In An Hour Or Two
The last class of the day was Care, with the Ravenclaws. There was a new teacher - the groundskeeper from last year. They spent the class analyzing a baby acromantula that Mr. Jackson called ‘Webster,’ for no apparent reason. Brooke said, off-hand, that it sounded like a name Kate had come up with, and that she probably really loved Mr. Jackson by now.
By the end of the lesson, Brooke had deemed Mr. Jackson, ‘odd, but competent.’
That was it for the day. Well, there was still an astronomy lesson, but that was at midnight, so they had the day off. Kate disappeared off into nowhere, saying cheerfully that she was going to hang with a ‘study buddy, or crony, or whatever!’ which sounded like nonsense to Max. Brooke went off to do… whatever the hell Brooke did whenever she wasn’t hanging out with them. Go to the library, probably.
Which left only the friend that had changed a lot over the Summer, and that Max really wanted to reconnect with, to talk to for the foreseeable future.
She found Chloe alone in the Gryffindor dorms.
This alone was a little odd. Chloe was usually hanging out with her three-person friend brigade - just like Max. Rachel - the pretty one, as Max had known her before they were properly introduced - and Steph - the nerdy one. But Chloe was alone, sitting in a Gryffindor armchair, staring silently into the fire.
Max did her best to shift so that she could see Chloe’s face, without Chloe seeing her.
She was… just staring blankly. Face a mask of unreadable emotion. Hands limp on the arms of the chair.
“...Chloe?”
Chloe blinked out of her trance, and glanced at Max - which led smoothly into a wide grin.
“Yo, Max,” she said easily, standing up. “What’s up? I was just sitting down for a sec. My last class was pretty exhausting.”
It had looked like more than ‘a sec,’ though Max didn’t say as much.
“You wanna… go walk around the grounds?” Max said, gesturing weakly to the door.
Chloe grinned. “Sure, dude. I was getting real tired of the red anyway.”
Max glanced around at the red drenched Gryffindor dorms.
“...Yeah,” she said. “They kinda overdid it, huh?”
“Way overdid it,” Chloe said, waltzing to the door while she talked. Max fumbled to follow her. “I mean, I like red as much as the next gal, but geez.”
“Geez,” Max agreed solemnly - and nearly hit herself for sounding so stupid.
Chloe snickered. “Let’s get outta here, dork.”
“M’not a dork,” Max muttered under her breath, before walking out the door.
Chloe snickered again.
Five minutes later, they were deep in conversation and thoroughly lost.
“No, it’s like, one of those kits you can get off the internet,” Chloe said, sticking her hands in her pockets. “Me and Steph put it together.”
A lot of this conversation kept steering back to Steph. Despite Chloe’s claim that she had a crush on Rachel, Max couldn’t help but wonder just how much that particular crush had lasted. Maybe there were still remnants of it, but was it really an influencing decision on Chloe anymore?
And, instead, she seemed to be growing an obsession with Steph.
“I thought she was a pureblood, though?” Max said, keeping all those thoughts bottled and far in the back of her brain. “How much help was she putting together a muggle kit?”
“More help than you would think,” Chloe said. “She can sodder, apparently.”
Max blinked. “Really?”
“Yeah. She doesn’t look it, right? But apparently Steph is kind of a badass,” Chloe said, eyes glittering oddly. “No matter how weird she is, you gotta respect that.”
“...I don’t like how she’s got this obsession with muggle stuff,” Max said - and her voice came out a little bit more firm than she had expected. “That’s kinda weird for a pureblood witch.”
Chloe blinked. “...I… guess it kinda is, but… what does that matter?”
“I dunno. I’m just saying, like,” Max said, hand fisting the bottom of her blazer and something heavy and thick bubbling in the pit of her stomach, “it’s kinda weird. She makes friends with a halfblood girl, and what, suddenly she’s all obsessed with muggle stuff? It’s… just a little weird, is all.”
Chloe seemed to chew on this for a moment.
“...Nah, I think Steph’s always been like that,” she said - and glanced at her. “Plus, who cares? What’re you getting at?”
“It just…” Max fumbled for the right way to phrase it. “Doesn’t it seem like she’s, just… like - it seems really convenient. That you’re her friend, and she’s leaning all over you at lunch yesterday, and she’s talking to you so much and bothering you - and also she’s got a convenient love of muggle stuff?”
“What does any of this have to do with what she’s doing at lunch?” Chloe said - and paused. “Plus, she doesn’t bother me. She’s kinda annoying now and again, but she’s my friend. And I don’t really mind the whole leaning over me thing - if she’s touch starved, I don’t mind helping her out. That’s what friends are for.”
“It seems more than just friendly,” Max bit - and startled.
Her voice had come out very sharp, and oddly… venomous.
Chloe blinked.
Went very, very quiet.
“...Are you… suggesting Steph has a crush on me?”
Max didn’t respond - still reeling a little from her sudden lashing out.
Chloe glanced at her. “Max? Do you - you don’t think Steph has a crush on me, right?”
“Well, I…”
Max chewed back on several choice statements that had burned at the back of her throat, for a moment.
“It kinda… seems like she might?” Max said hesitantly. “But like - you don’t have any of those feelings for her, obviously, so like, maybe I’m wrong, and besides it doesn’t really matter either way-”
“Wait,” Chloe said, holding a hand up. Max went silent. “Who… said I don’t have any of those feelings for her?”
Max blinked.
Chloe looked very, very deep in thought.
Wait, no, this - this wasn’t my plan, I don’t - I didn’t want to get them together, I-
Max blinked again - nearly startled by her own thoughts.
Since when had she had a plan?
SInce when had she not wanted Chloe and Steph to get together?
I… just think they wouldn’t work together.
Yeah. Yeah, that seemed right. That seemed like something she would think. She wouldn’t want her bestie to get with someone she wouldn’t be happy with.
“Uhm… you don’t, right?” Max muttered. “You have a crush on Rachel...?”
“Well, I mean,” Chloe said - and suddenly her voice was a little tighter than before. “I have a crush on Rachel, sure, but - Steph’s not the worst choice out there, if I was going to… you really think she might have a crush on me?”
Chloe glanced at her.
“...Uhm.”
“You think I should ask her out?” Chloe said - and glanced away from her, eyes drifting to the ceiling thoughtfully. “Hogsmeade visits are next weekend, I could ask her to go with me then - that would leave plenty of time for me to plan out things and get some decent clothes… but I should probably ask her ASAP, I don’t wanna start preparing and then have her say no, so - maybe I should ask her at dinner? I could probably learn the charm to make some flowers by then…”
“...Uhm,” Max said again, trying to not think about what she had just - accidentally! - done.
Suddenly, Chloe turned to her, and smiled.
“Thanks, dude,” she said easily, putting a hand on Max’s shoulder. Her stomach lurched. “You totally just got me a date opportunity.”
“...No problem,” Max just barely managed to say.
“Let’s get back to the dorms, huh? I gotta learn that flower charm,” Chloe said, already walking towards said dorms.
Max stared after her, for a moment - and very much didn’t think about the nauseating bubbling in her stomach.
“...Yeah,” she said under her breath, walking after Chloe.
Who was going to ask Steph out. In an hour or two.
Max felt sick.