Untitled Ravenclaw Story

(c)2005 by Josh Cohen. May not be reprinted except for personal use. Harry Potter and the Potterverse are, of course, owned by JK Rowling. I\'m just playing around in her world.

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YEAR TWO, IN DECEMBER

No one was more surprised than me when one of the prettiest girls in Ravenclaw came to my alcove for assistance. No, not Penelope – although she had provided quite a few less-than-sisterly thoughts, especially for a girl who was practically my sister to begin with – but Cho Chang, the Ravenclaw Quidditch seeker.

“Can I bother you a moment?” she asked quietly, her head barely above the opening in the floor.

I fought as hard as I could to control the flush in my cheeks as I motioned her upwards. In the month since my father’s visit, I had begun to notice things about the girls with whom I associated, both in my own house and outside of it. And I had started to figure out what it was Terry was doing in the loo at all-hours.

In fact, it had started right around my thirteenth birthday – November 20 – almost immediately upon my return to Hogwarts. My parents had achieved a special dispensation to have me taken out of Hogwarts for a long weekend; we had gone to Israel, and I had been Bar Mitzvahed, a traditional ceremony in both the muggle and wizarding worlds.

Fortunately, with wizards, it’s more just a group of spells that are cast and intonations that are made on the part of the wizarding rabbi and the wizarding boy and his parents. I had spent two months learning my Torah portion – one of the Slytherin prefects was Jewish, and she had helped out at the behest of her mother, who had been close friends with my mother back in her own school days – and managed to chant my way through it without my voice breaking.

I was doing that a lot, too – digressing within my own head. It was no surprise that Cho blinked her large, expressive brown eyes at me and asked if I was all right?

“Oh, I’m fine, thanks. What’s up?”

Cho sat down at the other end of the couch, her hands clasped in her lap, a perfectly-posed position. I could feel the vibrating energy within her, the energy that made her such a sharp seeker, even from four feet away. I tried my best to ignore how nice she looked in a Ravenclaw-blue tank top and jeans.

“I know you’re the only one out of two Jewish people in Ravenclaw. I was hoping maybe you could answer something for me.”

“I can try.”

She took a deep breath, as if she was screwing up her courage. “Is it…” and it all came out in one quick breath, “is it the same as kissing Jewish wizards as it is for non?”

My eyes widened. All of a sudden, my robes were too tight around my chest. “Why do you ask?” I whispered dryly, and then swallowed.

“Well…” She blushed.

“You don’t have to say.” That I said with more confidence than I felt.

“No, no, I already brought it up.” She brought one (slender, well-shaped, dammit David, look at her eyes, not at her) leg up onto the couch as she turned to face me, and she brushed straight, fine brown hair behind her right ear. “It’s just, when I would kiss my parents goodnight, or my sister, or anyone else, I didn’t feel anything strange or different. But… you know Roger Davies?”

My stomach started to sink. He was the other Jewish person in Ravenclaw, a fourth-year chaser on the Quidditch team. I nodded slowly, affecting my very best interested expression.

“Well, after practice, we were talking, and we got closer… and he kissed me.”

“Oh. Did he?”

“Yes.” Her eyes didn’t literally mist over, but Roger Davies could be considered an attractive young man, and I could understand Cho having a bit of a crush on him. “It felt strange. Electric. As if I could feel his magic in my lips.”

I had been holding a quill when she’d come up; I picked it up off the table and tapped the blunt end against the corner of my lips while I thought. “And it only happened with Roger, you say?”

A nod.

“I don’t think it’s a Jewish thing. But I do have a thought.”

“What?”

“Have you ever kissed anyone else but Roger, outside of your family?”

“No!” She darkened slightly. “How could you even ask me that?”

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” I said quickly, backpedaling from my seated position. “I just… I think I know what you felt.”

“What is it?”

“I think you can read a power flush.”

Her face was confused, so I explained as best I could – how wizards felt it through hands, but witches through lips; how it’s harder to feel within families because their power is so similar to one’s own; how it seems impossible to describe in words. She kept making affirmative noises. “That sounds almost exactly right. Can I try an experiment?”

“What?”

“Close your eyes.”

“Excuse me?”

“Just do it, please, David. Close your eyes, and set down your quill.”

