“April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.” The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
𝜗𝜚 𝓬𝓾𝓻𝓻𝓮𝓷𝓽 𝓯𝓪𝓷𝓭𝓸𝓶𝓼: Arcane, The Secret History, House MD, Sherlock Holmes, The last of us, The Phantom of the Opera.
𝜗𝜚 𝓼𝓸𝓶𝓮 𝓯𝓪𝓿 𝓫𝓸𝓸𝓴𝓼: The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer. The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo. White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. The Stranger by Albert Camus. Jane Eyre by Emily Brontë.
𝜗𝜚 𝓶𝔂 𝔀𝓸𝓻𝓴𝓼: The Secret History masterlist Harry Potter masterlist Arcane masterlist Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse masterlist
𝜗𝜚 𝓷𝓮𝔁𝓽 𝔀𝓸𝓻𝓴: currently working on moonlight and meadow hearts and requests
𝜗𝜚 𝓻𝓮𝓺𝓾𝓮𝓼𝓽𝓼 𝓼𝓽𝓪𝓽𝓾𝓼: open, my inbox is also open for asks! They are most welcomed
MAGAs, TERFS, Homophobes and Israel supporters DNI
❝She tastes of old coffee and chocolates and sex. You didn’t know sex had a taste to it before, but it does; pheromones released into saliva, pleasure condensed into flavor, dancing along the tip of your tongue.❞
Camilla Macaulay x fem!reader
requested last july for smut fest 2025, posted now as my first installment for smut fest 2026. the ending is sloppy, wlw smut is difficult as hell for me, and this isn't proofread in the slightest. nsfw, minors dni. oral sex, fem! receiving, slight dom!camilla, exhibitionism, tribbing, dirty talk.
In retrospect, you should have seen this coming. While you had been adamant about renting a beachfront villa in South Carolina, Camilla had insisted upon it having windows that covered a full wall. Besides this, she’d been getting handsier and handsier in public for weeks.
At first, you’d thought it was to taunt her brother. He’d never hit a girl, of course, but he glowered just a little more in your direction when her fingers grazed against your thigh or your throat suggestively, and you thought she liked bringing that out of him. Then, when she’d sucked tequila from your tongue in front of onlookers, you’d thought it was to entertain the men around— the ones that would offer to buy you both drinks if you kissed.
You weren’t sure why it didn’t manage to click on the first day in the villa— that beach day when you’d both laid in the sunshine, flipping through books, her hand seemingly glued to your inner thigh— but then, maybe you didn’t know her as well as you had once thought. After all, you’d only been seeing each other off and on for a few months. After all, you were nothing serious.
But now, here you are. In the living room, your skin covered in sweat and coconut scented sunscreen— the kind Camilla mocks, the kind that comes with glitter in it, the kind that makes your flesh shine in a way she pretends to be able to but can not resist— your knees pressed into the hard wood of the floor. Camilla is splayed out on the couch before you, soaked in sunlight, in full view of anyone that might wander too close to those windows.
You know it should sicken you, the prospect of being caught in such a dissolute position, but then you crook your fingers just so— and oh, how she squeezes tightly against your fingers, gripping and almost milking them, holding so tightly you’re afraid they’ll snap off— and her back arches so beautifully you almost want it to happen; want someone to happen upon the way her once bright blue eyes look now, clouded with need; want someone to watch the tender way her hand slides into your hair and presses your mouth down.
You smell nothing but musk and sweat as your nose nudges against her clit, but she’s sweet against your tongue as you slide it between her lips. It reminds you of lemonade, almost, with a hint of that lavender body wash the rental provides. Divine, you think, this elixir of Αιδοιος παρθενος— Aedoeus Parthenus— capable of spinning one moment into deathless eternity.
Her hips tip up against your mouth, nudging her clit against your tongue again, and the sounds that escape her own mouth are symphonic to your ears. You lick and you suck, wet muscle against sensitive nerves, and you work your fingers in and out as much as her body will let you. Your jaw aches from holding it open, neck worse from trying to follow her movements as they become more fervid, but you don’t dare to stop.
When she tugs at your hair to force you closer, you oblige. You let her rut against your face, riding your fingers like she’s built to take you into her body, and you silently thank any gods that might be watching for allowing you to take part in this worship. She covers your face with slick, fucking herself on you wildly, and you watch. You watch the way her pretty pink lips fall open as she whines your name into the humid summer air, her eyes crinkling at the corners and rolling back in tandem, that delicate nose tipped into the air.
She’s beautiful like this, you think. One could almost mistake her for sweet. But you know better; know that she is witty and clever and ungentle, in nature. She says your name again. You crook your fingers just enough to press against that soft, spongey tissue inside her, and suck against her clit with renewed fervor. Stay like this, you think, stay my docile, tender girl forever. You know it’s a foolish want, but that doesn’t make it go away.
She presses your face impossibly closer to her sex when she comes, pale knees pressed against your ears. You hear nothing but your own heartbeat. You see nothing but her. Her vaginal walls contract against your fingers, sucking them in, in, in, and she grows even wetter against your lips. You work her through it, greedy to extend the moment— to drink her in, always. And then the moment is over. She pushes against your forehead, a signal to move away, and with one last kiss to that puffy bundle of nerves, you do.
She beckons you upwards, eyes hazy, muscles loose, and licks herself from your chin and cheek before she kisses you. You don’t taste like yourself anymore, you’re sure, but you also think she likes that even your molars are marked with her flavor. When you pull away, her chin and lips are glossy with herself. Heat throbs between your legs, an agonizing ache. You want that mouth on you, now, but before you can suggest it, your back is pressing into the couch cushions.
Camilla unties your swimsuit bottoms deftly and arranges herself over top of you, knee against knee, and you can feel her cooling wetness against the crux of your thigh. She tilts her head back and takes in a breath, light hair cascading down her shoulders, glass blue eyes catching in the light. She looks more god than woman to you, in this moment, and you envy the man who may stand beside her someday.
Then she adjusts again, slipping into place— clit against clit, slick and hot and right— and as she begins to grind herself into you, you see stars. Your chest is tight with want no action can sate, blood saturated with the need to be closer— impossibly close to her, closer than time and space could ever truly allow— and your stomach muscles tremble as you lean up toward her. One hand around the back of her neck, you pull her lips to yours.
She tastes of old coffee and chocolates and sex. You didn’t know sex had a taste to it before, but it does; pheromones released into saliva, pleasure condensed into flavor, dancing along the tip of your tongue. You could come like this— the visceral feeling of your wetnesses mixing together, grinding into each other like animals as her breasts bounce against your own, those damned intoxicating noises falling into your mouth again— and maybe you will. You want to. Your other hand finds her hip when her movements stutter and she tangles her fingers desperately in your hair once more.
