Between Crowns and Whispers pv Gabriele Ricci-Armani

Gabriele seemed either to be choosing his words more slowly or savoring them with care. At a pace like molasses in winter, he greeted Lorenzo and gave him his full attention. A satisfied feeling settled into Lorenzo’s mind. The moment seemed perfectly drawn and set for him to ask the questions burning in his Ravenclaw heart. He suppressed the last trace of poor posture and carved a finer cut into his own smile. Even when the Hufflepuff, with a twitch of narrower shoulders, cheekily remarked that Lorenzo was already speaking to him anyway.
He didn’t want to let it knock him off tempo. The dance for an answer was meant to proceed step by step, with measured precision—when Gabriele broke the pattern in two words. “Hit me,” he said, and the corners of Lorenzo’s mouth tightened for his beat. The composure wavered, slipped a notch, and let confusion into his eyes.
The wish struck the young Ravenclaw as bizarre. No one around him had ever chosen those words before—except in the literal sense! In contrast, here there were no strange men, no disappointed parents, no power structure demanding physical punishment. Lorenzo‘s smile dissolved in the moment. His brow furrowed in a still-childish crease,but he didn’t get the chance to question it. Before he could react, Gabriele chimed in, asking of who he was.
It felt to him as though the dance had warped—the waltz twisting into a graceless hip-hop, driven and compressed into just two words spilling from Gabriele’s throat. The nickname Ricci-Armani‘s black sheep echoed back into Lorenzo’s thoughts. He could almost imagine it stamped across Gabriele’s pale forehead. Of course, there was no desire to think of him with disdain, yet in his perplexity, reason refused to hold. The fresh air flowed calmly back into his lungs, yet it did nothing to soothe him either. With a small swallow Lorenzo forced himself into composure. The request was incomprehensible, but since the Ravenclaw wanted answers, he would have to grant it.

Hence the young Vincenti replied to the question first: “My name is Lorenzo, I’m new here like you. My house, however—is Ravenclaw. I actually approached you because I was hoping we two could talk about something.” Then followed the small declaration of his compliance: “And yes, if you want me to.”

What followed disturbed Lorenzo deep in his core. It ran against all his values, and yet he accepted it for the sake of his goal. The young Ravenclaw raised a hand. With his palm stiff and a surprisingly merciless swing, he struck Gabriele on the arm from the left side. The sharp whipping noise echoed through the corridor, leaving a burning sting in his own skin. Gabriele’s thin arm felt even more delicate than Lorenzo had imagined beneath the uniform. Already at the moment of impact, Lorenzo’s face contorted into an apologetic mask. He hated having to do this, and he could not understand why Gabriele had asked him for a hit!

