June 1st - June 19th
It's almost summer! The last few weeks of school have come, and students will need to study hard for their final exams! Don't let up yet, or your grades won't be what you want them to. Of course, the weather is almost perfect and pristine, in attempts to lure students away from their studies.
A Long Time Gone [2-27-09] (ISO: Lynn)
It was Friday. Finally it was Friday, and Romeo McAllister couldn’t have been any happier or more relieved than had Percy Weasley just announced that there would never be another test for as long as Hogwarts was open. Well, maybe he would have been a bit more ecstatic if their new headmaster seemed even vaguely likely to do anything of the sort, but Mo supposed he could be happy simply with the weekend. Really, Mo had always loved Fridays.
In Mo’s opinion, there was no better day than a Friday, specifically at 4:15 in the afternoon. Classes were just getting out, the hallways were flooded with students heading in any number of directions, and the possibilities for finding something to do were endless! Those first few minutes after the last bell rang, unleashing students wild with weekend fever upon the school had always seemed to Romeo to be almost pregnant with the promise of great fun to come. After all, Fridays meant no more classes for two whole days, time enough to relax, kick back, and have some fun. Weekends were for enjoying, and it was well known that Romeo McAllister knew how to do so in a grand fashion.
Usually.
This particular Friday, however, there was something different in the manner with which Mo regarded his release for the weekend. Call it reluctance, or foreboding perhaps, but the young wizard just didn’t seem to be in all that great of a mood. Of course, anyone who didn’t know Mo would never have seen anything wrong. In fact, if anything, they might likely have assumed he was simply as thoroughly pleased as the next person to be headed back to the Gryffindor common room for the evening. Mo, however, was anything but.
The youth’s generally care-free regard for life, the liveliness to his motions, the amusement in his amber orbs and the self-pleased grin on his features had been replaced by a fake happiness that seemed almost strained in comparison. Even Mo himself was beginning to wonder whether the overly-happy smile he had pasted on earlier in the day was more grin or grimace now.
As he approached the seventh floor tower Romeo made a last half attempt at putting on a happy face, rearranging his features into a less forced-looking position, but his heart wasn’t behind the matter. Stepping through the portrait hole before it could close behind whoever had just entered in front of him, Mo allowed the façade to drop. Quickly he crossed the common room, weaving his way in and out of the medium-sized crowd that was milling about in the middle jabbering excitedly about their weekend plans, and flopped down in a rather large overstuffed loveseat situated near one of the windows. Almost unconsciously a soft sigh escaped the boy as he dropped his books and bag beside him on the floor, ridding himself of at least some of his worries of the week through the gesture.
Ignoring the rest of the rather crowded common room, Mo proceeded to quickly strip himself of all further reminders of his problems. The dark, almost oppressive robes were the first to go, followed shortly by their matching tie and gray vest, all of which Mo wadded unconcernedly into a small ball and stuffed into his already bulging bag. Romeo’s shoes followed soon after, kicked out of the way under the nearest table, and an obviously practiced gesture freed his hair from the ample amounts of gel that kept it tamed during the week. A few moments later and he had loosened the collar of his white oxford shirt several buttons, then leaned back, drawing his legs up Indian style underneath him. Hands folded loosely in his lap, Mo sighed once more.
The past few weeks had not been altogether kind to Romeo McAllister. On top of the increased workload the Hogwarts teachers had pile on them the first several weeks back after Christmas break, the young wizard had also been dealing with a not-so-pleasant social problem, and an impending family crisis. As if staying at Hogwarts over Christmas break for the first time in five years hadn’t been horrible enough, it seemed the rest of the world was conspiring to ruin Romeo McAllister’s usually happy life as well.
First there had been the letters from his parents, though those had started long before Christmas break. After a month or more of trying to deny certain facts that had been staring him in the face for much longer than that, Mo had begun to realize that all was not well with his family. After comparing separate letters from both his mother and his father, the youth had found several disparities that could no longer be ignored. Romeo had been trying to avoid the bickering between his parents ever since, chalking it up to increased tensions on his father to return to the ministry and the aurors.
His mother had never liked that the ministry thought they had a claim to the aurors, even those that had retired, and she certainly had never supported Mo’s father going back to such work. Though Nathaniel had kept his promise to his wife not to return to the aurors thus far, there was still a certain strain about the subject, and thus on their marriage. Staying at the school over break had been his own choice, an attempt to somehow help his parents by giving them some time to themselves. On some unconscious level, however, Romeo recognized the fact that it had also been his own way of avoiding making things worse than they actually might have been.
Maybe he was overreacting.
Still, at the back of his mind Mo knew he would eventually have to face the problem, because ignoring it for as long as he had obviously hadn’t helped.
Aside from his parents’ problems, Mo had quite a few of his own to worry about. His biggest problem at the moment, however, happened to be one Lynn Stuart. Romeo and Lynn had been almost inseparable best friends since Mo’s second year, a fact that had ever been both a source of great joy and chagrin for the Gryffindor dare-devil. With his best friend being a girl, there were quite a few taunts and unwanted comments directed his way, and the youth had, in his younger years, even been subject to questions about his masculinity. Lynn, however, could hold her own with just about any of the Gryffindor males, and the two had made an extraordinary friendship together.
Lately, though, things seemed to have been going wrong. Even since before Christmas the two had begun drifting apart, an event Mo was unable to fathom for quite some time. What was wrong with them? What was wrong with him?
Trying to talk to Lynn about the problem hadn’t worked, because quite frankly, Romeo didn’t know how to ask his best friend why all of a sudden their relationship seemed more strained than it had ever been before. Mo had begun questioning his own feelings and not knowing why.