“So wet,” She whines, tugging your lower lip with her teeth, “Fuck, so good.”
“I know.”
It’s all you can manage to say before you kiss her again, your own hips writhing against hers as if they have a mind of their own. Sweat beads on your hairline and your hip flexors ache from being stretched open this way, but you can’t fathom stopping. Pleasure curls through your toes and thighs, floods up into your spine, and overpowers your every thought. All that matters to you is this: the way she keeps bumping into your clit, the obscene sound this is making, the feeling of working toward something together.
It’s too much. It’s not enough. And still, your orgasm hits quickly; rough and fast as it steals the breath from your lungs, seizes your muscles up, forces a guttural moan from your throat. She doesn’t stop working herself against you until she, too, has finished, and you can tell from the glint in her eyes that she is nowhere near done with you.
“I want you against the window.” She says then, leaning down to kiss you once again.
This time, it is less of a kiss and more of a licking into your mouth; tongues brushing tongues in a way that erases everything but the deep, burning need to please her. And so you let her lead you to the window; let her press your palms against it; stare out at the waves lapping against the shore as she presses her lips against the back of your neck. She kisses between your shoulders, too, in a way you’re sure will leave a mark— she unties the top of your suit, lets it fall to the ground, and kisses all the way down the column of your spine.
You can just barely see her reflected in the window as she sinks down to her knees behind you. You don’t have to see it to know how sinfully delicious she looks right now; don’t have to catch the way your own eyes are glazed over to know you’re at her mercy in this moment. She nudges your legs apart and leans in, pressing a kiss to your ass cheek, then to your wet inner thigh. Your hips shift, searching for sensation, and Camilla brings a hand to your hip, then, steadying you.
“So needy like this,” She half teases, though you can hear the awe in her voice, “Want me that bad, do you?”
You nod with a desperate little whine despite yourself, and she giggles. Her tongue is flattened out against you within seconds, prodding against your swollen clit one moment, teasing your fluttering core the next. Your mouth drops open again and you press your forehead against the glass, gasping.
“Cami,” You sound pitchy to your own ears, “Fuck, please.”
You don’t know what you’re asking for, but she does. She hums against you, the vibrations sending the walls of your cunt fluttering yet again, and slips two fingers inside you. Your breath shakes, becoming raspier at the relief, and she presses in as deep as she can before she pulls half out again. She fucks you like this for awhile, just watching, then works you with her mouth again. She won’t give you enough to come; just enough to turn your cheeks hot and make your clit throb. Just enough to make you lean your entire body against the glass, feeling it press into your naked breasts, and drive all language from your brain.
You don’t know how long she does this to you— swapping fingers for tongue for fingers again— but you’re glad for it, somewhat. Glad that in keeping you so close to the edge and not letting you fall over it, she extends this pleasure in a manner that feels infinite. Her tongue curls, flicking back and forth over your clit once more, and you feel the way even more wetness seeps outwards. You hear it, in fact, when she pulls back just enough to watch you drip onto the floor.
You wonder dimly if you’ve ever been this turned on in your life; so wet that your thighs are soaked, that a small puddle is forming on the floor beneath you, that you’re dripping down her wrist. She moans at the sight and presses another kiss to the back of your thigh, punctuating it with the lightest graze of her teeth, and then slips to sit beneath you.
The back of her head rests against the glass now, your clit inches from her nose, and you can look down to see her face. She smiles up at you, devilish almost, and tugs you closer. It’s an awkward position, but you can’t bring yourself to care when her mouth is attached to you once more— when she’s sucking on your clit with such precision that you could almost scream, when you notice the way her left hand has slipped down to her own cunt once more, when you realize she’s touching herself while she feasts upon you.
You can hear how wet she is, too, and you allow instinct to take over. You press yourself into her mouth, grinding your hips, and chase the high she is finally allowing you to reach. She moans into you every now and again. The sound alone could make you cry. You fuck yourself on her face just as she had done on yours, and you find yourself grasping your own breast. Massaging it, scraping your nail against the nipple as your hips work.
It’s building. You can feel it tight in your pelvis, so close and yet so far, and you move your hips faster. You wonder if you look as crazed as you feel, but that thought does nothing except bring you even closer, and you moan against the glass once again. It is utterly primal, what you are doing together, but you cannot bring yourself to feel embarrassed. No, it feels too good for that. Too right. You move faster somehow, hips tipping back and forth, and you wonder if you’ll hurt her— hurt yourself. You wonder if someone will happen by and see.
You wonder what you’d look like from the other side of this window, legs spread to straddle a woman’s face, hair undoubtedly streaked with sweat. The thought alone is so tantalizing that you feel yourself snap, coming undone right there on Camilla’s face with a near violent jerk of the hips. She licks through it, sucking and working until you’re shaking, collapsing beside her.
She’s close again, too— you can tell by the way she looks at you, lips swollen and gleaming, eyes heavy— and you attach your lips to her neck, bringing your fingers to her nipples. You’re too tired for much more than this, than watching her touch herself, but she doesn’t seem to mind. Your eyes lock on the place her fingers disappear within herself, at the practiced way her wrist moves. She does this to herself often, you realize, and you wish you’d been present for each and every one of those times.
Her chest presses out, back arching once again, into her own touch this time, and she finishes in a gasping, exhausted sort of way that reminds you of yourself. When she’s done, she smiles in your direction. It is a smile that says more than words are capable; a smile that has you tugging her up to the bathroom for a tepid bath, for a nap, for more closeness of this sort; a smile that says she’s been wanting to fuck you on display for quite some time.
It is now that it clicks for you, all the public groping and teasing, how insistent she was on this particular villa, but you don’t have it in you to mind.
pro-tip: your blog is about you. be self-indulgent, self-absorbed, and self-possessed. go all in on your obsessions. this is a work of self-expression, a living monument to your heart.
maybe this is not my place to say because I am monolingual, and I'm sure it's part of a larger, more nuanced discussion about visibility and accessibility on the internet, but I think it'd be cool if people posted in their native languages more instead of in english. I see people do it way more on other platforms than on tumblr which is almost exclusively in english
El problema es, como bien has dicho, la accesibilidad y la visibilidad.
Tumblr en concreto es muy anglocentrista y un gran número de los usuarios no habla más que inglés. Si quieres que tus cosas lleguen a gente con gustos u opiniones similares, escribirlo en inglés asegura que la gente por lo menos lo pueda leer. Suma a esto el hecho de que bastantes series y tal son originalmente de habla inglesa (y a veces ni se traducen a tu lengua madre), lo que crea un fandom principalmente angloparlante.
