Tainted Love

Exploding Snap

IRIS

"Does your throat still hurt?" Tracey asked.

They were strolling around Diagon Alley, cups of tea with Warming Charms on them in their hands. It was a cold day by September's standards, but Iris had found that the weather in London was, on the whole, much colder than it had been back home.

"A little bit," Iris replied.

She couldn't exactly hide the rasp to her voice, so she had told Tracey that she had a cold. It made sense, mostly, because she hadn't gone out with them on Friday or Saturday.

It was Sunday now, Sunday morning.

"You know I can always try a Throat-Soothing Charm on you," Tracey said. "My younger brother Tommy is a healer, so I'd probably be good at it."

Iris chuckled, unsure whether or not healing genes ran in families. "I'll be fine, Trace," she responded.

Tracey raised her eyebrows. "I'm beginning to think you don't trust my healing skills."

Iris raised her eyebrows and shrugged. Tracey shoved her, sending a couple drops of tea flying out of her cup, then apologized profusely.

They kept walking. It was always easy with Tracey. It was rare, at least in Iris's experience, to click with someone so quickly. The only other time that had happened was with Sadie in first year at Ilvermorny.

She loved Sebastian and Theodore. Trusted Sebastian enough to give up the fact that she was sleeping with Draco Malfoy. Always felt at ease when she was around Theo.

But Iris never felt like she needed to learn Tracey. It was like she knew her, had known her for years. That was rare and Iris found herself extremely grateful for it.

Tracey had somehow organically led the conversation into talking about Michael Corner. One of her most-used skills was artfully turning any conversation towards exactly what she wanted to talk about. Iris didn't mind, though. The things that Tracey talked about were usually entertaining.

"He's just not that interesting," Tracey was saying about Michael. "And I knew that, but for some reason I thought I could make him less boring."

"Well, at least the sex is good?" Iris offered.

Tracey made an evocative scoffing noise that sounded more negative than positive. She stopped walking and took a sip of her tea, leaving Iris in slight suspense.

"It was good the first time," Tracey said, "but I think that's just because I was drunk and I wanted it to be good. Like, I think my mind just told me it was good because I had been saying it would be."

Iris hummed sympathetically and Tracey took another sip of tea before continuing.

"I keep thinking I'll meet someone who'll just be like, on my level. Like we won't even have to tell each other what to do when we're having sex, we'll just know. But I'm beginning to think that that shit doesn't exist in real life."

Iris probably would've agreed with Tracey if they had had this conversation back in June, back before anything had happened between her and Draco. But now she privately thought that such a thing did exist and that she had found it.

That was the reason they were still fucking. No matter what terrible things he said, no matter how callous she was with him, neither of them could ignore what existed between them. At least while they were fucking. The other stuff was confusing and sort of awful.

"You have to teach boys everything," Tracey sighed. Iris chuckled a little. "Seriously."

"I think you should probably stop hooking up with him," Iris mused.