1st september
.·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。..·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。.
THERE'S NO DOUBT ABOUT IT: Joey's hair is hazardous terrain that nobody has dared to touch since Cedric's death, except Bill Weasley. Well, there's a reason he was in Gryffindor!
He grits his teeth around his wand as he sections her tangled flaming mess with deft fingers that have done this all too many times before. She's sat wriggling in the seat, apparently physically unable to stay still for even a fraction of a millisecond, chatting excitedly about Quidditch as she does so. But, contrary to popular belief, Bill isn't stupid, thank you very much, and he knows she's terrified about going back to Hogwarts.
He would've been, too. He imagines how he'd've felt if his own best friend, Ben Gallagher, happened to randomly die on him, and his stomach somersaults, like the Sloth Grip Roll she's currently enthusiastically describing.
'Blimey, Annie, you're growing half a tree in here!' he laughs, removing a few tiny branches and a chain of daisies from the roots of her auburn hair.
'Billy,' she moans, pretending to be sulky, 'why did you have to go interrupting my perfect description of a Sloth Grip Roll?'
He rolls his eyes, grinning. 'Um, because I know what it is already. I was a Chaser, don't forget.'
'And you were the best Chaser Hogwarts has ever seen,' she compliments wholeheartedly, clapping her hands together with giddy delight to emphasise her point.
'Says my favourite Keeper ever.' With one elegant flick of his wand her hair shimmers and shines, all the knots melting away, every strand flowing back to perfection, like honey. It'll last about a day, before she gets it all messed up as per usual, but still. 'Ta-da!' He leans back to admire his handiwork, arms crossed smugly across his chest. 'Reckon I should retrain, don't you?'
She rises like a playful angel from the chair and leans her head against the highest part of him she can reach: the torso. Breathing in the deep, familiar homely aroma of cinnamon, she murmurs, 'Definitely.'
'I love how you always believe in me, Annie, don't you ever change.'
He's ruffling her gossamer hair affectionately, watching her pirouette across the inhumane kitchen in her mismatched socks. Her tiny hands flail as she slips and slides, her fingers with the nibbled nails and the pink and purple ink stains. Her hands that are always glacial cold, her hands that look so naked and alien when they're not pressed into Fred's, into George's.
'Well, um, that's because I do always believe in you,' she says earnestly, a slight frown pinching her eyebrow. 'Why wouldn't I?'
Because you don't believe in yourself, Bill wants to say. And you really, really should.
Before he can say anything, though, there's a cacophony of crashes in the hall, followed by Molly Weasley's trademark yelling, and by the way Joey's face explodes into a brilliant grin, Bill knows exactly who's raising hell in the hallway. As per fucking usual.
"— COULD HAVE DONE HER A SERIOUS INJURY, YOU IDIOTS —"
'Tell me, Annie,' he begins, pulling her up onto the worktop and handing her a steaming mug. She cradles it lovingly, giggling into the steam. 'How does it feel to share one brain cell amongst the three of you?' He taps gently on her forehead with a long lithe finger. 'Don't you worry it could get lonely?'
'Um, excuse me!' Joey cries. She rises to her full stature and glaring at him with all the ferocity she can muster. (Which isn't a lot, mind you, but you can't fault her for trying!) 'I won't stand for Fred and George slander. Well, technically I'm sat down, but you get my point!'
'But you stand for Johannah slander,' he says, and as she opens her mouth to protest, 'don't you. I don't think you truly understand your worth, sometimes.'
What worth, she thinks, miserably. 'Listen,' Joey begins, clucking her tongue between her teeth, 'I'm worth-'
Nothing. 'Everything,' Bill interjects, firmly, lifting her chin to look at him.
She flushes, it creeps across her acne scars and makes her look radiant, and she doesn't even know this. 'You'll write, won't you?'
'Every week,' Joey promises fervently. 'I'm so desperate to know about how your love life is going!'
'Fuck off. I wanna hear about yours, never mind mine!'
He gazes at her, observing the way she blushes so easily, her deep chocolatey eyes suddenly sorrowful and forlorn for a second. Only a second, but he can read her like an open book. 'What love life?' she murmurs, her words lethargic with dejection.
'Ooo, what's the gossip about our love lives?' comes George's voice, his hands clasped together with a smirk as he enters the kitchen. He sees Joey's hair and his beam blooms. 'You look good, mate.'