Más allá de eso, también hay que tener en cuenta las diferencias culturales que surgen entre fandoms de distintos idiomas. Por ejemplo, durante mucho tiempo el fandom de Vocaloid angloparlante y el hispanohablante han chocado con respecto a temas como la piratería. En ocasiones es complicado manejar estas expectativas, y si sabes varios idiomas, peor incluso.
A mí me gustaría subir cositas en español y encontrar a gente que comparta mis gustos, pero en Tumblr en concreto es casi imposible. Tumblr ya es de por sí mucho más «nicho» en espacios hispanohablantes que otras RRSS como TikTok o Instagram, y si tus intereses no son muy populares, despídete.
La lingüística de los espacios de fans también está hipercentrada en el inglés. No es una pareja, es un ship; no es un universo alternativo, es un AU; no es destripar, es hacer spoiler, etc. Incluso las siglas: en español es LGTB, pero lo que sueles ver es LGBT. Parece una tontería, pero esta disonancia cognitiva hace que resulte muchísimo más complicado hablar en tu propio idioma en un fandom. Por no hablar de las innumerables referencias a posts o a memes... en inglés todo, por supuesto. Como te atrevas a hacer cualquier referencia cultural no inglesa, no te entiende nadie. Pierde la gracia.
Casi todo esto se puede achacar al imperialismo cultural estadounidense. El inglés es útil para comunicarse con gente de todo el mundo, pero su omnipresencia sirve de barrera para todos los demás idiomas. Quizás habría que reflexionar un poco sobre por qué coño el resto del mundo tiene que tragarse años de clases de inglés para hablar del juego que le gusta en una red social mientras muchos angloparlantes no se dignan ni a meter un texto en un traductor automático y prefieren pasar de largo.
Having "a lot" of followers on tumblr is funny because probably 80% of them are ghost blogs who haven't been on here in like a decade.
It's like, no no, those aren't my followers, that's a graveyard! I'm the caretaker of a thousands of tombs. I love them, but they've been dead for seven years.
Francis Abernathy cleaning out the country house after the year ended and finding a tie Henry mistakenly left behind that still smells like him. Francis going on a trip after it all to clear his mind and buying gifts for people almost as if on autopilot, accidentally starting to look for something old and perfect for Henry without even realizing he won’t have anyone to give it to at first. Francis cleaning and getting rid of old papers and finding an assignment with Henry’s writing on it correcting him at points. Francis packing up his apartment and having to toss out the deck of cards he kept on the side table to the left of his couch in the perfect spot for Henry to grab easily and play solitaire as he liked to on nights when he found himself staying over but couldn’t sleep. Francis being home and with family and wishing Henry was there because unlike his family the man could sit in a room and keep quiet and read, just staying for the company they gave each other. Francis getting a parking ticket years later and unexpectedly breaking down because it reminded him of Henry telling him again and again to pay them. Francis having been the only one of them to go to his funeral. He mocked the decor in his head by the way, critiqued everything based on what Henry would’ve thought, and dropped the roses Henry never got to see bloom into his grave. He had to pull over on the drive home because he started having a panic attack, and ended up vomiting on the side of the road.
SORRY NO IM BACK TO THIS WHY WOULD YOU POST THIS OH MY GODDDD thinking abt how they were the first and longest friends of the group, since bunny joined later in the semester and the twins and richard later.
thinking of freshman francis and henry meeting in the greek class, francis making his “cubitum eamus” comment for the first time and henry replying with a witty quip, and them becoming fast friends. both of them with their caginess and bonding over niche references they never expected anyone to get, the lonely lives they lead as children. henry, who has only ever seen the world on paper, marveling over francis’ boarding school days in switzerland; francis, with his awful health anxiety, in awe over henry’s tales of his youth surrounded by doctors.
Since you are all evil and just ruined my night I raise you:
Francis spending years automatically setting aside newspaper clippings for Henry. Articles about obscure archaeological finds, strange linguistic discoveries, translations of newly recovered fragments. He folds them neatly before remembering there's nowhere to mail them. Francis eventually forgetting the exact sound of Henry's voice and being devastated from grief once more. He can remember entire conversations but not the voice itself. Years later, Francis discovering that many of his strongest opinions aren't actually his. They're Henry's. He'll hear himself dismiss a book, an author, a piece of music and suddenly think, wait, that's what Henry thought. Francis and Henry who developed dozens of private references that nobody else in the group ever understood. Long after Henry's death, Francis occasionally remembers something genuinely funny and reaches for the phone. Because if there was one person who would understand the joke, it would've been Henry. The realization hits a split second later, every time. Not softer with age. Just more familiar.
super short tiny little baby snippet of a Ryland Grace x reader oneshot I am working on, I just found this too funny to keep to myself!
“Question?” Rocky says suddenly making Grace blink several times.
"What?"
“Grace not listening.”
"I was listening."
“False. Grace was staring at Grace’s mate.”
Your head immediately drops into your hands.
Rocky continues before either of you can recover.
“This is opposite of listening. Is something wrong with friend (y/n), question?”
"Oh my God," he mutters.
"Do not invoke deity. Answer question."
You are laughing so hard you nearly fall out of your chair.
Grace wishes, not for the first time, that alien spiders understood embarrassment. Unfortunately Rocky possesses the social subtlety of a sledgehammer.
“Grace stare often.” Rocky observes.
"I do not!” Grace attempts, rather futilely, to defend himself.
"False."
"You cannot just say false every time—"
"Can. Just did."
And Rocky taps his claws together, clearly pleased with himself.
"ugh marion did not stop bothering charles at bunny's funeral and the only possible reason i can imagine for it is because he's more attractive than henry and i cough cough shallow" or maybe it's because she was grieving her boyfriend and charles is the only one of his friends who was even a little bit nice to her did we consider that richard
On sunlight, girls who know too much and truths best delivered by friends - Remus Lupin
summary: a hogesmeade trip and a few drinks have you spilling your secret to your girl friends who—for a change—give you some very wise advice. you could hate them for it.
pairing: remus lupin x reader.
warnings: teacher/students dynamics. Nothing graphic. If this content is not to your liking you are welcome not to interact with it.
series masterlist
I had to give the reader a nickname! I hope you like the one I chose. This chapter and its characters may or may not be based off my own experiences and friends, who said that?
Spring Saturdays in Hogsmeade possess their own particular kind of magic, none of it taught in classrooms.
The village seemed made for indulgence when the weather turned fair. Windows were thrown open along the high street; signs creaked lazily in the breeze; the smell of fresh bread, sugar, and smoke drifted between shopfronts in a way designed to weaken moral character. Students spilled through every lane in laughing groups, clutching sweets, parcels, butterbeer, and one another. Even the older residents appeared resigned to the annual invasion, though several wore expressions suggesting they still considered Hogwarts a long-standing municipal error.
You had come with Clara, Miriam, and Amelia under the solemn banner of a girls’ day, by which Clara meant shopping, Miriam meant gossip, Amelia meant pastries, and you had meant a temporary reprieve from thinking too much about one exhausted Defence professor with dangerous eyes and a habit of remembering everything you said.
This had proved difficult from the start.
The moment you stepped onto the high street, Clara linked her arm through yours and announced that today was to be “an intervention against romantic self-destruction.” She did not specify whose. She rarely needed to. Miriam, walking on your other side with the determined air of someone prepared to enjoy herself irresponsibly, said she thought interventions should begin with butterbeer and continue wherever destiny led. Amelia agreed with both of them in the way agreeable people often agree while steering everyone exactly where they wanted to go. In this case: toward pastries.
“I don’t know why I let any of you near me,” you said, as Clara dragged you bodily toward the bakery window.
“Because without us,” Clara replied, not breaking stride, “you’d spend Saturdays revising arrest procedures and making tragic eye contact with authority figures.”
“I do not make tragic eye contact.”
“You do,” said Miriam cheerfully. “It’s practically your signature move.”
You ended up at the Three Broomsticks because all roads in Hogsmeade, moral and otherwise, eventually lead there.
The place was crowded in the pleasant, noisy way it always became on weekends: benches full of students pretending not to watch one another, older witches warming their hands around mugs, laughter rising in bursts from every corner. The windows had been pushed open to let in the mild air, and somewhere near the back someone was singing badly enough to require intervention.
Madam Rosmerta took one look at the four of you and pointed, with long experience, toward a table near the wall.
“Sit there,” she said. “And if any of you start crying over a boy, do it quietly.”
“We make no promises,” Clara told her.
“You never do.”
You claimed the seat by the window. Clara sat opposite you with the smug glow of a girl currently adored. Miriam collapsed beside her in that unfashionable way she often did. Amelia, who could make even removing gloves look graceful, settled last and immediately reached for the menu despite knowing it by heart.
“I’d like to note,” said Clara, “that this is the first Hogsmeade weekend in three months where no one is in active heartbreak.”
Miriam snorted.
“Speak for yourself.”
“You swore never to speak to Stephen Boot again,” said Amelia mildly.
“I did.”
“And yet you did yesterday.”
“That was not speaking. That was issuing terms.”
You hid a smile in your sleeve.
Clara leaned forward at once.
“Did he apologise?”
“He attempted to.”
“And?”
“He used the phrase if you felt hurt.”
All four of you groaned in unison.
“Quite the cowardly wording,” Clara declared.
“Textbook,” said Amelia.
“Unforgivable,” you added.
Miriam looked vindicated.
“Exactly. So I told him if he felt conscious, he might try thinking before speaking next time.”
You laughed, you all laughed.
“What did he say?” you asked.
Miriam tossed her hair with offended dignity.
“That he was right and I was being dramatic.”
“You were hexing a portrait though,” Amelia said.
“The portrait was smug.” You added in her favour.
“That is irrelevant,” Miriam said. “The point is, he should know me well enough by now not to say such things aloud.”
“Ah,” said Clara. “So you’re back together, then.”
“We are not.”
“You said by now.”
“I hate all of you.”
Clara beamed.
That was the trouble with Clara in love: she became evangelical.
Since beginning whatever deeply earnest arrangement she and Davies had formed, she had developed the serene confidence of someone who believed romance could be managed through communication and practical footwear.
“How is Davies?” Amelia asked.
Clara tried and failed to look casual.
“Fine.”
You all stared.
She sighed.
“Very fine, actually.”
“Repulsive,” said Miriam.
“He sent me a note before breakfast.”
“Burn it,” Miriam advised.
“What did it say?” you asked.
Clara pulled a folded parchment from her pocket with indecent speed.
“You brought it with you?” said Amelia.
“For mockery purposes.”
“You’ve memorised it, haven’t you?” you said.
She ignored you and read aloud:
Meet me after Herbology if you’re free. If not, I shall endure bravely until supper. Yours, tragically, Davies.
Miriam gagged theatrically.
You laughed so hard you nearly spilled your drink.
“He signs things tragically?” you asked.
“He thinks he’s witty.”
“And is he?”
“Occasionally.”
“Hopeless,” Miriam muttered. “Both of you.”
Clara tucked the note away with infuriating care.
“At least someone in this group inspires devotion.”
“That sounds pointed,” you said.
“It is.”
Amelia, who preferred violence delivered gently, stirred foam with one finger.
“Bunny inspires devotion,” she said. “Just not among boys her own age.”
You froze.
Miriam’s eyes lit at once.
“Oh, excellent. We’ve circled back.”
“We have not.”
“We have,” said Clara. “You’ve turned down Thomas Avery, Malcolm Reed, Edgar Pike, and that seventh-year from Durmstrang you met last summer, who looked carved out of stone.”
“He said ‘females’ in conversation.”
“A fair rejection,” Clara conceded. “But the pattern remains.”
“There is no pattern.”
“There is,” said Amelia. “You dislike available men.”
“I dislike stupid men.”
“Also available ones,” Miriam added.
You groaned, throwing your head back.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Liar,” said Clara.
“Coward,” said Miriam.
“Poor thing,” said Amelia kindly.
You stared at each of them in turn.
“I came here for friendship.”
“No,” said Clara, taking another sip. “You came here because you can’t live without us.”
Madam Rosmerta arrived before the conversation could become more prosecutable, quill tucked behind one ear and the expression of a woman who had long ago accepted that students would always believe themselves subtle.
“Well?” she asked. “Drinks, or are you only here to slander absent boys?”
“We can do both,” said Miriam.
“I know,” said Rosmerta. “That’s why I asked.”
Orders were given with the seriousness of treaty negotiations. Clara chose mulled cider because Davies had once said it suited her and she had since pretended the choice was entirely independent. Miriam ordered butterbeer and then amended it to the largest butterbeer available “on account of emotional damages.” Amelia requested tea first, then, after seeing everyone else’s faces, changed it to hot chocolate with whipped cream. You asked for coffee strong enough to qualify as intervention.
Rosmerta looked at you for a long moment.
“Exam revision?” she said.
