dursley [h. g.]

••dursley•• || going nuclear

4k reads 🥺 y'all some sexy bitches

••::••

Kendra stared at him for a moment after he pulled away, as though he had sucked her brain straight out through her lips. She was a brainless corpse with the same stale breath still trapped deep somewhere in her lungs, and he didn't do much but stare back at her, trying to gauge her for a reaction when she wasn't sure she could give one.

"Erm, sorry, I just thought you should know," Matt said. "I'll go now."

"Wait," Kendra whispered, the breath escaping. He turned back, hopeful. She didn't even think as the words left her mouth. "Will you apologize to Damon? For me?"

Matt smiled tentatively back at her, nodded once, and ran off. Kendra released what little of the stale breath she had left in her lungs. What mess had she gotten into now? What did it mean for her, for Damon, for Matt, for Hermione? Her fingers jumped to her lips, feeling them as she thought about her future.

It had been her first kiss. No one, boy, girl, even teddy bear had kissed her before. Part of her brain felt slightly vindicated, smugly shouting that at long last, she had gained the attraction of a man and that was what being a woman was really about. The sensible part of her brain was astounded that he had kissed her without her permission, and even more upset that she had just let him get away with it. And the part of in her brain that worried made her thoughts divert to a completely different place.

Kendra had been sure that she was a lesbian for a very long time. From the time that she had seen the weather woman on the TV, she had thought that girls were much cuter than boys (and didn't have any cooties, so a win-win in all circles). And then she had heard the word lesbian as she had heard her parents talking about a couple of women who had been holding hands at the cafe (which they refused to go back to even to this day). She had heard all of the slurs, insults, the reasons that they didn't deserve a place in the world among the fine upstanding citizens of Britain. And she had never had a single doubt in her mind that she was anything more or less than a girl who liked girls.

But now her mind started to wander from this fact, the immovable truth that she had taken at face value for so long, long before most people could even name their sexuality, much less come to grips with it. What if she was just afraid of men? She had grown up with people like Dudley around her all of her lives, and she saw who they grew up to be and what they did to people different than themselves in her father. It was not completely senseless that she had a half a heart to flinch ever time she saw a man, even though she knew it was irrational. But perhaps she was attracted to men, somewhere deep below the trauma and she only found herself loving women (which she had only ever had two crushes in her life, so it wasn't exactly a perfect sample size) because she wasn't afraid of them.

It felt as though someone had placed a brick of lead on each shoulder and she was forced to tote them around with her wherever she went now. As much as hated dealing with her problems by telling someone else about them, she would have to tell someone about this. Someone who could help get her out of the mess she knew that she had caused.

Damon was right out, the last thing she wanted to do was tell him that his best friend and the guy he was in love with kissed her. She would wait until Matt apologized, and he was only worrying about his father. Or maybe she would wait until after his father was long gone, maybe locked away in Azkaban where he could never be seen again. She didn't really want to tell Damon at all.

Mabel was also out, her loyalty to her brother coming before that of her friends. If something concerning Damon was passed around the gossip ring of Hogwarts, he was sure to find out through Mabel. Besides, Mabel didn't have the kind of advice that Kendra was looking for.