Status: Rewrite of "A Little Bit of Love and Laughter" -- ongoing

Of Pranks & Princes

Scents and Sensibility

It was a well-documented fact that Emily Prince was too bloody stubborn for her own good.

And if anyone needed to ask, the proof was in the pudding. When Violet and Flitwick and the rest questioned her desire to become an auror, she doubled down. When Severus rejected her request for legilimency lessons, she vowed to become a self-taught legilimens by term’s end, occupying her spare time with unrelenting research and practise. When the twins gave her shite for dating Roger, she told them to sod off about it until she forced a semblance of neutrality. And when she swore that she wasn’t going to let Fred win without a fight, she damn well meant it.

But even she had nothing on the hard-headedness of a slighted Fred Weasley.

After the First Task had ended, she went to look for him, to try again at a proper apology, but he was nowhere to be found. At dinner that night, he kept himself occupied talking to Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet and left no opportunity for anything else. Emily even tried to go through George as proxy, though she regretted the uncomfortable position it left him in — and Fred still refused to speak to her.

Days of silence progressed to weeks, and despite the dejection she felt, Emily couldn’t quite bring herself to drop her cause. She spent more time with Violet, more time focused on patrols, more time in the library pretending to finish her homework. She spent as much time as she could with Lee and George, when they would talk with her. But she couldn’t manage to break Fred’s resolve.

The boy was damn obstinate.

Still, there were other things to worry about. The holidays were coming up, and with them came an increasing load of homework from nearly every class. And in the last week before the Christmas holiday, every class seemed to drag on.

Especially McGonagall’s.

Emily waited with baited breath for the bell to ring — surely, it was only a matter of seconds now — and release them to lunch. Transfiguration used to be more bearable back when she had someone to talk to. She eyed the clock as it ticked, long and drawn out, as if someone had slowed it by magic.

McGonagall assigned their homework for the holiday: a reading from the text and a summary of human transfiguration to prepare for the first lesson after Christmas. The students scribbled the note into their list of assignments and prepared to leap from their seats to lunch. The bell was about to —

“Before you go,” Professor McGonagall started and stepped in front of the door, “I have an announcement.”

The students fell back into their chairs in a chorus of dejected groans. McGonagall straightened at the front of the room.

“As the host school of the Triwizard Tournament, Hogwarts has the honour of putting on the Yule Ball celebration, which will give us an opportunity to fraternize with our foreign guests. If you’ve been wondering why your packing lists requested you bring dress robes this year, now you know, and yes, you must wear them.” A light whisper spread amongst the students before McGonagall continued. “The Ball will feature an elaborate feast, music, and dancing, starting at eight o’clock on Christmas day and going until midnight. It should be rather fun for you all. And I trust that you will behave with the proper decorum for such an event.” Emily could’ve sworn she saw McGonagall glare at Fred before her face softened back into a smile.

Once the bell finally did ring, the students were agush about the Yule Ball — who would go with whom, what everyone’s dress robes looked like, how much fun it would be to dance all night. The other schools would return by the end of the week, to give everyone time to prepare for the Ball.

Emily hadn’t ever been to a proper Ball, or even a proper party, for that matter, and she felt herself getting drawn up in all the daydreaming. Wouldn’t it be fun to spend the night dancing with Violet and Lee and George and Fred?

It was just a matter of convincing Fred to get over himself and let her apologize so everything could be good again. And now was as good a time as any to try.

“So… there’s a Ball now,” she said, catching up with Fred as they walked to the Great Hall. Her bag knocked against her knees with each large step she took to maintain pace with him.

If it was even possible, Fred started to move even faster so that Emily was nearing a jog to keep up.

“A fancy Ball, eh,” she repeated, between laboured breaths. “What do you think about that?” Fred just kept walking. “Really?” With a leap that cramped her calves, she jumped in front of him. “Oi!”

He sidestepped to avoid her, like he knew she’d be there. Emily’s shoulders tensed as he knocked her with a light full-body check, not even breaking stride for a half-arsed apology.

Her face grew angry red with embarrassment as she shouted behind him, “Yeah, well, who needs you anyway?”

… Jerk.

She heard footsteps behind her, recognized the gait and direction, and knew it was Violet before she even turned around.

“You know,” Emily started with a sigh, not turning from where she stood staring after Fred, “I still don’t know what exactly I’ve done wrong.”

“I doubt even he does,” said Violet, slinging her arm across Emily’s back. “It’s been like this for so long it just seems like stubborn habit at this point.”

