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The first time, back in their first year at Hogwarts, Chloe didn't even ask if Beca wanted to join her. Probably because she had realized even with their short time together that if she did, Beca would just come up with a way to shoot her down.
Beca wasn't actually aware of what was happening until she found herself by the edge of the lake, watching as Chloe set a couple of… juice pouches? — “They’re Capri Suns!” Chloe looked horrified at Beca’s confused stare. “You don’t know them?” — a couple of sandwiches, some muffins, and what was supposed to be a tablecloth and then plopping herself against a nearby tree and looking up expectantly at her.
“Uh,” Beca hesitated, frowning. “What are you doing?”
“Having a picnic!” Chloe exclaimed excitedly. “Care to join me?”
“Uh…” Beca hesitated once again.
She hadn’t come to Hogwarts for this. She came because she wanted to get her father off her case about tradition, and family honor, or whatever kind of crap he hypocritically talked about.
She came because her mother had promised her a way out.
She did not come to make friends and braid each other’s hair and have stupid picnics by the lake. No.
Beca opened her mouth to deny and make a beeline to go back to the castle but her stomach chose that precise moment to make itself known with what was probably the loudest rumble ever, making Chloe giggle and Beca blush.
After that, Beca had no other option rather than sitting down next to the other girl and plucking a bite out of one of the blueberry muffins.
Chloe, surprisingly, didn't say anything but she did have a rather pleased smile on her face as Beca sat next to her.
It was just because she was hungry, okay? Merlin. And because it would have been rude to run away when she was clearly hungry and being offered food. Plus, the juice pouches were really good.
At least that was what Beca was trying to convince herself of, anyway.
//
“Well, that was nice,” Chloe sighed as she shared her last muffin with the giant squid.
(“What are you doing?” Beca had exclaimed horrified. “You’re wasting food!”
“Oh, my God, you’re so dramatic.”)
Beca just hummed in agreement, basking in the feeling of her full stomach and the relative silence they had fallen under.
“We should do it again sometime.”
Beca chuckled because the idea of having picnics by the lake with chatty, blue-eyed girls with no sense of personal space was so preposterous that it didn’t even warrant an answer.
//
She didn’t know what to do when she realized by the end of the year exactly how many picnics Chloe managed to get out of her.
//
By the second year, Beca still put up a fight to all the picnics, but just like in their first year, she ended up agreeing and going anyway.
Anything to avoid the way Chloe’s eyes would become watery, the frown that would make her freckled nose wrinkle and the million words per minute that would come out of her mouth, trying to convince Beca to tag along.
(She also liked to pretend it had nothing to do with the fact that her heart — the one Beca liked to pretend it was dark, cold and lifeless — would tug painfully in her chest as if some wandless magic was being performed on it every time Chloe was anything other than her bubbly self).
She wasn't gonna say she liked it because Chloe often picked up extra muffins for them to throw at the giant squid; or because when she was feeling overwhelmed after a particularly intense DADA class or quidditch practice, chilling by the lake with Chloe softly humming by her side working on her spells lifts off the weight from her chest in an unsuspecting way.
She also wasn't gonna say that she sort of looked forward to them, now.
“I’m really glad we’re friends,” Chloe sighed one wintry afternoon, cuddled up to Beca’s side ‘for warmth’ even though she was wrapped in several sweaters, scarves, and a huge and fluffy yellow beanie with a black badger on it.
Beca took a long sip of her hot chocolate before saying anything.
“Yeah,” she finally said, attributing the heat on her face to the bright blue fire she had conjured and put on a jar sitting next to them. “Me too.”
//
Their first picnic during Beca’s third year was after their second week of taking Muggle Studies.
Beca had been sort of avoiding Chloe because she was afraid of her questions about what was Beca doing taking that class, why hadn’t she told Chloe about it, why was she being so stand-offish about the whole thing.
Truth was, though, she had missed their time spent by the lake so when Chloe stopped by the Ravenclaw table and asked if Beca wanted to enjoy her on one of their last sunny afternoons before winter arrived, she said yes.
