Apologies to Hannah17 – stupid photobucket deleted the banner you made for me!
A/N: It is currently 3.17 am and I wasn’t exactly sure what to do…
It's my One Year HPFF Anniversary on 4th April so drop me a line!
Warning: Substance use/abuse of something
Certain boys suck okay. If you have doubts about them just steer clear and save yourself from a broken heart – My advice.
Ella:
I considered that sitting on your rooftop with a bottle of fire whisky was perhaps the best way to spend your Christmas evening.
No family, no friends, no worries – just the sweet bliss of an alcoholic beverage and the night sky.
Although perhaps it would have helped if I’d drunk alcohol before….it might’ve dispelled the fact I got drunk after only three sips from the bottle.
Buurrrrrrrppppp!
Oops.
Giggling quietly to myself, upon my perch on the flat roof next to my bedroom, I laughed at the noise I made and the dizzy feeling going on in my head. It was like my head had been filled with that stuff….um, you know what I mean….that er….squeaky stuff that makes your voice gassy….
Er…no I meant that gassy stuff that makes your voice squeaky.
Never mind, you get the gist of it.
I’m obviously a very intelligent drunk.
Nodding to myself as I digested this and took a swig from the bottle again, I thought quite happily that drunkenness suited me quite well. I could become the new fashion model for being drunk, strutting down the cat walk and tripping over my heels, supporting a light headed feeling all others would crave and a happy drunken smile that people would try and recreate at home.
Oh dear lord am I wasted.
Blinking heavily and squinting through the darkness I regarded how much alcohol was left in the bottle; around half if my eyesight wasn’t tricking me again. Not bad, I nodded smugly to myself, not bad at all. Not only was I an intelligent drunk, it proved I was a pretty cheap one as well having only gotten wasted over a very small amount.
But at least being drunk helped me block out the pain and suffering….
My step-mother was pregnant! Of all the things that my mind could have concocted that was the one I’d never come up with. She was oldish, far too happy with her figure and the thought of her and my father doing ‘it’ was enough to make me want to bang my head against a wall until these thoughts were driven from it.
A kid was the last thing I’d expected.
I mean come on…my father was getting on quite a bit and Artemis was no spring chicken. My father had only produced one kid in seventeen years and I was really nothing special so the thought of another Finster on the way didn’t really fill me with happiness or optimism. It meant another kid who would hate me and wish I didn’t exist.
Another Finster to bully me.
An heir to the family fortune that wouldn’t be considered a black sheep.
Perhaps a little drink wouldn’t do too much harm.
What had happened to really good songs that you could just click your fingers to? As if to demonstrate the fact I launched into a sloppy rendition of one of my favourite Queen records, clicking a little out of time to the beat of the drums. Did alcohol make you appreciate music more or something – it would explain the whole gigs and drunken louts strerereretypeoc….um….sterelope…..
What was that word?
Shaking my head and deciding that for once the English language wasn’t important I looked up into the night sky and wondered when everything had gone so wrong?
Or when it had ever gone right?
Katya:
It is hard to comprehend the situation when you are an outsider in the whole scheme of things. I felt like someone looking through a window rather than an actual partaker in activities. One of those moments you know, when you seem to block out all the sound around you and just lose focus for a few seconds.
That meal didn’t reveal a lot that I didn’t already know if I’m honest. I suppose I should have acted surprised or even hurt and disgusted that my boyfriend had dated my step-sister already but in all actuality that was old news to me. Do you really think darling Jaz wouldn’t have told me the moment she found out about it all?
Do you really think I didn’t know all the ins and outs of it….that I hadn’t been involved in the intricate scheme of things?
This was Jaz after all - who else had to do the dirty work for her?
People think I don’t notice things, that I’m just another blonde bimbo like my sister is.
People take one look at me and assume that I have no brain cells, that I’m easy and that I just bow down to Jaz’s whims.
People shouldn’t assume these things.
Just because I don’t go out of my way to dispel these accusations doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s going on. I understand far more than people will actually give me credit for and I know exactly what was going on right then.