“Existential collapse,” you answered.
“Same blend,” she replied, and swept away.
When the drinks arrived, steaming and fragrant, the four of you fell quiet for a moment in the reverent manner of people confronted with exactly what they need. Outside the window, students drifted past in laughing knots. Inside, the room hummed with warmth and clattering mugs.
Clara blew across her cider and said, “If I fail Potions, I shall simply walk into the lake.”
“You won’t fail Potions,” said Amelia.
“I might.”
“You correct students alongside Professor Snape under your breath,” Miriam said. “You are intolerable at Potions.”
“That’s different from examination conditions. Under examination conditions, my mind empties itself like a drawer being tipped out.”
You smiled into your coffee.
“You’ll get Outstanding and complain about it.”
“Probably,” Clara admitted.
She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“I need Outstanding if I’m serious about apprenticeship applications.”
“You are serious,” you said.
She shrugged, though pleasure warmed her face.
“I want to be. Properly. Not just brewing school-level remedies and antidotes. I want to make things people actually use. New formulations. Better potions. Something elegant enough that everyone uses it and no one remembers life before it existed.”
“That is the most Ravenclaw thing you’ve ever said,” Miriam told her.
“It’s practical genius,” Clara corrected.
Amelia cradled her hot chocolate in both hands.
“I think it sounds lovely.”
“You say that because you love everyone,” Clara said.
“I do not love everyone.”
“You wanted to apologise to the Whomping Willow last year.”
“It looked misunderstood.”
Miriam barked a laugh loud enough to earn a warning glance from Rosmerta.
“And you?” Clara asked Amelia. “Still determined to spend your life elbow-deep in cursed injuries?”
Amelia smiled softly.
“Yes.”
There was no hesitation in her, only the calm certainty that always made the rest of you feel theatrically underdeveloped.
“I want St Mungo’s,” she said. “Creature-induced injuries, if they’ll have me. Spell damage if they won’t. Something useful. Something where people come in frightened and leave less so.”
The table quieted a little.
“That’s horribly noble,” Miriam said.
“I know.”
“You make me tired.”
“I know that too.”
You reached across and squeezed Amelia’s wrist.
“You’ll be brilliant.”
She ducked her head, embarrassed.
Miriam, who could not survive sincerity for long, pointed dramatically at herself.
“As for me, I remain gloriously undecided.”
“Tragically indecisive,” Clara corrected.
“I contain multitudes.”
“You contain distractions.”
Miriam ignored her.
“I know only this: I cannot work behind a desk, I refuse to marry a dull man for income, and I’d like something involving creatures.”
“Creatures?” you asked.
“Yes. Dragons, kneazles, puffskeins, badly behaved hippogriffs. Something with teeth.”
“That narrows nothing,” Clara said.
“I’m a woman of broad vision.”
“You’re a woman who once tried to adopt a grindylow.”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“It tried to drown you.”
“That was mixed signalling.”
Even Amelia laughed at that.
Then three faces turned toward you.
“And our future Auror with a scandalous secret literary life?” Clara asked. “How fares ambition?”
You traced a thumb around the rim of your mug.
“Complicatedly.”
“That is not an answer,” said Miriam.
“It’s the only one I have.” You glanced between them. “I still want to be an Auror. I’ve wanted it for years. I know what the requirements are, I know the training will be brutal, and I know I’ll have to earn every inch of it.”
“Which you likely will,” Clara said.
“You say that now. Wait until Transfiguration murders me in June.”
“It would be doing the rest of us a favour,” Miriam said.
You ignored her.
“But I still want to write too.”
Saying it aloud always felt more vulnerable than it should.
Amelia smiled at once. “Good.”
“Obviously,” said Miriam.
Clara gave a small nod, as though confirming facts already entered into record.
“You always will.”
You looked down into your coffee.
“It feels childish beside everything else.”
“What, because it doesn’t come with examinations and official letters?” Clara asked. “Please.”
“There’s a path for Auror work,” you said. “Clear marks to meet. Five N.E.W.T.s at Exceeds Expectations or higher, aptitude tests, character evaluations, three years of training, and then either they take you or they don’t.”
“Disgustingly organised,” said Miriam.
“Exactly. It’s difficult, but it’s visible.” You shrugged. “Writing isn’t. There’s no apprenticeship, no posted requirements, no Ministry panel telling you whether you’re qualified. You just sit alone with blank parchment and hope what comes out matters to someone.”
The table quieted.
“That sounds more frightening than Dark wizard capture,” Amelia said softly.
“It is,” you muttered.
Clara leaned back in her seat.
“No,” she said. “It sounds less tidy.”
You looked up.
“There’s a difference.” She lifted her mug. “One path tells you what to do. The other asks who you are. Naturally you think the second one is harder.”
Miriam whistled low.
“Ravenclaw propaganda, but elegant.”
Clara ignored her.
“You can become an Auror by meeting standards,” she said. “You become a writer by continuing when no one hands you any.”
You stared at her.
“That was suspiciously profound.”
“I know.”
“And arrogant.”
“Also true.”
Amelia nudged your arm gently.
“You don’t have to choose today.”
“No,” Miriam added. “You can arrest people by day and write devastating novels by night.”
“About us, preferably,” said Clara.
“About how insufferable you all are,” you said.
“We’ll deserve it,” Clara replied.
Outside, sunlight shifted across the street. Somewhere near the bar, someone cheered over a card game.
Miriam sighed dramatically and slumped sideways against the booth.
“It’s all disgusting.”
“What is?” you asked.
“The future.”
Clara snorted.
“You’re being dramatic again.”
“I’m being observant. Graduation is in two months.”
No one corrected her.
The word itself altered the air.
Graduation.
After seven years of shared dormitories, midnight whispers, common-room winters, timetables, towers, petty feuds, borrowed stockings, exams survived badly, and all the thousand small routines that had become the shape of life.
Weeks.
“I’m not ready,” Amelia said first, so softly you nearly missed it.
Neither were any of you.
Clara stared into her cider.
“I thought I’d feel older by now.”
“You look old when annoyed,” Miriam offered.
“Thank you.”
“I mean it kindly.”
“You never do.”
Miriam smiled faintly, then looked toward the window.
“I don’t know who I am outside this place,” she said.
That, more than anything, landed.
Because Hogwarts had raised you in ways your families never could have understood. It had seen you awkward, furious, brilliant, humiliated, lonely, adored, frightened, brave, and ridiculous. It had watched you become people.
Who were those people once the castle no longer held them?
You swallowed against something sudden in your throat.
“I don’t want to leave yet,” you admitted.
Clara looked at you.
