To Leo and Kelsey, From Becca:
A first year blew through the halls, terror on her face as she ran in a dead sprint to her tower. Carefully concealed behind a halfway-open closet door, Kelsey tipped her head back and burst into laughter, hands pressed into her stomach as her muscles began cramping from the exertion. Leo gave a hearty laugh as well, though his amusement was more dependent on the alcohol in his hands than the young girl’s reaction.
The brunette glanced back out the door. “Okay, she’s gone,” she told him, moving to the trunk behind her to grab her Twizzlers. “You ready to go back out there?”
Leo scrunched up his face. “I’m kinda comfortable here,” he argued, tipping the bottle back to his lips. He gave a cry of surprise and distress as it was suddenly jerked from his hands, the Ravenclaw stealing the beer and taking a few large swallows for herself.
“Come on, Dawnie—don’t be such a bore,” she goaded, reaching across the wood to where the spheres she’d enchanted were sitting, holding one out for him.
“A bore? It’s already almost past curfew, on a school night, and I still came out here with you to play your game, didn’t I?” he shot back, grabbing a new bottle for himself and popping the top.
“Oh, for Merlin’s sake, you act like you aren’t having fun.” Kelsey rolled her eyes at the boy. “And I just got Becca to help me perfect this game, so we’re going to play.” She’d been thrilled when her fellow Ravenclaw had helped her manage to charm up her own Pokemon to “battle” with. And now that she’d created her own Ghost types, she had been determined to test them out in the exact right circumstances: at night, in a dark Hogwarts hallway. Becca never would have agreed to it, but put a little sugar and liquor in Leo and she’d found the boy’s better judgment could be convinced of anything. She smirked as a thought flickered across her mind. “Or maybe you just don’t want to go another round with me kicking your arse, is that it?” she teased him, leaning forward challengingly.
Leo frowned, leaning toward her on his knees. “You kicking my arse? Considering all of your talk about this bloody game, I expected you to be doing a lot better, Kelse,” he retorted.
Kelsey scoffed, but she couldn’t help but notice how close the boy’s face was to her own. She caught a whiff of the alcohol from his breath, and her eyes flickered down to his lips before returning to his gaze. “Please—I’ve been holding back for your sake Dawnie. I was trying to let you keep some of your dignity.”
“And since when has my dignity ever been important to you?” he shot back, swaying slightly. “I think your game’s off, Kelsey. What is it? Scared of the dark?”
“Ha! What’s there to be scared of?” she demanded. “The only thing in the dark is you.”
There was a sudden quiet between them, as both of their expressions seem to dim slightly. Kelsey watched Leo’s face furrow slightly in thought, and the perfect jab became stifled in her mind as the Hufflepuff suddenly leaned up toward her and pressed his lips to hers, effectively ending all trains of thought.
A long moment passed, and Leo slowly pulled away, watching her intently. “Only me,” he echoed in an anxious whisper. Kelsey blinked, her mind fuzzy and confused by the sudden onset and then loss of contact. Which she rectified by once again closing the space between them.
The only other words that passed between them that night was Kelsey warning him that if he told anyone about this, she’d hex him into the next hemisphere.
