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It had been late when Arden Astros left for the Slytherin dorms, and it had been far later when she got back to her own dorms nestled inside the Ravenclaw Tower. Luckily for her, no one was creeping around at this hour – the O.W.L.s had everyone going to bed at break-neck early hours. Or, if you were Rowan, as Arden had come to learn in their five years of living bed-to-bed together, you didn’t go to bed until the sun was nearly up.
Creeping up to old wooden door of the dorm room, she gently eased the large wooden beast open. EEeeee, the door complained as it was unsealed. Wincing at the sound of the door, Arden bit her lip as she poked her head into the dorm room. Tulip’s bed was empty. Odd, but not entirely surprising. Tulip Karasu was often an agent of well-planned, lovely chaos – chaos that seemed to “happen” overnight. Well, here it was: “over night.” Of course, Tulip would be off with Dennis plotting to burn down the castle.
Badeea was softly snoring in her bed. The half-done sketch she had been working on, a great eagle in mid-flight, lay open on her bed, while she was curled up around a mound of pillows, her graphite pencil, still nestled in her hand.
Rowan, on the other hand, was sitting up against every pillow on her bed, reading a massive Charms textbook. Arden reasoned it was probably larger than her. When she heard the door creek open, Rowan’s eyes moved sharply to Arden. A long time ago, perhaps Rowan would have excitedly smiled at Arden – such a late entrance had to make for an even better story. But now, her friend, with her dark, citrine-colored eyes, simply sniffed and looked back down at her textbook.
“Where were you?” Rowan whispered, keeping her eyes directly glued to the text before her.
Arden, with care and grace, walked into the dorm room, before high-jumping onto her bed with only a soft “oof.” Her kneazle, Cordelia, stirred at the sudden movement, lifted her head, gave Arden a great, dirty look, before she settled back into her curled position at the foot of the witch’s bed.
“With Barnaby.” Arden answered, undoing the ties of her boots.
Rowan’s eyes shifted up from behind the textbook, her face turning to watch Arden. With all that crazy thick hair braided back behind her head in a royal French braid, Rowan looked vastly younger at night than she did during the day. Every night she braided her hair, just as her mother had taught her. Her braids were an art form – perfectly woven, never a hair out of place. Arden had once tried to get Rowan to show her, but it couldn’t have looked like Rowan’s braid. It never could.
“What were you doing?” Rowan closed her book, tossing it beside her on the bed. The book shrunk as it closed with a magical boosh! Ah, so Rowan was using engorgio on her textbooks now.
Pulling the scrunchy out of her hair, Arden’s voluminous white-gold hair tumbled out of its hold, falling down around her shoulders. In the summer, it was white, in the winter, it was more gold.
“Revising.” She didn’t meet Rowan’s eyes as she turned over, tugging a pillow up against her chest, and facing away from her friend’s skeptical, suspicious eyes.
“With Barnaby? In the middle of the night? What did you do to study? Open a book and then close it?”
Arden released a soft, exasperated sigh. A silent prayer. Please, Rowan, don’t make this into a fight. She had gotten good at making them seem indiscernible from silent exhales. “Rowan, why does it matter?”
“We have a Charms exam at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning, Arden – I was worried.” Her voice was strained, frayed, and barely keeping her annoyance in check. This had nothing to do with their Charms’ final. Well, it did, but it also didn’t. Arden knew better.
Oh, yes, this would be a fight. Good bloody fun.
“He’s my boyfriend, love, I shouldn’t have to explain what it is we’re doing all the time.” The blond-haired girl muffled into her pillow. Thankfully, Badeea was a deep sleeper, but even so, Arden didn’t want to wake her.
“I’m your best friend – you used to tell me everything.”
Now, that was a bit uncalled for. Arden pulled herself upright on the bed, turning to face Rowan. The tension between the two girls was tangible as it was palpable. The rising annoyance that had settled between the two, whenever they were alone, had suddenly been swallowed with something much darker, angrier, and vicious. Magic, a powerful covenant unto the two young witches, tangled up in the space between them. You could taste the raw iron and magnetism of the power in that room.
“What is it you want from me, Rowan? You want me to tell you we were snogging? Is that it? Fine. We were. We’ve been together for nearly the year – I have kissed him in front of you, you know.” Arden’s green eyes, black in the dim light of the dorm room, seemed electrified in her anger.
