They tell Elizabeth on a Tuesday.
Tuesday—which also happens to be the day the blonde receives a failing mark on her Astrology test, so Hope already knows that she'll be in a foul mood.
Yay.
That's how the pureblood finds herself leaning against a random wall in the third floor corridor, her surroundings illuminated only by the single torch nearby as she waits for Josie and her sister to arrive at their agreed meeting place.
A small part of Hope is very, very paranoid right now. Merlin forbid someone catch her here and inquire as to why she's standing by herself in the dark. Merlin forbid that someone be Argus Filch.
It is past curfew, after all.
Yet, that isn't the only reason Hope is feeling nervous. For the life of her, she can't imagine how Elizabeth will react when she learns of her and Josie's relationship.
Will she be like Rose, who knew without words and could only offer her support?
Or will she lash out, instead, denying everything and hurting her sister?
What if she even decides to kill Hope?
The pureblood honestly doesn't know what will happen. She just hopes that everything works out. For Josie.
Besides, it's not like Elizabeth will go blabbing their secret off to everyone, right?
Right?
Hope kicks off of the wall as she hears the sound of hurried footsteps in the distance. She looks from left to right, opening her mouth to call out into the dark when a pair of lips ghost over her own and effectively silence her.
Hope crumbles back into the wall, clutching at Josie's robes to steady herself, but the muggleborn pulls away all too soon.
"Hey," she giggles out, but she looks nervous. Breathless. Hope is panting, too, even though they've just barely kissed for five seconds. "Lizzie's right behind me."
Hope smiles, allowing Josie to reach out and stroke her hair. The other girl seems to melt into her, almost like she's searching for comfort. Hope draws her eyebrows together.
"Are you ready?" she asks in a whisper, the other pair of footsteps approaching them faster and faster with every passing second. Josie nods, suckling her lip into her mouth, before shaking her head.
"Josie! Where are you?" someone yells. Hmm. It's probably Elizabeth. She still sounds pretty far away, but her steps echo like they're not a feet away from the pair. Josie cringes, shrinking in on herself.
Hope watches her carefully, eyes narrowed in concern. Without thinking, or perhaps thinking too much, she intertwines Josie's nearest hand with her own and pulls her closer, kissing her knuckles softly.
"It'll be okay," she tells Josie, making sure her voice doesn't shake. Fuck. She is so afraid, so fucking scared, but she needs to be strong for Josie.
She needs to be brave. Braver.
At the same time, Hope honestly can't believe that she's here right now, doing this—doing this with Josie, in particular. She never thought she would ever tell anyone at all, but standing here now, with Josie by her side, it's a lot easier to think about.
"I know." The muggleborn squeezes their hands, flickering her gaze up to Hope's and then back to the floor. "Just, uh..."
"Kiss me again?" she asks, shyly, as if Hope's lips give her strength, and the pureblood feels nothing but strong when she leans forward and claims Josie's mouth with her own.
It's only a simple peck, really, just their lips gently brushing against each other's for a moment or two.
Still, it makes Hope feel dizzy and undeniably overwhelmed. Despite the many times they've done this before, the pace of her heart quickens all the same. She briefly wonders if Josie can hear it.
They only stop kissing when that same pair of footsteps comes close, and then closer yet. Josie leans away and steps back, but she doesn't disconnect their hands.
"If this is your idea of a fun night sneaking out past curfew..." Elizabeth's loud voice appears around the other side of the corridor, begging for Filch to give them all detention. She finally rounds the corner, continuing, "I must say, I am tremendously disappointed. I have been chasing you around for the last fifteen minutes—"
She stops herself short when she catches sight of Hope. It appears that she hadn't seen her before.
"Oh," she breathes, twisting her face in confusion. She then narrows her eyes, pulling out her wand in a flash and pointing it right at Hope. "Mikaelson."
A moment passes, where Elizabeth seems to come to a startling realization, but not the right one. She still hasn't noticed that Hope and Josie are holding hands.
"Wait." She grins, looking at her sister. She lowers her wand an inch or two, but not completely. "This just got so much better than I thought it would."
Hope gulps down the nervous mess in her throat, eyeing the wand dangling from the blonde's fingers lazily. Her fingers itch to reach for her own wand, where it lies in the sleeve of her robe, but she ignores the urge.
"What should we do to her?" Damn. Elizabeth clearly thinks that this meeting was accidental or something. She starts to babble on evilly, "What about a stinging jinx? Oh, wait, I know, let's do the tickling charm, it should—"
"Lizzie," Josie cuts her off, voice more dangerous and low than Hope has ever heard it before. She steps forward, bringing the pureblood with her since their hands are still clasped firmly together.
"We are not doing anything to her." She takes the last step between her and her sister, coming so close that Elizabeth's wand begins to dig into her stomach. Hope resists the impulse to pull Josie back and stand protectively in front of her.
The muggleborn lowers her voice even further, almost like a hiss. "And you will not touch a single hair on her head."
Hope smirks, feeling a little smug.
Only then does Elizabeth realize that they're holding hands.
"Oh, god." She scrunches up her face in a weird combination of disgust and confusion as she lowers her wand completely, eyes darting between Hope and Josie. "Why are you two holding hands?"
She doesn't give them a second to answer before asking yet another question. "Did Vector curse you with that jinx again?"
Hope cocks her head to the side as that day comes back to her. She tries her best not to zone out as she remembers the feeling of holding Josie's hand for several hours.
Thinking about it now, Hope can faintly recall spending that night trying to figure out who had cursed them.
Professor Vector had been the most likely suspect.
"Wait," she says, pausing. Her gaze finds Elizabeth's, lips parting and closing in a rather undignified manner. "You suspected it was her as well?"
"Duh." Elizabeth rolls her eyes like it's obvious. "I don't even have to be in that class to know it. She was the obvious culprit."
"Right?" Hmm. Maybe Elizabeth isn't the ditzy blonde Hope had presumed her to be. "That's what I was thinking."
"Guys," Josie snaps the pair out of it, huffing slightly. "That isn't even remotely relevant—"
"Wait." Elizabeth leans back as she darts her eyes from Hope to Josie back to Hope. Josie bristles, nose flaring and lips pouting at getting ignored again. "Why are you holding hands, then?"
"Lizzie." The brunette brushes the pad of her thumb along the skin of Hope's own. She gives the pureblood a weak, reassuring smile. "Hope and I—"
"Hope?" Elizabeth wrinkles her nose in distaste. The name falls from her lips slimey and distrustful. It just sounds...wrong. "Since when we do we call Evil Spawn that?"
Evil Spawn.
Huh. Hope likes that much better.
"Will you just let me finish?" Josie sighs, exasperated. Hope is honestly fine with this back and forth, as long as it prolongs the moment Elizabeth finally knows that they're together.
Yeah. She is so fucking scared.
Elizabeth rolls her eyes, but nods and gestures for her sister to continue.
"We're together," Josie blurts, so suddenly that it gives Hope whiplash when she spins her head around to look at her. Hmm. She had thought they would ease into it. Clearly not. Hope keeps her eyes on the brunette, not wanting to see Elizabeth's reaction.
A little shyly, Josie adds, "Whether you like it or not."
Elizabeth starts laughing. Josie gives her about a minute to digest the information, before she continues.
"I'm serious, Lizzie," she says, a deep frown on her face. Her grip on Hope's hand becomes deadly, and Hope lets out a small, pained whimper. She thinks her bones might break if Josie doesn't loosen up a little. Merlin.
"No, no, you're not," Elizabeth tells her sister, putting her hand over her heart as she catches her breath from all the laughing. "Nice try, but I'm not stupid, Josie. Obviously, this is all just some elaborate prank. I don't know how you managed to rope her into it, but it's clear to me now that you've chosen sides, and it's even clearer that you're a snake, through and through."
Fuck. Does Elizabeth really think that this is just some joke for the prank war? The pureblood had been hoping she wouldn't, but she definitely understands how something like this can be sort of hard to believe.
"This isn't for the prank war, Lizzie!"
The blonde ignores her sister, suddenly fixing her gaze on Hope and looking her up and down with a calculating glint in her eye.
