CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
all for the game

SAWYER BIT DOWN ON A PAINED HISS as Madam Pomfrey held an ice pack to Sawyer's bruised and battered face, the cold bite of the cloth searing against her skin like a rebuke. Closing her eyes, she thought about a lost time when what happened was that she was a girl once and bruiselessp. She'd refused the mirror not because she didn't want to confront the familiar creature she slipped back into, but because she knew what she looked like. Had already claimed it as hers. Behind the curtain that Madam Pomfrey had drawn around them, her friends were gathered by Rio's cot. Before Oliver had piloted Sawyer to the infirmary, kicking and screaming, Jeremy and Marcus must have explained the events leading up to Rio's overdose—that's what Madam Pomfrey had called it, anyway. An overdose. Taking too much of a drug resulting in the person suspended in critical conditions with no certainty of the outcome. Madam Pomfrey had asked them if it was accidental or intentional. None of them knew how to answer that.

"Do I even want to know?" Madam Pomfrey asked, her lips cinched in that disapproving stare she always gave Sawyer whenever she wound up here after a particularly brutal match or a brawl that might've given her a concussion. Madam Pomfrey always carried out her business with the efficiency of a nurse in service during a war, patching up an endless flow of soldiers bringing their varying injuries to the table. But all these war wounds that Sawyer dumped at her doorstep, she couldn't understand. And because it wasn't her job to understand, she never judged. Only warned Sawyer of what might become of her if she didn't stop.

"It was justified," Sawyer said, echoing Oliver's words. Then, she flashed Madam Pomfrey a dead man's grin despite the sharp bolt of paint shooting through her split bottom lip like lightning, despite the sutures holding it in place that pulled taut and tugged at her flesh in warning. "Will I be pretty again, Poppy?"

Expression deadpan, Madam Pomfrey pressed down harder on the ice pack. "You hold this here. Most of your bruises should go away after today, but the lip will take a day or two to completely heal up." She levelled Sawyer with a warning look. "Don't you dare pick another fight."

Between Rio's cot, which had been blockaded from view by a set of white curtains, there was another separating Sawyer from him and Marcus and Jeremy, who were posted by his bedside, having made an obstinate case against leaving. Unstoppable forces against Madam Pomfrey's immovable object. Still, Madam Pomfrey knew hers was a losing case, and so she'd pulled out two chairs for them before handing Marcus an ice pack of his own to ice the bruise blossoming like a dark rose under his eye, before snapping the curtain shut and hauling Sawyer away to tend to her injuries. Because he wasn't a common face in the infirmary and because Madam Pomfrey got the right sense that Oliver only wanted to stay for no reason other than to be with Sawyer, Oliver had been thrown out, though, despite his indignant protests, and forced to return to his next class. They had DADA, but Sawyer wouldn't be present. She'd been excused on account of feeling under the weather.

"She didn't," Jeremy said, poking his head around the white sheet, a weary smile tugging at his lips. "He swung at Marcus first."

Dismayed, Madam Pomfrey pushed Jeremy's face out of view. "You're not supposed to tell me these things! Now I'll have to report this."

"Not if you just... don't," Marcus said, snidely, not bothering to pull back the curtain. "It's not a crime to omit a part of the truth if they don't ever find out."

Sawyer smirked, and fiddled with a loose seam on her yellow tie.

"All of you be quiet before I make you go to class," Madam Pomfrey said, exasperatedly as she dabbed some ointment over Sawyer's bloody lip that stung as bad as a slap to the mouth. The stitches held, but already, the scab had begun to crack and the metallic tang of blood began to flood her tastebuds.