The reaction was nothing like what Lorenzo had imagined. Out of the thin boy exploded his romantic mother-tongue. To the young Ravenclaw with knots in the thoughts, it sounded raw and jarring. It was only underscored by the hand that came to rest on Gabriele‘s arm and began to rub the spot. Everything in Lorenzo‘s stomach clenched at the sight. Heat shot uninvited into his cheeks and already mocked him with a song of shame. The colour drained from his lips into a pale tone at the realisation. It was not meant literally.
Once again, a moment had arrived in which his father’s voice rang in his ears. He pressed his thumb between index and forefinger, deep into his hand and the nail into the palm. Although he only came to discuss Antonio and what he‘d overheard, the planned question sank into mud. It vanished from his view, because the black sheep of the Ricci-Armani glared back at him in outrage.
Lorenzo’s blue eyes dimmed, as though he himself were the victim of his own failure. His heart slowed and he thought it paused in his chest, watching a fine line cut itself between the well-shaped dark brows of the boy in front of him.
“Why the fuck did you do that for?!” thundered in his ears. Lorenzo briefly flinched. Somewhere at the end of the corridor the words bounced off the barren stone walls and repeated themselves, as if eager to remind him twice over of his incompetence.
An explanation followed, no warmer for all that Gabriele offered. With a bite that struck sharp to Lorenzo‘s ears, the Hufflepuff explained he hadn’t meant it literally. It was only an idiom.
Then the brown-eyed boy added: “Merlin’s balls, do they not teach metaphors in Ravenclaw? Don’t tell me you’re actually that slow.”
“I am sorry,” Lorenzo whispered as the glow in his cheeks withdrew.
It felt as though his uniform suddenly hung too heavy at the nape of his neck. As if another failure pressed its ugly, bloated form against his body, intent on crushing him beneath it. What remained on his face from the chaos of feeling was nothing but sheer exhaustion. His gaze roamed searchingly over Gabriele’s features. The high cheekbones carved themselves beneath the skin, and the unruly brown curls seemed every bit as rebellious as all the stories told about the young Italian in front of him. The Hufflepuff drew in a deep breath. Watching the flare in the small nose, Lorenzo thought he detected the faintest trace of forgiveness there—though he could not be sure whether his eyes were not too inept to correctly read anything at all.
Even the sting of the blow still refused to leave his hand. It burned faintly on the lightly bronzed skin of the part-Veela, screaming at him with every pulse.
“Fine. What did you want to ask me? Spit it out—” Gabriele suddenly veered the course of their exchange. Lorenzo could hardly believe his ears; they, too, belonged now on the blacklist of organs too bungling to be trusted. Not even a wand ought to be laid in their hands.
All the more since Gabriele’s words seemed to roll within them. Lorenzo was apparently meant to spit on him. Reflexively, the blue-eyed boy brushed his tongue in a testing motion across his lower lip. Dry and pale, he could not do it—should he indeed be expected to. Suspicious thoughts tightened his brows as he weighed the command. The correction followed momentarily. Gabriele‘s brown eyes widened in the pretty face, the thick lashes lifted, and added “—not literally, don’t spit on me!”

The slowly opening fissures on Lorenzo’s lip could not be rescued even by what little saliva remained. His eyes lost themselves in the face he knew only from photographs in his father’s files. Those brown pupils lay before him like the kind of warmth one was allowed to see only through windowpanes—or in films. Between them sat the hatred, or perhaps it was judgement. Lorenzo pressed his fingernail harder into his skin.
The moment had come to ask his question, he knew. Trained rules whispered cramped reminders of dialogue’s rhythm, urging him to seize the chance and function. Unfortunately, the calamity might have passed like a storm at sea, but the grey clouds had lodged themselves in his chest.
Lorenzo pressed his tongue to the starting line. It followed hesitantly, and a small “Uhm—” fell from his lips.
The question was somewhere inside him—caught between what had just transpired and the determination from this morning. That still early hour slowly laid the light of a rising sun through the windows, stretching its shape until it spilled over Lorenzo’s toes.
“So—,” the Ravenclaw continued. He blinked several times and tugged at the question in his head. Lorenzo wanted to force it out. The defeat should not have made its home in his heart for nothing but to only greedily consume his confidence.
Lorenzo tried to shape it into words: “At the dinner table you told Antonio he had kissed a boy…” He swallowed and let his eyes sink uneasily, straight onto Gabriele’s lips. They were pretty. That thought drew a sword from its sheath and thrust it into earlier‘s defeat. Red blood flooded Lorenzo’s cheeks immediately. Quickly, he turned his eyes back into the brown—where it was safer to stare. “Is that true?”

