something awful “Don’t tell me you agree”

His tone had rose significantly, a few heads turning towards in your direction. Dunking your head out of abashment you shot him a confused look.

“What?”

“Diggory. You think he’s cute” he said the last word with almost repungance.

“I mean...” you had not expected that, the brief pause seeming to agitate him even further, his head shaking as if to hurry the answer out of you “He’s also very nice, and people like him a lot”

Oliver shook his head, ink splattering everywhere when he sunk his quill on the bottle. A few droplets fell on your book, darkenning the word “hence” and swallowing it whole, making it disappear.

“It’s all Angelina and Alicia bloody talk about. Diggory this, Diggory that”

Oh how much you had wished you could have told him that he was all you could think about too, your borderline pathetic adoration way beyond anything Angelina and Alicia could ever feel. You fantasized sometimes about telling him that sort of stuff, imagined his cheeks flushing pink and his eyes going wide, a stutter falling from his parted plush lips.

“I still prefer you”

You bit your tongue, knuckles white as you grabbed the edge of your skirt underneath the table. Oliver simply scoffed, eyes never leaving his paper.

“Thank you very much” he said drily, a hint of sarcasm laced in his words.

Despite what one might think, that didn’t bring you down. After all, it had been a while since you had come to terms with the fact that Oliver either wasn’t aware of your feelings or pretended not to be. You found yourself missing the days where he’d beam at your compliments, but ever since becoming captain no praise was good enough for him. Similarly, praise didn’t come your way anymore if it wasn’t wrapped in some kind of critique about your technique. Oliver jotted down the last line he had written with a groan and leaned back on his chair, eyes closed and his hands behind his head. He had written the same sentence twice. You tried not to pry at how the uniform shirt stretched around his biceps, or how his loose tie rested over his chest that rose and fell with a tired sigh. You stood up from the chair, attempting to make as little noise as possible, not wanting to exacerbate the students looking your way any further. You had stood next to him, his tired brown eyes fell from the ceilling to you.

“I’m going for dinner” you whispered.

“I have to finish this”

You had nodded, smiling at him as a silent goodbye. You hadn’t started to walk away when he said:

"Wait, I’m coming with you”

If there was something you couldn’t remember was how many times you had fantasized about your first Hogsmade visit. The image of Oliver and you walking side by side, arms and hands brushing against each other in search of warmth and the smell of sweets in the ir. Reality hadn’t started far away from that image. A blush had crept up from your chest up to your cheeks when Oliver had found you among the aglomeration of students waiting at the entrance of the castle. He had made his way to you, hands in the pockets of his courdoroy jacket, his thin black turtleneck underneath hugging his athletic figure in a way that made you dizzy. You had asked him to hang out with you, something that had felt more nerve-wrecking than it should have been for just a friend. The carriage had seemed spacious to you, but only once Oliver had sat down did the difference in size register properly in your head. His legs seemed to take most of the space on the seat, his knees bumped and rested against your thinly covered ones, the rough fabric of his jeans causing you to squirm and shift on your seat. It always had killed you knowing that he was always oblivious to the effect he had on you, how he could touch you so carelessly and with ease; how he wouldn’t have cared if you had moved your leg away. The seats in front of you were taken by two Gryffindor girls that had stolen a few glances at you both before bursting into poorly covered giggles.

“Hey” they had said.

“Hey” Oliver said back, it was obvious they knew each other.

You noticed how Oliver’s knees would slightly touch those of the girl in front of him whenver there was a small bump on the road, and wondered if he ever noticed things like that. If anyone’s touch could make him feel the way he did to you. The thought made you want to vomit.

“You are going to love Spintwitches” Oliver had said, excited.

“What’s that?”

“Quiddicth store” you rolled your eyes “What?”

“You said you’d give me a full tour... You better not just drag me there for the whole trip”

“I won’t!”

The girls suppressed dainty laughs behind their scarfs.

“You could try Madam Puddifoot” said one of them, her voice sweet and teasing.

“No way” had said Oliver immediately, as if the mere mention of that place had burnt him “Is not like that anyway”

“Oh” said the girl, and they didn’t say anything else during the rest of the trip.

You hadn’t understood what that exchange had meant until you’d been in front of the building yourself. You had wanted to come in before you had read the name, understandind what Oliver had meant, that bitter taste you were so familiar with bubbling up your throat. The whole walk through High Street had been a blur, your mind playing the image of that Gryffindor girl holding onto Oliver’s shoulder to get down from the carriage over and over again, how she had turned to thank him as she pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. The facade was of a powder pink, the paint slightly chipped from the passage of time, colorful sweets catching your attention through the wide windows displays. Dozens of couples smiled at each other inside, hands being held and smiles reciprocated, the feeling so foreign to you it made the world feel a bit colder. It really wasn’t like that, you already knew that.

“Dreadful” Oliver found his place next to you.

Your hands closed onto fists and you bit your lip.

“I think it’s cute”

“It’s a trap. I’ve seen friends get dragged in by girls, never to be seen again” he joked and you couldn’t stop your brows from furrowing, eyes fixed on the way some guy you recognized from Potions class played with his girlfriend’s fingers.

“Well, I am a girl, and all the boys in there look very happy to me” your turned around, glaring at him out of the corner of your eye “Not like you would get it”

“What?” he followed after you “I’m not clueless you know” he sounded quite offended “I just don’t get it”

“Lucky you” you mumbled, not sure if he had heard you.

Oliver stopped walking and you turned around to face him with a huff. He lifted his hands in the air, a mix of annoyance and confusion in his face. The same face he made when Gryffindor would get penalized during a game

“Like, you want to go in? We can go in if you bloody want!”

It was as if your face had burst into flames. What was he saying?

“Why are you mad at me?” you asked, voice rising comically as you looked anywhere but him. People were definitely starng now.

“You are the one getting mad!”

“I am not!”

“Yes you are!”

“Where is that bloody Quidditch store!”

Oliver huffed and closed the distance between you both, took a deep breath as he scanned your features, an obvious mix of embarrassment and evident anger in them as you looked away.

“Come on” is all he had said, giving a short tug at your scarf and walking ahead of you down the street.

You walked there with a strange feeling looming over your heads that immediately disipated the moment you entered the place. Oliver’s face changed to that of a child at a candy store, immediately walking along the corridors decorated with Quidditch equipement. Is not like you hadn’t wanted to go there, after all, Christmas was approaching. Last year you had gifted Oliver a small chest, which he hald held and turned around in confusion.

“It’s for all the letters I send you, I know they are a lot” you had scratched the back of your head, and in a sad attempt to sound casual you added “I mean, if you still have them”

“Of course I have them”

There had been reassurance and mild offense in the look he had given you. Then his eyes had widened as if he had just remembered something. Something awful.

“Yeah, wait here. I’ll bring yours”

He stormed off from the Great Hall and didn't come back until the teachers were hurrying all of you to leave for the train, running down the stairs and stopping in front of you, panting.

“For you”

He held something in his hands, black and shapeless. When you took it from him, you realized it was a scarf: his scarf. The one you’d seen him wear multiple times. The one you had been wearing at that exact moment, especially selected for your first trip to Hogsmade with him. He didn’t comment on it.

You had looked around the store, a few items catching you attention. He was standig by the shelves, heavy book open in his hands. Your feet stopped in front of his, some strands of your hair failling onto the pages as you lowered your head to read it too. He put them aside like a curtain, holding them onto place as his eyes went over the same parragraph a few times.

“You know” he started, his lips pressed together as if winning time “If you want to go there, I’ll go with you”

He propably heard the breath catching in your throat, close as you both were. The weird tension had dissipated and had been replaced by something else, something that felt terribly bittersweet.

“Where?” you feigned.

Oliver drew in a sharp breath, eyes never leaving the book.

“Bloody pink house of horrors”

It was strange, how unhappy that sentence had made you. Your heart, far from accelerating fell all the way through to your stomach. You forced a smile and a playful tone out of you.

“Are you mad? What would people think” You weren’t preocupied with how shaky the laugh that had crept out of your throat had been, but about how pathetic it was that deep down you had wanted him to retort that, to insist in going with you. “Also I’d like to go with someone who wants to take me there”

Too occupied looking elsewhere but him, you missed the way his jaw tensed before he swallowed.

“Yeah, right” he closed the book, a thin smile not reaching is eyes “You’ll have to find yourself a nice boyfriend then”

You reciprocated a similar fake smile.

“Guess so”

You couldn’t remember what you had given him that Christmas, nor what he had given you, that day at Hogsmade overshadowing most of your memories of that year. As such, most of what you remember happened in your fourth.