Emily pulled her hair back and over her left shoulder, which was still a bit sore. She turned suddenly to Violet. “Could you try and talk to him for me? Just see if he’ll —”

“You can’t keep doing this, Em.” Violet looked sympathetically at Emily. “Just give him some time, some space. Hang out with Roger. Read a book. Do your homework, maybe. Fred will come ‘round… eventually.”

Emily let a deep breath pass through parted lips. “I know you’re right… I just — I can’t leave it like this, not with the Ball coming up.”

Violet parroted back. “Ball?”

“Yeah, the Yule Ball at Christmas. McGonagall just told us now.”

Sixth year Transfiguration was McGonagall’s first class that morning, and Violet and the rest of them didn’t go until afternoon, where they would surely get the same announcement.

“There’s a Ball, and you’re just telling me this now?!” Violet’s eyes went wide like she was looking at an all-you-can-eat Honeydukes buffet. “Now I’ll have to worry about a date!”

“‘s’not until Christmas, Vi. There’s plenty of time.”

Violet scoffed playfully and nudged Emily’s arm with her elbow. “Easy for you to say when you’ve got Roger.”

Roger. Emily felt her stomach flip. She hadn’t considered going to the Ball with Roger. In retrospect, yes, it was the obvious plan, but now that it stared her in the face, she felt almost nauseous.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like Roger, she did, but it just… it wasn’t what she expected, being with him. He was sweet, he was bright, he was handsome, and he was a hell of a lot less trouble than the twins were. But when she thought about being with him, there was no excitement, no desire. Like the novelty wore off and she was left with the vague memory of the dream that once was.

When Emily finally shook herself from her thoughts, Violet was mid-rant about the lack of prospects at Hogwarts and that she’d have to hold her breath that she caught the eye of a Beauxbatons boy or else she’d be stuck going alone.

Maybe alone wasn’t a bad thing, though. Violet could go alone, and she could go alone, and they could go alone together... if only there were a way to gently break that to Roger...

Emily let out a frustrated huff, and Violet’s head snapped to face her.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Emily smiled. “I just doubt you’ll have any trouble finding a handsome Durmstrang boy who’d be just dying to take you.”

“Durmstrang, eh?” Violet thought for a moment before shrugging it off. “I guess no matter what it’ll be the group of us, right? Me, you, Roger, and the boys?’

Emily looked over at the Gryffindor table where Fred and George sat. Fred’s arms were crossed against his chest, his body slumped down in a huff. When he caught her glancing at him, he quickly turned away, drawing himself back into the table’s current conversation.

“If they’ll even want to,” she said and shifted uncomfortably. She was suffocating under the weight of whatever their fight was about. Was being with Roger still worth this? If Roger was even the problem at all…

“This will all clear up before then, Em.”

“I’m gonna go talk to him,” Emily decided, and she stepped in the direction of the Gryffindor table.

Violet caught her by the arm. “That’s not a good idea. And you know it.”

“Obviously I need to show him how stupid he’s being.” Emily pulled herself from Violet’s grip. “Trust me. He’s had plenty of time to reach that conclusion on his own.”

“I just don’t want this to backfire on you,” Violet said, dropping her hand. She brushed her hair back behind her ear. “He’s in a right foul mood, and —”

“And I’ll knock him loose from it.” Emily grinned at her friend and continued on her way. “At least, I’ve got to try.”

The steps she took toward the Gryffindor table started out bold, and she fought her hesitation the closer she got. It felt like everyone was staring at her — well, everyone except for Fred and George. She took a deep breath and dove in.

“So… how’s things with my guys?” She sat between the twins at the table, spreading her arms around their shoulders casually, like the comfort of the motion would help ease the tension that spread at her presence.

George smiled. “Hey, Em. Good to see —”

Fred broke in, pushing her off from around him. “Are you deaf or dumb, Prince?”

“Excuse me?”

With a forlorn sigh and a roll of his eyes, George turned his focus back on his lunch, leaving Fred and Emily to duke it out on their own.

“Leave me the bloody hell alone,” Fred said. His voice left behind an echoing rumble as he looked away from her again.

“I just want to talk things out,” she said, holding her hands out in a show of peace.

“Well, I don’t.” He angled his body away from hers, like she was contaminated with some disease that could kill him, and scooted over more towards Angelina and Alicia who sat on his other side.

“Fine,” Emily said, her response curt. She tried to hide the hurt that began to cloud her face.

“Fine.”

She swallowed everything else she desperately wanted to say — the apologies, the jokes, the casual chatter she so missed. “Then I’ll just go, yeah?”

Fred shrugged. He didn’t turn to look at her, just mumbled under his breath, “Good riddance.”

