How could this feeling come again?
When I was safe at last
Calm at last
Free.
Then I look around, there he is
And the room is bright where he is
Don’t I ever learn?
No, I stand here wanting
Wanting him.
-- “Wanting” from Rags.
It’s a beautiful day in the neighbourhood. No, really. I haven’t seen such good weather in England since the enchanted ceiling back at Hogwarts. So, it being gorgeous outside and everything, I was out in the garden, doing what I do best.
I was tired of being angry, or scandalized, or horrified. I was sick of having to respond to everything that happened with insulted indignance. I just wanted to laugh and relax and stop worrying… after all, wasn’t that why I came out to Godric’s Hollow in the first place?
I’d made a mental pact with myself to go a whole day without freaking out… preferably a week, but come on, I have to be realistic! But so far, I had succeeded. I hadn’t yelled at my parents, I hadn’t made disparaging remarks about Ted to Ivy, I hadn’t jumped to conclusions about anything Tyrone did, and I hadn’t made a single nasty comment that wasn’t directed at lawn gnomes.
I stood back, brushed the dirt off my hands, and admired my handiwork. The garden beds were neat again, even the most pugnacious weeds stripped away thanks to my new neon orange trowel. The trowel trolls had steered clear since Tyrone had given it to me, probably because they realized that I could just go to Tyrone if I needed a new one, and that spoiled the fun.
Speaking of Tyrone… I glanced one more time at the garden. My mum’s maroon rosebushes were looking particularly beautiful”miraculously, since she certainly hadn’t done anything to get them that way. But they would still look just as gorgeous with just a few blossoms missing. And who would miss them? I did a quick severing charm, gathered up the disembodied roses, and tied a bow around them with my shoelace to keep them together.
Dashing inside the house, I grabbed a scrap of parchment and a quill and scribbled, ”Tabitha”don’t let Wolfgang get you down. He’s just a bad memory. You’re a beautiful, smart girl with a family who loves you, and he’s not worth looking back. As some lady whose name I forget said, ‘no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.’ Your friend, Somebody.”
With that, I handed the roses and the note to my dad’s insane owl, Pigwidgeon 4.0”the newest addition to a dynasty of tiny, hyperactive owls that behave like Haley.
“Hey, Piggy,” I muttered, “Take these to Tyrone’s place, okay? You know where that is.”
Pig hooted cheerily, which could either mean ‘Sure’ or ‘Haha, you wish,’ and fluttered out the window, panting slightly from carrying a bunch of roses that weighed about five times more than he did.
Speaking of letters…
I suddenly remembered something that any decent friend never would have forgotten in the first place. Ted’s letter that he’d written from the werewolf camp so many weeks ago had said that he’d write back soon, with an even longer letter. But it had been a long time, and Ivy still hadn’t gotten so much as a note that said, ‘I’m okay, love you.’ There had been nothing from Ted at all.
Looking back at the flowerbed, it seemed strange and lopsided for one rosebush to have so many flowers when the other only had a few, thanks to the bouquet I’d picked for Tabitha. I figured what the Niflheim, I might as well do something nice for Ivy for once in my life. After all, Ivy liked flowers, and it wasn’t like I was using them or anything. I severed a bunch of roses from the other bush, and snuck through the back door of the Potter house, in search of a big vase and Ivy”in that order.
I found the vase under the kitchen sink, and Ivy sitting at the kitchen table, drinking tea and sitting with her back to me. With the silent stealth of the ninja I had always aspired to be, I crept up behind her and whispered, ‘boo!’
The reaction was immediate and terrifying. She screamed, the teacup went flying and hit the wall, the chair knocked over backward, and I began to laugh hysterically. Okay, so maybe I hadn’t completely turned over a new leaf.
“So much for constant vigilance,” I smirked.
Ivy was trying her hardest to not look amused, but I could tell she thought it was funny. She always had a devilish sense of humour that she didn’t seem to want other people to know about. “If that that had sent me into premature labour, I hope you’d know how to deliver a baby,” was all she said.
“Well, don’t get mad at me just yet,” I said, “because I have a little present for you.” And with that, I whipped the vase of roses out from behind my back and set it gently on the table in front of her. “You like them?”
Ivy smiled confusedly. “Of course. But… er… why?”
“Because you deserve them,” I told her simply “And also, I wanted the rosebushes to be symmetrical.”
She arched her near-transparent eyebrows. “What happened to the other rosebush? Gnomes again?”
“Er, no, I sent them to someone else who deserved them. A girl who lives down the street who keeps getting harassed by some insane creep. It’s a long story.” I settled down into a kitchen chair next to Ivy, who was admiring the roses and wisely deciding not to ask any further questions. She was smiling to herself, slightly mischievously.
“What is it now?” I asked.
Ivy laughed. “Oh, nothing. It’s just, when you said ‘it’s a long story,’ it reminded me of this really creepy story that Ted told me a while ago. He heard it from another Healer he knows who works in veterinary magic, and… well, I don’t know if I should tell it. It’s really long, and it made my flesh crawl for days.”
“Well, then, bring it on!” I exclaimed, rubbing my hands together. “I’ve got all the time in the world, and creepy stories are my favourite kind!”
Ivy’s smile grew even more mischievous. “Well, all right,” she sighed, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “So, this story is true. Ted’s friend Malachi swears it happened to him when he was first starting at St. Mungo’s. Mostly, he just dealt with things like owls with whooping cough and constipated Porlocks and things like that. But this one girl, Tara, brought in her pet boa constrictor.”
“Okay, giant snake. I can already tell this story is going to be good,” I commented.
“Anyway, Tara had this snake for years. She named it Jane.”
“Jane?” I snorted. “Kind of a wimpy name for a giant snake, if you ask me.”
