Ironwood (HP Next Generation FanFiction)

Chapter 4

"It's nice to meet you." Asta smiles. "Aiko talked a lot about you yesterday."

"Really?" Albus' ears perk and he straightens his slumpy stance. "I mean, sorry. Aiko just doesn't really talk to a lot of people so I'm surprised."

"Yeah I got that feeling when I first ran into her." She smirks at me and I start blushing again.

"You know," Scorpius begins emphatically and I know the devious look on his face, "Our Koko here is single." He says to Asta and she raises her eyebrows.

"My cousin did have dibs on her but he kinda mucked all that up." Albus shrugs and I stare at him opened mouthed.

"Did I really muss it up that bad?" Louis appears just a little behind Scorpius and I looked at him mortified.

"I-" My mouth opens and closes like a dying fish as I die evermore on the inside. "I-" I can't even find words in my whirlwind panic and before I can connect to the logical part of my brain I'm up and running out of the Great Hall. I just kept running. I ran and ran wishing my brain would switch on. I could solve any problem in classes. I could answer any question but now when it concerned me I couldn't even begin. I finally collapsed at the edge of the Forbidden Forest panting hard. My chest squeezing tight on all my exhales.

"I don't know." I whisper into the unknown depths of the forest.

There's a swooshing sound above me and my head snaps up to see Louis on his broom landing a few feet behind me.

"You really need to stop running away from all your problems." He calls to me and I stand to turn around.

"I'm not good at these problems." I look down to the grass at my feet.

"And you never bloody will be unless you face the problems your scared of." He says sternly and I flinch.

"I'm not afraid of the problems." I grumble and he walks closer raising an eyebrow for me to continue. "I'm afraid that I don't know how to answer your questions."

"Are you afraid of me?" Louis asks and I can't help but laugh. "Alright. Okay, didn't need all that." He says slightly offended.

"I'm scared that it's my second day back to school and I don't know who I am." I offer and he nods. "Listen, Louis, you don't actually know me. And the only reason you even kinda asked me out, which you still never officially did, was because you thought someone else would first."

There's a long moment where neither of us say anything.

"And then yesterday when I bumped into Asta I felt- well I don't know. I think I like her and it's so weird for me because I've liked you my whole time at Hogwarts." Laughing nervously I hug myself.

"I was thinking about it too ya know." Louis chews on his bottom lip. "I mean Albus really laid into me last night when you got back to the common room but it got me thinking. Aiko, I can be a little selfish and I did like you- DO like you but ever since I told you I like you all I do is mess up. In the passed forty-eight hours I think I've had more girl trouble than in my almost seven years at Hogwarts." He gives a light chuckle. "And I realized while I was thinking that I've never had to work to win a girl over. They just...love me and I don't have to do anything and that's so wrong."

"Wow. That was a lot of thinking you did Louis Weasley." I grin and he laughs.

"I think you're one of the smartest most beautiful girls to have ever lived and yesterday when I saw you smiling and laughing with Asta on that ship-" Louis takes a deep breath, "I was so angry and jealous and then Albus yelled at me and I realized that I needed to care about you the way Albus and Scorpius do. I need to love you in a different way because I loved the way you smiled. I loved hearing your laugh. And in the five years that I've known of you, been around you, you've never smiled or laughed like that."