It had been the first meeting of the season and the sky seemed to protest at all of you being forced out of bed at 7am on a Saturday. The gray opaque clouds kept any sight of the sun hidden behind them, and as if they were sympathetic to you they protested with a low thunder. Hufflepuff had been walking alongside the Ravenclaw team who greeted you lazily at the Great Hall. Gryffindor as expected had been at the Pitch ahead of time, and you assumed Slythering couldn’t be too far behind you. As usual your eyes scanned the Gryffindor team in search of Oliver, however it had been for a complete different reason this time. You found him talking to George, and you immediatelly blended between your teammates to stop him from looking your way. You hadn’t told him yet what you were sure Ms. Hooch would announe briefly. And so she did after a particularly long chat.

“Finally, I want to congratulate Cedric Diggory on becoming the youngest captain of the last fifthy years”

Your teammates celebrated the announcement, playfully pushing Cedric around, his cheeks slightly rosy. Some Ravenclaw and Gryffindor players had joined with scattered cheers, even a few Slytherins clapped once or twice. Then a question cut through the air.

“What?”

While Oliver’s voice hadn’t been that loud, it had been enough to make the cheering cease almost immediately. Everybody had turned to look at him, but his eyes were focused on you, burning a hole through Preece’s wide frame that you were still hidden behind of.

“Is there a problem, Wood?” Ms. Hooch’s voice broke the silence with authority and mild confusion, but Oliver said nothing. “Right, meeting is over. Off you go”

One by one you could hear footsteps starting to walk away from where you stood, bottom lip between your teeth holding your breath as if expecting for a kick to the stomach. It really felt that way, if you were being honest. It had been bad enough having to break the news to Oliver that despite his expectations, when the time had come for you to be offered the captain badge you had decided to turn it down. It had downed on you through the summer that it wasn’t the role of captain you had been lookiing forward to, but the look on Oliver’s face when you told him about it. Maybe the scarce praise he had been giving you through the last few years would come more often, and the look in his eyes as he greeted you as equals on the pitch similar to the one he had given you after your first game. The look he had been giving you as everybody was walking away wasn’t anywhere close to that.

“You alright?”

Despite the question being quiet, you found yourself startling at Cedric’s voice. He had looked down at you, eyes briefly looking to the side as if being able to see Oliver walking towards you out of the back of his head.

“Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll catch up with you guys”

Cedric hesitated but just nodded, lips pressed together. He had started walking away just in time you thought, as Oliver was getting close enough to see the lines on his forehead where his brows met.

“Oi” Oliver had called after Cedric, who simply kept walking away without giving him a spare glance “Oi! I’m talking to you!”

“Oliver!” you pleaded, standing in front of him with your hands up in the air.

“That prick? Captain?” he spat, incredulous “Has Hufflepuff lost their minds?”

You couldn’t really blame him, after all this had been your fault. If only you had told him from the get go, faced the way you feared he would have looked at you, the way he was looking at you now, this wouldn’t have happened. “I’ll tell him tomorrow” you had told yourself every day, finding any excuse good enough not to do so, and so all the days had slipped away.

“Oliver...”

“It’s a sport not a popularity contest!” he made sure to emphasize these last words loud enough for Cedric to hear, his figure barely visible behind the thin curtain of rain that had started to fall.

“Oliver!” the sharp edge to your voice had managed to catch his attention, angry eyes setting on you and making you shudder “I got the spot offered to me. I turned it down”

You blurted it out quickly, scared that you would stop yourself in cowardice once again. There was a brief pause, gears turning on Oliver’s head.

“What do you mean?”

You swallowed.

“I... I didn’t want it”

“What are you talking about?” his voice cracked in disbelief “We’ve been talking about you becoming Captain for years”

It was somewhat true, you thought. Oliver had got it in his head that you should become captain the moment you joined the team, being the only one who in his eyes deserved to lead it. You had never corrected him on it, too drunk on the way he seemed to beam at the idea of you becoming captain.

“Cedric will do well”

Bitterness casted itself like a shadow over Oliver’s features, always finding it unpleasant when Cedric’s name came from your lips.

“You’d do better! He barely has a brain to use!”

“You don’t know that Oliver...” you retorted, eyes fixed on the grass. When had it started to rain? “You don’t know him either”

“Well, I know you!”

“Do you?” the question hung in the air louder than you had spoken it. Oliver’s shoulders came up and then down one more time, lips parted but saying nothing. When it had become too much to bear and before he had time to ask what you had meant ,you added “I wasn’t ready, that’s all. Okay?”

Something had flashed behind Oliver’s eyes, soft and vulnerable, then immediately hardening into the stubborness you knew all too well.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

You pursed your lips together, feeling the overwhelming weight of a cry creep up your throat. All you could o was shrug.

“Because you really wanted me to be captain? I don't know. I didn’t want to...” disappoint you, is what you wanted to say “Bum you out”

“I just wanted--”

“Well I don’t”

Oliver’s body stiffened at the crack in your voice, louder and more upset than he had ever heard it. Only then did he feel the damp coldness of the rain, clothes sticking to his body and falling down on your face as you nonchalantly lifted your arm to rub your eyes against your sleeve. It occured to him that you had refused to look at him through the entire conversation, and realized he didn’t like it. It was strange and unnatural for him to not be able to stare back at you, your eyes always wide and glistening with something only your eyes seemed to hold. He bit his bottom lip, hand aching to--

“Are you crying?” he had asked, blunt in his surprise.

The question had felt mocking in your ears, making the sour feeling in your chest more painful than it already was.

“No” you lied, and he knew it “It’s just rainning”

You had braced youself for more harsh and stubborn remarks, sporadic fights no matter how rare always ending with Oliver having the last word. Instead however, you felt the light, almost ghostly touch of his fingers brushing a damp strand of hair away from your face. You felt your body stiffen as it tended to do whenever Oliver touched you no matter how briefly, eyes fluttering for a moment as he abruptly retracted his hand.

“We should get back” he had said, clearing his throat.

You nodded, a strange smile on your lips as you walked in front of him with quick steps. That had been the first time since Oliver could remember that you didn’t wait for him to catch up to you.

It must have been the second or third match of the season, you could’t remember which exactly, that brought what would go down in history as one of the most dignified defeats your house would ever suffer. It had also been one of the worst days in Oliver’s life.

“Hufflepuff needs to counter if they want to catch up!” Lee Jordan’s voice had barely registered on any of the player’s ears at that point, but it resonated loudly through the pitch.

“They need a bloody miracle that’s what they need” had said Oliver through gritted teeth.

Oliver eyes followed your figure as it flew through the pitch, they always did as he was of the opinion you were the only player worh keeping an eye on. These days however that was more difficult than he liked to admit, given your new strategy of orbiting around Cedric the moment he caught sight of the snitch, getting rid of any bludgers that flew his way. Oliver hadn’t agreed with you completely out of pride when you had pesented the idea, but he hadn’t spoken against it either. He’d die before admiting Diggory was any good, and would quit Quidditch before agreeing to the idea of you rubbing elbows with him.

“Can’t that pretty boy accelerate? Oi! Get a new broom!”

“That’s way harsh!” protested Angelina, that sat next to him.

She had to force him to sit down again, Oliver having stood up from his seat, hand cupping around his mouth as if that’d make Cedric able to hear him any better. It was no use however, as both seekers shot up on their brooms towards the cloudy sky, disappearing behind them with you following suit. Cedric’s broom was indeed just a tad bit slower than the snitch, nothing could be done about that, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a way to make it faster. You saw the yellow and green clocks dive down, and tipping the front of your own broom you took in a sharp breath before putting your plan in motion. Cedric hadn’t noticed when you had shown up next to him, his extended arm barely an inch away from the snitch, the Slytherin seeker not any closer. Cedric barely registered the nod you had given him, agreeing to whatever you had asked him to trust you for with a brief glance. You swerved and positioned your broom parallel to Cedric, and in one swift motion you recklessly grabed onto him, frocing you both to spiral on your way down. All the audience saw was a blurry mist of yellow plumenting on its way to the ground, everyone letting out a gasp before Cedric and you separated, crashing at different points of the pitch.

“Cedric Diggory has caught the snitch! The game is over with Slytherin ahead by a hundred points! Slytherin wins” he had said the last part in a lazy manner, which didn’t stop Slytherin from cheering loudly.

However their victory was drowned by the roaring applause coming from every other house, that last play overshadowing the Slytherin win in the eyes of the school. Even Marcus Flinch would compliment you on it a few days later, the interaction the first and last you’d ever have with him. Cedric had managed to stand up, not without tripping over his own feet, his hand aching from the strength he was holding onto the snitch with. He was swallowed in gold and black, his hair getting rubbed violently in a way that could have made him think you guys had won. It also made him slightly nauseous, his world still spinning as wildly as yours.

Oliver’s knuckles had turned white gripping the rails, eyes open wide as if he was trying to burn that memory in his brain, as if blinking would make the details of the play go away. He had risen to his feet the moment he had seen you dive down, heart racing in a mix of excitement and worry. His eyes were still fixed on you, having witnessed the way you had unceremoniously crashed on the sand, a sigh of relief escaping his lips as he saw you stand up and walk to your team. Then he saw Cedric scoop you up, lifting you off the ground with little effort like he had done it a thousand times before. Your arms loosely wrapped around his neck, matted wind blown hair catching the light and a wide smile on your face. He didn’t miss the way the female voices in the crowd had cheered a little louder when he had lifted you in his arms.