“I want you to be honest, Arden. That’s all.” The girl, with her dark hair, sweet eyes, and crestfallen expression, swallowed and looked down at her hands. Something heavy rested on her expression. An unnamable, unanswerable thing.
“If that was all you wanted, then you wouldn’t be upset with the truth.” Arden bitingly answered. She knew she was being nasty, but she was tired. It had been a long day of exams and tomorrow would, too. The very thought of the History of Magic O.W.L. tomorrow evening – with all that writing… She didn’t want to think about it. Her hand already felt as if it would fall off her wrist. Knowing Binns, he had planned a ghastly number of essays.
For a long moment, Rowan was silent. Her friend, Arden Astros, the famous curse breaker, the ever-clever witch, the ambitious, bright, pretty white girl, was once again being heralded as the champion of Hogwarts, when no one else saw this side of her. Not even Merula Snyde. You see, Merula didn’t see this side of Arden for the same reason no one else did: Arden saw Merula’s worth, but she already knew Rowan’s loyalty was guaranteed. Yes, Rowan Khanna, the “sidekick.” Only known for her studious, religious attentiveness and endless, loving loyalty. At least, that’s how everyone saw her, even Arden.
“The truth is nearly always upsetting, Arden.” She blinked hard, swallowing the thick, solid lump of muscle that sat at the back of her throat. You chose this, Rowan Khanna, you wanted this – say what you mean.
Arden groaned and stuffed her face down into a pillow as she bit back a scream. This was ridiculous. Absolute lunacy. Was this going to follow her into the last two years of her schooling here? This incessant, passive aggressive fighting day-in-and-day-out with Rowan? They were lucky if they didn’t speak to one another, even luckier if they didn’t see one another the entire day. Their relationship only coming to be defined by the waking and sleeping of their bodies beside one another at night.
“What does that even mean? My sincerest apologies that I was out with my boyfriend, Rowan. I’ll write you a detailed schedule the next time, yeah?” She raised a sharp blond eyebrow before she dismissed her friend’s demands with a wave of her hand, turning over in her bed once more.
“You broke the rules.” Rowan spoke up once more. But instead of before, when she was barely keeping back her irritation with her friend, now she sounded defeated and more than a little heartbroken. “Since when do you break curfew?”
Sitting straight up like a man raised from the dead, Arden tossed back the downy comforter of her bed and rigidly got out of it. Mechanically, and with a strength Rowan didn’t know she possessed, Arden yanked Rowan out of bed and pulled her out of the dorm room. Moving quickly, they were suddenly in the darkened, chilly, and all too silent common room. The lack of a fireplace was never a bother to any of the Ravenclaws as they prided themselves on their acceptance of the cooler temperatures on the northern side of the castle, but in the middle of the night, especially in early spring, it was even a bit nippy for the two young witches.
“So, as the lady was saying: since when do I break curfew? Rowan, I can think of a number of instances where you broke curfew – would you like me to list them?” Arden was in the process of tabbing her fingers, readying herself to actually “list” the instances as she implied.
Rowan grabbed her fingers, stopping her. “I never did it because I simply wanted to, Arden. I always had a reason.”
“Yes, and my reason was to see my bloody boyfriend. What is the matter with that?”
“Because you never, ever think of the consequences, Arden!” Rowan snapped loudly at her friend, tears shining in her eyes in the light of the moon. “You always just leave and do what you will. You never care what I deserve, or anyone for that matter.”
“I’m sorry – did I hear you right, darling? I don’t care about anyone?” Arden’s eyes grew wide, cold, and dangerous. Rowan had seen that look, but she had never once directed it at her. “Are you mad?”
“Of course, you care, Arden. That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Well, it certainly sounds like that’s what you’re saying.”
“Will you just listen to me? Blimey, Arden. You care about who you want to care about, and when you do… When you care about someone, in the moment that you care about them, you make that person feel as if they are the center of your world. But then you forget that you’ve gone and made them the center, and you simply leave for someone else.” Rowan’s words tumbled out as if she had rehearsed them, but they’d gone stale. Perhaps, years ago, she had written them down, and only now, two years later, she had the chance to say them.
Arden frowned at Rowan’s words but didn’t speak. She felt the warning pinpricks in her belly, the kind one only gets when they are on the verge of being sick with the stomach flu. She swallowed, but that didn’t help any. She shifted her eyes away from Rowan’s. The accuracy of Rowan’s words was sharp as knives, and just as if they had been thrown through the air, they hit their target right on base. She knew she was right, and she hated it.
