WHO: Lumos Boot and Byron Kettleburn WHAT: A short-lived romance WHEN: 5th year, '99-'00 WHERE: Hogwarts & various WARNINGS: Suggestions of underage sex, unplanned pregnancy
OCTOBER
Lumos wasn’t sure exactly when she’d gone from liking Byron to liking Byron, but she found herself thinking about him a lot. Talking about him, too. To the point that she was sure Lakshmi was going to smother her with a pillow to get out of having to talk about Byron Kettleburn ever again. But one day she’d noticed he was cute — really cute and also smart and funny and insightful — and it’d been a little like, well, her namesake.
And now she was going to ask him to go to Hogsmeade with her. She’d rehearsed it several times over. She even knew what she’d say if he turned her down — which she really hoped didn’t happen.
So after Charms, she turned to him and said, “Hey, Byron. Walk with me back to the tower?” She gave him a smile and settled her books into the crook of her elbow.
“Walk with you?” He pulled a face, but it faded quickly into a grin as he shouldered his way through the door and steered them toward Ravenclaw. “Leave it to Flitwick to assign homework right before a Hogsmeade weekend, huh?”
“I know,” she agreed, wrinkling her nose over at him. And then, like she’d rehearsed, “So what are your plans this weekend?” She paused and aimed a teasing smile at him. “Charms homework, right?”
“I’m not wasting a weekend of freedom on Charms,” he said with a snort and shook his head. “I’m planning an experiment to see how many chocolate frogs I can fit in my mouth at once.” He glanced at her as they started up the first of many staircases. “What about you?”
It was a testament to how much she liked him that his plans didn’t put her off. Last year she might’ve rolled her eyes. This year… “I was actually wondering if you wanted to go with me!” And then, just so he didn’t think she meant as friends, she added, “Like a date.”
Byron had heard from a few reputable sources that Lumos might’ve had a crush on him. And maybe he’d been entertaining one of his own, cautiously testing the waters to see how she’d respond to his flirting — the safe kind, always easily dismissed as a joke with the right laugh. But they’d been friends for years and he’d found it difficult to tell.
By his estimation, this was definitely proof.
“Yeah, all right,” he said, far more casually than he felt. Angling a smirk at her, he added, “You’re sure you can handle the ‘burn?”
“Oh my god,” she laughed, using his arm to brace herself instead of the bannister as they stepped onto the next floor’s landing. “I’m sure I can handle the ‘burn!” She still couldn’t believe he’d said yes!
“Good, cause I’m bringing the heat.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he made a face and shook his head at himself while she laughed. “I don’t really know what that means but — Anyway.” He let out a half-laugh. “Where do you want to go?”
Lumos had been so busy trying to figure out how to ask that she hadn’t considered what they’d actually do if Byron said yes. Still smiling, she offered, “The Three Broomsticks? Honeydukes? Scrivenshaft’s?”
“All of the above?” He shrugged and shifted his books under the opposite arm. His eyes flickered to hers and two thoughts ran through his head — maybe he should offer to carry hers, or maybe he should try to hold her hand.
He did neither.
“We’ll make the rounds,” he said. And with another grin, “You can keep count of the frogs.”
“How many frogs do you think you’ll manage?” she asked casually, but really he kept grinning at her and she had to steady herself with her crooked elbow along the bannister.
“I’m sure I’ve got enough room in here for at least six,” he said and opened his mouth wide to demonstrate. “The trick’ll be keeping them from hopping out.”
She gave his mouth a considering look, which ended up being kind of a mistake, but she swallowed hard and nodded. “Six sounds about right. Is it cheating if you stun them?”
He tilted his head in consideration, but then shook it again. “No, but that’s way less fun.”
“That makes sense,” she agreed brightly, smiling. It didn’t. “I’ll keep count for you!”
“We could always make it a competition,” he said, slanting a smirk at her.
She laughed, shaking her head. “You would definitely win!”
