Chapter Text
The door to the potions dungeon slams open and two seventh year Slytherins come running in, lightly shoving each other, a little out of breath and definitely twenty minutes late.
Rebekah Mikaelson stops her Advanced Potions lecture to raise one questioning, perfect blonde eyebrow at her two favorite, if slightly annoying, students.
Hope and Lizzie, the only two Gryffindors taking this class, immediately perk up at the sight of them. They lean forward to see the drama that will inevitably go down.
“I’m so sorry, Professor Mikaelson. This will never happen again,” Josie Saltzman avows, shaking her head rapidly.
“It definitely won’t because I won’t let Josie make us late again, Professor,” Penelope Park chimes in, shooting Josie a dirty look.
Josie scoffs. “It’s completely your fault that we’re late.”
“And why are you two late anyway?” Rebekah asks, knowing there would be an entertaining story whenever these two were involved. It’s what she’s come to expect since they decided they hated each other in the very first year.
“Professor Mikaelson, I mean, the other Professor Mikaelson - uh, Josie’s mom took the time to yell at us and then gave us both detention. Which I think is totally unfair because I was the one being threatened to be set on fire in the first place.”
Landon and MG snicker, while Hope and Lizzie shake their heads. Nothing about this was new, but that didn’t mean it wasn't still amusing.
“Because,” Josie interrupts Penelope, “you decided that it would be funny to scream ‘get ready to aguamenti, smoke show incoming’ every time I walked into a room. For the past two weeks. So,” Josie explains to Rebekah with a little shrug, “I decided to show her a smoke show.”
“Only proving my point further,” Penelope adds. “But we may have uh, accidentally set a desk on fire, in the process.”
Rebekah frowns. “Not in our common room, right?”
Josie waves a hand. “It was in the library, we’re all good.”
“Fine.” Rebekah sighs and gestures to the empty Slytherin table that held a cauldron full of a potion with a distinct mother-of-pearl sheen and had steam rising from it in spirals. “Sit down, don’t talk and pay attention. Again, stay completely silent,” she warns them both, tired of the whispering arguments they’d constantly got up to. All the time.
They nod and quickly sit down.
“I could’ve been in so much trouble because of you,” Josie mutters, five unsuccessful minutes of trying to stay quiet later. Definitely not any paying attention to Rebekah explaining the smell of the potion in front of MG at the Hufflepuff table.
Something about Penelope Park lowered her inhibitions, making her mean and snarky with the girl in a way she’d never be with anyone else.
Penelope rolls her eyes, before exhaling in relief like not saying anything to Josie was taking a toll on her too. “She’s literally your aunt. If anyone could get into trouble, it would be me.”
“Please, all you have to do is flash those pretty greens to get out of trouble. I've seen how you use them to get people to do whatever you want.”
Penelope smirks, honing in on the first part of Josie’s comment. “Aw, you have a thing for my eyes, Saltzman?”
Josie sputters as she tries to come up with a retort to that, but is thankfully interrupted by Rebekah demanding their attention.
“Anything you’d like to share with the class, you two?”
“I was just telling Josie that she should wear less of her perfume to potions class. I honestly can’t tell what the potion in front of me should smell like because of her overpowering scent,” Penelope lies smoothly.
Well, it was true. Penelope really couldn’t tell what the smell of the potion in front of her was supposed to be but technically she was lying to Rebekah.
The room’s atmosphere changes once Penelope says that and she can’t figure out why.
“I actually borrowed Josie’s perfume last week and haven’t had a chance to return it yet,” Lizzie notes gleefully, a huge grin splitting her face into two.
Josie ignores her. “I’m not even wearing it, Park. Like you’re any better. The smell of your stupid shampoo is honest to God suffocating me.”
“Baseless accusation. I haven’t even had time to shower today,” Penelope retorts.
“Not something to be too proud of.” Hope’s whisper carries across the room.
“Thank you for your input, Hope,” Rebekah shoots her niece a small smile, before turning to Josie and Penelope and her voice takes on a lighter tone. “You two have given us all a brilliant learning opportunity. You’re saying you can’t understand the scent of this rather interesting potion because of the surrounding smells, right?”
“More specifically Josie’s perfume,” Penelope adds.
“Or Penelope’s shampoo,” Josie counters, glaring at Penelope.
