Brett stared into the eyes of the beautiful girl in front of him, a swooping sensation leaping in the pit of his stomach as he leaned in to kiss her. Their lips met, and he soared.
Standing in another corridor, Emma peered on her tiptoes at the couple, the smile she had been beholding now contorting into a massive frown, her eyes filling to the brim with tears and overflowing. Her weakness turned her knees to mush and she slid down to the floor, her legs buckling underneath her thin, gasping form.
Brett had betrayed her.
“NO!”
Emma sat up in her common room four poster, her legs twisted in the thin sheets as sweat, mingled with tears, ran down her face and inside her nightclothes, her breath becoming more ragged as she began to think about what had just commenced before her eyes. She turned back over with a sob, muttering something that the girls around her thought sounded something like, ‘It was just a dream’.
She wasn’t going to convince herself that Brett wasn’t good for her; she just was still in astonishment at how good he actually was.
~ * ~
“Hey Brett,” Emma said as she glimpsed the boy, running over to him and giving him a peck on the cheek and entwining her fingers into his. He smiled at her as she pulled away, and they walked to the Great Hall, adamantly chatting about the day before and the challenging task they had partaken of.
“Nice job with the win,” she told him, knocking him in the shoulder with a soft fist. “You got it done nearly twenty minutes before I did. Great work. I know that your Headmaster is happy.”
“Oh, you have no idea. Thanks. And second is still good, Emma. Maybe just going first hit your nerves.”
Emma laughed. “Oh, I know it did. I was scared out of mind the entire time I was in there.”
“Well, poor Gregoria almost got murdered by Centaurs after she stumbled into their nests.”
“I know, those blue sparks were all over the sky, weren’t they?”
Brett nodded and smiled at her. “I thought that I remembered something about if you were a . . . young person, an innocent, they’d allow you to pass.”
“That’s what I’ve read in books, but I guess that that changed during the Final Battle. There were so many people that were young and were on the Dark side. They tried to kill the Centaurs, but they didn’t go down easily, so their trust for humans wavered, and I guess that it now just no longer exists.”
They both sat down at a table in the Great Hall together, digging into the breakfast that swiftly appeared before them.
All of a sudden, a lone person was heard applauding right behind Brett. He turned around and swallowed a bite of food, his eyes resting upon Seth. Emma’s eyes widened and she put a hand to Brett’s shoulder, whispering comforting words inaudible to Seth’s ears. He just shrugged her off.
Seth’s cheers continued, three of his Slytherin friends standing behind them with their arms crossed, staring Emma up and down as if she were something disgusting that they had never seen before.
“I believe that this is the Ravenclaw table, Seth.” Brett wiped his mouth with a napkin and turned back around, ignoring him. Seth looked as if he could punch Brett at that very moment but he just remained in that spot, tense fists clenching and unclenching. He dared to take a look back at his friends, who gave him a dirty smirk and nodded.
“Good work on your win yesterday, Brett,” he said, emphasizing and spitting his name. His friends snickered.
“What, is that supposed to make me laugh?” Brett asked, finally standing up and taking a step toward Seth. Seth took one back, his eyes suddenly showing panic, but for only a moment. By now, they had attracted the interest of a few other students that surrounded them, their eyes enlarged in fear as they realised that a fight was about to initiate.
“It’s supposed to make your girl laugh,” he said. “But I’m sure she’s too busy screaming into the night to be able to listen to what I’m saying.”
Emma didn’t immediately comprehend what Seth had just said, but when she heard the giggles of his friends and the astounded gasps of the onlookers, her cheeks instantly became crimson and she focused her eyes to the floor. Brett gave her a reassuring look, and then turned back to Seth.
“I’m warning you, Seth. Just leave her alone, she doesn’t want anything to do with you anymore.”
“Oh, and she wants something to do with you, am I right?” He sniggered, taking encouraging glances from his friends to egg him on.
“Yes, I do,” Emma said, squeezing Brett’s shaking hand, it too tensing up as if to strike. “Leave us alone, Seth.”
“No--- No, I don’t think I will.” His eyes closed half-way, as if trying to comprehend something. “Someone that steals my girl is my problem. Even if I could care less about what happens to her now.”
