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There were both upsides and downsides to being Head Girl, Elsa Ranomandry decided, having had all of a handful of hours of experience in the matter. The main upside was that both she and the Head Boy (a Gryffindor named Edward Stoneward) each got their own, single dorms, both of which were located on one of the lower floors in the castle, just a few minutes away from the Great Hall. This meant peace to focus on her studies, and that she got to place everything where she saw fit to, instead of having to take into account the opinions and wants of a handful of other girls her age.
She had needed to spend a little time on a few simple, color charms, though, since the last occupant of the room had been a Hufflepuff. Yellow had never really been Elsa’s color, so now the canopy, curtains and various other fabrics were dyed in assorted shades of blue instead, making the overall look not that different from her old dorm in the Ravenclaw tower – especially not once she’d levitated her robes into the closet and her books onto the shelves.
Being the first night back at Hogwarts, though, meant that there had been a lot of knocks at her door – usually prefects, but also the odd student who needed some type of assistance. One Slytherin first year had been so terrified of descending the steps into the dungeons that housed that dormitory that Elsa’d halfway wondered if perhaps he’d been sorted wrong, but only until she saw the Dropstone Jinx take a step out from under his foot. A quick reversal of that had left the staircase safe again – for now – and the boy had happily continued on his way, while Elsa herself had turned back to the castle proper and made a mental note to have a word with the Weasley ghost. Again.
Now, she lit a collection of candles with an absentminded flick of her wand (yew, Veela hair, 14¼ inches), and she’d just set them to floating around the room above her own head when yet another knock at her door made her sigh. Briefly, she toyed with the idea of a privacy charm (there was one that’d write a massive 'NO' across the outside of the door in response to any knock, as well as a jinx that would literally make the door scream it), but she supposed that in return for the privileges of the Head Girl, she needed to be available. So she patted the front of her robe until she was sure her badge was secured, made certain that her tie wasn’t crooked, and settled her wand into her pocket as she opened the door.
Then she promptly oofed, and had to take a few teetering steps back to keep from falling over.
“Bats and bludgers, you’re Head Girl!” a very familiar voice squealed in her ear, and Elsa rolled her eyes fondly as she returned the almost crushing hug with a bit more decorum.
“Exactly as I was when we met on the platform, and in the prefect’s car on the train,” she reminded her guest with a dry chuckle, and waved the door shut. “Aren’t you supposed to be in your dorm right now, Anna?”
Anna Lasair – because that was the name of her attacker-cum-visitor – simply laughed, and left her arms to hook loosely behind Elsa’s neck as she grinned up at her. “Didn’t you hear?” she teased. “I’m a prefect now! Perfectly acceptable for me to wander the castle after curfew, and what better cause to abuse that privilege than to visit my best friend?”
“You as a Gryffindor prefect,” Elsa returned, and made a face. “Merlin preserve us all. Should I start checking the hallways for chocolate stashes now, or wait a week?”
“Oh, you’re awful.” Pale, turquoise eyes rolled, and then Anna’s lips shaped a smirk. “Besides, I’ve gotten better at hiding them.”
“Better than I am at finding them?”
“… probably not. You do love your chocolate,” Anna mused. “Not that anyone would know by looking at you.”
“Everything in moderation,” Elsa quoted quasi-sagely, and then extracted herself from the redhead’s arms before sticking out her tongue. “We can’t all spend our time whirling around on broomsticks just to keep up with our Honeydukes visits.”
“Okay, so you’re making up for the fact that we haven’t seen each other all summer,” Anna decided, and ambled over to the wide canopy bed before plopping down on it and falling onto her back with her hands behind her head. “Fine – you get three days to pick on me before I start returning fire. Go, go, Gadget!” She looked up at the silence, and sighed at what Elsa assumed to be a helplessly confused, blank look on her face. “Urgh, purebloods.”
“Muggleborns,” she returned readily, and gave the exposed strip of tanned skin on the redhead’s middle only a practiced, cursory glance before seating herself a respectable distance away. “Did you need something, or is this just a social call?”