"Hold on." She smirks, almost delighting herself in being right. She leans closer, poking Hope's collarbone through her robe with a single finger. "I bet you're not even the real Mikaelson."
Josie grabs Elizabeth's finger roughly and pushes her away, scowling. The move is a little possessive and and a tad territorial, but Hope allows it to happen, unable to stop the warmth leaking into her chest like sunlight.
"Is this the work of a polyjuice potion?" Elizabeth continues, more for herself than for Hope and Josie. She starts to think out loud, crossing her arms and tucking away her wand back into her pocket. "Who are you? Let me guess...MG?"
She shakes her head at herself. "No, I saw MG before I left. You must be Emma or Anna. Or Raf. No, Raf is too dim-witted to pull off something like this. And Anna wanted to get some sleep before her Divinations quiz tomorrow."
Elizabeth snaps her fingers and nods vehemently, having figured it out. Or so, she thinks. "Yup, you're Emma."
A beat passes.
"Okay," she says, making a shooing motion with her hand. "This was funny while it lasted, you can come out with it, Emma."
"Lizzie," Josie emphasizes her name for the hundredth time, trying to get it through the blonde's evidently thick skull. "Stop. Hope is real. This is real."
Elizabeth blinks quickly, looking between Hope and Josie with her nose scrunched up. She stares for about an entire minute, several different emotions flashing across her eyes so quickly that Hope doesn't catch a single one.
Whatever the blonde had been looking for, she must not have found it, because she visibly deflates.
"No. No. It's not." Her voice is heavy on denial. Hope feels nausea claw up her throat with both hands and two fistfuls of sharp nails. She swallows it down with one messy gulp. "Josie, please, if this is a prank, tell me now."
The muggleborn doesn't say anything, only biting her lip as her sister unravels in front of her. Hope gently strokes Josie's thumb with her own to provide any sort of comfort.
"Tell me, Josie," Elizabeth lowers her voice, as if anyone could hear them this late at night anyway, "that you haven't been sneaking around with a blood purist behind my back, that—"
Her voice sharply cuts off, and a deep inhale echoes in the space between the three of them. "Tell me that you haven't been fraternizing with the enemy."
"The enemy?" Josie raises her voice, anger written clear across her face. Elizabeth doesn't falter.
"She is the bane of my existence," she hisses, leaning in. "Our existence."
"Or have you forgotten?" Josie swallows loudly enough for Hope to hear it next to her. For her part, Hope swallows just as loudly. It's not enough to clear the lump in her throat like it had been before. "People like her have tormented people like us for centuries."
Hope winces, opening her mouth to apologize or explain or say something, anything at all to convince Elizabeth, but the blonde doesn't let her and only continues her little reign of terror.
"How could you?" she asks, sounding like Hope and Josie just cut the head off of her owl or something. Merlin. The girl's so dramatic. Hope resists the impulse to roll her eyes. "How could you let her do this to you?"
Elizabeth then shakes her head resolutely. "No, no, I can't blame you," she tells her sister. "She's obviously manipulated you or something."
She fixes her dangerous gaze on Hope. "You put her under some kind of spell, didn't you?"
Hope shakes her head in earnest, but once again, Elizabeth doesn't let her speak. "What did you do? Did you imperio her? Dose her with a love potion?"
Hope wrinkles her nose in distaste. She isn't that juvenile. "Of course not—"
"Don't be silly, Lizzie," Josie cuts in. Hope lets go of her hand a bit petulantly and crosses her arms, feeling invisible. "She would never do that. She isn't the person you think she is. Not at all. Please give her a chance..."
Quietly, she adds, "Like you did with Sebastian."
Hope cringes almost instantly. Bringing up Sebastian will only seem to make the situation worse.
"Don't say his name," Elizabeth snaps, lips curling into a sneer.
"I'll say whatever I wanna say," Josie declares, stomping her foot childishly as she folds her arms over her chest.
Elizabeth huffs and the two stare each other down for a very, very long time. Hope wonders if they're communicating telepathically or something. Can twins do that?
"How is he different than this?" Josie asks, at last, just when Hope is seconds away from leaving.
She would have brought the brunette with her, of course, it's just that she's tired and Josie doesn't deserve to go through this. Hope already knows that whatever this is with Elizabeth will not end well.
"I..." The blonde looks speechless, for once. She narrows her eyes, but not angrily, as if she's just taking her time to think about her response. Ten seconds is all she needs.
"He's not different," Elizabeth decides, voice low and clipped like she's trying to convince herself but knows the words don't quite sound right. "They're all the same."
Hope's breath hitches. Elizabeth glances over to her, as if she can read her mind, as if she can see right through her.
"He broke my heart. It'll only be a matter of time before she breaks yours."
Hope clenches a fist, her teeth doing the same.
Josie shakes her head in denial. "You're wrong."
Elizabeth's lips thin into a straight line, and she steps back with a small, humorless laugh. The blonde turns around, calling behind her shoulder, "For your sake, I hope I am."
Josie startles forward, voice laced thinly with panic. "Where are you going?"
Elizabeth freezes, just enough so that Hope can see the stiff muscles tensing in her back. She rolls her shoulders once, twice, but she doesn't turn around when she whispers, "I'm sorry, Jo."
The muggleborn sucks in a breath. Both muggleborns do. Hope thinks she herself might not be breathing at all.
"I can't see you do this to yourself. I can't stand by and watch as you destroy yourself."
She's off before Hope can blink. For the second time, Josie calls her back, more desperately than the first.
"Wait," she says, eyes wide, chest visibly shaking. "You can't tell anyone."
No answer. Josie tries again. "Lizzie, you can't."
"Oh no," Lizzie laughs, at last, something dark and ugly that sends chills down Hope's spine. "I won't. But don't think for a second that your secret will stay as such. Because it won't. I learned that the hard way."
And then she's gone.
Hope and Josie stay silent until the sound of the blonde's retreating footsteps disappear completely.
The pureblood attempts to reach out to Josie with her hand, but the other girl seems to dodge her. Hope frowns, feeling her stomach twist.
"Are you okay?" she asks, trying to make out Josie's expression in the darkness. They're not as close to the torch on the wall as they had been before.
Josie doesn't say anything, just turning around to start the short trip back to their common room. Several times, Hope tries to grab the other girl's hand to intertwine their fingers, but she somehow always misses and only grips cold air. Her fingertips begin to chill.
At one point, she figures that maybe Josie is nowhere near her, and has slipped into the darkness like a shield, but she can still feel her close by. It's unnerving, not being able to know if she's okay or what she's feeling.
She only has the dull thud of their footsteps for comfort. Hope wonders if she's walking next to a ghost. It sure does feel like it, as if—
As if all of Josie has vanished in the face of her unaccepting sister. It makes Hope absolutely furious. Infinitely worried. She fears the coolness seeping into the fabric of her robes will never end.
Well. If she hadn't hated Elizabeth before, the feeling is only tenfold now. In due time, she'll make sure the blonde pays for the pain she has wrought on her sister. In due time.
"Josie?" Hope calls, as they round the hallway to the entrance of the Slytherin common room, for the sixth time since they had begun walking. "Is everything alright?"
For the sixth time, Josie doesn't respond.
The torches near the common room are brighter than the ones in the third corridor, and now Hope can clearly see the outline of Josie's figure in the fire when she turns her head just right.
She doesn't hesitate before grabbing Josie's wrist and roughly pulling the other girl to her own body, so that they're hip-to-hip and shoulder-to-shoulder.
"Tell me you are unharmed," she nearly growls, a single corner of her lip pulled into a snarl of frustration.
Merlin, she just needs a fucking answer.
In the seconds of silence that follow, Hope realizes that Josie is trembling in her hold. Trembling enough that their chests brush ever so slightly when the muggleborn inhales too deeply or not at all.
If that's not already bad, she's also crying. Too quietly for Hope to hear a single sound, but the tears are there, the wet streaks flashing inbetween shadows and light whenever the torches on the walls catch the breeze just right.
