Among the Stars

Wisteria missed breakfast. Again. She’d been doing that a lot lately, staying up late, partly because of her homework and partly because of her insomnia. So she’s made a habit of stopping by the kitchen to grab food before running off to whichever class she has first, which today was Potions. She got down there, opened the door, and was halfway through telling Deedee what she wanted to eat when she noticed the other human in the room.

“Michael.” She whispers. She stare unabashed at him, taking in the sight of him after not seeing him for a little over a year. His hair was longer, the dark circles under his eyes more prominent, but his eyes were still that gorgeous, vibrant color they always were.

He stares at her for a panicked moment before offering a small smile and whispering back. “Hi.”

Wisteria wants nothing more than to jump for joy at him actually talking to her, but she knows that it might scare him off so instead she smiles at him. “It's been awhile. How are you?”

“Im fine. And you?”

“Wonderful. I trust you’re eating well? Taking care of yourself and all?”

He smiles in a way that she could only describe as sad. “Yeah, Deedee makes sure to drop food off in my room if I lose track of time and forget to come down here.”

“Well I’m glad you remembered today.”

He looks conflicted for a moment before he nods and walks out without another word. Wisteria frowns and Deedee approaches her carefully.

“Wisty? Are you okay?”

This shakes Wisteria out of her thoughts and gets her smile. “Of course Deedee, I’m sorry. I’ll have what I normally get. And thank you, for looking after him.”

Deedee beams back up at her and nods vigorously.

A few hours later Wisteria is sitting in Defense Against the Dark Arts with Penelope, listening to Professor Renshaw’s lecture on Boggarts. Halfway through the class Penelope nudges her and they make eye contact. Penelope gives her a look wondering what’s wrong and Wisteria responds with a look Penelope has seen many times and understands as simply meaning ongoing friend drama reappearing.

“If you two could please stop making eyes at one another and pay attention in my class, that would be much appreciated.” Professor Renshaw’s voice suddenly snapped the two out of their silent conversation and had Wisteria blushing at being caught, but as always her idiotic friends were there to take the attention off of her.

“Oh we greatly apologize Windy,” Sirius speaks up loudly, “But you see, Remus and I have recently discovered our deep love for one another and cannot keep our eyes off of each other. I’m afraid that there’s nothing that can be done about the matter.” Remus rolls his eyes at the comment, but chuckles to himself, his amusement getting the better of him.

“I believe you are quite mistaken Siri,” This times it’s Gideon who speaks up, “Windy was actually referring to Fabs and I, see we’ve discovered the secret to twin telepathy, but seeing as we haven’t gotten enough practice with it yet, we must maintain intense eye contact for it to work properly.”

“Well Mr. Black I am sure that you’re most recent romantic adventure is heartbroken at the news, and congratulations Prewetts at inventing twin telepathy, but unfortunately for you I do know something that can be done about both matters. It’s called detention, tonight directly after dinner.”

“Consider it a date.” Sirius responds with a cheeky wink.

At this Remus sighs, “Professor Renshaw I am terribly sorry to have to ask this of you, but do you think you could push their detentions back to tomorrow night? Peter’s birthday is today and we were hoping to get together later to celebrate.”

Professor Renshaw narrows her eyes at the three guilty boys and then gives a slightly softer look to Remus and Peter before giving a small sigh. “Very well then. Tomorrow morning, I expect you three here before the sun rises. You can help me get ready for tomorrow’s lesson.”

“Professor, tomorrow is Saturday. We don’t have any lessons.” Jane points out.

“Well if my lesson had not been interrupted I may have gotten to that sooner. As you all know by now, this unit is on Boggarts. Well, an ex-boyfriend of mine happens to own a Boggart that he captured a while ago and he’s willing to lend it to me for educational purposes. The lesson is completely voluntary, but if you wish to try your luck against a Boggart, you are welcome to. That lesson will be tomorrow between lunch and dinner.”

By the end of the day the whole of third year was buzzing about the possibility of facing their worst fears. As usual, Wisteria was up in her room, working on homework and talking through the logistics of actually showing up tomorrow.

“There’s no way I’m going tomorrow.” Shannon declares. “I mean, I would literally be facing my worst fear… I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready for that.”

