Old friends, new starts - Alphard and Elenora
"Excuse me, I’m offended. I judge character most excellently, if I may say so myself.” Putting on a fake, girly accent for the last bit, Elenora laughed. “Extreme heat, of course. We should! But we can’t eat them, that’s like… cannibalism. I don’t know, something like that. And you could make iced bow ties! Or, I could. I don’t know how good you are with the delicate kind of stuff.” She had to hold in another chuckle when he wiggled his bowtie, something she knew he did when he was preparing himself for something, or when he was trying to show off. “Right, well… I don’t want to be there when she officially finds out. Imagine the squealing.” Scrunching her nose up and trying to make the conversation a little light-hearted, Elenora rolled her eyes. She knew that Carina was going to find out at some point, through them or through another student. Maybe the ones sat over in the stands would tell her. Maybe she already knew.
"Did he indulge himself? Because something tells me that Percy isn’t someone who listens to his parents’ advice." She bit her lip anxiously for a moment, trying to contain the memories of what had happened when Alphard had first left. He knew that she had been seeing other boys, just a couple, here and there. But she wasn’t sure if he knew about Percy. Or if she wanted him to. Something about it seemed weird, a family bond, something like that that made her want to keep them separated in her life, but that was never going to happen. It’s hard not to notice her uncomfortableness when he walked into the shop or the way she averted her eyes when she gave him change. It’s not because she was embarrassed, but because she didn’t want to hurt him any more than she already hard. "No, I learnt that the hard way. Ended up goin’ in a circle."
"Are all those contraptions staying in the spare room, then? You’re going to be kind of cramped in there, and that’s if we can actually find you a bed. And don’t suggest transfiguring something; the last time you did that, the ‘chair’ felt like a toad still, just bigger And pink is awful on me, by the way. Well, vivid pink. But I’m not going to talk to you about clothes, you’ll get bored and try to get me to wear my mum’s hat with that garish green dress again."
Elenora was shattered. In fact, her head was thick and slightly fuzzy from the tiredness, though she wasn’t sure that it was entirely because of the sleep depravation. After panicking for a couple of days about Alphard actually moving in with her, she’d managed to get about two hours sleep and then been pulled backwards and forwards on the end of Alph’s arm, helping him. However, beneath the tiredness and the emptiness of her belly, there was something a little stronger. A weird, rippling sensation that made her want to stay locked in Alphard’s arms for as long as she lived, some kind of strange longing and hunger she had never felt in her life, not with any other boy she had tried to distract herself with. A memory rushed into her head all of a sudden, one of her parents explaining how babies were made. And another, when someone in her Charms class decided to speak her thoughts and asked what sex felt like. Another, of a boy she had once dated in Hogwarts trying to slip his hand up her shirt and she had slapped him in shock, then started crying so hard she thought she would never stop. The smile on Alph’s face reassured her slightly, and she hoped that he couldn’t see what she was thinking, the strange flashbacks and the sudden embarrassment when she realised why they had come back to her. We couldn’t possibly… no, not now, not today, not… remember what Luna said about it being special and— there was another flash of a memory, one of her repeatedly telling Alphard how special he was to her, how she didn’t know what she’d do without him, and she realised that every moment with him was something treasured and important. No, don’t ruin it, don’t you dare initiate that kind of thing, Elenora Flume.
Glancing back up at Alph, she smiled back at him, being able to read the concern and the questioning in his eyes. She was acting weirdly, and she knew it. But then his hands were at her waist, and his fingers were carefully rubbing at some sort of weak spot on her back that was so teasing she almost didn’t know what to do with herself. For someone who claims to be so inexperienced, how in Merlin’s name does he manage to do that? “We don’t need gla—” she was cut off all of a sudden by his mouth and the force with which he pushed her back surprised her, making her gasp against his lips as she slammed back against the counter, her fingers taking the chance to roam freely across his back, exploring each and every bump along his spine, trying to work out whether she could make him feel as jelly-like and wobbly as she did whenever he held her like that. She realised that the competitiveness was still there even now, and she had to get him back for taking her by surprise like he had. “H-How do you… do that?” She managed to mumble her words in a forced stutter against his mouth, quivering slightly under his touch. Don’t let him see how much he affects you, that’s what she’d promised herself. And now she was doing the exact opposite by allowing him to kiss her with hot, heavy lips and wrap those alarmingly strong arms around her. And she was loving it.
"We can't keep the little figurines of us forever, Els," the rational part of Alphard laughed, before the mad and more common Alphard kicked in. "Then again, it'd look nice as a permanent table decoration. Hey, we could use a Sticking Charm, put it on the table, and that could show that the flat is ours, if Charlie tries to kick us out. Well, it shows that the table is ours anyway. Maybe the ceiling? Upside down?" He was actually good with delicate stuff when it involved gears or electronics, but it was a very selective skill, and didn't seem to stretch to his talents in baking or cooking. "You can make the bowties. I'll just add the cool to them. And yeah, don't worry. I'll do the telling Carina bit. You probably shouldn't be around, for your own safety." Although he was chuckling, he was a little bit nervous. He'd have to confront and inform the rest of his family - suddenly, he had a lot of family members to tell.
"You're right there," he laughed; he didn't think anything of Elenora's accuracy about Percy. Most people knew that particular son the name Black, and she'd spent plenty time around him and his family. "But I think he hadn't quite perfected escaping then. By the time he had, he'd grown out of that phase." Really, Alphard hadn't given any of it much thought at all - not being the jealous type, he didn't seek to find problems to harbour in their relationship. And he would never really imagine a relationship between his younger brother and his best friend, now girlfriend.
"Where else are we going to put them?" He questioned cheerily. "We'll all fit in snugly, no need to worry. As for a bed, I'm sure I could steal one for the castle or find someone who would offer me a good deal." Disappointment clouded his face for a moment. "Really? But I thought the green made you look..." A wave of his hand, his wrist twisting around, replaced an adjective there. "And that hat was nice. It was cool."
Innocent to Elenora's current thoughts, but perhaps not innocent to his own, Alphard might not really mean to think the same things, but he had. Not that he'd had any experience whatsoever; he'd been so gangly and eccentric for so much of his life, he hadn't had much real contact with other girls interested in him. The problem had also been that he'd never been interested in them either. If someone were to ask him straight out right then, if he would ever want to have sex with Elenora, he'd have been speechless or stuttering at best. But he wouldn't find it reprehensible, after he mulled over it a bit. If he was honest with himself, it had tickled the back of his mind on that first night back when her bare skin burned into his own under the stuffiness of the covers.
It was like flying - it really was. Where he was usually so ungraceful, he knew exactly how to ride a broom, the way the winds could help and hinder, and how fast to be going and where to turn up to not hit the ground; it was the same thing with Elenora. He was so familiar with her, he somehow knew what to do. And she was responding - even Alphard could tell that. Revelling, delighting in her confusion against his lips, it made him become heated, knowing that he was affecting her, not to mention her own quick fingers. He pressed herself into her, for once forgetting about whether he might be hurting her.