But now that they were there, Beca was biting her bottom lip nervously, fidgeting with the box of Fizzing Whizzbees she grabbed from her trunk on her way to the Great Hall, watching as Chloe set everything by the edge of the lake, humming absentmindedly.
Would Chloe hate her for not telling her she was taking Muggle Studies? And for acting like a complete ass when she found out? Not that Beca thought she was capable of hating anything, but the thought of Chloe being upset with her still made her blood turn cold and incited her nervous squirming.
Beca just plopped ungracefully next to her friend when bright blue eyes looked up at her questioningly. Chloe still hadn’t said anything and it was driving Beca insane.
“Are you mad at me?” she asked meekly, merely picking out the blueberries from her muffin, not actually eating anything.
Her stomach was turning too much. She felt sick.
“Why would I be mad at you?” Chloe frowned after swallowing a bite of her own muffin.
“For not telling you about Muggle Studies?” Beca shrugged awkwardly, still avoiding eye contact with the soulful blue eyes she had come to appreciate. “And for being an ass about it.”
“Becs,” Beca still didn’t look, kept staring straight at the lake — and the squid’s tentacles that emerged every once in a while — but she felt Chloe’s warm hand on top of hers, threading their fingers together. “You don’t need to tell me everything. We’re friends. Friends don’t tell each other everything; sometimes they’re just there. For support.”
Beca felt her eyes burn and realized, rather panicky, that they were about to leak with tears and started blinking rapidly in order to avoid it. She opened her mouth several times to try and speak up, but no words came out.
Only when the soft smell of pomegranates filled her lungs and her whole body got warmer as Chloe cuddled her side, was Beca able to enunciate actual words and explain herself.
“It was because of music,” she sighed, Chloe’s soft perfume helping to keep her grounded. “I wanna learn more about music because I think it’s magical.”
Beca didn’t know what she was expecting; maybe a disdainful frown like her father’s after she had tried to explain to him why she liked music so much. Or maybe a blank stare and nonsensical jabbering like Amy had done. Her mother didn’t understand, but she accepted it and that was as far as Beca had gotten with anyone on trying to make them understand it, understand her.
She felt as well as she heard Chloe’s hum in agreement before she spoke up. “Yeah. My mom said she was only ever able to produce a Patronus charm after she heard my dad play the piano for the first time.”
It wasn't dismissive. It wasn’t ignoring. And it wasn’t placating either.
Someone finally got it. Got her.
“Yeah?” Beca could feel a giant smile starting to hurt her cheeks but who cared? Chloe got her.
“Yeah!” Chloe kept talking animatedly about stories her mom had told her back home that were filled with the magical ways music had tweaked their lives.
She never made a move to look Beca in the eyes, but she kept her warm, steady presence by her side, smelling like pomegranates and basking in one of the last sunny afternoons at the beginning of term.
Beca knew, deep down, that she would never want to leave Hogwarts — leave Chloe — now.
//
“You wanna hold your wand a little tighter when using Accio.”
Beca grumbled, doubling her grip on her wand, eyes not leaving the basket Chloe had set away from them. Concentrate, she thought. Come on…
“Okay, we don’t want you snapping your wand, Becs,” Chloe giggled and Beca felt her shifting closer, settling behind her, Chloe's familiar scent hitting her hard and doing the exact opposite of helping her concentrate.
Four years and she still wasn't used to her tendency to just invade Beca's personal space.
“Now,” Chloe said softly in her ear, making her tense, the tufts of hair on her neck raising with goosebumps. “You need to concentrate. Focus on the object you want and use your wand as an extension of your fingers, arm, thoughts…” she raised Beca’s wand arm and closed her warm fingers over hers. “Now say it.”
Beca took a deep breath, letting Chloe’s perfume fill her lungs and ground her.
“Accio basket! ”
The object landed on her lap with a heavy thud, startling her. “Merlin, fuck.”
Chloe giggled again, taking the basket from her lap and starting to take things out. “See? Told you it was an easy spell.”
“Yeah, sure,” Beca grumbled, taking the offered scone — pumpkin? Okay, she could roll with that — and tea.