“Well I’m going.” Penelope says with a nonchalant shrug. “It’ll be interesting. Besides, I would never hear the end of it from my aunt if I didn’t show.”

“I don’t think that I’ll go. I’m having a pretty good year and I don’t need impending knowledge of my worst fear messing that up for me.” Jane says.

“I’m still on the fence about it.” Christine tells them.

“Same. I’m just gonna decide tomorrow.” Wisteria decides.

“Are you going to Peter’s party later?” Shannon asks.

“No. I still have some homework I need to do.”

Penelope rolls her eyes. “Come on girl. We all know you’re up all night anyway. Just go to the party and stay up all night as usual, except doing homework instead of being restless in bed.”

Wisteria chews on her lip as she considers it for a moment. If I put this off I could be up for hours and lose my motivation to write these essay’s. I’m only halfway through potions and I still have Care of Magical Creatures left, but those subjects aren’t necessarily difficult, I already did the challenging homework. But I still need to read back over my Transfigurations essay.

“Well what about you guys?” She finally says, deciding to avoid giving a definite answer for as long as she can. “Are you all going?”

“We weren’t invited.” Jane says with a shrug. “You’re the one who’s friends with the Marauders, the rest of us are just friends by association.”

“I’m not that close to them.” Her friends give her identical looks to show that they don’t believe her. “Okay, so I study with them some, but that’s all. Besides, they all prefer Lily over me, just like most of the school.”

“Okay, nope.” Penelope says standing up. “I am not letting you wallow in a pool of self pity, stress, and insomnia all night. We are going to that party.”

“Pen! You weren’t even invited.”

“Then we’ll tell them I’m your date or something. Come on. Let’s go.” She stoops down and grabs Wisteria’s arms, pulling hard to get the red head to stand up.

“Fabian will be there remember? They’ll know it’s a load of bull.”

“Then we’ll figure out some other excuse on the way. Come on.”

Wisteria glances back at her pile of homework and then looks at Penelope apologetically before plopping back down on the floor. Penelope groans and reaches down to drag her up again, but Wisteria is staying put.

“Wist!” Penelope complains.

“I’m not like you Pen! I’m not naturally a genius, I need to work on these before I lose all ability to focus for the night.” Penelope gives her an uncaring stare for a moment before, once again, moving to attempt to lift Wisteria from the floor. “If I go to the lesson tomorrow can I stay here?”

Penelope glares at her for a moment before caving. “Fine.”

Wisteria throws her a victorious smile before clambering back onto her bed with her homework. “You know,” Penelope mumbles. “With how hard you fought to not go, I would almost think that you’re avoiding someone.”

“Well what about you? Little miss “I hate people” jumped at the opportunity to go to the party, it’s almost as if you’re hoping to see someone there.”

Penelope laughs humorlessly. “And who would that be?”

“Remus.”

Penelope stutters and the other girls stare wide eyed, jaws dropped.

“You’re telling us that Pen has a crush on Lupin?” Christy asked.

“That is so not true.” Penelope says, having recovered from the initial shock.

“Oh it so is.” Wisteria insists. “Dont think for a minute that I didn’t see you blushing at James’ party when you said you’d date him.”

Penelope glares at her, chewing the inside of her cheek for a moment before saying, “Well at least I haven’t been pining over the same guy for nearly 2 years without making a move on him.” She pointed looks at Shannon who puffs her chest, lifts her chin high and smiles victoriously.

“That, dear friend, is where you are dead wrong. Will asked me on a date to Hogsmeade next weekend.”

“What?” All of her friends yell in unison. “When did this happen? Why didn’t we hear about it sooner?”

Shannon laughs. “We were in the library working on our Muggle Studies homework together. It was just before dinner and I was planning on telling you guys once we got up here.”

“You’re actually going on a date with Will! That’s amazing!” Jane yells, throwing herself at Shannon and hugging her tight. The girls spend the rest of the night talking about her upcoming date.

Wisteria doesnt wake up until after lunch, and even then she really only wakes up because Penelope was there to shake her awake.

“Wist!” Penelope yells in her face. “You’ve gotta get up, the lesson is starting soon!”

Wisteria reluctantly opens her eyes and squints at Penelope. “I don’t feel so good.”