“Seth, you idiot, I broke up with you before I ever even saw Brett again. I don’t want to be with you!” She was practically screaming now. Brett put a hand to her arm as if to silence her without even looking at her.
“Then I guess you’ll be eating breakfast with us, then?” Brett asked, his eyebrows raising and sitting back down in his seat confidently and picking up a fork. He motioned toward the table. “So?” Emma didn’t move. “You said you weren’t going to leave her alone--- I guess that that means you and I are going to be becoming great friends.” He gave him a grin.
“You son of a---” Seth muttered, the rest of his words becoming muffled as he clenched his teeth, taking off on his feet and rearing back a fist to punch Brett. Brett still hadn’t moved. Seth still just held his fist in place, waiting for some sign that he had the permission to clout the boy in front of him. Nothing stopped him, yet he still hadn’t done it. Brett then stood back up and Emma held him back.
“Come on, Brett,” she whispered, “He’s not worth it. He’s not worth it.” She continued to pull on his arm.
“Seriously, Seth, tell me something. I come to Hogwarts, I get the champion position you wanted and your girl got the other. I’d be upset too, yeah. But what makes you think that you own Emma?” Now Brett was just mocking him.
“I . . . I . . .”
“I . . . I . . .” Brett suddenly turned serious, his face changing from the mocking stare. “You don’t own her, all right? It may take you a while to figure that out, but she’s not your girl anymore.”
Emma pursed her lips and awaited a punch, but it still wasn’t coming.
“You don’t know anything about me,” Seth muttered, his eyes lowering.
“No, I don’t know everything about you, but I do know that you never treated Emma the way she should have been treated and you hit---” But he never finished the sentence because Emma cut him off by a soft kick to the shin. He immediately understood.
Seth shook his head and muttered something inaudible to the couple, a rigid fist finally pulling back. He leapt at Brett, his face contorted in a scornful, anger-filled look. His fist was only inches from Brett’s face, speeding faster and harder toward him . . .
And Brett caught it in his palm, spinning him around and forcing him onto the breakfast table, his dirty fork almost going into Seth’s apprehensive face. Emma gasped and backed up, yelling Brett’s name and telling him to stop, though for some reason she found delight in seeing his pain. Seth winced and wriggled helplessly to get away, but he only succeeded in getting Brett’s breakfast food in his face. Brett lowered himself to his ear.
“I don’t want to ever, ever see you even looking at Emma. You got that? I’ll do more than embarrass you next time. You’re not worth anything to her.” He spoke the words slowly as if Seth couldn’t comprehend them any other way.
Seth didn’t answer.
“I said, you got that?” He pushed him harder against the table.
Seth finally nodded in mortification, his hair falling down into his face and closing his eyes.
Brett let him go with great force, Seth almost falling into the table as he tried to stand. His friends till hadn’t moved.
“Come on,” Brett said to Emma, taking her hand and leading her out of the hall without a backward glance.
As soon as the doors had closed, Emma kissed Brett passionately, pushing him into a wall. She felt brilliant, utter love surging between them. Emma felt whole now that Seth was off her back, and her love went into the kiss. When it was broken, they just stared at each other.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her eyes falling to the floor. “Seth doesn’t ever know when to stop.” She stepped back, putting her linked hands behind her back and leaning forward on her toes, glancing around the hall.
Brett took a step toward her to clear the distance between them. “Emma, back there . . .”
“What?” Emma asked, taking a hold of his hands and he looked away.
“I . . . never mind, it’s nothing.”
“No, come on. What is it?”
Brett shook his head and looked up at her, pushing a piece of hair out of his face with a blow from his mouth.
“Back there I realised something, when I was getting ready to fight Seth.”
Emma nodded, slightly confused, but continued listening.
“I realised . . . that, even after all these years . . . and with all the time we’ve been spending together lately. . .” He breathed in deeply. “I think I’m in love with you.”
Emma’s eyed widened in their sockets, her heart once again beating unsteadily.
“Funny,” she told him, a smile crossing her face. “Because I realised I loved you then, too---”
Brett kissed her again before her speech was finished.