This was something they had started doing a lot more this year, now that Beca stopped to ponder about it.
(Not the picnics or the hangouts. Those had been happening so frequently since Beca's freshman year that by fourth year they had simply fallen into an effortless pattern.)
But these odd tutoring sessions were happening a lot more since a) Quidditch got canceled for the year due to the Triwizard Tournament; b) Beca suddenly had a bunch free time on her hands with the lack of practice; c) Chloe overheard her complaining to Amy she was having some difficulties with her Charms homework.
And sure, she missed flying. Like she had complained over and over again about to whoever was close enough to listen. Usually, they’d just ignore her (Aubrey) or roll their eyes and change the subject drastically (Amy) or amuse her for a while and talk about the Harpies score with her (Stacie).
But Chloe would usually take in her frustrated scowl, grab her by the hand and drag her to either the Room of Requirement so they could work on some music or sneak into the kitchen, collect some food and take her by the lake so they could still be outside doing something.
(Sometimes, when Beca’s frustration was too much and nothing would work to take the edge off, Chloe would sneak her past curfew, across Hagrid’s hut, towards the Forbidden Forest so she could fly her Nimbus alongside the edge of its higher tree branches.
Beca pretended that those stolen moments with Chloe’s arms across her midriff weren't better than capturing the Snitch any day).
As Chloe stretched at her side, laying her head across Beca’s lap and started humming a catchy tune while working on transfiguring beetles to buttons — “It’s Taylor Swift, Becs,” she would giggle later that day when Beca asked what she was singing. “You don’t know her?” — Beca pretended that, maybe, missing out on flying wasn’t so bad if it meant more time spent by the lake with Chloe.
Maybe.
//
Logically, Beca knew fifth year would be hard.
Like, on top of being Quidditch captain now and having to come up not only with a halfway decent team, she also had to come up with training schedules and adapt techniques so they would fit her teammates and, you know, actually practice. So, like, more extracurricular activity that she ever wished upon herself.
In addition to that, Beca found herself getting roped into joining what could only be, in her opinion, a warm-up to hell. But it was actually a study group led by none other than Aubrey freaking Posen to get them through O.W.L.s.
She didn’t know who she blamed more for this, Chloe or Stacie. Those two were probably in cahoots to come up with new ways to torture Beca anyway.
Oh, there was also the plus factor of realizing over the summer she was maybe a little head over heels in love with her best friend.
You know, no big deal.
In between all of that, of course, Beca and Chloe had little to no time for their picnics by the lake. First-year Beca would have been thrilled at this prospect, but fifth-year Beca would gladly trade all the gold in her Gringotts vault to practice her counterjinxes with Chloe under their tree instead of sitting in a vacated classroom listening to a high strung Aubrey shrill about Common Defensive Theories and their Derivation.
Beca was working late at night on an essay about Vanishing Spells for Professor McGonagall when she heard the common room door open — it was hard to miss given the fact that it was a little past midnight and she was one of the only people there — and Stacie came in, followed closely by… Chloe?
“What are you doing here?” she asked dumbfounded, watching as the two girls made their way to her, Chloe suspiciously hiding something behind her back.
“I’m a Ravenclaw too, remember Tiny?” Stacie teased her, smirking, and plopping down on the vacated seat next to Beca, her response making Chloe giggle and Beca blush.
“Not you, asshole,” Beca grumbled, shoving Stacie’s feet off her lap when she stretched.
“I’m here to take you on a little adventure, Becs,” Chloe winked at her, revealing the basket she was holding behind her.
Wait...
“You wanna have a picnic? Here? Now?”
“Well, not here, silly,” Chloe smiled down fondly at her. “By the lake, as usual.”
Beca just looked at her best friend gaping like a fish out of water. She wanted to say yes, she really did, but…
“How?” she frowned.
It wasn’t that she minded breaking the rules — which she didn’t, especially since Chloe became a prefect and could sweet-talk them out of anything with the professors — it was just so past their curfew she wouldn’t even know where to start.
“Oh, right!” Chloe exclaimed and pulled her wand out of her robe’s pocket. “Watch.”
