Chapter Text
Sharp steps reverberated through the mostly empty passage leading out to the window way. They weren’t hesitant or soft. They were steady, determined, echoing closer and closer like a heartbeat or a drum, ongoing and inevitable. Olruggio stepped out in front of them and broke the pattern.
“So, you were just gonna leave in the dead of the night without telling me?”
The white fabric of Qifrey’s cloak billowed around and off of him like smoke. He looked barely there, his cheeks were more hollow than normal, and he swayed a little with the passing breeze. If Olruggio hadn’t known this was his best friend he might’ve thought he was a ghost. He was certainly trying to act like one.
When Qifrey refused to meet his eyes, Olruggio pulled the letter he’d discovered on his bedside table that night out from underneath his cloak.
“So, what, you were just gonna leave in the middle of the night without telling me where you were going and expect me not to chase after you?”
The ghost of his friend was silent and still.
“Qifrey! Look at me!”
Frigid blue eyes met his.
“What’s going on with you? Just tell me. Wherever you want to go, I’ll take you there. Just, let me in.”
Something beneath the ice broke.
“Olly, I-”
Olruggio held his breath as Qifrey’s face softened for just a moment and it looked like maybe, finally, after years of waiting, he might get an actual answer. Only for something to shift deep within him making the ice freeze back over again.
“I think it’s better if we went our separate ways.”
What. “What!?” Olruggio’s internal monologue slipped out. “What happened to ‘You are my closest, most dear friend’ and ‘Even if we are worlds apart, know that my heart is always yours’? Are you telling me all the shit that you wrote in this letter is just crap? Did you just lie to me?”
Olruggio caught the flinch Qifrey gave at that last sentence, but he was too tired and upset to care at the moment.
“I-I never meant to hurt you Olly I just-”
A mean, horrible, rueful laugh slipped out of his mouth unbidden, “You just what? You just thought that slipping away in the dead of night without even bothering to say goodbye would be easier? Well, looks like you were wrong. So, come out with it. What is this all about?”
“I’m a bad influence on you Olruggio. I’m only tearing you down.”
“Not this bullshit again.” It took everything in Olruggio not to reach up and pull out the hair that framed his face in frustration. “Qifrey, you know that’s all bullshit. You are my best friend. You’re the first person I go to when I run into trouble with a spell. Hell, half of my best spells have either been inspired by or directly worked on by you. I don’t care what the people in the Great Hall think about you or us. I thought you didn’t either. They’re full of shit anyway!”
“No. They’re not.” Qifrey was looking at him with ice in his eye again. It hurt. “Now please, Olruggio, step aside. I need to leave.”
Qifrey took a step forward towards the window way and Olruggio didn’t think, he just acted. Before he realized what was happening he’d grabbed Qifrey’s arm, preventing him from going any further.
“Let go of me.” He couldn't see what was going on behind the coldness in Qifrey’s eyes.
“Qifrey, please.”
“Olruggio.” It was a warning. He understood that somewhere deep in his mind, but that knowledge couldn’t beat out the spiraling thoughts that all circled around the fact that his best friend, the boy he’d had a crush on for years, was about to walk through a window way and disappear and he’d have no way of finding him.
Within one breath and the next everything froze. He should’ve remembered it was raining.
Tiny pieces of water gathered and collected on his cloak until there were tendrils of the liquid twisting and whirling around him, pulling him back, separating him from his friend, preventing him from stopping Qifrey from leaving. He just wanted to stop him from leaving, why was that so bad? What did he need so desperately from out there that he couldn't find here, with Olruggio? The panic and despair grabbed him in a tighter hold than the water that surrounded him ever could. It reached into his mouth, down his throat, and pulled at his heart. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think. Qifrey was leaving him and he couldn't stop him from going. He had to stop him from going.
He took a breath, pulling his palmquire out from his belt and whipping up something of a counter-spell. A flash of fire ignited behind him, but it wasn’t enough to fully disperse the water, not with the ever increasing rain adding more and more power to it. Still, he got closer to where Qifrey stood, already fiddling with the marks on the window way.
“I don’t believe you!” He shouted, and that made Qifrey pause. So he continued. “I don’t believe that you meant what you said, because if you really thought you were bad for me you wouldn’t keep my tassel on your head.”
He watched as Qifrey slowly reached up to grab at the item. He took a breath as turned the black ribbon over in his slender, ghostly hands. It looked right sitting on top of his head, Olruggio would never disagree with that, but what it symbolized wasn’t lost on him. And from the looks of it, it wasn’t lost on Qifrey either. So he took that truth in his hands, and he pulled.
"That tassel is a symbol of our friendship, for better or worse. So either take it off right now and we can be done with it or keep it and know that I won’t rest until I find you again."
Qifrey didn’t take the tassel off. Instead, he turned to the side to look at his friend and smiled one of his fake smiles, the one Olruggio hated himself for teaching Qifrey to make. And said, “Please don’t wait for me.” as he sent a wave crashing down on Olruggio and stepped through to the other side of the portal.