Chapter Text
It’s exactly 6:38 am when someone decides it’s a grand idea to wake everyone up with some charmed fireworks. The loud noises and the showers of coloured sparks elicit a wide array of reactions, from clapping and shouting to silencing charms and strings of curses that would make a sailor blush. Shane does nothing of the sort. She just mutters a “Finite Incantatem”, burrows her face deeper in the pillow and tries to lose herself in the dreams that started to appear last week, where she didn’t have to deal with the bloodied hole in her chest where her heart used to be, before Quiara tore it out. Being awake implies feeling like shit and having to attend Potions, so it’s much easier to stay asleep. Unless, of course, someone is desperately trying to wake you up.
Another bang shakes the room, but no fireworks this time: just the door being thrown open.
“And what the fuck are you doing still asleep? Rise and shine, my dude, and get the fuck out of that bed because I don’t want to miss breakfast.” Alice storms in the room, her tie askew, flitting from window to window to draw the curtains.
“Don’t wanna miss breakfast or don’t wanna miss Nat?” Shane’s voice is muffled by the pillow but Alice gasps anyway, walks over to the bed and swats her shoulder.
“The objective is to get both,” and she throws the covers at the feet of the bed, “and I can’t do either unless you get up. So get a move on.”
Getting a move on takes all of five minutes, in which Shane manages to regain some sort of human semblance, and then Alice drags her down the stairs, running, almost tripping when a couple of steps on the lower level suddenly decide that they’re gonna become smooth. They manage to actually get to the Great Hall with half an hour to spare, and as soon as they enter Alice throws a ‘See you later’ over her shoulder and goes towards the Ravenclaw table, where Nat is already grabbing the pile of books that is sitting next to her and moving it, managing to drop at least two of them before Alice arrives behind her, planting a kiss on her cheek. They immediately start rambling together, and Shane is shaking her head while she goes to sit down because really, how is it possible to be that awake at 7 in the morning?
Nursing her coffee, she glances about the Great Room and, not for the first time, wonders what her ancestors must have done to Merlin to make her life so exhausting. On the opposite corner of the table Sophie’s practically draped over Finley, seemingly unaware of the fact that Dani has just walked in, speaking with Micah and gesticulating like crazy. Her gaze falls on the Gryffindor table and she stiffens in an instant, face pale. Shane watches, torn between slightly amused and a bit worried, as Dani just grips Micah’s arm and all but drags him out of the room.
When a third year tries to catch her eyes from the other end of the table she turns her head, just in time to see Bette enter from the northern door, her hand resting on Gigi’s arm. The noise in the room turns to hush, as it tends to do when Gigi enters a room, but Bette doesn’t seem to notice. She’s staring straight at the Hufflepuff table, Shane notices, where Tina is sitting next to a girl curled up on the bench who, even with her face covered by her hair, looks like she’s been crying all night. Carrie is just hovering behind Tina, as usual, trying her best to lighten the situation, but it doesn’t look like it working. The girl raises her head and, when she realises it’s Tess, it’s like a lightning bolt goes through Shane, flash after flash of the night before slotting into place. She sees Alice dragging her to the Hufflepuff tower for the Quidditch celebration, she sees Lena taking her hand and dragging her inside, and she sees the Astronomy Tower, bathed in moonlight, Lena in front of her popping button after button of her shirt, her head between Lena’s thighs and Lena kissing her before she left, whispering against her lips ‘I’d wanted you for so long.’
With a start she realises that Tess must have seen them leave, that maybe she even waited up for Lena and there’s no way she doesn’t know, because why else would she be crying, and Lena not be anywhere in sight? The girl locks eyes with her and in an instant the expression in her eyes goes from sad to angry, flashing with a dangerous glint, but as soon as she gets up the gong echoes in the room and she’s not taken more than two steps before Finley runs up to her and, oblivious to the fury reflected in her face, slides her hand in the crook of her arm and, after waving and blowing a kiss at Sophie, drags her away excitedly, chattering all the while.
Shane releases a breath she didn’t realise she was holding, but the guilt crashes down right away. Her rule, her only fucking rule. She feels even more guilty because if she hadn’t been drunk, she’d probably never done it. It’s like she’s wasted a year, a full year in which she’s been fending off Lena in all the ways she could think of because yes, no one deserves to be cheated on, but Tess deserves it even less. Not the girl who could have easily been in Ravenclaw but chose Hufflepuff because she didn’t want to draw attention to herself, who was the first sixth year to become Head Girl, who found the courage to talk to Shane after a year because she wasn’t as good with Defence Against the Dark Arts and wanted to learn. Not the girl she never could get out of her head, no matter how hard she’d tried. And Merlin, she’d tried. But there was Quiara before, beautiful, messy Quiara, who made her heart skip a beat and then tore it right out of her chest. And now she’d fucked everything up, as usual.
A hand slaps on her shoulder and Alice wastes no time whatsoever. “What, you trying to see if they’re still together? Given that Tess isn’t wearing her necklace, I would hazard a no.” Shane raises her head and fixes her with a stare that usually sends even Slytherin running, but Alice is undeterred. “I’d wait on an apology though, the girl looks ready to slip poison in your porridge.”
“Look, Alice,” Shane’s voice betrays the fact that she’s slept a grand total of four hours, but she soldiers on. “I barely remember what I did last night. And probably she’ll just ignore me for the rest of the year, so what good could my apology do?”
“Merlin’s beard, why do I always have to do your work for you?” Alice practically drags her up from the bench, “Do you want her to think you did it no purpose? And no,” as Shane tries to answer, “that’s rhetorical, of course you don’t. So, you’re going to give her a bit of time to cool down and then you’ll go apologise. Right now though, you’re gonna get your ass out of here, because I’m not arriving late to class.”
She knows perfectly well that resisting is pointless, so she lets herself be swept up in the eye of the storm that is Alice, who doesn’t wanna be late but is stopping every minute to gossip with someone. Certain things, Shane thinks, never really change.