Hope tugs her closer and wraps her arms around Josie's back without a second thought. She doesn't let go, doesn't even loosen her hold really, until the brunette stops shaking and gives into the hug.
It's supposed to be for Josie, but it's a little for Hope, too. It's a little for Hope when the muggleborn hides her face into the crook of her neck, a little for Hope when the warmth of another body settles against her own.
Neither care that anyone could see them right now. Neither care that someone could step out of the common room this very instant, could witness Hope Mikaelson and Josie Saltzman hugging so openly.
Neither care.
"I-I'm o-okay," Josie whispers shakily, an exhale of a pained breath, a weak smile on her lips as she lets go of Hope and moves away. Hope returns the smile, but hesitates to remove her hands from Josie all the same.
After a short moment, she musters the strength to do so and steps back. She looks down, feeling shy for some reason, and mutters the password to the common room portrait.
"Mikaelssson and Sssaltzman sssitting on a broom," the snake hisses within the frame, mocking, "K-I-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S—"
Hope hurriedly shuts the door to block out the snake, which makes Josie giggle a little wetly. They're both relieved to find that the common room is empty, with the embers from the fireplace dwindling down to soot.
Hope walks Josie to her room—since chivalry is not dead—and almost leaves before the brunette stops her.
"Can you stay?" she asks, a tad nervously, while looking down at the floorboards and not at Hope.
The pureblood opens her mouth and closes it, not knowing if that's a good idea. They have class early in the morning and Hope doesn't know if she'll be able to sneak out without anyone seeing her, or if she'll even be able to summon the motivation to wake up.
The moment Josie fixes her with her trademark pout and puppy eyes, Hope thinks that it's a very, very good idea. Suddenly, she wants nothing more.
"Sure," Hope says, trying not to sound too eager. She takes a step back, eyes darting to the side. She bites down the smile rising at the corner of her lips. "Let me just change and I'll be right back."
She doesn't get to take another step away before Josie stops her again. "No, don't leave!" she blurts, clamping a hand over her mouth a second later.
Hope gets the idea that the other girl had not meant to say that. The pureblood raises her eyebrows, but chooses to listen and stay still. She watches as Josie drops her hand to her side and blushes.
"You can borrow some of my pajamas. It's easier that way, I mean," she tells Hope, words a little rushed.
Oh, yeah. That makes sense.
Hope nods and lets Josie pull her inside her room by her arm, looking around despite the fact that she had been here the day before and the day before that.
The only warning before the brunette all but lunges at Hope is the sound of the door clicking shut and then Josie's lips are on hers.
"Jo—mhphm."
Hope stumbles back and throws her hands out to rest on the muggleborn's hips on instinct, trying desperately not to fall as Josie practically shoves her backwards and walks her over to the girl's fucking bed.
It's sloppy. Messy. Brutal. Their teeth collide awkwardly, tongues brandished like weapons, fighting like wars. It's not really much of a kiss, more just like Josie trying to dominate Hope or attack her, Hope doesn't really know.
The backs of her knees hit the mattress and she falls on top of it, with Josie landing right on top of her. She straddles Hope in a rush, hands snaking down her shoulders to shrug off Hope's school robe. The grey vest and tie is next, and then she's working on the buttons of Hope's white-sleeve, fingers shaking and fumbling and clumsy—so, so clumsy.
She seems to give up with the buttons pretty quickly because of that, instead choosing to almost violently untuck Hope's shirt from her slacks and slip her hands underneath the hem, fingers drifting and grazing across Hope's stomach, nails drawing red lines across her skin.
Nothing about it is sweet or kind, and that gives Hope pause. It takes a moment for her foggy, lust-crazed mind to realize what's happening. When it does, she gently pushes Josie away with a small whimper, struggling to pull air into her lungs.
Kisses with Josie are always sweet and kind.
This is wrong.
"J-Josie, we—we shouldn't," Hope breathes out, but Josie is relentless, dropping her wet lips down to her neck, suckling the skin of her pulse point, hands traveling up and down restlessly like she can't quite decide where to leave them. Her lips are moving all over the place, too, everywhere and nowhere at once, before they seem to settle.
"We should," Josie disagrees, voice honeyed and low, teeth nipping at that one sensitive spot on Hope's neck. She focuses on that area long enough for Hope to groan—long enough to let her head hit the sheets, to let Josie bite down, to let Josie pull away, to let Josie reconnect their lips, to let Josie deepen the kiss within seconds.
Her hands somehow find Josie's ass, and her fingers flex of their own accord, eliciting a breathy, little sound from the other girl's lips against her own.
"Oh, god, Hope—"
The sound of her name, spoken like that, moaned like that, makes Hope's heart skip a beat, makes her head spin.
Josie sits up, maybe to breathe, finally moving away instead of forward for the first time, and Hope's eyes go wide with clarity. She pulls her hands back like a scolded child touching something she shouldn't have been, crawling backwards on the bed and farther and farther away from Josie.
Merlin.
What are they doing? It's late. Too late.
This isn't a good idea, especially with the brunette minutes away from having cried her eyes out. Hope needs to be the better person, even if she wants nothing more than to throw Josie against the bed and have her way with her.
"You're upset," she murmurs, when the muggleborn tries to follow after Hope, shaking her head resolutely. "You don't know what you're doing. Let's just go to bed."
"That's exactly what I'm trying to do," Josie growls back, fingers flying down the buttons of her own shirt and throwing it somewhere behind her. Hope's pupils dilate without her permission, lips parted with a slack jaw, face blood-red with a blush.
It doesn't help that Josie's swollen lips are still glistening with their saliva, that her hair is beautifully mussed and—
This entire situation is fucking disgusting and filthy and Hope should be trying her hardest to get out of it.
"No." Hope shakes her head again, even as her eyes flutter shut with want. Josie comes even closer, perched up on her knees, and Hope places a hand on her stomach to stop her, desperately trying to resist the urge to pull her closer. "I don't want you like this."
"That's too bad. I need you to love me," Josie says, eyes darker than Hope has ever seen them. It almost scares her. Almost. "It's not my fault that you've ruined me for anyone else."
Hope doesn't understand what the brunette means, not right away. Later, it'll make her knees weak, but for now, she only blinks in a daze, running her hand through her messy hair. "No. Let's stop. I'm serious."
Silence.
Hope almost regrets saying it, but she can't.
Someone needed to draw the line. Pity it had to be her.
After a long moment, Josie nods and grows pink, turning her head over her shoulder. Hope imagines that she's trying to hide the way her bottom lip quivers.
"Listen, Jo." She sits up, placing a soft kiss on the other girl's lips that she doesn't allow Josie to deepen. "Having sex isn't going to make you feel better. Why don't we just talk it out or something?"
"I don't want to talk about it," Josie whispers, rubbing at her puffy eyes. Hope knows that she does want to talk, just doesn't know how to start. "I thought Lizzie would be happy for me. She wasn't. That's it."
Something painful snaps in Hope's chest. She draws her eyebrows together sadly.
She doesn't want to defend Elizabeth, but she knows that the blonde is one of the most important people in Josie's life, and she can't stand between them. If the brunette ever starts to hate her sister, she'll end up resenting Hope for it.
And then no one will get what they want.
"She just needs time," the pureblood says, gently massaging Josie's knuckles with her own fingers. She watches the other girl's shoulders visibly relax.
Josie gets off the bed and walks across the door to her desk chair, which has the shirt she had thrown earlier haphazardly strewn over it. She grabs the shirt and moves towards her dresser.
"I didn't need time when she came out about dating Sebastian," Josie mumbles, a little petulantly, her back still to Hope. The pureblood cocks her head to the side, trying to think of something to say to that.
"Everyone's different," she decides on, sitting up near the edge of the bed. She looks away while Josie changes into her pajamas, smirking distantly as she thinks about it more. "It took me two months to even admit that I liked you, remember?"
"I guess." Josie giggles and sits down next to Hope, a bundle of brightly-colored clothes in her lap. She drops her chin to her chest, suddenly looking nervous.
"I'm sorry," she says. Hope licks her lips and glances up, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Josie clarifies, "For..."