“True.” He laughed too. “I’ve always had a really big mouth.”
“I like that about you,” she admitted, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. “Not — I mean, you have a nice mouth. I just mean that I like that you say what’s on your mind.” Why hadn’t she rehearsed for this part of the conversation?
Byron felt his neck get warmer, and he didn’t think it had anything to do with how many stairs they had to climb to the tower. “You know what’s actually on my mind?”
“No!” She looked at him now. “What?”
“This is my first first date.” He swallowed, and then grinned at her. With his eyebrows raised, he asked, “How would you say it’s going?”
Lumos fought to suppress a smile so she could twist her mouth in mock thought, but she lost that battle and reached for his hand instead. “I think it’s going really well. You’re going to be really good at this.”
“Thanks,” he said, the warmth creeping up to his ears as he curled his fingers around hers. “I get the same feeling about you.”
NOVEMBER
“I really like it,” Bryon said, smoothing a hand across the screenplay she’d given him. “I can really see what the characters are like, what makes them tick. And you don’t give too much away. They sound like people sound. They talk like to each other like people talk to each other.”
His hand stilled on the page and he almost held his breath when he continued to say, “But I think there are too many of them. Too many storylines going in too many directions.”
“Oh,” was all Lumos said for a very long moment, feeling a little like he’d just told her two arms and two legs were too many and she’d have to cut at least one of them off. But she’d asked him to read it for a reason. She bookmarked her page in her book and shifted to rest her cheek against his arm, peering down at her screenplay. “So I should cut some of them?”
“I think you should take them from this one and give them their own screenplays.” Byron glanced at her and nudged her knee with his. “They’re interesting enough to carry their own stories.”
Cheek still pressed to his arm, she peered up at him now, giving him a slow, relieved smile. “You think so?”
“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “I definitely think so.”
Her smile went shy and she glanced down at her screenplay in his lap, feeling an overwhelming rush of fondness for him. “Thanks for reading it,” she said quietly, looking up at him again. She pressed a grateful kiss to his cheek.
“No problem,” he said, a grin half-spreading across his face before he stifled it, and instead ducked in to press his lips against hers.
“You’re my favorite boyfriend,” she mumbled between that kiss and the next one, looping her arms around his neck.
DECEMBER
Lumos padded back into Byron’s room, wearing his t-shirt and a slightly haunted expression on her face. “I got it out,” she said, wrinkling her nose as she sat down on the edge of his bed. “I just kind of scrunched it up in some loo roll and binned it. I hope that’s okay.”
Byron wrinkled his nose from where he sat at the head of his bed. “It’s not like I’ll be needing it.”
“I meant more like your parents finding it,” she mumbled, staring down at her hands.
“Oh,” he said, watching her closely. “No, it’s fine.”
A beat later, he asked, “Are you okay?”
Instead of answering him, she scooted up to the head of the bed with him and with a sigh, rested her head on his shoulder. “Now I am.” A similar beat passed, though, and she picked her head up to look at him. “Are you?”
“Yeah, I’m all right.” He shifted to loop his arm around her shoulders. “I bet that kind of thing happens all the time. Or at least sometimes. It’s probably not that big a deal.”
“Yeah!” she quickly agreed, but she had no idea if that was actually true. “It’s fine!” She snuggled in closer to him, slinging her arm across his stomach. “It was really nice, though. Before all that, I mean.”
“Yeah?” His voice hinted at genuine surprise and he tried to conceal a grin that would’ve betrayed how pleased he was to hear it. “Yeah,” he repeated once he’d processed the thought. “It was really nice.”
It had made her feel even closer to him, like maybe she kind of loved him, but she didn’t want to say it and freak him out. That he thought it was really nice, too, made that feeling flare a little brighter. She tilted back just enough to aim a pleased smile at him. “We should do it again sometime.” But then she wrinkled her nose again. “But let’s get better condoms.”
“Yeah,” he said with a halting laugh as his ears turned red. “And I’ll practice on a banana or something.”