“I know,” said Ivy. “And Jane was a boy snake, too. So, Tara had had Jane for years, and she loved him a lot. At first, Jane slept in a tank, but as he got bigger, he learned how to crawl out and he’d just slither all around the room. After a while, Tara just let Jane sleep with her in her bed at night.”
I recoiled. “Eurgh! What kind of a sick freak would let a dangerous animal sleep in her bed?” I looked sidelong at Ivy. “No offense,” I added hastily.
Ivy ignored the little dig at Ted and simply said, “Er, Emma, would you mind not interrupting for a bit? It kind of… ruins the flow.”
“Sorry…” I muttered.
“Well, anyway, this went on for a while, and then Tara noticed that Jane wasn’t sleeping coiled up anymore… he was stretched out lengthwise. And around that time, Jane stopped eating. No matter what Tara fed him, he wouldn’t eat a single bite, for weeks. Obviously, Tara got worried about Jane, so her mum took Jane to see Malachi for a check-up. But he did a few tests, and he said, ‘there’s nothing wrong with your snake, boa constrictors in the wild sometimes go for weeks without eating. It’s natural.’ And Tara’s mum said, ‘Oh, good, because Tara loves that snake. She even lets him sleep in her bed.’ And Malachi completely froze, and he said, ‘... wait, what?’”
Ivy’s voice lowered to a cautious whisper, and she paused dramatically for what seemed like forever. I was beginning to feel anxious… whatever was coming couldn’t be good.
“Tara’s mum repeated, ‘She lets him sleep in her bed.’ And very, very slowly, Malachi said, ‘Does he sleep coiled up or stretched out?’ Tara’s mum was confused, but she answered, ‘Well, he used to sleep coiled up, but now he does it stretched out”he started about the same time he stopped eating.’ And she was a bit worried because Malachi actually looked scared. Then, he asked, ‘How tall is your daughter?’ Now Tara’s mum was really confused, but she said, ‘Five feet, four-and-a-half inches.’ So then Malachi said, ‘Excuse me,’ And he left the room very quickly. And when he came back, his face was so serious that Tara’s mum knew something had to be wrong.”
Aaagh…the suspense was killing me…
“He sat down, and he said, ‘In the wild, when a snake wants to eat a big animal like a pig, it’ll starve itself for a few weeks, and stretch itself out on tree branches so it’ll be long enough to eat the animal it wants to. When you brought Jane in for a check-up a few months ago, he was four feet, nine inches. He’s already stretched himself out to five feet, two inches. If you hadn’t brought him in when you did, it might have been too late.’” Ivy paused for impact. “He could have eaten Tara in her sleep.”
There was a long, scary silence. I felt the tiny hairs on the back of my neck standing on end, and a cold shiver running down my spine, for some reason. I’d heard much scarier stories, but there was something about this one that just bothered me. “What happened to the snake?” I asked cautiously.
“They put it to sleep,” said Ivy.
I shuddered. “Poor Tara. That’s got to be really weird for her. Do you know if she was all right afterward?”
Ivy shrugged. “I really don’t know. Of course, it’s been a long time since Ted talked to Malachi, and”” she trailed off, and suddenly, without warning, she burst into tears.
She just can’t go a day without doing that, can she? I thought madly. “Oh, Ivy, listen, I’m sure Ted’s okay,” I said, patting her awkwardly on the back. “It’s like he said, there’s really no good time for him to write. And the werewolves at the camp where he is don’t really approve of human stuff like writing, so””
Ivy looked up at me with streaming eyes. “I’m not crying about Ted,” she managed.
“What?”
“It’s… it’s the snake,” she sobbed. “You know. I just feel so… so bad for him. He didn’t mean to do anything wrong… he just did what any snake would do. And they killed him.”
I stared at her. “Are you in your right mind?” I demanded.
“No,” she sniffed, “I’m pregnant.”
Haha, she had a point there. “Er… do you think you’d feel better if I just, er, left you alone for a bit?” I asked cautiously.
Ivy blew her nose. “I think so,” she choked.
“Good,” I said, “because even if you said no, I have to get out of here before I drown in hormones.”
Hmmm. So Operation Be-Nice-For-A-Day wasn’t a complete success, but it was a start, right?
Euuurrgh, that snake story… I never did like snakes. They really were the perfect mascot for Slytherin.
I decided that going for a walk would be a nice way to clear my head. After all, it was still a ridiculously gorgeous day outside, and Godric’s Hollow was an exceptionally pretty neighborhood to stroll around in.
Before I knew it, my feet managed to carry me down the pavement to a very familiar building without consulting my brain first. Great, thanks a lot, feet, I thought. Tyrone’s house. As if I didn’t already feel like a creepy stalker, the amount I’ve been seeing him lately. And even when he wasn’t right in front of my face, he was always at the back of my head. I just couldn’t get my mind off him.
I stared at that huge brick house he lived in, definitely more mansion than house, and I tried to imagine what could be going on inside. Tabitha was probably reading a book, smart girl that she was, with her mysterious bouquet of roses sitting on her desk. Fido and Rover, the resident toads, were probably croaking flirtatiously back and forth at one another, on a warm spring afternoon like it was. Tyrone’s owls”he had several, given the amount of correspondence he was involved in”were probably winging in and out of the house, dropping off fan mail and contracts and magazines and invitations to social events. And Tyrone himself… what could he be doing?