Rebekah laughs. “Yes, that. If you took a minute to inhale more of the steam rising from this cauldron, I’m sure you would recognize other things as well but this is far more exciting. Landon, why don’t you catch these latecomers up on what we discussed about the nature of this particularly interesting potion.”
“Happy to, Professor Mikaelson,” Landon replies, taking any chance to impress his girlfriend’s aunt.
“Suck up,” the five other students in the class murmur simultaneously.
Landon ignores them and recollects everything Rebekah’s taught them about that potion perfectly. “That is Amortentia. It’s the most powerful love potion in the world, easily distinguishable by its mother-of-pearl sheen and the spiral steam rising from it. It has a different aroma for everyone who smells it, reminding each person of the things that they find most attractive.”
He pauses for a second, smirks at Penelope and Josie who have turned very red and are noticeably looking anywhere but at each other before pointedly saying, “Even if the person is unaware of their fondness for the object of their affection themselves. For example, to me it smells like - may I?”
He waits for Rebekah’s permission before walking over to the cauldron himself.
“To me, it smells like blueberry jam on toast, that room in the Leaky Cauldron Raf and I stay at over the summer and,” his smile turns a little shy. “the fabric softener Hope uses.”
Hope and MG coo a little at that but Josie’s too busy wishing she were buried alive to notice.
This was pretty much the worst thing that could ever happen to Josie.
Josie didn’t need Penelope Park to break her heart.
Not again.
“Thank you for that, Landon. Very informative,” Rebekah says, beaming at him before addressing Penelope and Josie’s slightly stunned faces. “I hope that’s caught you up on everything you two have, ahem, missed .”
She looks awfully pleased with herself for that double entendre before waltzing away to explain the Felix Felicis that’s displayed on Landon’s Ravenclaw table.
Josie finally turns to Penelope a few minutes later, embarrassed, face warm and hands slightly shaky.
Penelope’s already carefully looking at her.
“Uh, so that- that just happened,” Josie stammers.
Penelope shrugs. “It sounds about right though, doesn’t it?”
Huh?
Those green eyes quietly plead for her to say something.
Rebekah must immediately notice the ‘what the actual fuck’ look on Josie’s face because soon she announces to the class. “Alright, get started on brewing that Felix Felicis and partner up with someone from a different house.”
“You just said Hope and I could work together.”
“Ten points from Gryffindor for that, Lizzie.”
“But-”
“Twenty, Hope.”
“But-”
“Don’t make me take points from my own house, Penelope.”
Penelope sighs in defeat as she watches Josie murmur a quick thank you to her aunt Rebekah before all but running to sit next to MG.
“Hey, you okay?” MG asks her, worry clearly etched across his face as he takes in how shaken up Josie is.
“Not in the slightest. Let’s just work on this for now, okay?”
He nods and Josie spends the rest of the class distracted, ignoring Penelope’s eyes on her.
When the bell rings, she runs out of the classroom like a bat out of hell, ignoring that annoying (but not really) voice calling after her.
—
“Sorry about that, Park.” Lizzie lightly pats Penelope on the shoulder. She’s helplessly watching Josie sprint out of the potions room and down the dungeon corridor. “When confronted with life altering emotions, it’s a Saltzman’s first instinct to run away. Can’t fight that genetic make up, you know? You’ll track her down though, don’t worry.”
“I just want to talk to her.”
“Give it time,” Hope chimes in. “It’s taken her by surprise, that’s all. How she didn’t know up until now, I don’t know, but Josie’s never been the best at processing her own feelings.”
Penelope snorts, absentmindedly running a hand through the short hair that she’s maintained since Josie ‘accidentally’ burnt it off last year. “Understatement of the year, I think.” She looks at Hope in surprise, belatedly registering what she meant. “Wait, you know…? About the way I feel-”
Hope laughs in Penelope’s face, only pausing when she sees the puzzled look intensify there. “Oh no, you’re serious.” She scoffs. “ Yeah Penelope, I know.”
“Everyone knows,” Rebekah remarks breezily, walking past them and out the door.
“We just weren’t sure if you both knew,” MG adds.
“I always knew,” Penelope insists. “I just assumed Josie did too and one day, somewhere down the line when we grew tired of constantly annoying each other and if she were willing, we’d get around to talking about it.”