She twists around to hug him. 'Fishing for compliments, my love?'
He flutters his eyelashes foolishly, so hard she splutters with laughter into her tea. 'Ah fuck, you got me. You know I always am.'
'Where's your idiot brother, George?' Bill asks, sliding off the tabletop. 'I need to talk to you three.'
'What? So you can give us a pep talk, William?' George retaliates. Winking, he lowers his voice and gestures to the kitchen door. 'Watch that door in three... two... wait for it... one!'
Fred bursts into the room, ears crimson and disgruntled. George sits back with a triumphant flourish.
'We were only practising magic, I don't see what her problem is,' Fred grumps, furious as anything. Then his eyes fall upon Bill and George watching him with amusement, and his frown deepens, until he sees Joey surveying him with her classic childlike intrigue and all his annoyance dissipates away.
And fuck, she looks so different, but so good, with her hair like that. He lets out a long, low wolf whistle. Without thinking.
Joey looks stunned, and Fred's internal voice is going haywire, screaming at him, What the fuck did you do that for. And, to be completely honest with you, he doesn't have a bloody clue!
But, he tells himself, smooth is practically his middle name. So he brushes it off in a matter of seconds, saying, 'Sorry, just caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.'
George doesn't look convinced - like, at all, whatsoever - but Fred gives him a glare that says Help-me-out-here-or-I-will-murder-your-first-born-child! and so his twin saves him, albeit with a huge smirk plastered so smugly across his freckled cheeks.
Fuck, you can bet that Fred is going to put some bloody Dungbombs in his bed tonight! Or worse.
'Shame you're still the least attractive twin, Fweddieweddieboo,' George coos, saccharine as the sugared tea Joey's so obsessed with drinking. Merlin's tits, there's got to be something worse than Dungbombs.
'Now listen to me, you three.' Bill crosses his freckled arms across his broad chest, poking the three of them in turn with a finger. When it gets to Joey she giggles and ducks. 'No misbehaving this year, you hear me?'
'No, Dad,' they chorus.
He continues wagging the finger. 'If I hear about you, I dunno, burping at your teachers or something...'
'What, like this?' Joey asks innocently, leaning onto her tiptoes to burp in his face. 'Did you know burping was actually seen as polite in Ancient Rome?'
'Bloody hell, Joeypoos, that was pathetic,' Fred says, sniggering, 'you need more force, like this,' and his burp is as twice as loud as hers.
'Hey, not fair!' George cries sulkily, 'don't worry, Joe, I'll show you how it's done.'
'Shut the flip up,' she says, looping an arm through both of theirs, and as Bill gives her one last sunshiney wink, she burps loud enough to blow the house down. 'There. I win!'
'No you don't.'
'Um, yes I do, Freddie.'
'No you don't.'
'Oh, flip off, you... you cold bowl of beans!'
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HER LIFE, Joey has mixed feelings about going back to Hogwarts.
She isn't sure when she realises; maybe it's when she has to hug Bill goodbye, and they're both fighting back the tears. Or maybe it's as Kreacher surveys her disgustedly from the doorway, and she realises that in a weird way she's actually grown quite fond of him. Whenever she does realise, there's no denying it: for once, Hogwarts is not going to be home.
Still. Joey forces herself to indulge in the positives, of which there are many. Lee and Lola, nights sneaking into Honeydukes, giggling atop the astronomy tower...
They head to the platform with Lupin, and boy is she glad to be leaving London. The grey skies that have haunted and taunted her, that flipping horrid house. She swings George's hand, clutching onto the polished handle of her new broomstick, butterflies fluttering in her stomach.
And all too soon Lupin's saying, 'Well, look after yourselves,' and as he gives the rest of them handshakes, Joey laughs and tackles him in a hug. He smells like chocolate and cigarettes and Sirius' bitter coffee. 'Johannah,' he begins, just as Mrs Weasley begins to shove them on the train.
She leans out of the window, bending as far as she can to give Sirius' fur an affectionate ruffle. Then the platform peels away from sight and London is melting away, like it was only ever a nightmare, like Grimmauld Place was only a morbid fragment of a morbid imagination.
'He shouldn't have come with us,' Hermione is saying, her lip bitten thin with worry.
'Oh, lighten up,' Ron reprimands, 'he hasn't seen daylight for months, poor bloke.'