But then Christmas break had come, and with it the Death Eaters’ attack on the Hogwarts Express. Luckily for Mo, though he usually would have been on the train, he had already decided to stay at the school, but Lynn had been there, and she had suffered horribly at the hands of one of the masked assailants. Romeo felt a cold tingle run down his spine at just the thought of it, and shivered slightly where he sat. Whatever could possess some people to do such unthinkably cruel things was beyond his limited understanding.
In an effort to make up with Lynn, Mo had taken to visiting her every day in the infirmary, though he had always gone very early in the morning or later at night. Not once had she awakened while he sat with her, and Mo had begun to wonder if perhaps she wasn’t avoiding him by simply pretending to be asleep.
Once she had gotten out of the hospital the young wizard had simply avoided her for a while, too stubborn to make up or admit that he might have started their estrangement in the first place. At first it had been simply a matter of pride, though later, with most of the castle sick with Dragon Pox and Romeo himself afflicted, he had felt his excuse for not seeking Lynn out was probably more acceptable.
Now, though, over two weeks had passed since the mess and confusion of Christmas break, and Romeo still hadn’t brought himself to find Lynn and talk to her about what was going on. She, on the other hand, hadn’t made any effort to do so either, and Mo had reasoned to himself that if she didn’t want to talk to him, then he wasn’t going to bother chasing her around and forcing her to do so. If Mo wasn’t as important to Lynn as he thought he had been, then he had obviously overestimated their friendship, and he wasn’t going to go making a fool of himself trying to fix something that hadn’t meant anything to her in the first place.
Romeo knew he was being childish and stubborn about it, but he couldn’t help it. The sick feeling he got in the pit of his stomach every time he thought about Lynn now was starting to make him physically ill, and simply putting it out of his mind seemed like the best, and only thing to do for the time being.
Bringing his elbows up to his knees, Mo rested his chin dejectedly in his hands, sighing softly once more. It was definitely going to be another long weekend.
Lynn hummed a song by the Bangles, Walk Like an Egyptian, under her breath as she sauntered down the corridors, bobbing her head a bit to the beat of the music she knew so well. Somehow, she would have to find a way that she could use her portable CD player around Hogwarts or perhaps in Hogsmeade. She missed her Muggle tunes far too much during the school year, and her mother was constantly telling her to ‘get those earphones off your head!’ when she was home for a break. She was a music fanatic and proud of it; anything from metal to ballads, and even the occasional country … though she drew the line at rap.
As she shifted her bookbag to her opposite shoulder, it twinged, and she faltered in her steady stride. She slipped out of the stream of students heading back to their common rooms and leaned against the wall for a moment, her eyes closed, as she rubbed the trouble spot. Between the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts and a brief visit to the Wizarding Clinic near her home over the holidays, Lynn had been divested of most reminders of her illness and other ordeals; even so, there had been several ones that appeared so tiny that Lynn didn’t want to bother the healer with them.
Still, they rarely bothered her; even now, it wasn’t pain so much that bothered her as the memory. Being put under the torture curse, having to crawl through a window that she’d blown to shards of glass and having the illness that had been named the Dragon Pox didn’t exactly put a smile on her face. However, there was one light in all the darkness of that scary time; Sean.
He’d carried her to the Hospital Wing; visited her there whether or not she was asleep; and now, he was one of the sweetest boyfriends imaginable, and he loved her. Sometimes she couldn’t help but think that it was all too good to be true, and that it was only a matter of time before something shook their relationship at the core, but Lynn pushed aside that pessimistic thinking easily. She would enjoy it for what it was. A healthy, enjoyable relationship.
As she resumed her journey towards the Common Room, another boy who was – or had been – an important fixture in her life flew into her mind. She hadn’t seen Romeo McAllister, other than a fleeting glance in the hallways, for weeks. The stupid prick hadn’t even bothered to come visit her in the Hospital Wing. Unconsciously, her lips pursed as she thought back to how hurt she had been when she realized that her best friend hadn’t come at all.
Even if he had been scared, he was a Gryffindor! He should’ve had the courage to come and see his best friend in the Hospital. And really, Lynn was close with Arabella, and called the girl her best friend … but Moe … Mo was the one who had been by her side for years. He knew everything about her. She had loved him as much as you could love someone who wasn’t romantically involved with you or related. She would have undergone torture for him. Even now, knowing what the curse felt like, Lynn knew that she still would have.
She shook her head as she gave the password to the portrait and stepped inside, rubbing her forehead. If he was scared, he should have realized that she was even more scared, considering that it had all happened to her and that she wondered if she was going to die. Twice, she’d wondered that. Twice, she’d thought that she would never see her mum or Mo again. He probably hadn’t even given her a second thought.
Pulling her outer robe over her head, she stuffed it into her bag – something that she and her best friend had always done together, whether or not they realized it – and ruffled her pixie-short hair. Tugging her shoes off her feet, she held them by the heels in her free hand and walked towards the loveseat, her favourite perch.
But he was there. Frowning, Lynn halted. This would be their first time talking face-to-face. There was still time. He hadn’t seen her. She could still walk right past and go up to her dormitory.
No. She needed closure. Running her hand through her hair once more, she approached him until she stood right in front of him. She dropped her bag and shoes off to the side, crossed her arms, and glared down at him. “You certainly made yourself scarce. Care to –“
Then she stopped as she took a good, long look at him. Something wasn’t right. He was … sad … it showed so clearly in his face. Struggling, she stood there silently for a moment and then dropped down beside him on the couch. Not too close, but she was there. “You’re in a funk about something,” Lynn said, her voice low. “What’s up?”
She was still mad at him … but she still loved him, too. Lynn was the one who would never put revenge – or closure – before the other person’s feelings. He was hurting, and she wanted to make it better.
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