“Mhm, yeah,” Lizzie agrees airily, clucking her tongue and gesturing to the imaginary scorch marks Josie left on the floor in her haste to get away from Penelope. “Those are clearly the actions of someone in the know.”
“Even I knew,” Landon, bless his soul, pipes up fifteen seconds later than everyone else like always.
Penelope sighs and buries her hands in her face, making up her mind to talk to Josie even if it was the last thing she did.
How hard can it be to track Josie down and force her to sit down long enough to hold a conversation where they spill their deepest secrets anyway?
—
The answer to that, Penelope soon learns, is that it was nearly impossible.
Josie doesn’t show up at lunch or dinner. Penelope catches Pedro sneaking away a couple of sandwiches for Josie, so naturally she stops him and switches out the corned beef ones he chose for the tomato and grilled eggplant sandwiches that she knows Josie prefers instead.
“Will you tell me where she is?” She asks him, knowing it would be in vain. Pedro was unwavering in his loyalty to Josie after she’d helped him practice to make the Hufflepuff quidditch team last year.
“Sorry Penelope. I’m under specific orders to not tell you of all people,” he says apologetically.
She lets him go, contemplating just how creepy it would be to stalk a third year and only really decides against it when he disappears from her sight.
Penelope hopes she’d turn up in the girls’ dorm at least at bedtime. She tries to stay awake waiting for her and is sorely disappointed, but not surprised, when she wakes up in the morning and Josie’s bed remains untouched.
She doesn’t come back to shower or get dressed either and Penelope wonders just how that’s working out for her.
Her answer is presented in the form of Lizzie marching up to her the moment she walked into the Great Hall for some breakfast.
“Fix it, Penelope,” Lizzie hisses menacingly. “She stayed over last night because she didn’t want to run into you. Do you even know how hard it is to cram another person into that minuscule rectangle these god awful people want to call a bed?”
Penelope smirks at her. “Uh, yes. Unlike you, I have had sex, you know?”
Lizzie whacks her arm for that comment. Hard. “You see these bags under my eyes? They are definitely not welcome to stay on my face for two days in a row. I don’t care what you do, but I better be sleeping alone tonight.”
“Isn’t that always the case?”
Lizzie whacks her again, even harder this time, and okay, maybe she deserved that. “Fix my sister’s heart, Park.”
“Jeez, I’m trying! I don’t see you helping.”
Lizzie stares at her blankly, like she didn’t comprehend anything Penelope just said. “You messed her up, you fix her.” The ‘duh’ goes unsaid.
Penelope rolls her eyes. “You’re absolutely useless to me.”
“Oh no, that really hurts my feelings. How will I ever recover? Byeee.”
“Wait,” Penelope calls out, realizing that even Lizzie was occasionally capable of doing something worthwhile. She quickly reaches into her bag and pulls out the fresh shirt and Slytherin sweater she’d stashed away in there. “Give this to her at least? Please?”
Lizzie takes them with an uncharacteristically soft look on her face. “I’m rooting for you and even though I know you screw up everything you touch, don't this time. I’m going to kill you otherwise.”
Then she turns on her heel and walks away.
Penelope shakes her head and goes to grab breakfast, lightly rethinking this entire Josie thing. Did she want to be with someone whose sister was as insufferable as Lizzie was?
Unfortunately the answer to this question was yes or at least that’s what Penelope gathers from the way her heart leaps in her chest when she spots Josie talking to Hope in the open air corridor, leaning against a wall.
Apparently her heart is truly set on this girl and even watching Josie quite literally leap over that wall the moment she spots Penelope doesn’t change that.
“Did she just-”
“Jump out a window to avoid you? Why yes, she did,” Hope wheezes out, doubled over in laughter.
“That isn’t a window though,” Penelope notes dumbly, still in shock over the whole thing.
“I know. But it sounds funnier when you say it that way and that’s the story I’m committed to telling. Best of luck, bud,” Hope tells her seriously, patting her shoulder the same way Lizzie had yesterday. “You’re going to need it. The denial is really strong with this one.”
She can only weakly thank Hope in return.
Penelope hangs her head, defeated shoulders slumping.
Josie Saltzman.
Always making Penelope's life so much harder than it really had to be.