I imagined that face, so familiar to me now that every single feature and detail was permanently tattooed into my memory, bent over some trashy fan magazine, laughing that booming laugh of his and shaking his head good-naturedly at some preposterous story about him that he’d stumbled across. Or maybe he was in the kitchen, fixing up a late lunch consisting of two slices of bread and every kind of meat imaginable piled in between a gloppy soup of condiments. Or he could be in the basement, lifting weights on his little bench and singing stupid songs off-key at the top of his lungs to help him maintain a steady rhythm. Or maybe he was talking to his sister, cracking bizarre jokes and chatting on and on while she nodded patiently and tried to read. Or…
Who was I kidding? What would Tyrone, the famous popular social butterfly, be doing cooped up on a day like today? No doubt he was out at some party, or at a bar with friends, or at Quidditch practice with the rest of his team. He certainly wouldn’t be hanging around Godric’s Holl”
“Emma?”
When I heard that deep, silky voice behind me, I completely lost my train of thought. Actually, my train of thought derailed, plunged off the side of the railroad trestle, and splashed into the waters below, killing any passengers instantly. I whirled around, gaping like an idiot and, to tell the truth, probably blushing.
“Don’t tell me you’re trying to break into my house, Emma. If you want another one of those extremely stylish Super Motts t-shirts, you can just ask.” Tyrone’s voice was as casual and nonchalant as always, like nothing had ever happened in the past seven years and we were still good friends and nothing more. But his face”the face I couldn’t help but stare at for a second too long, although I already knew it perfectly”said different. His eyes were too bright and too hopeful, and too cautious. I felt completely ill in every way imaginable.
“Er, I was just””
“It’s okay!” he interrupted. There was one of those horrible awkward silences that I seem to attract all the time, but not anything like the ones that tend to happen between me and Patrick Wormwood. Tyrone shifted from foot to foot, making squishing noises in his shiny new leather shoes. “Er, listen,” he said in a much softer voice, “thanks for sending those flowers to Tabby. It made her day.”
I blinked. “How did you know it was me?” I demanded, tearing away the last shred of mystery shrouding my secret identity.
Tyrone gave me that neon white grin of his. “Come on, Emma. Your handwriting, your dad’s owl… and you’re the only person I know who ties things together with shoelaces. Didn’t you used to tie your hair up with them for years?”
I still tie my hair up with shoelaces all the time, but I figured that wasn’t anything Tyrone had to know. “Don’t worry,” he added, “your secret’s safe with me. Tabby’s convinced it was me, so obviously, I’m letting her believe it.”
“Well, you know,” I muttered, looking down at my feet, “you know what they say about one good turn…”
“It’s nothing,” Tyrone said quickly. “I mean, what I did. I’m not saying that what you did was nothing. Sorry, that came out wrong. Anyway, since we’re standing here talking, my guess is you’re speaking to me again?”
His smile was so hopeful, I couldn’t help but smile, too. “I guess so,” I replied. “But I’m rusty at this. I… I don’t know what to say.”
That was the truth. I’d spent so long trying to keep Tyrone away from me that I couldn’t remember what to do now that I wanted him to stick around. It was so much easier trying to keep people from getting attached to me than it was trying to get people to like me.
“We could talk about the weather?” suggested Tyrone. “It’s sunny, by the way, in case you didn’t notice.”
“No, I have another idea,” I said. “How about let’s start with ‘I’m sorry?’”
Tyrone blinked. “What?”
Yeah, I knew how he felt. I wasn’t expecting those words to spill out of my mouth either. But looking into that obnoxiously perfect, painfully earnest face made it impossible not to feel like a terrible person. A confused, terrible person.
“Look, I’m sorry for all of the stupid stuff I’ve ever said to you and everything else. I’m done, though, I swear.”
Tyrone’s slanting eyes grew wider than I ever thought they’d be able to. “Are you serious?”
“I’m a lot more serious than I’ve probably been in a long time,” I said. “I’m not gonna lie, you are a really good guy, and you’ve proved that a million times. You don’t deserve to be treated like… well, basically, like the way I treated you for years. And you definitely don’t deserve to have me hanging around and complicating your life.”
Tyrone’s eyes had grown so bright and intense that I had to look away. “Emma, shut up,” he said. I gaped. “I know you’re sorry. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be talking to me. Seriously, I know you hate apologizing, so just forget it. It’s not your fault you thought I was a jerk… thanks to Wolfgang, a lot of people get the wrong idea about me.”
“Did you even hear what I just said?” I asked. “I said you don’t deserve to have me hanging around. I’ve learned that the only way to stay anywhere near sane is to just leave you alone.”
“Calm down,” said Tyrone. “Emma, that’s the last thing I want.”
“Are you delusional?” I demanded.
Tyrone laughed warmly. “Hey, I’ve worked hard enough to get you to change your mind about me. I even wrote that six-page letter, and after that, my hand hurt so bad I could barely grip my Beater club. I’m not about to let all that go to waste.”
I smirked in spite of myself. “You’re just playing that same old game you used to play back at Hogwarts,” I accused him. “The Win-Me-Over game.”
Tyrone gave me a sad smile. “Maybe I am,” he said. “But back then, I didn’t even know you. I just wanted to””
“Add me to your collection,” I finished.
“Yeah, I guess,” he said, shaking his head. “Now, it’s like I got rid of the collection, and then I really started to miss one of the… collectibles, or whatever. And then I saw it at an auction, and I knew I had to at least try and get it back.”
That was probably the worst metaphor I’d ever heard in my life. And there are some pretty bad ones in this journal. “Very philosophical,” I said. “I’m impressed. Really.”
We just stood there and looked at each other stupidly for a few seconds, really not sure what to say at all.
“You know what?” announced Tyrone at last. “We’ve been standing here forever. Come on, sit down.” He bounded over to the front stoop in a few long strides, sat down on it, and patted the spot next to him. I had no choice but to comply. I settled down next to him, and realized what a perfect perch his front stoop was. I could see the whole street… including a perfect view of my parents’ house.
“Nice view, isn’t it?” remarked Tyrone, folding his arms behind his head and not being as subtle as he thought he was about flexing in the process.