Joey's mind wanders to how, so many times this cruel summer, she's sat at the table with Sirius, his bitter coffee steam curling through her vision. Him doing the crossword in the Daily Pigshit (sorry, the Daily Prophet), how whenever there was a word he didn't know - which, admittedly, was often - she would doodle hearts in the gaps, or silly messages like SIRIUS AND REMUS FOREVER and JOHANNAH IS THE BEST HEHE, and she can't help but think that Ron has a point.
Fred claps his hands together. 'Well, can't stand around chatting all day, we've got business to discuss with Lee, see you later,' he says, and he grabs Joey's hand that is currently prised around George's, and pulls them laughing down the corridor.
'On your worst behaviour, ladies and gents!' Fred says happily as they reach their usual compartment, right at the end of the train - as far away from the prefect carriage as possible. George gives him a triumphant high-five over Joey's head; rolling her eyes but smiling, she slides open the compartment door, straight into the arms of Lola Lemont.
Lola engulfs her so fiercely it's almost terrifying (scratch that - it is terrifying!), her beautiful sheet of emeraldy-ebony hair swinging violently over her shoulder. 'If it isn't my favourite Hufflepuff.'
'I'm the only Hufflepuff you like!'
Lola wrinkles her nose, sinking back into her seat without greeting Fred or George. 'Liking people is so overrated,' she retorts drily.
Besides her on the seat, with his arm strewn lazily over her shoulder, Lee's engrossed in the Quibbler. At the sight of Fred and George he practically leaps upwards. Beaming, Joey clasps his hand, letting the welcome warmth of it radiate through her as she drinks in his coffee-stained smile and the honeyed constellations splattered across his nose.
'Fuck yeah, the Gryffindor Gang's back together!' Lee gushes as they all collapse back down, flushed and grinning like children. 'And Joey of course, our honorary member, who's scared of belly buttons, but who we love unconditionally anyway.'
She sticks her tongue out at him. 'It's called omphalophobia, Lee, look it up!'
George rolls his eyes. He leans forward eagerly, rapt eyes fixed on Lee. 'So, what've you two been up to this summer?'
'Oh, you know,' Lola replies vaguely, checking a colour-changing nail. 'Smashing up the patriarchy. As per usual.'
'AKA, hexing every sexist she can find,' pipes up Lee from behind her. 'And shouting at me for making tea wrong.'
George grimaces. 'Lee, you literally put the milk in first.'
'So? It's an art form!'
Leaning against the cool crystal glass of the window, Joey scrutinises Lola, remembering the baby-pink scar she had slicing through her cheek, and the ominous oblivion where a pointy tooth had been missing. Yet there's no sign of anything to suggest Lola has been through hell and back this summer, with her heavy cobweb eyelashes and the eyebrow piercing like a dagger through her scowl.
In fact, it's possibly the funniest thing Joey has ever seen, watching Lee with his Quibbler and Lola besides him, poring over a heavy leather-backed book, with easily over a thousand yellowing pages.
Fred seizes the book and snorts, glaring at the cover like it's cursed. 'What the fuck are you reading, Lemont?'
'Cyfaddasrwydd y Drefn o Gadwedigaeth trwy Ffydd,' she spits, yanking it back. 'It is for intellectuals, so you would not understand, Weasel.'
'I think the fact that it's in Welsh probably is why he won't understand it,' George snorts, 'but I dunno, just an inkling. OW!'
Glowering at Lola, he tenderly rubs the patch of his head she just whacked with the book.
Fred begins to retort, then his eyes narrow and he points at Lola with his mouth falling wide open. 'Is that what I bloody think it is...?'
Joey gently places a finger on his chin and lifts it upwards, shutting his mouth. 'You'll get flies in there, my love.'
'Oh, you mean this?' Lola says, parading the Head Girl badge lurking on her robes. It catches the light and shimmers, kaleidoscopic, mesmerising, paralysing the twins in dismay and Joey in delight.
Squealing, Joey squeezes Lola's hand, coaxing the tiniest smidgeon of a smile from her just for a moment. Lee, meanwhile, is basically bursting to the brim with pride, whereas Fred and George look much less impressed. Well - Joey supposes disgusted is probably the right word for it!
'D'you reckon we're still allowed to be in Her Majesty's presence, George?' Fred says, in a tone of sickly-sweet worry.
'Dunno, Fred. Should we bow, curtsey, or sacrifice everything we own up to her?'
