CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
the lion roars

𖦹 ⋆｡˚⋆ฺ ⋆｡˚⋆ฺ˚⋆˚ 𖦹

  COVE STARES INTO THE MIRROR.

  As expected, her own reflection stares back. Her cockle shell necklace rests in between her collarbones, the beads and pearls threaded around the chain thrumming with pure selkie magic. For the party, she had picked out a floaty white dress that skims her ankles and tied a pale blue wrap top over it for protection against the cold, sporting her usual silver jewellery as well as a dash of forget-me-not blue eyeshadow. Her anklet is on display, clay beads and sea glass the colour of cornflowers, exposed by the flats she picked out from the back of her wardrobe. It matches with a green one that Cordelia has, the mere sight of it feeling like a sharpened harpoon to her heart. She wonders if she should tide-message her soon to apologise for running away the other night, pushing that guilt to the back of her mind for the time being.

  Absentmindedly, Cove brings her hand up to trace the contours of her face; the slope of her nose, the freckles smattering her rosy cheeks, the faint bags under her eyes. She reaches up to push her hair back from the edge of her forehead to dance her fingers around the thin, silver scar she'd been afflicted with when she got caught in a sharp patch of coral a few years ago. She closes her eyes to relish in shutting out her own reflection, even if it only lasts a few seconds. Looking at it only serves as a grim reminder that she'll never be human, not completely. She can't stand the sight of herself sometimes.

Fallon appears at her elbow, hair in ringlets from the tight plaits they had been in for the match. She has on a dress the colour of tangerines, bell sleeved and paisley patterned, with chunky orange boots on her feet to match. Cherry lipgloss stains her full lips, eyebrow raised as she takes in Cove's demeanour.

"Can you do my eyes, Vee?" she asks, waving a makeup brush back and forth in her hand.

Cove hums, tearing herself away from the mirror to search for her palette. She gestures for Fallon to make herself comfortable on the edge of her bed whilst she scrambles around the room, eventually finding it stranded on Hattie Fawley's bedside. (They need to have an intervention about her kleptomania sometime soon. Every girl in the dorm keeps losing various products and jewellery to her.) She peppers eyeshadow that looks like faery dust onto her lids, holding Fallon's head in place so that she can crack on with the eyeliner.

  "What's on your mind?" Fallon wonders aloud. "And don't say nothing. You're in that weird way you get when something's up."

  She thinks about her answer very carefully, finishing off a swooping wing. "I got into an argument with my friend from back home when we were, um, talking through the fireplace the other night. I just feel dreadful whenever we fight. It makes me so guilty."

Fallon hums. "What was the fight about?"

Cove pauses. "A boy."

  "Seriously?" she gasps. "Oh, Cove."

  "I know, I know. It's really daft. I need to make up with her at some point soon."

"Yes, you do," Fallon insists. "What's my only rule?"

"Don't fall out with friends over boys," Cove choruses. "But, to be fair—"

"I don't wanna hear it. Never do it. It's absolutely pointless. Your friends are worth so much more than a little crush and you know that fine well!"

"Yes, alright, mum."

Fallon raises her eyebrows in disbelief. "I'm being serious, Henderson."

"Stop thrashing your head about like a horse, for fuck's sake," Cove commands impatiently. She sounds like her father and it makes her wince. Her voice softens considerably. "I don't want to smudge your eyeliner."

Fallon can only sit idly for a few seconds before she starts up again. "Who were you fighting over?"

"None of your beeswax, òinseach," Cove says snippily. "And we weren't actually fighting over him. She just didn't want me to try and start anything with him in the first place. Said he's not good enough for me."

Fallon opens her mouth to interject but she's cut off at the last minute.

  "There," Cove murmurs. "All done."

  She turns to ruffle through her bag, worming her way through the contents in search for her own lipgloss. It's buried between a pouch of crystals and a few stray seashells, fine sand granules sticking to the tube. Cove makes a face. She has to start cleaning out her bags more often.

  Fallon gets to her feet, the wooden floors creaking noisily. "Oh and, Vee?"

  "Yes?"

  "How were you talking to her through the Floo? I thought you said she was a muggle?"

  Cove's heart jumps into her throat, eyes wide and mouth going dry. How could she have let herself make that crucial slip up? She couldn't tell Fallon the truth. It's too soon for anyone to know the truth about her and she's not entirely sure if there'll ever be a time where she breaks the news to her friends. Anxiety bubbles up in her chest, squeezing her heart with the force of an orca bite. She has to think of a hasty lie to save her skin — literally.

