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Louis is 27 when he does the second dumbest thing in his life.
There have been some close calls before this. That time he didn't take the Monday off after his cousin James' stag do. When he swore up and down he could pass his final Auror training exam without studying and decided to go out drinking instead. Forgetting his mum's 50th birthday.
There's been...it's been close. Nowhere near the first dumbest thing he's ever done. But until now, there've been some contenders.
He's chasing a suspect down Knockturn Alley, foolishly running on foot after Armand Sprauge (seriously, what kind of name is that) had taken off once Louis had disarmed him a few blocks back. Louis and his partner have been tracking the guy for months, watching his every move as he smuggled in illegal potions and sold them under the table to turn a profit, until they'd finally managed to catch up to him this morning.
It'd all gone to shit real fast.
There are like...two civilians down in the street back in Diagon Alley and that's not even counting Louis' partner, who is currently..., he turns his head quickly to check...and yeah, he's MIA. This is either going to be a huge win or a fucking disaster.
That tracks.
Armand ducks through a tapestry outside some sketchy store and Louis follows, swearing as he has to immediately leap over a set of boxes on the other side, catching up just in time to see Armand lifting a sewer grate and jumping inside.
Louis doesn't even think about it as he leaps down after him.
There's a huge puff of orange smoke, the smell of green tea (what the fuck), and then-
He blinks awake slowly, the bright lights too blinding and the bed too uncomfortable for the room to be his own. He panics for a moment, worried he's ended up at a random girl's bed with no memory of how he got there (it wouldn't be the first time it's happened, but he's gotten so much better about it that is hasn't happened in years), but then suddenly, there's a face pouring over his, the dark hair tickling his cheeks and hands just a little too tight as one pushes the tubing into his arm.
Colleen. In Healer's Robes. Which make this St. Mungo's.
"Oh, you asshole!" She pokes even harder into his arm and Louis cringes, but he's not entirely sure he doesn't deserve it.
Louis is 11 when he meets Colleen Kelly and it takes only the trip to Hogwarts before they're best friends.
His sister, Dominique, is "too old" to sit with a first year and his other sister, Victoire, is a prefect but his cousins, James and Freddy, are cool so they'll-
-ditch him in the middle of the hallway go talk about a prank for when they get back to school. They are the worst cousins and Louis doesn't know why he's friends with them.
The compartment in front of him is as good as any, he supposes, and there's only a small girl inside when he enters. She looks over at him curiously when he enters but doesn't react beyond that (interesting) so Louis takes it on himself to say, "Hello,"
"Hello," She repeats.
He hesitates. "Mind if I sit here?" She shakes her head so he pulls his trunk in and joins her. Instead of looking out the window, she turns to stare at him searchingly. "My name's Louis," He says leadingly.
"Colleen." She blushes a little, at being called out but doesn't back down. "Why's your face like that?"
Louis huffs out a breath in offense. It's not his fault he was born part veela and his features are perfectly symmetrical. Usually he gets complimented. "Why's your face like that?"
Colleen huffs back. "They're freckles!" She matches his glare, but it's barely a moment later before they're both laughing.
Louis breaks out his best smile, the one people swear get him out of anything, and tries to ignore how doing so makes his head want to explode even more. "I've been meaning to call you and get together for dinner."
It only gets him another jab. "Are we serving you for dinner? Because you're dead meat." His best friend hisses.
Louis chuckles and instantly regrets it. "Please don't make me laugh."
He can see her fighting one back. "You deserve every bit of pain and suffering you're in, asshole. Who jumps into a sewer grate not knowing what's down there?"
Oh. That's what he did?
It's possible that Louis does deserve this extra bit of ire that Colleen's putting in her voice right now. "I'm...sorry?"
"Oh you're going to be," Colleen promises, finally letting up on the poking and prodding and settling in on the edge of the bed. There's finally a bit of softness in her eyes as she pauses for a moment and Louis takes advantage of it, reaching for her hand and squeezing softly, giving her that reassurance that he really is okay. No matter how bad he may look right now.
She squeezes back once and then pats the top of his hand, before standing to leave, and wait, that's not.... "Just you wait, Lou."
"Coll." He whines. Come on; isn't there some sympathy for the injured? "Coll!" He repeats, just as she gets to the door. "Come on!"
The grin she sends back to him is terrifying. "I'll be back tomorrow, don't worry."
"I'm not sure that's as comforting as you're intending it to be!" He calls after her.
Colleen pops her head back into his room. "Well I guess we'll see tomorrow then, won't we?"
"So cruel."
"I know," She winks back and it's the last thing he sees before whatever potion she diluted into IV in his arm takes effect and he falls back asleep.
The next few days are...a lot of that cycle. Waking up to Colleen poking and prodding him, managing to stay awake just long enough to fire off a few witty comments back to her, and then slipping back into sleep. Louis slips into sleep willingly when his mum walks in the room, and fist bumps his dad, who tells him that he'll keep it between them that he was awake the whole time. There's one memorable afternoon where Colleen and his mum tag team their worrying as he's finally allowed to get up and walk again and he swears the only thing that stops them from letting him drop to the ground is that Colleen would have to do the paperwork for it afterwards.
