Chapter Four: Advice For Those Who Listen To The Weird Sisters
“I need a fag,” Andrew announces, standing up.
He glares down at me, “Connie, you coming?”
Before I can protest and make it very clear that I don’t smoke, because of the health risks, Andrew has yanked me up. I don’t need to pile on anything that could damage my health, since some people like to damage your health for you. Of course, I’m not talking about James Potter or anything. No, that would be absolutely ludicrous. I am not lost in endless denial. Nope, not me.
On a side note, I believe boys look fifty times sexier with a cigarette in their mouth. All you need to do is look at my tumblr and look at the endless pictures of all the hotness; I’ve accumulated over the last past few years.
He drags me out of the room quickly and pulls me outside, slamming the front door behind him.
“You’re actually barmy, you know that?” He says, the anger in his tone is evident but he keeps his volume low and his voice deep.
“I don’t know, maybe someone experimented on me without my permission.” I lash out, and the words that come out my mouth are things that I should never say out loud.
“You know, you need to get over it.” I open my mouth to protest. How could Andrew be so careless with his words? Of course, I’ll just get over it.
“Let me finish,” Andrew continues. “I’ve apologized, he’s apologized. It was a misunderstanding, do you actually think any of us would have tried to physically hurt you?”
His words hang heavy in the air. I know the answer. I know I’ve been rather childish about the whole ordeal, but rightly so.
“Connie, no one is telling you to throw yourself at James and snog him. Just forgive him or at least let him think you have, he feels guilty, even now and you’re making it worse. You full well know he doesn’t deal well with all of this crap.”
He’s right. Of course, Andrew is right. And so is my mother and Ginny, even if they don’t know what happened and what ‘it’ is, they want us to work it out and get over it. But it’s hard, and I don’t want to think about it, and I don’t want to be the one who is reliable for someone else’s happiness, I can barely handle my own. James’ emotions should be his emotions and mine should be mine; I don’t see why they have to be intertwined and co-dependent. It’s disgusting and time wasting, I have better things to do than care about people who obviously don’t care about me. For example, I could be at home woo-ing Elliott or listening to the amazing music by The Cure or The Smiths.
I nod at Andrew, who opens the door for me. He stays outside, probably to have the cigarette that he was ‘craving’. Although there’s alcohol in my system, I don’t feel tipsy or light or alive anymore. I make my way back into the room, with the main party and curl up on a sofa, watching other people have a good time. The couch devours me as I sink into it, and there’s a good part of me that believes I deserved to be swallowed into it, completely.
The poor quality of music blasting through the not-quite-speakers grates my ears; I’ve been told many a time that The Weird Sisters is the best music I will ever listen to in my life. I’m going to be brutally honest now. This advice is for anyone who listens to the music produced by the Weird Sisters: STOP! For the love of everything good please stop. Their music is worse than the shit that tops the charts. I am willing to pay you to stop listening to their rubbish, just so I don’t have to hear about it again. And why on earth would you name your child Myron Wagtail? It sounds like Moron.
I want to moan about how I miss my IPod. I want to complain about how much my life sucks. I’m sick of this, I’m sick of these people, I’m sick of how nasty and bitchy I become when I’m with these people. It’s not jealousy. The thing that happened in the past that should not be named, a bit like that bad guy that Harry Potter defeated with love, created a universal rift of epic proportions. It feels like everyone else is one side and I’m here on this expensive sofa, made out of god knows what. Dragon? Magic Cow from the magic frikin’ roundabout?
I’ve done it. I’ve finally snapped.
I calm down and start counting. I quickly get befuddled with my numbers once I reach four hundred. After a painful realization that I can’t actually count at this age, James plonks himself next to me.
“You know, I’m sorry. I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to say it for you to forgive me, so here it goes. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He stops to take a breath, but I quickly cut in.
“You’re forgiven,” I say.
“It only took fourteen apologies, I was expecting at least twenty one.”
Trust James to have been counting. His voice is sweet and nerdy and cute and light, whereas mine is hoarse and rough as I say, “we should put it behind us, shouldn’t we?”
He nods eagerly.
“So, friends?” He holds out his hand, as if I’m supposed to shake it.
He’s already taken it too far. That was always a problem with James; he takes things far too quickly. He’s painfully logical, even if it doesn’t show. He’s already thought, well, if she’s forgiven me, naturally we will become friends again.
He’s sorely mistaken. That’s not going to happen. I need to time to process things, I need to mull over it, I need to reflect about my emotions, then tweet them to the rest of the world, so they can reflect on my emotions on my behalf, and then I need to text Leah about them, so she can give me effective advice. Then, once all the results are in maybe we can be friends.
I know what I’m about to do is horrendously rude, but it doesn’t stop me. I sit on my hands as I say, “I think you should go now.”