~ * ~
Emma walked into the Ravenclaw common room, an utter smile on her lips as she walked past some lonely first years, just staring into the fire and trying desperately to finish some last minute essays for their classes the next day. Emma had the inclination to inquire if they needed help, but her first priority was to inform her friends about what had just happened. They had told her that they needed full reports on her developing relationship with Brett and they needed every scandalous detail.
She hurried up the stairs to her own dorm, opening the door and clicking it shut. As she turned around she glimpsed her pair of best girl friends, Kelly and Eva, sitting on the bed, chatting adamantly with one another.
“Emma!” Kelly said, a welcoming smile coming upon her face, replacing the angered one.
“Emma,” Eva started, sitting up on the bed. “I still can’t get over your first task and how well you did,” she said, her eyes becoming wide and admiring.
“Thanks,” Emma voiced, giving her a smile that signaled she was ready to go to bed, and she got under sheets after she changed into her pajamas.
“We just wanted you to know that, even after your break up with Seth and going out with Brett and all of this tournament havoc, we’re still going to be the best friends we can be for you, all right?”
Emma’s face contorted into an awkward look, trying to find the code hidden in her friend’s words. She finally turned around and smiled at them, though it was forced. She didn’t want to hear that they still wished to be friends after this tournament had made her famous; she didn’t even want them to say it. That meant that they had been thinking about it, how it felt to be a friend in the eyes of a champion. Emma didn’t wish for her friends to change just because of all this excitement. The tournament itself merely lasted a week, though Brett would stay throughout the rest of the school year. She could not wait until this contest was over, actually, because then the tension between the houses would end, and everyone would be free to be friends, aware that they didn’t have to be enemies just because of the opposition of their schools.
Emma rolled over in her bed, pulling the covers up as she continued to listen to her friends’ whispering. She caught pieces of the conversation as it unfolded.
”No, you tell her!”
“I can’t tell her, you’re the one that decided to go out with him!”
“Tell me what?” Emma asked, her brow furrowing. She sat up. Her mind was swimming with loads of possibilities of who could be going out with whom, and why it would affect her so much that her friends wouldn’t notify her.
“Emma, you may not want to know---”
“It’s fine, just tell me. I won’t be mad, I promise.” Though, Emma knew she could be lying, depending on what it was the girls were talking about. Perhaps it was Brett? She would surely die if it were him.
No, her thoughts interrupted. No, that would mean that one of them were going out with Brett, and that would mean that he was cheating on her. No. She prayed silently before they spoke that that wasn’t it.
“Eva is . . . Oh, tell her, Eva, I’m sure not going to, it’s your fault.”
“Well,” her friend said matter of factly, “I’m going out with . . . oh, Emma, please tell me that you won’t be mad! I know that it’s breaking the code of girl friendship and all, but I’ve liked him for so long---”
“Oh, spit it out!” Emma said, her anger rising, but still keeping her calm.
“I’m going out with Seth.”
Emma’s mouth nearly dropped open, half in relief that it wasn’t Brett but the other half in anger and sadness for her friend. She then felt guilty that she had ever thought it Brett in the first place.
“Wh-What?” Emma asked, her eyes expanding.
“I told you she’d be mad,” Kelly muttered before getting off the bed.
“No, shut up, Kelly, I’m not mad,” Emma said teasingly. “Se- Seth, right?”
Eva nodded, her eyes as round as nickels. “Please don’t be angry with me, Em---”
“Okay, first of all, I’m not mad.”
It looked as if both of the girls had been talking with extreme comfort for her, because they both breathed rather large sighs of relief and relaxed their postures. Eva grabbed a pillow and held onto it.
“But I do have to tell you something about him.” Her voice suddenly became grave and serious. Tears almost filled her eyes but she looked up to the ceiling and they dissolved.
“Seth is not a good guy.” She stared at the two for a moment before speaking again. “He’s not worth it, Eva, I’m telling you.”
“Oh, I know that you would know, Emma, but I just can’t stand not being with him.” She sighed and lay back.
Emma was happy that her friend had found someone to be with, but she wasn’t happy about who it was. Seth was a bad guy; she’d have to put up with him for the past year or so, dealing with those bruises and always lying for him, covering up the truth that she was actually abused by her perfect boyfriend.