'That last suggestion will suffice.' Lola sinks contentedly back into Lee's arm with her eyes closed.
In perfect synchrony, Fred and George lean forward and violently stick their middle fingers up at her face; Joey, groaning, pulls back their matching shirts in a feeble attempt to chastise them.
'Ten points from Gryffindor, children, for that outrageous behaviour,' Lola says smugly without even opening her eyes.
The twins share sulky scowls.
Humming happily, Joey shoves a Fudge Fly into her mouth and lets the divine caramel explode all over her tongue; all the while she's thinking how much she adores them, unabashedly, unconditionally. Merlin's socks, more than anything she just wishes they could stay like this forever: not at Hogwarts, not anywhere, just her and her gang of goofy Gryffindors floating forever in dreamy stasis.
'Head Girl,' she repeats delightedly. 'Don't you think that's such a funny name? It sounds like you're gonna collect a load of heads or something!'
Lola places her elegant hands on either side of Fred's freckled neck, her onyx ring resting threateningly like a bullet on his skin. She mimes twisting. 'Yes, I shall decapitate Weasel's first.'
He shrugs, snatching one of Joey's Fudge Flies and ignoring her half-serious protests. 'Whatever, sheep-shagger.'
Lee throws his head back and roars with laughter. 'What does that make me, a funny looking sheep, huh?'
Joey is giggling into her palm, unable to help herself. Fred and George, again, are high-fiving triumphantly, and she flops down into George's lap, letting him fiddle with her messy hair, fizzing over with pure love like pink lemonade.
'A Welsh sheep shagging joke? In the name of Owain Glyndwr, how terribly hilarious! I am in awe of your originality!' Lola says, her tone oozing with disdain.
She nonchalantly glides a blood-red lipstick across her lower lip. It's like she's preparing her battle makeup, and it reminds Joey of the magical Celts Professor Binns was always blabbering on about as she dozed through his lessons.
Fred must make some snide remark Joey doesn't quite catch - the big meanie! - because Lola's eyes are venomous again. 'Unfortunately I do not have the patience nor the crayons to explain this incredibly easy concept to you Weasley, but I shall anyways for the sake of humanity: Welsh people do not, and I repeat do not, engage in sexual intercourse with Ovis aries, or to use its common name, the mountain sheep.'
'Yeah!' Lee agrees, through his giggles. 'And I should know!'
'Yeah, yeah, right,' Fred says, stretching lazily back onto his seat, and then adding in an undertone, 'sheep-shagger.'
It happens in a matter of moments. Lola throws herself forward, pulling out her wand with one deft movement as she does so. She presses its tip firmly against the point of his nose, so the skin whitens, his freckles suddenly garish. 'Weasley, I will kick you so hard up the arse your face will be completely decimated. Which, quite frankly, will only be an improvement.'
Lee cheers. 'Give it to him, Lolie!'
'You're meant to be on our bloody side, Lee,' George whines. He grabs a discarded Chocolate Frog and hurls it at Lee's head, causing him to shriek. 'You two make me bloody sick.'
'The poor little froggy woggy,' Joey coos, watching the Frog creep and lurch across her palm, before cramming it into her mouth.
George snorts. 'Oh yeah, you obviously care so much about that poor little froggy woggy, Joe.'
'That's our Joeypoos,' Fred says, smiling down at her so intensely it almost makes her blush - just a little. 'Animal rights activist extraordinaire.'
She lifts her head slightly to protest, as the compartment door slides open and there, leaning against the doorway, twirling his wand and looking impossibly unimpressed, is the one-and-only Pyotr Zalewski.
'P!' Joey squeals, pulling away from George's lap to squeeze his waist. The first thing she notices about him is that he's had a haircut, so his dark brown hair is cropped close to his scalp. It reminds her of a downy dandelion, glowing every time he turns in the clinical light of the compartment.
If you put a gun against Joey's head and forced her to pick her favourite thing about Pyotr Zalewski, it wouldn't be his obsessive use of his beloved F-word, or his wry humour or his unrelenting ambition, but how much of a drama queen he is. Today's no exception: he tousles her hair affectionately and says, 'Fucking hell, Johannah, you'd've thought that we'd been apart for months! I know I'm fucking marvellous, but not that marvellous.'
'Well, you know what they say!' she replies happily. 'Absence does make the heart grow fonder!'
