Edmund's past few days had been eventful to say the least. An amazing Valentine's Day with his adorable new girlfriend had foolishly given the young Ravenclaw a false impression, as if his week was to follow suit with pub grub and breathy, stolen kisses. George Carter, however, had put a more than ample dampener on this. He'd mocked Edmund, saying he'd made Waker more of a woman that he ever could. In his jealous rage, insecurities had created a demonised image of his former friend. He figured that she must have told George; it was as if her fling with Edmund was something childishly pathetic when compared to the sickening Gryffindor.

It was the notion of Waker laughing behind his back that hurt the most; even though she'd called things off, they had still remained good friends. Edmund's competitive head had been hurt also: George and Waker represented the first time he'd lost at anything. The Ravenclaw was academically successful, a charmer, a keen sportsman: he'd never had to face any sort of hardship. Up until now. And it was all because of George Carter, his Hogwarts nemesis.

And things were about to get a lot worse.

She was there, walking the opposite way. Edmund hadn't seen Waker since the argument with her god awful boyfriend, and he hadn't even considered the possibility that the two housemates would cross paths. Edmund looked towards the ground, keen to not catch her eye but immediately changed his mind. He'd done nothing wrong, it was her that had made him a mockery. It was all her fault. Glancing up, the frown on his handsome face became heavier, and Edmund felt his throat clench up as she came into view. He looked at her straight in the eye, and made no effort at a greeting.

Edmund wanted to just walk on by, but of course, conflict between friends was never an easy task in Hogwarts.

Outfit

Waker finished the quick and covert jotting of her innermost secrets. The diary was no pensieve, but it would do in a pinch. Besides, she'd been raised a muggle, and her parents hadn't thought to buy her a bowl of silvery memory tide. She slipped out of the girl's loo, the red leather-bound book clutched to her chest, and fretted for appearance' sake at the sleeves of her knit cardigan.

She was rounding the corner, heading for the stairs that might take her to Ravenclaw tower, when she spotted Edmund coming toward her... and then walking away, his brown eyes, usually dancing with mischief, full of ice and murder. Waker knitted her brows and looked over her shoulder. Her face read 'scandalized'.

Was this year another dimension? Surely it was all one giant nightmare... perhaps karma for burning that last diary so many moons ago.

Her grasp on the book tightened and she turned to stalk after him, bandy-legged but with straight shoulders and mock Head Girl confidence. "Edmund...?" She asked, her voice low at first, but it seemed to die in a pathetic echo, so she repeated, louder. "Edmund, what's wrong? You look..." She fell into step just behind him and reached out to touch his forearm.

Edmund felt those nerves return to the pit of his stomach; they weren't the butterflies of the delectable Lou Carter however - these were nerves that made him feel sick. He'd fallen out with one of two best friends, and even though he despised Waker at this current point, she'd still meant a lot to the Ravenclaw. However, teenage rage had ripped this sentiment to shreds, and nothing could match Edmund's anger.

He almost recoiled when she reached out to his arm, wincing with a sneer. It was as if everything she touched turned to disaster. Turning around, he shook his head slowly, taking a deep breath. Just don't go crazy, Edmund.
"I look what, Waker?" he asked, his voice quietly sharp, his brow frowning heavier than ever. If repressed anger was a person, at that very second, it would've been Edmund Klint. "Do I look like my best friend's been laughing behind my back for the past year, telling her boyfriend every little detail about some kid she couldn't care less about over the summer?" He raised an eyebrow, challenging her to answer. Leon had told him that Waker probably had an explanation, but so far, Edmund couldn't see one. How would George know all of those details if she hadn't told him?

"Why don't you go ask your absolute tosser of a boyfriend what my problem is, he'd be more than willing to tell you," Edmund exclaimed, his voice increasingly gaining decibels. A trio of younger girls turned their head as they walked on by, but he couldn't take his eyes off Waker. Just seeing her, having her in front of him made him angry.

Edmund clenched his fists in frustration. She'd made him look an utter fool.