“That’s going to be a very safe banana,” she said, her smile back.
“That’s the idea,” he said, her smile finally drawing a full one out of him. “Or maybe a plantain. That feels more accurate.”
“Or a really big cucumber?” she offered, smiling wider at his smile.
“Yeah, definitely not one of those pickling ones,” he said with exaggerated emphasis. “I said accurate, not honest.”
“No, no,” she said, laughing. “Like the really big ones. An award winning cucumber!”
He echoed her laugh. “The kind that need special-made condoms.”
“Better not practice with those, though,” she said, starting to lean in, a little eager to change the subject. Her cheeks were growing warm with embarrassment. “That sounds like it’d get expensive really fast.” Before he could say anything, she kissed him.
As he leaned in to kiss her back, his gaze landed over her shoulder on his alarm clock. He jerked back.
“Shit.” He let out a beleaguered sigh. “My mum and Charles are going to be home soon. They’re dragging me to another Christmas party.” He frowned. “Why do solicitors love showing off their fancy houses and Christmas trees so much?”
“Because they want everyone else to know how successful they are,” she said matter-of-factly, starting to stir from her perch next to him. “And I don’t know. I think people just like Christmas trees.”
“They’re just trees,” he said, pulling a face. But it relaxed into a smirk a moment later, “I can usually steal some alcohol when nobody’s paying attention, though.”
“You’re terrible,” she said, smiling as she said it. “Ring me after? So you can tell me how it went and I can tell you to make sure you drink water.”
“You can listen to me wax on about baubles and canapes,” he said with a snort before he sat up to kiss her cheek. “And maybe you. Who knows?”
“I like you,” she said, but it sounded loaded, like she definitely meant something more. Her cheeks felt warm again, but this time she didn’t mind so much. She reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze before sliding out of bed to start collecting her clothes.
FEBRUARY
Byron had never had a girlfriend for Valentine’s Day before, but he knew without having to be told he had to make a big deal of it. He’d managed to slip away during their last Hogsmeade weekend to procure some of Lumos’ favourite chocolate. And a morning trip to the greenhouses had provided a small, less-than-professional looking bouquet. He left them both on the seat she usually took for breakfast and busied himself with a few helpings’ worth of eggs while he waited for her.
Lumos didn’t take her seat, though. She glanced down at it, saw what she was sure only Byron would’ve left there, and her chest clenched, hard. But she couldn’t do it anymore. And maybe if she cut him loose now he could do whatever it was he wanted to do without her and the predicament she’d gotten herself into holding him back.
“Byron,” she said softly, “can I — can I talk to you outside?”
Glancing up from his plate, he flashed a grin at her. “Yeah, sure,” he said, and abandoned the rest of his breakfast to follow her out of the Great Hall. All the while, he thought maybe she wanted to go snog somewhere before class. Or maybe she had a gift for him she didn’t want to give him in front of their classmates.
When he turned to her in the corridor outside, his excitement must’ve been obvious. “So, what do you want to talk about?”
His excitement made it that much harder for her to get on with it. So she did what she did when she went onstage, she took a deep breath and became someone else, someone who could say all of her lines with precision. She’d rehearsed this, too, just like she’d rehearsed what she’d say to all her professors when she dropped her clubs and what she’d say to her friends when she couldn’t hang out with them anymore.
“It’s been really fun being your girlfriend,” she said to start off with, only a slight wobble to her words. “But I’m worried it’s been too fun. Like, with OWLs at the end of the year. My parents really expect me to do well on them and — and I really need to focus on those.”
For a second, she almost believed that’s all it was and she almost waited to see what he would say. Maybe he’d suggest they study together more and actually focus on it instead of…
But that was the jolt of reality she needed and her next words were forced out. “So I think we need to break up.”
“What?” He laughed when he said it, anticipating her breaking a moment later and admitting she was just messing with him. But that was more his style than hers, and when he searched her expression, the humour instantly left his. “You’re serious?”
