Penwick

Green eyes flecked with brown looked back at her. Green? If June had been paying attention she would surely know that Finn's eyes were not green.

But these were.

An oval face framed by messy hair that was neither black nor brown nor anywhere in between looked back at her. It was a boy, but that was where the similarities ended. The mop of hair atop this head was reddish blonde and accompanied a leering, grinning, freckled face. The robes would be familiar to June as they were those of her house, although they hung upon a frame that was one, perhaps two years older than her. "Hi June," the tall boy said in a deep, drawling voice. "You look great today. Not that you ever don't, but," the anonymous boy smiled a little too much, like he was showing of how great his teeth looked rather than genuinely smiling.

He opened his mouth to say more when out of nowhere, a second figure appeared from behind a row of bookshelfs. "I KNEW IT!" A dark-skinned girl, short and furious, leapt forth, armed with a heavy book which made a very satisfying whacking noise as it came down on the tall one's head.

"Sadiki, what the hell!" the tall one cried out. Both of them were lucky that the librarian was on a short break or they would've been mimblewimbled on the spot for all the noise they were making. "Wait, I can explain!"

"Oh no you don't! You" WHACK, "stupid" WHACK "RUNT!"

Like a nail being hammered into place, the tall boy shrunk and shriveled until, when the girl raised the book once more, he had the nouse to run away.

Huffing, the girl cast a very nasty glance at June, then chased after the boy. "COME BACK HERE COWARD, I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU!"

There were a few more banging and crashing noises before the sounds eventually died out. Whether dreams were prophetic remained to be seen, but what about waking life? Was this lover's spat to which she'd become an involuntary audience an omen of things to come?

More footsteps would sound around June, some slow and ponderous, others quick and light. But no matter how often she turned to look, there would be no sign of Finnegan.


The large enchanted clock on the wall in the library chimed softly, but there was still no sign of Finnegan. One more minute passed, then another, and another. It wasn't until the pull to just leave reached its zeniths that slow, reluctant footsteps would approach June, though they never made it to her side. Instead, they halted somewhere behind her, a safe distance away.

"Sorry I'm late," he said. "Professor Char wouldn't listen to reason, so we're stuck together." He sighed rather dramatically before he closed the remaining distance to the desk. Instinctively, his hand reached for the chair next to June, but he reconsidered, withdrew and plopped down one chair over instead.

"It's probably easiest if we just-" He bit his lower lip, then pushed a roll of parchment toward her, letting it slide over the smooth wooden surface. "-swap these and just... do our own thing," he muttered.


What he hadn't written down was the dream he'd had before that, but that was hardly on his mind. What was on his mind instead was a certain reddish blonde boy he'd seen hanging around June several minutes ago, when he'd been watching from a distance, trying to decide if he should show up at all. He narrowed his eyes at June as if it was her fault that she was getting hit on by someone else. Well, in a way it was, because no matter how hard Finnegan tried to pretend he didn't care about June anymore and push her away, he still couldn't take his eyes off her. "Can we get this over with, please?" he sighed while he waited for June to hand him her dream notes.

@June Selwyn

Finnegan did not look up from the parchment she had handed him. The only sign he had been listening to a word she had said was the soft, indignant huff at the accusation of wasting her time. Quite rich, he thought, coming from her, though he said nothing of it. He had just committed to keeping his head down when she had to throw in that final jab, possibly the most backhanded compliment he’d ever heard her utter. Languidly, he raised his head and rested his chin on his hand while a self-satisfied smirk spread across his face. For a while he let her stew in her own brew, just long enough that she would draw the inevitable conclusions from what she had just said. Aye, he had been a fourth year, and now he wasn’t anymore, perhaps all that extra tutoring she had given him had paid off after all. Was she jealous? It had to hurt her pride a bit, right?

“Plastic is a material,” he said flatly. “A muggle material that toys are made out of, and packaging and-“ He stopped there, letting a bemused but not unfriendly look flash across his face. “I can’t believe you’ve never heard of it.” A bubble of laughter came up his throat but he swallowed it down before it could jump the fence of his teeth. He looked down quickly, hiding his face and focusing his attention on the task at hand. It took him a while to absorb what she had written, not in the least because half his mind was still on the reddish-blonde who’d been far too friendly with June for his liking. Meanwhile, the other half was locked in a battle trying to decide if he wanted to sit one place further away from June, or one place closer. Out of sight and out of mind, that’s where he had preferred her to be, relegated to some distant chasm of dreamlike memories where time eroded and wore the jagged surfaces smooth.