Waker hardly had time to consider the most friendly approach. She had close friends, best friends, and Edmund was one of them-- but that didn't make her as skilled a friend as it did a public speaker. When it came to giving advice, to cheering up the lonely and abandoned, to trusting her secrets with others, Waker was a little wary and a lot awkward. And Edmund Klint was far more lethal than Fauna Blake.

She shook her head, almond eyes turning into a doe's with sudden wonder and confusion. It was a cruel joke, this whole year. She wanted to wake up and start over on 1st January, but she knew no such spell, and the Ministry's supply of Time Turners had long ago been destroyed. "I never said anything George about a kid-- What sort of kid? I don't even know who you're talking about." It couldn't be Vasily. He was no one to laugh at, that was hardly so long ago as the summer, and-- Oh, no.

She was so dense at the worst moments. She raised a hand to her cheek, clearly mortified. "God, Edmund, I'm such a cow." He'd meant himself. Of course.  How could she forget? She hadn't forgotten. He was her best friend! They'd had a thing, but she never... he wasn't a kid, and... well, she hadn't laughed at him, not once that he didn't know about.

Waker flinched. If anyone was a tosser, it was she. The word hit her hard, and she bit her tongue so as not to defend George or yell at Edmund or turn and flee in embarrassment. "I'm not with George anymore," she mumbled in a low voice. It hurt to even say his name, but Edmund didn't look like he wanted to hear that, either. "And I never said anything to him about... about us. I mean, he knows we... were... whatever we were. But he doesn't laugh at you! He didn't, I mean. We haven't been talking-- I-- No one would laugh at you, Edmund." Her grip on his arm tightened, her eyes pleaded with him. "Who told you we talked about you? Was it Trent Travis?" It sounded like something Trent would do for fun. Waker had hurt his best friend, and now he was trying to hurt hers, to tear Edmund away from her. Didn't he know how terrible it had been to let George go? Why couldn't he just stop?

Edmund widened his eyes, the corners of his mouth sagging into a half-sigh of disbelief. She didn't even remember it. She didn't remember their kisses, she didn't remember Edmund covering up his nerves with faux bravado, she didn't remember finishing things before term started. George had erased all memory of Edmund being anything more than a friend. He flicked his narrowed eyes to a trio of younger passers-by who craned their necks at the confrontation. Despite shouting the odds in a corridor, he was adamant that it was nothing to do with anyone else. It was times like this that Edmund felt like he still had a thing for Waker; and he had no idea why. He had a girlfriend, an amazing and beautiful girlfriend that he worshipped, but for some reason, his best friend had always been niggling away at the back of his mind. Edmund occasionally thought 'what if', and felt guilty every time he did it.

"He did, Waker," Edmund mumbled through gritted teeth, his face close to hers as to not attract any more attention. "He told me everything. Said that he'd taught you everything a girl needed to know about being with a real guy, said that I'd been nothing in comparison." His eyes met hers, and he felt that familiar angle bubble and simmer in the pit of his stomach. Feeling the grip on his arm tighten, Edmund didn't brush it away this time. George had won, again. Won in convincing him that Waker had been against him all this time, and even though the Head Girl was being sincere, there was still a tiny something that disallowed Edmund fully believing her.

"I just hate the fact..." he trailed off, about to murmur 'that you're with him', but Lou's face flashed in his brain once more. She was the best thing that had happened in a long, long time, and Edmund couldn't face losing the better Carter cousin. "That my best friend has been involved with the biggest moron in Hogwarts." It seemed like a better answer, and Edmund almost felt a flood of relief in finally admitting that he loathed George Carter. It had been an unspoken acknowledgement between himself and Waker, but Edmund had never openly stated it in fear of offending his friend. But now? Nothing really mattered.

It took the hot-headed seventeen year old a few seconds to process what she'd said. "You're not with him?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "You finally smelt the coffee, then?" The bitter taste on his tongue was still apparent it seemed, and Edmund bowed his head. How could he let George make him feel so stupid?

