Chapter Text
before
“We’re not actually twins,” Rory said in between introductions. She offered Scabbers a sniff of her newest Chocolate Frog card. “We’re Puffskein Twins. It means we were born in the same year.”
Halley tried to comprehend this. “But you have how many sisters?”
“I’m one of six. All older and terrible.” She gestured to her younger brother. “Except me because I’m his favorite.”
“You are?” Gideon mumbled, face still red.
“Your poor mother,” Hector said blandly. “Come along, younger Weasley. We need to help Nellie find her toad.”
third year
Entering her Third Year, Halley had expected her friendship with Rory and Hector to stay the same. Except now Hector’s cat was feeling especially bloodthirsty toward Scabbers, there were Hogsmeade visits, and residual stares and gossip about what had happened the previous year.
“I heard she fought a monster bare-handed…”
“…swear she knows something about the Dementors.”
Keeping her head down, Halley tried not to stomp her way through the West Corridor angrily.
If she had Rory and Hector with her, they would flank her on either side, protecting her from the curious onlookers. Instead, her best friends were likely having a terrific time in the village. And without her.
Ignore them, she thought as she ducked behind a bewildered ghost, She picked up her pace and made a sharp turn at a corner. You’ve been the source of speculation before. This isn’t… Except the Dementors always seemed to lurk near her whenever she left the castle. There was a madman on the loose who wanted her dead. Maybe everything was different… Her mind swirled with horrible possibilities taking the shape of the Grim.
“Gideon!” Halley nearly collided with Ron’s younger brother. The hallway in this part was blessedly deserted of classmates and ghosts. “Uh, hi?”
Gideon took a step back, stunned at her sudden appearance. She had that effect on most people. “Running from danger again?” He was cradling a glass vial in his hands.
“No, I…” She held her hands on either side, helpless and annoyed at the world. “Why aren’t you at Honeydukes or something?”
He raised the vial. It was Pepper Up Potion. “Mum and Pomfrey think I’m too fragile after last year,” he said glumly. There was a moment when he made direct eye contact with her, and he quickly looked away, his ears steadily turning red.
Halley shuddered at the memory of the Dementors on the train. She remembered how pale Gideon had looked. Lily, take Halley and run… The hallway felt strangely cold despite the early autumn sunlight that streamed through the windows. She rubbed her arms and couldn’t help but lean into the awkward silence that Gideon only had near her. She’d seen him in class, talking excitedly with Nellie in Herbology or laughing with his sisters. Was he just as lonely as she was right now?
“Well, I’ll see you back in the dorm?” Gideon said as the silence ran its course. He gave her a half-hearted shrug and started to turn away.
“Wait,” she blurted out. She thought about how much fun Rory and Hector were having. “We could play a game or two of Exploding Snap?”
-
“Having fun without us?” Rory teased. She dropped a bag of sweets in Halley’s lap as Hector immediately launched into an in-depth discussion about the high-quality quills he had found.
Halley ripped the wrapper off a Chocolate Frog. “Your brother is cleaning me out!”
“I am not.” Gideon’s expression remained angelic. “Bu the way, you’ve lost again.”
-
Over the term, they played variations of Exploding Snap, Nixie’s Hand, Old Man Merlin, and even several Muggle card games. With each game, Halley learned something new about Gideon. He liked romance novels, strawberry gummy candy, and the Holyhead Harpies, he enjoyed spending time with Hagrid and learning how to care for the owlets nursed in the hut. In turn, he learned more about Halley. That her favorite photograph of her parents was of their wedding, and she hated and craved the Dementors for giving her mother a voice–
“Each time?” he asked, horrified on her behalf.
They sat with their backs against the Common Room wall, homework left half-forgotten around them in favor of a makeshift Exploding Snap tournament. It wasn’t as though either was rushing to finish their Herbology assignments.
The card in Halley’s hand shimmered with heat. She turned it over and studied the design of a dancing salamander on the back. She suddenly wasn’t sure how to look Gideon in the eye. Now that he was becoming more of a person, shedding his shy layers around her, she found herself saying things she only told Rory and Hector.