Beca watched as Chloe was standing in front of her one minute but after flickering her wand around herself like a rope, she wasn’t anymore.
“Woah,” Beca’s midnight blue eyes widened in amazement and she pretended not to notice Stacie mocking her wonderstruck expression. “Disillusionment Charm?”
“Yeap!” she heard but didn’t see Chloe’s giggle, which was a little it weird. “Now sit still.”
Doing as she was told — because, honestly, what was she going to do? — Beca felt Chloe tap her wand on top of her head and shivered as the sensation of someone breaking a raw egg on top of her washed over her spine.
“This is… awesome,” Beca was glad she had become a human chameleon so no one could actually see the huge smile that had taken up half her face.
“So, let’s go?” she felt Chloe treading her fingers onto hers and got up, Vanishing Spell essay forgotten.
“Yes!”
“Bye guys, have fun!” Stacie called out behind them.
However, Beca was too busy basking in the thrilling sensation of sneaking out in the night while mostly invisible she didn’t bother with a response.
For the first time in a long while, Beca and Chloe shared a picnic by the lake in complete and utter silence, just enjoying each other’s company and the beautiful silver light the moon and the stars cascaded over the lake.
Sitting under the stars with Chloe was when Beca realized just how deeply she had actually fallen for her best friend and for the first time that year, she didn’t feel utterly desperate at her feelings. She just appreciated them.
//
“Are you sure we’re at the right spot?” Amy’s loud whisper echoed in the empty hallway, making Beca shush her.
Six years roaming these halls after curfew and Amy still hadn't learned that literally every wall, paint, and armor could hear them and blow their cover anytime.
Beca should have asked Stacie to come along with her.
“Jessica and Ashley swore by it,” Beca hissed back. “Underneath the Great Hall…” she muttered, looking around as she walked. “Down the staircase leading to the Hufflepuff basement…” she eyed the staircase, having used it many times throughout her time in Hogwarts to visit Chloe. “Must be somewhere around here.”
“There is literally nothing here, Shawshank,” Amy complained loudly, making Beca hiss at her again; she was gonna get them caught. “Only that weird paint of a fruit bowl.”
Beca swore under her breath, glaring at the painting. She just wanted to surprise her girlfriend, damn it!
Yes, because that was the most recent development in her and Chloe’s relationship status — or Bhloe’s status, as Amy has so crudely started to refer them as. And Chloe was always doing nice things for her, even before they were even friends — exploding incident that landed them in detention notwithstanding. And she was Chloe freaking Beale, the nicest person Beca had ever met, she deserved nothing but the best things the world had to offer.
Beca started getting antsy with her plan going south. The fact Amy was just looking at her blankly, expecting some reaction was not helping.
“Maybe you need to poke something with your wand…” she suggested and Beca watched in horror as she pulled her wand out of her robe and started poking around the painting.
“Stop it!”
“You’re not doing anything!” Amy ignored her and kept poking around. “Don't you trust me?”
“You’re gonna set it on fire!” Beca shrieked, keenly aware she was sounding more and more like Aubrey and choosing to ignore her friend's question.
“Shortstack, relax, I know what I’m—”
“No, you don’t! Amy—”
“What is happening here?” both girls froze and slowly turned around when their loud discussion got interrupted.
“‘Sup, Red,” Amy greeted Chloe — of course, it was Chloe — as Beca shyly waved at her girlfriend.
So much for surprising her.
“Everything’s alright? Why are you trying to set the kitchen door on fire?” Chloe asked, sounding amused and not upset which was honestly a relief.
“We weren’t!”
“You kinda were,” Amy muttered unhelpfully at her side, receiving Beca’s best death glare. “Right. Well, I gotta go see a man about hippogriff. Catch you later!”
Beca resisted the urge to use her newly perfected Bat-Bogey Hex on her friend as she watched Amy walk away. That traitor.
As she turned back to Chloe in hopes she could sweet-talk her way out of an explanation, she caught sight of a pair of curious brown eyes peeking out at her from behind Chloe.