Emily maintained her composure as she walked away, as Violet tried to quell the upset with a playful ‘told-you-so’, as she felt Fred’s glare burn through the back of her skull, as she passed the twins in uncomfortable silence after dinner. But that night, once she was finally alone, she fell apart in the silence of the girl’s dormitory.

>>>

When Emily entered the Potions classroom on Friday morning, the last day before holiday, the air smelled… pleasant, for once. There was a sort of sweetness that permeated the musty odour of mould and moisture, and Emily could hear each student suck in a deep whiff of it as they entered. She was surprised how comfortable the temperature was in the dungeons, despite snow falling in heavy sheets outside.

The source of the smell and the warmth was a bubbling cauldron on a desk in the room’s centre. A thin, silvery smoke wafted up from the potion’s depths, hazing everything in its wake.

The students stared at it as they walked past. It was mysterious but wonderful — and much more pleasant than the Polyjuice Potion from the previous week looked or smelt — as it blew a cloud of peaceful contentment through the room.

Severus arrived to the classroom soon afterward, slamming the door shut behind him. He wasted no time with lesson introductions, and the calmness dissipated.

“Amortentia is,” Severus began, and at the mere mention of the potion’s name, Violet’s hand shot straight up, so he continued, “hand down, Miss Briggs — a potion which causes powerful infatuation and obsession in the drinker.”

“Innit the strongest love potion in the world?” Jared Stebbins asked from the back of the room.

“No, you insufferable boy,” Severus replied, nearly snapping his neck with the speed at which he turned around. “A potion cannot create love — only mimic it, at best.”

The two boys sitting on either side of Stebbins struggled to stifle their laughter, and Severus continued his lecture.

“Amortentia creates a false sense of infatuation and obsession in the drinker. It is tasteless and practically colourless, but it is not odourless. In fact, amortentia can be distinguished by its smell, which is different to each individual based on scents they enjoy.” As he approached the cauldron, his face scrunched up, and he took a large step back. “I will ask that each of you come to the front to examine the sample I have brewed; you will use this as your benchmark today.”

The students lined up and snaked around the room to get another whiff of the potion. Each was asked to briefly describe what it smelt like in their notes.

As they scurried back to their seats, Violet smiled. “Smelled like peppermint. That’s the best. Peppermint and a brand-new book — y’know, the pages, the way they have that smell when you first open ‘em — and Earl Grey tea.”

When Emily took her breath, it was too much all at once, like the scents were fighting against each other, and they weren’t distinct enough to smell them individually like Violet could.

“The instructions for brewing amortentia are on page 493 of your textbooks,” Severus said and took a seat at his desk. “You have until the end of class.”

Emily flipped to the page in her text, and Violet began to set up their cauldron on the desktop.

“Last day before holiday,” she grumbled as she pulled out the rest of their supplies. “Snape would start a whole new lesson.”

Emily chuckled as she counted out the ingredients. “And just think, he hasn’t even assigned a holiday term paper yet.”

“Don’t give him any ideas.”

Before they could start, Emily needed to pull the necessary ingredients from the Potions classroom’s stores across the room, just behind where she and Violet used to sit. To get there, she needed to pass the twins at their usual desk. Fred looked less grumpy than had been the new standard, at least until he saw her, at which time his face contorted into a mix of disgust and discomfort with a layer of dejection barely visible in the cracks.

She didn’t say anything, didn’t look at him except in passing, and tried to be as quick as possible while she collected everything they’d need for the potion in one shot. Anything so she wouldn’t have to come back and subject herself to his reaction again.

When it was over, Emily and Violet mixed together the start of the potion, following the textbook directions. A pinch of pearl dust, two ashwinder eggs, stir anticlockwise, add five rose thorns, simmer.

Emily could see the potion bubbling as a mother-of-pearl sheen developed throughout the liquid, but it had no distinguishable smell yet.

Above the chatter of whispering partners, a groan erupted from the other side of the room, and Fred’s voice blurted out, “You’ve always got to be right up my arse, eh, Prince?” He spun around, nearly knocking over his cauldron as he did, and he looked down sheepishly when he realized she wasn’t there.

“I’m all the way over here, you lousy git,” she called back to him, her voice cold and scratching against her throat.

It was inappropriate decorum for the classroom, sure, and certainly more so for a prefect, but he started it, and she couldn’t help herself.

In the chaos between the two of them, the room had gone silent, save for the flicker and flare of burners and the tapping of Severus’s fingers against his teachers’ desk. Everyone was staring at them, glancing back and forth between them both in stunned silence, each face frozen in shock at the scene.

Fred’s brow furrowed, and he stared down at the bubbling cauldron. For now, at least, it was over, and the rest of the class hurriedly returned to their work.

