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PAPER CONFINES. 22. / Falling
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When June found southern France, the windows of Beauxbatons Academy of Magic went even foggier than they did in the snow. Winter was gentle. Summer was ruthless. The wet heat rolled in from the beaches and up the bluffs, and Colette, at twelve, hadn't yet mastered Professor Guillory's cooling charm, and spent most summer nights curled against her windowsill waiting for the next stroke of wind to find her face and blow her hair away. The relief when it came lasted only a second before she felt like she was sinking in hot sand again.
Upon her return that fall, it was Faustine Auclair, a strawberry-blonde girl in the year above, who had more freckles than Colette could chart stars in the sky (though she'd never been good at Astronomy), that taught her an easier wand movement for the spell. It reminded Colette of how she'd tried teaching Luc to tie his shoes—one bunny loop through the other—but unlike him, she was a proficient learner when guided by the right hand.
In hindsight, she wished she had sat boiling at the window for another year.
Faustine was a ribbon. Faustine was a jewel. Faustine was the sharpest, bluest edge of glass on the shore, caught in a beam of sunlight. She was all glitter, and everyone wanted to collect her; to tuck her on a shelf with foreign coins and stamps and keep her. And Faustine, impossibly, from the moment she'd trained her with a simple charm, had her green-eyed gaze on no one else but Colette.
It was a girl's first crush and nothing more—Colette knew it even at that age—but it was a burning intake of breath that had no exhale to allay it. It just kept on. They'd walk to quidditch together, practice their arts, drink Elf-made wine from the seventh-years hidden stores, and they would never speak of war. It came as one of Faustine's many rules, though none were written or said aloud. Colette had discerned them over the first half of the school year and only liked her more for them: do not speak of the muggle war or of Grindelwald, do not drink with the boys, do not dance with the boys, do not braid Faustine's hair or hold her hand or kiss her like a friend on the cheek. Most of Faustine's rules involved keeping a distance, even when she seemed terribly like she wanted not to.
During the winter break Colette did nothing but miss her. In the cabin at Megève, she practiced her piano and tried to come up with a new composition called Faustine, but couldn't finish it. The music sat stiff in her fingers.
It was worse when she returned in January.
Faustine went flush at the sight of her. She turned corners when Colette approached. She left the quidditch team and kept an impossible schedule of harp practice in the theatre. She held hands with a boy two years older, and smiled through gritted teeth, a new coin in his pocket.
Colette discerned a new rule: do not talk to Faustine Auclair.
The second stay at Megève was a test of strength. Whispers stalked Colette in the school corridors, louder and louder as Faustine's fingers went tighter around the hand of a boy who's name Colette couldn't be bothered to remember, and she now felt sick at the sight of her white piano. There was so much music in her that she didn't know what to do with it. So it was her and Vivi baking chouquettes instead, or her and Nathalie reading by the fire, or her and Luc on the slopes as the fairies went to bed. And when Maman tucked her in, Colette asked every night if she could bid the nightmares away. It was the first time she'd uttered such a thing since she was Luc's age.
