II. FINE AND DANDY !

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7:38 AM 3/1/1995
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EVEN AT HOGWARTS MONDAYS ARE HELL.

  Joey's ripped from slumber by the arrival of a Howler, blood-red and bellowing, on her patchwork quilt. Groggily she attempts to smother it with her pillow, but it's no use: the Howler delivers its abuse in a tone louder than Ron Weasley's snoring, 'RISE AND SHINE SLEEPYHEAD!'

    She knows who it's from. And she knows she's going to hex them to high heaven (or at least, pretend to be annoyed with them for five minutes)!

    As she begins the hunt for a pair of mismatched socks, Johannah begrudgingly allows her to mind to wander back to the dream she's just escaped. A nightmare that still terrorises her world and leaves her shaking: Matthew on the night he died.

    Deep down, she'd rather hoped those nightmares would have stopped by now. But perhaps it's penance for trying as much as she can to ignore the memories that smart and sting, like knives slicing through just-closed wounds. Penance for pretending she doesn't see his fear every time she looks in the mirror, even now; penance for pretending he won't be the missing half of her jigsaw forevermore.

    'Shit, shit, shit,' she mutters, seizing her latest Weasley jumper and storming out of her dormitory.

    She's already in a bad fucking mood, maybe because she views it as a crime to be up at such an ungodly early hour, maybe because Matthew's still dancing dangerously in her head, or maybe because it's January (seriously, who's ever been happy in bloody January?). All Joey knows is if she doesn't demolish a stack of toast within the next thirty seconds she will explode - and she's so focussed on her plight to calm her raging appetite, as she enters the Hall she collides into a gaggle of first-year Ravenclaws with all the force of a storm in a teacup.

    'Oh my Merlin, my loves, I'm so sorry!'

    They glare at her with eyes wide as dinner plates - she's even got food on the bloody brain, she needs that fucking toast! - and storm loftily out of the hall, murming amongst themselves about 'Cedric's girlfriend'.

    Wait... what the hippogriffs?

    'You alright Joe?' asks Lee Jordan as Joey collapses into her favourite seat at the Gryffindor table and begins devouring toast with vigour. 'You looked like you were gonna steamroller those first-years.'

    'Johannah motherfuckin' Attlee, I thought if anybody would murder some first-years, it would be me,' smirks Lola Lemont from her seat next to the boy made of sunshine. Today Hogwarts' boldest, brashest Metamorphmagus is sporting bottle-green hair that flows in violent waves down her back and a glint of silver flashing ominously on her tongue whenever she smiles.

    She looks like death - always in a good way. Lola Lemont is ferocity incarnate: sweet as blood with a heart like fucking thunder.

    For the record, Hogwarts' favourite bisexual beauty had never intended to tumble into the mad world of Joey and the Weasleys. In fact, hailing from one of Wales' oldest pureblood families meant that Lola had a reputation to uphold, and didn't she bloody know it! But rebellion is a sweeter dish to swallow than restriction, and when her unsuspecting heart was speared by Lee's laugh (a laugh that made the sun seem cold), the femme fatale with the bloody awesome hair had flipped a middle finger up to archaic traditions once and for all.

    And, as well as dating a half-blood, she'd befriended a Hufflepuff muggle-born, much to the never-ending delight of her parents!

    'They looked at me like they just knew they're cleverer than me,' grumbles Joey. 'Like, I know you're Ravenclaws, but please, I do have brain cells.'

AMOR FATI . . . fred weasley Where stories live. Discover now