Besides her, Fred emits an unmistakeable huff. Pyotr raises a single eyebrow. 'You got a problem, Weasley?'
'Not at all, Zalewski.'
'Good, because as your fucking Head Boy, I can dock as many fucking points from fucking Gryffindor as I see fit.'
Joey's watching them both, utterly bemused, desperately trying to conjure up ways to defuse the tension. The only ways she can think of are quickly disregarded - such as forcing them to hug it out, which she's pretty sure will not work in this situation. Unfortunately!
As per usual, it falls upon Lola to save them all.
'Ach-y-fi, I am practically choking on the testosterone,' she declares, wrinkling her nose in disgust. She swiftly kisses the top of Lee's head and makes her way over to Pyotr with a curt nod. 'Shall we go and tyrannise the despicable first-years in the name of Head Student duties?'
'We shall,' Pyotr says with relish, and Joey's grinning as she watches them because she can't help feeling they've finally met their match in each other. (Platonically, obviously.)
Lola offers Pyotr her arm, insisting that in 1995 she doesn't have to succumb to societal standards of waiting for the man to do so, and together they vacate the compartment.
Lee doesn't look bothered - like, at all. Fred and George, on the contrary, both seem sour, and on Joey's left side, Fred's shoulder is as stiff as his forced smile. And she just doesn't understand why.
'Why are you cheesed off, Freddie?' she asks anxiously, wrapping her freckled fingers around his alabaster wrist.
'Nothing's pissing me off,' he answers a little too quickly, all defensive.
Her frown deepens. 'Nothing? That means you're cheesed off by, like, the air! That's quite silly, my love.'
Fred scoffs and turns to face her, cupping his lopsided smile in his calloused palm. With the pad of his thumb he sweeps a strand of stray hair across her face, where her cheeks blush ferociously like obnoxious cherries at his traipsing fingers. 'You really are a little bit weird, aren't you, Joeypoos?'
She beams, desperately trying to ignore the heat blossoming on her cheeks. 'Just a teensy-weensy bit. But that's why you like me.'
He lets out a long, billowing huff. 'Debatable.'
Joey gasps in faux shock, shoving him playfully with her shoulder - just as the train lurches, causing her to tumble forward into his lap. She blushes like an idiot - like she wasn't already blushing bad enough! - but he is watching her with smug amusement, running fingers through her mess of hair.
'Um, George's lap is comfier,' she mumbles, trying to make a joke and failing miserably. In truth, Joey's so annoyed with herself. Like, Fred is her best friend, and here she is, a blooming blushing mess? That's not how it's meant to work out!
'Oh really?' he says, smirking, and these are the two words that practically kill her off.
Joey squeezes her eyes shut so hard it hurts, because, just maybe, it'll stop her being so sodding flustered. Surprise surprise - it doesn't work! 'Says who?' she manages, forcing herself to remember, it's just Fred it's just Fred it's just Fred. He's just your best friend, see?
Just. Merlin's mismatched socks, how she hates that word.
'Oh, Witch Weekly did a survey on it,' he says nonchalantly.
'Freddie, have I ever told you how flipping cocky you are?'
'Cocky, eh?' Fred laughs, waggling his eyebrows and winking, and he's so utterly stupid, and so utterly wonderful, and she so wants to kiss him.
And he's just her best friend, which despite her best efforts, is a fact she seems to be reminding herself of more and more lately.
Across from them, George and Lee are enthusiastically discussing business - a serious word which, for the record, should never, ever be associated with Fred and George - and George's eyes are rapt and enchanted. Down the corridor, Joey hears the familiar rattle of the confectionery trolley, and it truly hits her: whatever happens, will happen. They are going back to Hogwarts for the last time.
Fred tickles her nose and she squeals delightedly. As she lets her eyes close she feels dangerously tranquil, like it's wrong to be this calm, because she has a funny feeling (intuition courtesy of her Pisces moon!) that 1995 hasn't run out of surprises for her just yet.
Still. Underneath them the train rattles and hisses towards Hogwarts and whatever fate awaits them there.
NIGHT HAS FALLEN by the time they reach Hogwarts, and the bitter air hangs heavy with the aroma of pine trees. Shivering, Joey clutches her luggage tight, stumbling out into the rain-washed night with her arms linked with the twins'.