“What a play!” had said Angelina, shaking Oliver by the shoulders as she cheered alongside the rest of the Gryffindor house to the honorary winners of the game.

The noise from his own house spiked again but Oliver could barely hear it. He was annoyed at the way Diggory seemed to love showing off. Is not like that play had been his idea, he thought, it had obviously been yours. You were probably embarrassed, upset about him taking the credit. You probably hated it. Didn’t you?

“Prick”

Valentine's Day that year had been the first one you had been brave enough to not send Oliver an anonymous gift like you had done for the past four years. You were aware that anyone would have guessed it was you by now, Oliver's friends and anyone who knew him had relaized the first time. Maybe he did know, and that’s why he always reacted so unenthusiastically to them, his subtle way of rejecting you without having to go through the uncomfortable act of doing so. You had approached the Gryffindor table with your mind set on bringing up the secret admirer you knew hadn’t sent anything this time, pathetically hoping he’d sulk even just a bit. He sat there, eyes fixed over pages of strategies that seemed to work only in his head. The sleeves of his sweater had been rised to his elbows, the usual brushes from practice spread across his arms in kisses of red an purple. His hair was a mess from all the times you could guess he had ran his hand through it already. He looked devilish handsome and a total mess, and it was only breakfast.

“Want me to bring you anything from Hogsmade?”

Oliver had been skipping the last visits to Hogsmade, insisting he had to use his free time on planning for the next game against Slytherin. The last few months had also been strange. There was an eerie sense of normalcy whenever you’d talk, something unspoken hanging in the air by a very thin thread that you both pretended not to notice. His head had quickly perked up at the sound of your voice, looking at you for a moment before forcing himself to go back to his notes.

“I’m going, actually”

“Oh, really?” you tried to sound casual “Fancy hanging out a bit later then?”

“I can’t” he replied rather quickly in a strangely proud tone. However as he looked at you out of the corner of his eye he hesitated “I’m going with a girl from class, she sent me a Valentine’s gift asking me to go with her. Veronica Mulnich, you met her”

You had needed a second to process that whole sentence, not only because of what he had said, but because of how quickly he had said it.

“Did I?”

“Hogsmade, last year. Rode the carriage with us”

Oh. So this had been what they called woman’s intuition. An unpleasant feeling like a cold sweat in the back of your neck.

“Which one?”

You had begged for him to not say “the pretty one”, repeating it like a mantra what seemed an impossible amount of times in the very few seconds it took him to answer.

“Curly hair”

“Oh, yeah”

“I guess after years of anonymous stuff she just decided to ask me out”

There was a thin sharp noise as if cracking glass, and you wondered if anyone had heard it coming from your ribcage. Oliver rearanged his notes in no partiuclar order.

“Oh!” your voice was cheerful, almost as painful to hear as it had been for you say “So, is a date then?” Oliver lightly tapped the papers on the table to align them properly “You are going on a date”

He tried to give you a casual look only to look away immediately, as if annoyed. His lips pressed into a thin smile and he nodded.

“Actually I should go, I’m a bit late”

“Right, okay” you had stood up from your seat before he did, nausea bubbling up in your stomach and making the walls of the Great Hall spin. With what little courage you had left you patted Oliver in the shoulder, your touch seeming to burn him, but you didn’t notice “Good luck. See you later”

Your friends had had to drag you to Hogsmade that day, somewheat oblivious to the long shadows cast on your face, the sickened color of your skin and glassy twinkle in your eyes. It hadn’t taken long for your heavy steps to drag you to the back of the group and eventually away from them, too far behind to bother catching up. There was a jolt that ran through you, making you stop and look; call it woman’s intuition. Across the windows of the pink building you still hadn’t had the chance to step into, there sat Oliver with Veronica Mulnich, his body slightly turned away from you. She was talking to him, hand underneath her chin and head titled to the side, a genuine sweet smile on her face. He had said something you obviously couldn’t hear and she laughed wholeheartedly the same way you always did, but it seemed different when she did it. The strain on your jaw as you tried to stop yourself from crying started to hurt too much to keep it up. In a fit of something you couldn’t quite understand you tugged at the scarf on your neck, Oliver’s scarf, and yanked it with so much strength you hurt yourself. Franctic as you had been to run away you bumped head first onto someone, a surprised gasp coming from them.

“Wow, are we in a hurry?”

It was a Weasley twin, you didn’t need to look up to know that, height and voice telling you enough. Even if you had tried to find out if it was Fred or George it would have been futile, the world engulfed in a damp mirage as warm tears fell from your eyes. You had muttered a shaky “sorry” and moved past him, or them, with as much grace and dignity as you had left, throwing Oliver’s scarf in the nearest bin without a second glance.

By the time Oliver and Veronica had left Madam Puddifoot he had ran out of things to say, but thankfully to him she seemed fine carrying the conversation by herself. She had tangled their arms together, slightly leaning onto him for warmth as they had started their walk through Hogsmade, the closeness making their walking a bit awkward, but she didn’t seem to care. Oliver’s eyes were eyeing every store and every group of people, seemingly absent from his own conversation.

“I’m sure town must be gorgeous during Christmas. Do you know if you’ll leave for the holidays?”

She had looked up and was met with his profile, jawline defined and muscles underneath tense. She gave his arm a squeeze.

“What?” he turned to her “Oh, I don’t know yet”

But he had known, he would go home and regret not being able to practice outside, probably write to you. Something made him stop in the middle of the street, Veronica looking up at him in cofusion. From in between the aglomeration of people there were two flashes of bright orange hair, impossible to miss. The Weasley twins were casually standing by one of the narrow streets, which usually would mean nothing good was about to go down. However that hadn’t been what had made him stop. One of the twins had been leaning over to speak to someone, faces too close for comfort, or maybe he just thought that because it had been you George was talking to. Whether Victoria was still holding onto him as he walked in between a group of people who gave him a strage look he wasn’t sure, and he couldn’t be arsed about it.

“Why are you laughing?” had asked George, hands on his knees so his face would be at your level, turning your sobs into a chuckle “Isn’t this better for you?”

“We adapt to short people's needs. Tell your friends"

The Weasley twins weren’t very tactful, but if there was something they had learned from their older brothers was that you should never make a woman cry, and if you ever saw one doing so, you had to fix it. They had dragged you into the more quiet street by softly placing their hands on your shoulders, the surprised cry making them apologize profusely. While not the most careful, Fred and George were nothing short of sharp, a simple look inside Madame Puddifoot enough for them to share a knowing look before they had turned around looking for you.

“Are you trying to catch a cold?” George had taken out his scarf and had placed it around your neck “There are better ways to get to skip class you know?”

“Yeah, we can hook you up” Fred said from where he was standing next to you “Is still a prototype so you might burp bubbles or something, though”

That had made you laugh, distracting you enough to not notice Fred moving beside you.

“Nothing to see here”

You had looked up to see him hands ups in the air, only partially seeing Oliver’s face behind him as he shifted enough to block his path.

“What’s going on?” Oliver asked, almost demanding.

“Street is closed due to damages”

Oliver tried to edge past Fred, his eyes never leaving George’s hands nuzzling the scarf around your neck, his hands surely grazing the skin of your neck. That wasn’t your scarf, he thought. That wasn’t the scarf he had given you, the one you had worn for the last two years. He called your name once, maybe twice as Fred kept walking in front of him, until you finally dared to look up. Your eyes were red and slightly puffy, tears catching the sunlight in a way that made them sparkle like glass under the winter sun. For a second he had the selfish thought that they looked beautiful. Then the glance was gone.

“Gotta go back to your date, mate?” asked Fred, looking over Oliver’s shoulder at Victoria, who was standing there waiting for him. Something in the way Fred had said it made Oliver flinch, earning him a hard look from him, but Fred didn't budge.

The twins swept you away swiftly with a barricade of jokes , leaving him behind in the middle of the street watching you walk away without as much as a glance as he felt an arm wrap around his again.

Dinner that night had barely saciated Oliver, busy as he had been dunking the fork repeatedly into his plate without ever really bringing the food to his mouth. His eyes were set on where you sat at the Hufflepuff table, your friends sitting closer to you than usual, almost as if they were shielding you from something. His knee was shaking underneath the table, nervously waitng for you to look up towards him. You always did, after all. He could always find you in a crowd, already looking at him and a smile ready at our lips for when he finally found you. You hadn’t looked his way once since he had sat down, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was on purpose. When he saw you get up his knee hit the table so hard it made a few people jump on their seats. He immediately stood up under the annoyed looks of the people arround him and matched your step towards the entrance of the Great Hall, where he managed to catch you before you walked towards the door that lead to the kitchen.