“Yeah,” I said, trying to focus on the street and not him. I knew him well enough to know that this was a sneaky pick-up line of his. He knew he was a ‘nice view.’
Tyrone yawned enormously. “Hey,” he said, “we’ve done enough trying to prove how grown-up we’ve gotten since we broke up. I just want to get back to being immature and goofing off and having fun with you. Things have been a lot less… spontaneous the last five years.”
“Yeah, well, walking across a minefield is spontaneous, but I wouldn’t reminisce over that,” I pointed out. Sitting there on the front stoop, with the sunlight shining on him, Tyrone’s skin was as dark and smooth and unblemished as a ripe plum. It was a weird, weird, borderline freakish thing to think, but I couldn’t help it. We were sitting so close together, our arms almost touching, but for some reason, I was scared of shifting those extra two inches to the right and letting my skin brush his.
“So, let’s pretend all this complicated stuff never happened,” suggested Tyrone. “Turn over a new leaf, you know?”
I snorted. “We’ve turned over enough new leaves to make a whole new tree,” I said. My expression softened. “Tyrone, it’s like I said, I think you’re… cool. You try too hard sometimes, but I like that, really. But I’ve been a huge pain in the bum, and you know it.”
“I’m used to hanging around people who are huge pains in the bum,” Tyrone told me. “Believe me, you’ve got nothing on Wolfgang. And it helps that you’re a lot prettier than he is, too.”
Hmmm. I actually wasn’t so sure of that last bit. When it came to delicate feminine beauty, Wolfgang was pretty gifted. But I was surprised by how big an impact I felt when Tyrone told me I was pretty. Niflheim, I know I’m pretty. Moreover, Tyrone had been telling me as blatantly as possible since at least third year. But this time was so off the cuff and unaffected and genuine that I couldn’t help but feel strangely warm.
“You know, not a lot of people can just say stuff like that,” I pointed out.
“It’s a gift,” replied Tyrone, giving me his famous cheesy smile yet again. “But really, you’re so easy to talk to. And I don’t really know why.”
“Are you kidding me?” I said. “Because you’re impossible to talk to. I never have any idea what I’m doing whenever you’re around.”
“No, you’re just out of practice,” said Tyrone. “Are you doing anything tomorrow? Let’s go and do something. Let’s get a really good dinner somewhere… and let’s see a movie while we’re at it. You’re the only person I know who doesn’t mind doing stupid Muggle stuff with me. What do you say?”
I almost fell over, but I decided against it, since I’d land in his lap if I did fall over.
“Er…”
“Oh, and if you’re going to ask, ‘is this like a date?’ Then yeah. Yeah, it’s a date. A fun date, nothing serious. You like to pretend like none of your dates are dates, Emma, but that’s no way to break the ice.”
He’d called me ‘Emma’ again. Tyrone almost never called me ‘Emma’ unless he was being extremely serious about something, which only happened once in a blue moon. As far as he was concerned, I was ‘Em.’ But this was the sixth time he’d called me by my real name that day, and it just added to the weirdness of the situation.
I got to my feet and held myself as straight as possible. “I want to,” I said. “But… I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Tyrone was making the dreaded puppy dog face again, and I couldn’t bear to look at that pathetic expression. It was more persuasive than the Imperius curse. “Just this one time?” he asked softly.
“No,” I whispered. “Sorry.” I started to walk away, then turned back and gave him a hug. He smelled a little bit too strongly of fancy cologne, just like always, that and expensive hair gel. His body was just as warm and solid as ever”in fact, I believe MORE solid since the last time we’d hugged. His arms fit perfectly into the curve of my waist. It was almost too comfortable. Uncomfortably comfortable.
“I’ll see you soon,” he said quietly.
“Sure,” I replied, pulling away from him and noticing awkwardly just how close together our faces were. “Just like any other neighbours.”
Tyrone smiled wistfully. “I guess you’re right,” he said. “See you around, I guess.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
The walk back home seemed bizarrely long. I could feel Tyrone’s eyes on the back of my neck”not like they’d been pulled out of their sockets and stuck there, but like he was watching me. Now that I knew he could see all the way to my parents’ house from his front stoop, I felt too conscious of every movement. My body was prickly and tingly from head to foot.
I did the right thing, I told myself. I was very mature and practical and sensible. But I still felt cold.
I thought back to when Tyrone had told me how easy to talk to I was. It was weird, I’d never really noticed it before, but Tyrone was… different around me. When I first met him, I just saw a preening, strutting pretty-boy jock, just the perpetual center of attention who could never have enough girls swarming around him. But that wasn’t a real person, that was a sitcom character.
I knew him as the guy who tried so hard to get people to like him and cared so much about what people thought of him that the slightest sign of rejection would upset him for weeks. He was the guy who was so stubborn and stupidly idealistic that he thought anything was possible, and honestly believed in chivalry and fairy tales. The guy who was so vain and so insecure at the same time that it was laughable, and who took criticism so badly that it was painful. But more than any of that, Tyrone was the adventurous goofball, always up for taking a risk or clowning around or embarrassing himself in public.
Other people never seem to know him that way. The Tyrone I know is the guy who flies around at midnight, singing songs from Aladdin with a Hello Kitty coin purse containing a toad hanging off the end of his broom. If ninety percent of the people he “knew” saw him doing that, they’d think he was out of his mind, but at this point, I was used to it.
Being around Tyrone was always fun. Dating him was about doing things that were fun and exciting and mischievous and adventurous and hilarious, and that was what had made our little conversation just then so uncomfortable. Because it was so serious and grown-up and straight-forward, not the silly, lighthearted banter we always used to have.
And honestly, I missed it.
I was exhausted by the time I got home. As beautiful as it was outside, I didn’t want to do anything but collapse on the sofa and think about nothing. And that was exactly what I planned to do until an owl swooped through the window and dropped a shiny gold envelope on my lap.