Her heart, as usual, soars when she sees them, and she yanks free from the twins to throw her arms around their skeletal necks. The Thestrals whinny appreciatively, scrutinising her soul with their milky white eyes, fluttering their leathery-wings in delight.
The thing about the Thestrals is, yes, they're terrifying apparently (Joey's never understood that, don't judge by appearances! Lola doesn't look scary... OK, that's a lie), but to her they're everything. To Joey, the Thestrals are proof that the death that has dictated her whole life has a weird kind of beauty. That eerie and sinister events do not have to be quite so eerie and sinister.
'Ah yes, time for Joe to go bonkers again,' George announces cheerily, pulling her by the hand into the carriage. She accepts it rather begrudgingly, wanting to keep nuzzling her face into the bony velvet necks.
'I'm not going bonkers!' she insists.
George slams his forehead with his palm, as if to say, Duh! 'Of course, how could I forget? You already are bloody bonkers.'
She's thinking how weird a word bonkers is, you could almost say it's bonkers, and it's preoccupying her so much that she almost misses the ethereal rise of Hogwarts through the trees. Hogwarts, with its windows glowing like they're molten, sparkling in dead moonlight.
And, honestly, flip all those thoughts she was having earlier; seeing Hogwarts now, Joey's heart is somersaulting and she's eleven again, watching her fairyland, her only true home, welcoming her back like it always does.
She's leaning so far forward with excitement to greet it that Fred has to grab a handful of her jumper and pull her back into the carriage, to stop her falling out. Joey is so exhilarated with pure, childlike joy that she almost doesn't notice the way his hand casually falls onto her knee and stays there.
Almost - but not quite.
She just assumes it's accidental, because, well, why wouldn't it be? After all, they are just best friends. So what if, when she moves her knee ever-so-slightly, his hand readjusts without hesitation? So what if unabashed delight is blooming inside her like a butterfly?
Joey does not know how many times she has to say this. They. Are. Just. Friends!
Hogwarts' Entrance Hall swallows her in grandiose marble. Joey's scruffy colourful trainers squeak a happy tuneless melody across polished floor.
'You know,' Fred is saying, doing his best impression at thoughtfulness, 'with the amount of stuff that happens to us, sometimes I wonder if our school isn't actually normal.'
'Don't be daft Fred,' says George. 'Every school gets visited by a mass murderer in fifth year.'
'Except he's not a mass murderer,' Joey hisses fondly, if such a thing can be done, 'he sleeps at Grimmauld Place with his boyfriend and his pet Hippogriff!'
'Not together I hope.'
Apprehension is crippling in the air. As they file into the Great Hall, drowning in a crowd that makes Joey feel sick to the stomach, gossip spreads like wildfire around them. Under her fingers, Fred's arm tenses.
'She was friends with Diggory, wasn't she?'
'Friends? Zacharias Smith told me they were practically siblings or something, apparently.'
'Diggory? You mean, pretty boy?'
'Dead boy, more like.'
Joey's breath hitches. She can do this. And even if she can't, she forces herself to remember, she has to do it anyway. For Cedric. For the two boys currently half-stony, half-worried beside her. So she waves goodbye to the Weasleys and weaves her way over to the Hufflepuff table, ignoring the way she hears her own name entwined with Ced's a thousand times.
'Joe!' Ivy Thomas yells, knocking Pyotr's tankard of pumpkin juice over as she waves frantically at her. Pyotr explodes into a tirade of complaints, but Ivy is completely oblivious (or just ignoring his shit), squeezing Joey into a one-armed hug.
'Hey Ives. How was your summer?'
'Wicked,' grins Ivy. 'Dean's absolutely fuming that I'm allowed to do magic and he can't, so I kept unmatching all his socks with my wand just to piss him off more.'
Joey giggles. 'And did it work? Did he get cheesed off, I mean?'
Ivy snorts with satisfaction. 'Yep. He hasn't talked to me for three weeks, has he, P?'
'Nope.' Pyotr leans forward conspiratorially, speaking in his usual drama-queeny exaggerated whisper, 'Not since she accidentally-on-purpose told Seamus that Dean fucking wet the bed until he was fucking eleven.'
'Ivy Thomas, that is awful! Shame on you!'
Ivy shrugs, refilling Pyotr's pumpkin juice and taking a long swig from his tankard. 'It wasn't,' she says defensively. 'I was being nice! I could've told Seamus that it was actually till he was thirteen.'