“Oi! What happened there?”

“Oh, hey, sorry” you retracted your hand slowly from where he had held it to stop you “It’s nothing, I just fought with my friend. We made up so it’s alright.

He knew you were lying, but there wasn’t anything he could have said to prove it.

“...okay”

 “How was your date?”

That took him by surprise, the sudden question making him take an unconscious step back, hands burying in his pockets.

“It was... alright. I’m not sure there’ll be another one”

“You spoke too much about Quidditch?”

He knew he could never tell you about what had transpired after he had seen you disappear between the crowd, the image of George Weasley’s hand around your shoulders buried in his memory. There’s no way he could tell you how Victoria had insisted on entering a small shop on the corner of the street, gushing about the cluttered charming decor of the store.

“Smell this!” She had held the bottle below his nose, the strange smell reaching Oliver and making him wince “What does it smell like?”

“You tell me!” he said, a bit annoyed “It smells awful”

“Does it?” she asked, quite shocked “It smells like leather and incense to me”

“What? No it doesn’t” Oliver made a face and leaned forward to smell the contents again. This time it didn’t seem that strong, the distinct scents breaking apart from one another more distinctively “Grass... sweat” Veronica’s face panicked, and she discretely turned his head to sniff over her shoulder “Something else, perfume? What even is this?”

“Amortentia” she had said.

“Oh”

It made sense that Veronica had smelt the distinc leathery scent that always seemed to trail after Oliver, even during Divination: the incense infused class they’ve sat together at for three years. For Oliver however, it seemed to make sense it had been Quidditch. Veronica had laughed drily at that, like he had said it as a joke.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you can’t smell a sport”

Oliver wasn’t stupid, no matter how hard he seemed to try to seem like it at times. He was aware of how familiar the smell was, yet couldn’t really pinpoint it. It was driving him crazy.

“How do you know?” he asked, coming back to you.

“You don’t have many conversation topics”

“I do! We talk about things other than quidditch”

“Do we, though?” you smiled at him, but there was a bitternes behind your words.

“Yeah, well..." You missed the way Oliver stepped forward again, getting a bit closer than he had before, taking a deep breath as he got close to you. You also missed the way he frowned as he realized there was no such scent. He would spend the rest of the school year thinking about it. "She wasn’t the one who sent me the Valentine’s the previous years, by the way”

“Oh” you prayed he hadn’t seen the way you swallowed, your mouth and lips feeling dry “The mystery continues then”

“Yeah I guess” something flickered in his eyes as he stared at you with something that you didn’t quite get “Maybe she moved on from me” he joked, but he didn’t laugh.

Your hands balled into fists, your nails digging into your palm and you managed a small shrug. If only he knew how much you wished you had the ability to do so.

“Maybe”

The walk to the locker room had been slow that afternoon, the sound of brooms dragging against the stone steps the only thing interrumpting the silence that had fallen upon your team the moment the game had ended. That, and the cheers that could still be heard from the Gryffindor house back at the pitch. Your uniform was spottless after you took it off, not a wrinkle had had the time to appear since it had been ironed that same morning. Cedric cleared his throat as he stood in the middle of the room, hands on his waist and uniform still on. You all turned to him, your eyes falling to the floor just like his was. He didn’t say a single word until one of your teammates patted him in the back.

“It’s alright Ced”

He gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze before walking out of the room in silence, your teammates following suit with similar comforting remarks. And then it was just the two of you. There was a prolongued silence after the door closed with a loud screech and footsteps disappeared in the distance. Cedric ripped the goggles from his head and threw them against the ground with a crash that echoed on the walls. It made you wince, but you had been expecting it.

“Is not your fault” you murmured.

“And whose is it then?”

You couldn’t deny you were angry, frustrated tears picking at the corners of you eyes the moment you had heard the whistle barely five minutes into the game. How Harry Potter had caught the snitch so quickly was beyond you, but more importantly at the moment was that Cedric was beyond himself.

“I still have my grades” he chuckled bitterly “That’s something, isn’t it”

“I’m sure your parents won’t say anything Ced”

Frustration and embarrassment showed on his face in the form of flushed cheeks. He kneeled down to pick up his goggles and when his eyes caught the light through one of the craks on the door, you realized he was about to cry too.

“You are right, they won’t. It’s all in the eyes, you know”

You had been about to say something when the voices of the Gryffindor players caught your attention, and you found yourself reaching for the door as they tried to open it. Katie was only able to open the door a few inches before you stopped it with your hands.

“We are not done” you said, your small frame attampting to shield Cedric from the team.

“...okay?”

The Gryffindor players stopped behind Katie, Fred and George Weasley rubbing Harry Potter’s head. None of them had broken a sweat either, you noticed. Oliver came in last, asking what was holding everyone up, broom held behind his back like the world belonged to him. When he saw you, the slightly cocky smile he had had on faltered a bit.

“It’s alright” said Cedric, opening the door completely behind you.

“Oh?” said Fred “Hope we didn’t interrupt anything”

Oliver’s eyes darted from you, to Cedric, then back to you and then to the side.

“No, sorry. We were just leaving” you said

Cedric and you got out of the locker room and started to walk away when someone spoke behind your back between forced coughs:

“Nice game”

There was some snickering behind you, catching a glimpse of Oliver reprimanding his team albeit with a smile on his face that quickly fell when his eyes met yours.

That had marked the last Hufflepuff game of your fourth year, and as such there wouldn’t be much opportunity to see Oliver, not that you had been particularlly thrilled to do so. For the first time in your life you had made the effort to not find him between classes nor meals, not because you didn’t want to see him, but because you knew nothing good would happen if you did. That’s why you were shocked when despite what you had thought, Oliver keep spawning around every corner. On Wednesday he had stood in front of the Hufflepuff common room for so long that even your friends started to take pitty on him, but you didn’t budge, only going in after he had left for dinner. It was making you miserable, the lengths you had to go simlply to delay the inevitable fight that would break between you two. That’s why when you ran onto him after Herbology that Friday you had decided to give up and try to be civil.

He was leaning again the stone wall, hands in his pockets and wrinkled sleeves rolled up to his elbows. It was time for him to get a haircut too, his unruly hair spiking out at different angles. You couldn’t count how many times a day you longued to just reach your hand and just--

“Didn’t take you for a sore loser” he said, voice getting lost among the animated chatter of your classmates.

You inhaled sharply, the grip on your books tightening.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Oliver tilted his head to the side. taking a moment to take you in before looking away with a shrug. The sunlight that had been comming from the window behind him gave him a natural halo, and if you hadn’t been so upset the sight would have been enough to remind you why you were in love with him.

“Are you going to keep avoiding me?” he asked, his tone dry yet poignant.

“I am not avoiding you”

“Oh” he sneered “So you are going to start lying to me too? Cool”

“Have you been following me?”

His smile disappeared in an instant, tonge pocking at the side of his cheek.

“I was just trying to talk to you”

“About what”

You would be lying if you said you hadn’t meant to sound so cold, but you had. Oliver turned to you again, but the way he looked at you was harsh. He observed the way you were standing defiantly in front of him, an expression on your face that he had never seen on you, or at least never directed towards him. And all because of that guy.

“Forget about it” he scoffed.

Oliver peeld himself from the wall, not getting too far before you had grabbed his hand and started to pull with, you were surprised to find out, not much resistance. Not a single words was exchanged until you had taken him behind the greenhouse and saw two of your classmates snogging between the vines that crawled up the windows.

“Piss off!” you had said, both running away completely red on the face.

Oliver had to press his lips on a thin line to stop himself from laughing at the scene, his stubborness never allowing him to back down now. You turned back to look at him, a few strands of hair falling in front of your already flushed face, ready for it.

“What” you nudged “Come on, say it”

“Say what”

“Whatever it is you got to say about Hufflepuff, or Cedric for that matter. I’m assuming that’s what you’ve been meaning to tell me about”

Oliver really didn’t like to admit that you were right, being read like an open book was not a favorite of his. When it came to you however he knew he couldn’t escape it, denying it would have been futile. He knew that you knew. Knew what he would say, every word of every sentence, in what order and what tone. And yet you refused to see eye to eye with him.

“I just wanted to see if you were okay”

“Of course I’m not!”

“Then why can’t you agree?”

“On what!”

Oliver finally looked at you with vivid eyes, arms crossed in front of him and brows furrowed so close together they seemed to reach his long eyelashes.

“That you should be the captain!”

“Oh my-- not again Oliver” you had said in exasperation “I told you, I didn’t want it!”

“Bullshit”

It caught you off guard, the way he had said it, perfectly calm and almost calculated.

“I don’t want to lead, I just want to play”

“You just want to lose, you mean?” his smile crooked with spite “Well, does it feel good?”