Even though none of them (besides Jeremy) were particularly sticklers for the rules, they lapsed into a comfortable silence, and when Sawyer was finally patched up, with bandages wound around her bruised knuckles and ice packs numbing up her face and the rest of her wounds slathered in antiseptic cream that made her eyes water a little, Madam Pomfrey pulled back the curtain separating her from Rio's cot and procured a third chair. When she'd come in, Sawyer had been too feral, eyes bugged out so wide and wild, snarling about menaces and promised deaths, to really get a good look at Rio. He'd been changed out of his school uniform into a dressing gown, and an IV tube filled with a pale substance was piped into his forearm. Glinting in the pharmaceutical light of the infirmary, the needle looked like a silver fang amongst the gravestones of puncture scars and blackened veins littering his pallid forearm like unholy blossoms. Against the starchy, white sheets that creased and crinkled when Marcus leaned his forearms against the mattress and took Rio's limp hand in his, Rio looked like a real corpse. It felt like they were staring down at an open casket, and Sawyer couldn't help but feel as though this—sans one other person—would be reminiscent of all the people who would attend his funeral. His eyelids, spiderwebbed with blue-green veins, fluttered like he was dreaming, but didn't open, and none of them had ever seen so much movement from a sleeping dead person before, like the dogs that run in dreams no one will ever know. Rio wasn't a small boy. He had always been six feet of spite and napalm for blood, a perpetual motion machine unable to stay still for longer than five minutes, like the more he moved, the more certain his existence was. Sawyer wasn't used to seeing him so void, so colourless, like his existence was now a blank slate and he had to start over again.

Wake up, fool, Sawyer thought. Face me. Stop being such a coward for once in your life.

Characteristically, Rio didn't listen, and he kept running away, retreating further and further into himself, and Sawyer considered slapping him into consciousness until Madam Pomfrey gave her a warning look when she came round to check on the IV drip. Magic had done its part. Recovery now relied on his resistance to the poison stealing through his veins. The potion inside the tubing was meant to help a little.

An hour elapsed, and they didn't even know it. Didn't even sense it. Here, in the cryogenic lighting of the infirmary, situated next to Rio who looked so lifeless Jeremy had to put a finger under his nose to check if he was still breathing, where lying in one of the cots meant some respite from the fast-paced stress of school and life that forced them through the day, it felt like they, too, were suspended in time. They hadn't moved an inch. The most was when Sawyer had kicked her legs over the arm of the plastic chair and began picking at another piece of loose skin beside her nail. She'd torn away at it with her teeth and it sent a stab of pain down her finger, but she kept at it, kept chewing and pulling until the skin finally tore away and the blood sprung to the surface and the frigid air made the open wound sting.

Footsteps thundered down the hallway. Two sets. When Quinn and Oliver burst into the infirmary, Oliver instantly made his way to Sawyer's side as Quinn's eyes scanned the group. A hand flew to her mouth as she spotted Rio in the cot, just barely breathing, just barely holding on though neither of them knew if it was a fight he wanted to win. Marcus had claimed the spot on Rio's left, right next to his head, while Jeremy sat beside him. Still holding onto Rio, his hands empty except for their hands, Marcus' expression was dangerously blank as he laced and unlaced their fingers like it'd somehow coax back some muscle memory into the muscles of Rio's hand. But it stayed limp. Jeremy's smile was tentative, but not reassuring. Quinn took in Sawyer last. Raking her gaze over Sawyer's battered appearance, Quinn noted the bruises on her face, the aftermath of her anger—judge, jury, executioner—and the bandages wrapped around her knuckles. Sawyer's expression was bored, and she only spared Oliver a stony glance as he dragged a chair over, the scrape of its legs slicing through the cemetery-silence.

"What happened?" Quinn asked, her voice wavering, fragile as a hummingbird's fluttering wings, struggling to steady itself. What a terrible life it must be, to have to move so fast and so constantly to stay in one place. "Is he..."

"He'll be okay," Madam Pomfrey said, softly, feathering a hand on Quinn's shoulder.

It never occurred to Sawyer how thin Quinn was. How narrow. How easy it was to snap her shoulder out of joint. She would never make a good Quidditch player. Too weak. Too easy to break. It never occurred to Sawyer how fiercely territorial she would be over Quinn now, as the girl flicked her eyes to Sawyer, brows furrowed, distress creasing her delicate features.

"And you?"

"Sawyer hit Dominik," Jeremy said, something akin to pride etched into his tone. "It was beautiful."

* * *

AT DAWN, Oliver found Sawyer on the pitch, lying on her back on the bench, one leg propped up while the other dangled over the edge, trailing the grass, one hand extended to the sky, the wind filtering through her fingers. In the half-light, her skin glowed blue, and Oliver had never understood the point of painting until now, when he felt like he could dip a brush into the vision before him and make a masterpiece of it. Without even realising it, he'd slowed to a stop by the entrance just to take the sight in. When he woke from another nightmare today, all he could think about was the match against Slytherin that would be inevitable in a few days. The stress gnawed a tangle of wires in his gut, but looking at Sawyer now, he'd almost forgotten about it. He almost didn't want to disturb this image, wanted to keep watching the girl who held his heart in her scarred hands do her own thing, a solitary creature who wasn't all that solitary after all, but she was waiting on him, and he was already here.

"How's your face?" Oliver mused, as he approached.

Sawyer's hand dropped down to her stomach as she propped her other leg up. "Fine," she said, and pulled herself up into sitting position.

Oliver set his bag down and inspected her face. Yesterday, her bruises had been so dark he thought they might peel off her skin, and now they were paler, an ugly yellow-green from whatever accelerated healing potion Madam Pomfrey had given her, the stitches on her bottom lip were unbroken, and the swelling had gone down fractionally. It still looked as though it might hurt, but Sawyer had always been uncareful, and she'd always treated her life and wellbeing with less regard compared to her charges'. Still, her eyes flicked down to his mouth and she leant forward naturally. He pecked her lips gently, felt the stitches press against his, and she sent him an annoyed look when he pulled away, as though to say, I am not made of porcelain.

Tugging lightly on the strings of her sweatshirt, Oliver smirked. "Tough."

When they ran their laps, Oliver couldn't stop stealing glances from the corner of his eye. There was no reason to be subtle anymore, now that whatever they were had a name, but, still, the habit had been ingrained since forever, and Oliver was nothing if not a creature of habit. And the stress eating him one wound at a time was a heavy knot in his gut that wouldn't ease, even when they'd slowed to a stop back where they started. If Gryffindor didn't win, he would be devastated. But he would be okay, according to Sawyer. He had a place on his dream professional team, and he was on a fast-track to his long-term goal. After a lot of internal screaming, perhaps, the potential loss of the Quidditch Cup would be a distant memory to shelve away.

Carding a hand through his hair and tugging on the ends in disbelief, Oliver wanted to laugh aloud, and so he did, earning himself a strange look from Sawyer. A year ago he never would've thought about it like this. It wasn't that he was accepting a loss. For so long, he'd been so one-track minded he couldn't see the world around him, couldn't process anything that didn't go his way in a healthy manner. But even if old habits resurfaced, he had the power to redirect it somewhere more useful. And it had everything to do with one Sawyer Lee, who didn't have any aspirations until recently, and who expected nothing and did the thing anyway.

Lifting a brow, Sawyer regarded him with a searching stare as she settled down on the cool grass shining with dew, and guzzled down her water. Her face was flushed bright red, and he could see her freckles. Something about that unearthed an ache deep in his chest. A good kind of hurt.

Oliver shook his head. "It's stupid."

"When is it not?"

As he flopped down on the ground beside her, Oliver shoved her shoulder, and she made a rude gesture back at him.

"I was just thinking about the match," Oliver said, and a tiny sliver of anxiety crawled up his throat. "I was thinking about what you said the other day. About... not winning the Quidditch Cup, and me being okay. In the long run. I was thinking... two years ago, I might've walked away from you if you said that to me because I'm too single-minded to consider other options."

"Now?"

Oliver shrugged. When he was with her, he didn't think anymore. Sure, there must've been a way to explain it to her, but none in a way that she would understand. Not that Sawyer was stupid—sometimes she was always the smartest person in the room, he felt—but because every time he was near her, his brain turned to mush and what he felt was colours, transcendental and urgently present. No more formulas, no equations, something more than words but less articulate—penumbras. Oliver was agnostic, but he thought perhaps this was what enlightenment felt like. To feel coloured-in when her fingers ghosted his face, the blue of the dawn light in the shadows sinking between them, the way her dark eyes seemed to soften and sharpen all at once when the light it just at the right angle, and when the grass stains on her hands and the dirt under her nails from digging into the ground just to have something to destroy subconsciously was smeared along his jaw, too, the pink-purple blemish on the base of her neck from a few days ago when he'd marked his presence like astronauts marked their place on the moon that hadn't yet faded, and in the grey slant of the shadow of her ponytail cascading over her collarbone. The first time he lay in her bed he almost couldn't speak and all of his vocabulary had been whittled away into: is this okay? Are you sure? Until she took him apart again and again and put him back together again and again.

"I should probably tell you that Marcus accepted his draft," Sawyer said, getting to her feet. She shot him a devilish grin. "Say hi to your new buddy on the team."

