11 Oct 2024, 17:39
Cruel Summer
ππππππ ππππππ’-πππππ.
ππππππ πππππ’.
β°β°β°
β« I'm always waiting for you to be waiting below β«
β« what doesn't kill me makes me want you more β«
β« it's a cruel summer with you β«
ππππππ πππππ’.
β°β°β°
β« I'm always waiting for you to be waiting below β«
β« what doesn't kill me makes me want you more β«
β« it's a cruel summer with you β«
For Aly Salinger, summers had always been cruel - bringing with them the deft hand of a lonely home, peppered only with the tiniest flakes of happy moments, such as the occasional Keeper practice or coloured-egg hunts. Aly's summer of sixteen, for once, had been the first summer full of naught but pure enjoyment - of summer camps and close bonds with tentmates, of mistletoe-induced kisses and coloured-egg hunts, of travels and visits and laughter and love. And yet, the latter had made it so that this spirited summer was the cruelest yet.
It could be said that the soon-to-be-sixth-year Ravenclaw had never been in love. After all, she'd dated only once and kissed only thrice - well, three different people, that was. And when your only relationship ends at fourteen, such a thing could hardly be classified as the be-all-and-end-all true love of the songs and the stories. In fact, for years since she'd felt nothing but small flutterings and fancies, just the tiniest tickles of a heart beating a little bit off schedule whenever she saw a pretty face. So why now had that bedamned organ in her chest decided to pace in double-time just at the sight of a certain head of red curls? Why now were these feelings stronger than ever before - and for someone who was a friend, no less, making it so much harder for her?
It had all begun with the kiss, just a soft touch of lips prompting sweaty palms and a thumping pulse. Even now, as she weaved through the busy patrons of Diagon Alley, pounding boots on the cobblestones, she could feel the touch of gloved fingers digging into the curls at the nape of her neck. But the Gryffindor was as gone now as she had been moments after kissing Aly, and there were no tresses of scarlet in the crowds of excited schoolchildren and beleaguered parents descending upon the Alley like the prophesied hordes of old. Aly slipped through them with practiced ease, having escaped from the watchful eyes of her summer-hosts-slash-prison-guards (the Virtanens, and @Opeila Winters) with an equally simple routine, as she remembered - only somewhat willingly - how quickly she had spiraled down the rabbit-hole after that. Had it not even been a month since that fateful night? And yet, the last days of camp had been full of sideways glances when grey eyes were not looking in her direction, then everything since then had been filled with thoughts Aly couldn't get rid of.
There was, really, only one logical conclusion.
Aly was in love.
β« said "I'm fine," but it wasn't true β«
β« I don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you β«
β« I don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you β«
Well, not real love, of course - the kind of love you think you have when you're sixteen, anyway. But that didn't stop her from overthinking it. She wanted to tell people - wanted to write Dee, write Peri, write Bex for goodness sake - cry to all of her closest mates and get their opinion on why the hell she was thinking these thoughts in this way at this time about this person. Of course, Aly couldn't do that, and this was the problem with fancying a friend - they were friends with other people, too. With her social web so closely intertangled, there was no one to tell. And that only made it worse.
If there was one thing Aly Salinger did well, it was overthink. Spiral. Agonise. Whatever you wanted to call it, she was a bona fide pro at anxiety, especially when it came to the field of romance. And after so long without feelings this strong, there had been a part of the young eaglet that had wondered if she was... damaged, in some way, after the fiasco that had been her fourth year at Hogwarts. Permanently absolved of any love, with the obvious exception of platonic, her friendships having grown even more ironclad since then. So, again, she asked herself the questions that had plagued her weary mind over and over in the last less-than-a-month - as she dodged the last innocent first-year heading to get his first textbooks at Flourish and Blotts and finally reached her own destination, staring up at the weathered green placard and fogged-up flowery windows of Dogweed & Deathcap: why now, why so quickly, and why... her?
Other memories had been swirling in her brain for the last few weeks, too. Idea-giving ones. Of truths shared after sizeable gulps of liquid fire - truths that shouldn't have been shared. There were more, too - for it seemed that "spiking" drinks with potions wasn't just a Muggle concept in their teenage dramatic moving-pictures, but that wasn't true. Apparently, teenage slippings of less innocent drinks into more innocent drinks were a constant in youth, whether their blood was magical or not.
And so, again, there was only one logical conclusion.
Aly had been dosed with love potion.
β« and I snuck in through the garden gate β«
β« every night that summer just to seal my fate β«
β« every night that summer just to seal my fate β«
She hadn't been, of course. But that's what we know, and not what she knew. To Aly Salinger, the world had been covered in rose, and that could only happen if someone else placed tinted glasses on the bridge of your nose, because she sure as hell hadn't been the one to adopt random fashionable eyewear. Sometimes, feelings could blind their occupants in more ways than one, and so it did not even occur to Aly to use common sense.
How could a certain lioness have acquired Amortentia in the first place? The reasonable answer that she could not have was out of the question. No, to Aly she had almost certainly become a Potions prodigy overnight, or perhaps purchased some in the shady Knockturn Alley before camp, or maybe stolen some from Dee's bag. (Who knew what kind of stuff Dee had in there lately. After all, she was definitely a prodigy.) Where would she have planted the dose, anyway? Aly had consumed plenty of things - illicit and not-so - over the course of her time in Windermere and the month of camp, so really, it could have been anything. And the most important question of all: why would she do this in the first place? But did anyone in love, other than Miss Salinger herself, ever really stop to think about the whys?
The only thing that even began to gave her pause was the question of the Gryffindor's character. Was she the kind of person to use love potion to indulge in her own selfish desires - and, hell, was she the kind of person to have those desires in the first place? Before the kiss, Aly hadn't even known the redhead to ever enjoy chatter about romance. In fact, she could remember quite a few times of ruby lips reminding their mutual mates about the importance of cramming rather than coquetry. Still, though, these miniature hold-ups weren't enough, and Aly slipped into Dogweed & Deathcap with a singular mission on her mind.
If she had been dosed with the most powerful, most obsessive love potion in the known wizarding world, there was one thing she could do to end it - or prove to herself that she hadn't been poisoned, that she wasn't damaged, that this was... real.
And so, Aly emerged from the tree-reinforced herbologist shoppe with a coin-purse about four Galleons lighter and a small vial of brilliant blue syrup tucked into her left hand. As she stepped into the sunlight, she raised it to examine the sloshing azure liquid in the golden rays from above, admiring how it glinted so brightly... for something so lethal. Of course, she wouldn't use it for that. No, with this hellebore extract she would follow the one logical conclusion she had left to end this cruel summer, as soon as she returned to Hogwarts on the morrow.
She would brew the love potion antidote, and take it herself. For only then would she know what was real and what was not.
β« and I screamed, for whatever it's worth, β«
β« "I love you," ain't that the worst thing you ever heard? β«
β°β°β°
β« "I love you," ain't that the worst thing you ever heard? β«
β°β°β°
Reducio
Mentions @Evelynn Decipio, @Pericles Dralt, @Dealla Prince, @Rebecca Lark
| Aly Salinger's ency |
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STA 10 | EVA 14 | STR 5 | WIS 19 | ARC 7 | ACC 18 Charmer β’ Keeperβs Catch β’ Paragon of Health β’ Lovely Creature β’ Foulplay β’ Keen Eye who's afraid of little old me? |
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