Late Bloomers

Worth the Risk

“Spill.”

Sinead had hardly opened her eyes before Aoife bounded across the room and hopped onto the edge of her bed, nearly landing on Sinead’s feet. Sinead groaned and groggily rubbed her eyes, stretching her arms above her head as she shook off the last remnants of sleep. “Spill what?” she asked, her words dragged out and widened as she failed to stifle a yawn.

“Last night!” Aoife exclaimed, her tone betraying her impatience for information. Their fellow seventh year girls had already started getting ready for the day and all the other beds were empty. Rachel stood in front of her mirror, applying copious amounts of make-up, but the other girls they lived with were absent. Rachel was too absorbed in herself to notice much of anything except her own reflection, so Sinead didn’t feel the need to be particularly quiet.

“Oh, that,” Sinead replied, appearing almost bored as she sat up in her bed, her dark curls wild and tangled about her shoulders. “It was good,” she smiled coyly and Aoife’s look of excitement faltered.

“Good? We’ve been best friends for six years and all you give me about this momentous occasion is ‘it was good’?” Aoife’s temper flared, her lips pursed in a look of utter annoyance.

Sinead grinned, her eyes sparkling with a kind of happiness that Aoife hadn’t seen in quite some time, “Alright, alright. It was….” She took in a breath, gesturing uselessly with her hands as she struggled to find the words, “amazing! We got in trouble with Madam Pince for being loud so we decided to take a walk around the lake,” at this Aoife ooo-ed and raised her eyebrows suggestively, to which Sinead replied with a playful swat, “You know it wasn’t like that Aoife! Anyway, we went for a walk and then we sat in the grass and just talked. We started out playing twenty questions –you remember that muggle game I told you about?- but then we just sort of started having a conversation. It was so weird, but it felt really good. We like a lot of the same stuff actually and he just seems so nice and he’s really sweet and-“ Sinead had to stop for breath and looked at Aoife with a ridiculous grin on her face, “and for the first time since becoming friends with you I wasn’t afraid to be myself,” she admitted glancing from Aoife back to her lap.

“Aw Sinead!” Aoife wrapped her best friend in a tight hug and stayed like that for a moment before pulling away and smiling at her, “I’m glad you had a good time,” she replied. She wouldn’t mention the fact that she could tell Sinead liked him. It was something in the way she talked about him. Her eyes lit up in a way that Aoife rarely saw. However, she didn’t want to jinx anything, so she kept her mouth shut. “Come on, we should get ready for class.”

~*~*~*~

Half an hour later, Sinead and Aoife were making their way down to the Great Hall, exchanging looks with each other and giggling. Sinead’s newfound happiness- Aoife would go so far as to say giddiness- radiated from her and Aoife couldn’t help but be caught up in it. It was a joy to see her friend so happy. As they reached the Great Hall, Sinead spotted Neville and Aoife nudged her in the ribs, “say hello. Wave or something,” she whispered to her. Sinead turned to her left and looked at Aoife, her face bewildered. Neville was sitting with some other boys and Sinead felt her body tense up with nerves as her heart seemed to jump into her throat. Neville might be nice and seem to like her, but what if the people he was sitting with weren’t so kind? Before she had a chance to process her fear and formulate a solution, Neville looked up from his porridge and caught her eye. He smiled shyly, watching for her reaction. Of course, Sinead couldn’t help but smile and she waved at him. Neville waved back, beaming, and they looked at each other a moment longer before Sinead went to sit at the Ravenclaw table with Aoife.

For the next three weeks, things went much the same way for Neville and Sinead. They would see each other at breakfast, smile, and sit at their respective tables. Though both of them had a great deal of homework to do they still found time in the evenings to go to the lake and spend at least an hour or two talking. In each other they had discovered a new best friend: someone who would never hurt them, someone they could tell about anything, someone who wouldn’t judge and would offer a shoulder to cry on in tough times. Neville could hardly believe his luck. Here was a girl, and a beautiful one at that, who accepted him exactly the way he was. Sinead never told him she wished he answered more questions in class or that he needed to be more like his father. One time she even let slip that she thought he was cute. He’d blushed deeply and was glad they were outside in the dark for he knew his whole face was red. He’d stumbled over his words, clumsily telling her how pretty he thought she was.

Tonight Sinead and Neville were laying in the grass on the far edge of the Black Lake, looking up at the stars. It was a remarkably clear night, the stars shining vividly against the velvet sky. The air was cool and a breeze ruffled their hair as they laid in the soft damp grass, the gentle scent of earth rising up around them. Neville had been thinking quite a lot about the upcoming Hogsmeade weekend which was in just a few days’ time and had rehearsed in his head exactly how he was going to asked Sinead.

However, now that the moment was presenting itself, he found he was frozen by fear. Sinead had just said something about a constellation, but her voice sounded far away. He turned his head to the right to look at her. The moonlight shone over her pale skin, bouncing gracefully over her thick hair, which lay around her head like a pool of stillest water. “Hm?” he asked.

Sinead turned her head and looked at Neville with furrowed brows. He’d been acting odd all night and, even though they’d only been friends for a few weeks, she could tell when something was wrong, “Neville are you ok? You’ve been acting strange all evening,” she asked in concern.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he insisted, but the nervous edge in his voice said otherwise. Sinead fixed him with a knowing look and he sighed, “Alright, you caught me. I just…I’ve been thinking about something and I didn’t know how to ask you,” he began, turning over onto his side and propping up his head with his elbow.

Sinead followed suit, her heart beginning to hammer nervously. What did he need to ask her? There was a Hogsmeade weekend coming up but surely he wouldn’t ask her to go. No, it was probably just something about schoolwork or the next time they were going to hang out, “Okay, well what is it?” she asked in a tone of gentle curiosity. She met and held Neville’s gaze, trying to communicate to him that he didn’t need to be afraid to ask her.

Neville took a deep breath to slow the rapid pace of his heart and looked at Sinead, “Well…there’s a Hogsmeade trip this weekend,” he began. Sinead’s stomach began to twist anxiously, “and I  was wondering…erm…wondering if,” he was so nervous he felt like his throat was closing up and he wouldn’t be able to say it at all. Taking another deep breath, he forced himself to continue, “I was wondering if you wanted to go to with me,” there. He’d said it, but the compressing weight of fear did not disappear for Sinead still had to answer.

“Really? You mean…you mean like a-a date?” Immediately when she asked she wished she wouldn’t have. There was no way it was a date. Neville didn’t like her like that. He couldn’t.

Neville smiled nervously, “Yeah! Well, I mean, unless you don’t want it to be…”

Sinead sat up and grinned at him, her eyes alight with that sparkle he had so come to love. Neville followed her actions and sat up slowly, waiting for her to answer. His heart was hammering so hard in his chest he thought it would crack a rib. “No, no I would love that!” was Sinead’s eager reply.

“Really?” the weight lifted from his chest and he felt lighter than air. He felt so delighted that he was light-headed and all he could do was look at Sinead grinning at him and grin in return.

“Um, I should…I should go. It’s late and we have to get through classes tomorrow,” Neville nodded in agreement and they stood, walking back to the castle with each other. They didn’t speak, but every time they looked at each other they grinned happily. They parted ways at the staircase on the fifth floor and Sinead went up to her dormitory collapsing into bed, though she didn’t fall asleep for several hours. She was going on a date, a real date, for the first time ever. She could hardly believe it! They would go to Hogsmeade the day after tomorrow, but Sinead didn’t see how she was going to get anything done the following day for she knew she would be just as excited about the upcoming date tomorrow as she was right then.