Something very mean and very cruel sat at the tip of Arden Astros’ tongue. “Is this about Bill Weasley, again?”
A little choked noise came from Rowan, as if she both tried to breathe and swallow all at once.
“It always is, isn’t it?” Arden’s eyes shifted back up to Rowan’s. The words she spoke made black, ugly things fill her intestines with inky pleasure. “You’ve been obsessed with him since second year.” They were terrible, untrue things, but she knew Rowan and she knew they would hurt.
“That’s mean, Arden. That’s terribly mean.” Rowan was frowning as soft, silent tears escaped down her brown satiny cheeks. The tears, slipping down beneath the lens of her glasses, made her look even more like a kicked puppy. “And if you must know,” she sniffed, trying to gather herself, “I was never obsessed with him. I loved him.” Her dark eyes shifted up to Arden’s, bright and powerful. An acceptance. “I still do.”
Feeling cruel, nasty, and downright awful, Arden walked over to the blue sofa beside the large, elaborate bookcase filled to the ceiling with books of every kind and genre. “I didn’t mean it, Rowan. I know how you feel about Bill, I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not. You just feel bad you said it.” Rowan crossed her arms over her button-down pajama top. It was patterned with little broomsticks. She scuffed her pink bunny slipper up against the edge of the sofa Arden was sitting on. “You know I have loved Bill since I was 12-years-old, Arden. I know that might not seem like a lot for you, considering that you go through people like you change your britches, but I have always been in love with him.”
“That’s a little melodramatic, Rowan. We’re 15.”
Tears were fiercely bright in Rowan’s eyes as she hadn’t quite recovered from the “Bill Weasley” comment. “I am not being melodramatic. You kissed him, after you knew how I had felt about him for years!” Her voice grew loud – too loud – it echoed in the quiet darkness of the common room. The two girls froze as they waited for the inevitable sound of footsteps coming down the stairs, but nothing happened.
Turning back to her friend, Arden felt her heart in her throat, the pulse of it was loud and hammering. It felt as if she was attempting to swallow Tulip’s frog, Dennis, as he squirmed and squashed in protest. Her eyes studied the deep sadness that had ridged itself into Rowans’ face. Was this what she had done? Tortured Rowan with emotional distress over something as inconsequential as a kiss?
That kiss… It hadn’t meant anything. Well, not to Arden. Okay, that’s not true either. Arden had secretly had a crush on Bill in the beginning of fourth year. Him and Charlie had visited her in Liverpool that summer, and after a full day of walking and exploring all over the city, they returned to Arden’s house exhausted. Bill fell asleep on Arden’s shoulder while they were watching a rerun Doctor Who…and that was where it started.
Arden spent the rest of that summer thinking about Bill. Dramatically. Melodramatically, to steal the very word she had used to describe Rowan’s feelings for him. And when they returned to school that fall, her and Bill spent the entire first semester flirting around their feelings, pretending as if they didn’t like each other, only to end up in awkward positions where it was obvious they did.
Because of his prefect duties, which required that he stay until everyone in Gryffindor was accounted for in the impending holiday break, Bill was taking a late train home to the Burrow. After a long day of chasing down First-Year Gryffindors, Bill stumbled into the Great Hall, worn and frazzled. Arden was already there, eating a leftover sandwich, and flipping through the newest Stephen King novel, Four Past Midnight (not his best, but still spooky enough). Bill collapsed beside her on the bench. There were feathers sticking out his hair. A First-Year tried to murder me with a pillow, Arden.
With a laugh, Arden pulled the feathers out of his long red-golden mane one-by-one, shaking her head. I think you look better this way, she teased. She was always good at that, huh? The teasing, the joking, the smiling. She had made Bill laugh hysterically. When he calmed down, he looked down at her affectionately, she looked up at him with much of the same.
I fancy you, Bill Weasley.
You know, funny thing… It’s like ya’ took the words right out of my mouth. I fancy you, Arden Astros.
They kissed.
Not much became of it, however. As after break, Bill came back, and agreed with Arden that it was best they stayed friends.
But it didn’t matter.
Arden had known. Because just as Arden had been hungrily watching Bill as he moved throughout Hogwarts the first half of fourth year, Rowan had been writing love letters to him. She stored them. Under her bed. She doodled a heart of her name and Bill’s at the top of her notebook in Transfiguration. She had told Arden the deepest, loveliest, and most absurd fantasies – the things she would never have told anyone. The images and pictures and dreams of having a crush. All of it, with sharp, excitable love, she had told Arden.