How silly of him, to expect to get what he wanted. Was it not the cruelest sort of torture to be presented with something irresistible only to be forbidden from ever touching or tasting it? He thought of genesis for a second, the forbidden fruit, the snake. Sighing, he forced his self-pity down and once again attempted to read June’s dream. By the time he had finished, he was none the wiser except for one startling realisation.

He must’ve seemed a little dumbfounded when he looked back up at her, “You didn’t actually dream this, right? I mean… well, I just made something up because I thought…” His voice trailed off into silence. He had just made something up, expecting her to do the same. They weren’t friends anymore after all, so sharing his dreams with her had seemed a far too intimate affair to him. Only after a few more moments of slack-jawed staring did he manage to form a cohesive thought. “Why?” It was not an accusation, though what followed may well have sounded like one. “I thought you didn’t like me.”

@June Selwyn

“The way you’ve been treated… the way you’ve been treated?” Finnegan repeated the phrase with an indignant huff. “What’s that supposed to mean?” The chair he was sat on squeaked in protest as he pushed away from their shared desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “I never hurt you…” Something dry and raw lodged itself in his throat. That was a lie, though not an intentional one. He knew full well he had hurt her when he’d slammed the door of the small hall shut behind him. But that was only because she had refused to see how painful it was for him to be around her. He’d tried to explain and then Maggie had shown up, and he knew the way Maggie looked at June, because it was the same way he looked at her. He’d drawn his conclusions then, better to cut her out of his life, better to forget she ever existed. Better to move on.

Then he’d seen her on the train, and all he had thought about the rest of the way home was her. Summer had come and gone, the memory of her had slowly begun to fade. A new school, a new start, a new life. Finally he could move on. Yet who else but June Selwyn should be sitting in his classroom, who else but June would just so happen to attend the same school? It was maddening. If he didn’t have to prepare for OWLS, he would’ve been in the dungeons all day brewing a box of forgetfulness potion so he could just wipe her from his mind and be done with it.

Life wasn’t that simple though, and June wasn’t letting him off the hook either. He was practically scowling now, but they’d had so many arguments by now that a huff and some furrowed brows weren’t going to stop her from speaking her mind.

By the end he wanted nothing more than to jump up, turn his back on her and walk away, so he could pretend he didn’t give a hoot about anything she had just said. The trouble was, unless he got really good at vanishing, he’d have to see her again the next day. And the day after that, and on and on, for at least two more years. Ignoring her while he was at Hogwarts had been hard enough, now that they were in the same year and attended the same classes, it was practically impossible.

Besides, she wasn’t wrong, and he did care. If he were honest, his feelings for her hadn’t changed all that much since that day at the aquarium, though he had become more keenly aware of June’s faults and flaws over the years. In a way, that only made things worse, because despite her annoying perfectionism and stiffness, he still liked her in ways he never liked anyone before or since. His newspaper worthy stunts and short-lived flings didn’t change any of that. Just seeing that strawberry blonde boy talk to June made his blood boil. Who the bloody hell was that? Had they been dating? The girl that had whacked the boy on the head with a book and given chase seemed to think so…

“Of course I’ve been avoiding you,” he sniped back, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Of course I want distance! Would you rather I follow you everywhere? Maybe slip some love potion into your morning pumpkin juice? I could have…” He straightened up a little and something dark came over his face before it vanished again. “I could have everything I wanted, but I didn’t, because believe it or not, I still like-“ he swallowed there and lowered his voice slightly, “I still love you, I can’t help it, and you don’t love me back, and… and you can’t help that, I suppose. So either we keep doing this forever and ever or you accept that I can’t be doing this stupid assignment with you if I’m trying to forget you exist.” He stopped there, flared his nostrils and hid his face behind the parchment she had handed him, with her dream written on it. “I wish we’d never met,” he mumbled from behind his paper shield.

Then, slowly, he lowered the parchment, which he wasn’t reading anyway and her eyes found his again, pinning him in place. “I keep hoping one day you’ll get mad enough with me to punch me so I can hate you.” The wryest, saddest, most pathetic of stupid grins made its way onto his face. “Best if you’d hit me in the head so I’d have a severe concussion and wouldn’t remember anything and I’d fail my OWLS and have to do the year over, and I wouldn’t know who you are anymore. Your choice,” he said. “I think that’s what your dream’s about, making the wrong choice. Mine are mostly about…” he reached forward, offering June’s roll of parchment back to her, or maybe pointing it at her “…never mind. You’re right about everyhing, as usual,” he sighed.