Suddenly she felt like the worst person on earth. She'd cheated on her boyfriend, scrambled away from the other boy in an attempt to keep herself under the radar, and had made Edmund feel... whatever he was feeling right now. Her words had preceded her thoughts, something Waker had always tried to avoid. She wanted to touch him, quite suddenly, to cup his cheek instead of gripping his arm and holding on for dear life. But she couldn't bring herself to do it, not even for her best friend, not even for this boy who she'd once kissed and spent a lazy summer with. She could only stare, stupidly, and try to apologize with her eyes.

"He did, Waker."

He.

George.

Waker felt something free-falling inside her tummy, like a dangerous carnival ride.

"No," she began, defending the boy who had rid himself of her disease. "George isn't like that. He's a bit of a show-off sometimes, but only for fun. He wouldn't do anything so nasty, Edmund. You must have heard him wrong..." But as her voice trailed off, Waker wasn't so sure anymore. She remembered the Gryffindor's own voice on the stairs when she confessed her crimes, and the way he'd laughed and nearly cried. She flinched again, and frowned. She had no need to defend him now; it wouldn't bring him back to her. And certainly George had no reason to keep their private life private. But he was he really so spiteful?

"Maybe he..." She felt her ears begin to glow behind the honey of her hair. "He was my first, Edmund. The first one I actually went all the way with, you know. Maybe he just meant that." She looked away from his eyes, and down at her shoes, but didn't let go of his arm. She bit her tongue until she tasted the iron bitterness of dirty coins. "It's hard to fake that. It--" Merlin, kill her now. This was so embarrassing. "Well, you can tell when someone hasn't... and I told him I hadn't... but even if I hadn't, he would have known. I never said it to laugh at you! I only wanted him to know that I was a--" She was stumbling more than a house-elf caught stealing butterbeer. "He had no right to do that to you. I'm sorry." Her fingers squeezed him again, but more softly. "I'm really sorry."

The bit about the moron hurt, but she swallowed it like cough syrup. She didn't say anything. She let him keep talking. For a wild moment she'd thought he was going to say something to her about how they were once upon a time ago that summer, and that maybe he wanted it back. Her stomach was still playing games, and heart was trying desperately to keep up.

"More like I finally ruined his life," she murmured. She dropped Edmund's arm, deciding that he wasn't going anywhere. "He ditched me." There was no other way to say it, so she just... did. "I slept with a boy in Hogsmeade, and then I told him, and he ditched me. Fairly. Don't you think?" She waited for his judgment to rain on her; for all his flirting, Edmund had never done something so terrible, Waker was sure. "He's not the moron, Edmund, I am."

"You obviously don't know him all that well, then," Edmund grumbled, his brow collapsing into a frown once more. "He made it quite clear when we were stupidly paired together in Transfiguration. Said he knew what had happened between..." he trailed off once more, not bringing himself to say 'us' without feeling an excruciating stab of guilt. "I've never liked him, and now you know why. Because he's rude, because he's vulgar, because he's a complete cretin who has no respect for anyone. Not even you." Edmund couldn't bite his tongue this time; it was all flowing out and in his short-fused, bad-tempered little mind, regret didn't spring up. He was far too set in his own ways to even consider that insulting Waker's school love may be a bad idea.

His anger, once again, melted away with her soft touch, like an icicle collapsing under the morning sunshine. "I don't even want to know what you did with him," he mumbled awkwardly, gazing at his feet for a second. He had to admit, that jealousy was still a part of his friendship with Waker. She'd always be the one that got away. And for the first time in his life, there was nothing Edmund could do about it.

However, the own frustration and confusion Klint endured was rapidly eliminated; she'd done what. His lips parted loosely, eyes widening. Wait? She'd slept with somebody else? And she'd just... told him? So candidly?
"You cannot be serious, Waker," he almost whispered, shock seeping through every pore of his adolescent skin. It was the most uncharacteristic action the Ravenclaw Head Girl could ever perform. From girls like Maeve, or Gisella, or Kitty, or even Quinn, Edmund would half-expect it. But Waker? Was this really the Waker Nolan he knew? He wasn't so disappointed in her infidelity (as far as Edmund was concerned, George deserved every inch of hurt he got), but more flabbergasted at the sheer scale of it all.