And Arden, smiling and laughing at Rowan’s antics, had known. She cared. Of course she did, but Rowan was… Well, that didn’t matter. How did she know about the kiss? They had been alone.
“How did you know about that?” Arden asked with her sharp green eyes shifting to Rowan’s.
“Arden, I stayed at Hogwarts that Christmas, too. You asked me to stay. So I stayed. I was wondering where you were – it was late – yet again. I came downstairs to the Great Hall and I saw you there. You were kissing him. I left after that; do you remember? I left a cute little letter with a bauble on your pillow?” Rowan sniffed as if to emphasize her distraught feelings. She wiped her tears with an angry rub of her hand.
Arden did remember that letter. Rowan had simply said she missed home. The other witch didn’t blame her. If her mum had not gotten so bloody neurotic since Jacob went missing, she would have missed home too. Besides, Rowan was more of a homebody than she ever was. So, she chalked it up to nothing but a case of holiday homesickness.
With a sigh, the blonde-haired witch stood up from the sofa and crossed her arms over her sweater. Walking to the window, she looked out unto the dark, foggy moor that was visible just beyond Ravenclaw’s tower. Sometimes, if you were up early enough, you could spot Hagrid walking alongside Fang as they looked for a wild creature wandering in the morning sunrise. “Rowan, it didn’t mean anything.”
“Not to you.” The voice that Rowan used was as bitter as it was exhausted. Gravely. A crumbly, rocky sort of anger that Arden hadn’t ever heard in her voice before.
Turning her head, she looked over at her friend, she met her eyes. “Care to explain?” She raised a sharp eyebrow.
“It didn’t mean anything to you. Because nothing ever means anything to you.”
Arden frowned. “What are you saying, Rowan?” Something between despair and dread began to dance in the pit of the young witch’s stomach. Nothing good would come of this question. Nothing good waited behind the answer.
Rowan went silent as tears simply washed down her face like slow, sleepy rain on the glass of a window. Her pretty eyes remained fixated on the hands in her lap as if they were more interesting than anything Arden had to offer.
“Rowan?” The other witch snapped.
“Bill came to me.” Rowan said softly. “He came to me after Christmas…” She bit her lip.
Oh. No. Oh, bloody no. Arden sank onto the couch in the seat beside her oldest, truest friend. Raw fear began to burrow itself down into the folds of her intestines. She knew what was coming. “Rowan,” she whimpered. For the first time that evening, tears began to well in her eyes. “You don’t have to—”
Strong and clear-cut, Rowan cut her off. “He asked me why you didn’t want to be with him.” As if finding her sense of grace, the power in her anger, the magnificent witch she would one day become, her dark eyes turned directly onto Arden. Twin spotlights putting her into caught-red-handed focus. “Because that’s what you do, Arden Astros. Someone will mean everything to you, until they don’t.”
Arden felt soft kissing tears begin to collect themselves on her cheeks, doves ready to take flight. Rowan had found her power, Arden was losing hers. Rowan… Sweet, witty, and loyal. The girl who had a locket with a tiny picture of her cat, with her ridiculously curled eyelashes, and soft, rounded cheeks. All things Arden had loved about her. All the things she’d betrayed.
“What did you tell him?”
“Some kind of truth.”
“Rowan…” Arden cried, sniffling and whimpering.
“I told him you weren’t interested. I told him he was your best friend. I told him that made it difficult for you to have feelings for him. So. Don’t you fret, I covered for you. Just like always.”
The dark-haired witch stood. With Arden meekly looking down at her feet, Rowan towered over her. Even after calling Arden out on her shallow, witless bullocks, she still felt a bit shit. But at least… At least the curse breaker knew. Maybe that was a victory in and of itself.
“I loved Bill Weasley, Arden, but it was never about him.” A crack in her strident voice told Arden that there was still some kind of precious sentiment in her old friend’s voice.
The blonde-haired witch shifted her eyes delicately to meet her friend’s.
“I loved you most. I still do. I’ll love you until I die, I think. Which rather does suck, considering.” Rowan offered her the smallest, gentlest kiss of a smile.
“Can we still be friends?” Arden asked. Green eyes danced with tears, shifting and glinting in the moonlight like a body of water. As soft as her pardon seemed, it was a bit inevitable that the question would arise.
“No, I don’t we think we can, Arden. Not even a little.”