“Do you two remember that bruise I had on my eye about a week ago? The one I told you that I got when I fell down the stairs?”
“Yeah,” they both answered at the same time.
“I didn’t fall down the stairs.”
“Then what could you have done to get a bruise that big---” Kelly suddenly stopped and clapped a hand to her mouth. “Emma, you don’t mean that . . . Seth---”
Emma nodded and they remained in silence for a moment.
“That’s ridiculous, Emma,” Eva said, sighing, her tone suddenly becoming tart. She cleared her throat and got into her own bed. “Seth could never do a thing like that to me.”
“Eva, I’m just warning you to be careful---”
“Besides, you probably just upset him or something. That’s why he did it.”
Emma opened and closed her mouth, her heart nearly stopping as she struggled to hold her mouth closed and not utter a word. She couldn’t believe that Eva, her best friend, Eva, had just told her that! How dare her!
“Let’s go to bed,” Kelly said cheerfully, trying to break the tension in the room.
Eva punched at a pillow, pretending it was Emma’s face before allowing her breaths to become shallow from the anger that was building inside of her. Emma didn’t get much sleep that night.
~ * ~
The candy lined the aisles, the bright, shimmering packages only drawing wide-eyed children closer to examine them. Purples and blues paired with yellows and reds, their silvery and gleaming wrappers matching their esteemed slogans that made the candy only taste that much more delicious. The girl that now walked here had been one of their regulars that had been beckoned toward, usually picking up quite a few sweets and dumping them into a near-empty shopping basket before it turned into an almost-filled one when finished walking down the aisle and back a few times.
“Emma, get over here!” the girl’s father said teasingly, waving a hand in her direction and smiling. The girl grinned right back and waved as well, charging over to her father and dropped yet another package into the hamper, a cute grin emerging from her before looking up at her father with pleading eyes.
“All right,” he whispered, bringing his face close to her ear. “But if your mother sees this---” He shook the basket filled with goodies. “---she will have my head, you hear?”
The girl gave him a massive hug around the leg, her small form not being able to reach any higher. But the man set down what was in his hands and scooped her up, giving her kisses along her neck and cheeks as she giggled hysterically, her thick, black pigtails falling out of their holders. Passersby watched with amused smiles as the two continued to play in the middle of the supermarket.
“I love you, daddy.”
“I love you, too, Emma.”
~ * ~
More Dreams.
Emma sat up in her common room, realizing she had fallen asleep over a scribbled piece of parchment. She yawned and stretched, her eyes opening and closing as she adjusted to the dim light that encompassed her seat by the sparkling fire. She was mesmerized by the glowing embers. She had just awoken from a dream about her father. It had been one of those dreams where she had reminisced on the past, and then forced her to contemplate it as soon after she awoke. The event she had witnessed all over again was one of those times that she and her father had gone and spent a wallet-full of money at a local candy store, her delight soaring even higher and higher with each sweet she had glimpsed. Her father took great enjoyment in seeing Emma smile, and took trips like those often, though always regarding she brush her teeth acceptably after their snack raids were over.
Those trips and smiles had brought out the best in Emma, and had been her favourite thing to do as a child.
She had dreams like this often, always recollecting the past with great intensity, and the love for her father always suddenly welling up inside of her when the dreams were had. While she enjoyed the dreams immensely, she hated the after-thought of them, always bringing up sad and lonely feelings she hadn’t felt for weeks and possibly even months. She would end up wallowing in the emotions for the next few days, ultimately forcing herself to forget the anguish by treating herself to loads of candy at Honeydukes. It was the only thing that kept her sane.
She impulsively went to the bulletin board in the centre of the common room, searching hopefully for an event poster on the scheduling of the first Hogsmeade trip of the year. To her dismay, however, it wasn’t for another month and a half; the excitement of the tournament returning to Hogwarts seemed to have become the first priority in anything.