My mother’s announcement provided suitable distraction at lunch, taking all the attention away from the secrets that were spilling out of every crevice and that had placed the spotlight on the future of my relationship with Billy. I don’t like to think deeply about my relationship with Billy because the more I analyse its foundation the more cracks I find in its support. I knew he was a liar, a cheater, a ladies man…..but that didn’t stop me yearning for him. When you have gone your whole life in the shadow of your older, prettier sister the person that tells you, you are the centre of the world is someone that is hard to get rid of. The person that whispers sweet nothings in your ear becomes a lifeline and however much you pledge to cut yourself free, to become something better and stop degrading yourself you can’t because he is your source of life.
Life is a bit warped hey?
Hearing crunching on the gravel beside me, I was tempted to turn around and see who was coming up behind me but I kind of already knew. I was enjoying looking up at the stars and I wasn’t about to stop that for anyone.
“What are you thinking about?” Billy wrapped his arm around my waist and nuzzled my neck in a way he thought was vaguely couple like.
“Hmm,” I muttered distractedly. “Oh nothing in particular, just everything that came out at lunch I guess.”
“You don’t have anything to worry about there KitKat,” he mumbled his petname for me against my neck. “You’ll always be my number one girl.”
Had he said that to Ella?
Had he said that to the scores of girls that had come before me?
“I know,” I nodded, gazing at the night sky. The stars were so pretty tonight….it was interesting that these little balls of fire that were millions and millions of miles away could supposedly control our future. What future had they planned out for me?
“Ella was nothing to me, I just felt sorry for her what with her obvious crush on me and I thought I’d do the poor girl a favour,” Billy continued, massaging my hips in a way that he thought was vaguely romantic and would incite passion in me.
“Hmm,” I replied absentmindedly, following the movement of a shooting star with my gaze.
That was surely meant to signify something right?
Wood:
Watching your girlfriend’s step-sister dancing drunkenly on a rooftop, singing about something biting the dust was an unusual way to spend a Christmas. Not my strangest Christmas ever mind, but definitely in the top five at the very least.
After the er….’debacle’ that was the Christmas dinner, a strange feeling had settled over the entire house, ranging from happiness to depression. After Mrs Finster’s unconventional announcement over the turkey, the interrogation of Mary MacDonald by most of the family and what can only be described as the provoking and bullying of the admittedly annoying Ella Finster, the house had settled down again and currently most of the guests were dozing drowsily, trying to relax after the upheaval of lunch.
And I…well I had decided to forgo my bed and hunt down the Finster that had mysteriously disappeared after causing most of the trouble in the first place.
She had a few questions to answer before I let her disappear….
Why had she dated that scumbag McGuiness in the first place? She was far too good for him – how had someone with an IQ so superior to everyone else’s managed to do something so monumentally stupid? I guess even the most intelligent people can have relapses occasionally.
But really why him of all people?
I had always assumed that good old Freckles was asexual and had never even held a guys hand let alone dated one. What with her habit of screaming obscenities, falling over her own feet and generally hating the rest of the world I had doubted that any guy would have been able to get through her defensive lair and I had doubted even less that she’d want them to. I had heard rumours that she was a closet lesbian but even I had dismissed those, knowing that her eyes did stray a little too much over Cedric Diggory and his muscles.
The tosspot.
Diggory I mean….Ella was….well she was something else. I just hadn’t figured out what yet.
That was another question that had yet to be answered about her and as far as I was beginning to realise there were far too many already. Just why McGuiness of all people? I had much preferred to have thought of her a spinster that never dated anyone….this revelation had just opened up a whole side of Ella I really wished didn’t exist. Did this mean she had lied about other parts of her life as well?
But, I admitted wearily to myself as I surveyed her dancing with a bottle in her hand, I wasn’t exactly her friend, so she was really under no obligation to tell me anything. That thought in turn led me to another even more terrifying thought….why did I want to know about it all anyway? She was just some girl I’d been thrown together with….it wasn’t as if we were close….so why did I want to know the personal details of her life?
No Wood, don’t go there. Your brain can’t deal with too many questions right now.
“Do be do be do be do be do,” she had changed her song and was now creating one of her own, lyrics not being that important obviously. “Just a little bit do ne ke li do be do,” she did some sort of hip wiggle that would have been absolutely hilarious….
If she hadn’t nearly fallen off the roof just then.
Oh shit was she about to jump?
Feeling something heavy drop into the pit of my stomach, I made to leap forward only for her to commence dancing again…
Whoa is she a nutcase.