“What was that all about?” Violet asked in a hushed whisper when Emily turned back to their table.

Emily shrugged, her face redder than she wanted to acknowledge, and replied, “Who even knows?”

Violet shook her head with wide eyes and a sigh before returning to focus again on their amortentia. “All right, give it a whiff.”

Emily did, and she was hit with three distinct scents: Butterbeer to start, warm and sweet as it filled her nose; then the smell of fresh ink, which she had grown accustomed to and even fond of over her years at Hogwarts; and finally there was the smell of fireworks already let off, burnt and blown, but that wasn’t it – mixed with it was the marked aroma of citrus, oranges specifically. And it was familiar but strange in the same. Completely impossible to place.

Looking up at Violet with brows knitted, her palms set hard against the table, Emily said, “Think it might be a bit off.”

“What?” She bent over the cauldron and took a deep inhale herself. She paused for a moment, ruminating on it before she turned back to Emily again. “I got mine. Same as the sample. Peppermint, paper, and tea.” She chuckled a bit and added, “You need your nose checked? I think that last failed batch of Polyjuice might’ve messed you up.”

From the corner of her eye, Emily caught a glimpse of Fred, leaning over his and George’s potion, his head practically submerged in the cauldron.

She had the urge to call out and tease him about it, to joke that if he dove any further in his nose would hit the bottom, but given their previous outburst, it didn’t seem appropriate. Her chest panged at the thought that maybe they wouldn’t ever joke like that again.

As class continued and all of the potions were brewed and graded, with Fred and George’s potion being begrudgingly graded the highest, Emily could feel Severus’s eyes on her. When the bell rang and the students scurried off to their next classes, she knew better than to try to leave before the inevitable scolding she admittedly deserved. She took hesitant steps toward his desk and braced herself for the impact.

“You should already know what I have to say to you,” Severus’s voice rumbled as he glared her down.

“Yes, sir,” she said in little more than a whimper.

“You know very well that I do not tolerate this type of unbecoming behaviour in my class.”

Eyes averted, she could only repeat, “Yes, sir.”

“Then there’s no more to say. I’m deducting fifty points from Ravenclaw.”

She still couldn’t bring herself to look at him, and her gaze moved to his desk, scattered with papers, messier and more unkempt than usual. Beneath a stack of half-graded exams, she saw a sheet of stark white paper filled with a beautiful script: her mother’s handwriting, she’d recognize from anywhere. Emily attempted to decipher what she could of it from upside-down, to see the response Severus set aside in black ink on parchment.

She could feel her chest tighten, feel her breath catch in her throat, choking her. Letters from her mother were never casual. Sending a note via owl was only done in the worst case, and in Emily’s last five years at Hogwarts, she had only received one or two letters, the most recent of which was to inform her that her grandmother had passed away so she could attend the funeral over holiday. There was no telling how rarely Severus received mail from Noelle Prince.

What could her mother possibly want from Severus? Worse yet, what did he want? What was he telling her? She could only begin to imagine each nit-picking comment about Emily’s behaviour, her grades, her social shortcomings. How she asked for help learning a relatively unknown defensive art form. How she shirked her Prefect duties, and how right he was to have spoken out against her receiving the role at all.

She tilted her head to get a better look at the envelope. “That a letter from my mum?”

He moved to cover it with his hand, to push it further beneath the other papers. “My personal correspondences are none of your concern.”

“They are when it’s my mum!” she argued and moved to pull it from his grasp.

As Severus flinched she caught sight of a few words in his response: Secrets. Julian. Debt. Dark. Danger. Magic. Home.

His hand slapped against the letter to her mother, holding it tight to the surface of his desk. She pulled her hand away.

Above his fingertips, her mother’s script read plain as day: Severus, I am so terribly afraid.

But afraid of what? What did she know? And what did he?

“You owe me the truth.” Emily took a step back and let a deep breath fall from her lips. She dropped her hands and felt the length of her wand in her back pocket. “Why’s she scared?”

“I owe no explanation. Not to you, not to anyone, and not about anything at all.”

There was too much at stake to just let things go. And Emily Prince was too bloody stubborn for that. She wanted — no, needed — to know what the hell was going on. And if he refused to come out with it willingly, maybe there was another way…

“Legilimens!” she cried and flicked her arm in the curved motion she had seen outlined in the book.

But Severus was quicker, even without the added power of his wand in hand, shooting the spell so fast that it flew back at her.

