start playing "in the rain" <33
i know this is from a kids' show but tbh I'm obsessed with it...and it's the perfect soundtrack for it.
I wake to the sound of rain beating down on the windows. I open my eyes and smile, staring out the window for a moment. Listening to rain is so calming to me, and whenever it rains I always watch outside more time than necessary. Hogwarts rarely gets rain, and even then the Professors choose when to let the rain in. It's been over a year since I've woken up to this sound and I stay in this moment as long as I can, not allowing myself to think about anything else.
4th year
"Aura! Stop! You're going to get soaked!" The boy ran towards me in his green robes, letting the rain fall onto his curly brown hair.
"So? How long has it been since we've had rain?" I screamed back, twirling around, watching the raindrops roll off me. He stops in front of me, watching the rain and looking back at me.
"It has been a while..." he admitted.
"Then come on! Enjoy this! Have fun!" I giggled, halting my twirl and letting my wet hair come back and hit me in the face. He stands still for a moment, contemplating, so I pout at him, crossing my arms. He stares at me for a moment before sighing and giving in.
He takes off his robe and gently lays it on a bench, stretching out his arms like a bird with his face up to the sky, letting the rain run over every freckle on his face and fall off his chin to the ground in a little splash. I laugh and run towards him before my feet come out from under me and I trip in a puddle, my face inches to the ground before he catches me.
He stands me back up and keeps his hands on my shoulders for a moment as the rain makes his hair stick to his forehead. Oh, Merlin. I can see every raindrop on his lips and the water gathering on his long eyelashes. No wonder so many girls find him hot.
He grins and laughs, picking me back up and setting me down on his shoulders.
"Hey!" I shout indignantly, huffing and crossing my arms. He chuckles, making his shoulders shake, and I almost fall off. I grip his shoulders tight and he looks up at me, a big smile on his face.
"Look who's all high and mighty now," he says, blinking slowly, his eyes shining.
I laugh and it starts to rain harder, soaking through my clothes and making me shiver. Sebastian slowly sets me down and I wrap my arms around his waist, trying to get warm. He laughs again, and I can feel the deep rumble in his chest as I hug him. It makes me smile against his soaked uniform.
"Come on, Aura. Stop being a baby. Let's dance," he drawls.
"In the rain?" I ask, still holding myself close to him.
"Well, where else would you want to do it?"
I shrug and give in, following his movements as best as I can.
"Ow," he whispers as I step on his feet.
I smile. "I'm not great at dancing," I said, feeling embarrassed.
"It's okay. You'll look like a pro if you're dancing with me," he chuckles.
"Good. Who else would I do it with, anyway?"
Eventually, I stopped stepping on his feet and I fell into sync with his dancing. He picks up my arm and twirls me around, dipping into the crook of his elbow.
"You're pretty good at this," he says, his smugness carrying through into his tone.
"Only because of you," I praised, and he smiled.
A memory comes back to me, and I grasp it so it doesn't float away from me again.
"My grandma used to tell me this all the time when it rained. 'Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, but learning to dance in the rain,'" I whispered.
The hazel-eyed boy stands there, confused. "But we were just dancing!" He says.
I sigh and let my palm meet my forehead as it makes a loud noise. "No one knows what it truly means. It's some weird philosophy about life or something," I say, rolling my eyes, but feeling warm inside as I remember what it felt like, to be rocked by my grandma as we watched the rain outside the window, feeling the tickle of her hair as whispered this in my ear in between tunes.
We'll figure it out eventually," he sighs, and we go back to dancing.
I blink the memory away, looking down to see that my clothes are damp.
For fuck's sake, was I crying over this?
It was just a stupid memory.
The rain keeps beating down, and I slowly drag myself out of bed.
"He obviously cares about you more than I ever did." Sebastian's bitter words echo through my head, and I run my fingers through my hair.
"Get out of my head," I hiss, perhaps a little too loud. Imelda stirs and looks up at me, confused.
"Hmm?" she says, raising an eyebrow.
"Nothing, Imelda. Sorry. You can go back to bed," I say, offering a smile.
However, she stands up from bed and stretches. "Well, you woke me up, so I might as well start my day. Even if I woke up to a psycho yelling at herself."
"I wasn't yelling. Although psycho is a bit much. Maybe crazy?" I laughed.
"Crazy is an understatement," she mumbles, laughing at herself.
I shake my head, smiling. No use fighting with Imelda. She beat every single argument we had, and my thoughts were too clouded to even try.
__________
Down at breakfast, Ominis sits down next to me with a huff.
"What's wrong, Omi?" I ask, looking over at him with concern.
"Sebastian has gone missing. Again."
I roll my eyes. "Of course he has."
"But I'm serious this time. He left no note, he's not in the Undercroft, and I haven't seen him since we came back from Feldcroft. He wasn't in bed last night, either. It's like he never came back."
"I'll go looking," I sigh, not really wanting to. But I would do it for Ominis.
"Do you know where to look?" He asked, looking around.
"Not really. But I can try."
He smiles. "Thanks, Aura. It means a lot." He gives me a quick hug before leaving. Now I was alone at the table, but at least I had food.
I eyed the waffles next to me and stabbed them with my fork, taking more than necessary on my plate. I grabbed some fruit and put chocolate sauce and powdered sugar on top, eyeing them, ready to devour it.
I stabbed a whole waffle with my fork, my mouth wide open to eat it, when I heard a voice from across me.
"Aurelia?" the voice asks meekly.
I slowly close my mouth and tear my eyes away from my food, looking up.
