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fourth year
“What did he look like?” Gideon asked by her bed. Crammed in the spare infirmary chair beside him, Rory and Hector were asleep.
Halley closed her eyes. Bow to death, Voldemort had told her in the graveyard. The exact death that nearly pulled Gideon under when he was in the Chamber those years ago. She opened her eyes and saw Gideon staring at her, his eyes reflecting the torchlight.
“Like he’s supposed to look,” she said, drawing up the memory of green light and the life taken from her. She thought of the boy in the diary. “Like a monster.”
fifth year
A nightmare dodged Halley’s heels in the waking world. She stumbled in the cold dark of Grimmauld Place, suddenly finding her way inside the gloomy kitchen. She expected to be alone as she brooded over Ms Weasley’s biscuits.
But a single lamp illuminated a scene: Gideon by the main table, one hand already in the biscuit tin. Bewildered, they stared at each other for a long moment.
“Bad dreams?” He handed her a ginger biscuit. There were dark circles under his eyes.
“I don’t want to go back to sleep,” Halley admitted. She broke the biscuit in half to share.
-
Gideon’s mouth brushed the side of her cheek. His eyelashes tickled her skin. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you.”
Halley inhaled sharply. The day's memories swirled around her: her first kiss with Chang under the mistletoe, the dream of Mr Weasley bleeding out by her feet. She wasn’t sure what was real or what was still a strange dream. All she could think about was blood and mistletoe. Something is deeply wrong with me…
“You don’t think I’m cursed?” Halley said. An unknown emotion rose in her chest.
“You saved my dad’s life. The last thing you are is cursed.”
-
Halley slammed the door. Her feet felt restless; she wanted to run away.
Gideon looked up from one of his romance novels. He’d clearly overheard everything. “You’re being an arse to Rory and Hector.”
“Piss off,” she said.
Gideon followed. “Halley, you’re not a monster.”
She turned to face him, suddenly furious again. “How do you know?”
“Because I needed someone, too!” Gideon had always been shy around her, tentatively friendly, but never truly angry. “Do you know how lucky you are to have them? They’ve been trying to reach you for months, and you’ve brushed them off each time.”
sixth year
The Exploding Snap cards sparked with embers as Gideon shuffled them.
“How...” Halley licked her dry lips. “How did you feel after that summer?” She had a hundred other questions that she had never asked him, a hundred things she wanted to know about his time in Egypt after the Chamber.
Gideon divided the deck of cards. It was almost sunrise; the shadows lengthened across the Burrow’s worn kitchen table. “Sometimes, I felt like a ghost in my skin. Other times it felt too much.” His expression shifted. The bravado Halley had come to associate with him had long vanished.
-
Without meaning to, Halley looked for Gideon more. She could find him in a crowded room in the space of a few heartbeats and hear his voice miles away when she should be listening in class. Something about him caused so many emotions to take root inside of her heart.
When had she begun to need someone other than Rory and Hector? The idea terrified Halley at moments. She wasn’t supposed to need anyone else – because people like Sirius and her parents died, because others left, she tried to reason.
And yet, the emotions blossomed, flowers bursting from her heart.
-
Halley nudged the door open. Old socks, cheap deodorant, wet ink, all the things she expected from the dorm, but why did it feel like she was trespassing? Gideon had given her permission to bother him at any time.
“Hey,” she greeted. Her eyes flickered up to Gideon’s face. She wasn’t sure when he had gotten so tall. “I need your help.”
She had been sworn to secrecy, but who else in the world could understand the mind of a boy who had dabbled in so much darkness? Who else knew how a schoolchild could transform into a terrifying monster?
-
What if… what if…
The words pinched at Halley's skin. She tossed and turned in her bed. What if she only liked him because of his connection to Voldemort? What if it was something poisonous that drew them to each other?
She thought of Gideon’s steady presence, the laughter he drew from her like sunlight. She imagined what it would be to kiss him in the abandoned corridor, to have his arms around her instead of her classmate’s. Her thoughts turned into more fantasies…
But, somewhere in the back of Halley’s mind, she swore she could hear Voldemort’s dark laugh.
-
“Are you asking me to break your heart again?” she said. The words scraped on her tongue.
Gideon sighed. “You’re so noble that it hurts, but want to know something else?”
Halley turned slightly, catching the way that sunlight followed the curve of his mouth. Her eyes then snapped up to meet his, his expression tender. Her traitorous heart leaped that he was so close to her… But guilt kept her away.
Love waited in the space between them, and it was dangerous.
“It was real. I know that much is true,” Gideon promised. “It’s why I haven’t given up.”