The room was silent except for the snaps and cracks of the nearby fire roaring merrily in the fireplace. The warmth kept most of the late winter chill away, but how the shadows danced against the wall reminded Halley of hands reaching in the dark…water-logged limbs wrapped in rotting fabric…
Gideon shifted next to her. He gently tapped his knee against hers. “Hey, Halley.”
“Hmm?” She lowered the card and turned her head slightly, catching a hint of expressive brown eyes. “It’s not like…I’m fine. Lupin is trying to show me how to stop them.” She didn’t say anything about her embarrassing fainting spells, the measly sparks of silver that came from her wand.
What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she think of a happy enough memory to drive even a Boggart away?
“I hear his voice.”
Halley stilled, carefully listening to the quiet gravity in Gideon’s words.
”It’s cold and dark. I can hear the pipes rattling, something large moving across the stones…then it’s his voice. He’s telling me that I’m going to die alone. That you’re going to die too and it’s all my fault.” There was a hitch in his voice. “I can’t believe I wrote to him.”
“It wasn’t your fault–”
“It was!” Gideon flicked a card, sending it flying in the air. “For a year, I spilled my hopes and dreams into a stupid diary that wrote back. He was kind to me, Halley. Do you know what that’s like when you see everyone else making friends, and you’re not?”
But Halley knew the feeling. She remembered crying in the cupboard under the stairs, she knew what it was like to be in school and not sure how to talk to a single soul. The fear stayed until Rory shared candy with her on the train, and after that, a friendship that could last a lifetime seemed possible.
She wasn’t sure how to tell Gideon this. Instead, she sat silently beside him and wondered about her ghosts.
fourth year
The summer air had turned balmy and thick with pollen. The tents around them were still carrying on the cheer of winning the Cup, fireworks and charms dancing in the late evening sky.
Halley split the deck in half with her hands sticky from too many melted Cauldron Cakes. “I can’t believe you.” She had enjoyed changing the topic, watching him squirm as he tried to justify his foolishness.
Gideon hid his face with his cards. “You can’t tell anyone! Okay? When I make this team this year, you can’t embarrass me in front of everyone.”
“Veela, Gid, really? Even Hector didn’t look like he would pitch himself out of his seat until later. We can’t have you as our Chaser when you threaten to fall like that publicly.”
Halley chanced a look at Rory and Hector. They sat alone on a bench, Rory showing Hector the best way to burn a marshmallow to perfection. Her face grew pink by the fire. Halley looked back at Gideon, his brown eyes sparkling, and they tried not to let their laughter show.
Gideon shook his head. “I’ll get some more water. Need anything?” He rose to his feet, and Halley stared at him, wondering when he had gotten so tall. The few letters he had written to her over the holiday hadn’t mentioned anything about him gaining an extra foot in height. The firelight flickered across his face, painting him in warm shades of gold. His eyes were almost luminous…
There was a curious sensation, a brief uncurling behind her breastbone that reminded her of whenever Chang was nearby. Halley removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes, thinking it was a trick of the light. “No, uh, thank you. I’ll set us up for another round.”
-
The year continued to turn, and Halley wasn’t sure how she would survive without Quidditch and Rory.
“Your sister–”
“She’s been trying to apologize,” Gideon reminded her. He looked again at the directions in their textbooks. “Wait, half a semi-circle or three-quarters? You know what? I’ll try both.”
Halley looked to where Rory and Hector were practicing the Shield Charm. She usually sat with them, as with most of her classes. Now she made her allegiance clear and glared at Rory whenever she could. Nothing mattered! Halley had her own Weasley, one who did a Bat-Bogey Hex on a couple of older Slytherins when they were teasing her.
“Why would I put my name in the Goblet?” she huffed, ignoring the purple flames that grew on their desk.
“Oi, Potter! As much of a terrible partner you are, I need your help.”
“It makes no sense!”
“Halley.” Grabbing her shoulder, Gideon pulled her from her thoughts. “Listen to me! Rory knows she’s been an arse. It's time to pull your head out of your own!”
