Work Text:
Typically, the most difficult aspect of Transfiguration between relatively uneven sizes is-
Rowan's quill hand stops as he crosses a neat little t, the cross blackening to a conspicuous dot as he glances around.
-the concentration necessary both in the enlarging or shrinking of the original, and ensuring that, upon reversion, the original does not retain the size of the target.
Eighteen inches of parchment for Transfiguration, due tomorrow.
Four of it done.
Four more than he should have been writing alone.
He tries to push down the thought, maybe he's just in trouble with Snape again, Merula probably slipped an extra half-pint of armadillo bile in the Wit-Sharpening Potion. Yeah, that's it -- it had been looking a bit more lavender than purple earlier, hadn't it? It's fine, he'll show up-
"Oi, Rowan-"
And Rowan nearly falls out of his chair; when he resettles his glasses, he whirls around to see Madam Pince hissing at him -- well, not him, rather --
"Rowan, you're not going to-"
"-could've sworn for a second I'd just seen some sorta boggart-"
He does another one-eighty, sees Penny out of breath, Barnaby with a stupid, disbelieving look on his face like he's been Obliviated. Opens his mouth what without making a sound, and Penny leans in close and whispers fiercely.
"We saw him snogging Merula in the corridor!"
Madam Pince scowls the three of them out of the library; they walk in silence until they reach the stairs.
It's Rowan who starts.
"Penny, did you-"
"Don't be daft, Rowan," Penny snaps. "Of course I didn't know! Least of all -- you saw how bitter she looked when he beat her that time in the library too! What was it, the third time?"
"Fourth," Barnaby corrects, and Penny makes an impatient clicking sound, mutters something under her breath.
"Well, in any case," she continues. "Barnaby heard about it from one of the older Slytherins, they said the same thing to me-"
"Bet you must've called 'im a fat load of Streeler muck," Rowan says.
"Well, he's always such a right git, anyway-"
"Thanks, Barnaby -- in any case, the two of us went to check it out, caught the two of 'em in the middle of it outside Professor Trelawney's classroom."
"You think they saw us?" Barnaby whispers, eyes flitting around.
"If she did," Penny says, "she'd probably have loved to see the look on Rowan's face, wouldn't she?"
And they both look, without thinking - Rowan's trying to keep his face straight, but his eyebrows are crunched, something between anger and confusion. Or, he thinks, there's probably a better word for it.
Disappointment?
Sounded about right, actually.
"Password?" Rowan hears, muffled, from the other side of the portrait.
"Butterbeer kegs," and there's a rumbling sound as the Fat Lady swings aside and he comes into the Common Room.
Rowan can see the stains of lavender on his cheek just as he's putting the finishing touches on the Transfiguration assignment. Must be the lipstick. Never figured she'd be the type.
"So what happened to the Wit-Sharpening Solution?" Rowan asks, back turned at the desk.
"Merula, obviously, you know. Snape docked me five points again, I think she wasted a whole half-flask of the bile. Sorry I, uh, couldn't come."
Rowan rolls the syllables over in his mind, how he says it. Merula. Always'd been some sort of tenseness, irritation when he said it, some anger.
It was sounding a bit feigned tonight.
"No, it's fine, actually. You need a look? Here, I'm just about done, actually..."
Clack. Fsssh-
-and for the sixth time in two games, Rowan Khanna's nose stings with the odor of what smelled vaguely like Niffler urine.
The Gobstones is Penny's idea. But now that they're actually sitting down and doing it, it's starting to become more and more apparent that if Gobstones had been a Hogwarts class, Barnaby Lee would score Outstandings faster than Professor Snape could ever hand out Troll marks.
Not that this was the only reason Rowan had been losing. For the past half an hour, his eyes have been - rather, are following Barnaby's wrist instead of the game, Penny occasionally calling at him to make a move. Until finally-
"Barnaby," Rowan says. "Can I see your wand for a second?"
And Barnaby looks at Rowan almost like he's just been asked to undo his trousers.
"I'm not going to snap it in half, or anything-"
"Merlin's socks, Rowan," Penny sighs, a hand to her face. "Just - Barnaby, let him, oh, you know..."
Still reluctant, Barnaby nonetheless lends Rowan the wand; the latter twirls it once, looks at it from this angle, then another.
Pear. Probably phoenix feather, if I had to guess from the curled line around the middle - ten and three-quarters. Actually kind of bendy.
He hands the wand back.
"...Well?" Barnaby finally says, when Rowan sits there anyway without taking his turn.
"D'you know, Barnaby," Rowan says, "in Garrick Ollivander's Definitive Primer of Wandlore, he says he's never met a wizard with a pear wand who turned out to be a Dark wizard?"
Barnaby's eyes widen at this, and Rowan's not sure if that's interest. Or surprise. Or maybe even relief.
"That's kind of hard to believe, y'know?" he continues. "Last year, you were in with Merula, and all, and I mean..."
He trails off. Eyebrows raise.
"I mean, you're a Slytherin, no offense."
"I get that sometimes."
"Right," Penny interjects. "So what's this all about, Rowan?"
"It's just - the first time I met him," and Penny mutters a Merlin's sake, "he was coming out of Ollivander's, too. Hornbeam. And we're Gryffindors, the both of us, so I want to say dragon heartstring."
"Which means?" she says.
"Determined. Almost one-track minded, even, 's what I read."
"I mean, he definitely seems the type," Penny whistles. "Cursed Vaults and all."
"But dating Merula Snyde?"
"To be fair, I didn't see it coming, either," Barnaby says.
Penny giggles. "You couldn't see a Bludger if you were looking for it like it was the Snitch, Barnaby."
"Hey-"
"Kidding. It's just- look, Rowan. He's our friend too, you know?"
"Yeah," Rowan says. "But I-"
"And, well, so are you. And Ben, and Bill, and-"
She stops.
"And me," Barnaby offers, grinning.
In spite of herself, Penny laughs.
Rowan laughs. He's not sure what to make of this, either. But he's smiling.
"You know," he says, finally. "Merula's a git, let's leave it at that. Gobstones?"
And he waves his wand, and all the marbles roll back into a circle.
"Sure," Penny says, leaning in. "Actually, now that you mention it-"
She produces her wand from her robes, and hands it to Rowan.
"It's uh, rowan, and I don't know the-"
"Unicorn hair, twelve inches," she answers, beaming.
"Mmm," and he rubs his chin in a mock show, "I think, for a witch Ollivander said that means someone who's got their robes off, if you know what I mean."
Her mouth dropped open in horror.
"I'm just kidding."
"So Billingsley said he'd be fine if he only walked on the part of the corridor that was in, not the out, and Filch really let him have it-"
They all laugh, Barnaby slamming his Butterbeer down hard on the table when he does, and it's a while before they stop for air. The mood in the Broomsticks is warm, for the snow outside - and the group is, for their part, the center of the inn's energy.
"Now that I think about it, actually," Rowan says, when Bill is back to taking another swig of the mug, "it's probably a first, you know, Barnaby being seen with Bill, cause you know how Ben's a-"
Penny nudges him on his right, and he stops; she jerks her head slightly behind her.
"What's..."
The question answers itself before it's asked when Rowan sees, at the table behind them, Merula and him, probably thought the group hadn't seen them. Penny nudges again.
"Watch this," she whispers, and points at a near-empty flask she's pulled out of her jacket. "I got it ready for today and all."
They watch the two with their Butterbeers - watch them take a sip -
Then both their lips, then cheeks, and finally the rest of their faces start swelling, and Penny finally excuses herself, nearly in tears laughing.
Rowan follows suit.