Shaking my head and rolling my eyes I wondered what I was going to do. It wasn’t as if we were on such good terms that I could just approach her and ask her all my questions outright…I needed an inroad before I started the Spanish Inquisition.
“Wood can you stop staring at me,” she called as she spun around in a dizzy circle, sounding like she was about to throw up.
Well I guess that any planning I had been about to initiate had been thrown out of the window once again by this infuriating girl. Really, if you ever have plans to take over the world make sure Ella Finster isn’t around to ruin them.
“I wasn’t staring,” I came out of the shadows as she took another swig from her bottle, “I was merely wondering why you were dancing around on the roof at midnight.”
“Because it’s better than dancing around in the basement,” she slurred, tipping her head back as she executed another spin. How had the girl not thrown up yet?
“Ella can you stop spinning for a second please?” I queried, sighing as I had to stop her from going over the edge. Couldn’t she have chosen somewhere better to have her drunken crisis?
“The world is spinning every second of the day, life is spinning out of control, Ella Finster is spinning into more trouble,” she said, almost chant like, alcohol obviously having affected her usual overly analytical logic.
She broke away from my hold and proceeded to spin in dizzy circles across the shingles. Her steps were messy, her arms were flailing but she was laughing and smiling like I’d never seen her do before. The sight of this mad, annoying, pessimistic creature doing some strange dance moves couldn’t help but tug a smile onto my features.
Not that I’d ever let her know that of course.
“What are you even doing here anyway?” she stopped suddenly and regarded me through rather narrowed, if unfocused eyes. “Why aren’t you off shacking up with Jasmine, aqa the dominatrix?”
“Because,” I sighed, not really knowing the answer myself, “I’m here talking to you.”
“Did someone send you here to check on me,” she pointed a finger accusingly at me. “It was Artemis wasn’t it? She wanted you to drag me back to her so she could gloat at me again!”
“It wasn’t Artemis.”
“My father then, come to lecture me. Or my Grandmother wanting to point out my flaws again-“
“Ella no one but me knows you’re up here,” I muttered, growing annoyed.
“So why are you here?” she questioned again. “Surely it’s not to spend sometime with me and my wonderful personality?”
“You got that right,” I sighed. I seemed to be doing that a lot today…sighing that is. Perhaps I was growing far too weary of all this excitement. “I’m here because right now I have nothing better to do and someone needed to make sure you didn’t jump off the roof.”
“I wasn’t about to jump off the roof,” she muttered sarcastically, pulling a drunken face at me. “I’m scared of heights.”
Yeah….figure out that logic. I wonder if, when she wasn’t drunk tomorrow, she’d look back on this and realise her answer was possibly the most stupid thing in the history of stupid things.
But I wasn’t about to point it out to her now…let’s her figure that out for herself.
By the time my brain had processed her comment, shaken it off and realised just how stupid it was, she had refrained from dancing and was now lying stretched out along a flat part of the roof.
“Ella if it’s not too impolite to ask,” I scratched my head in confusion, “what the hell are you doing then?”
“Stargazing,” came the reply.
“I know I like to point out the obvious and everything but your stargazing has one tiny flaw to it,” I sighed and shook my head at her.
“What?” she shrugged, screwing up her nose in confusion.
“Your eyes are closed.”
She opened one eye and glared at me angrily and a little dozily.
“I wasn’t looking at those stars you salmonella sandwich, I was looking at the ones in my head,” and with that brilliant insult she closed her eyes again and snuggled contentedly back into her previous position.
The girl really needed some help; I shook my head and rolled my eyes before deciding the best course of action would be to join her on the roof. Resting my arms on my knees I gave her a cursory glance and couldn’t help but feel the urge to scoff. This nutcase who believed various forms of food were fitting insults, who got into far too many scrapes and who had really bad taste in guys…..why the hell was I sat with her rather than with my incredibly gorgeous girlfriend?
Oh yeah, because I was just as insane as freckles here.
Just downstairs was a very hot, sexually active girl that wished to jump my bones and perform many acts on me and all I wanted to do was sit here with a drunken weirdo and listen to her rabbit on about nothing in particular. What had happened to the cad Oliver Wood? What had happened to the guy that was one of the most popular guys in school, the guy that was invited to all the parties and the hero of his year for his skills with a broomstick? When did that guy decide to forgo what he knew so well and spend his Christmas sitting on a bloody uncomfortable roof with a girl that he wished to strangle most of the time?