“I’m sorry,” was all she could say.
“It’s —” He glanced over his shoulder to make sure none of their friends were passing by. “It’s Valentine’s Day.”
The significance of the day and the cruelty of what she was doing wasn’t lost on her. But she’d woken up that morning filled with purpose and she knew if she didn’t do it now, she never would and then he would know and then everyone would know and there was no avoiding the growing weight inside her. This was just as much for him as it was for her.
“I know,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head and keeping his eyes fixed on her face for any sign of more information. “Did I do something wrong? Is this because your parents don’t like me? Was it the flowers? Because I couldn’t remember the kind you said you like so I just picked the ones I thought Professor Sprout wouldn’t notice were gone until —
“You’re really breaking up with me?”
“No!” she insisted, feeling horrible and even worse. But then, shaking her head, she quickly amended, “I mean, yes, I really am. I’m sorry. But it’s not — it’s because of what I said. I have to do well on my OWLs. I can’t have any distractions right now.”
Dropping his eyes, Byron slumped his shoulders and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Okay.”
There were a thousand other things she wanted to say — could they still be friends, the flowers were really nice, could she take it back, did he hate her — but they were all the opposite of what she needed to say.
“I’ll let you get back to breakfast,” she said, taking a step back.
“I’m not really hungry,” he said with a shrug. He met her gaze long enough to say, “See you around, I guess,” and then he turned to make a quick escape down the corridor.
MARCH
Now that she had nothing else to do, Lumos spent most of her time in the library actually studying for her OWLs. At least, when she had the energy to focus. It had never occurred to her that someone could be so tired, but she’d started falling asleep everywhere. She could feel herself starting to fade in the library, so she forced herself out of her seat and was looking for a book she needed when she ran into Byron.
“Oh, it’s you,” she mumbled, rubbing absently, sleepily, at one of her eyes.
Glancing up from the shelf he’d been looking through, his expression went from one of confusion to a frown as soon as he set eyes on her. “Yeah, just me,” he mumbled and grabbed the first book he put his hands on — it wasn’t the one he’d been looking for, but it was an excuse to leave. “I’ll get out of your way.”
“No, you — I can just —” Careful to leave plenty of space between them, almost bumping into the opposite shelf in the process, she walked around him. “I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Guess that’s what happens when you fall into the study vortex.” It had the sound of a joke, but his delivery was flat.
Even though he was standing right there, she missed him and that was the worst feeling ever. She breathed out an uneasy laugh, tucking her hair roughly behind her ear. “I guess so. I should —” She gestured away. “Before I lose my momentum.”
“Yeah, me too,” he said. It’d been weeks since he’d let himself get a good look at her and now was no exception. He kept his gaze trained on the book in his hand, the books over her shoulder, the library floor. His skin crawled as he took a step back in the direction he’d come from. “Good luck with that.”
“Thanks,” she said faintly. “You too.”
She looked at him not looking at her for a beat longer before turning on her heel and leaving him there in the stacks, walking back to her table. Only instead of sitting, she gathered up all her things — the book she’d meant to grab forgotten entirely — and left the library, her cheeks hot and her vision blurring.
MAY
Byron had heard the rumors. He’d tried not to pay attention to them. He’d tried not to pay much attention to anything to do with Lumos since she’d broken up with him. But some things were difficult to ignore, like the obvious change in her appearance when she came down from the tower dorms that morning.
He lowered his book to his lap, unable to take his eyes off her middle.
“It’s true, isn’t it?”
The way he was staring at her made her want to go back upstairs. But if she could ignore everyone else’s stares and whispers, she could ignore his. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“Really?” He raised his eyes and his eyebrows to look at her.
“Really,” she answered, breezing past his chair. In the same breath, she added, “Are you going to breakfast? I’m starving.”
“I bet, if you’re eating for two,” he said, sinking in his chair and staring hard at the fireplace.