  "She's a squib," Cove stammers, not daring to face her. "Did I not tell you that?"

  Fallon makes an odd noise at the back of her throat. She can discern what it's supposed to mean. "Maybe I misheard you."

  Cove laughs nervously. "Maybe. We should probably start heading to that party. Everyone's probably there by now."

  "Yeah..."

  Her suspicion is clear from start to finish of their walk up to Gryffindor Tower. Cove acts the fool the whole way up, but she'll only be able to hold up these false pretences for so long around Fallon.

°•.•°•.•°•.•°

  THE MAIN SPECIALITY OF A GRYFFINDOR party, especially if it's involving a quidditch victory, is that they go absolutely mental.

  As soon as they step through the portrait hole, they're met with deafening music and a small magical firework being set off, soaring over the heads of everyone congregating in the centre and fizzling out against a charred dartboard on the wall. It's absolutely packed, practically everyone from sixth and seventh year infesting the Gryffindor common room. An enchantment has been placed on the lights to make them flash between a multitude of different colours, including the hearth which is burning up with kaleidoscopic flames. Scandalised portraits are askew on the walls, some of them hanging on by a thread as the intensity of the party increases. Cove crosses her arms unsurely, though she's dragged inside by her sleeve soon after.

  Fallon instantly spots Mary talking to someone across the common room and makes a beeline straight for her, fading into an orange dot amidst the rowdy crowd. Something possesses Cove to hang behind, grabbing a cup with dubious contents from off of a table and venturing in the opposite direction. She wriggles through the thriving celebration, trying not to react too jumpily when someone sets off a sparkler right next to her. Fucking Gryffindors.

The boy she's looking for drifts into her line of view after a few minutes, bobbing his head along to the music as he hangs around the outskirts of the dance floor.

  He's wearing low rise bellbottoms with a Blue Öyster Cult raglan t-shirt hanging off of his frame, tied back by a bobble so that it fits him more snugly, the cerulean sleeves rolled right up to his elbows. She's grinning ear to ear at the fact he listened to her and wore something blue so that they could match, the shades almost exactly the same. His back is turned to her, engaged in a conversation with an unidentified girl. She walks towards him with more of a pep in her step and inadvertently slips into his blindside. Cove stands on her tippy toes to speak into his ear, not willing to risk that the blasting music could drown her out.

"Do you own any t-shirts that don't have a band on them?" she asks quizzically.

  He jumps slightly, not expecting her to pop up behind him. His shock immediately dissolves into a familiar grin and he leans down to say something back.

"Hey, in my defence, I borrowed this off of Peter," Remus remarks loudly to tune out the music. "But no, not really."

   Cove looks past him to the girl that he had been talking to, a strange sensation that almost feels akin to relief washing over her when she sees it's only Lily. Her auburn hair pops under the unpredictable lighting, framing her round face and flowing down her back with two strands plaited on either side of her head, held in place by baby pink ribbons that match the one on her sweetheart neckline. The dress she has on is roseate and lacy, hugging her curves and blending in with the bright blush powdered on her cheeks.

  "Hello!" she says warmly, elbowing Remus out of the way so that she can talk to Cove.

  "Hiya, Lily," she replies brightly. "Oh, I love your dress. It's very Pattie Boyd."

  Lily's all smiles, sunshine personified. "Thank you," she exclaims. "You look gorgeous tonight, as well." She peers up at Remus with a sharp look in her emerald eyes, raising her eyebrows and tilting her head purposefully.

  He clears his throat. It's hard to tell if he's blushing or if it's just the lighting. "Yeah, absolutely. Very pretty. Beautiful, even."

Lily rolls her eyes exasperatedly.

  Suddenly, James Potter appears from the crowd to throw an arm around Lily, who melts into his side as if they were puzzle pieces made to fit together. His dark hair is as tousled as always, his white t-shirt cropped to show off his toned midriff. There's a red plastic cup sloshing about in his hand and Cove suspects that it isn't full of pumpkin juice. His smirk only widens when he spots her, sending Remus the same genre of look that Lily had given him only a few minutes ago. She feels like she's missing something.

  "I've come to steal my darling girl away," he announces proudly. She swats at him but he catches her hand, pressing a gentle kiss to her knuckles. "The dance floor calls, I'm afraid. We'll leave you to it, Moony."