Oliver blinked, not really knowing how to react. In truth, outside of Quidditch, Oliver didn't know much about Marcus Flint. He didn't hate him. They were natural rivals, and Oliver despised the way Marcus executed his plays, but that was it. His intolerance for Marcus Flint only went thus far. And, if anything, Oliver respected a good Quidditch player. Plus, he was Sawyer's friend, so maybe he should make the effort to at least be civil. It didn't negate the fact that Marcus Flint could be a total dick sometimes, though.

"You know what?" Oliver said, his voice a little bit tight. Sawyer's smirk widened. "I'm fine. Totally fine."

Sawyer arched a brow. "Still living your dream?"

Bemused, Oliver flicked her a deadpan look. "I hate you."

Sawyer hummed. "Hate me later when I'm playing against Puddlemere United."

The world came to a grinding halt.

"Say that again?" Oliver breathed, bewildered.

"I haven't told anyone yet, but..." Sawyer trailed off, cocking her head, picking at a piece of grass plastered to her ankle. A smile, a real smile, slipped over her lips, and in the history of all the greatest victories in his life, this was the only one that'd take his breath away. Nothing about Sawyer was soft. Too many abrasive brushes with life had hardened her, made her grow edges and an unrelenting guard. But the look on her face now—he would trade all his tomorrows just for this. When her gaze flickered back up to his face, so tentative, so terrified to be something close to happy, he felt the world go supernova in his chest. "I got drafted. I'm going to play with the Appleby Arrows. I checked them out, and I think I'll do well with that team."

Without thinking, Oliver launched himself at her, his arms wrapping fiercely around her, startling a string of vicious curses from her mouth, but he didn't care. This wasn't just news. This was the best news. One thing he hated more than wasted potential was when potential went unrecognised. Adrenaline rushed through his veins, and lying on the grass, crushing Sawyer under him, he was warm all over.

"They're so lucky," he said, hiding his maniacal grin in her cheek. Sawyer slapped weakly at his arm, and Oliver sat up, but didn't take his arms off. He pulled her up with him, and she settled between his knees, face flushed more red than it was after her run and Oliver felt a surge of smug satisfaction that it was his doing, that he could put a dent in Sawyer's otherwise impermeable, indifferent exterior.

Slipping her hands over his shoulders to cup the back of his head, Sawyer leant forward, and Oliver's breath caught in his throat. The warmth from the sunlight pouring over the pitch stroked over their skin.

"Maybe one day I'll transfer to Puddlemere United," Sawyer mused.

"That'd be a literal dream." Oliver couldn't keep the moronic grin off his face, his hands sliding up and down her spine, sending tingling shockwaves down her back. "Please do it. I might cry."

And despite the stitches on her bottom lip, the blood crusted beneath them still, and Madam Pomfrey's warnings to go easy, Sawyer crushed her lips against his, and the rest of the morning was all shattered colours and their tiny little heartbeats sending earthquakes down the lines of their bodies.

* * *

BY THE TIME RIO WAS AWAKE, Sawyer, Quinn, Jeremy, and Marcus were camped out behind the closed doors of the infirmary. Madam Pomfrey had bodily barricaded them from the infirmary the moment they showed up. Dumbledore and Professor Snape were inside, speaking in low tones they couldn't catch when they pressed their ears against the door

They said I'm being suspended, Rio had told Sawyer, when she sat at his bedside in a chair Madam Pomfrey had handed her. I'm being rehabilitated, and I don't know if I'm coming back in time for exams.

Before Sawyer was allowed in, Madam Pomfrey had said to the group that Rio didn't want to see them now. Maybe later, he would. But he needs to rest now. Hurt, but knowing Rio was only lashing out now because he was in a vulnerable place after being put on blast for a good half an hour, they hadn't complained. But before Sawyer could leave with the rest of them, Madam Pomfrey had singled her out. You, she'd said, he wants to tell you something. Says it's important.

"They said I could attend the stupid graduation ball if I wanted to, though," Rio said, rolling his eyes, too weak to be contemptuous or scornful.

"Do you?"

Rio fiddled with the IV drip attached to the back of his hand, working a fingernail under the corner of the shiny tape holding it in place. "I don't know. On one hand, I'd hate to see everyone moving on in life while I'm stuck in place. On the other... I want to be there to show everyone that I'm better than I really am."