For some reason, my mind was becoming filled with what felt like cotton batting. I’m sure I knew what she had in mind, but until I felt her lips touch mine, first tentatively, then assertively, I don’t think I actually processed it.

I’d like to say my first kiss – that’s what it was, after all – was a magical moment, filled with wonderful feelings I was only beginning to experience, but that would have been a lie. Oh, it felt lovely, to be sure, but there were plenty of drawbacks.

First of all, there was the fact that Cho was using me for an experiment. Second, that I wasn’t sure if I should hug her – my parents hugged while they were kissing, and so did other students here at Hogwarts, but she was making no effort to hug me. I decided it would be best to keep my hands at my sides. Third, why were my eyes closed? I would’ve loved to see Cho’s face up close. Fourth, I was concentrating very hard on not allowing my heart to explode, it was beating so fast. Fifth, I felt myself flush hard in the cheeks, and my entire body seemed to warm from my lips on downward. Sixth, I became hyper-aware of my surroundings – the nearly-negligible weight of Cho half-leaning on me, the feel of the couch cushions under my neck and in my back and under my legs, the way one of my socks had slipped down almost into my right shoe, the warmth of the air, the scent of Cho’s shampoo and under that, the scent of her cheek near my nose. Seventh, I had no idea how long this should last – should I pull away, or should I let her control it?

But none of those stood up to the eighth drawback. For when Cho did pull away, when I did open my eyes, I saw her expression change from the satisfied half-smile she had when she’d finally mastered a difficult charm to one of sharp horror. I turned – giving myself a crick in my neck – and saw Padma, half-in and half-out of the alcove, tears brimming in the depths of her dark eyes.

And then she was gone.

“Oh, bugger.”

For the next few days, Padma did her best to avoid me. Although we usually sat near each other in classes, she would find ways to be across the room. Although we usually worked on potions or charms together, she would now do her best to partner up with Lisa or Mandy. Although we usually ate together and studied together, I now found myself on my own in my alcove. Except for the one time I discovered Cho happily snogging Roger up there – after that, I started placing minor wards on the entryway, wards that would only allow myself or Padma, should she desire it, to come through.

And she wouldn’t even look at me. I tried to get Lisa, who was probably Padma’s best female friend, to get her to talk to me, but Lisa was firmly in Padma’s court, no matter how I tried to explain what had happened. Luna was too busy in her own world to help me. Penelope understood, once I told her the whole story, but she also informed me that, as a prefect, it was best if she didn’t get involved in other students’ personal lives. I kind of understood that – Pen was known around Ravenclaw as “the cool prefect”, the one who let people get away with minor offenses like late-night rendezvous, and she probably wouldn’t want to lose that standing.

In that moment, I also understood why Da hadn’t helped Professor Snape. I didn’t put two and two together until long after this whole ordeal had become old news, but the thought was now in my mind.

I had had my first kiss. It had been a lovely experience. But I hadn’t counted on the cost of it being one of my very closest friends at Hogwarts – at all, as a matter of fact.

In desperation, I went to Hermione Granger, who pointed me in the direction of where Parvati and Lavender hung out, but the two of them ganged up on me and called me names rivaling even what we second-year guys called each other in the privacy of our dormitory.

After two weeks of this, “bugger” wasn’t a strong enough curse. And so it was that, one night, after another fruitless Thursday of trying to get Padma to at least listen to my explanation, I threw my bag onto my bed and yelled out, “fuck!”

Terry, who was just coming out of – where else? – the bathroom, gave me a surprised look. “Mate, you might want to be careful of that. Flitwick hears it and he’s going have you practicing Scourgify on your mouth.”

I flushed, but more with anger than embarrassment. “Sorry, Terry. Didn’t mean for anyone to hear that.”

“Is this about Padma?” he asked. I nodded. “David, you’ve got to let that one go. It isn’t as if there aren’t other girls in our year, or even in Ravenclaw. Just find another one?”

“Terry, this wasn’t about a girlfriend. This was just about a friend. You’re one of my two best friends here; Padma is – or was – the other. You can understand that I’m a bit ticked.”

Terry just shrugged. “Come on down to the Great Hall after dinner. Lockhart’s planning to start a Dueling Club. Maybe you can pair up with Potter and take out some aggression on him.”

It was almost a good enough thought to pull me out of my mood. Almost. I agreed, and Terry and I headed down to have dinner.

When I saw bright light suffusing the Great Hall, I knew that Professor Flitwick had been at work in here. Lockhart must have asked him to change the ceiling spell so that it continued to show sunshine, even though at this time of year the sun dropped out of sight perilously soon after five. After this much time in the man’s class, I was almost certain he wasn’t capable of casting a stone into a river, let alone changing one of Professor Flitwick’s most ambitious and impressive spells.

But still, there was Lockhart, standing on a dueling strip, dressed to the nines in robes I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing. Terry and I were in the middle of a pack of other Ravenclaw – I had hit my first growth spurt running this year, and was already close to five-foot-seven, taller than Mum, while Terry was still at the start of his, and barely topped out at five-four. But it was better, we reasoned, that Lockhart not see us. Enough recalcitrance on my part in Defense Against the Dark Arts had cured him of wanting to use me in his little reenactments, but it would be madness to tempt fate, especially in front of all of these people, especially since my mood was so black that I’d be tempted to do something to the preening Professor that might get me kicked out of Hogwarts for the rest of the year – or for good.

But it was all right, because Lockhart spied Potter and invited him onto the strip. Professor Snape, who was helping Lockhart – or so Lockhart said; the expression on Snape’s face, had it been a flame-casting spell, would have melted Lockhart into a puddle of ectoplasm – suggested that Draco Malfoy face him.

I was impressed at the power Potter showed, as well as the finesse with which Malfoy moved. But I had seen a Wizard’s Duel – a sparring match, anyway – between my father and a young Auror he’d been tutoring, and while her spellwork had been as good as Potter’s, her movements had been even more refined than Malfoy’s.

“I can’t believe this,” I whispered to Terry as one of Potter’s spells knocked Malfoy onto his ass. “Lockhart didn’t even teach them stances!”

“Should you be surprised, mate?”

“I guess not.” I was about to say something else, but then Malfoy fired a snake at Potter. Lockhart cast a spell at it that bounced it into the air, but didn’t stop it as it went after a Hufflepuff – Justin something; I didn’t remember his last name, only that he’d chosen Hogwarts over Eton, and only that because he kept repeating it, over and over. I was sorely tempted to pull out my own wand, but Professor Snape – even in my mind, he was always “Professor” – cut off Potter’s attempt at Parseltongue and disintegrated it.

The Dueling Club broke up shortly after that. It never reformed.

December 18 was the last day of term. About seventy percent of those going home for the holidays were picked up that night; the rest of the students, including myself, Penelope, and Luna, who were all going back with Luna’s father, would leave on Saturday morning. Of the other second-year girls, only Padma hadn’t yet left. Mandy had gone to visit relatives in America, she’d said; I’d asked her to bring me back a t-shirt, and given her two Galleons (about ten pounds) to take along. Lisa and Isabel and Sally-Anne hadn’t told me what they were doing.

Meanwhile, I had a use for the rest of my pocket money. In every house there’s someone who can get things done that probably oughtn’t to be. In Gryffindor, it was Fred and George Weasley. In Hufflepuff, there was Gavin Bones, Susan Bones’s older brother, in sixth year. In Slytherin, I’m sure there was someone, but no one knew who.

So it was with no small amount of worry in my stomach that I went to find Leonard Scott.

It wasn’t like he made it difficult to find him. He was in an alcove about two-thirds of the way up the wall, feet up on a settee, reading what was ostensibly Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, although rumor had it there was a copy of a muggle pornography magazine concealed in most of his textbooks. His mates must have been off causing mischief, because he was alone. I tapped on the wall.

“Yes?” He closed the book and set it aside. “What do you want?”

Leonard was a half-blood like me, but that was where the similarities ended. He was Scottish, from Aberdeen, with thick red hair and sharp green eyes. He was built rather like a Quidditch chaser, although he’d left the team last year when he hadn’t been named captain. His voice had a burr in it that came and went, depending upon how he was feeling. Right now, it was very mild.

“I don’t know if you know who I am…”

“David Goldman. Second year.”

“Oh. Right then.” I ducked into the alcove and pointed at a chair; Leonard made an offhand motion, so I sat carefully in it. “I hear you can… um… how shall I put this?”

“Out with it, Goldman. What do you need me to do? And what’s in it for me?”

“Um. All right then.” I gave him a thumbnail sketch of my troubles with Padma, about how I needed to find a way to get her to listen to me. “I can pay,” I said, but he shook his head.

“No, no, I have a little something else in mind. Perhaps you can help me as well.”

I’ve never seen a Disillusionment Cloak, although I’d heard of them. They weren’t quite as rare as Invisibility Cloaks, but they were… well… about as common as the ability to feel a power flush. Leonard had brought me to his room and given me his cloak – it even had a hood, so I wouldn’t have to hold it over my head – along with a round disc of mirror material. “What’s this for?”

“Never you mind,” he said. “Just remember the deal. You put this up in the Seventh-Year dorm room, near the door to the bathroom, and drop a shred of the cloak over it. If it works, I’ll let you know. If it doesn’t, I’ll be expecting those Galleons when we come back from Break.”

“Understood.”

“And make sure to avoid any stair with red trim at the corners; you’ll find yourself spit out into the common room, and if you get my cloak confiscated, I will personally make my last six months at Hogwarts hell for you.”

I gulped, then nodded.

“All right, then, off with you. You know what to do.”

It was easy enough to get into the bathroom between the Prefects’ rooms. Pen had told me about a huge Prefects’ Bath, but this was just a room with a shower, a loo, and a sink that the four prefects used as needed. Each Prefects’ quarters had a private sink and vanity in it, and of course if the loo was in use they could go to their old dorm and use one there, but it was convenient to have something not being befouled by so many others.

Leonard must have made some sort of deal with Robert Towns, the Ravenclaw Prefect who hadn’t yet left, because Robert let me in without difficulty. I kept the cloak on and simply waited until the door to the girls’ side opened. I slipped past Penelope as fast as I could, conspicuously ignoring the fact that she was wearing a nightgown with very thin shoulder straps, made of a very shimmery violet material, and found myself in her room. It looked very much the same as the last time I’d been there – with a male Prefect escorting, a male student may enter a female Prefect’s room; I guess that was some sort of propriety rule that I didn’t understand.

It was equally as easy to get out into the angled stairwell that led to the rest of the girls’ dormitories. At the top, across the hall from Pen’s room, was the Seventh-Year dorm. Only two seventh-years hadn’t gone home yet, both of them girls, but I knew both of them were still in the common room. I ducked into their room and found the door to the bathroom, subconsciously noting the fact that, except for the colors of the bedsheets and the clothing scattered about and some of the posters on the walls, it looked pretty much just like the boys’ dorm. I pulled out the small mirror and placed it just below a small announcement board, a quick Sticking Charm – something I was particularly good at – affixing it and the bit of Disillusionment Cloak in place.

In hightailing it out of there before the girls came back, I very nearly hit one of the red-trimmed steps. Fortunately, the railing was able to hold my weight.

Staying out of the way of the few girls moving among the corridors, I found my way to the Second-Year dorm and knocked gently at the door. I figured it would be best to make sure Padma knew I was coming – or, at least, that someone was coming.

She opened the door – I’m very glad she was wearing jeans and a sweater; this would have been much more difficult had she been in nightclothes – and when she stepped out to look around, I slipped in and placed a note on the one bed that wasn’t made.

I watched her lips move as she read what I’d written:

Padma,

I want to apologize for what happened between me and Cho.

That was as far as she got. She crushed the note in her left hand and pulled her wand with her right. I took out my own wand and walked closer to her bed. While she was turned away, I slid another note out of my sleeve, and when she turned around, she picked it up.

Padma,

Please listen. It’s not what you think. I don’t even like Cho that much.

Now she was getting worried. I could see a vein in her neck flutter.

I had one last note. If she crushed this one, I was getting the hell out.

Padma,

I wish my first kiss had been with you.

This one she finished reading.

Padma,

I wish my first kiss had been with you. When Cho came up to the alcove, she wanted to ask me about kissing Jewish wizards. She has a thing with Roger Davies. I’m sure you know. She said she felt a spark. I figured out it was a power flush. I guess she wanted to know for sure. She kissed me. I felt her feel it.

My sentence construction skills had grown worse as I’d written each note; by the time I’d gotten to this one, the words were pouring out of me.