  Remus rolls his eyes, skelping his friend upside the head as he disappears into the crowd with his girlfriend, lost to a sea of students that are pished out of their minds. Cove laughs at the two of them which regains his attention.

  "Why do they all call you Moony?" she asks.

  Remus falters. "After Keith Moon," he rushes out quickly. The excuse is rehearsed, choreographed. "He's the drummer for the Who."

Just in time to save him, Get It On by T.Rex begins to blast from the magically amplified muggle radio, eliciting cheers from people around the common room. It causes a much needed distraction from her prying questions. He clasps both of her hands in his own, thumbs smoothing over her rings.

"They've all got the right idea. This song is a fuckin' tune," he says over the commotion. "Let's dance!"

She downs the last of her drink, relishing in the scalding burn. Cove doesn't have any time to reply as she's been whisked away to the dance floor, the skirt of her dress billowing behind her. She apologises to all the people she batters into, though her words fall on deaf ears as the music acts as the only sovereign that night, commanding everyone to laugh and drink and dance until the sun brinks on rising at dawn. Remus turns to face her when they're at the thumping heart of the crowd, holding onto her arms as they move together wildly. There's no doubt that they look ridiculous, but that hardly matters when they're having fun.

  A couple nudge past them, locked in a tight embrace as if they're the only two people there. One of them stands on Cove's foot, illiciting a sharp 'ow!' from her and not even turning to apologise.

"Rude," she scoffs, glaring at the couple as they stumble further away.

"Oh, yuck," Remus says to her. "They're really attached to each other, aren't they?"

Cove giggles tipsily. "I bet they don't even know each other's names." What can she say? She's a gossipy drunk.

"Oh, definitely. They won't remember it by tomorrow. I mean, look at them!"

The inebriated couple knock into a lampshade, the bookshelf that then nearly falls on them being enough to sober them up. Remus and Cove make eye contact and immediately start laughing.

"I don't even know if I'll remember this tomorrow, either," he admits.

"And at least we know each others names."

She peers up at him through the sheen of the technicolour lights, everything sounding as if she's underwater when she hones in on him. Her own laugh when he spins her sounds distant, surreal. Both of their faces are stuck in perpetual beams, but his is fuel enough to have her heart rate quicken and cease at the same time. Cove's mind flits between her scars and his own as they dance together, her mind drunkenly jumping to conclusions. What if, what if, what if? Could he be a selkie too? Is there a slim possibility that he's like her, that there could ever be a chance between them that wouldn't end in misery? What if, what if, what if?

She's being irrational. Cordelia was right — she's trying to invent reasons to be with him. The drinks are getting to her head, is all.

Her heart silences her head, justifying her wishful thinking. Cove finds herself leaning up on the tips of her toes once again, sealing her fate and pressing a kiss to his lips. Her hands find their way to his jaw, grounding her in that moment as the thrumming chaos around them stills. She can taste the strong alcohol on his tongue, paired with a hint of neediness that tells her all she needs to know. Her thumb smooths over the scar that she can feel at the junction of his neck, unintentionally pulling him closer and closer. His hands rest on the small of her back, securing her to his chest. Wordlessly telling her that he wants this too.

It's only when she pulls away that reality begins to sink in once again, his eyes fluttering open to pierce her own. If she doesn't laugh about it, she'll cry. She needs to pretend that it's not a big deal. She has to.

They stare at each other, the cacophony around them sounding silent after what just happened. Everything feels as if it's stuck in slow motion, like now they're the only two people in the room. Her heart feels as though it's on the verge of bursting.

"I dunno why I did that," she murmurs.

They're both at a loss for words. There's a mutual feeling that if they don't start poking fun at the situation, they'll both crumble.

"Well, I don't blame you," he says after a while. "Have you seen me?"

She bursts into giggles again and he follows, the two of them lost to the next song that plays, shipwrecked amongst their own raucous peers as the maelstrom of their actions begins to close in on them. He'll spin her again and again to the rhythm of every new melody to come, but nothing they do seems to erase those few seconds from her mind. The night flows until morning comes knocking at the door, the crowd only growing with every hour that flies past. At least they have each other in the middle of all that mayhem, her head resting over his thunderous heartbeat.

"I don't even know if I'll remember this tomorrow, either."

His words echo in his head. How could she ever forget?

author's note!

so... how are we feeling abt that

i love dressing up my ocs like they're my little barbies 😍😍 projecting the vintage wardrobe i want onto them so that they can live my dream