Her heart burned; a monster scratched at her insides, telling her that she needed her father. She dissolved into silent tears, only an image of his unshaved face and stubbly moustache grinning down upon her and swooping down to give her kisses as a child. He would always tug at her messy pigtails playfully and that would make her giggles reach hysterics, forcing him to rain down more and more kisses down on her neck and forehead. As the tears fell, she could actually feel the familiar tug on her braids as she pushed a cluster of hair behind her ear.
He had been a great dad.
Crying comforted a saddened person who had experienced something as terrible as a death in the family; for Emma to lose someone as close to her as her father was just pure devastation in the eyes of anyone who knew her. The empty feeling in her heart that she still had, even three years after the incident, throbbed apparently and painfully, allowing the tears to come even more freely than they already had been. Nothing could take away this feeling; nothing could fill the space that now gaped a might hole in her heart. Only something that the two had been known for, the candy (as hilarious and childish as it could seem) was the only thing that pacified her in these horrid times. She herself even felt embarrassed at times and thought of what her friends would think if they knew that she sought comfort in sweets for the sad recollections of her father; she had not told anyone to date, but Brett had known when he had been there for her those few years ago. She didn’t know if he could still recall it, but he had been the only one she had confided in about this secret, expecting him to laugh. But he hadn’t. He had expressed sympathy for her, also telling her to come to him anytime she had needed to talk or say anything, so she had. Those many times where she had called him at all hours, day or night, had been the only thing that had kept her going in her most depressing times. Her mother couldn’t help her; she had been worse off than Emma herself, and no one had been able to comfort her; it was a wonder she had made it after all she had been through.
But Emma needed that Hogsmeade trip. Not just wanted, but literally had longing warmth for it. She didn’t want to feel the empty desires for a father that she couldn’t have, so she needed that very treat to calm her down. Nothing else would work; not the calming friendship of Kelly and Eva, not loads of homework to force her to forget, not counseling that her mother had made her go to the first year after her father had died, nothing. Literally nothing, and that’s what made her inconsolable. If she had stumbled upon a place that was as unattainable in the Muggle world as magic, then why couldn’t it bring her father back to life? She checked the clock out of the corner of her eye: it read nearly two-thirty in the morning. While she had no aspiration to break the rules, she couldn’t help but think that if she didn’t get the candy that she would definitely go insane. No other soul rested inside the common room; she would be able to slip out and in easily and quietly without being seen. That passageway that led to Hogsmeade cellar was just begging her to be used . . . She sure wished that she had some Felix Felicis right then.
Emma soon found herself pushing her chair back in as she passed, making an effort to formulate as little sound as possible while she prepared to leave. She had no Invisibility Cloak; she had heard quite a bit about them but never had been able to retrieve one for her own use; they would have cost loads, anyhow. She would just have to lurk into the shadows, breathing only when she needed as to not make any more sound than was possible. She pulled off her shoes; she wouldn’t need them, besides they would only make even more noise. Being out of bed and being a Triwizard Champion was enough; if she got caught sneaking off the grounds she’d surely be kicked out of the tournament and would lose all of her friends because of her foolishness and letting her entire school down for not receiving the win they had long since anticipated on her behalf.
She scratched the back of her head, still nearly in tears as she exited the common room, hoping to be in high spirits by the time she’d returned. She sniffed loudly from her crying spell a few minutes before walking any farther, in fear that she would alert a wandering Prefect or Head Boy or Professor that prowled around at this time at night just to catch someone like Emma doing something they shouldn’t.
She knew exactly where to go; the statue of the hump-backed witch rested firmly inside her weakened mind; she had all these things to worry about, what with the tournament, a bothersome Seth and her discovery of Eva now going out with him, and the developing relationship between her and Brett, that she couldn’t believe that she was actually risking it all by sneaking out at this late time.
Speaking of Eva and Seth, Eva had spoken of herself and her boyfriend highly, telling any passerby that the two were in love and needn’t have any interfering soul to break them up. After that conversation with her the next day, Emma had received word that the two had had a fight over something most likely not even worth mentioning. Later that night she had seen fresh bruises on Eva’s eye, and even a handprint of Seth’s on her arm.
There was little else to say but ‘I told you so’ to Eva, but being a friend she had only comforted, though Eva had not outspokenly told them. Emma had been the one to bring up the odd patches of colouring over the girl’s body.