"Leander? What do you want?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"I heard you and Sebastian broke up. And that you went on a date with Garreth last night. Good choice," he winks.
Did people count that as a date? And who all knew about it? I thought that was private, just between the two of us.
I look over at the Gryffindor table and see people surrounding Garreth as his hand motions look like he's explaining the night in full detail. Right now his hands are roleplaying my barrel roll I made on my broom, and everyone around him laughed animatedly.
That's it. I'm done.
I stand up, taking my food with me, and I swiftly walk out of the room. No one gets to disrespect me like that. I thought that night with him would show me he had changed. But I guess it's just to explain to everyone in full detail how much I suck.
______
Carrying a plate of hot waffles up several flights upstairs was not a good idea. I never recommend doing it. My hands hurt like crazy, along with the typical leg burn from the flights of stairs.
I didn't know where I was going. I just let my legs propel me along. Soon I find myself on the 7th floor, and I start pacing. What do I do now? With my giant plate of food and my anger, if I saw anyone right now, I think I would immediately curse them.
I was about to give up and go back to the common room when suddenly a door appeared in thin air on the wall beside me.
Umm...what the heck? I've gone to magic school for 5 years and suddenly a random door freaks me out.
I slowly touched the door to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, and when I felt the wood beneath my palm, I moved my hand down to the doorknob and slowly turned it.
But I wasn't ready for what I saw inside.
___________
I was suddenly meeting the glassy eyes of someone who had looked like they had gone through a million losses. His eyes, filled with haunted memories, faded, and the hazel in them transformed into a rich, deep chocolate.
His eyes hardened at the sight of me and turned away.
"How in Merlin's name did you find me here?" He asked, trying to sound mad, but ended up only sounding curious.
"How? A random door appeared in front of me. That's how! Why are you here? What am I doing here?" I asked, looking around. But it didn't seem dangerous. Other than being a little dark, this place was beautiful.
"A door appeared in front of you? I didn't expect you to find it so easily." He started muttering, which made me even more concerned.
"What am I doing here?" I asked. "I was just trying to escape breakfast. Garreth seems out to make my life a living hell."
"Oh, does he now? Now you see that if you had stayed with me, you wouldn't have had to escape the asylum that's the Great Hall. I could've been there with you." He replied bitterly.
"Stayed with you, how? Sat with you yesterday? Or staying in our fake relationship?"
"Both! And why do you keep calling it 'fake' like that?"
"Because it was, Sebastian! And I wasn't going to let something fake get in the way of something real I could have." The words flew out of my mouth, tasting as vile as they sounded.
He walks up closer to me, his eyes softening just the smallest bit before the right side of his lip curls up. "You know full well that what we had was real."
My mouth was probably wide open. My eyes were probably turning a light blue, the way they get when I want to cry. He stares at them, daring me to fight back. Daring me to cross the line.
"See? You can't even fight back. You know it was." He smirks, hoping for an easy victory.
If he wanted me to step over the line, I was about to pole vault over it.
"Then why did we 'break up', huh?" I asked, using air quotes.
"Because I wasn't about to keep you from 'something real' because I knew you wouldn't give me a chance," he replied, using air quotes as well.
"A chance? What do you mean?"
He walked closer yet again, leaving inches between our two faces. I could feel his hot breath on his face, and his eyes had a certain determination in them.
"Are you really going to make me say it?"
I shrugged, trying not to smile. He sighed and leaned in, so close his eyelashes were tickling my eyelid. He grabbed my waist to keep me from running.
"I loved you, Aurelia. And I guess you just were stupid to know. Or you wouldn't give me a chance. Either way, it was stupid anyway. I should've known." He went silent, his breath quickening after what he admitted.
"I.. uh-"
Great words, Aurelia. He just confessed his love to you and you sound like you just got Stupefied.
He shrugs. "Guess I should've known someone like you wouldn't have thought twice about this being fake,"
That angered me. Merlin knows how many times I've overthought our relationship. I wasn't just going to sit there.
"Sebastian, you don't know the number of people I've gotten backlash from for 'dating you'. Or the amount of weird looks from Garreth and how our kisses got so passionate sometimes. It was weird to think it was fake, wasn't it?" I asked, tilting my head and smirking.
I had him wrapped around my finger, and I wasn't about to let go.
"I have been up so late overthinking our relationship that I've messed up my sleep schedule for a while. And the amount of times I wished it hadn't been fake, because I loved you too, Sebastian."
His eyes brightened. But I had not finished talking.
"But I guess we missed our chance. It's all over now. And no matter how well you thought you knew me, I guess you didn't."
He looked crushed. "W-what do you mean?"
"Tell me 3 things? I never beat Imelda's broom time. I was going to tell you that I liked you, but I was too chicken. Because you never said anything first. But if you never noticed my stuttering while I was trying to come up with something else, that's not my problem. Garreth would've noticed." I shrugged, and I knew that would push him over the edge.
"Garreth would've noticed? Did you notice how much hurt you were in when he got with Poppy? Did you forget all the memories we had? We had history, Aurelia! Did you forget all of it?"
My mind went back to the rain from earlier, but I pushed it out of my mind.
"I guess I did forget." He opened his mouth to retaliate, but I quickly made him shut it. "And not by choice. I guess you're just that forgettable," I smirked.
In the dark light of the room, his eyes glowed. "Fuck you," he screamed. "Don't come near me ever again."
"I won't if I can help it," I screamed back, walking out of the room in a few steps, and slamming the door.
this has been my second-longest chapter so far!! thank you so much for all the support, we just hit 1k and I couldn't be happier. i love you all <33