Claire liked being a legilimens. It was an amazing way to find the perfect present for your friends and have them marvel at your gift giving skills. However, it also came with some downsides the last time she went into Barnaby's head she went a bit too deep searching and stumbled across some rather unpleasant memories. She ended up cuddling Barnaby every day for two weeks, much to his delight before she told him what she did. He wasn't mad at her, he said, "those are from forever ago. I have you and my other friends now. It's okay just keep snuggling with me and we will be even." She did as he asked guilt buiding in her gut. Poor sweet Barnaby was very much in love with her and she knew she would never love him back, she could never love him back. She refused to marry a pureblood, she had decided "tainting her bloodline" would be the best way to spite her father. Besides she and Barnaby were related three generations back, that was to close for comfort in Claire's mind.
Barnaby had confirmed his feelings during Professor Snape's love potion class. He had asked her to move away as he could only smell her perfume. Claire had run out of perfume the day before the lesson and it would be a week to get more by owl post.
Thelove potion had smelled like, cinnamon rolls, Ben and Talbott. Ben had been the most overpowering smell of them all. It was like she had his robes wrapped around her and happened to have a small hanky that smelled like Talbott. Ben was to important to be killed by her father and she reasoned that Talbott's halfbood status would protect him.
After she came home for the summer after her father sent the howler, he would sit her down every day and list everything he would do to the unnamed "mudblood" boy. Surprisingly he hardly seemed to repeat the threats other than he would make her watch. Claire couldn't stand for even the more tame threats to happen to Ben. She reasoned the best way to keep Ben safe was to try and get rid of her feelings for him. Only Ben seemed to have other ideas, whenever she was almost over him he would do something terribly endearing.
Like when someone started passing around rumors she was sleeping around, he invented a rumor jinx. The rumor jinx was somehow linked to the rumor about her and whenever someone repeated it their face would breakout in painful boils that even Madam Pomfrey couldn't quite get rid of. The only cure seemed to be to apologize to her or tell the whole school they made it up.
"Ben you shouldn't of done that for me," she told him afterwards.
"Its not that bad. I just have to write down the process and what the spell is used for. Flitwick isn't even mad. He's impressed I think. He says once I turn this into the ministry I'm sure to get a job there. I think I might go for the Department of Experimental Charms. Its only a month of detention anyway, we've had worse," he said to her.
"But Ben, isn't everyone mad at you for losing so many house points? Your gonna get cursed in your sleep!"
Ben laughed, "I'm not gonna get cursed! I put protections up before I sleep every night. I should probably switch to nonverbal now."
"Claire if I get cursed feel free to say 'I told you so.' But it was worth all the trouble. Plus now I get to eat with you." That damn smile made Claire's resolve crumble.
"I'm not gonna help you remove the hex," she grumbled.
"Oh, you will, because your my best friend and you can't stand to see me in pain and since I lost 100 points Slytherin is in the lead now; so you owe me."
"I'll deal with it, I won't help this time."
"Sure Claire," he said sarcastically.
It was later that year she told Ben her news at breakfast. "I've decided to be Talbott's girlfriend. He asked me yesterday."
Ben promptly choked on his orange juice.
He was frantically pounding on his chest as Claire looked at him horrified, after he finished he slumped forward a bit muttering that it went down the wrong pipe and hurt. Claire ran her hand soothingly down his back, "Ben, I'm sorry I didn't mean to make you choke."
He waved her off, "new Ben" wasn't afraid of much anymore but Claire had spent more time with him and managed to get some of "old Ben" to stick around, he wasn't perfect but, she still liked his company.
"If he hurts you, I'm gonna hex him into next week! You come crying to me once, that's all it takes."
"I'll have Barnaby help." After Ben's threats were delivered to Talbott, he was perfectly pleasant to Talbott. Barnaby on the other hand kept promising to tear Talbott apart with his bare hands until Claire got sick of it and stopped talking to him. She even sat with Ben at the Gryffindor table (Talbott never ate in the grand hall) until Barnaby apologized and promised to stop making threats.