I wish you hadn’t seen it. I wish it hadn’t happened. I wish a lot of things, but mostly I wish you were still my friend. I miss you.

She touched the letter gently, and I swear I saw mist come across her eyes.

Please don’t let this be the end of our friendship.

David

PS: Leonard Scott found me a way into this side of the dorms. I’m in the room right now. Please don’t scream.

Nonetheless, she yelped and jumped to her feet, pointing her wand in different directions. “David, where are you?”

“Right here,” I said as I skipped five feet to the right.

She walked forward, through the place where I had been, and bumped into the next bed over. “I won’t scream. I won’t tell. Just show yourself, please?”

“It might be best if I don’t.” Another move, this time about ten feet, toward the bathroom door. “I probably should go back out into the common room and wait for you in our alcove.” She was starting to figure it out; I stepped once to the right, then twice forward, like a knight in chess. “I’ll see you downstairs in five minutes.”

She very nearly caught me, but I managed to get out of there and avoid the red-trimmed steps as I got to the common room door. Luna almost broke my cover, but I jumped to the side just in time. She looked as though she felt something go by, but by the time she closed the door behind her, I was already on the stairs that led to the ladder that led to my alcove.

“Hello?” Padma’s voice was soft as she climbed up through the opening in the floor. I know she must have felt the wards I’d placed on it; there’s a characteristic tingle most wizards and witches feel when they pass through a ward that’s designed to allow them through. “David?”

I had been sitting on the couch in my usual position; I kept the cloak on and said, “I’m right here, right as usual.”

She squinted, and suddenly broke into a smile. I knew she could see me, so I pulled the cloak off and handed it to her as she moved toward the couch. “But I knew you were in my dorm room. How come I couldn’t see through the cloak then?”

“You were probably too worried,” I said. “You knew I was there; you could hear me. But you didn’t know how I was there, and you were worried that something bad might be happening. So you couldn’t concentrate.” I was speculating, but it sounded good.

It sounded better that she agreed. She sat at the other end of the couch, drawing her knees up. She was wearing white socks with some sort of abstract black pattern on them. “So, tell me everything. From your mouth, this time, not from the letter.”

So I did. I gave her as full an explanation as I could. Some of it she knew, especially the parts where I badgered everyone she knew to try and get her to listen to me.

“That’s my fault, David. I’m sorry.”

“What for? You had every right to be angry.”

“I know,” she said, “but we’ve been friends for more than a year. I should have at least listened to what you had to say.”

“Please forgive me if this sounds harsh, but why didn’t you?”

I had become quite adept at figuring out when she was blushing. “I… um…”

I waited.

“I was jealous.”

?

We sat in silence for about a minute. “David, I want to ask you something, and I want you to be as truthful as possible about it. Give me your very first impression, okay?”

“All right.”

“Would you like to kiss me?”

To compare my kiss with Cho to my kiss with Padma, let me use this analogy: kissing Cho was like a warm summer day, one where the sun was out, and there was a gentle breeze.

Kissing Padma was like being inside the sun itself.

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Year Two will continue.

Beyond the obvious, if you\'re curious as to why Leonard wanted David to put up that mirror in the Seventh-Year dorm, you might want to check out Harry Potter and the Secret Nurse (URL: http://adultfan.nexcess.net/aff/story.php?no=30550), by Jackalman. Not only is it laugh-out-loud funny in many places, but the story is excellent too. Definitely porn WITH plot. Although my story will take the characters in very different directions than Jackalman does, I really liked the mirror thing, so I borrowed it. (Could this be an instance of fanfic of fanfic?)

Astute Star Trek fans might recognize the name Leonard Scott, as well.

Additional author\'s note: in Jewish tradition, the Bar Mitzvah was intended to let the world know that \"today, I am a man\". I figure that, with Jewish wizards (and witches, who would have a Bat Mitzvah), the spells cast by the wizarding rabbi would kick puberty into high gear. After all, David does note that he\'s finished his first growth spurt in December, after his Bar Mitzvah.

I\'ve been using two different websites to get the dates for what\'s going on. One of them is the HP Lexicon (www.hp-lexicon.org) and the other is www.urbangeek.net. I\'ve used Veritaserum (www.veritaserum.com) for character names. I may go back and make some edits if I can find everything I need on HP Lexicon. I\'ll keep you posted.