She pulls her bottom lip into her mouth as she tries to find the right words. They don't come. "For jumping you like that."
Hope starts to laugh, but Josie bumps their shoulders together to get her to stop.
"Stop," she drags out the word, almost embarrassed. Hope quite likes the tinge of pink at the edges of her cheeks. A large part of her wants to kiss each one and whisper promises and proclamations of love, but that'd be a little too much, she thinks. It's not like she wants to scare Josie away. "Let me apologize."
Hope smirks, but motions for her to continue all the same. She shakes off her lovey-dovey thoughts.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that," Josie tells her. "I just needed to feel, I don't know, loved?"
Hope nods, placing her hand on top of Josie's where it lies in her lap. She wants to tell Josie that it's okay and that she does love her, but she doesn't know if something like that will be well-received after the last time she had blurted out her feelings.
"You don't have to explain it to me," Hope ends up saying, biting the inside of her cheek to stop something dangerous from coming out of her mouth. Josie hadn't said that she loved Hope back after the last time, too.
Maybe the pureblood is just overthinking things.
"I think you need me to. I need me to." Josie's fingers twitch underneath Hope's. When she speaks, she sounds almost breathless. "I—I just feel so humiliated. I've been pressuring you to tell people about us when my own sister couldn't even take the news."
A pause.
"She, uh, really hurt me by walking away like that," the muggleborn continues. "You don't know how many times I've thought about telling her—and all for what? A one-minute conversation where she couldn't be bothered to even try to understand?"
Josie scoffs a broken laugh. "She disappointed me, and I just wanted to feel wanted. Wanted by you. I'm...I'm so sorry."
"Don't be," Hope rushes to tell her. "I'm sorry if I don't make you feel..."
She blushes. Josie does, too. "Wanted."
She gulps messily. "I want you so bad—"
"Alright!" Josie chirps, standing up and blindly throwing the bundle of clothes she was holding before at Hope. It hits the pureblood in the face and drops down to her lap.
"Those are your pajamas," Josie mutters as she hurriedly disappears into her bathroom, "you're welcome."
Oh.
Hope hadn't thought she was still staying over. Instead, she had come to think that Josie only wanted her to stay for sex. Maybe not.
The pureblood frowns, looking down at the hot pink shirt in her lap and the yellow pair of shorts. Although the bathroom to the door is now shut, she calls out, "Do you have anything black?"
No answer.
"Or grey?"
Again—no answer.
"I'm not wearing these!"
Nothing.
Hope sighs and carefully places Josie's clothes off to the side, rolling the long-sleeves of her white shirt up to her elbows and adjusting the collar around her neck.
Yeah...
She's definitely not wearing an outfit that gives her weird flashbacks to the time Elizabeth Saltzman kidnapped her from her own room and tied her to her own broom, so she'll just have to make herself comfortable in her own clothes.
Hearing the faucet running in the bathroom, Hope kicks off her shoes and leaves them by the end of the bed, grabbing a pillow and throwing it on the floor.
She kneels in front of the pillow with her wand, and twirls it absentmindedly in her grip as she thinks about the spell she's about to perform.
The faucet stops running. The bathroom door swings open.
"You're not sleeping on the floor," Josie says immediately when she sees her, in a deadpan. Hope glances up at her for just a second, before looking back down at the pillow.
"Of course not." She turns her head away to hide the smirk on her lips. "Sleeping on the floor is for house elves."
Josie gives her a dirty look, which makes Hope choke on her laughter. She rolls her eyes.
"I'm joking, obviously." The pureblood stands up, wand still in her hand. She twists her body to Josie, who has her arms crossed over her chest, looking decidedly unimpressed. Hope stifles another laugh.
"I'm transfiguring your pillow into a mattress," she explains. "What do you think, should I do a king or queen?"
"Neither." Josie swipes the pillow off the floor and hugs it across her chest. She smiles, just the barest hints of the corners of her lips rising. "We're sharing mine."
"Oh?" Hope raises her eyebrows, a teasing smile on her own face. "Says the girl who kicked me out when I tried to take a nap Sunday."
"Only because you were being rude," Josie dismisses easily. "Who takes a nap when they're hanging out with their girlfriend?"
It's the first time either of them have said it out loud. That word. Girlfriend.
Girlfriends.
Hope guesses that's what they are now. She tries her hardest to suppress the smile on her own face, though she can't quite help but be filled with a crazy sort of satisfaction at hearing Josie say it so openly.
"I was tired," Hope tells her, shrugging casually. She undos the first two buttons of her shirt, ignoring the way Josie's eyes dip down for just a second. "A concussion will do that sometimes. You can't fault me."
A glimmer of guilt flashes across the other girl's face, but it's gone by the time Hope blinks twice. She immediately regrets bringing it up.
"Have you been taking the pills I gave you?" the muggleborn asks, stepping forward and dropping the pillow back onto her bed. She reaches out with her hand, the tips of her fingers skimming across Hope's head in search of that tell-tale bump.
She doesn't seem to find it.
"Yeah," Hope says. Her eyes flutter shut instantly, unable to hold out against the feeling of Josie touching her like this. The sensation is almost overwhelming. Hope chokes on a moan, murmuring softly, "The swelling went down like you said it would."
"And the pain?"
Josie removes her hand, causing Hope to blink open her eyes slowly. She lets out a quiet sigh of disappointment. The other girl doesn't seem to notice.
"None."
"Good." Josie sits down on the bed and makes room for Hope, lifting her legs to move them underneath the sheets. "You should stop taking them if you're feeling better, then."
A little awkwardly, Hope nods and slides in next to the brunette, placing her wand on the bedside table.
She doesn't really know what to do with herself.
It's not the first time she's been here, of course, but it's the first time she's sleeping over.
And she's fucking freaking out.
What if she makes a wrong move and Josie thinks that she's a pervert? What if she accidentally snores or something? What if she drools all over Josie's pillows?
Then again, they've cuddled together on this very bed before, so the pureblood hopes this isn't as big a deal as she thinks it is.
Whatever.
She has good reason to be nervous.
Right?
Hope makes a weird noise at the back of her throat, feeling something digging into her back. She props herself on an elbow and uses her free hand to grab the offending object, which turns out to be...
A panda stuffed animal?
Um.
What the fuck?
Hope had thought it to be a dagger or sword with how sharply the thing had been poking against her skin.
"You have...stuffed animals," Hope observes, pulling out another one beneath the sheets. It's a grey whale.
"Yeah," Josie giggles, taking the whale and practically making love to it with her eyes. Hope scowls, jealous for some odd reason. "So cute, right?"
Hope plasters on a fake smile and nods excitedly.
"Hold on." The muggleborn pauses, throwing her arms underneath the sheets and wrestling violently with something. Hope's eyes go wide as she watches.
"This one's my favorite," Josie tells her, finally pulling out a fluffy, white wolf. Hmm. Maybe that was the weird thing that had been brushing against Hope's foot.
"Nice."
Hope eyes the wolf nervously, its beady, black eyes staring back at her all the same. She swallows hard and quickly waves her hand to turn off the lights.
The room plunges into darkness.
Thank Merlin.
At least now she can't see the stuffed animals.
Hope rolls over on her side, ready to pull Josie flush against her body and snuggle into her for comfort, but the muggleborn seems to have other plans.
She drags her unclothed leg down Hope's decidedly clothed one, rubbing against her feet. Hope huffs when Josie seems to accidentally kick her.
"Wait," the brunette says, in a hushed whisper. At the same time, in one swift move, she pulls all the sheets off of Hope and onto herself. Hope doesn't think the other girl even realizes that she's done it. "Are you wearing socks?"
Hope has to think about her response. She finds herself double-checking.
"I think so. Why?" The pureblood rubs her neck nervously, which stings a little underneath her touch. Great. That means she'll have to cover up whatever hickies Josie left for her tomorrow morning.
"I just realized that I know next to nothing about you." Josie shifts and turns over, so that she's facing the opposite wall. She lowers her voice, sounding equal parts scandalized and horrified, "You wear socks to sleep? Oh, god. I'm in bed with a stranger."