“Bit of both,” her friend admitted with a crooked grin. “I missed you, and I need another run-through of prefect duties. And I missed you.”
Elsa gave her a look, but was privately glad to know that she wasn’t the only one who’d possibly gone a little daft at having only heard from Anna in written form over the course of the summer. Writing, of course, didn’t include any sort of images, and so she’d been wholly unprepared for the subtle, but numerous changes that had taken place in her best friend during her absence. Anna was, for one, catching up to her in terms of height, and now came up to just past Elsa’s eyebrows instead of to her nose, and her face had somehow acquired slightly leaner planes, while other areas of her body had filled out to make up for it.
Her last year at Hogwarts was going to be absolute torture if her first half-dozen hours of it were any indication, because clearly, a summer spent apart had done nothing to lessen her own attraction. In fact, she’d been struck utterly dumb when Anna had all but charged at her back at King’s Cross, because she’d still been in her Muggle clothing at the time, and when had those clothes started fitting her so well? It was a damned good thing that Anna had always been the talker between the two of them, because that meant that Elsa’s thoroughly flustered nodding and hmm’ing was seen as no more than par for the course. Now, at least, she’d had some time to grow used to the fact that yes, apparently she could want Anna more than she already had, and so coherent speech was becoming far less of an issue.
Paying attention, however…
“Helloooo?” The end of a rosewood wand – the handle one, she noted with some relief – was tapping against the tip of her nose. “Anyone there?”
“Sorry,” Elsa muttered, and cleared her throat. “Tired, I suppose.”
“Aww.” Anna pouted at her. “But then I can’t drag you into mischief.”
“Misch—” She sighed, and laid down on her stomach with her head resting in one hand. “Anna, it’s the first day and you’re a prefect.”
Wide, innocent eyes. “And?”
“And aren’t you supposed to be setting an example?” She watched the grin start to form, and rolled her eyes. “A good one.”
“Well, you tell me, Miss Spent-Two-Years-Covering-For-Me-Whenever-Possible,” Anna teased, and rolled onto her side to better face her before closing her fingers around Elsa’s single braid and tugging gently. “Me even getting this badge is your fault, you know.”
That, Elsa knew to be a horrendous exaggeration – the selection of new prefects was discussed with both the current and the outgoing ones, after all, and the teaching staff of Hogwarts was well aware of Anna’s skill as a mischief-maker on a level similar to the Weasley Twins and the Marauders. It was simply outweighed by the fact that she was also a vital part of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, kind, responsible and among the cleverest in her year. So Elsa getting Anna the prefect badge? Totally not true.
“Besides, you’d be bored to death if I wasn’t around to liven things up.”
Totally true.
“Your hair is on fire.”
Elsa gave her a look. “No, it isn’t.”
“Oh, good - you are listening this time.” A roll of her eyes – she did that a lot around Anna – earned her no more than a cheerful laugh, and then Elsa had to remind herself how to breathe when Anna somehow managed to hop closer without ever getting up, and there was suddenly an arm settling over her back and a head coming to rest on the arm that wasn’t holding up her own.
Over the summer, she’d somehow forgotten how easy physical affection was for Anna. And how readily she either offered or requested it.
“Prefect duties,” Anna reminded her with a light pat to the small of her back, and nuzzled her face into the sleeve of Elsa’s blue-lined robe with a yawn. “Go.”
Elsa studied her, and let a smile pull at one corner of her lips as she wormed her hand around enough that she could capture one of Anna’s braids and tickle her nose with it in exchange for a small squeak. “Are you asking me to read you a bedtime story, little girl?”
Anna snickered. “It might end up working as one, but no. I do actually, genuinely, surprisingly want to do well at this,” she promised, and Elsa had to consciously stop herself from leaning in when a smiling, turquoise eye peered up at her from over her own sleeve. “So go on, O Learned One—” Elsa rolled her eyes again at that, or she started to, but then Anna’s voice dropped to a purr and she ended up almost choking instead. “Educate me.”
