Amelia Merlin

Part Seventy Five: Splatter Paint

"Amelia! Please come to Hogsmeade with us!" Lavender begged but Amelia just laughed.

"I already told Cedric I'd go with him. And I feel bad, I haven't really been spending much time with him." She pulled her hair back into a messy knot at the back of her head. "Sorry ladies!"

Amelia walked out of the dormitory and down towards the Entrance Hall. She waited, her heart beating strangely fast. Students passed by her, most of them older than her, all going to Hogsmeade. Amelia felt strangely small, standing in this huge hall with these huge people walking around her. It wasn't a feeling she was used to. Where was Cedric? Even though she had only been there for a minute she was already getting impatient.

"See you down there Amelia!" Seamus called as he walked with Dean, Neville, Lavender and Parvati. She waved and smiled at her friends, wishing she had gone with them. Amelia looked absentmindedly around at the stone walls and ceiling surrounding her. She was good with all things nature, due to her Druid side, and the stone walls were very natural. She felt their intense age, not just a history but a rich one at that. Memory has power, and these walls had quite a bit of it. She had never been able to take the time to really connect with them, but waiting here for Cedric had given her that opportunity. Maybe her boyfriends lateness was a blessing in disguise.

Where was he?

People passed and trickled out the door and slowly the flood of people reached an end and Amelia was standing in the Entrance hall alone. She felt like an idiot, just standing there. She decided to go back to the common room and study or something, maybe she could catch up on some History of Magic work that she never got around to doing. She started towards the staircase when the giant doors opened and a dark haired boy burst through, breathless.

"Amelia!" he called out and she turned to see Oliver Rivers catching his breath. "I heard you were standing here alone! So - I thought, well I thought you could use some company?"

Her heart swelled, and she realized the actual blessing of Cedric not showing up wasn't her getting to connect to the stones, but realizing what an amazing person Oliver Rivers was. "Let me get this right, you were down in Hogsmeade with your friends, then you heard I was standing here like an idiot, waiting for some boy, and you ditched your wonderful buddies and ran all the way up here to see me?"

"Yeah that about sums it up." he pushed his curls out of his face and his blue eyes shone. A dorky smile played on his lips and Amelia couldn't help letting out a small laugh of joy.

"I can't help but think you might have ulterior motives!" she teased.

"I think you should just trust me, darling." Oliver said and with that Amelia crossed the distance between them and threw her arms around his neck. He held her tightly and his curls tickled her face, she suddenly realized that Oliver was really tall now.

"You are the best person I know." she whispered, her breath floating across his ear.  

"You're not so bad yourself," he laughed and Amelia pulled away from him. "I wouldn't have ran back here for just anyone."

"Right, well now that you are back here, what do you want to do?" she asked and Oliver just shrugged.

"I don't really care to be honest."

"We could go to the Art room?" she offered.

"What? Why?" he looked confused and his nose wrinkled slightly.

"We could do some finger painting or something." Amelia laughed.

"Won't we get in trouble?"

"No! Professor Artem loves me! He lets me do whatever I want in class and he lets me use all the good brushes so I think we're fine."

"Well! If he lets you use the good brushes!" Oliver said sarcastically and Amelia shoved him playfully.

She said, "Come on, I want to show you!"

"Fine!" he sighed and Amelia ran up the stairs, headed down a corridor, up another flight, until they reached the top of the East Tower. She opened a trap door above them into a circular room with a mosaic of the Greek gods on the floor. The walls were covered in samples, practice paintings or beginning sketches. Amelia walked over to her section of the room, she preferred to do big projects so she used up a lot of space. Her current painting was done in the style of modern artist, Leonid Afremov, and it was a dancer in a red dress. (See picture included at the bottom.)

"That's gorgeous." Oliver breathed. "Oh Amelia, you are so talented. This is amazing!"

"Well thanks, but that's not what we're here to do!" she pulled him away from her painting, secretly quite pleased with his reaction. Amelia pulled out jars of paints in every colour, and a large canvas. "Let's do splatter paint."

"Is it going to stain our clothes?" he looked slightly worried.

Amelia laughed, "No it's fine."

Oliver grinned and loaded up a brush with blue paint, he whipped it at the canvas creating large splotches diagonally across the white. He laughed in some sort of childish joy, Amelia smiled as she watched him.

"Come on! You've got to try this!" his laugh filled the circular room and Amelia couldn't help but join him. She chose a bright grassy green and instead of whipping it at the canvas, she tossed the paint across Oliver's robes.

"Oops!" she smirked.

"Oh you are so dead!" his eyes lit up in an almost crazy way. Oliver just stuck his hand in a can of red paint and wiped it right across Amelia's back. She laughed loudly, the kind of laugh that you don't even care how stupid it sounds, you're just that happy. Within seconds, the boy with the dark hair and the girl with the blue eyes were both covered in paint, and laughing so hard they had to clutch their sides. Their faces were bright red and tears leaked from their eyes. 

When they gathered themselves, Amelia said, "Thank you for coming back for me, Oliver."

"You don't have to thank me, really. I'll do it every time you need something." he smiled and she blushed ever so slightly.

"Thank you anyways." she smiled, the kind of smile that is more in the eyes than the lips.

"Anytime darling."

Amelia's painting