“Well no shit, you slept in way too long. What time did you fall asleep anyway?” She asks, throwing clothes at her.

Wisteria yawns and rubs the sleep out of her eyes as she thinks. “I dunno. The sky was turning kinda blue by the time I was tired enough to sleep so… Whatever time the sun rises?”

Penelope stops what she’s doing to stare at Wisteria. “You’re telling me that you stayed up until 6:30?”

Wisteria shrugs. “I guess.”

“Well it’s no wonder you look like shit then. Anyway, you’re getting no pity from me. Get your ass out of bed, into clothes, and to my aunts room!”

A few minutes later the two rush into the classroom, the last ones there, but still technically ontime. Christine was already there waiting on them.

“Where have you two been? I started to worry when I realized that I had gotten here before Pen.”

Penelope points an accusing finger at Wisteria. “Ask… her.” She says between catching her breath.

“Another late night?” Christine asks and gets a nod from Wisteria. “How late?”

“6:30”

Christine whistles. “Damn. Thats rough.”

“You’re telling me.”

Professor Renshaw walks into the room and everyone goes silent. “Alright, I need all of you to form a line, you’ll each face your boggart one at a time, otherwise he gets confused. Now chop chop, single file line, starting here.”

Wisteria feels her stomach drop at the idea of facing a boggart. What will my boggart be? Roaches? Geese? Killer fish? Does it have to be a specific animal or whatever or can it be a concept? What if my worst fear is failure? What does it do then?

Despite being halfway down the line, Wisteria finds herself moving forward at much too quick a pace for her liking. The goofy things that pop up after the spell has been cast help to unravel some of the fear in her stomach, but definitely not all of it. When it’s Penelope’s turn Wisteria has to turn away and close her eyes, she can’t bring herself to look at other peoples fears anymore, it just makes her more nervous at facing her own.

“You’ll be fine.” She hears Fabian’s voice say. She opens her eyes to find him standing there, in the line behind her.

“But what if I’m not?”

“Then Ms. Renshaw is right there, and I am right here.” He slightly raises his hand, as if he wants to touch her or hold her, but then he hesitates and puts it back down. While disappointed he didn’t give her a reassuring hug or shoulder squeeze or anything, Wisteria still smiles up at him, thankful for his presence.

    Then it’s Wisteria’s turn and she turns around reluctantly. The smile drops from her face immediately as the Boggart in front of her takes the form of Lily, a cold look in her green eyes and a sneer on her lips.

    “You really thought that you mattered?” Lily says shortly before shifting to become Penelope.

She laughs humorlessly, her face looking at Wisteria with contempt. “What gave you the impression that we actually cared about you?” Then she changes into Jane.

“Why would we want to be friends with you?” Jane bites and quickly becomes Shannon.

“You’re useless.” Shannon shifts into Christine.

“Replaceable.” Christine utters that one word with such malice that Wisteria can barely even see her become Fabian through her tears.

“I hate you.” That one, simple sentence breaks her.

Her bottom lip trembles as she raises her wand weakly and feebly mumbles, “R-ridikulus” It doesn’t work.

    “I only dated you as a joke.” Fabian says cruelly. “You don’t matter to me, you don’t matter to anyone. You’re nobody, barely even worth a second glance, you filthy mudblood.”

    Wisteria can barely even stand anymore she’s shaking so bad, but then there’s someone behind her, a warm hand on her shoulder, a nose pressed into her temple, hot breath on her ear, and Fabians voice again, this time much gentler and much closer.

“It’s not true Wist, not at all. You do matter, more than you could ever know. You matter to your family, to your friends… and you matter to me. You can do this, I believe in you, and if you can’t, then I’m right here to help. I promise.”

Wisteria shivers at his closeness, he’s barely touched her at all since they started dating and now he’s so close to her that she can feel the heat of his body.

    “Ridikulus.” She says with more confidence and suddenly the Fabian in front of her is okay and laughing his head off at something. She turns around and wraps the real Fabian in a tight hug.

“Thank you.” She whispers against his shoulder.

He chuckles and she lets go, beginning to walk away. “You think my laugh is funny?” He calls after her.

She turns and gives him a huge smile. “I think contagious is a better word.”