Was this what McGonagall meant by my mid life crisis? She’d warned me that living and breathing Quidditch would lead to some damage some day – and not just from all the bludgers I’d taken to my head – and that I was heading for a crisis most common in the middle aged. Of course I’d just laughed that off….but maybe she had a point.
That’s what this situation was about I reasoned, scoffing at any other thoughts I may have had concerning Freckles and feelings….
The very Freckles who was screwing up her nose and going, ‘do be do be do,’ to herself at regular intervals.
So much for any hope of any coherence….
“Ella you are drunk,” I sighed realising that there really was no hope of a serious conversation tonight. She was off her head and whilst that may have made her less violent and sadly a bit adorable (I did not just say that….that was a mad moment) it meant that she was not about to give sensible answers. Truthful ones perhaps but I wasn’t about to interrogate her when she wouldn’t remember it tomorrow. s
“Woody,” she tapped me on the nose and glared at me seriously, “I’m perfickally soberrrrrrrr.”
That really didn’t back up her argument at all.
“Ella if you can say ‘She sells sea shells on the sea shore’ perfectly then I will leave you alone right now and let you get back to your stargazing,” I crossed my arms and gazed down at her confused expression. My demand seemed to have confused her and a quizzical expression overwhelmed her features.
“She….sells…..sea….shells…” she said the words carefully and very slowly so as not to make a mistake, “on the….she…dammit sea….shore.”
She finished it with a belch and swayed slightly from the effort of speaking so much.
I slowly clapped her effort – it seemed like the nicest thing to do in the circumstances.
“Ella have you ever drunk alcohol before?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Nope,” she gave me a sloppy smile and screwed up her eyes from the effort of it all, “I am a drink free machine.”
Well she had been.
“Why did you go out with Billy?” I asked quietly.
I just had to ask it didn’t I? I had to ask the drunken girl next to me why she’d decided to date an arrogant tosspot….it couldn’t have waited till another time could it?
No, because I was far too impatient and I knew that if she didn’t provide me with an answer I’d just go to bed and not be able to sleep because of it. Because that’s the kind of weirdo I am….but let’s not dwell on that right now.
“Because like all stupid plans, it seemed like a good idea at the time,” she mumbled against my shoulder. “He said something nice to me – the first person to do so probably and I just sort of….you know…”
Unfortunately I did know….far more than I would ever admit to her.
“Come on Ella,” I took her arm and tried to get her to sit up so I could lead her carefully over the shingles and to her room. “Time for beddy bye-byes.”
“But I’m not tired!” she yelled at the top of her voice, disturbing a few birds in a tree nearby. “I want to dance all night.”
“Ella no offence but you can’t really dance when you’re lying down…” I gestured to her almost comatose like state.
“Then I shall get up and dance,” she attempted to do so but stopped quite suddenly, clutching her head and groaning as she collapsed back against the roof.
“Okay….perhaps I’ll just lie here instead and dance in a few minutes,” she massaged her forehead and turned her face towards me, moving slightly towards my reclining form.
Uh…oh no.
Gazing down in shock at the girl trying to cuddle up next to me I wasn’t entirely sure what to do next. Surely hugging a girl that wasn’t your girlfriend didn’t class as cheating but there was something about this whole situation that didn’t make me feel like the most faithful of boyfriends. Should I just move away slowly and leave her be whilst I returned to the safety of my bed or should I just-
“Wood,” she said quietly and seriously. “Do you think I’m a freak?”
Whatever I’d been about to say, whatever I’d been about to shout at her, whatever anger I felt towards the situation evaporated just like that. Only to be replaced by some weird feeling in my chest that if anyone asked I would blame on heartburn.
“No Ella,” I said quietly. “I don’t think you’re a freak. Weird, a little unconventional and a bit loony sometimes but you’re definitely not a freak.”
“Good,” she yawned hugely, closing her eyes in the process and leaning her head slightly against my shoulder. Her hair tickled my neck, her nose was wrinkled in confusion and little snores emerged from her throat.
Gazing down at her sleeping and snoring form I realised something….
I was in trouble.