Joey laughs, feeling a little guilty, just as the Sorting Hat bursts into song.
She isn't really listening. She's so hungry, and so sleepy, and her waiting bed in the Hufflepuff dormitories has never appealed so much to her. The soft patchwork quilts, the snuggly feather pillows... With great effort, Joey drags herself out of stupor before she falls asleep at the dinner table (and not for the first time!).
'Fuck, it's the Sorting,' Pyotr mutters, and a rare terror in his voice curdles her blood.
Because Pyotr Zalewski never, ever gets scared. It's not even in his dictionary.
'Aww, P, don't you like seeing the first-years get picked?' Joey asks, leaning contentedly into her chin. 'I think it's adorable!'
Ivy and Pyotr exchange meaningful glances, the sort you can only share when you grew up together, building your worlds with each other's blood. 'Pyotr's little brother is starting Hogwarts,' Ivy says finally.
Joey frowns, placing her bitten-nail fingers on Pyotr's wrist reassuringly. 'But surely... surely that's a good thing?'
Pyotr scoffs. 'Yeah, it'll be so fucking brilliant if he, a sensitive eleven-year-old Muggle-born, gets sorted into fucking Slytherin.'
'I thought you were proud to be in Slytherin? Because you're so ambitious you want to be the first Polish Muggle-born Minister for Magic?'
'Johannah, you know there's some Slytherins, naming no names - and definitely not Ethan Rosier - that will absolutely fucking annihilate him.'
Gulping with fear, she searches the crowded Gryffindor table for the twins. When they look up and meet her eyes, they pull grotesque faces and waggle their tongues at her, and only then does the nausea in her stomach ebb away.
But not for long, because McGonagall is calling, 'Zalewski, Pawel!' and a tiny boy that's the absolute spit of Pyotr is nestling in the chair.
Besides Joey, Pyotr is muttering, 'Fuck fuck fuck,' his dandelion clock head buried in both hands. Ivy is soothing him in a language they made up as children, gobbledegook oozing with childhood love.
Joey feels so, so bad for him. She takes one of his hands and squeezes, and Ivy takes the other, and it's just the three of them against the world. All the while Ivy is murmuring, 'He'll be in Gryffindor, P, I've babysat him, and God is he obnoxious...'
The Hat opens its brim and Joey knows what will happen before it does (again, you can thank her water sign moon for that!).
'SLYTHERIN!' it announces proudly, like it isn't signing Pawel's death warrant.
Pyotr slumps lifelessly on the bench. 'Fuck my fucking shitty excuse for a fucking life.'
For once, Joey can't for the life of her think up a silver lining. Only Cedric would've known exactly what to say to Pyotr, with his calming grey eyes reminiscent of storms upon a sea and his smell, his smell of warm apple tinged with long grass that she misses stupidly much.
'I'm a fucking Slytherin, bro!' Pawel bellows proudly across the Hall, causing a violent shockwave of laughter to ripple down the tables at the sight of an eleven-year-old with the world's pottiest mouth.
Only Joey, Ivy and Pyotr are not laughing, or even smiling. Food materialises onto their plates, but suddenly Joey's appetite is gone.
Here's the thing: despite the seemingly never-ending list of ordeals she's had to through, she still doesn't believe that people are inherently bad. Yet she's not stupid enough to have not worked out, the hard way, that this wonderful world she inhabits can be just as cruel as it is kind.
Merlin, how she wishes everything was easy. All she wants - and she truly doesn't think it's much to ask for! - is a cute little cottage in the woods, hidden amongst wildflowers and with frolicking fairies in the overgrown gardens. Bonfires and giggling and stolen Firewhisky with the twins. Because George is her platonic soulmate forever and Fred, well, Fred is just her best friend. Obviously.
Their new Defence Professor, Umbrella or whatever her name is, is giving some sort of speech and all Joey thinks is that she looks like what would happen if a frog and a pink Blancmange had a baby and... well, you know the rest. She makes a feeble attempt to catch the last sentence ('pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited'... Holy Hippogriffs, Fred and George are going to have a field day with that) and immediately hunts for the twins again, wondering what they make of this marshmallow-lookalike scary woman.
Fred is currently attempting to stick a chip up George's nostril. When he senses her gazing at them like they're everything to her (because they are), he sends her a large wink that singlehandedly turns her insides into a circus' contortionist show. Thanks very much, Fred Weasley, thanks a lot.