Hope chuckles and sneaks up behind Josie, close enough to throw an arm around her waist and pull her against her own body like she had originally planned.
Josie doesn't struggle, just lets herself be pulled with a contented sigh. Searching for heat, Hope slides her fingers underneath the girl's top. She finds soft, warm skin waiting for her and sighs contently herself.
The feeling is all-too short-lived.
Josie jumps up almost the second Hope lays a finger on her, batting her hand away. "You're freezing," she hisses.
"Am I?"
Just to mess with her, Hope slips her other hand up Josie's back and dances her chilled fingers across her spine. Josie recoils away from her desperately.
"Hope!" The other girl even tries to form some kind of shield with the bed cover, but her voice is breaking out in laughter. "I'm serious! Your hands are so cold."
Despite her best efforts, Josie isn't quite strong enough to discourage Hope from this position. The pureblood only tightens her hold on her and leans up to whisper in her ear, a playful lilt to her tone, "It's 'cause you're hogging all the blankets."
Josie giggles and redoubles her efforts to get away, which has Hope planting soft kisses on the skin of her neck that she can access.
"Even your lips are cold!" Josie squeaks, like an accusation, but Hope notices that she's leaning into the pureblood instead of away now. In fact, she goes unnaturally still as Hope's mouth attaches itself to her pulse point—long enough that Hope can feel it pounding against her lips.
"Keep me warm, then," she husks, eyes smoldering even though Josie probably can't see them in the dark.
The other girl finally turns around and blindly darts her lips out towards Hope's own. Hope meets her halfway with a hand on the side of her neck, smiling into the kiss.
The brunette pulls away within seconds. She shakes her head.
"You're just trying to distract me," Josie whispers softly, breath puffing against Hope's lips. Hope can still taste the mint of her toothpaste.
"From what?" she asks, feeling distracted herself. She wants another taste of mint. Suddenly, she can't get enough.
"From what I said earlier." Josie seems to sober up. Although her words are gentle, they seem far too serious for Hope to know what to do with them. "That I don't know anything about you."
Something darkens in the pureblood's eyes, like a storm brewing in her irises. She leans away and knits her eyebrows together.
"Don't be silly," Hope dismisses, rolling over on her back. Josie follows, holding herself up with her arm bent at a weird angle.
"I'm not," she says, matter-of-fact. "I don't know your favorite color or your favorite food. I know nothing about your childhood. And you don't have to tell me, of course, but I want to know you."
Hope nods and chews on her bottom lip thoughtfully, much too aware of Josie watching her in the dark.
"I don't like talking about my childhood," she admits, voice suddenly quiet and unsure. Seeing disappointment flicker across Josie's face, she offers, "But my favorite color is red."
A beat passes.
"A Slytherin's favorite color being red?" Josie gasps dramatically and starts to giggle like some common schoolgirl.
The pureblood pouts. "See, this is why I didn't want to tell you anything."
"Oh, calm down," Josie tells her, still laughing. "Your secret is safe with me."
Hope laughs, too.
"Okay, what's your favorite candy?" Josie continues, something determined in her eyes. Hope doesn't like it at all.
In fact, she isn't finding this very fair. Or even.
"I think it's my turn," Hope says. She thinks she can see Josie rolling her eyes, but she's not sure. "What's your favorite candy?"
"You stole my question." Josie scowls, her pouty lips doing nothing to intimidate Hope. She simply grins and says nothing, only waiting for the muggleborn to answer the question.
"Fine," Josie relents, scrunching up her face as she thinks about it. "Hershey's kisses."
Hope scrunches up her own face in confusion. She doesn't think she's ever heard of that kind of candy before.
Oh. Maybe Josie's flirting with her and wants to kiss again? Hmm. That seems like a plausible explanation.
Yes. Hope is certain now. Hershey is definitely just Josie's new nickname for her or something. H-Hope. H-Hershey. She can kind of see it.
Pleased, Hope smiles and leans forward to connect their lips again, but Josie stops her.
"No." She laughs, which has Hope's smile dropping slightly. "It's a muggle American candy," the other girl explains.
Hope blushes dark red, but she's confident that Josie can't see it.
"Oh," she breathes. And then—
"So no kisses?"
Josie shuts her up with a pair of lips on her own a second later.
The two spend the rest of the night asking each other about inconsequential, light-hearted topics, like favorite things and funny stories.
Hope learns that Josie's favorite book is The Tales of Beedle the Bard, but that she hasn't been able to read it for a while since she lost her copy at Beauxbatons and hasn't been able to find another one since. She learns that Josie's official favorite color is yellow but she likes pink, too. Her favorite magical candies are sugar quills, but she has an affinity for dark chocolate frogs as well. Her favorite ice cream flavor is Strawberry and Peanut Butter, particularly the one Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour sells at Diagon Alley.
Hope gags in disgust but confesses that she adores the Granny Smith ice cream flavor herself, which has Josie calling her a hypocrite since "green ice cream is Satan's gift to earth." Well. Wait until she hears about how much Hope likes pistachio.
This begins a discussion of Josie explaining who Satan is, which begins a discussion of her finally explaining who God is.
Hope also learns that Josie grew up in the Americas, so that's why she doesn't have a French accent. The muggleborn tells Hope all about her little home town in the United States, while Hope tells her all about the gardens back at the Mikaelson Manor.
Josie is a great listener, but curious, so curious. Yet, she always waits until Hope is finished speaking to ask her questions. She never grows impatient or bored, never becomes irritated when the pureblood avoids some questions and just doesn't answer others completely.
Hope falls asleep like that, with Josie curled into her and whispering childhood stories inbetween yawns and heavy-lidded eyes—childhood stories that sound too much like her mother's old lullabies, and yet, not enough at all.
—
With Wednesday comes the first day of December, which also brings with it the Christmas spirit at Hogwarts.
When Hope walks into the great hall first thing in the morning, she finds it decorated with all kinds of shades of elegant whites, merry greens, soft reds and golds.
From the ceiling, Christmas trees are even suspended in mid-air, decorated with tacky-looking tinsel and ribbons, covered in white by falling snowflakes. Every single one dissolves before it can hit the tables below.
Hope counts thirty-two before she grows bored and stops.
The tables themselves are filled with ornaments and sprigs of plants that fit the table's house colors. The pureblood herself is sitting in front of a silver ornament that depicts some sort of animal, but Ethan accidentally smashes it with his plate before she can figure out what.
"Oh, shit." Ethan pinks. "Sorry."
Hope stares forlornly at the broken ornament, having been a second away from becoming attached to it. She was pretty sure it had been a dragon ornament.
"Why're you apologizing?"
Just then, Maya sits down at the table, hair messy, book bag nearly falling off her shoulder. Hope looks her up and down and arches a single eyebrow.
The girl looks like shit. It's makes sense, though. She had only left the hospital wing the night before.
"I broke that," Ethan says in response, pointing at the destroyed ornament. Hope sips at her pumpkin juice and doesn't say anything.
"Are you a wizard or not?" Rose perks up from across Hope. It seems that she had been content to not say anything until now, too.
"Right!" Ethan laughs a little nervously before pulling out his wand, whispering, "Reparo."
The ornament fixes itself, piece by piece. Ethan watches for Rose's reaction, as if wanting to impress her, while Hope watches for the ornament to see what kind of animal it is:
A cat.
Oh.
Hope looks away, now disinterested. She searches the Gryffindor table briefly, but also loses interest in that when she notices Josie isn't sitting there.
Turning her head to the Ravenclaw table, Hope notices that the muggleborn isn't sitting there, either.
Maybe she's sleeping in?
The girl had still been asleep when Hope had left her room, but that had been pretty early in the morning considering that the pureblood had needed to sneak out before anyone could see her.
The walk of shame back to her common room had been far too nerve-wracking.
"Where's Park?" Hope asks, upon inspecting her own table. Hmm. Penelope never misses breakfast.
Hope really doesn't care, though. Nope. She doesn't care about Penelope one bit. She's just curious.