Things went slowly back to normal, only Claire could swear sometimes she saw the boys glaring at Talbott when they thought she wasn't looking.
However things came to a head in charms. "I know the NEWTS aren't till next year and I should of waited on this particular lesson. But, rarely will we have an opportunity like this!" Professor Filtwick, told them excitedly, as he pulled off a large tarp covering a mirror with his wand, "behold the mirror of erised! This mirror shows what you want most in the world, we will be enchanting our own mirrors to do something similar,"
"Professor," a gryffindor girl Claire didn't recognize started talking, " will we be able to look into the mirror?" The whole class murmured in agreement.
Flitwick sighed, "I suppose it will do no harm, but it will only be for two minutes each. We need to continue the lesson and this is going to be remarkably personal so you don't need to share with the class. "
The gryffindor girl squealed in delight when it was her turn in front of the mirror, "Miss Reyes, your turn," Filtwick called.
She nodded fingering Talbott's scarf carefully. The mirror showed her worst nightmare, in a sense. This mirror confirmed she was going to have to break Talbott's heart. She had hoped it would show her and Talbott but it didn't.
Instead she was holding Ben's hand he was laughing and that stupid snort was still cute. However, the thing that suprised her the most was the small army of children that seemed to be playing around their feet. Now she looked closer She and Ben looked to be in their late twenties. Mirror Ben stopped holding her hand to throw a small toddler up in the air, the little boy laughed snorting just like Ben.
Oh god, she kept thinking, how am I gonna tell Talbott? She could see him getting mad at leading him on and never wantting to be friends anymore. He was yelling horrible thing at her how he wished they had never met and now her friends were taking sides on the breakup. All her friends seemed to be on Talbott's side.
Ben was there before even Filtwick could react. He pulled her away and into his chest, it had gotten so much more broad over the summer she noticed. Now seeing the whole class was looking at her and probably wondering why she was crying. She needed a quick explanation, "mum, dad, Jacob, not deatheaters," she said through sobs in Ben's neck. Some of the girls looked sorry for her, it seemed the lie was working. She enjoyed her current position in Ben's arms to much to simply want to let go when Ben started pulling away.
He sighed then whispered "its my turn I'll be back," begrudgingly she let go. Before he left he took off his robes and wrapped them around her shoulders. It was acceptable, they were warm and they smelled like Ben. She tried halfheartedly to give the robes back after the lesson, he shook his head and loudly told her, "you know Claire I've been working on a new rumor jinx if anyone from this class was to say something they shouldn't, I would hate to see what would happen to them."
She gave Ben a soft "thanks" before they parted ways. She had to use a hover charm on Ben's robes as they were much to large and she didn't want to take them off.
Ascending the stairs to the owlery she called out, "Bagshot, come here I have a job for you." Bagshot fluttered down looking at her before giving out a screech. "Stop judging me! I'm taking care of it!" She tied the letter to the screech owl's leg before telling her to find Talbott. The owl looked back as if trying to assesses how much trouble Claire was in before deciding it wasn't worth it.
Bagshot had evidently found Talbott as he had met her in the courtyard.
"I'm sorry," she started.
To her surprise he was smiling, "You finally admitted it to yourself then,"
"Claire, tell me who's robes are you wearing?"
"I don't see how that relates,"
"Well they are gryffindor robes. So I bet all the gold in Gringotts they belong to Ben."
"It's fine Claire, you were never mine, despite how much I wanted you to be. I've seen the way you look at him and how he looks at you,"
Claire was crying now, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-I never wanted-"
Talbott gave her a quick hug, "I always knew this would happen, did he finally tell you?"
"The mirror of erised, in charms, I-" she choked out before Talbott cut her off.
"Claire," he said kissing her forehead, "promise me you'll tell him,"
"But what a what about us? And we-are we still friends?" She choked out.
"Yeah, we are. I knew before we even started dating you weren't mine. You've always been Ben's,"
"Its fine, I actually wanted to break up too."
"I do love you Claire very much. But we just aren't ment to be. I know you tried for me. It just didn't work out."
They parted ways and Claire was wondering what Talbott ment by 'did he tell you'.