Dumbledore must have dismissed the school when Joey was daydreaming about Fred - sorry, just thinking perfectly normally about Fred - because there's a sudden clattering of benches and then there's students milling everywhere. Most of them, even the trembling first-years, are taller than Joey, and she feels swamped and panicky and claustrophobic.
'Oi, out of the way, midgets!' Fred and George are calling as they lace through the crowds towards her, sending kids scattering in every direction. Gratefully, Joey rises to rush to them, but obnoxious chattering from down the Hufflepuff table makes her stop dead in her tracks.
Begrudgingly, she turns to face her worst enemy of all time, Zacharias blooming Smith.
It is very out of character for Joey to dislike someone so much, promise! She won't say she hates him, because hate is a very strong word, but sometimes he truly warrants it. For example, in Quidditch practice he used to talk back to Cedric, like, all the time. Which is just, well, blooming rude! And once in training, he accidentally (code for: definitely on purpose) knocked Joey clean off her broom, and she had to spend the week in the hospital wing. Sure, it meant she finally got to catch up on sleep, but that wasn't the point!
In short: Zacharias Smith is not her cup of tea!
'Sounds like someone's finally going to be talking sense round here,' Zacharias is saying loud and proud. 'I mean, are we really meant to believe that Hippogriffshit about Diggory being murdered?'
'I'm sorry?' asks Joey hotly, feeling her blood rise.
'He was thick as a troll, did you even know he could string two sentences together?'
'S-says you, Zacharias!' Joey says, feeling her chest constrict with nerves. This is Johannah Attlee we're talking about, she just doesn't do confrontation. But she doesn't really do people insulting Cedric either, so...
'Everything alright, Joeypoos?' Fred asks, arriving at her shoulder. His hands are slouching idly in his pockets, and he's completely unaware that he's holding together her universe as much as he confuses it.
'Yeah,' she breathes, forcing a smile that's definitely more of a grimace. 'Yeah, of course.'
'Johannah?' Zacharias calls, and she's really, really fuming as she turns back to him. Seriously, she's surprised she's not spouting smoke or something. 'Have you heard anything about the who new Quidditch Captain is going to be? I thought I might perhaps be suitable for the role...'
'Yep,' Joey spits. 'It's me.' And with a defiant toss of her hair she grabs both twins' arms and they stalk out into the Entrance Hall.
'Blimey, Joeypoos, have I ever told you you're scary when you're mad?' Fred asks as soon as they're hovering by the marble staircase, breathing in the cool night air.
'It's not my fault he's an... an intolerable half-baked pumpkin pasty!'
George nods. 'You're completely right, Fred, she's absolutely bloody terrifying. I'm so fwightened.'
'You gonna be okay tonight?' Fred asks her, his voice uncharacteristically quiet and close.
Her mind flickers back to the nightmares that are still haunting her. 'Fine as a daisy!' she replies breezily.
Fred raises an eyebrow. 'Are you sure that's a mannerism?'
She shrugs, smiling it off, her hair shimmering. 'It is now!'
George coughs. Fred hastily lets go of her pinky. Joey hadn't even realised he was holding it.
'Night, then,' he says.
'Goodnight, my love.'
He mumbles something. Joey jumps onto her tiptoes and playfully taps his ear. 'Pardon? I didn't quite catch that.'
'I said, I like it when you call me my love,' he replies, smirking, and as her mind frantically conjures a response George drags him away in the direction of Gryffindor Tower.
Her head is whirring at a billion, trillion miles per hour, and all Joey knows for certain is that she needs her bed. (Correction: she needs it all the time, actually, so where's the lie?) She hurries to the Hufflepuff dormitories, without even stopping at the kitchens - which is an accomplishment in itself, to be honest! - and beelines straight to her room.
Cocooning up in her patchwork quilts, with Cedric's dragon leaping to curl up in the perfect dip of her shoulder blade, Joey's so exhausted she's aching for sleep. Yet her mind keeps her up well past the small hours, overbrimming with thoughts of Zacharias Smith (who is really, truly not her cup of tea!), the problem of Pawel, and a million other things besides.
Oh, and Fred Weasley, obviously. But is anyone honestly even surprised about that at this point?
a/n
hey um i have nothing to say SHDHHDHDH !!! hope u enjoyed this the biggest Filler to end all Fillers:)
love u all, xoxo nolan <333