Nevermind that she and Penelope have been friends for years and Penelope betrayed her by staking some kind of claim on Josie.
Nevermind that she and Penelope have gotten into more fights in the past two months than in the past two years. Nevermind it all. They'll get over this little bump in the road like how they always do—by never bringing it up for so long that the two just end up forgetting about it.
"Wouldn't get out of bed," Rose tells her, almost nonchalantly, ripping the crust off of her toast and making a large pile with it on her plate. "Upset about Saltzman being taken or something."
Hope's heart stops dead in her chest. She darts her eyes around in a panic, wide and alarmed, but no one seems to be listening.
"What do you mean?" Hope lowers her voice to a hiss. She cocks her head to the side pointedly, as if to indicate her and Josie's secret relationship. "She knows?"
Rose rolls her eyes. Hope's shoulders relax. "Of course not. I was referring to the fact that Raichter asked Saltzman out to to the ball."
Hope breathes a sigh of relief, picking up her cup of pumpkin juice again. It slides down her throat with ease, before she suddenly pauses and puts the cup back down. "Wait. Why is she upset now? That rumor's been out since Sunday."
"Rumor?" Rose smirks. Hope knows that it's not a rumor, but it makes her feel better to think that Josie is not truly going to the ball with Raichter and that it's all just gossip.
She makes a small humming noise at the back of her throat.
"Mhmm." Hope takes another sullen sip of her pumpkin juice. Too much pumpkin juice. She kind of has to use the bathroom now.
"Yeah, well," Rose continues, "she didn't believe it until yesterday. Pen told me that she confronted the poor girl after class and Raichter personally confirmed it."
"Oh." Hope forces herself to appear indifferent. She pours about two gallons worth of cranberry syrup on her pancakes, expression carefully blank. "Well, Park can go crucio herself for all I care."
"Hope," Rose scolds. She frowns, looking disappointed. "You don't mean that."
The pureblood makes no comment.
"What is up with you and her anyway?" the other girl asks.
Hope honestly doesn't know. They had been fine after Penelope apologized for starting the fight in the common room a few weeks ago, but lately things between them have been tense.
Especially since Penelope had thrown a temper tantrum out on the pitch when she thought Hope was taking Josie to the ball.
What does that mean? Does it mean Penelope has some weird, twisted crush on Josie, or does it mean that she's just sour that someone else gets to take Slytherin's most eligible bachelorette to the ball?
Hope doesn't know, and she doesn't think that Penelope will ever mention it again. At least, none of their other friends have. It's a silent agreement among all of them that they never will.
"You seemed just fine yesterday," Rose adds, when Hope has taken too long to respond, obviously trying to get a reaction out of the pureblood.
That was before I found out she was mourning her non-existent love-life with my girlfriend.
"What changed?"
"Nothing." Hope looks around, desperate for a change of subject. She curls her lip in disgust, saying, "What is up with all these asinine decorations? Christmas isn't for weeks."
Rose lets the obvious distraction slide. She smiles wide, cooing, "Aww, H, don't be such a grinch."
Hope scrunches up her face. "I think you mean a grouch."
"No." Rose pinks, but she looks excited to explain herself all the same. Proud. "Grinch. It's a muggle thing."
Hope darts her eyes around, if only to check that their friends still aren't listening in. They aren't. "What kind of muggle thing?"
Merlin. She sounds way too eager even to her own ears.
"The grinch is a character in a book," Rose whispers, but not suspiciously enough that someone can get wary and tune in. "Though, I think it might be a movie, too."
"A smoothie?"
"No. A movie. It's like a photograph but longer," Rose explains. Hope nods, struggling to keep up with the information. "In the story, this ugly green troll—the grinch—absolutely hates Christmas, so he sneaks into a town called..."
She trails off, looking uncertain for the first time. It passed a second later. "Why-ville, I think, and steals everyone's presents and food."
Hope nods again, a silent inquiry to continue. "But the muggles don't care that all their things are gone, and find the Christmas spirit in each other or something equally sickening. The grinch ends up feeling bad and brings back all their stuff, and by the end of the story, his heart grows, like, three sizes."
Rose even gestures with her hands to show how big.
Hope leans forward and grins, pancakes forgotten. "So basically you're saying that I'm a kind-hearted person?"
"Oh, yeah." Rose tilts her head in contemplation. "I guess."
Hope grins wider.
"Anyways," the halfblood moves on, glancing somewhere over Hope's right shoulder. "How are you and...?"
She trails off pointedly, nodding her head in that same direction.
Hope turns around, instantly finding Josie, who is sitting with her friend Anna at the Ravenclaw table where she hadn't been before.
The two are whispering to each other a little bit like Hope and Rose, but they stop when Josie catches the pureblood's eye and smiles hesitantly. Hope returns it with a small one of her own and nods in acknowledgment, almost imperceptibly.
The two hold each other's gazes for a long moment, until Anna ruins it by prodding Josie with the end of the spoon in her hand. The muggleborn looks away.
With a deep sigh, Hope turns back around to Rose, neck muscles and joints tensing from the odd angle. She stretches them out with a satisfying crack. "Fuck. Can we switch seats?"
Rose raises an eyebrow. "So you can stare at her and get you both caught? I don't think so."
The tips of Hope's ears burn. She hopes it's not noticeable.
"Whatever." She huffs, glancing at her soggy pancakes. She's ignored them long enough that the mere sight of them causes bile to rise in her throat. "I just wanted to make sure that she's okay. Her sister didn't take the news so well when we told her that we're, you know, together."
"Really?" Rose straightens up suspiciously quickly at the mention of Elizabeth. Hope doesn't notice. The halfblood chews on her bottom lip. "Are you scared she's going to say something?"
Hope forces a bite of pancake in her mouth as she weighs the question over. "I don't know," she says. "They're twins. There has to be some sort of code, right?"
Rose shrugs, dropping her eyes to her stack of toast crust.
"If anything," Hope adds, "I can just threaten her—"
"No," Rose cuts her off sharply, teeth clenched. How peculiar. Hope shoots her a curious look. "I...you can't do that. Let me take care of it, okay?"
Hope bites the inside of her cheek, taking the moment to look at Rose—to really look at her. For once in her life, Rose Nicot is completely unreadable.
"Okay."
—
"Today, as many of you might be able to guess by taking a look at the board, we will be brewing Amortentia," Slughorn says, starting the Double Potions lesson with a nervous smile as he looks at all his students. Hope glances at the black board for just a second. "Please follow all the instructions listed in the appropriate manner. While some of the ingredients used are arguably quite common, there are others that can be very hard to obtain, such as moonstones. Do not waste them. If you are unsure about anything, you may reference your textbooks. One wrong ingredient or stir counterclockwise can turn Amortentia into a lust or envy potion within seconds."
Half the room swallows thickly. Slughorn seems to enjoy it.
"Can anyone tell me how one might consider their potion a success?" he asks, causing Josie's hand to bolt up. Hope raises her hand a lot more casually, grinning when Slughorn picks on her instead.
Josie sends the pureblood a nasty look. She just continues to smirk.
"It should take on a mother-of-pearl sheen if it's brewed correctly. That's how you know it's finished," Hope says, a little cockily, but Slughorn doesn't seem to mind.
"Great! Five points to Slytherin," he praises, before letting his class start to work. The room dissolves into quiet conversations and whispers.
"That's not fair." Josie pouts. "I raised my hand first."
Hope shrugs, glancing down to the fullness of the other girl's bottom lip. She forces herself to tear her gaze away. "No one likes a know-it-all."
"Yeah, well, no one likes a..." Josie opens her mouth and closes it, unable to think of a clever retort. She finishes lamely, lowering the heat underneath their cauldron of water, "...narcissist."
"Hmm," Hope hums over her textbook, dropping an ashwinder egg into the water. The shell dissolves the second it hits the surface. The pureblood drawls lazily, "Speaking of narcissists, have you talked to your sister?"
Josie shoots her head up. She discreetly looks around before whispering, "We're in public."
Hope rolls her eyes, grabbing two handfuls of rose thorns. They dig uncomfortably into the palm of her hand, not quite piercing the skin but too close for comfort. "Well, have you?"