The seconds before a reply came burned through his lungs. Lorenzo wanted to hold his breath, but he feared his nervousness might show if he did. With effort, the young Ravenclaw tried only to appear attentive instead. He kept his head taut and upright, staring deeper into that shade of brown. Gabriele’s eyes were truly precious. The photos that were presented to the Vincenti hadn’t captured their fiery nature. For the first time, Lorenzo wondered if the young Ricci-Armani was in truth just like that. Perhaps it was the reason behind his father always muttering about the troublemaker. The contrast to Salvatore Vincenti’s dark eyes was simply too stark. Lorenzo could at least imagine that this heat might be able to melt the cold in his father’s gaze. Thinking about it, he pressed his fingers more firmly into his palm. The small pain at least steadied his pulse.
«I did?» at last came the reaction—not as an answer, but as a question. Lorenzo’s brow furrowed in response—only for Gabriele to swiftly cut the legs out from under his confusion with more. «I mean, yeah. I probably did.»
Thus, it was confirmed. Somewhere in the farthest room of Lorenzo’s mind, a small part of him had hoped for denial—that the black sheep would be shaking his head, and state plainly that such an idea was utterly absurd. Instead, only Lorenzo stood there now, his complexion growing paler by the second in Hogwart‘s corridor. His imagination wanted to spin like Antonio on stage. Then collapse and wait for someone to help him back onto his feet. «But—», he hushed.
Antonio was a son of the Ricci-Armani! The thought clattered behind Lorenzo’s uncertain eyes. Gabriele went on. Following a shrug Lorenzo knew only from irritated secretaries, «Of course it’s true. Who else would he be kissing? He’s even doing worse things to boys than just kissing them. Why do you ask?»
Lorenzo’s mouth hung open. He only noticed it when the cold air brushed gently against the tip of his tongue. Even the tension in his shoulders began to unwind, leaving him frozen in disbelief to stare at Gabriele’s pale face. Between those brown eyes, he searched for the truth—or at least for a secret hint of a joke he had yet again failed to understand. It could be sarcasm. The kind his private tutor had once tried and failed—to train into the young Vincenti. What could be worse than willingly kissing a boy? Antonio’s two fathers must be beside themselves. Gabriele’s small face, too, began to twist; something shifted until even the Hufflepuff frowned. For a fleeting moment, a cloud of relief almost reached his blue eyes—at least now Gabriele seemed just as appalled. Yet that illusion of an understanding between them broke the instant one of the boy’s dark brows arched. «Dude, he’s way too old for you!» It shifted into a mischievous grin. «Unless you just wanted an excuse to ask to kiss me?»

Suddenly, Lorenzo understood. For the first time in his short life, the eleven-year-old fully grasped at least one of his father’s opinions. Gabriele Ricci-Armani was a walking scoundrel, a boy whose tongue was far too dangerous for his sweet face—one capable of throwing every slow rhythm of society into a Viennese Waltz. His body froze. Even his fingers refused to lift, their nails still painfully buried in his skin. He stared at him, wishing Camille would turn the corner and deliver one of his arrogant shouting fits—anything to set his heart in motion again. His bunk-mate might as well have been a fallen angel himself, but at least he wasn’t a natural disaster wrapped in skin and crowned with lashes far too long and thick like Gabriele. It neither help in the slightest that the brown eyed viper had caught him staring and crossed his arms.

«I–I… no.» Lorenzo swallowed. A faint tremor ran down his spine, urging him to run. «No, I mean… I mean—» His gaze dropped. Despite his effort, the blue eyes flicked, for the briefest heartbeat, to Gabriele’s lips. The thought was obscene, unnatural, and wrong—but slowly, Lorenzo’s shoulders began to rise, drawing closer to his own body. «Really, I mean—no, honestly, no.…no.»
All the recent lessons on eloquent communication shrank to nothing, leaving only the long conversations where his father had inquired the tutor about additional hours. His legs wanted to give out—not to collapse, but to turn him around and send him running back down the corridor to the comforts of the Ravenclaw tower. By now, the air itself felt uncomfortably thick, as if it, too, no longer wished to be part of the conversation. It practically begged him to change the subject.
«So, um… nice… weather,» only words escaped—followed by a short gasp for air. Lorenzo tried to compose his expression. He briefly shut his eyes and attempted to make them look calm and content, like a peaceful overture at the opera. Thoughts circled in front of a gun, until it landed on a topic that might serve as a distraction.
«What is that supposed to mean—something worse?»
With effort, he tried to keep his voice steady, though the question slipped from his lips almost too quietly to be heard. No answers came to mind—except murder. This way, he hoped the topic could shift to something that didn’t turn his entire world view upside down.