“No, it doesn’t. But do you know what would feel good?” you had taken a step forward, breath catching in his throat and chest expanding as if preparing for whatever you were about to throw at him “The Head of my house bending the rules in favour of our team so we can have some damn bloody first year prodigy play with us”

To that he had nothing to say, and he hated it. He had kept Harry’s excellence a secret before the season started from everyone but his own team, and also you. Oliver Wood who prided himself in having Quidditch as a first priority had slipped and told you about it, too excited not to. He had expected you to share his excitement, and while you had tried to he had noticed there was a sour twist to the way you had smiled at him at the time.

“Even with Harry you could take us. If only you--”

“If only I did what! What about me? Why do you keep putting all this weight on me like I could fix the team by myself?”

Oliver ran a hand over his face with a groan, arms breaking free and gesturing wildly at you.

“Because you could! Don’t you see how you are the only one in the team who is worth a damn? You have the smarts and you have the technique--”

“I am not you, Oliver! I can’t lead, I’m not a captain!”

“And Diggory is?”

“Yeah, actually! Cedric’s a good leader!”

Oliver flinched at the way his name left your lips, you could see his body stiffen and  the muscles tensing underneath his jaw. For a moment he just stared, brows drawing tight in disbelief. When had he found his way into your life the way he had? What had he missed?

“You can’t be seriously defending him right now”

“He’s got charisma and he’s got leadership, he’s got--”

“Beaten in five minutes by an eleven year old? Yeah, that was pretty class”

That shut you up, and for a very brief second he savoured the way you ran out of things to say. Then something shifted in the air and he got scared. But he would never admit it.

“That’s my friend, you know?”

Oliver looked away with a bitter and humorless chuckle, shaking his head before he asked:

“That’s what they are calling it nowdays?”

There was a small pause, you didn’t notice the way he held his breath.

“And what do you care”

“I don’t”

“I know” he didn’t move or say anything right away, fists flexing at his sides and eyes searching yours for something that wasn’t there anymore “Are we done?”

“Yeah”

That summer Oliver had found himself laying in bed, window open trying to escape the suffocating heat between dozens of Quidditch books and magazines. There was a particular volume that had been thrown into a corner of the room the moment he returned home that year, and still lied there when the orange hue of the late July evening casted its light over it. Hidden in one of the pages there had been an article about your Under19 debut that he had memorized by now, having thought about framing it and gift it to you for Christmas at some point. He had stared at it as he lied in bed, short sleeve t-shirt sticking to his back, the room feeling way too hot out of nowhere. It had been like this whenever he was alone with the thought of you, or more like you in the company of Diggory during summer break.

After that fight neither of you had made a single effort to go back to normalcy, and so you hadn’t talked ever since. It had been weird, losing the cup to Ravenclaw, mind already racing about all the things he wanted to go over with you before realizing he couldn’t do that anymore. You had started sitting with your back facing the Gryffindor table too, something you had never done. Because of this hostile situation he had found himself hidding behind a statue in one of the hallways as he saw you approaching with your friends, the topic of conversation almost making him rip the pages out of the book he was holding. The Diggorys had invited you to spend the summer with them, convinced that your little stunt with Cedric during the Slytherin game deserved proper trainning.

“We need to be more in sync” you had said and his stomach had turned, especially at the way your friends had giggled at that, even if you had told them to “shut up!” embarrassedly right after.

No matter how many books he read the image of you kept popping in his head, hair blowing in the summer breeze with Cedric next to you, sweat clinging to your clothes as you laughed at something he had said. Having breakfast together in the early morning and passing the brick of milk to each other with lazy, sleepy morning grins. Him with an arm around your shoulders as you had a stroll with his parents through London.

Oliver stood from his bed, shaking his head so violently his room started spinning. A few books he had on his bed had fallen with loud tuds, and he left a small groan before bending down to pick them up. He retracted one of them form underneath the bed, his hand gracing something that made him still. He dragged the small silver box from under the bed and stared at it for a few seconds, realizing he hadn’t seen it in almost a year. Had it been any other summer he would have seen it every week, but he couldn’t remember the last time he had used it. The lid opened with the soft click he was so familiar with, and the moment he had fully opened it time seemed to stand still. His body reacted half a heartbeat before he understood, the hairs in his arm standing up with a subtle chill that crawled down his back. There were dozens of pieces of parchment, letters you had sent, pilled inside as carefully as he had been able to keep them. He had lifted one of the letters with a trembling hand and brought it close to his nose, scared to confirm what he deep down already knew.

Grass, from the way it always crunched softly under your feet whenever you had agreed to practice with him during his second year, no one on the team having wanted to use their free time helping him.

Sweat, from the first time he had seen you cry after Hufflepuff lost the chance to the Cup after you joined the team. He had hugged you awkwardly, not really sure on what to do or how to hold you, his nose burying itself lightly on your damp hair that smelled like effort and regret.

And flowers, the scent that had been imprinted in every single letter you had sent him for the last five years, each one making the scent a tad bit stronger, seeping into his life almost impercetibly.

The trip to Hogwarts had been peaceful for the most part, your friends and you deciding to sit towards the end of the train to avoid the loud first years that tended to sit at the front. It was around the thrid hour of the trip that you had admitted to yourself that despite having just had breakfast you were still hungry, leaving the compartment filled with animated chatter to go find the Honeydukes cart. You found it after a few minutes, not really mentally prepared for the sight in front of you. Oliver was standing by the cart, more inconvenienced by not being able to pass by than interested in buying anything. He rarely enjoyed candy, the few times you had seen him buy any was to give it to you back on your second year when he had been able to go to Hogsmade while you had to stay at the castle. He noticed you before you had time to pretend you hadn’t.

“Hey” you had said when you finally joined everyone else at the cart, a sad attempt to be matture about it.

“Hey”

His voice was flat and casual, the kind of casual that takes actual effort.

“How was your summer?”

“Good”

Oliver’s eyes didn’t spare you a single glance, instead darting around the cart as if he had actually planned to buy something.

“Cedric and I got a lot of plays in mind for this year” you said, immaturity and his indifference getting the better of you “We planned them over the summer”

That got him, eyes narrowing ever so sligtly.

“Really?” he said, not even attempting to hide his annoyance at the statement. What would have been the point, though.

“Yeah, I stayed with his family for a few weeks in July. They got lots of space, we practiced a lot”

Oliver inhaled through his nose, slow, like he was trying to keep his heartbeat steady.

“Oh, I bet you did” he grumbled.

There had been the fantiest twitch at the corner of his mouth, more of a half scowl than a smile.

“Are you kids going to buy anything?” asked the old lady, small beady eyes looking at you both impatiently.

You took in a deep breath, his eyes stared at you in anticipation.

“I’m going to beat you this year” you said defiantly, and for a second before you turned around you could have sworn you saw the ghost of a smile on his lips.

But whether your startegies would have been Quidditch Cup worthy or not you wouldn’t have the chance to find out. The incidents surroundind the re-opening of the Chamber of Secrets had gotten Quidditch cancelled and the whole school in a constant state of nervousism.

Everybody was trying to find a way to take their mind off things, and you hadn’t even wanted to think about how Oliver was handling the No Quidditch policy. You had, against what you have told yourself, tried to check on him. Your eyes had met awkwardly across the Great Hall during meals, looking away right away like you were eleven again and still figuring out why you couldn’t stop looking for him in every room. He didn’t look away from you however, not like you’d ever find out, eyes glued to your food that wasn’t appetizing at all. Hogsmade trips had stayed in place, and that had been when you had ran into Oliver, way too drunk to have had just butterbeer, laughing and walking with some difficulty with his equally inhebriated friends. They were singing happy birthday way too loudly, Oliver not really joining but marching slightly behind, an amused smile on his face that had disappeared the moment he saw you. You weren’t sure of what you had expected, but it definitely wasn’t him simply walking throught the inches of snow towards you and away from his friends.

“You are not off age yet” you said as he stood next to you “You turned seventeen barely three months ago”

“And you didn’t wish me a happy birthday” he replied in a childishly manner.

“I was under the impression that you didn’t want to talk to me?”

“I don’t” he said way to quickly. It was very obvious how drunk he was, the thickness of the alcohol stretching and making the words stick to one another. There was also a sulkiness to his demeanor, softening his usual stubbornness “You spend all your words talking to Diggory anyway”

“Why do you dislike him so much?” you sighed “Why do you have to bring him up every time you talk to me?”

“Because he’s a prick” he muttered matter of factly, a slight pout on his lips as he swerved in place “Is he in love with you?”

“What?”

“Is he?”

“He’s just my friend! You used to be too!” you straightened in place, measuring your words “Or I thought you were”

Oliver blinked at you, slowly, waiting or all these words to register properly. The concious part of him focused on the pinkish hue your lips turned when you were cold.

“What youmean?”

You kicked a bit of snow, wondering if you should even bring it up.

“Was I ever your friend?”