My tone isn’t venomous and angry; it’s blank and emotionless. He walks away awkwardly and clumsily, trying to deal with his giraffe legs and the dizzying effect of the firewhiskey.
And everyone would think, I’ve made no progress, but I have. I have started to let go, let bygones be bygones. I’m not back to square one; I’ve made it to square two. I really ought to be on square one hundred. But progress is progress.
This is when everything gets blurry, when I’m tired and slightly drunk. Molly and I giggle and joke our way to the fireplace and use floo powder to get home. We support each other up the stairs and crash into bed together, too tired to think about pyjamas or trivial shit like teeth brushing.
When I woke up, I was nearly frozen. It turns out that our laziness to go to our separate beds cost us, well, really I mean me. Stupidly, my brain misplaced some all time basic information. One does not sleep with Molly Weasley, unless they want a variety of things to happen, including:
1) Getting physically pushed off the bed.
2) Waking up and finding that Molly has cocooned herself into the duvet, explaining why you shivered all night.
3) Finding that you have a new occupation. The position you got? You’re Molly’s new life size teddy bear.
4) Realizing that you are no longer human and that you have in fact become a mattress for Queen Molly Weasley II.
To be fair, Molly has done worse than this in the past, like successfully doing all four, where you wake up both on the floor, but she’s partially cuddling and partially sleeping on you. At least, I am still on the bed, I’m just cold and being squashed by the weight of her legs.
I start wriggling violently in the bed and begin to start shouting, “Molly, there’s an earthquake! Wake up unless you want to die wearing day old make-up.”
It works effectively. She flies out of bed and I wrap my legs in the duvet.
“Connie, you’re such a cow,” she moans.
“You wouldn’t have woken up, otherwise,” I say.
She scowls. “You could have poked me.”
“What’s the point? You wouldn’t have felt a thing, you sleep like a hippo.”
Just as Molly is about to reply with some witty retort, the door swings open and lo and behold, it’s Superman also known as ickle Albus Potter. He used to be the cutest little boy in the world with a hero complex, obviously his dad’s son. But now, he’s looking rather tall and dishy, he would look dishier instead of cute if he wasn’t fifteen years old.
“I heard shouting, what’s wrong?” he asks. He looks so concerned. He’s the cutest thing in the world, I want to kidnap him and make him my own handy little brother.
“Oh, I was trying to wake Molly up,” I say sheepishly.
He sighs in relief. How adorable and sweet is he? His brother could do with learning from him how to be more caring about other people beside himself.
“That makes so much sense. Anyway, Mum made breakfast. Molly, cover up, Scorpius is coming.” Albus laughs and winks at Molly as he closes the door.
Scorpius? What sort of name was that? Like Scorpion. His parents must have been on crack when they named him. And there I was thinking that Myron/Moron was a bad name. The names in the wizarding community only grow worse by the second.
I look to Molly and she’s frozen still with an expression of putrid disgust on her face.
“Err, Mols, who is Scor-pee-us?”
“Dear, it’s Scorpius,” she says. I roll my eyes as she continues, “He’s Albus’ creep-a-saurus-rex of a best friend, who is madly in love with anyone older than him. He’s a bag of overused innuendos,” Molly says and she folds her arms across her chest.
“He can’t be that bad can he, I’d be flattered to have some cute little kid crushing on me. They mean no harm.”
Molly shakes her head fervently. “He’s not cute, neither is he little, and with the language that boy can spew, nor is he is an innocent child.”
“I appreciate the fact that you didn’t say neither with the word ‘or’. I mean I’m not a grammar expert, but that derp actually breaks my heart a little time every time I hear it. It’s neither, nor and either, or.”
Molly walks up to me, picks up the pillow from her side of the bed and thwacks me over the head a few times, until I’m squealing and begging for her to stop. What a pleasant way to start your morning?
“I’m going to warn you. Dress like a nun, because prepare to get the pants charmed off of you, literally.”
I laugh and Molly leaves the room with a towel and her clothes in hand, while I am left to lie pensively on the bed, with a great big headache. I had too much firewhiskey and as a result of that superbitchdrunk!Connie had appeared. I groan as I think about what I had said, ‘never have I broken someone’s heart.’
I have no issue with being self-deprecating and self-pitying, but last night I took it way too far. And it keeps replaying through my mind and I can’t help but cringe as I think about it. Normally at a time like this, I’d do something like read star wars fanficiton to clear my mind. On a side note, if you don’t ship Han/Leia, we can’t associate. Seriously, it’s not going to happen.
I sit up right in bed and catch a glimpse of my phone. Feeling too lazy to move properly, I manoeuvre myself around the bed and lean over the edge and grab my phone.
Inbox: 16 unread messages.
For a second, I con myself into believing that I’m popular. Most of them were from my mum or Leah, the other best friend, and surprisingly, one from Elliott.
The texts from Leah are nothing out of the ordinary.