"Hogsmeade?" he finally asked, shaking his head in disbelief. A light sigh of hot air escaped through rounded lips. "Unless it's a retired wizard whose ninety six and wanting a home in the countryside, I really can't imagine who it is. Do I know him?" he asked, frowning with curiosity. "We all... make mistakes, Waker." It was the nicest thing he'd say during their little altercation, and Edmund sank into a wooden bench slotted against the stone wall of the corridor; the sort of benches that always existed but were rarely ever used. "Do many people know about it all?"

He was still in shock.

Waker couldn't help it; as hard as she was trying to dance on her tippy-toes around this new and overly sensitive Edmund who had stared ice into her heart, she huffed through purse lips and an indignant little nose. She didn't know him? She didn't know George Carter? For nearly a year, he'd been the only thing on her mind! She'd spent every free moment with him-- going so far as to neglect friends and enemies alike, and even slacking on her tutoring sessions with other students who needed her 'potions lessons'. "Edmund, I know him better than anyone in this castle," she protested, crossing her arms, shuffling her feet a bit, and reaching up with long, skinny fingers to pull pensively at a strand of hair that would not stay perfect.

Well, maybe she didn't know him better than Trent Travis or Emmylou Carter, but they didn't count. One was a genetic anomaly and the other his cousin.

Still, Waker felt her heart jump. Maybe she didn't know him-- not everything about him. Surely a year wasn't enough. And Waker, for all her planning, had never planned George's sudden appearance in her life... nor an exit, tied up in pretty ribbons. She'd started to take his presence for granted, to assume he would always... be. Where there was Waker, there was bound to be George, and the sudden realization that he wouldn't be there forever, wouldn't be around to teach her something new about himself every day of every year for the rest of their lives, was painful. And humiliating. When had her Oh So Adult mind turned to dreamy, preteen mush? She felt herself going red as Edmund counted off each of George's less than desirable character traits.

"...who has no respect for anyone. Not even you."

"He does..." She murmured, but her voice was so small that it might as well have not been heard, not even by Edmund, whom she kept close with a death grip until she was sure he would stay there. Too many people had disappeared from her life of late, had walked straight out of the corridors of her heart and into the world, where they were more apt to find people worthy of their attention. She wouldn't let Edmund do the same. The childish side of Waker was peeking over the mountain tops. "It's just... I..."

"I don't even want to know what you did with him."

She nodded, deciding to keep her lips sealed at that moment. She looked down at her shoes, avoiding Edmund's comely brown eyes. A friend's eyes, the eyes that drove a million other girls mad with longing.

But it all came pouring out, sooner rather than later. And she was looking at Edmund again, straight at him, begging those very same eyes to understand. She didn't know what he'd done with other girls-- only what she hadn't done with anyone but George. And now Vasily. For lack of very close girl friends in her life, she had to tell Edmund the grisly details of her love life. She might as well. Perhaps he'd offer the male perspective she so needed... even if he and George were as opposite as moon and sun, and he and Vasily... Earth and Mars.

She flinched, wrinkling her nose. "He's not a grandfather, Edmund, don't be a pra-- He's," she tried again, quickly, smoothly changing her tactic, softening her voice. "He's the new one at the Three Broomsticks, the lu-- the Ukranian one. Vasily." She waited for his verdict. And then she shook her head frantically. "No, no one! I mean, people know we... they know George and I broke up, and... it's not pretty." Wait... "Well, I mean, Trent Travis knows. For a moment I thought he'd said something to you..." She could feel her cheeks going hot again, but this time in the blotchy, melancholy way, and not so much out of humiliation. And suddenly Waker, who was the most awkward girl in the castle when it came to touchy-feely, revealing friendships sank down onto her knees in front of the bench where Edmund had taken refuge from the topsyturvy world, stared at him desperately for all of two seconds, and flung her arms around his neck, landing her doe-like figure somewhere on his knee. The tears came fast and hot as Waker hid her face between Edmund's cheek and shoulder. "I'm so s-sorry," she cried into his pristine uniform. "I'm ruining your collar."

"Well you better have a long hard think about George Carter," Edmund said, raising an eyebrow. "Because he's not as awesome as you think." Everything he said was like a challenge, as if Waker should attempt to disagree. Right now, there was nobody lower in Edmund's eyes. George Carter had insulted and humiliated the Ravenclaw, and worst of all, George had won. Edmund glanced at Waker's nimble fingers brushing through a strand of hair, analysing her every movement. It had been a long time since he'd felt anything more than a simmering friendship for the girl, but this rather heated and sorrowful exchange conjured feelings of doomed attraction that Edmund had suffered that summer. They were a dangerous substance indeed, and everything surrounding the Head Girl reeked of attractive disaster.

The silence that settled was unbearable, and Waker's grip upon Edmund refused to waver. Her eyes finally reached his, emotions of anger and frustration immediately melting into that of sympathy. How far in was Waker with this Vasily character? If she was happy with George, why find somebody else? These thoughts almost fried Edmund's brain in concentration - for he was not the boy she loved, and would never have the answers she sought. This sentiment was interrupted when Waker crumpled down into his lap, and Edmund immediately tensed up.

They'd been good friends for a long time. Close, the type of friendship that involved heaps of sarcastic banter and light-hearted jabs, yet they weren't exactly tactile. She wasn't the friend Edmund embraced in times of sorrow, nor patted on the back in a congratulatory gesture, and so the Ravenclaw became extremely and awkwardly rigid when he felt Waker in such close proximity. Large round beads of water fell onto his collar, and he could feel her face burn up in the corner of his neck.

He felt that pang of regret. Emmy. Even Edmund, through all of his flirtatiousness, knew that this was one step too far. Yet, he did nothing to stop it. It wasn't like his encounters with Lou - warm kisses of teenage lust and teasing sweet nothings from the girl were enough to drive any seventeen year old wild. No, Waker seemed more fragile, more timid. How could Edmund be so infatuated with his girlfriend, yet still feel something for the girl perched on his lap? It killed him to think of how it would make Lou feel. A hand fell onto the small of Waker's back, with the fingers of the other nervously grazing her cheek.
"It's - it's okay," he murmured, his voice nervous, and audible only to Waker. "It's fine, I'm not angry, not with you." He sighed with resignation: he knew, deep down, that she had nothing to do with George's insults. He hadn't even known they weren't together any more. "This train wreck will sort itself out sooner or later." Edmund's voice normalised gradually, back to the more comforting, more optimistic Edmund that his best friends knew. The best friend Waker knew.

The awkward closeness between them was like the dying energy of a muggle sparkplug introduced to the castle's frantic wave of invisible magic. Waker should have known better, but she'd fallen straight into Edmund's lap, anyway. She couldn't take it any longer, avoiding half a dozen people, keeping secrets from another half dozen, and all the while trying to keep a straight face and combed hair in the mirror's painfully honest reflection. Sometimes people just needed hugs, even Waker, and especially Edmund.

Although this was not wise for either of them...

Untangling herself from the sticky situation she'd created, she withdrew her long limbs back onto the stone floor's solid promise. She swiped at her almond eyes with a bawled paw, and shook her head, loose honey curls untangling flatly into the hair that belonged to Waker Nolan. "Sorry, no, you don't need to comfort me-- this-- this isn't smart. I'm loosing myself, Edmund. I'm loosing my wits. The exams, and..." George. "We'll talk in the common room, yes? It'll be..." She looked around the corridor suddenly, and swallowed hard. "Safer."

Her voice was quiet, embarrassed, brimming with a edge that could only belong to an escape artist. She whisked her wand from nowhere, and ran it gingerly over Edmund's shirt, evaporating tears and smoothing wrinkles as easily as if she'd been using a muggle steamer or lint brush. Her eyes were trained to the busy work, so that they might dry, too.