Loverboy

On Godric Gryffindor himself, I love her.

"And then we went to Madam Puttifoot's," Marlene was saying excitedly, "and some older guy and his wife started telling us we were disgusting abominations of humanity. And Ava, she went off on 'em."

"What did she say?" Ollie pressed, eager to hear more. On her right, Lily leaned in to listen closer to Marlene's story. Next to Marlene, Mary was propped up on one elbow, paying close attention. On Ollie's left, Alice was looking attentively at Marlene, wanting to hear more as well. Over at the Slytherin table, Ava and her friends were in a similar formation, likely hearing the same course of events, but blowing up Marlene's part instead of Ava's.

"She told them that the only abominations of humanity she could see was him and his hag of a wife, telling sixteen year old girls about how they should feel, and she told him that if he ever came near us again, she would hex him into oblivion. On Godric Gryffindor himself, I love her."

Marlene loved talking about her girlfriend, and all her friends made a silent vow to protect them from any and everything. James had already hexed three older Slytherins, Sirius has already gotten into four fistfights on their behalf, Remus had hexed, fought and went off on more than thirty people, and Peter had already jinxed two people. Ollie had hexed four Ravenclaw boys, Lily had hexed twenty-three people so far, and Mary had gotten into three scuffles over it. Alice and Frank had pulled nasty pranks on everyone who made a snide remark about Marlene and Ava's relationship.

Ollie wondered why Remus was so protective over them. Of course, all of them were protective and defended Marlene and Ava's relationship, but Ollie noticed something odd about Remus. He seemed to take Mulciber and Avery's jeers personally. The way he reacted to the comments made it seem like he was defending not only his friends, but himself.

"As she should," Mary said confidently. The girls were huddled at the end of Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, catching up on each other's lives, while the Gryffindor boys were out on the grounds early on the April morning. A long time had passed since the weird dream happened for Ollie, since she'd gotten that tiny kitten, now growing into a sturdy young tabby. Since the first time she had kissed one of her best friends. Since the last time.

She'd been sixteen for two months now, she'd laughed in a hazy fever dream-esque few weeks. She'd picked up drawing, drawing the lavender bushes around the far side of the lake, drawing the smiles of her friends, the scowls of her enemies. The soft blue eyes she'd found herself staring into more times than not since Victoria Wilson came into her life.

Still, she wasn't sure why she couldn't help but smile when she saw the deeply brunette girl. She'd learned a lot about Victoria. Like how she painted the lunar moths in the moonlight, and how she loved to sing love songs in the foggy mornings by the lake. She learned of her passion for art, her infatuation with creating and admiring.

And Ollie found herself admiring this admiration more than she thought she would. They would sit together under canopies of the castle after reading over delicately written notes and quick scribbles. They would run out in their skirts and blouses in the rain and laugh together.

They would dance during storms, being found more often than not by one of their friends, concerned for having not seen them for quite some time. They would lay in the rolling hills together around the grounds in the sunny afternoons. They would climb trees and feel like the world was so far below them.

Ollie thought it felt kind of like falling in love. She couldn't remember everything from the past two months, but it was soft and happy, like an old photograph of two childhood friends only just reunited.

She found herself wanting to hold Victoria the way Ava held Marlene. The way Frank held Alice, the way lovers would in old romantic tales. And Ollie knew that wasn't right. She didn't like girls like that. She knew that she and Victoria had just become such good friends in such a short time, and she had come to care for her more than she knew was possible, but it was only that; two fast friends.

She would lie awake for hours thinking about her at night, occasionally borrowing James's invisibility cloak to sneak out to their spot, looking at the forest, the lake, watching the moths she loved so much.

Victoria's close friend, a beautiful girl named Pandora, was just as passionate as Victoria. She was a Ravenclaw, she loved books, writing, learning new things. She read novels thicker than their heaviest textbooks, all day and late into the night. She wrote poems about the stars in the sky, the bees buzzing around the wildflowers. 

Ollie had found two romantics, and she couldn't understand how she'd lived with out them in her life until now. Pandora was a romantic for her old friend and now lover, a young man named Xenophilius Lovegood. He'd graduated Hogwarts the year before, and had started up a magazine called the "Quibbler." Pandora had pinned up every issue since he started it while at Hogwarts.

Victoria was a hopeless romantic. She wasn't in love with anyone. She was in love with the idea of love. The late nights laying together, dancing in the moonlight, watching the sunrise from upon the hills. The thought of holding someone dearer than life itself, of loving one single person with your whole heart.

The way she longed to for the longest time. The way Ollie had longed to truly love one person since she was young. Victoria had made Ollie realize that she was in love more with the idea of being in love than she had ever been with a person.

---

976 words

no this isn't me projecting my feelings for a person onto my characters why on earth would you say that- I love writing chapters with this structure, though, all jokes aside. Eleven chapters with the hazy, warm filter that life seems to have when time passes by too quickly. When you find someone and the unbridled joy they give you makes the next months with them speed by and only when they're gone can you realize how fast it happened and how fast it no longer was. Ah, romanticism.