Taste of Youth

Lily and Alice wouldn’t stop pulling clothing from their closets the next afternoon. I let them do as they like because the last Hogsmead weekend had been an hour of changing Alice’s clothes for her date with Frank and I had said something about it being ridiculous and they had nearly torn my head off. I only offered my opinion when the pair started pulling heels and distastefully short skirts.

“It’s snowing, I am not going to commit suicide by hypothermia today thank you very much.” I walked over and threw the clothing into the no pile crossing my arms.

“Just use Vacanti to warm you up.” Lily told me looking smug.

“Perhaps we should get James as your personal heater, Lil.” I shot back.

“Alright!” Alice placed her hands on our shoulders and pushed, “Calm it down, both of you. No heels but you’re wearing a dress.”

“Are you trying to kill me?”

“Stockings, Luce.” She shook a pair at me the cream colored fabric snapping in the air, “You two will be inside anyway, so it’s fine.”

I threw my arms up and stalked back to my seat at the window. It took them another half hour to finish the outfit I would be forced to wear. I was going to freeze. When the two of them had finally finished with me I felt like a Barbie being primped for Ken. Looked like it too with the amount of makeup and the volume of my hair. I promptly used remover to get the makeup over load off and brushed out my hair loosening the cupid curls in my hair to waves. After making them stop complaining I picked up my backpack and headed down the stairs to leave.

“You can’t go without makeup! It’s a date!”Lily shouted whined as we walked into the common room.

I put up my hand, “Leave it alone will you?”

“Fine!” She threw her arms up and harrumphed her way to the couches.

Sirius looked over it us and raised an eyebrow at my outfit, “Going to Hogsmead?”

“Yep.” I flashed him a smile, “See you guys later then, Chase is waiting.”

“Have fun Luce!” Alice called to me as I reached the porthole, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

“Oh, that’s a short list then!” I called over my shoulder and hopped out.

Chase was waiting for me in at the front doors rubbing his mitten-ed hands together his breath forming little clouds in the cold December air. I stopped just inside the door watching him pace back and forth. He was talking to himself waving his hands about like he was reciting something, I found it adorable. When I’d had my fill of giggle at his antics, I called his name skipping down the ice covered stairs and jumping of the last one to land next to him snow leaping up at my boots. His smile was brilliant, the crooked set of it already known to me.

“Hey!” Chase greatly resembled a small puppy in that moment as he hopped on the balls of his feet staring at me in what could not have possibly been awe, “You look amazing.”

“Thanks, Lily and Alice took over for me. It’s not very warm though,” I told him my face heating up and showed him my bare hands, “They wouldn’t let me wear mittens or a scarf.”

“Price of beauty, not that you need it anyway.” His cheeks were pink as he looked away from me to unwrap the Hufflepuff scarf around his neck, “Here take this. Sorry that it clashes with your hair.”

I laughed, “It’s okay, just don’t tell Lily and Alice.”

“It’ll be our little secret.” Chase grinned moving closer so he could put the unbelievably long scarf around my neck.

He was incredibly close the heat of our bodies trapped in the small space between us. Chase smelled like sugar and fresh bread, his scarf smelling the same only a little stronger, and he was really warm like being in front of a fire. He tugged the scarf securely around my neck and carefully pulled it up so that the hanging ends didn’t touch my knees. I felt my face going very very red and ducked my head a bit when he pulled away. I heard him fumbling a little and looked up when he took my hand slipping one of his mittens on it.

“There you are and- uh- we can do this too.” He looped his fingers in my right hand and held them up between our faces, “Is it okay?”

“ ‘S warm.” I mumbled into his scarf squeezing his hands, “Don’t you have a bag to enchant?”

Chase grinned wide and tugged me in the direction of the gatehouse taking my bag from me as we moved. He told me about all the enchantments he’d looked up to put on my bag and about all the wild things he’d found the spells were used for. I was laughing as he recounted a woman who used one of the enchantments on her underwear to create lasting chastity and had to have them banished off in St. Mungo’s when it gave her an infection from lack of washing and the inability to remove them to use the facilities. It had been a good long while since I’d laughed that hard and for so long. Chase had my bag finished by the time we neared Hogsmead having worked on it while we walked, he shrunk it and stuck it in his pocket dragging me to Honeydukes.

“What is with you and candy, honestly. You’re like a six year old no self control.” I smacked his arm with my free hand when he pretended to devour one of the chocolate display stands, “Stop that.”

“Okay fine, but I’m getting you a bunch of candy.”

“I don’t like sweets!” I laughed shaking our joined hands at him.

“Why not? I don’t understand most people love sweets!”

“My mom raised the three of us with a strict no candy rule.” I shrugged, “Even when I could have it, I didn’t like it. Candy was just too sweet for me.”

“That’s…weird.” He shook his head and then gave me a quizical look, “You said the three of us. Do you have another sibling besides Professor Rein?”

“Yeah, I do.” I told him realigning the Chocolate Frog display, “A half sister, her names Olivia Lurch.”

Chase’s fingers squeezed mine, “It doesn’t sound like you like her very much.”

I picked at one of the boxes and worked my jaw, “She’s the perfect daughter, everything my mother dreamed of.”

I closed my eyes and sighed. I didn’t like talking about Olivia, it wasn’t that I didn’t like my sister exactly. It was just that after eleven something years of being compared to her and shaped to be just like her, I lost some of that love. Then came the change, three months before I was sent away she started being different. It was stubble at first, taking my mothers side in fights, ignoring me when I spoke to her in public and then she just stopped talking to me at all.

“It’s not that I don’t like her it’s- I dunno.” I looked at Chase tiredly, “Do we have to talk about this?”

He tilted his head, “You tell me.”

“Olivia was the perfect daughter and I was not.” I shrugged again looking away once more, “.She acted like I was a parasite to our family. When my mom freaked out about me being a witch, she was the one who told her to send me away.”

An odd look came about his face, “Let me get this straight. Your family sent you away for being a witch.”

“No, my mother and half-sister sent me away for being a witch.”

“Same difference?”

I shook my head, “My brother was still alive, in high school actually, and for family it would have had to been all of them.”

“Your dad didn’t want to send you away?”