She lifts the rose thorns up to the cauldron, but Josie stops her.
The muggleborn places a delicate hand on the fabric of her wrist, before recoiling as if burned. Maybe she forgot that they're in public, too. Josie seems to draw in on herself, sending Hope an apologetic look. "Sorry. But the book says one handful, not two."
Hope nods and lowers her hand.
"And Lizzie's been avoiding me. I had to sit at the Ravenclaw table this morning," Josie tells her, more timid and quiet than Hope has ever seen her before.
She silently uncorks the small bottle of peppermint oil on their table, eyes suspiciously wet. Hope swallows, trying to search for something to make her feel better without revealing their relationship to the whole class.
She aimlessly crushes the peppermint blossom flowers with her mortar and pestle as she thinks of ideas. She can't very well kiss the other girl or comfort her with a hug in front of everyone.
Maybe she should tell Josie a compliment? Yes. Perhaps a compliment might make her smile.
"You're..." Hope starts, mind blanking. Does she say pretty? Beautiful? Merlin, Josie should already know that. She needs something more...personality-wise.
Hmm. Josie's kind. Compassionate. Has a big heart. Some might say a heart three times the size of others.
Suddenly, a lightbulb flickers in the pureblood's head.
"You're a grinch," she finishes and smiles, satisfied, happy with herself.
Josie just looks at her like she's crazy, but Hope doesn't notice.
She's such a good girlfriend.
The two continue working on the potion for the next hour or so, dividing the steps up evenly and without much arguing, keeping flirting to a minimum the best they can.
Around them, the natural scent of Amortentia starts to spread across the room from table to table. Hope doesn't even bat any eyelash when she gets a full whiff of chocolate frogs and Josie's subtle perfume.
She wonders, briefly, if Josie can smell Hope in the potion like Hope can smell her.
Still, she can't quite help the deep inhale she takes, or the secret smile that graces her lips, reflected on Josie's own.
It slips off her face not a second later when the door to the classroom swings open, Penelope Park strutting inside like she isn't an hour late to the lesson.
Everyone looks at her as she walks in, including Hope. She watches as Penelope seems to sniff the air and pauses almost imperceptibly, her nose wrinkling in careful distaste. The girl's eyes fall on Josie.
She then pulls her lips into a small sneer as she walks by Hope's desk in order to get to her own, remarking snidely, "Someone overdid it with the perfume. I can hardly breathe in here. Trying to impress someone, are we, Saltzman?"
Hope freezes like stone. The rest of the class does the same, everyone seeming to collectively take in a sharp breath. All eyes go to Josie, who is blushing profusely.
Professor Slughorn breaks the silence.
"Thank you for gracing us with your presence, Miss Park," he says, eyes glinting happily.
Wait for it.
"You're precisely an hour late, so you can join me for precisely an hour in detention tonight. Now, please kindly take your seat."
Wait for it.
"By looking into your cauldron," he adds, a little slyly, "you'll find that we are currently brewing Amortentia."
Penelope visibly tenses. Her throat bobs enough for half the class to see it and the other half to hear it. She stands, stricken to her spot by Merlin himself, eyes unblinking, unseeing.
On the other side of the room, a Ravenclaw accidentally drops two handfuls of rose thorns into their cauldron. Their gasp goes unheard.
Hope thinks she might throw up. Or pee her pants.
She suddenly stands up. She blurts out, face pale, nearly fucking green, "May I use the bathroom?"
—
Hope runs her shaky hands through her long hair, standing in front of the mirror. She vaguely notes that it's tangled. She probably should have brushed it better earlier.
Obviously, that doesn't matter much now.
It's been about five minutes since she got here. Here being the bathroom.
Asking Professor Slughorn for permission to leave had not been a complete excuse. She actually did have to use the bathroom, if the amount of pumpkin juice she had drank during breakfast counts for anything.
If anything counts anymore, that is.
Merlin.
She's nearly boiling with anger. Positively steaming. How dare Penelope embarrass her like that in front of everyone. How dare she.
How dare she so obviously have feelings for Josie. Josie is not fucking Penelope's. Penelope doesn't get to have feelings for her. She doesn't get to be attracted to her enough to smell her in a love potion. Penelope doesn't deserve that.
Yet.
Does Hope?
"Hope?" A knock, a voice at the door. Familiar. Merlin. So familiar. "Can I come in?"
Right. The pureblood had locked the door. Silly her.
Hope doesn't turn around, only tucking her wand out of her pocket and pointing it lazily behind her. She unlocks the door with a quiet murmur and puts her wand away again, still facing the mirror. Her hands grip the edges of the sink, willing the material to crack underneath her fingers. It doesn't.
She only moves when two hands snake around her waist, a soft chin slotting over her shoulder. She sighs and closes her eyes, disappointed at herself for being so angry with Penelope, and to a certain extent, Josie.
Had Josie enabled Penelope's feelings? She wonders. Had she been leading Hope on all this time? The both of them?
Of course not.
"That didn't mean anything," Josie whispers, her cheek pressing against Hope's, the words soft and reassuring, but there is something else there, something else like she doesn't quite believe it herself.
"She practically confessed her love for you," Hope says, an embittered laugh cutting like glass at the back of her throat. Josie's hold on her becomes even tighter. "How does that not meaning anything?"
"Because I don't have any feelings for her," the muggleborn tells her easily, without a second's thought or hesitation.
It should comfort Hope, it should make her feel better, it should warm her heart, but instead she just feels jealous and insecure.
"I bet," she scoffs out, but melts into Josie's arms all the same. If only her mind and heart could agree on something for once in her damn life.
"Fine." Josie releases her, quickly enough that Hope turns around on the spot. Her hand clutches at the other girl's hip to keep her close, not willing to allow for any space at all. "How can I convince you?"
"What do you smell?" Hope asks, too suddenly, too desperately to be casual. She adds, words still rushed and eager, "In the Amortentia, I mean."
"Hope." Josie frowns, not looking happy with the question, looking much less happy with answering it. Something thick snaps painfully in the pureblood's chest.
"Forget it." She shakes her head, dropping her hand from Josie's hip and stepping towards the door. She's so stupid. So fucking stupid.
Josie moves in front of her to block her path, a hand on her chest, right over Hope's wanton heart. She briefly imagines that Josie can feel it shaking beneath her fingers.
"Do you really have so little trust in me?" the muggleborn asks, eyes narrowed and sad, brows furrowed and intense.
Hope shakes her head vehemently. "Of course not. I just don't trust her."
She can't quite help hissing the word out, like poison at the tip of her tongue. Her lips sting in agony.
"Firewhiskey," Josie blurts, out of nowhere. She isn't looking at Hope, not really, but somewhere past her, as if reliving a memory or trying to. "Wet grass, fresh ink, and pancakes...I think."
A lump forms hot and thick in Hope's throat. She blinks, confused, but Josie is quick to explain.
"That's what I smell," she tells Hope, eyes so clear and sincere that the pureblood has no choice but to believe her. "You. It's what I smelled a few weeks ago, too. I tried to tell you then, but I lost my nerve when you said that you were going to ask Clara out."
Fuck. Hope nearly slaps herself. She can remember that day clearly now, can remember Maya interrupting their conversation in Defense with gossip about how much Clara was in love with Hope and how all Hope needed to do was seal the deal.
How foolish she had been then. How foolish she is now. It all still nauseates her to this very moment, and it makes her all the more nauseous that Josie can even remember it, too.
"I'm sorry for putting you through that," she apologizes right away, but it doesn't feel enough.
How can she even begin to apologize for everything she's done? It seems as though she asks herself this question everyday.
"It's okay," Josie says. It's not. Her fingers find Hope's own, interlocking them at the knuckles. "Just let me know before you go asking people out this time around, okay?"
Hope swallows hard. "About that..."
Josie visibly deflates.
"No, no, it's nothing bad," she tries, but they both know where this is going. "It's just, uh, Roman Sienna asked me out Monday, and I thought I might say yes, considering Raichter is taking you..."