It wouldn't be the first time she did something dumb with him.
The absolute dumbest thing Louis has ever done happens shortly after he's turned 17.
He's the last of his friends to do so- the baby, as John and Ria like to tease him, as if Ria's not only two weeks older than him to the day. Colleen is literally the only nice friend he has; it's no fucking wonder he likes her best.
The four of them are in the Astronomy Tower, pregaming a party, passing a bottle of firewhiskey around, as Louis complains about his latest break up. "I'm going to be single forever."
Ria's hand rests on John's head, which is settled mostly on her lap, and she doesn't hide her laugh at him. "You're 1/8th veela! If there's no hope for you, what are the rest of us supposed to do?"
Colleen snorts. "1/8th douchebag is more like it."
Louis snatches the bottle of firewhiskey back from her. She's supposed to be his best friend; she doesn't deserve such goodness right now. "Rude!" He cries, hiccuping.
Colleen giggles. "Come on, Lou; you know I'll always love you, no matter what."
His eyes narrow at her skeptically, but he decides not to question it at the time, opting instead to keep drinking.
Hours after the party, the four of them end up back at the Astronomy Tower, with another bottle of firewhiskey, even more wasted, and with even lower inhibitions. When he's still complaining about being single, and he and Colleen make a promise that if neither of them are married by the time they're 40, they'll marry each other, John pulls out his wand and seals it with an Unbreakable Vow.
Louis spend the entire next morning throwing up and it's only partially from the alcohol. He doesn't think he and Colleen look each other in the eye for the rest of the year.
It's not that Louis and Colleen aren't friends anymore. They're for sure still best friends. But they never mention their...well, they just don't mention the thing.
"You win." Louis tells her, when the two of them are taking a lap around the Healer's station one afternoon. Hopefully his last afternoon in St. Mungo's. "I'll never jump down a sewer grate again." Colleen laughs so hard she literally cackles and Louis stops walking. "I'm serious." He insists.
She holds her arm out for him to catch up again, still laughing as he takes the few hesitant steps toward her. "Sure."
"I am!"
She lets him lean a bit more weight against her for the last of the trip back to his room. "I'll believe it when I see it."
He grins down at her. "You mean, you'll believe it when you don't see it!"
She bumps her head on his shoulder. He really loves her like this, easy and open. "Well considering that you can't seem to stay out of trouble, I think I'll be able to see it just fine."
"Hey," Louis protests. "I am a perfect angel!" And Colleen laughs again, that loud one that would draw everyone's attention if there were more people around to draw attention from and Louis can't help the smile that grows on his face.
He's not blind, is the thing, and certainly not to a beautiful woman. He's also not stupid, despite what either of his sisters may say on any given day, so despite how the situation may seem, he's not entirely unaware of his deeply buried crush on his best friend of 16 years with whom he's in a pact to marry if neither of them are married by the time they're 40.
But when Colleen laughs, Louis can't help but to laugh along and he stops paying attention to where he's walking and what he's doing. His foot slips and he goes down pretty hard, but Colleen comes right down with him as he pulls her down with him.
There's this momentary pause where he thinks neither of them breathe-him, because he can't, the wind's been knocked out of him between falling on the ground and pulling her on top of him; and her, he thinks more out of fear that something's happened to him.
"Are you okay?" Colleen's whispering, from nerves or proximity, Louis still can't tell, and at some point during the fall, she managed to slip her hand behind his head to cushion the blow, because she's gently stroking his hair now.
"Yeah," Louis nods, catching his breath. It seems...hard. He can't seem to do it. "Are...are you?"
Colleen nods. She's still stroking over his hair and Louis realizes his hand is moving in a similar stroking pattern over her back. He's got such a clear view of her eyes lying on top of each other on the floor, he can see her pupils dilating. "Uh-huh," She licks her lips and Louis tracks the movements. "I'm good."
"You're more than good." Louis says, unable to hold himself back anymore. They're breathing the same air. Merlin, how close are they? It seemed like they were barely centimeters apart when he first looked but suddenly now that he's moving closer, those centimeters seem like kilometers.
"Yeah?" She's grinning now, not moving away. That's-that's got to be good.
"Yeah." It's a whisper at most because Louis is that close. It's going to happen. He's going to kiss her. There've been moments he's thought about this (it wasn't often because he doesn't hate himself that much and it certainly wasn't on a hospital floor) and it's-
"Colleen!" One of the Healers from her shift pops her head around and Colleen jumps back. Louis jumps back. They just-jump apart, looking guilty as hell. He can see it in her eyes, feels it on his own face as they both pull themselves together and try to stand. Making extreme effort not to touch. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah," Colleen nods. "All good."
She's avoiding eye contact with him when they're back to standing and walking, making their way back to his room. But it's the first time that Louis thinks that maybe he's not entirely alone in this. That this crush that's been growing for 16 years may not be entirely unrequited.
That the dumbest thing he's ever done in his life may not actually be the dumbest.