Her jaw dropped. “I haven’t been an…it’s her fault!” She squashed the memories of Rory trying to corner her in the hallway after class or in the Common Room, the looks that were given as Hector sighed heavily between them. “Why would I risk my life like that?”
“You do it every year!”
“That’s different,” Halley insisted.
“And Rory’s with you each time,” Gideon said. “She’s your best friend and will always be by your side. Now help me put the fire out on our desk!”
-
Halley tossed a Chocolate Frog in Gideon’s lap. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about dragons from your sister Charlotte?”
“Sorry,” he said. “It takes more to bribe me. You and Rory have to make up first.” He offered her a cheeky smile as she scowled. He made a show of unwrapping the Chocolate Frog and taking a large bite. “Thanks for the free treat!”
Somehow, she missed the days when he was less cheeky.
-
Gideon gave the school broom a mournful look. “I won’t be able to make the team next year with this.”
“Plenty have made it to the professional league on a…decade-old Shooting Star.” Halley squinted and reread the inscription on the broom handle. “Are these even in production still?”
He groaned.
-
An awful realization in Fourth Year was that people dated.
There was gossip about whether Justine Finch-Fletchley was seen kissing Theia Nott behind Honeydukes. Damian Greengrass was rumored to date only Pureblood witches, per his parents’ approval. Love notes passed between lessons, scandalous love triangles, and awkward declarations of feelings. Yet, the knowledge that made Halley sick was that Cordelia Diggory and Christopher Chang were obviously in love.
Still feeling the sting of the Yule Ball rejection (she had the recurring fantasy of dancing with Chang, experiencing her first kiss with him, flying with him….), Halley scowled as she scrubbed the bottom of another cauldron. She blew a chunk of hair out of her face, feeling blisters form on the heel of her palm. “The problem is that he knows who I am but doesn’t like me like that.”
“How awful,” Gideon said. He glumly dumped half a bottle of cleaner inside a cauldron. Only Snape would use the stuff with the most fumes in his detentions. “Then why have feelings for him?”
“I don’t know.” Halley bit her bottom lip. “I saw him flying during a match…and he has such pretty eyes…. It’s like my heart is in control of my brain. I can’t do anything right around him. I spill my drinks whenever he’s nearby. He saw me trip up the stairs once!”
“I bet you were graceful.”
She deadpanned, “Veelas are jealous of me.” She leaned forward on her elbows, the fumes from the cleaner making her eyes water. “Have you ever felt like that around someone?”
Gideon’s face turned green.
-
Was Halley supposed to be pretty? She felt more like a newborn animal struggling to find her footing. She stumbled in her too-tight shoes, clinging to the banister, wishing the green fabric of her dress was billowy instead of weirdly stiff.
“You can handle an angry dragon, but heels?” a voice teased.
Startled, it took her a moment to recognize Gideon, and she almost forgot about her crush on Chang. He stood at the bottom of the steps, waiting for her with a simple bouquet of daises. Even in his borrowed red robes – still better than the frilly maroon ones Rory had been stuck with – he looked nice. Was he somehow taller? He looked older, at ease in his body in a way she wasn’t.
His brown eyes went wide as Halley joined him. The light from the torches picked out the individual strands of gold and yellow in his red hair. She saw a blush creeping up under his collar, following the freckles on his throat.
This was unknown territory. Gideon was Rory’s brother, he was her friend, her Exploding Snap partner. There was no way he should look…good. Almost handsome, depending on the angle of the light.
For whatever reason, Halley’s heart flung itself against her ribs. “Hi,” she squeaked.
-
Predictably, the Yule Ball turned into a disaster.
-
“Are we really friends??” Gideon asked. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall. “Be honest with me, Halley. Are we friends, or am I someone that you conveniently turn to when Rory and Hector aren’t around?”
Halley clutched the green skirt of her dress. “Of course, we’re friends!”
“Then let me offer you some advice as friends.” The enchanted lights haloed his red hair. “When someone asks you to dance, you can at least do the courtesy of not staring at someone else the entire time. They don’t treat the other like they’re a consolation prize.” He pushed himself off the wall. “I don’t want to be your second choice, Potter.”
With that, he stormed off.