“Because of us?”
“Yes.”
Then, after a beat too long:
“And other things.”
Three pairs of eyes sharpened instantly.
Miriam sat upright.
“Oh, excellent.”
Clara reached for her drink with slow satisfaction.
“We’re back to this.”
Three pairs of eyes sharpened instantly.
Miriam sat upright as though revived by dark magic.
Clara reached for her drink with the slow satisfaction of a woman whose patience had been rewarded by providence.
“Not again,” you said at once. “Please. I am begging for one conversation that does not become about my emotional humiliation.”
“Too late,” said Miriam. “You introduced ‘other things’ into evidence.”
“I introduced nothing.”
“You introduced everything,” Clara corrected. “With the subtlety of fireworks.”
Amelia, traitorously amused now, stirred the whipped cream into her chocolate.
“We did try to let it pass,” she said.
“You did not.”
“We considered it briefly.”
“That counts as mercy in this group,” said Miriam.
You dropped your forehead dramatically onto the table. The wood was sticky in places and smelled faintly of cider. This felt appropriate to your suffering.
“I hate all of you.”
“No, you don’t, Bunny,” Clara said, patting the back of your head as though soothing a nervous pet. “If you hated us, you’d stop handing us perfect opportunities.”
You lifted your face just enough to glare at her.
“Do not call me Bunny while tormenting me.”
“That is exactly when nicknames are most useful,” Miriam said. “Besides, you named yourself the day your Patronus popped out looking like it wanted lettuce.”
“It was majestic.”
“It was tiny,” Clara said.
“It charged bravely at a Dementor,” Amelia added loyally.
“It hopped,” said Miriam.
“It advanced strategically.”
The three of them laughed while you reached for your coffee with the grim dignity of a fallen stateswoman.
The nickname had begun in fifth year after your first successful Patronus in Defence, when a bright silver rabbit had bounded across the classroom and leapt directly into Snape’s legs as he passed the open door. He had not spoken to you for three days afterward, which remained one of your proudest accomplishments.
Since then, you had been Bunny whenever your friends loved you, mocked you, or sensed weakness.
Usually all three at once.
Clara leaned her elbows on the table.
“So,” she said. “What are these other things preventing you from embracing adulthood?”
“There are no other things.”
“There are.”
“There aren’t.”
“There deeply are,” said Miriam. “You’ve had that look for months.”
“What look?”
“The one people get when they’re romantically doomed.”
You nearly inhaled your drink.
“I do not have a look.”
“You do,” Amelia said apologetically. “Sometimes when someone’s name is mentioned.”
“No one’s name was mentioned.”
“Exactly,” said Clara. “And yet here you are panicking.”
You looked to Amelia for mercy and found none.
She only smiled into her mug.
“You’re all deranged.”
“Perhaps,” said Clara. “But not incorrect.”
Miriam pointed at you with the solemnity of prophecy.
“Bunny, one day historians will study how badly you concealed this.”
“I am concealing nothing.”
“You blush whenever he says your surname.”
“That is slander.”
“You once spent twenty minutes choosing ribbons because you might pass him in the corridor.”
“That was coincidence.”
“You ironed your socks,” Clara said.
The table erupted.
You stared at them in horror.
“How do you know that?”
“We live with you,” said Miriam, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “There are no secrets in shared accommodation.”
“I’m transferring schools.”
“In April?” Clara asked. “Ambitious.”
You sat back with what dignity remained.
“You are all terrible women.”
“And yet,” said Clara sweetly, “you love us.”
Then, with sharpened interest:
“Now. Tell us exactly what happened this week.”
“Nothing happened,” you said with great dignity. “Just… the usual.”
Three faces stared at you.
Clara set down her mug very carefully.
“The usual?” she repeated.
“Yes.”
She leaned forward.
“Does the usual mean you have spent most of his free time in his office?”
You straightened at once.
“I have not spent most of his free time there.”
Miriam let out a bark of laughter.
“That is the part you object to?”
“It is inaccurate.”
“So the office part stands,” Clara said.
“It is not an office in the way you’re implying.”
“What way am I implying?” Clara asked innocently.
“The vulgar way.”
“I haven’t implied anything vulgar yet,” said Miriam. “Though I’m happy to begin.”
Amelia covered her smile with both hands.
You pointed at all three of them in turn.
“This is exactly why no one tells us things.”
“No,” said Clara, cool as frost. “No one tells you things because you’re too busy starring in your own secret tragedy.”
“I am not starring in anything.”
“You absolutely are.”
You took a long drink of coffee and discovered it had gone lukewarm, which felt personal.
“He is helping me prepare for the Auror testing,” you said at last. “That is all. It’s academic.”
The silence that followed was so immediate and total that even the table beside you glanced over.
Then Miriam laughed so hard she nearly slid off the bench.
“Academic,” she gasped.
Clara pressed her lips together in a heroic attempt at restraint.
Amelia failed first.
“Oh, Bunny.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Amelia said quickly, still laughing. “Only… you said that exactly like someone trying to convince herself.”
“It is academic.”
“Of course,” said Clara. “That explains the tea.”
“The tea?”
“The endless tea.”
“That is hospitality.”
“The chocolate?”
“He gives chocolate to everyone.”
“The private revision sessions?”
“I am not the only student he helps.”
“The walks by the lake?” Miriam added.
You turned on her in outrage.
“That happened once.”
“Twice,” Clara said.
“You counted?”
“We all counted,” said Miriam. “The whole year may have counted.”
You stared in horror.
Clara blinked slowly.
“Bunny. You carry DADA books everywhere.”
“That was one time.”
“You blush when his name is mentioned. And when it isn’t.”
“I do not.”
“You smile at windows if they happen to contain him.”
“That is madness.”
“You once beamed at Professor Binns because you thought he was Lupin speaking behind you.”
Miriam collapsed forward onto the table wheezing.
“That never happened.”
“It did,” said Amelia kindly. “You apologised for ten minutes.”
You put both hands over your face.
“I need new friends.”
“You need realism,” said Clara.
You groaned into your palms.
“It is academic.”
Clara’s voice softened—not much, but enough.
“I know he’s helping you, Bunny. I know that part is true.”
You looked up.
She held your gaze steadily now, all teasing set aside for the moment.
“But don’t hide behind words just because they sound sensible.”
The others fell quiet.
Even Miriam, who treated seriousness like an allergy, only traced a finger through the condensation on her mug.
“Sometimes,” Clara went on, “something can begin in one shape and become another before anyone notices.”
Your throat tightened unexpectedly.
Then Miriam brightened at once.