“Uh… right.” Merlin, she wished that Anna would either mean it when she did things like that, or stop doing them entirely. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep reminding herself to ignore the painfully overt but thoroughly joking signals. “Well, you’ve already done your first real task of guiding the first-years to your house dormitory,” she mused, and felt Anna nod as she peered out of the enchanted window that provided a view of the grounds outside, in spite of actually being in an inside wall. “You know about the monthly meetings—
“Third Friday of every month, Headmistress’s office,” Anna interjected – mostly into Elsa’s robe, which muffled the sound of her voice.
“— and you have the password for the bathroom, right?”
Anna rolled onto her back and stuck her tongue out at her. “Chickweed marshmallow.”
“Right.” A tug at the base of her throat made her glance down, and she huffed out a breath at the sight of Anna sneaking her uniform tie free from her robes with a look of total concentration on her face. “What is it with you and your fascination with ties?” she wondered.
“Wrong form,” was the blithe answer.
“Excuse me?”
“Not ties,” Anna clarified, and gave a triumphant little sound when the end of the white-and-blue strip came loose. “Tie. Singular.” She wound the material around her hand, and smiled when she reached up to tap Elsa’s nose with the end of it. “Just this one.”
“If you like the Ravenclaw colors so much, you should’ve gotten yourself sorted into that house,” Elsa informed her practically, and this time Anna was the one to roll her eyes. “What? It’s hardly as if you’re stupid, Anna. You’d have made a great Ravenclaw.”
“Clearly,” was the return mutter. “Especially if you’re setting the standard, because right now you’re being remarkably thick for someone so bright.”
“Excuse me?”
“Elsa, I’m hitting on you.” Anna sounded – and looked - completely exasperated. “Please tell me you’ve at least noticed that much, because I know I’ve gotten less and less subtle since this time last year, and at this point I really can’t get any more blunt without clubbing you over the head and dragging you off by your hair.”
All she managed at that was a half-choked, might-have-been-a-gargle. And a few syllables. “I— you— WHAT?!” She was fairly sure that she was breathing, but it still seemed very much like there wasn’t enough air in the room. “You’re serious when you do that?!”
Anna goggled at her for all of two seconds, and then her expression changed from confusion to annoyance. “Why the hell would I not be serious?”
“Because you’ve had boyfriends!” Elsa reminded her hotly, and felt a flush of ire tint her own cheeks.
Yet again, Anna spent several seconds just staring at her. Then she groaned, closed her eyes and muttered to herself for several more seconds, and Elsa picked up words like ‘damn heteronormativity’ and ‘friggin’ binaries’ – whatever that meant. Finally, she just sighed, and wet her lips. “Elsa… I’m bisexual.”
She was quite certain that she was sporting the same blank look as earlier, because Anna looked as if she was stuck somewhere between laughing and crying. “You’re what?”
“Oh, God.” Anna clapped a hand over her eyes, and since it was the hand she’d wound Elsa’s tie around, the blonde had to either follow along or choke. “You can’t be only hetero- or homosexual, Els,” she all but whimpered. “There’s a whole spectrum of attr— wow, that’s too big a discussion for now. Okay.” A breath. “Okay. Listen.” The hand moved away, and when the pale eyes opened, Elsa both felt and saw the small start that traveled through Anna’s frame as she realized how close they were. “I, um… I like boys and girls,” she finally said, with her breath brushing warmly over Elsa’s skin and her eyes flicking from Elsa’s own down to her lips and back up. “Or… well, lately I just— you. Okay?”
Okay? Elsa’s mind was whirling, but the whirling was steadily being replaced by absolute giddiness. Okay?!
“Very much okay,” she breathed through a wide smile, and felt Anna laugh against her mouth just before their lips met. Judging by the hold her friend had on the tie, she was planning on keeping Elsa exactly where she was for some time.
Which, of course, was also very much okay.