She saw her father, heard a muffled argument with her mother from behind closed doors. She saw her mother break down in tears. Saw Severus at the house the first time, the recollection fuzzy. Saw her letter, saw her mother crying into Severus’s arms. The dementors on the train last year. Sitting on top of Fred as his nose bled. Him standing over her, his face red as they fought about Roger. Her first kiss with Roger. Being so close to Fred at Hogsmeade. The silent carriage ride with Roger. Fighting with Fred in Potions just earlier…

When she came to, she was on the floor of the Potions classroom. Her body shivered against the stone, her knees cold, legs splayed beneath her.

There was a flash of humanity in Severus’s eyes for the briefest moment before it disappeared once more. “You will not once, not ever again, provoke me. Do I make myself clear?”

She couldn’t see through the tears that cascaded down her face, couldn’t well hear past her ragged breaths, her body a trembling mess on the floor. “Yes, sir.”

Outside the Potions classroom Fred stood leaned against the wall, his arms folded across his chest. When she stumbled out the door, breathless, he jumped to attention.

She was quick to wipe her tears with her sleeve before she looked up at him and snapped, “What do you want?”

He didn’t look at her when he answered. “I came back to — I was going to —”

Before she realized it, the words had already left her mouth, “I’m leaving you alone.”

He moved to speak again, but she pushed past him, knocking his body with her shoulder. He clutched his arm and stared after her for a moment, watched as she rushed down the hall, but turned away once she was out of sight.

For a moment, it was all Emily could stop herself from doing to run back to the dormitory and bury herself beneath her bedsheets as the world crashed around her. Instead, she headed straight through the Entrance Hall and outside.

With only her robes, the winter air had a bitter nip to it, and the snow stuck to her hair. She didn’t much notice at first since she was warmed by anger and embarrassment and frustration, the air around her comfortably numb. She still didn’t know why her mother mentioned being scared, she had just attacked Severus, and on top of that, she was a piss-poor legilimens who would need far more practice before she was worth anything as an auror.

Emily stopped for a moment at the tree, her tree — their tree — just outside the Quidditch pitch, and fell back into the snow. Things had never been so complicated. There was Roger and Fred and then she went and literally attacked Severus, a move that, in addition to being just so stupid, would surely get her expelled from Hogwarts, though she was surprised he didn’t do it on the spot.

In the silence and the cold, amidst her frustration and overwhelm, she only wanted one thing: Fred.

Emily tried to shake from her mind that she had just destroyed her opportunity to make amends with him. He had come back… to apologize? To finally talk? And she had pushed away. And for what? To sit alone in the cold and wish he was here with his trademark jokes and some hot cocoa stolen from the kitchens.

“Em?”

The voice was distant, and she couldn’t see its source through the falling snow.

“Emily?”

Her breath hitched in her throat, and she jumped up to greet him.

Roger stepped through the snow, his brow furrowed as he stared at her. “What are you doing out here?”

Her face fell, and she quickly wiped her eyes, smearing makeup along her hand. “Um… getting some air.”

“In the snow?” he asked. “Aren’t you cold?”

“Just nippy.” She gripped her now-soaked bag tightly against her chest. For a moment, she considered whether she owed him an explanation about everything — what she’d been feeling, her hesitations about the Ball, anxieties about their relationship affecting everything else… “I’m fine though. You don’t have to stay out here.”

“Well, I was actually hoping…” he started, taking her hand in his and then dropping it suddenly, as if he never meant to take it at all, “can we talk?”

“Sure.”

“Okay,” he said. There was a silence that infiltrated the cool air, and he wouldn’t look at her. “I can’t do this anymore.”

She let out a huff, her breath dancing like a cloud in front of her. “What do you mean?”

“This. You and me.” He took a deep breath, and she watched the steam waft from his nostrils before he sucked it back in with an inhale. “I don’t think I can do it anymore.”

“Why?”

Roger wrung his hands together then thrust them quickly into his pockets. “I’m not looking to hurt you. You know that.”

“Just tell me why.” Her voice was curt. “You at least owe me an explanation.”

“I —” He stopped himself, rubbing his hand along his neck to loosen the tense muscles.

“Out with it!” she snapped, her cheeks flush with anger and humiliation.

His feet shuffled against the ground. When he spoke, it was quiet. “Fleur Delacour asked me to the Ball, and I can’t say no.”

Emily bristled against the news. The Ball?

She narrowed her brow when she looked at him again. “You can’t or you don’t want to?”

“Well, I’ve already said yes,” he said, and when she flinched, he was quick to add, “I’m sorry!”

“You don’t look sorry.” She fought back embarrassed tears as she spoke. “You look like a complete arse.”

He hesitated for a moment, moved as if to speak, maybe to try apologizing again, then walked away, leaving Emily alone in the freezing snow.