Billy:
Most people when they look at me would just see a handsome young man from a well brought up family who is successful not only in terms of academics but also relationships. I’m the stereotypical all round good guy that all the girls wish they could go out with and sigh over in class and the boy all other guys hate but secretly wish they could be.
I’m hollow.
I’m vacuous.
I’m gorgeous.
I’m perfection.
I’m evil.
I’m arrogant.
I’m Billy McGuiness.
I’m the guy that destroys lives with a grace that is envied and a guy that makes girls drool.
I destroyed Ella Finster’s life.
And I’m not done yet.
Jaz:
I’m evil and I’m okay with that. I like the fact that people fear me, that my very name can command respect and that I’m eyed in awe for being just me. It’s a strange of rush of power, an exhilaration that overwhelms the body and a pleasure that makes me lick my lips as I contemplate it.
Sat before my vanity table, my perfume bottles lined like soldiers in front of me and my silver backed brush beating a rhythm against my hand as I contemplated the flawless reflection in front of me I reached for the first piece of my hair that night.
100 brush strokes before bed time were the key to glossy hair and beauty. I remember my nanny reading me a story about a princess who brushed her locks 100 times before bed and I always envied her. I wanted to be a princess, I wanted to be rich, loved, beautiful and above all else envied….just as I envied her.
I wanted it all….
One brush stroke for beauty, I pushed the bristles through my golden hair, another stroke for wealth and prosperity – another push, a caress of my locks – and a stroke for love and envy. A nightly ritual that kept me focussed on my goals, that kept me young and ruthless and that made sure that if all else failed my looks would remain faithful. You could rely on nothing in this world except for yourself and as I had realised long ago all I was was beauty.
Not that I was complaining.
Beauty got you everything in life without any hard work. The swish of your hair, the pout of your lips, the subtle hint of what lay beneath you clothes all worked in my favour and I could get anything from a boy. Shame flashing my cleavage never worked on Snape, but I swear Flitwick fell off his stool once when I wore my new miniskirt.
It all came down to power again; I spun a newly brushed lock around my forefinger. I had it but I still wanted more….without enough of it you could never be sure you would always remain on top.
There was more to life that education and that was boys, looks, society and money. Combine those four areas and you had perfection and that was what I wanted most of all. I wanted perfection and I would go to any lengths to get it…
Even if it meant crushing the people in my way…
Namely Eleanor Finster.
When our parents had married I hadn’t thought of her as a sister, a playmate, a friend…no, I realised that this girl was my enemy. She, the scrawny individual, was standing in my way to success. Even at an early age I realised her possibility for evil; after all when you are evil yourself it’s quite easy to see that characteristic in others. She had the social status, the wealth….but I had the looks and the power and I reasoned I needed to defeat her now and crush her to stop an uprising.
And so you got our war….
I made her life a misery, I crushed her spirit and after a while it became not just tactical but also pleasurable to destroy her. In my less perfect times – although I should point out these times were rarer – when my real halo came into view, a small pin prick of guilt – a very small pin prick – would worm its way into me but I would just reason I had done the world a favour. I had stopped this child from realising how evil she could have been herself and I was saving everyone from the onslaught she could have wielded.
There was only room in the world for one super bitch with beauty and that was me.
I knew that my boyfriend and my step-sister had a special connection; you’d have to have been blind not to see they had their own secret communication. Sure they professed to hate each other and having to spend time together but they still managed to have in jokes, secret glances and a communication and love-hate relationship that was perhaps the highest form of intimacy.
An intimacy that sadly sex and snogging could not match….there went my special talents then.
I had sought Wood as my companion for far too long for anything to ruin it now. He was the most promising in our year with a future of professional Quidditch ahead of him and thus a place in the spotlight. He obviously needed a girl to hang on his arm that would radiate beauty….and luckily for him I was just the girl. He was one of the last boys in my year for me to sample and now I’d had a bite I wasn’t about to let my mousy stepsister take him from me…
Ella had paid the price for her betrayal before….perhaps it was time for her to pay again, I thought, tapping my pink nail against my lips.
Revenge was the sweetest word….
But the action was far better.
A/N: I'm sorry its not an update - please don't hurt me!
I just need to mention that I have a new blog (see my author page).
Ch 17 is has just been submitted though, so keep posted. 
Printer Friendly Version