“Uh…”
Chloe followed her line of sight, realization dawning on her. “Oh, right. Becs, this is Emily. We were coming down to the kitchens to grab some hot cocoa. Em, this is my girlfriend, Beca. She’s in Ravenclaw.”
Beca waved awkwardly at the girl, always bad at meeting new people unlike her social butterfly of a girlfriend.
“You said you were going to the kitchen?” Beca turned her attention back to Chloe. “How the hell do you get in?”
“Well,” she watched as a smirk — one Beca was sure she had picked up from her — graced Chloe’s features. “Firstly, you don’t need your wand. We wouldn’t want anything catching on fire or, you know, exploding,” she winked at Beca, making her scowl. She resisted the urge to flip her off and curse, though. “All you need to do is to tickle the pear and it turns into a doorknob.”
Beca doubled her efforts in keeping her scowl, not wanting Chloe to know how stupid she felt right now. Tickle the pear. Of course. She also tried to pretend she wasn’t astonished at the gigantic, high-ceilinged room with five tables — identical to the ones in the Great Hall above —, the large quantities of pots and pans heaped around the stone walls and a large brick fireplace at the other end of the hall from the door that she never knew existed. Chloe’s sideway glance and knowing smile at her told her she wasn't doing a great job at hiding her surprise, though.
“Em, would you mind fetching the mugs for us?” Chloe asked sweetly at the girl by her side as Beca was still a tad overwhelmed by the grandeur of the room.
Emily nodded excitedly and skipped away and Beca heaved a sigh as Chloe turned to her with nothing but a quirked eyebrow.
“You have to promise not to laugh, okay?” Beca frowned as Chloe nodded but bit her bottom lip in a clear sign of amusement. “I asked Jessica and Ashley where the kitchen was.”
“Okay…” Chloe hesitated, confused. “You know you could’ve just asked me, right? And you wouldn’t have had to take Amy as your sidekick.”
“But then it wouldn’t be a surprise!” Beca whined. “I wanted to surprise you! You’re my girlfriend and I wanted to make a nice surprise to you.”
“Aww, Becs!” Beca tried to ignore the blush taking over her nose and ears, only made worse when Chloe hugged her and pecked her cheek. “That’s very sweet of you. I’d have loved that.”
“Shut up,” Beca mumbled, rolling her eyes. “You’re clearly busy and since my surprised got ruined I’ll just… get going, I guess.”
“Not so fast, young lady,” Chloe’s slender fingers wrapped around Beca’s wrist. “Legacy there needs our help.”
“Legacy?” Beca frowned, looking over at the girl — tall for a fifteen-year-old but then again everybody was tall for Beca — who was smiling at the elves making the hot chocolates but looked a bit shy.
“Yes, her family comes from a long line of witches and wizards apparently connected to Helga Hufflepuff herself! Isn’t it exciting?” Chloe’s bright expression didn’t diminish at her girlfriend’s lack of response. “Anyway, she had a bit on an anxiety attack and she’s under a lot of pressure from her family to excel at something. Preferably at everything.”
“Okay,” Beca could relate but she had no idea how to help the girl other than offer some sympathy; Chloe was much better at comforting others than she ever hoped to be.
“We’ve talked music for a while since she’s into that and has a really good ear for it, but…” bright blue eyes, the same ones that had hooked Beca in from day one, sparkled as they look at her. “She’s also really into Quidditch.”
Beca felt a smile tug at her lips. That she could do.
“Legacy!” Beca shouted, making the girl straighten her back and look at her with wide, doe eyes. “Come here.”
“Beware, she’s a Cannon’s fan,” Chloe staged whispered in her ear.
“Not on my watch she’s not!”
And, okay, maybe it wasn’t the romantic picnic by the lake Beca had in mind. But talking Quidditch animatedly with someone who drank in everything she said, cuddled next to Chloe on one of the tables and sipping on amazingly good hot chocolate wasn’t half bad either.
//
Beca watched with a fond expression as Chloe pulled out from her basket — or was it a school-provided basket? She had never questioned that before as she grew familiar with the object — the usual pair of chicken sandwiches, muffins, and Apple & Cherry Capri Suns.