-
“How many love triangles are you in now?” Rory cheerfully tossed the article from Skeeter into the fire.
“I don’t know, three?” Halley glumly looked down at her unfinished essay. “I’ve been an awful friend to him.” Since the Yule Ball, he took care not to talk to her in class, and their usual card games were abandoned. He’d completely iced her out, a darker parallel to when he was too shy to talk to her. She missed Gideon’s presence, the sly way he moved his hands before calling a win at cards, being someone to share jokes and stories with, but his words rang through her head like a church bell.
They don’t treat the other like they’re a consolation prize.
Hector added another row to the orange scarf he was knitting. “You’ll have to make a genuine apology.”
“I know how to apologize!”
“Say he’s the best part of the love triangle,” Rory said, her tone strangely light. “That ought to make his day or kill him on the spot.”
Halley gave her a horrified look. “What?”
“Oh.” Hector’s needles skipped. “Hmm. Rory, should we be having this discussion in public?”
Rory waved away his concerns. “Gideon had a small crush on you last year…and the year before that…”
Halley’s jaw dropped. She tried to think back to their previous interactions, how his blushing and stammering had gradually subsided over the months, the general ease he grew around her, and how he could make jokes and laugh with her…a crush? On her? With the new insight, she looked back at the Yule Ball with dread. She was truly the worst person in the world.
“He’s most certainly over you now.” Hector re-hooked his yarn and added a black border to his scarf. “You’ve been a prat to him.”
-
Dear Padfoot, Halley’s letter started.
I’ve royally messed up a friendship. How do I tell him that he’s not second-best….
She ran a hand through her hair and looked around her dorm, her eyes settling on the simple bouquet of daisies Gideon had given her. Why was this so hard? She should be able to walk up to him and apologize for being a thick-headed prat, for unknowingly taking advantage of his feelings… Dear Merlin, how many times had Halley talked about Chang around him? How could Gideon even look at her in the eye after everything?
Frustrated, she shoved away from the desk and looked through the school trunk at the foot of her bed. She found the card tucked between the pages of a half-finished Quidditch memoir and, for the first time, fully read the Valentine he had given her back in their Second Year. Back then, the dwarf had come down with laryngitis in mid-sentence.
Her eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad,
Her hair is as dark as a blackboard.
I wish she was mine, she's really divine,
the hero who conquered the Dark Lord.
Halley stared at the Valentine until her eyes burned. She closed her eyes and recalled the single good moment during the Yule Ball when he had given her the daisies.
His crush on her might be gone, but she wouldn’t lose their friendship.
-
Halley offered the corner of her charmed blanket. Without needing to elaborate, Gideon joined her on the bench and pulled a part of the blanket over his shoulders, his shivering body touching hers.
“If I have a sickle for every time someone tried to lure me in some sort of danger,” he said. Lake water dripped from his hair, his mouth in a funny half-smile as he pushed a water beetle off the bench.“And for you to save me? I'll have two sickles, which is not much, but weirdly, it's happened twice.”
Despite her chattering teeth, Halley pressed her face into Gideon’s shoulder and groaned. “What happens after I save you a third time?”
“I get a free broom.”
And while you're searching ponder this; we've taken what you'll sorely miss,… She pulled her head back and looked at him, probably the clearest since they’d first met. She took in the softness of his smile and the familiar weight of his hand. She was afraid to let go as if he could somehow slip again beneath the waters of the Black Lake, and she would never see him again. “Gideon, you’re not…”
He said, “You don’t have to say it. You already braved angry merpeople to save me.”
“I want to.” She squeezed his hand. “Down there, it was you I saved first. Gid, other than Rory and Hector, you’re my closest friend. I know why you want to be a professional Quidditch player. You use every dirty trick for Exploding Snap whenever we play together, I still have that Valentine you gave me because it’s the nicest thing anyone has ever written to me–”
“Halley, Halley.” Gideon knocked his forehead against hers and pulled her into a clumsy, one-armed hug. “We’re friends. I’m sorry for being–"
“No, I’m sorry,” interrupted Halley. “I want to be a better friend. Can...can we start over?”