“Far too many notes for my taste,” I muttered under my breath and ripped it open. What was inside looked like… a poem. I read the first two lines and did a double take. This was definitely the weirdest poem I’d seen since the haiku that Jordan wrote when he was seven about a dead lizard getting eaten by bugs:
This poem’s meant to convince you, though who knows if it’ll work,
That I still want to go out, although you’ve acted like a jerk.
‘Cause five years is just way too long, and I hope you agree
Because when you’re not there, I kind of feel like I’m not me.
I’ve tried to tell you face to face, but you’ve been so elusive
My friends say I should give up, ‘cos you’re fickle and abusive.
But I miss you so much, I went and wasted all this time
To write this poem, and look up weird big words to make it rhyme.
And plus, I’ve learned my lesson; saying green beans is just wrong.
Is that enough to end this grudge that’s lasted five years long?
I miss how soft your hair is, and the way you’d smile at me
I miss the way we laughed”it seems like ancient history.
I miss how we went flying, how we’d always nearly crash
I miss how you’d make fun of my pet toads and my mustache.
I miss how we’d see films and crack dumb jokes and everything
I miss how you’d pretend to puke when I began to sing.
I miss our conversations, and the quiet times between
If you don’t miss them, too, then Emma, you’re just really mean.
I miss the way you taste, the way you feel, the way you think
I miss how you’d start barfights when you’d had too much to drink.
I miss your awesome parents, too, especially your dad.
I miss how we’d snog publicly ‘cos it made Jordan mad.
And since I miss those things, I want to hang out like before
Let’s watch a film and eat some food”I’ll pick you up at four.
I promise I won’t feel you up, or burp, or pick my nose
So why don’t we hang out this once, and just see how it goes?
I want to say so much that can’t be properly expressed
‘Cos Emma, to be honest, I’m a little bit obsessed.
Because you’re an adventure, and you make life fun
So don’t be scared it’ll end when we haven’t begun.
And if I said these things out loud, then I’d get laryngitis
So instead, I hired Tabitha to try and help me write this.
So now that we’re both clear and now you know the honest truth
Can we please patch things up when we’re both still in our youth?
We’ve had all those good times, flying brooms, flinging gnomes
So say yes, Emma Weasley, or I’ll write MORE POEMS!
-- Tyrone.
I stared at the poem. I read it again. I read it a third time. Okay, Tyrone really was off his rocker. Only he would put so much effort into writing an epic poem. But… it was more than just ridiculous. It made something deep inside me snap with a wistful ‘TWING’ noise. I felt like my insides had all suddenly transformed into molten chocolate. My eyes were dangerously moist.
I grabbed a quill and scrawled:
No offense, man, but that poem was kind of a mess
I’d hate to read more, so I guess I’ll say yes!
See you at four,
Emma.
P.S. You have to realize, saying ‘yes’ was hard for me to do
But the truth is that I kind of really, really miss you, too.
I flung the door to the Potter house open with an ear-splitting “BANG!”
Ivy looked up from the book she was reading with a bemused expression on her face. “We should build a tunnel or something connecting our houses,” she remarked. “It would make all of this easier.”
“Hold the presses,” I said gravely. “I like Tyrone Thomas.”
Ivy actually dropped her book. “You’re kidding,” she said. “You’re not serious.”
“No, I’m totally serious,” I told her, flopping down on the couch next to her. “The first step is admitting you have a problem. I like Tyrone. A lot. Too much, probably… and I’m going out with him tomorrow.”
Ivy shook her head in amazement, causing her long blonde braid to dance from side to side. “I… this… how long has this been going on?”
I sighed. “Good question. I… honestly, I don’t think I ever stopped liking him. But I didn’t realize it until”okay, this is way too complicated to explain it all.”
“But the last time I checked, you hated him,” Ivy reminded me. “That Quidditch game just yesterday… you didn’t even want to go because of him.”
“No, that wasn’t because of him, that was…” I let out a long, slow breath. “That was Wolfgang. And I wish I never met that son-of-a…”
“Wait, I’m really confused now,” said Ivy, a little bit helplessly. “I thought you liked Wolfgang. Didn’t you even go out with him a few times?”
I groaned. “Okay, well if you want the whole story, you get the whole story. Wolfgang told me all this bad stuff about Tyrone, and I believed him. But it turns out that he has pretty much every mental issue you can think of, plus he’s a pathological liar who gets girls pregnant and runs away to foreign countries. And Tyrone… he’s definitely the good guy. He”“ I froze, remembering that Ivy still didn’t know who had sent her the piano. “He’s done a lot of nice things for a lot of people. And me.”
Ivy studied my face closely, wearing that starry-eyed expression she’s so good at. “I thought there was something… off about you. I just never guessed that you were in love.”
I held up my hands. “Whoa, hold it,” I said sharply. “I am not in love. Not even close. I’ve seen love, and I know I’ve never been in it, and I don’t think I ever want to be. I just want to jump on him and snog him until his lips turn purple and fall off. It’s not the same thing.”
Ivy laughed. It was a much happier, freer laugh than I’d been used to from her these past few months. “Well, he really is good-looking,” she said. “And you guys did have a good time together… when you weren’t fighting, I mean.”
I buried my head in my hands. “That was a long time ago,” I said, “But… Ivy, it’s like his face is everywhere. I can’t get him off my mind. For weeks, it’s like my mind’s turned into the Tyrone Channel and nothing else. I mean… it wasn’t like this back when we were in school and we saw each other all the time.”
Ivy’s face turned solemn and faraway. “I know what you mean,” she whispered. “It’s like that with Ted, too. Everything reminds me of him.”