Lumos froze. “What? I’m not!” There was a hysterical edge to her voice, though. And she couldn’t turn around to face him.
“Sorry, I meant stress-eating for two,” he said with a flicked gaze toward her and then back at the fireplace.
“I’m not eating for two!” she insisted, whirling around to face him now. Her eyes darted around the common room and she tried to take several deep breaths, but they kept catching in her chest.
Byron finally stood up and turned to look at her, the expression on his face still skeptical. He didn’t particularly want what he’d heard to be true — he wasn’t ready to deal with anything like this. But he didn’t much like being kept in the dark either.
“Okay, Lumos. If you’re really not going to tell me what’s going on, I guess we can just go back to pretending neither of us exists.”
“I don’t — I don’t want to go back to pretending neither of us exists.” Everything she’d done, she’d done to herself, but it was so lonely and it wasn’t until he put it like that she realized what a mistake she’d made.
He took a deep breath, biting back the question of why, then, had all of this happened? Instead, he asked, “What do you want?”
“I don’t know,” she said thickly, pathetically, the urge to cry sudden and oppressive and unavoidable. She tried to take another deep breath, but it caught again. She’d felt, literally, like she couldn’t breathe for months, but this was worse. Tears started to spill down her cheeks. “It’s true. I’m —”
No matter what he’d suspected, it was still different hearing it coming straight from her. Panic lingered in the back of his mind, but he held it back long enough to begin asking, “Is it —” He stopped and touched his thumb to his chest, the not-quite-asked question still on his face.
She nodded, once, and started to cry even harder. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to! I swear it was an accident!”
“I —” His breath caught in his throat and he had to swallow down a lump before he could continue. “I know it was an accident. I was there, remember?”
“I’m still sorry,” she half-sobbed, burying her face in her hands, her shoulders heaving. “I didn’t — I don’t — everyone knows and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!”
Byron was suddenly sorry he’d asked, or questioning if he’d done it in a different way, would he still be standing, completely out of his depth, in front of a crying Lumos? He didn’t know what he was supposed to say or do, but he wished she’d stop so he could think.
“Look,” he said, finally, taking another deep breath to shake off the sense of impending doom. “Have you told anyone else?”
She did look, dragging her hands away from face with a watery sniff. “I haven’t told anyone, but Lakshmi figured it out.”
Byron was slowly losing his hold on the panic building in his chest. He breathed deeply again. “Not even your mum?”
“My parents would kill me.” She realized, then, that it was only a matter of time until her parents actually found out. She inhaled sharply and drifted over to one of the chairs, gripping the back of it tightly. “Oh my god, my parents are going to kill me.”
“Who cares?” Byron heard himself saying. “You’re going to be a parent.”
“What?” Lumos asked. “They’re still my parents. I’m not — I’m only fifteen!”
He had to sit down again. “You should tell Madam Pomfrey.”
She gripped the chair she stood behind even tighter. “Then I’ll have to tell them.”
He gripped the arm of his own chair. “You do have to tell them!”
“But —” She sniffed and looked like she wanted to cry again. She stared down at the chair in front of her and mumbled, “What if Madam Pomfrey yells at me?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his tone bordering on exasperation. She probably wouldn’t be the only one to be yelled at, but chances were better that Madam Pomfrey knew what to do than him or Lakshmi. “It’s not just going to go away if no one knows. It’s only going to get worse!”
How it could get worse, she had no idea. But she considered him for a long moment, only sniffing once the entire time. Quietly, staring down at the chair in front of her again, she asked, “Will you go with me?”
He didn’t want to, but he found himself muttering, “Yeah, all right,” anyway.
Releasing her tight grip on the chair, she jerked her head up to look at him, feeling her first twinge of relief in ages. “Now?”
“Now?” They’d miss breakfast, but he didn’t have much of an appetite left anyway. So he picked himself up out of the chair and didn’t bother hide a look of defeat. “Let’s go, then.”