He frowned, as if he was trying hard to concentrate.

“I don’t understand”

“Do you remember why we became friends?”

Oliver took his time, thinking really hard about what you were asking. After a while he could only come up to one conclusion, announcing it with a shrug.

“Dunno. You’ve always been 'round me”

You scoffed and looked away, your stomach feeling strangely hollow.

“Yeah. Sorry about that, I guess”

“What’re youon about?

“Why’d you never ask me to get lost if I bothered you so much?”

“Wh--”

“You talked to me because of who my father is, and if I had told you I don’t play Quidditch you wouldn’t have talked to me again at all”

“I guess?” Oliver shook his head “But you did, so what does that matter? You were my firend and you took care of me when I got hurt and I thought you were cool--”

“Wait, what do you mean took care of you?”

Oliver paused, looking at you like you were the drunk one.

“When I got hit in the head. Whole week”

It had been the first time since your fist year that he had ever mentioned having any knowledge about that incident.

“How’d you know about that?”

“Madame Pomfrey said, when I woke up”

“Why did you never say anything?”

Oliver shrugged as he swerved from side to side, the pink in his cheeks more noticeable now.

“...shy” he finally said “Why didn’t you say anything about it”

Your feet dragged through the snow as you stepped back.

“Forget about it”

You had meant to turn and walk away immediately, a thousand thoughts going through your mind. So he had known, confirmation of what you had suspected all these years hitting you like a Weasley driven bludger. So he had known all along, deciding not to tell you out of something. Pity? Embarrassment?

“Oi!” Oliver walked in front of you “Is he in love with you, yes or no?”

“He-!” you bit your lip and looked away. There had been something you hadn't even dared to mention to your friends. Something you had promised to not tell alyone. But you didn't want to lie to Oliver, not even when things were like this “He did confess to me, back in the summer” you looked up to him for a second before adding "He kissed me"

Oliver’s face softened and his voice shook when he spoke again, low and crestfallen.

“Took your first kiss, he did?” he asked, but it sounded like he was trying to explain it to his own drunk self.

"I turned him down, I don’t see him in that way”

Oliver tilted his head to the side.

“You don’t like pretty boys?”

You finally took a proper look at him, not having to look away and not having to pretend you didn’t want to. His hair was shorter now but still messy, strands of hair framing his flushed cheeks that matched his pinkish nose. His lips were a bit swollen from drinking and they parted slightly whenever he spoke.

“I do”

You saw the way the words seemed to ripple through him, brows furrowing ever so slightly and for a moment it seemed like he had sobered up. The space between you felt so fragile that you both stayed still, as if a simple shaky breath could break the spell. There was a something in the way you had looked at him in that moment, it had been the closest to how you had used to look at him for so long, and it made his fingertips ache with longing and the aching need to touch you. You had tried so hard not to look at him like that anymore, to not give it away so easily. And yet you were the same lovesick idiot you used to be.

“Right” you said, more to yourself than him to “See you later”

Before he could stop you again, before you fell onto the trap that were his pleading brown eyes you turned and walked away. You didn’t look back, not even when you heard his voice behind you.

“What’s that smell in your letters?”

You had been asleep for who knows how long when the hand shook you awake.

“Class is over” your friend said to you, the faint rustling of your classmates picking up their belongings bringing you back to reality.

You stretched softly, a sharp pain on your neck from the way you had been leaning against the wall for the last hour. Ms. Sinistra was giving you a nasty look that you pretended not to see, picking up your things and walking out with your classmates, hoping she would lose you among the small crowd and forget to scold you.

Your group's steps were followed by soft murmurs, an usually futil attempt to not wake up any of the paintings that adorned the walls on your way back to your Common Rooms. It was commonplace to study Astronomy late at night, when the sky was proper dark and stars shone brighter in contrast to the inky sky, but doing so at one in the morning was torture. The Gryffindor students that shared the class with you stopped in front of the portrait of The Fat Lady, quiet goodbyes being exchanged as Hufflepuff continued on their descent through the castle. As you approached the next flight of stairs, having fallen behind, you noticed how your classmates made way for someone coming up in the opposite direction: Oliver.

A few students turned arond and eyed him curiously as he stopped halfway through, stopping as he had the moment he had seen you. You hadn't spoken in maybe just three days, but it seemed that an eternity had passed and ran its course through him. Deep, dark circles adorned his brown eyes, his usually unkempt uniform adding to his restless image before you. Once your classmates had turned the corner it was just the two of you, the orange hue of the lit candles and a silence that stretched thin between you. That was until you took one step down, stopping in front of him.

“Where are you going this late?” you asked in a whisper.

“Detention” his voice was hoarse and it cracked a bit “Astronomy?”

“Yeah... what did you do to get detention for?”

“I was at the pitch after crufew. Didn't realize how late it was”

“That’s weird, but I wouldn’t put it pass you to write Quidditch plans even in the dark”

“I wasn’t writting just... thinking”

“Quidditch” you said matter of factly, almost teasing.

Oliver simply stared, letting his gaze linger for a heartbeat too long. His eyes dragged from your eyes, down to your lips, the way the orange light of the candelit hallway reflected on your features, then back to your lips.

“Among other things”

“You look like a mess” maybe you had spoken out of fear that he might have heard your loud heartbeat in the empty silence. He chuckled, looking down and passing a hand through his hair, messing it up even more “Don’t do that...”

You reached for his hair, threading your fingers through the stubborn strands before you had time to think about what you were doing. The moment your fingertips had ran through the base of his scalp he stilled, a shiver running down his back. Then ever so slightly he leaned forward, allowing you better acces to his hair, face falling dangerously close to yours.

“Better?” he asked, the question almost a shaky breath.

You had been close to look down, his plush lips that always were a bit chapped too close not to--.

“Ms. Quingly!” you heard Ms. Sinistra whisper sharply from the end of the stairs.

You both straighten up immediately, faces almost bumping into one another. Your face felt hot, and despite the very little light in the hallway you could see Oliver's face must have felt the same, red as it was.

“I should go”

“Yeah”

You walked down a few steps, not wanting to look at the disapproving look Ms. Sinistra was throwing Oliver and you. You mentally shook your head, deciding to turn around.

“Oliver” you called for him, louder than you had wanted. A painting close by hushed you “It wasn’t fair, what I said to you. You were my friend”

Oliver's grip on the banister tightened.

“I can still be, if you’d like that” there was hope in the way he had said it, bare and soft.

You wanted to tell him, just as much as you had ever wanted to. Wanted him to know how hard that was for you.

"I.. I don't know..."

“Ms. Quingly!” Ms. Sinistra got sushed by a few other paintings, upsetting her even further “I’ll have you in detention!”

Ms. Sinistra's footsteps climbed up the stairs in your direction, then Oliver’s words cut through the air.

“I missed you”

A painting grumbled at him to shut up, but Oliver ignored it, eyes never leaving you. His words had been firm and determined, as if a last plea. His way of saying sorry to all the things that had gone wrong, too many to name. Ms. Sinistra's bony hand wrapped arround your forearm.

“Ms. Quingly, let’s go!”

She started dragging you down the stairs, forcing you to look away from Oliver who remained still waiting for an answer that he knew now might never come. There was no easy way to explain how difficult it'd be to remain by his side like nothing happened. How difficult it had been been to pretend you didn’t want to see him. How hard it had been to not look for him in every room you walked in. How hard it was to not run towards him when you finally found him. All the letters you wrote to him and never sent, buried at the bottom of your suitcase. How hard it was to have him so close and not be able to tell him--

“I’m in in love with you!”

Your words hung in the air, bouncing off the stone walls with such force you were sure even the Slytherins down in the dungeons must have heard you too. You felt Ms. Sinistra’s hold on your arm loosen in shock, startled by your sudden outburst, giving you the chance to look back at Oliver. He was there, still and silent as the paintings that had become too, a faint giggle coming from one of them the only thing breaking the sudden silence

“Well, that’s enough!” Ms. Sinistra protested, evidentlly flustered as she successfully made you go down the steps "That'll be fifty points from Hufflepuff"

Oliver didn't sleep at all that night, having spend all of it lying face up in his bed trying to replay your voice as accurately as possible over and over again. As soon as students were allowed to get up he ran out of the Common Room and down the stairs, ignoring the portraits taunting him with “good mornign Mr. Wood” among giggles and whispers. He ran to the Great Hall and to the Hufflepuff table where he spotted Diggory and a few of your friends, asking out of breath where he could find you. Your female friends seemed aprehensive and just shrugged, a few of them turning around without as much of a shake of their heads. It had been Cedric who after inspecting Oliver briefly and hesitating for a moment told him that you might be running at the pitch, like every Saturday.

“Thank you” Oliver said to Cedric who gave him a nod, and it feelt like a years long fight had been settled just like that.