Impulsively, I reached over and gave her a hug. She felt so delicate and fragile, despite her growing belly. “Tell me about you and Ted,” I said suddenly. “How did you know he was… right for you?”
“I don’t know,” she said in a tiny voice. “We were always friends, and it just kind of gradually happened. But I remember in third year, I looked over at him, and he didn’t look like a little boy anymore all of a sudden… and I tried to imagine what he’d look like when he was grown-up… and after that, I couldn’t stop imagining things about him.” She laughed. “But then… after he got bitten by that werewolf and I went to see him in St. Mungo’s… I realized how special he is. That’s when I started feeling like he was… part of me, almost.”
I looked at her skeptically. “So, you knew you were going to marry him when you were fourteen?”
Ivy chuckled softly. “No, of course not. It kind of just… went from there. But when we were in sixth year…” Her eyes clouded over. “A lot of things happened in sixth year. We both grew up a lot. And that was when I knew I loved him… so much that it hurt. Even when we were together, it hurt… because I was scared something would happen. I mean, nobody lives happily ever with the first boy they ever dated. I kept thinking, ‘when does all this end?’”
Ted and Ivy had seemed practically married for so long, it hardly made a difference at all when they actually were pronounced husband and wife. But it was still weird to hear Ivy talking about Ted like this. I still didn’t see the appeal there at all.
“Are you scared it’ll end badly?” Ivy asked me in a faraway voice. “Like last time?”
I thought about it for a minute. Two lines from Tyrone’s poem were lodged in my head like bullets. Because you’re an adventure, and you make life fun/
So don’t be scared it’ll end when we haven’t begun. I felt my eyes welling up. An ‘adventure.’ He couldn’t have said anything more heartstring pulling… he certainly knew his target well.
“No,” I said at last. “I mean, where’s the excitement in that?” I smiled to myself.
“What?”
“Ivy, he wrote me a poem. He actually sat down and wrote me a poem.”
Ivy covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh, no. Was it horrible?”
“Er…well… actually, no!” I admitted. “I mean, it really wasn’t allthat bad. Can you believe it? I mean, he got his sister to help him write it, of course. It’s way better than that other one he wrote me in third year”‘Roses are red, violets are not/You probably know this, but you’re really hot.”
Ivy went quiet again, like a hermit crab retreating into a shell or something. “Emma, I’m really happy for you,” she said, and her eyes were glistening dangerously. And with an ominous ‘splash,’ a few tears spilled over… and then the tsunami started again.
“Don’t start that now!” I demanded. “You’re going to get me going, too!”
I’m not a crying person. I haven’t cried in a very long time, not for real, at least. I mean, my eyes water… I’m only human. But I don’t actually cry. This time, though, I couldn’t help it. I cried like a baby, and we just sat there, hugging each other and crying. It was pathetic.
“Nobody mention snakes!” I choked.
And we were laughing and crying and feeling confused and excited and hopeless and hopeful and everything else possible all at once. It was so unlike me, but I hadn’t felt so much myself in a long time.
I swore Ivy to secrecy about all of this. It was one thing to admit to Ivy that I’d been wrong about Tyrone. She was understanding about that kind of thing. But I didn’t want word getting out to our families.
My dad lives to embarrass me in any way possible… and even though he hated Tyrone’s guts when we were first dating, now he thought Tyrone was the best thing since sliced bread, especially since he had started helping my dad’s favorite team start winning games again. My mum is just smothering about this stuff”she always wants to sit down and talk about emotions or something.
Aunt Ginny is pretty cool, but she’s a little bit too much of a go-getter about this kind of thing. I know she’d start egging me on to snog him and ask for all kinds of embarrassing details. And Uncle Harry is normally one of the sanest members of my family, but he’d be sure to mention something to Holly and Jonathan, who are just at the age that they find anything at all romantic both hilarious and disgusting.
Besides, they’d all told me when I broke up with Tyrone that we’d just end up getting back together, like always. I’m not exactly eager to prove them right. I hate my mum’s little ‘I told you so’ routine.
So, I’d kept quiet about my date all day. But now that the hour was fast approaching, getting ready was in order. And although Tyrone had seen me at my worst many, many times, I still wanted to look nice. It’s always a good idea to go for ‘what an attractive couple’ rather than ‘eurgh, he could do so much better.’
I’d pulled on a shortish, swingy little red dress, grabbed some gold flats, did a bit of makeup, and was just sticking in my gold hoop earrings when an owl dropped an envelope right on top of my head and gave me a stuffy-sounding hoot that didn’t sound the least bit apologetic before zipping off through the window.
Curious, I grabbed the blue-grey envelope, slit it open, and pulled out the single piece of parchment inside.
“Dear Ms. Weasley,
Your suspension from Auror training has been carefully reconsidered by the Board of Directors. After closely monitoring Wolfgang Quinn and finding minimal interaction over a span of several weeks, the Board of Directors sees fit to end your period of probation. You may return to Chudley Cannons stadium next Monday to resume work.
Sincerely,
Henderson Vaultz
Yes! I pumped my fist victoriously in the air. I honestly had not been expecting this”in fact, I’d been so preoccupied, I’d almost forgotten about how I’d been sacked from Chudley Cannons stadium. As big a drag as working there had been, I had to finish the required hours at the stadium before I could even attempt to become a real Auror. And now being an Auror seemed like a valid possibility again.
I laughed to myself at the ridiculously perfect timing of the letter. I was forgiven for hanging out with a Quidditch player… just as I was about to go on a date with another one. That’s irony.
I grabbed my purse”I hate purses, but I can’t live without them”and thundered down the stairs into the sitting room where my parents were hanging out.
“Hey!” I announced. “So, I just got a letter from Vaultz, and it looks like I have a job again!”
“Oh, that’s wonderful, Emma!” exclaimed my mum. “Honestly, I was worried they’d forgotten about you. I wouldn’t put it past Henderson Vaultz.”