“So,” she said, “when he pours tea for you, does he look tortured or yearning?”
You threw a sugar cube at her face.
The trouble with old friends is that they become fluent in your suffering.
Later at Honeydukes, Clara had not simply mentioned the chocolates. She had lifted the box with both hands like an offering at temple, turned it so the ribbon caught the light, and read the label aloud in a reverent voice.
“Filled with raspberry cream,” she announced. “How passionate.”
“Put that down.”
“Oranges dipped in dark chocolate,” Miriam said, peering over her shoulder. “Very intellectual.”
“Stop helping.”
Clara ignored you entirely.
“There’s a card included,” she said. “How thoughtful. We could sign it To the only Defence Against the Dark Arts professor who has ever defended anything, from a secret admirer.”
You reached for the box. She danced neatly away.
“That is ridiculous.”
“No,” she said. “This is romance.”
“It is harassment.”
“It can be both.”
Amelia, examining sugar quills nearby with saintly calm, said, “Perhaps something subtler. Chocolate frogs feel too juvenile.”
You stared at her.
“You too?”
She looked genuinely puzzled.
“I’m trying to be constructive.”
“In what universe is this constructive?”
“The one where love requires logistics.”
Miriam had to lean against a display of sherbet lemons to remain upright.
By the time you escaped Honeydukes, empty-handed and morally exhausted, Clara had already planned three increasingly criminal methods of anonymous confectionery delivery.
Scrivenshaft’s was worse, because stationery invited symbolism.
The shop smelled of leather, ink, and dangerous possibilities. Shelves gleamed with journals, parchment rolls, sealing wax, and pens expensive enough to imply inheritance. You had barely crossed the threshold before Miriam gave a sharp gasp and seized a black lacquer fountain pen from its velvet stand.
“Oh, this is him.”
“That,” you said, “is a pen.”
“No. This is Professor Lupin as an object.”
She held it up for inspection.
“Elegant,” said Amelia.
“Understated,” Clara agreed.
“Probably damaged emotionally,” Miriam added.
You snatched it from her and returned it to the stand before the shopkeeper decided to ban your bloodline.
“It is a writing instrument.”
“It’s tweed in pen form,” Clara said.
“It looks like something a man would use while rejecting his own happiness,” said Miriam.
“That is absurdly specific.”
“That is why it’s accurate.”
You moved swiftly toward the notebooks, hoping distance might save you.
It did not.
Amelia appeared at your shoulder holding a bottle of dark green ink.
“This would suit him.”
“Why are you all like this?”
She considered.
“Exposure to you, perhaps.”
You made a sound that frightened a nearby first-year.
The final blow came at Gladrags, where Clara paused before a rack of men’s scarves and said, with the reflective seriousness of a strategist planning war:
“If one were hypothetically marrying a professor, would one keep one’s own name?”
You nearly walked into a mannequin.
“There is no hypothetical marriage.”
“Mm.”
“There is no marriage.”
“Of course.”
“There is no courtship.”
“Tragic.”
“There is no relationship of any kind.”
Clara held up a brown wool scarf.
“This colour would flatter him.”
Miriam clutched a display stand for support.
“I’m begging you all to die quietly,” you said.
Amelia touched a bolt of moss-green fabric.
“I still think tweed in cream for spring.”
You left the shop before violence became inevitable.
And yet, despite the relentless mockery, despite your threats, despite the fact that Clara had spent nearly ten minutes ranking professors by marriageability purely to distress you, there had been something warm beneath all of it.
They teased because they knew.
Not merely the crush, though that had ceased to be private months ago.
They knew the way your face changed when his name was spoken. The way you found reasons to pass the Defence corridor. The way you pretended not to save every scrap of advice he gave you as though it were something rarer than guidance.
They knew because they loved you.
Which was, regrettably, what made them dangerous.
By the time you returned to Hogwarts grounds in the late afternoon, your arms were full of parcels, your patience thin, and the sky beginning its slow turn toward gold. Rather than go inside, the four of you wandered down toward the lake and collapsed in the grass beneath the old beech, shoes kicked off, stockings dampened by the earth, bags strewn carelessly around you like the remains of a small domestic disaster.
For a while no one spoke. The breeze moved through the reeds. Somewhere near the shore, the giant squid disturbed the water with lazy contempt. Above you, the castle windows were catching the lowering sun and beginning to burn amber.
Clara lay on her back with one arm flung over her eyes, looking as though she had been felled by excessive commerce. Miriam was trying to charm a daisy to bloom larger purely because it had offended her by being ordinary. Amelia sat cross-legged beside the bags, carefully dividing Honeydukes purchases into piles according to fairness, appetite, and who could be trusted unsupervised.
It was one of those rare still moments that arrive without warning in youth: the kind that feel unimportant while you are living them and later become the shape of an entire year. The castle behind you. The lake before you. Your friends close enough to touch. Summer somewhere ahead, hidden but coming.
Then, because foolishness often arrives disguised as courage, you said into the quiet:
“Do you guys think… he likes me?”
Clara’s arm dropped from her face.
“Are you serious?”
You stared determinedly at the sky.
“…”
Miriam sat bolt upright so fast the enlarged daisy flew from her hand.
“Merlin’s beard. She is serious.”
Amelia turned to you with open astonishment.
“Bunny, you’ve got to be pulling our leg.”
“What? No! Why would I—how could I—” You pushed yourself up onto your elbows, scandalised already by your own decision to speak. “You’ve been teasing me about it, about him, all year. And all along you thought I wasn’t serious?”
The three of them exchanged a look so swift and layered it could only belong to girls who had survived adolescence together.
“Well…” Miriam began.
“Yes,” Clara said at the same time.
Amelia winced.
Clara sighed and sat upright, brushing grass from her skirt.
“Actually—fuck. No. We knew you were being for real.” She glanced toward the lake, then back at you. “We wanted to believe otherwise.”
The words landed more heavily than the teasing ever had.
You drew one knee up and wrapped your arms around it.
“So…” you said, quieter now. “Do you? Think he likes me?”
“No.”
“Clara!” Amelia protested at once.
“Auch,” you said faintly. “Straight to the point, aren’t you?”
Clara groaned and dragged both hands over her face.
“Oh, don’t be dramatic. You know what I mean.”
“I truly don’t, as I’ve just been spiritually shot.”
That won a reluctant laugh from Miriam, but Clara’s expression remained serious when she looked at you again. It always changed first when something mattered.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “What I meant to say is, I don’t think he likes you like that. At least, I hope he doesn’t.”
You said nothing.
The wind moved the reeds in long silver strokes.