TEXT MEEEEEEE, BITCH. :p
Y U NO REPLY? -_-
On a slightly serious note, how is the ex-boyfriend? ;)
HAVE YOU BEEN MURDERED by your relatives, hence explaining Y U NO REPLY? xxx
Stop being a Cow Connie, talk to meeeee. You’ve left me here with Elliott, and I swear to god he misses you more than me. He keeps wondering how you’re doing right now. I’d say it’s cute, but he’s my brother. ;)
FINE. Stuff it, I’ll find new friends. No emoticons or x’s for you. K.
I had three from my mother:
Connie, dear, I’d appreciate a call just to let me know you’ve arrived safely and that you’re okay.
Your father wants to talk to you, he’s upset he didn’t get the chance to say goodbye.
It’s rather disrespectful that you’re not replying.
I roll my eyes at the texts, I’ve received from my mother, I feel tempted to not reply in a fit of teen rage and show her my signs of protest, but I know she means well, so I send her a quick text, ‘I’ll call you after breakfast. Sorry xx’ The main reason I reply is I’m rather impressed by her use of her tele-drone, she’s texted efficiently without getting the classic predictive text blunders.
I figure I’ll deal with Leah later, she’ll expect a text grovelling for her forgiveness. My stomach feels too jittery to even bother to attempt a chirpsing text session with Elliott. Flirting always proves to be difficult and mind racking, you always had to search for the right way of phrasing everything, without coming off too forward or as I have the habit of doing, down right pathetic and creepy.
I clamber out of the bed and make it. Beds don’t need to be made using a silly spell that could go awry, just use your hands and arms, there’s no danger that way of exploding pillows. Life is simpler without magic, without a constant risk of disaster; it’s not as lazy. Life is complicated as it is, you don’t need to add magic to further fuck things up.
Molly comes out fully dressed, and gleaming. I pick up some leggings and a t-shirt and pray that today isn’t as hot as it has been. Southern England doesn’t really act English in the summer, it likes to pretend to be Tenerife, which is nice, but it can get a little tedious.
I shower, get dressed and brush my teeth in about fifteen minutes, I can’t really be arsed to make-up. It gets to a point in the morning, where all you can think about is breakfast. Breakfast isn’t just a meal; it’s the meal. It’s when you break your holy night fast. It’s when you eat the best food: the pancakes, the waffles, the bacon, the eggs, the fresh fruit and the best thing ever, fresh orange juice. It’s the king of all the juices.
My mouth waters as I fantasize about breakfast and my stomach rumbles.
“Let’s go, I am absolutely starving,” I whine.
We go down two flights of stairs before we reach the ground floor and make out way into the kitchen. Surprisingly, everyone is up. Andrew, James, Albus and I guess, Scor-pee-us and Lily, who is sweetly sat in the middle of her brothers.
“Mum and Dad have both gone to work, but there are waffles, eggs and bacon,” Albus says, bridging the slight awkwardness.
I grab one and start nibbling.
“I’m sorry, I’ve never met you before,” the very adorable blonde boy says extremely politely.
I have no idea what Molly was going on about. He’s the sort of boy, who has that I-can-attract girls my own age look, with long blonde hair and shiny eyes.
“I’m Connie, and you are?”
“I’m Scorpius Malfoy. I was wondering if you were using the confundus charm or if you were just naturally this mind blowing?”
Albus face-palms and shrinks in his seat. James protectively shields Lily’s ears. If I’m not mistaken, the boy just used a magical pick up line on me. You learn something new everyday. Since when did magical pick up lines exist? How cringe-y.
“I mean if you were a Dementor, I'd become a criminal just to get your kiss.”
I know what a dementor is! That’s just crude. I roll my eyes.
“I must have had some Felix Felicis, because I think I'm about to get lucky,” he says.
I don’t know what Felix Felicis, but I roll my eyes again and gag slightly when he says get lucky. How old is this kid? I know understand what Molly meant. Andrew stands up and puts his plate in the sink. I’m feeling rather put off from my breakfast, so I ditch my half eaten waffle with a frown. Andrew ruffles Scorpius’ hair.
“He’s a real charmer, this one,” Andrew says and Scorpius struggles under Andrew’s man-hands.
“Ain’t he just,” I reply.
Author’s note: Sorry for the wait! Had writer's block, I still have writer's block.
Well, we’re getting closer to finding out ‘what happened’. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, it’s got a little bit of James/Connie interaction, but they’re all awkward after their tiff last chapter. Just to let people know, this story has romance, but that isn’t really the main point, it’s more of Connie just coming to terms with the magical world, being a young squib and all with a large dollop of James on the side.
Disclaimer: I don’t own all the million things references in this chapter, Magic roundabout, The Smiths, The Cure, Tumblr, Harry Potter and anything else I may have forgotten. I also didn’t come up with the pick-up lines. I don’t advocate smoking at all.
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