My dad looked less excited. “There’s no way they wouldn’t let you back in, Emster. I mean, your old dad’s one of the best in the business.” He squinted at me. “What are you all dressed up for, then? Going somewhere?”
“I’m just going out to celebrate,” I said lamely. “For getting my job back.”
My parents exchanged glances. “Alone?” asked my mum.
“Er… I’m stopping by the library first to take out a book,” I said. “So I’ll have something to do.”
As I fumbled for my keys in the junk drawer, I heard my dad mumble, “Wonder if that’s all she’s planning to take out.”
“Do you think she met somebody at the library?” my mum said, not as discreetly as she probably thought she was being.
“Doesn’t really seem her type though, the bookish sort,” said my dad. He paused. “You never know, though. You did meet Krum in the library… ‘course that turned out to be nothing.”
“You’d be surprised who you can find in the library,” my mum said. “You know, Casanova was a librarian.”
Urgh. Parents.
I met Tyrone halfway down the pavement.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” he laughed. “I was just coming by your place to pick you up!”
I smiled. “I didn’t really want to explain the whole complicated situation to my parents,” I told him. “And besides, my dad would just talk your ear off and make us miss our movie.” I paused. “What are we seeing, anyway?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Tyrone, beaming like a jack-o-lantern. “Let’s be… spontaneous.”
By the way, in case you’re curious, he was wearing jeans, a white button-up shirt with the top few buttons undone, and a brown corduroy blazer with a sky-blue handkerchief sticking out of the pocket that he would certainly never use to blow his nose. Nothing too over-the-top, which was a nice change.
Anyway, we decided to take the usual route we’d come up with to use when seeing a film at the cinema just outside Godric’s Hollow. The cinema was inside a big shopping mall, so we each Apparated into the dressing rooms of a tiny, nearly forgotten hippie store that nobody ever visits. One time, Tyrone swears he Apparated into a stall that a man was already using, but the man just smiled and said, “Hi, hallucination.” That’s the other plus side of using a hippie shop, I guess. If we did run into anyone, they probably wouldn’t be as upset as normal people.
We met outside the changing rooms, where Tyrone was suddenly wearing round, rose-coloured glasses, love beads, and a tie-dyed scarf tied around his head.
“Yeah, you should definitely keep those,” I said. “It’s a good look for you. Grow an afro, and you’ll be set.”
Tyrone raised his eyebrows. “You know what? I think I will get these sunglasses. I might be able to use them for something someday.”
Before I could advise him otherwise, he strode up to the counter and announced, “Hi, can I get these in a hemp bag instead of plastic? I’m into the environment.”
The ancient, leathery-skinned bloke at the counter looked up from under his curtain of long, frizzy grey hair with bleary eyes. “Whoa, I didn’t see you come in, man,” he said.
“Ah, yeah, I think you dozed off for a minute. I decided to wait until you woke up before I tried to buy anything. Do you take credit cards?” Tyrone said brightly. So much for always being honest… but then again, giving an honest answer would be a bad idea in this case.
Luckily, the man took Tyrone’s credit card”since he didn’t have any Muggle money on him”and we walked out of the shop feeling very cunning and accomplished, and in my case, slightly embarrassed, since Tyrone was wearing his new sunglasses.
“Well, how do I look?” he asked silkily.
I studied his face. “Charming,” I said, “You look like you’ve got a bad case of pinkeye.”
“Well, you look… very pink,” said Tyrone. “Course, so does everything.”
When we got to the cinema, it turned out that they were having a special “I Love The Nineties” day. All ten of the movies they were showing were oldies made in the 1990’s. Now personally, I’m partial to big action movies, the kind where weird-looking guys run around trying to kill each other and escape from certain death, especially when there’s lots of stuff blowing up. So I suggested that we go see Star Wars: Episode One, because anything with the word ‘wars’ in the title and pictures of aliens on the poster can’t be too bad. Any normal guy would agree. But I was not hanging out with any normal guy”I was hanging out with Tyrone Thomas.
“I really want to see Sense and Sensibility, though,” he said. “That’s one of my favourites.”
I wrinkled my nose. “That sounds horrible,” I said. “Sense and Sensibility? What’s that, the sequel to Three Boring Old Spinsters Visit The Arboretum?” See, almost any normal girl in the world would be thrilled to date a reasonably masculine heterosexual guy who loves to watch sappy romantic comedies… but I guess I’m not normal either.
“Tell you what,” said Tyrone. “Let’s compromise.”
Tyrone’s idea of a compromise is the kind of compromise only a rich guy could come up with. He bought four tickets for the same time”two to Star Wars and two to Sense and Sensibility. “So the plan is, we sneak back and forth between the two films,” he explained. “Like, if we’re watching one of them and it starts to get boring, we just go into the next theatre. And if anyone gets mad at us for sneaking back and forth, we just show them our tickets and say we’re paying customers, ‘cos we are.”
My jaw dropped. “That is completely mad,” I told him. “Let’s try it.”
We played Rock, Paper, Scissors to determine which film we’d start out with, and Tyrone won. He always wins, actually. It’s a little suspicious. But just as I suspected, the entire audience of the film was single middle-aged women, most of them wearing lumpy crocheted jumpers.
“I can tell I’m gonna love this already,” I grumbled, but I was smiling. However boring the film was, nothing was dull when Tyrone was around.
After the previews had started and Tyrone and I were munching on Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans that I had snuck in in my purse, the opening credits came up. Blah blah blah, piano music, boring pastoral scenes, typical… until I suddenly saw words flash up onscreen that made me gag on the grass-flavoured jelly bean that I was eating.
“Based on a book by Jane Austen?” I choked. “The lady who wrote Pride and Prejudice? Why am I not surprised?”