“Juice pouches!” she exclaimed gleefully.
“You’re ridiculous,” Chloe’s tone was exasperated as she rolled her eyes at her, making Beca’s amusement grow at the same time her chest inflated with an odd sense of pride.
Chloe had come a long way since their first year. They both had.
“What! I’ve grown to like them!” Beca laughed as Chloe rolled her eyes at her again, trying to hide her mirth and failing.
“Just like you’ve grown to like our picnics? And me?” she teased her, getting settled.
“No,” Beca winked at her, grabbing her drink and getting settled as well. “I’ve grown to like you a tad more.”
Chloe’s laughter carried on with the wind and filled Beca’s chest with a lightness that she never thought was possible.
“I’m gonna miss this, you know,” Beca sighed, ripping off a bite of her muffin for herself and then throwing another one towards the lake, wistfully watching as the giant squid’s tentacles made an appearance to grab it.
“What, wasting food?” Chloe laughed but also threw a bite of her muffin on the lake.
“No,” Beca rolled her eyes even if Chloe couldn’t see her. “This. These moments we had here.”
“Yeah?” she felt Chloe cuddling closer to her side but, like many moments they shared before, never making a move to break their closeness and force eye contact, letting Beca come forward with her feelings at her own pace.
“Yeah,” she sighed, reaching for the warmth of Chloe’s hands that were resting on the other girl’s lap. “You grew on me, Beale. Like Asphodel on a graveyard.”
“What?! That’s not good,” Beca could imagine the frown adorning her face as she looked over the meadow of asphodels on the ground across the lake and rushed to explain.
“Oh, but it is! See? There was me, eleven-year-old full of darkness and broodiness, like the underworld, right?” she waited until she felt Chloe nodding and carried on, gesturing wildly to emphasize her point. “People don’t see beauty in that, nor they want to approach it.”
“Becs…”
“Let me finish this, babe. Please,” she asked once she heard the sympathy in Chloe’s voice.
She really wanted to get her point across without shedding any tears.
“But, if you plant asphodel seeds on this cold, dark ground and take care of it, it eventually gets filled with these strange, pallid, ghostly flowers. It’s not a place of perfect beauty, but it’s not a place of complete darkness anymore. It’s mellowed out. You’ve mellowed me out, Chlo.”
Chloe was quiet for several moments, presumably taking everything in — or, as Beca heard sniffling coming from her, crying.
She was just taking so long to say something that Beca was starting to rethink her whole analogy.
“Becs…” Chloe said after a long time and Beca finally allowed the breath she didn’t know she was holding in, out. “That was… beautiful. But I think a less depressing analogy could involve Hades and Persephone, not the afterlife’s Asphodel Meadows.”
“Oh, fuck off, dude,” Beca shoved Chloe off of her and reached for her sandwich, scowling.
“Aw, Becs, come on!” Chloe laughed and tried to take hold of her again. “You know I love it when you’re all cute and mellow,” Beca kept her scowl through Chloe’s wink even though it made her want to smile. “But I honestly don’t think that’s the best analogy for us.”
“No?”
“No,” Chloe nodded, decisively. “I don’t think I’m just something that happened to you to soften you out. I think we’re a complementary part of each other, like, one can exist without the other but our combination makes us both better, not just one of us.”
“Yeah?” Beca turned to look at Chloe, unable to hide the soft smile tugging at her lips any longer. “So we’re what then?”
“We’re like…” she watched as Chloe scrunched up her nose, thoughtfully. “Pouring rain after a sunny summer day.”
Beca laughed because, honestly, that really sounded perfectly like them.
“So I’m the raincloud to your sunshine?” she asked, getting settled again against their tree and waiting for Chloe to follow.
“Yeap,” Chloe agreed, easily following her cue.
So maybe Beca was going to miss her and Chloe’s sunny afternoons by the lake. After all, it was how everything had started with them, more or less. But now that she was stopping to think about it, she thought she would always have that warmth with her as long as she had Chloe by her side.