✓ | RECKLESS AND BRAVE | Draco Malfoy

22 | VEHEMENT

VEHEMENT
(adj.) showing strong feeling; forceful, passionate, or intense

TESSA WAS SUNKISSED. Having spent nearly a whole month of summer lazing under the sun with Hermione, they had both gotten a tan. With toes digging into the sun, the two girls laid on their bellies as they chatted, the salty waves crashing in front of them. There was an umbrella hanging over them, a cone of quickly melting ice cream in each hand.

     "I think I look fried," Hermione said, pushing her sunglasses higher up the bridge of her nose. "Like a badly fried tan."

     Tessa snorted at her, biting the top of her ice cream. "No, you don't. Your tan looks excellent on you."

     Hermione's face scrunched up as she muttered to herself, "How can you bite your ice cream? You're not human."

     Tessa ignored what she said and went on talking, "In fact — this summer must've been a period of puberty, because I think you look totally different from last year." She sent the other girl a rakish grin. "Imagine what Ron would say — "

     Hermione swiped a finger to scoop a dribble of her ice cream and smudged it onto Tessa's nose. "I don't like him like that!" she whined as Tessa made a protesting cry.

     Tessa opened her mouth to make a retort, but was interrupted by a shadow falling over them. She looked up to see her other sun-kissed best friend with a lopsided grin sent to her. He was shirtless and dressed in swimming shorts, a surfboard tucked into an arm as he ran a hand across his black hair, sending water spraying into their direction. "All right, Tessie?"

     "Philip, you git — you're getting me all wet!" she cried out and pushed herself to a sitting position, swiping a leg out to kick at him. "You even got water on my ice cream."

     He let out a laugh, tipping his head back to expose the strong column of his throat. "I'll see you both back in Tessie's," Philip simply said before leaving them to head back to the beach house.

     Tessa didn't know how to swim, she lingered by the shallow parts of the waves and usually stayed on the shore with Hermione. Today was their last day of staying here before they'd take the Floo Network back to her manor, and head on to buy their books and materials in Diagon Alley tomorrow.

"Actually," Hermione said in a matter-of-fact voice. "We'd all gone through a little bit of a maturing stage this summer. Look at Philip," she jerked her chin to his far, retreating figure, "he even looks different from when I first saw him pick you up in King's Cross." Hermione wiggled her eyebrows at Tessa who understood what she was implying.

Tessa made a face and pretended to smush her ice cream at Hermione's face. "Stop — that's my best friend, I don't see him that way."

Hermione laughed. "I'm just saying — just because you don't see him like that, doesn't mean he doesn't."

Tessa scrunched her nose and continued eating her ice cream before it made a melting mess. Despite her contrary thought, she really did look different this summer. She'd managed to convince Uncle Kasi to have her hair colored, so now it was a shade of caramel blonde. It had grown out a little longer from last year, and it was now just brushing past her shoulder blades. She'd grown an inch taller, and lost some of the baby fat in her cheeks.

     "Oh, play that louder," Tessa said excitedly upon hearing the familiar intro of the music blaring in the small stereo they'd brought with them. Hermione cranked the volume up as the two swayed to the beat and sang their hearts out.

Say, Candy and Ronnie, have you seen them yet
Uh but they're so spaced out, B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets
Oh but they're weird and they're wonderful
Oh Bennie she's really keen
She's got electric boots a mohair suit
You know I read it in a magazine
B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets