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You Could Turn All the Lights On
{P!atD. Brendon/Spencer. PG. AU. 100% disclaimed in every direction. For ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
theotherej in the DYW Live Free fxc. Beta by decor_noctis.}
LONG-ASS AUTHOR'S NOTES:When I offered to pinch-hit with less than a week until the deadline, I sort of panicked and ran around like a headless chicken for a bit, before calming down and trying to think of an actual bunny I could actually work with. And after tossing out three or four ideas, Spencer decided to lounge at me and raise his eyebrow, and I said, something you want, Smith? To which he replied, yeah maybe. Then he told me to write a Hogwarts AU and I laughed. He frowned and said, "No seriously! Write a Hogwarts AU!" and I laughed some more. Then he stalked out and I laughed a bit more. And then stopped laughing and thought, hey wait a second, he has a point.
Some things to know before clicking: 1) this is set 2-9 years after the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. There are mentions of HP characters, so I am going to call it right now and put a SPOILER WARNING for if you haven't read the book. So, if you haven't read Deathly Hallows yet and don't want to be spoiled, don't read the fic yet.
2) NO SERIOUSLY, SPOILERS. There, now you can't say you haven't been warned.
3) Since this is a Hogwarts AU, and Hogwarts is in Britain, the characters are British. Just imagine Ryan with a Scottish accent and we're good \o/
This is for theotherej and I really hope you like it <3
On Ryan’s first journey on the Hogwarts Express, he ended up in a compartment with a Muggle-born boy who smiled a lot and asked him about the wizarding world and shared his Chocolate Frogs and Ryan, despite himself, smiled a lot more in those few hours than he had for months. He decided that Jon Walker was an okay sort of a kid; so when he got Sorted into Ravenclaw and Jon went off to Hufflepuff, he was rather disappointed. Jon rushed up to him after the feast, as they were all headed to bed, and said, “Can we meet up tomorrow after breakfast, or something? Hang out between lessons?” Ryan smiled and said of course they could.
A year later, being second-years gave them both something of a feeling of superiority. They secured themselves a compartment on the train and settled down to discussing the summer; half of which they had spent visiting each other, but three weeks had gone by since Ryan had been to Jon’s house in Yorkshire, so they had some catching up to do. In the middle of this, however, the compartment door slid open and what Ryan could only assume was an over-enthusiastic first-year came rushing through the doorway like a one-person wordstorm. The kid talked for approximately five minutes straight before taking a deep breath and adding, “Hi, I’m Brendon.”
In the midst of all this, another first-year had sidled in. He was quieter, sat next to Jon, and just said, “Spencer,” when asked his name. The more Jon and Brendon talked, though, the more Spencer smiled, and as they crossed the border into Scotland (again, since Ryan always came from there) he and Ryan said something at the exact same moment. Their eyes met, Spencer smiled, and Ryan could swear he almost heard a ‘click’, audible evidence that something had slid into place.
“My whole family’s been in Slytherin,” Spencer said, when the conversation inevitably turned to Houses. “Well, I mean – I never knew my dad. He was a Muggle. But Mum’s side, all of it’s Slytherin.” He wasn’t looking at them.
“Most of my family’s Slytherin too,” Brendon piped up. “I’ve got a brother in Ravenclaw though, he’s a Prefect. But anyway, my great-grandparents were the first here, before that we lived in Bulgaria, so we’ve only been at Hogwarts, what, three generations? That’s like a hundred years or something, not long at all.”
The Sorting Hat ended up putting Spencer in Slytherin and Brendon in Gryffindor.
Ryan sometimes said they should have been the poster boys for inter-House relations. Jon, whenever he said this, pointed out that he did make posters once. Brendon always snorted and said, yeah but nobody put them up and Professor Flitwick soon got the Sticking Charm unstuck and Professor McGonagall had said that while she appreciated the effort, the school didn’t really need a poster campaign for inter-House relations.
Which was not, strictly speaking, entirely true. That Ryan and Jon were best friends and had been since before the Sorting Hat separated their living quarters (but not, Brendon was fond of declaring dramatically, their hearts) was never once questioned. That they became friends with Brendon was also never questioned. But that their other best friend was Spencer, golden boy of Slytherin House – that was questioned.
“It doesn’t help,” Ryan mumbled when Spencer complained to him about it one sunny afternoon in sixth year, “that half of Slytherin’s families were Death Eaters, Spence.”
“Yeah. Well.” Spencer shifted uncomfortably, and seeing as Brendon was off playing Quidditch with Jon and the rest of the Hufflepuff team, nobody was there to verbalise the ‘Isn’t your mother related to the Lestranges?’ that usually happened at this point; to be rebuffed with ‘Didn’t your family go to Durmstrang until they moved to Devon?’
“Doesn’t stop us being friends with you, though, right? Or you liking Jon,” Ryan pressed.
Spencer’s hand waved in a dismissive gesture. “I’ve got better criteria for picking friends than if they’re Muggle-born, Ryan. Jon’s a great bloke. And before you say it, I know you’re half-blood, I am too. It doesn’t matter to me, Ry.”
There was a pause. “That makes you different,” Ryan said at last. Spencer sighed. “It’s true, okay? A lot of people lost family in the war, and, y’know, kind of still blame it on Slytherin. And there are some people who still care about all that blood stuff.”
“What, even after Harry ‘I Feel Pretty, Oh So Pretty’ Potter and his campaign to rid the wizarding world of prejudice?” Spencer snorted. “I’ve heard first-years from the old families talking about how stupid their parents were, Ry. It’s filtering through.”
A Quaffle suddenly seemed to sink out of thin air. It narrowly missed Spencer’s stomach; mostly because he rolled in time. He squinted up to see a laughing Brendon dash to his side and bend to pick it up. “Hi. What are you two talking about?”
Spencer waved a hand airily. “Politics. The state of the world. How long it’ll take you to make up some excuse to come over and talk to me.”
“Pssh, like I need to make one up.” Brendon rolled his eyes. “You know you love me, baby.” An exaggerated wink and he was gone, picking up his broom as he went, holding the Quaffle aloft like a prize.
Spencer didn’t realise he was smiling until he looked back at Ryan. “Do you?” he asked.
“Do I what?” Spencer shifted on the grass. It was suddenly scratchy.
“Love Brendon?” Ryan was looking thoughtful. Spencer paused.
“I don’t know,” he answered, truthful. He couldn’t be anything else, with Ryan. “I mean, we’re only – I like him, but we’ve been seeing each other for three weeks, Ry, come on.”
“Jon said he loved Cassie after four days,” Ryan pointed out.
Spencer sighed. “Yes, but he’d kind of made it obvious for about two years before then. And honestly, McGonagall making her Head Girl and him Head Boy just made it blatant, really.”
Ryan eyed him. “Are you seriously suggesting that Professor McGonagall was – was matchmaking?”
“No.” Spencer rolled his eyes. “I’m just saying, they’re meant to be or whatever it is. Suited to each other. Something like that.”
“And you and Brendon?” Ryan clearly wasn’t going to let up on this.
Spencer stared up at the sky. Clouds passed overhead; one was in the shape of a goblin with its head up a dragon’s arse, and for a moment Spencer wished Brendon had stayed so he would point it out and Spencer could poke him in the side and pretend not to be giggling. “I don’t know,” he repeated.
“You just seem so…” Ryan paused. “So different, you two. You know? Like, Brendon and Jon, maybe, if Jon were into that.”
“But he’s not,” Spencer said, closing his eyes and suppressing the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. “And I am. And Ryan, are you seriously sitting there – okay, lying there – and telling me that one of my best friends would be better for my – for my boyfriend than I am?”
Ryan backtracked hastily. “No, no Spence, that’s not – that’s not what I meant, I was just – you get what I’m saying, right? That just, that you and Brendon are different, you know?”
“Ryan, we’ve been friends for years. You and Brendon are different, you’re still friends.”
Ryan snorted. “He drives me crazy.”
“Yes, but he does that to most people,” Spencer pointed out. “In the best way, though. Like, he’ll talk to you about something totally small and innocuous but to him it’s just so huge and he’s so excited about it, so you can’t help getting a little bit excited too, and sometimes he doesn’t know when to let up, but I catch him looking at me sometimes like he’s pushing, like he knows exactly what he’s doing and he’s seeing how much I’ll take. And I think he does that with everyone, if he’s comfortable enough with them. Have you noticed he never does that with Professor McGonagall, but he always does with Professor Longbottom? Though he’s new,” Spencer mused, “so Brendon could just be testing him anyway.”
Ryan was silent, and when Spencer looked over at him, he was watching him. His voice was soft, thoughtful, when he spoke. “Opposites attract, I s’pose,” he said, and he was smiling.
Spencer looked back at the sky. “Wow, coming from you that’s like a golden seal of approval. Delivered by Fwooper.”
There was a silence, into which came the tiniest of sounds, like somebody mouthing numbers.
“Remember Brendon’s Fwoopers? He said his brother’s is laying eggs, so there’ll be even more soon. They could start a breeding business in a year or two.” He looked over at Ryan, who was smiling to himself. “What?”
“It took you four seconds to get from Fwoopers to Brendon,” Ryan grinned suddenly. “I counted. You’re getting quicker.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Spencer turned back to the sky. At least the clouds weren’t grinning at him. Knowingly.
Ryan poked him in the side. “You totally do love Brendon, you do, you do, you totally do.”
“Merlin’s beard you’re annoying.” Spencer poked him back. “I don’t know why I always hang out with you all weekend, bitch.”
“It’s my scintillating conversation, git.”
“Harpy.”
“Hag.”
“Scottish tosspot.”
“English wanker.”
“Swot. Ravenclaw.”
“Arse. Slytherin.”
There was a silence, into which a dog – most likely Fang, unless a stray had got into the Forbidden Forest – barked. “You’re right, though,” Spencer said, when enough time had gone by that the silence had cycled around from pausing to stretched to loud to noticed and back to comfortable. “Berk,” he added, fondly.
“About what?” There was the sound of grass being pulled up and sprinkled back to earth. It stopped after a few seconds.
“I do love Brendon,” Spencer said into the silence.
To his credit, Ryan didn’t laugh, or say he’d told him so, or gloat in any way. He just smiled – Spencer knew because he turned his head to look – and said, “Yeah. You do.”