He ran towards the exit as you completed your tenth lap acorss the pitch, hoping the accelerated pulsing at your temple and aching on your legs would make you forget about the previous night. You shook your head and screamed at the memory of Oliver’s face staring at you in the dead silence of the night, unreadable. The faint sound of footsteps made you look up, unaware as you had been of Oliver approaching you until he had grabbed your face, lips crashing against yours without a second for any of you to think twice about it. His nose bumped into yours, faces flushed together to the point it made your lips hurt, your hands grabbing onto his wrists with a loud sigh. He parted from you, forehead resting over yours and panting breath fanning over your face with each word.

“Did you mean it?”

Your fingers curled around his hands that still held your face. You licked your lips, chest raising up and down, the way you could still taste him making you dizzy. All you could do is nod, nose brushing his as you did. Oliver pressed his lips against yours again, shorter, and let go with a loud sound.

“Say it again?”

It was hard to see his face when he was this close, vision blurring a bit until his pleading eyes came into focus. You bit your lip, suddenly shy and you were convinced he could feel the heat creeping up your cheeks beneath his fingertips where he was still holding you in place. You looked down with a nervous scoff and he followed your gaze, his head lowering so he could still look at you.

“Please” he said “Just once more?”

“And you?”

You lifted your head ever so slightly, your breaths catching onto each others, the proximity making the grip on your face shake and he brought one of his hands to your waist.

“I’m not good with words”

“I know” you nudged at his nose playfull, the grip on your waist tightened “Try?”

“I can’t go on like this” he confessed, voice a bit more casual “Don’t want to. It’s bloody awful. It’s drivng me mad” His words got a giggle from you, getting on your tip toes to kiss him again when he leaned back just enough to say something else “And for the record, I’ve always wanted to take you to that awful tea place”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah”

Your hands met at the back of his neck, lips pressed against each other in a softer but deeper kiss. It drew a long, heavy sigh of relief from Oliver, who simply held you tight against him, nails digging at your side. You couldn’t help but to leave short, wet kisses over his already swollen lips, hand scratching his scalp and your hands tangling between his hair. Oliver shuddered and a moan died on your lips, arms behind your lower back and neck trying to hold you impossibly close. Your faces were fully flushed against each other and they started to ache.

”You love me” you said, ragged breath against the side of his face.

Oliver nodded, drawing his nose around your cheek as he left small kisses.

“Yes”

“More than Quidditch?” you teased and he chuckled against your skin.

“Oi!”

“No?”

You pretended to push him away and he pulled you into him again, face crashing against his chest in a sea of laughter.

You were part of the sacred twenty-eight and additionally were a very distant relative of Bellatrix Lestrange, Narcissa Malfoy, and Andromeda Tonks. They were your second or third aunts. Purebloods always married within their circle; people had complex relative histories. It even technically made you Draco’s distant cousin. The thought alone should’ve driven him away, but he wasn’t like that. Even if you were Bellatrix’s own daughter, he’d go up to you, because that’s how he is; what he does. He was fearless in a way that made one question whether it was rooted in stupidity, naivety, or maybe possible genius.

“Freddie,” you breathed, eyes soft with guilt. “I’m not sure I should, you know, your parents aren’t very fond of me,” you said softly.

It hurt you immensely that his parents had a distaste for you despite your best efforts. You saw it in the way Fred never showed you any letters his mother sent him unless he was sure you weren’t mentioned once in them. His mother wasn’t exactly subtle.

You couldn’t blame them for it, though a part of you was still bitter. Your family name was loud, your parents were sharp-tongued and prejudiced against anything that wasn’t a rich pureblood elitist. People heard your name and already drew conclusions that lingered; impressions of a cold-hearted, calculating, ruthless heir without empathy or tolerance. 

Because of these assumptions, no one bothered to disprove them, opting to avoid you instead. Everyone but Fred. People called it stupidity, a death wish. But all those whispers and anticipation of a hex hitting his chest were eliminated after you threw your head back in a cackle, not even ten minutes after he came up to you.

The image was broken as soon as your laughter was heard; saccharine and normal like any other girl in the castle. And just like that, people came up to you more, returned smiles in the hallways, and didn’t stiffen when you walked past. Hogwarts turned comforting, more like home than your own. Fred stuck to you through it all, and you slowly won over each and every one of his siblings over the past seven years. You won over Charlie before he graduated when you were in your third year, and Percy warmed up to you when he caught you tutoring the twins in your second year. Ron was the toughest to break, but you finally got him when he was in his second year and you in your fourth, right after you and Fred began to date. He had passed the courtyard on his way between classes and saw you and Fred sitting out there, together. You were going on a tangent, hands on your hips as you scolded him for something he didn’t hear, but what really did it was how Fred reacted.

Fred Weasley, his big brother, was affected by nothing, brushing off punishments and detentions like dust on a coat, was pouting, head hanging as he stared at the floor, hands behind his back in compliance as you chided him. Ron decided something that day; if Fred let someone do that to him, he was exactly where he wanted to be. Ginny was by far the easiest to connect with. The poor girl screamed and nearly cried when she saw you, yelping about finally having another sister. You didn’t dare correct her. You even charmed Bill when you met him at the 1994 Quidditch World Cup Finals between Bulgaria and Finland. 

You hadn’t realised Mr and Mrs Weasley themselves would be the toughest nuts to crack; they were stereotypical. It’s unsurprising given their age, but their persistence was staggering. Firmly written opinions sent to all their children about you, and long, long lectures Fred had to sit through about deceit and how people are images of their parents. It didn’t matter how much Fred defended you, how much his siblings vouched for your character; Molly was clear, and Arthur never opposed his wife.

“My love, light of my life, honeybear,” Fred continued, his hands travelling further up your arm as he pulled you closer to him. You let him with a lingering pout. “My parents can bugger off for all I care; they can’t do or say anything if I’m there. Trust me on that,” he continued, his eyes wide and pleading. He didn’t play with you; you were the most important thing in his life, and he made sure you were treated like such.

You went silent, thinking about it, but you were weak; you knew that. Fred Weasley, knowingly or not, was your weakness. You weren’t smiley, friendly, or easy; with him, you turned impossibly soft. It was almost a sickness; he calmed your rage within seconds, and you shut down his life-threatening pranks with a single look. “Okay,” you relented. He lit up completely with a gasp, pulling you into a bone-crushing hug, face in your hair.

“Ginny might cry when I tell her.” He said with a breathy laugh, making your heart swell. God, you loved that girl. “I’ll tell her myself.” You mumbled back, turning your head to kiss his neck before pulling back.

You were a bundle of nerves the entire train ride to the Burrow, everyone noticed. Ginny offered up her skincare, Ron passed you extra chicken from the lunch he packed from Hogwarts, even George didn’t try to slip you a nosebleed nougat; he had more sense than that.

Fred kept you close the entire time, tucked into his side. You saw the tension in the hard set of his jaw as he looked out the window. His hands flexed from where they were on your waist, squeezing the soft flesh every once in a while merely to assure himself of your presence.

When you reached, one thing became abundantly clear: Molly and Arthur had certainly not been told of your visit. You saw it in the way her beaming smile harshly fell from her face once she spotted you next to Fred. She grabbed him, pulling him away.

You felt nauseous, smiling politely at Arthur as he gave you a forced smile in turn, his hesitance to shake your hand only added to the twist in your stomach. Ron took your suitcase, and Ginny took your hand, squeezing it in support as she tugged you to the car.

You turned your head to see Fred now proper scowling at his mother before he simply turned and walked off in the middle of her rant, face changing when he saw you look over, giving you as soft a smile as he could manage.

It didn’t get better at the burrow. Molly never looked directly at you, spoke to you through her children. ‘Ginny, she’ll sleep in your room.’ ‘Is she going to eat, Fred?’ ‘Ron, will she need her very own sheets?’ You saw the way Arthur winced, but said nothing. He himself was incredibly awkward near you. 

You didn’t like it, Fred absolutely didn’t. Glaring and hissing a sharp “why don’t you ask her herself?” that Molly always promptly ignored. It went on for two weeks; Molly stopped laughing when you entered a room, and Arthur found excuses to leave. Whenever you were with their kids, something always came up. You and Ginny giggling and eating ice cream in bed? Molly needed her help sewing. You and Percy discussing the NEWTS? Arthur needed him to proofread something. 

Fred was the main victim. Suddenly, he was needed all around the house as soon as the two of you were able to be together. The dishes, setting the table, helping with lunch, and helping load the laundry. It was so targeted and so obvious.

It all shattered during dinner one night. Fred and George decided this was the perfect time to talk about the fact that they’d be dropping out to open their own joke shop. Everyone knew Molly wouldn’t support it; she’d faced poverty. The thought of her sons not completing their education to start a shop made her all kinds of angry.

So, on went the screaming. Arguing at the table as George and Fred quite literally fought for their business with their mother, while Molly kept screaming about homelessness and how they’d never succeed.