“Shh, look, it’s a dying guy,” said Tyrone, pointing at the screen.
Since we were watching two movies at once, I have no idea what the basic plot was in either one. But Star Wars had a little boy who hung around with aliens and a demonic-looking bad guy who had a red face covered in black spots. Sense and Sensibility was about two sisters in the early nineteenth century who wanted to get married but had various complications standing in the way, until they pulled out light sabers and started fighting to the death. Or maybe that was the other one. They’re kind of blurring together at this point.
The main thing I remember about Sense and Sensibility was that one of the guys, I think his name was Edward, was a total loser, and he walked like a robot. Every time he walked onscreen, I started cracking up, and all these swooning middle-aged women would give me dirty looks. It was hilarious.
“Okay, you have to admit, Sense and Sensibility was better than you thought it’d be,” Tyrone said as we walked out of the cinema and smiling innocently at the grumpy-looking guard who hadn’t been happy with us running back and forth between two theatres the whole time.
I shrugged. “I guess,” I said. “Everyone in that film was kind of annoying, but yeah, it really wasn’t bad. It’s got nothing on Star Wars, though.”
Tyrone smiled. “I told you my dad was Muggle-born, right?” he asked me. “It’s because of him that I like watching films. Anyway, when he was dating my mum, he took her to see Sense and Sensibility when it first came out. He told me he couldn’t enjoy it properly because Colonel Brandon reminded him of Snape and Elinor reminded him of Trelawney and Mrs. Palmer reminded him of Umbridge, or something like that.”
I laughed… and then I shivered. I never thought of it until Tyrone brought it up, but there was a character in that film that seemed painfully familiar to me, too. His name was Willoughby, and he was a dashing, charming guy who seemed like an all-around great guy for this girl, Marianne, until it turned out that he’d gotten some girl pregnant and run off to marry someone else. And he spent the whole film saying rude, critical things about the good guy who Marianne did end up with in the end. I guess people like Wolfgang Quinn have been around since the days of breeches and cravats.
“So, what do you want to eat?” asked Tyrone.
I raised an eyebrow. “Anything but Italian,” I said. Thinking of Wolfgang and all of the lies he’d told me on that first kind-of-a-date that we’d gone on was the last thing I wanted to do.
We ended up settling on a cute little Indian restaurant near the cinema. Now, I love a good curry”who doesn’t?”but apparently, it turned out that Tyrone was a real connoisseur. He even talked to the waiters in some weird Indian language and in the end, he convinced them into giving us a discount and free dessert. I have no idea what he was saying, but apparently, it worked.
“This is a side of you I didn’t know about,” I said, over the incredibly spicy chicken concoction that I was eating.
“My mum was Indian, remember?” Tyrone told me with his mouth full. “You learn a thing or two.”
He talked about his parents a lot. It was weird to think that he was an orphan… and not like Uncle Harry, either, who had never known his parents. I remembered how devastated Tyrone had been when his mum had been murdered in fourth year, and I couldn’t even imagine what it must have been like for him to lose his dad just a few years later. I mean, I made little sarcastic comments about my parents all the time, and I did complain about them a lot, but of course I loved them. I don’t think I’d ever heard Tyrone say a single negative thing about his parents. The day his mum died must have completely changed his whole life.
I suddenly realized that neither of us had said anything in awhile. He was kind of staring at me funny… and actually, I was probably staring at him, too. I cleared my throat, desperately trying to think of something to say.
“Er, do you, erm, want to hear a really weird story?” I blurted. “I heard it from Ivy yesterday. It’s, er, actually pretty gross, but… do snakes bother you?”
“Okay, now I have to hear this story,” said Tyrone, leaning forward eagerly.
I smiled. “Okay, well, there was this girl named Tara, and she had a pet boa constrictor named Jane. Actually, a boy snake named Jane. And she loved Jane so much that she let him sleep with her in her bed. Well, one day””
I broke off as I noticed a very familiar shape out of the corner of my eye. “What the…” I muttered, turning around. No, my eyes had not deceived me. Ivy Lupin was walking through the door of the restaurant.
“Is that Ivy over there?” asked Tyrone, squinting.
“Yeah, speak of the devil.” A kind of nauseating déjà vu swept over me to that infamous date with Wolfgang, when Haley had come barging into the restaurant and started flirting up a storm with him. “I hope the werewolves aren’t up to something dodgy again.”
Whatever reason Ivy was there, it couldn’t be anything good. Her face looked paler than I’d ever seen it, and so pinched and terrified that I could have sworn she’d just run into Darth Maul.
“Ivy, what is it?” I said quietly as she approached our table. I decided making a sarcastic remark was a bad idea at this time… especially if the problem was something to do with Ted.
Ivy collapsed next to me at the table, tired and out of breath. I exchanged worried glances with Tyrone, whose knuckles were starting to turn white gripping the edge of the table. “I just got this letter,” she breathed, handing me a piece of scented pale pink stationery.
“We’ve gotten more letters in the last few weeks than I’ve had in the rest of my life put together,” I muttered, unfolding it and starting to read.
Dear Whoever Gets This Letter At My House,
Hi! It’s Haley! Sorry I haven’t written or anything, but I’ve been really busy rehearsing for this musical. We got a venue, and we’re opening in a few weeks! Anyway, I’m just writing to tell you that Wolfie just proposed to me, and we’re going off to London to get MARRIED at the Ministry of Magic today!!! I AM SO EXCITED! I’ll tell you all the details soon as we get back!
Love,
Haley (By the time you get this letter, I’ll be Haley Quinn!)
I stared at the sheet of paper, feeling all of the blood drain out of my face and my heart do a backflip. I muttered an extremely bad word under my breath.
“For once, I agree with you,” Ivy said weakly.