“It’s clear he enjoys your company very much,” she continued. “He may not favour you openly, but most of our year has caught up on it at this point. He gives you time. He listens to you. He looks for you when you speak. He lets you get away with things the rest of us would never survive.”
Miriam nodded grimly.
“You once interrupted his lecture over four times without repercussions.”
“That was a discussion.”
“That was insubordination.”
Clara ignored both of you.
“But I hope he doesn’t like you like that,” she said again, softer now. “Because it wouldn’t be sensible of him.”
You felt yourself go still.
“You are eighteen,” Clara said carefully. “And his student. He is your teacher. Older than you. Responsible for you, whether either of you likes that fact or not.”
The gold light had deepened around her hair. She looked older suddenly too—less your laughing friend than someone trying to love you honestly.
“Even if he does feel something,” she said, “I hope he acts as a responsible adult and doesn’t pursue you. Not now.”
No one spoke for a moment.
The giant squid surfaced again in the distance, as indifferent to human misery as ever.
Amelia reached across the grass and squeezed your ankle gently.
“She doesn’t mean he doesn’t care for you,” she said. “Only that caring and acting are not the same thing.”
Miriam plucked up a blade of grass and shredded it thoughtfully.
“And if he’s half the decent man you insist he is,” she said, “then he’ll know that too.”
You looked back toward the castle, where the high windows glowed with evening. Somewhere in that stone maze, he was likely correcting essays, making tea too strong, existing as though your entire inner life were not currently in ruins.
“I hate wisdom,” you muttered.
Clara’s mouth twitched.
“No, you don’t.”
“I do when it’s yours.”
“That’s fair.”
You fell sideways into the grass with theatrical despair. Amelia laughed softly. Miriam tossed a liquorice wand at your head. Clara lay back down beside you and, after a second’s hesitation, reached over to lace your fingers briefly with hers.
Above you, the sky continued turning toward dusk as though nothing at all had happened.
For a while after that, no one spoke.
The sort of silence that follows honesty is different from ordinary quiet. It has weight to it. Shape. It settles over people and asks them to sit still inside whatever has just been said.
The lake lapped softly against the shore below. A pair of younger students were skipping stones farther down the bank, shouting triumphantly each time one sank immediately. The castle bells rang the hour with distant indifference.
You kept staring upward.
The first stars were beginning to think about appearing.
“I hate this sometimes,” you said at last.
No one made the mistake of pretending not to know what this meant.
Clara turned her head toward you slightly.
“Him?”
“How I feel.”
The words came easier once they had started.
“I hate that I can’t seem to stop it. I hate that I know better and still…” You exhaled sharply. “And I hate that it feels unfair to him.”
Miriam frowned.
“Unfair how?”
You pushed yourself upright, hugging your knees.
“Because I’m putting him in a compromising position.”
The others went still.
You picked at a loose thread on your skirt rather than look at them.
“He’s done nothing wrong,” you said. “He’s been kind. He’s helped me. He treats me seriously, which not everyone does. And because I’m an idiot, I’ve turned that into…” You gestured helplessly. “All this.”
Amelia’s face softened at once.
“That isn’t fair to yourself.”
“It is,” you said. “People notice things. You said so yourselves. They joke. They speculate. If anyone decided to be cruel about it, who would they blame? Not me.”
Clara’s expression changed in that quiet, thoughtful way it did when she was assembling the truth carefully before speaking it.
“You think your feelings endanger him.”
“Yes.”
The word came out smaller than you meant.
“He’s a teacher,” you continued. “In a school full of gossip. If people start talking, if someone twists anything —time in his office, walks by the lake, letters after I graduate… ”
You stopped.
The future had slipped out before you meant it to.
Miriam stared.
“Letters?”
“Not the point.”
“It is absolutely a point.”
“Later,” Clara said sharply, and Miriam subsided with visible pain.
You swallowed.
“I just mean… he already seems tired all the time. He already carries enough. The last thing he needs is me making things more difficult because I can’t govern myself properly.”
That was the closest you had come to saying it plainly: that whatever sadness shadowed him, whatever private burden bent his shoulders some days, you saw it even if you did not understand it.
Amelia moved first. She crawled across the grass and sat beside you, shoulder pressing lightly to yours.
“Bunny,” she said softly, “liking someone is not a crime.”
“It can still be selfish.”
“Sometimes,” Clara said. “But not like this.”
You looked at her.
She was sitting cross-legged now, elbows on her knees, wind moving loose strands of hair across her face.
“You are not cornering him,” she said. “You are not asking anything of him. You are not trying to manipulate him or trap him or force some grand confession out of a man with authority over you.”
Miriam snorted.
“She’d faint first.”
You ignored her.
Clara continued.
“You are having feelings quietly and inconveniently. That is the most common human experience there is.”
Despite yourself, you laughed once.
“It doesn’t feel common.”
“No,” Clara said dryly. “Because you’re starring in it.”
Then she softened.
“If he is compromised by anything, Bunny, it won’t be because a clever girl admires him. It will be because he chooses poorly.”
You absorbed that in silence.
The breeze had cooled now. Somewhere in the grass behind you, an insect chirred insistently at nothing.
“And, again, if he is as decent as you believe,” Clara added, “then he’ll know how to behave.”
Miriam, lying on her stomach now and plucking at clover, spoke without looking up.
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think he minds.”
You blinked.
“Minds what?”
“You.”
“That is not a sentence.”
“It is from me.”
“I need more than that.”
She shrugged.
“I just mean some people look burdened when someone hangs about them. Irritated. Cornered. Eager to escape.” She glanced up. “He looks like a man trying not to enjoy himself too much.”
Heat rushed instantly to your face.
“That is outrageous.”
“It is observant.”
“It is fiction.”
“It is my gift.”
Amelia smiled against your shoulder.
“I think,” she said gently, “that perhaps you’ve mistaken caring about his reputation for blaming yourself for existing.”
That struck more cleanly than anything else had.
You opened your mouth.
Closed it again.
Clara gave a small nod, as though something had been confirmed.
“There it is,” she said.
“There what is?”
“The real problem.”
You groaned.
“Must you always be right?”
“No,” said Clara. “Only when it’s useful.”
You leaned sideways until your head landed in her lap with dramatic defeat.
She sighed, but her hand came automatically to smooth your hair back from your forehead.
“I still hate wisdom,” you muttered.
“I know.”
“And feelings.”
“Also common.”
“And all three of you.”
“Liar,” said Miriam.
The sun slipped lower. The castle windows burned briefly brighter, then softened into dusk.
You lay there between your friends and the coming evening, feeling no less in love, but slightly less ashamed of it.