"Roman?" Josie narrows her eyes as she tries to think about who Hope might be referring to.
"Oh!" She snaps her fingers, realization dawning on her. She seems to come to her senses a second later, and shakes her head.
"No."
No? That's not what Hope had been expecting.
"Um." Hope fidgets, stroking the space between Josie's forefinger and thumb with her middle finger. "Why not?"
"He has hair like Goldilocks," Josie answers simply, shrugging. "I can't compete with him."
"Goldi-who?"
Josie ignores her. "Besides, his mother is a pureblood supremacist who has a muggle fetish."
"Exactly." Hope smirks something triumphant. "Which means his father is a muggle—"
She waggles her eyebrows.
"—So it all works out."
"I said no. You can do better."
"Fine."
—
After DADA, Professor Snape calls Hope to stay for a couple of minutes after class.
She exchanges a slightly panicked look with Josie before the bell rings, cursing inwardly as the other girl leaves so quickly that she's the first one out the door.
Of course.
Hope sighs as she watches the back of Josie's head disappear out of the classroom. Why else would Snape want to talk to her other than to bust her for going through his desk a week ago?
What she doesn't get is the timing.
Why would the man bring it up now when he could have done so days ago? Hmm. Maybe he just hadn't noticed that she had stolen part of the prophecy until now?
Shit. The prophecy.
Somehow, through all the drama with Josie and studying for her finals before winter break, she had come to forget about it.
"Miss Mikaelson, I hope your afternoon is going well," Snape starts, tone deceptively casual. Hope sees through the niceties right away.
"It is. Thank you, sir," she says, eyes narrowing.
The man nods with a small hum and clasps his fingers together. He rounds the corner of his desk, leaning his back against the edge of it.
"Do you take me for a fool?" he snaps, suddenly, so suddenly that it surprises the pureblood. She tries desperately not to show it.
Hope doesn't blink, choosing not to give him a reaction other than just crossing her arms. "Excuse me, sir?"
Snape doesn't blink, either. "Remind me, Miss Mikaelson, how long has it been since you served a detention in my classroom?"
Hope wonders what that has to do with anything. She pauses, if only to collect her thoughts.
"About a week."
"So," Snape says, "would you say that I have been rather generous, as to provide you with so much time to turn yourself in, after the crime you have committed against me?"
"I'm afraid I have no idea what crime you're referring to, sir," Hope tells him, always polite. She hopes her face isn't as red as she thinks it is right now. Seriously, her skin feels like it's on fire or something.
Professor Snape all but glaring at her doesn't help much.
"Allow me to help you remember," he clips dangerously, a slight sneer rising the left corner of his lips. "Some time after your last detention, I realized that my desk was quite disorganized, yet I could recall no such memory of disorganizing it. This led me to the conclusion that you and Miss Saltzman took advantage of my not being present and decided to root through my possessions like a pair of common street rats."
Fuck.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Hope shrugs. "I doubt Saltzman does, either."
Feeling petty, she adds, in a false tone of concern, "Are you feeling unwell, professor? I'm sure Madame Pomfrey could help. Would you like me to escort you to the hospital wing?"
Snape scowls, looking deeply into her eyes. She wavers not. The two stand there, for about a minute, just staring at each other, taking each other in.
Hope sets her jaw, straightens her back, pleads with her body to cooperate and not betray her.
Another minute passes before she feels it—
Before she feels the slight push against the walls of her mind, another presence within her thoughts. She nearly growls when she realizes that Snape is using Legilimency against her.
Mind going carefully blank, she pushes against him, closes around his consciousness inside her own, before coming to another revelation.
If she tries to hide from the man, it will only make him more suspicious of her. He was the one that had taught her Occlumency in the first place, after all.
Whatever. Two can play this game.
Resisting the smirk pulling at her own lips, Hope allows her thoughts to wander into the gutter, knowing that Snape is attempting to read them.
A small hand on her thigh, another clawing into her hair, sharp nails digging into her scalp, skin on skin, glistening with sweat, pouty lips parted into an O, a scrape of teeth along a tanned neck, gasping, moaning into Hope's ear, a perfect body writhing underneath her own...
Snape furrows his eyebrows in confusion, cocking his head to the side and taking his eyes off her own in order to make sense of the images and thoughts.
With a start, he shakes his head and grimaces, skin unnaturally pale.
"Okay!" The professor coughs or chokes, Hope can't tell. He waves his hand in dismissal, ushering her out of the door. "I believe you. You may go. Quickly, now."
Hope waits until the classroom door slams behind her to laugh. Snape does the same, the only difference being that he waits not to laugh, but to throw up all over his precious desk instead.
—
"She wouldn't admit to going through my desk, but you're right, Irma, the evidence is there," Snape says solemnly, a couple of hours after recovering from his bout of sickness. At least he can no longer taste the sting of bile at the back of his throat. "I told her that none of my things were as I left them, and Miss Mikaelson denied any involvement. She lied straight to my face. I'm sure of it."
The professors around him take a second to digest the information.
Headmaster Dumbledore speaks up first, smiling strangely. When he speaks, his voice is almost teasing. "Only sure? Did you perform Legilimens on the girl or not, Severus?"
"I did," he grumbles, face taking on an unhealthy purple hue. Dumbledore arches a white, bushy eyebrow. "But you know just as well as I do that Hope Mikaelson is as skilled an Occlumens as her father. She was able to hide it from me."
"No, actually," he corrects himself, a deep frown on his face. His belly stirs uncomfortably. "Not just hide it. Instead, she masked her thoughts by fantasizing about intimate fornication just to mock me."
Professor Vector sniggers somewhere distantly. Professor McGonagall bends forward as if faint, only saved from falling over by another teacher's helping hand on her arm.
"I'm certain that was not her intention," Dumbledore tries to soothe him, but his eyes sparkle in amusement. "The teenage mind is quite a curious, inventive place. You cannot blame a child for that. Perhaps Miss Mikaelson is not as deceitful as we may think."
"She's a bloody scoundrel!"
"We can blame her all we would like!"
"Not deceitful? Are you blind?"
"Okay, enough of that," Dumbledore cuts off his staff, putting up a hand to silence them. The disgruntled professors listen. "If the girls do prove to be suspicious, it might allow them some good. Merlin knows they need all the help that they can get. If that is all..."
He turns his attention to Professor Vector and McGonagall. "How are the preparations with the ball? I presume Miss Saltzman and Miss Mikaelson are going together?"
Vector draws her eyes together sadly and shakes her head. "You would presume wrong. Miss Saltzman is going with Madeline Raichter."
She lets out a deep sigh. "This isn't working out at all. Maybe we should just cancel it, Albus?"
He waves her off. "Don't be silly, it's much too late for that—"
"Don't be silly?" Vector cuts in. "Do not fool yourself naive, Albus. What were we thinking in the first place?"
She laughs humorlessly. It rings in the air like jagged knives. "Inviting families such as the Clarkes and Mikaelsons?"
Professor Flitwick squeaks at the obvious call-out. Vector only continues, "One must lay inquiry to your sanity."
"My sanity is not a question," Dumbledore tells the woman, looking more serious than anyone has ever seen him before. "We do this, we bring forth opportunity."
"Opportunity?" Another sharp laugh. McGonagall cringes. "All I can see is blatant stupidity. How can we welcome notoriously-dark families into our castle on good conscious?"
Dumbledore opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He seems shocked that one of his own would even stand against him. Snape speaks up.
"Frankly, I agree," he says. Vector scoffs. She has never trusted a man like Severus Snape, especially not to side with her. Not since he befriended the Mikaelsons. Of course, she'll never say that out loud. "To my knowledge, Malivore Clarke is up to no good. Just yesterday, another report of three muggles passing away in a mysterious chemical breech reached the newspaper. The toxic substance in question?"
Dumbledore's blue eyes dim. He already knows the answer.
"Black slime."
Snape takes another step in front of him, voice urgent. "Must I remind you of Seylah Chelon? We excused it once, we cannot again."
No. Dumbledore shakes his head, but says nothing at all.
This is for the greater good, he assures himself, not for the first time.