A boy with brown, curly hair and glasses stepped out of a corridor and Emma breathed in a gasp of air, praying that she wouldn’t be seen. He looked her way and seemed bewildered. She needn’t have worried, though, because he soon exited from sight, leaving her alone once again.
As she glimpsed the form of the hump-backed witch, she soon remembered her reason she was seeking it (as if it had left her mind). Her father soon faded into her memory once again, his smile beaming down on her, his caring touch and kisses raining down upon her . . . her eyes were soon filled with tears once again. She prodded the witch all over its body with her wand, trying desperately to remember the form of incantation she was supposed to mutter to allow the passageway to open, but her grief made her feel as if she couldn’t do anything, and the next thing she knew Emma was on the floor, weeping worse than she had in a long while. She hadn’t had had a breakdown like this near since her father’s actual death, and the thought of the second task that loomed closer and closer (it was the next day) filled her mind and made her believe as if she was worth nothing and deserved the same. It had to be the stress that was making her feel this way. She shouldn’t have been chosen for the tournament; what would her school, the thing she was representing in the tournament, say if they found out that she had been sobbing her heart out the night before the second task because of a father that had died years ago? They’d figure her a depressed loon who needed counseling or help, not the recognition of a champion and representation of Hogwarts. These thoughts invaded her mind so deeply they caused her to stand up and wipe her face on the back of her hand, turning around.
A boy was walking toward her and Emma’s breath trapped in her throat. She had been caught. She had been caught out of bed at a late hour; she tried her best not to allow the sinking feeling inside her chest and down to her stomach not bother her. Perhaps she could possibly persuade the Headmaster not to punish her, but to only take her out of the tournament when she explained the situation to him. He seemed like a likeable enough and forgiving man when she had been with him; perhaps he would be lenient because she actually was the Triwizard Champion and he wanted the win for his school. But as the person came closer and the dim candlelight shone in his face, she knew that everything was going to be all right.
She wiped the tears and her dripping nose on the back of her sleeve, loving everything there was to love about Brett.
“Wh--- What are you doing out of bed, Brett?” she asked him hesitantly, hoping that her voice would work even though her throat had been blocked by an invisible barrier that prevented her from doing anything but sobbing every few seconds only a moment ago. She tucked a stray wisp of black hair behind her ear, damp with tears from her unusual crying spell a minute ago, but he clasped her hand in his and did it for her.
“I should ask you the same,” he said in a strangely comforting voice, his eyes narrowed to her tear-streaked cheeks and swollen eyes. “Emma, it isn’t---”
But she had already finished the sentence for him inside her brain. “Yes,” she said, closing her eyes and turning away in humiliation. “Yes, it’s because of my dad.”
Silence erupted into the room a moment later, neither one knowing what to say; only the sounds of Emma’s soft and concluding sobs and sniffs could be heard above Brett’s breathing.
“I just miss him a lot, that’s all,” Emma told him, her face scrunched up, trying to prevent another wave of tears in front of him. She didn’t want to look as if she were blubbering, sniveling girl that wanted attention.
“Emma,” he said, touching her shoulders with both hands, “When I told you that you could come to me anytime to talk all those years ago, I meant anytime.”
Emma looked up to the ceiling trying to fight back fresh tears, but this time to fight back tears of joy. Brett was so perfect . . . She smiled and carried her eyes to his.
“I love you so much,” she told him, and he looked away and beamed at her.
“What are you doing out of bed, Em?” he asked, fighting the urge to laugh. “You’re a mess.”
She giggled for a bit before speaking. “I needed some candy.”
He knew exactly what she was referring to. “Emma, you don’t need sweets, you just need something to hold on to.”
Emma pondered his statement for a moment, realising that those wise words were so true.
“You can hold on to me.”
Emma’s eyes filled with tears again. “I think I’m going to.”
And she fell into his arms.
Pain Doesn't Cost a Thing by Ron x Hermione
Chapter Notes: Here's the lovely fifth chapter! This was supposed to be five and six, but I didn't think I'd have time for the deadline of the challenge. I hope it doesn't seem rushed! I love you all. *hugs lovely readers* And this one's for you.