Hogwarts: The Legacy

(c)2005 by Josh Cohen. May not be reprinted, except for personal use. The Potterverse was created by JK Rowling, and remains her property. I\'m just borrowing it for a little while.

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SIXTEEN: DISCUSSIONS

Warning: contains no explicit sex.

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Jason left the locker room, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Mr Weasley was waiting across the way, in the equipment room. “I was beginning to worry,” he said genially, extending a hand.

Jason passed him the bag. “I was just... um... in the loo.”

“Thanks so much for sharing that.”

“You’re more than welcome, sir.”

Mr Weasley cast a levitation spell on the bag and sent it to one of twenty-eight cubbyholes on the wall; thirteen were already home to Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw gear, and Jason’s made it fourteen. Every year after the season was over, the flight instructor was charged with maintaining the armor, bats, and balls, ensuring that everything was in prime working order for the next year. “So, looks like you’ve got a good shot at winning the cup. You tried out in the right year for it.”

“Thanks.” Jason watched as Mr Weasley brought down the metal door protecting the Quidditch gear and then spelled it locked. He nox’d the equipment room’s lights and headed out. Jason followed him. “You used to play Quidditch at Hogwarts, right?”

Mr Weasley nodded. “Keeper in fifth, sixth, and seventh years.”

“Did you win a cup in your first year?”

“Yeah.” They climbed the steps out of the staging area and started up the path to the castle. “Best game of my life was when we beat Ravenclaw for the final and the Cup.”

Jason carefully kept his face neutral. “Why didn’t you try out earlier?”

“Well,” Mr Weasley said, “I didn’t really feel I could be a good chaser, my brothers were already beaters, and Harry Potter was the seeker. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”

“Yes.”

Mr Weasley took a moment to compose himself; it was common knowledge that he and Harry Potter had been best friends, and Jason knew that while his father hadn’t been a huge fan of Harry, he’d at least respected him. He’d tried not to let that color his impressions of The Boy Who Lived during History of Magic lectures. “Well, there was no Quidditch in my fourth year because of the TriWizard Tournament, or I would’ve tried out then. In fifth year, with Oliver Wood gone to Puddlemere United, I decided I should try for keeper, since no one else seemed much interested.”

Jason and Mr Weasley walked the rest of the way to the castle, talking Quidditch, and separated at the main entrance. Jason climbed the stairs to the Ravenclaw portrait entrance

The party was in full swing. Someone noticed that Jason had arrived and another cheer went round the room. Someone pressed a butterbeer into his hand – like pumpkin juice, Jason had never quite gotten into the stuff – and the moment whoever that was moved away, he set it down on a table.

Jason headed toward the stairs that would take him up to his alcove, but Lisa DeMarco stopped him and put her arm across his shoulders. “Oh, no, you’re not getting away this time,” she said, her voice slightly slurred. “Come on, stay with us!” She directed him to a second-level conversation pit on the far side of the common area and pushed him down onto one of the couches. Andrew was sitting in an easy chair, Amber Locksley on his lap – evidently, they weren’t hiding anything anymore – and Marianne and Wesley were snogging on the other couch. Fabian was leaning on the railing, arms folded, smiling at something one of the fifth year Quidditch groupies had said to him – Jason had his suspicions that Fabian was actually sixteen, not fifteen, and had started Hogwarts late; his teammate was just too sophisticated.

Lisa plunked herself down on the couch, her thigh pressed against Jason’s. He looked sidelong at her eyes and realized she was drunk. It was the overlarge pupils that gave it away. He adjusted his position to make things easier on his still-aching crotch – Francesca, who was drinking from a bottle of something that decidedly wasn’t butterbeer, gave him a sharp look that sent a pang through his lower body – and also to move his leg away from Lisa.

Lisa pressed a short glass of what smelled like medicinal whiskey into his hand. “Come on,” she said, “drink it! We’re favorites to take the Cup!”

He sniffed it again, then sipped it.

“There you go,” Lisa said, leaning back and opening her mouth. Dana McCullough poured a shot of something between her lips, and Jason took that opportunity to spit out the foul-tasting liquor and hand it off to someone he thought was a sixth year but wasn’t too terribly sure about it. It didn’t matter; the other boy drank it down and broke into a coughing fit. Some of his friends led him away.

Lisa kept her head tilted back; Dana leaned over and pressed her lips to Lisa’s, and the resulting “wooooo” was almost louder than the cheers at the match. While everyone else was watching the two seventh years kiss each other, Jason looked upward.

Caroline was standing at the railing in the alcove, her hands on the wooden bar at the top. He couldn’t quite make out the expression on her face, but he had a feeling she wasn’t thrilled. She was probably waiting for him.

He tried to get up, but Lisa reached over and grabbed his thigh, holding him down as best she could with a mouthful of McCullough. She separated. “Where the hell d’you think you’re going?”

“Got a girl,” he said, trying to sound as bawdy as the rest of them. “Gonna try and find her.”

“Well, that’s different.” Lisa let go of his leg and snaked her arm around McCullough’s back; their renewed kissing was met with renewed “woo”ing, and when McCullough reached down the front of Lisa’s shirt, Jason realized he had his opportunity. He snuck out – Fabian caught his eye and nodded; Jason had a feeling the keeper wasn’t very approving of this little show either – and took the stairs down to the common room floor two-at-a-time.

But by the time Jason managed to wend his way through the people on the ground level and make his way up to the top of the common area, Caroline was already gone.

“Bugger,” he said quietly.

“Bugger what?” Jason turned around; Colleen O’Toole was just poking her head up through the opening in the floor. She pulled herself up the rest of the way. Colleen was a sixth year who had a bit of a reputation when it came to Quidditch players. “What’re you doing up here, all alone?”

Jason peered at her. She was unsteady on her feet; it would be far too unsafe for her to be this high off the ground. “Colleen, you’re drunk.”

“Damn right.” Her pale skin was flushed; her black hair was mussed, as was her makeup. “Does it matter?”

“A bit.” Jason tried to steer her back toward the opening in the floor, but she slipped and pitched sideways. Her left hand grabbed his shirt and yanked him down with her, and they fell onto the couch together.

“Hi there.” Her eyes were bluer than Christopher’s, and up close he could count the freckles across her nose and the tops of her cheeks. She reached out and ran her fingers through Jason’s hair. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Jason froze.

Colleen took that opportunity to lean in and kiss him. He was so shocked that when her tongue pressed against his lips, he didn’t even offer token resistance.

At least, not for a couple of seconds. Then he realized where he was and who he was with and put his hand on her shoulder, pushing gently. Her hand tried to find purchase in the short hair at the back of his head, but there was none there, and they separated with a pop.

“Jason?”

That was strange. It sounded as though two people were saying his name.

He looked up. Caroline was standing by the opening.

“Oh, hell.”

She dropped back down the ladder like it was a greased chute; Jason got to his feet and scrambled after her.

“Hey...” Colleen protested.

Jason didn’t care.

He finally caught up with Caroline a couple of levels down and tried to get her shoulder, tried to stop her. She spun out of the way, long skirt flaring around her calves. “Do you have a relationship with that girl?” she asked, snapping off each word.

“What? Colleen? Are you mental?”

“She apparently has designs on you!”

“Designs?” Jason shook his head, as if to clear it. “Caroline, what the bloody hell are you getting at?”

“She was kissing you, Jason!” Caroline’s normally-even voice was rising. “What was that about?”

“What? Colleen?” He laughed, but stopped abruptly when he realized that Caroline wasn’t amused. “Caroline, she’ll go skirts-up for any Quidditch player who gives her a second look.”

“You obviously did.”

“No, I didn’t.” Jason sighed. “Look, Caroline, I came up to find you, and you were gone.”

“I’d gone to try and intercept you on the ground floor. At least when your teammate put her hand on your leg you had the decency to try and get away.”

“Lisa? Caroline, she doesn’t like boys like that.”

That stopped her. “Excuse me?”

“Lisa prefers the company of women. You might have seen her with Dana? That’s her girlfriend.”

“Oh.” Somewhat mollified and more than a bit surprised, Caroline found her way to a chair.

“Caroline, I swear, I wouldn’t have anything to do with Colleen. Not that way. She’s just drunk and looking to get it on with a Quidditch player. I don’t think I can keep track of how many boys she’s bedded.”

“That’s...” Caroline’s pale skin took on a slightly-green tinge. “That’s disgusting.”

“A little.”

“And you kissed her?”

“No!” Jason dropped into the chair opposite Caroline. “She fell, she grabbed me, I fell, and then she kissed me. I was so shocked that I couldn’t stop her for a few seconds. But then I did. You noticed that as well, I hope.”

Caroline replayed the scene in her mind – she didn’t have an eidetic memory, but she paid extraordinarily-close attention to details. “Yes, I noticed. My apologies.”

“It’s all right. Besides, I was thinking more about what you said before the match.”

“What?” Caroline’s face flushed, a fine shade of pink going straight to her elegant cheekbones and the tips of her ears.

“What you said. That you cared for me, and that you wanted to kiss me at some point. That was quite a revelation.”

“Indeed.”

Jason looked at Caroline, taking in her worried expression. “You don’t have to, if you don’t want to. I wouldn’t blame you, either; Colleen tasted like firewhiskey and hashish.”

She smiled, ever so slightly. “I still do want to kiss you,” she said. “But perhaps you could brush your teeth first? Several times?”

He held her eyes until she broke, her restrained laughter like a series of small bells in his ears. And he laughed too.

Dina Patil had been on her way up to the alcove when she heard what Caroline said. She’d seen Colleen O’Toole go up, and it had taken her a few minutes to politely disengage from her conversation with a couple of the fourth year girls and her roommate Margot.

Her ears grew hot as she turned around and walked slowly down the stairs. Fabian Fyreton was the first person she saw. “Could you come with me for a moment?” she asked politely. Fabian, who was much less drunk than he appeared to be at first glance, shrugged and trailed after her, his eyes on her narrow hips as she went up the staircase above the fireplace. There was another conversation pit up there, this one known colloquially as ‘Lover’s Lane’. It was a place where couples went to snog when they didn’t want to think about what they were doing.

Dina gestured Fabian to a two-seat couch, and sat down a moment after he did.

Then, to his complete surprise, she took his face in her hands and pressed her cool, thin lips to his.

It only took him a moment to let one arm go around Dina’s small waist and take control of the kiss.

Alarm bells were ringing in Dina’s mind. She was kissing a boy – a Quidditch boy, no less; she was nothing more than a groupie – and that boy wasn’t Jason. She’d rejected Jason’s kiss, and here she was with someone she barely knew.

The alarm bells were gradually silenced when she realized that it felt good.

But a quarter-hour later, when Fabian begged off to use the loo, leaving Dina alone on the couch, she realized that it hadn’t been Fabian she wanted to kiss. It had been Jason.

And she’d gone and made a mess of it.

Caroline was sitting on the edge of Jason’s bed, looking at the family portrait he had on his nightstand. He looked so much like his father – tall, with the same style of dark hair. But his nose was smaller and straighter, like his mother’s. She’d read that boys preferred girls who reminded them of their mothers, but Jason’s mother appeared to be short and full-figured, more like Alison than Caroline. Perhaps having Alison as a friend was enough to satisfy that requirement.

Jason stepped out of the bathroom and crossed the dormitory room, sitting on the bed next to Caroline. “Three times,” he said, smiling widely enough to show his teeth. “I’ll be tasting mint at meals for the next week, I’ll wager.”

Caroline smiled shyly back at him. “I have to ask how this is done,” she said quietly. “I’ve never...”

When she didn’t appear willing to speak, Jason picked up the thread. “You’ve never kissed a boy before?” Caroline shook her head. “It’s not all that difficult. Have you kissed anyone?”

“No. My grandfather preferred hugging, and I don’t think I know my parents well enough. Although my father has kissed my cheek a few times.”

That concept was totally foreign to Jason; his father was Jewish, and demonstrative with his feelings, and his mother was American, which made her even more so. “Well, I could try to teach you.”

“That might be best.”

Jason placed one hand on the bedspread, about six inches behind Caroline, and leaned forward.

She leaned back.

“What’s the matter?” Jason asked.

“It looks strange, that’s all. Like a frosted biscuit being aimed at my lips.”

Jason let out a bark of laughter; Caroline smiled. “You could close your eyes.”

“But then how would I learn?”

He sighed. “Caroline, are you sure you’re ready for this?”

“I think I am.”

Jason leaned back and put his hands in his lap. “I pushed too hard with someone else I cared about, and that ended the relationship. I don’t want to do something that would make you not want to be around me.”

Caroline knew what he was talking about; Dina had related the story in whispers to Alison when she thought Caroline was asleep. But Caroline hadn’t been. Still, it wasn’t the kind of thing she felt like bringing up.

Instead, she leaned forward and pressed her lips against Jason’s.

The sensation was peculiar, to say the least. His lips were warm, and soft as well, but not as soft as she knew hers were. There was the flavor of mint that he’d complained about. His exhaled breath was warm on her cheek, the tip of his nose touching her face. And she felt, through his lips, that his heart was beating faster now.

There was a subtle shift in his face, and he seemed to soften. She tried to soften as well, relaxing her lips.

That felt pleasant. She pulled away, sitting back down on the bedspread, and said so.

“Pleasant?”

Caroline nodded. “Interesting. Warm, also.”

Jason raised his eyebrows.

“Have I said something wrong?”

“No,” he said, “but that’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone describe what a kiss felt like, instead of what it made her feel like.”

“Ah.” Caroline thought about that. “It made me feel... a little uncomfortable, from the way I was positioned.”

“I meant on the inside.” He was smiling now.

She smiled back. “I was fairly certain of that.” She paused to think, then said, “it made me feel like there was more to us than just friendship. Like the touch was a promise of something else.”

Now Jason swallowed. Hard.

“What is it?”

“I’ve never heard anyone say it quite like that before.”

“Was it bad?”

“No, no, you said it beautifully.”

“I meant the kiss,” she said. “Did I do it properly?”

Jason leaned toward her. This time, she didn’t back away.

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Notes: This -- and all chapters until I say otherwise -- were written pre-HBP. So they\'re obviously AU.

My first kiss was awkward as well. There was this girl, and we liked each other, and every time we went in for a kiss, we\'d both chicken out and end up bumping heads together, and then we\'d laugh about it. We eventually did end up kissing -- four times, just long presses of lips to lips. It wasn\'t until later dates that we explored the idea of using tongues. We stayed together for four months. I was fifteen. Later in life, she ended up dating my friend MS, and while I was driving somewhere with MS one day, he put two and two together and realized I was the Josh that the girl had been talking about all the time.

That was gratifying.