It reached a point where she looked at you for the first time since the railway station and growled a low “You.”

You stiffened; everyone did. “You did this, didn’t you? Think it’s amusing, girl, making these two believe they can make it? Without suppliers? Investors? Nothing? You’re ruining my son's life!” She hissed, screaming the last part. You flinched, eyes widening.

“M-Misses Weasley, I don’t– I just want him to be happy-” You choked, but she slammed her hand on the table with a scoff of outrage. 

“You don’t understand anything. People like you, sheltered, protected–you’ve never had to work for anything a day in your life, never struggled. ” She continued, the rage in her voice something no one at the table had ever heard before. “Rich, pompous, overconfident people like you are exactly the folk we don’t want to get mixed with—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, shut up!” 

Everyone whipped their heads around to Fred, the usually cheeky and unserious boy, now straight scowling. “George and I are doing this with or without your approval, Mum. I truly don’t care about what you say in accordance with the business, nor about your hopes for our success, but you will watch it when you talk to her.” He hissed, pushing back his chair with a harsh screech before throwing his napkin on the table, grabbing your hand to pull you up as well.

Molly was mortified, and Arthur looked like he’d been spat on. “Frederick Gideon Weasley, you will sit–”

“Mum, please!” Ginny huffed, making your heart clench. The poor girl looked close to tears. She sniffled, turning to hug George’s arm. Molly’s scowl broke at the sight of her only daughter in such peril.

Fred dragged you up the stairs to his room. He’d gotten his own ever since Charlie moved into his own cottage somewhere in Scotland, closer to the dragons had been his only justification before taking off.

Your eyes were wide, heart pounding horrifically loud in your chest. You looked at the back of his head the entire walk to his room until he finally slammed the door. “Fred!” You whisper-hissed, hands trembling with adrenaline. He dragged a hand down his face as he turned to you, the other wrapping around the small of your back. “This doesn’t help my whole image with your mother, Freddie, she’s gonna think I’m manipulating you against her or something—”

“She’s not that manic.” He mumbled, ducking his head into your neck before taking a deep inhale. “Hopefully.” 

He hugged you around your waist, tugging you into him as he leaned into you. You could feel he was doing this more to calm himself than offer any comfort, but you didn’t mind much, dragging a hand through his hair. You felt the breath leaving him.

You could hear the thud of footsteps climbing up to his room, and feel the way his shoulders tightened. He nudged you behind him as he turned to the door, half expecting his mother to come bursting in, but all he heard was three soft knocks.

“Fred?” Came a soft, older tone. His father, Arthur.

He didn’t hesitate opening it, letting the lesser of two evils in. Arthur looks guilty, almost hesitant, when he steps in, mouth open, before he shuts it. “Fred, my boy, your mother— but of us, we want the best for you. The shop, I-I’m not saying you shouldn’t follow your dreams, but you can’t expect her to be okay with it.”

“That’s not why I stormed out of there, Dad.” Fred huffed in turn, narrowing his eyes as he grabbed your waist, pulling you to stand next to him. “You know that.”

His father clasped his hands together, glancing towards you for a moment. It was clear he was choosing his words as carefully as he could. “Freddie, she– she’s not what we had in mind for you.” He said delicately, you could see Fred’s shoulders tighten.

“Her family, people like her, haven’t been good to people like us.” He continued, you took Fred’s hand as a reminder to keep himself regulated. It was odd, having to regulate his anger instead of him regulating yours. “Do her parents even know about you?”

That made you stiffen, hanging your head. You hadn’t told your parents, certain they’d forbid you from seeing it. You’d talked to Fred. He understood. Still, admitting he was a secret boyfriend was degrading.

“It doesn’t matter whether she’s told her parents. I trust her, that’s my choice. She’s brilliant, dad, you and mum would know if you gave her a singular chance.” Fred muttered, venom dripping from each syllable. Arthur felt the bitter truth in his words, nodding solemnly.

“No, you’re.. You’re right. I know.” He relented, looking at you apologetically. “I’m sorry, dear.” He all but breathed. You just offered a soft smile, nodding. 

“It’s– We have lived through a lot, Fred.” Now it was Fred’s turn to stiffen. “Your mother lost Fabian and Gideon in the war. To people from families like.. Well, hers.”

Fred sighed, squeezing your hand. “I know about them. She’s told us. But, Dad, things are changing. Times are changing. She can’t be bitter forever. Your mother was Cedrella Black! Does that mean she hates that part of you?!”

Arthur stammered. That was enough. “Why is it different for y/n, huh? Haven’t you been cruel enough? I’d like you two grown adults to realise you’ve been harassing a girl who’s nearly three times younger than you!” Fred continued, finishing with a scoff. He knew he was loud—knew the whole damn house probably heard. He couldn’t find it in him to care; he almost hoped his mother heard.

Arthur just nodded, unable to gather the words to continue the conversation, exiting the room.

You shuddered, Fred pulled you in. 

Safe to say, no one minded if you spent the night in Fred’s room that night.

Morning rolled around, the tension still present like a living, breathing presence. Fred didn’t leave you for a single second, and no one tried. Neither Arthur nor Molly pretended he was needed anywhere; they knew Fred wouldn’t entertain it.

To his credit, Arthur really did seem like he was trying. Wished you good morning, offered you tea when he was making any, even went as far as to ask for your future job plans. Fred was already grateful, smiling whenever he heard it. He eased up on his father, let himself relax around you when his father was near.

But Molly was a woman on a mission. She made sure it was known that Arthur was alone in his acceptance. She let you serve yourself during meals, dramatically moved away from you like you had Spattergoit. You chose to ignore it, a smaller, pettier part of you made you extra nice to her in turn.

All of the Weaslings (apart from Bill and Charlie) were around the coffee table, playing exploding snap. The air was filled with hysterical giggles and pure orange-haired competitiveness. Arthur was off at work, and Molly was serving snacks, very pointedly placing the plates as far from you as she could. 

You shot her a smile dipped in honey. “Oh, thank you, Miss Weasley! You’re so good to me. I couldn’t be more grateful.” You cooed, making Fred stifle a snort. His mother looked appalled, muttering a quick ‘no matter’ before rushing back to the kitchen. 

You’d come to accept it, almost took it as a sad fact of life. Ready to fight Molly Weasley for the rest of your life.

Then came that fated night.

You couldn’t sleep. George thought it was genius to watch some low-budget horror movie. You crept down the stairs of the burrow to the kitchen to take a glass of water and, potentially, a cookie Molly made.

You filled the glass before the light flicked on from behind you, startling you. Damn you, George.

“Oh.” Molly mumbled when she saw it was you, hesitantly walking into her kitchen to grab something from the fridge. It was rather early, four am. You didn’t think she’d be up so early.

There was a horribly awkward moment where neither spoke; you simply drank your water at the counter. Then, the silence was shattered.

“I had brothers, you know.” She mumbled; you immediately knew where this was going. You looked over at her; her expression was something you couldn’t pick apart.

You nodded, she continued.

“They joined the order. First Wizarding War. I’m sure you’ve met Harry. They met his parents there. Young, stupid and ready to fight.”

Her voice thickened, your heart sank. 

“Twins. Like my Fred and George. Good people, amazing to me.” She kept going, unwrapping dough she got from the freezer. “Died when I was pregnant with Percy.” Her voice broke around the word died and you suddenly felt like a monster.

“Took five deatheaters to kill them. Antonin Volohov was the only one who was named in the report, the rest having taken their own lives once captured.” It was unsettling, the things this woman had gone through. It made your heart ache for her.

“Volohov worked closely with Bellatrix. I guess I just… can’t accept that a trace of what killed my brothers lives in you.”

You felt your throat tighten, tears stinging your eyes as the woman placed the small balls of frozen dough on a baking tray.

You cleared your throat, moving to wash your hands, drying them, then wordlessly assisting her. 

“My mum once killed my pet mouse because attachment was a weakness to her.” You mumbled, and she shifted to make room for you. Not to get away, but to make space. You noticed.

“I cried to my father, but he offered no solace. He said nothing should be important enough to bring me to tears.” You rolled the dough into a ball, passing it to her. “Met Bellatrix once. I was.. Maybe seven. She threw her shoes at me when I touched her wand, grabbed me by the hair and presented me to my parents like a fox she killed.”

Molly hummed in acknowledgement, but there was something softer. A sympathy.

“I may not hate her as much as you do, I may never will, but I truly despise and loathe her very being. She’s hurt you much more than she hurt me, but her cruelty to more and more people gives me more and more reason to be as different from her as I can.”

The room settled into comfortable silence after that. She put the cookies in the oven, and you washed your hands. 

As soon as you turned to leave, she took your hand. It was gentle, not like she was trying to restrain you. You turned, and she placed a kiss to your forehead before walking away. “Goodnight, dearie.”

You bit back the smile growing on your face, sheer joy filling your chest. 

“Goodnight, Miss Weasley.”