Sawyer reclined in her chair. "I thought you were above caring what people thought."

Rio let out a breathy laugh, but there was no feeling or energy in it. "I am. But I didn't mean everyone, everyone." He paused for a moment, cocking his head, like there was an afterthought he wasn't sure if he should share. "I meant you guys."

"They'll be waiting for you," Sawyer said. "They know."

"And you?" Rio swallowed, suddenly looking so small, so scared of losing something he'd already lost. He didn't know that she was never really gone. The nail-hard exterior that Rio had grown over the years, that most people mistook as him at his essence, was nothing but a defense mechanism. Be so offensive it doesn't leave him vulnerable to attack. Like all her scars, it was a slipcover. There was no way out, so they adapted. What else could they do? But in its undeniable nature, it was a shell, a malevolent carapace, a scarecrow designed to slow down rather than speed up flight. "Will you be waiting, too?"

Between them was this broken and twisted thing, and even though the part of Sawyer that found community in the pitiless language of bruised knuckles and bloody teeth was committed to the hatred that simmered in her, another part of her wanted to reach out, to assess what was left to fix. It wasn't going to be easy, and it never will be after all that's happened. For some inexplicable reason, though, Sawyer couldn't find it in herself to be indifferent towards Rio, regardless of what he'd done, regardless of their contract lying in tatters and pieces on the floor of the boy's locker room strewn amidst the shiny white pills scattered at his knees, a fallen god falling further. Apathy, she reserved for everyone outside of the small scope of people she'd promised her protection to. Apathy, because Sawyer had only a limited tolerance to investing in people. If the world went up in flames, the survival of seven people was her only concern. By principle, there should only be six now, but seeing Rio collapsed on the floor of the boy's bathroom, his face spiderwebbed yellow and blue, had unearthed something primal within, like muscle memory her body wouldn't exorcise despite her iron clause. Time after time, she would still have his back. It wasn't sentiment, but something far more inconvenient.

Sawyer twisted the hem of her school skirt around a finger. "What will you give me?"

Rio's gaze dropped to his hands. His hands, so empty now his fingers curled into fists and they grasped nothing. Not even the thread of his anger he could've pulled on any other day and left to detonate. "I'm sorry." And from someone who never apologised, this was a lot. The silence was jarring and Rio's face wore more age on its skin than the scars on his forearms. Mutilated by exhaustion, he dragged his gaze back up to her. "I'm sorry I called you a psycho. That was wrong of me. I shouldn't have said it."

Sawyer flicked her fingers at him. Not forgotten or forgiven, but something she wouldn't lose sleep over. Rio understood immediately.

"You know they called my parents?" At the mention of his parents, Rio's face became a mask of fury, clouded by hatred. His eyes flashed like a setting sun. "I'm sure Callum's having a field day, now that I'm definitely not getting any of the inheritance."

"You don't need it," Sawyer said. "You can come live with me."

Rio's smile was weak. For a moment, he considered her. "I have to show you something."

Then, he pulled out his black sketchbook.

* * *

RED EXPLODES IN PERIPHERY when the Gryffindors score against the Slytherins, bringing their teams to a tie. Sawyer wound her hands in Oliver's Gryffindor scarf, a slash of crimson in a garden of sunflower-yellow Hufflepuffs. On the other side of the pitch, Callum was goading the Gryffindor Chasers into a fight, a sure sign that they're desperate to breakeven by playing on the emotional radioactivity of the Gryffindors. Tension snapped and crackled in every outraged roar of the crowd calling fouls, in every baited breath as the Chasers made impossible shots. There was no matching the level of aggression that the Slytherins and Gryffindors brought onto the pitch. Both were teams run by one-track minded captains who cut their teams down to the best of the best, into perfect shapes, and their only options were winning. They played like they had everything to lose, and that made them both far more prolific than everyone else.

The Gryffindors erupt into loud cheers, stampeding when Oliver blocked another shot from Jeremy.

Quinn laughed and tugged on Sawyer's sleeve, pointing excitably. "Those are our boys!" She screamed, over the deafening crowd. Sawyer smirked.

Domineering and caustic as always, Oliver was red in the way Quidditch is in his blood, like he's the center of the Quidditch universe, sustaining it, living with it. Flashes of aggression in the cheers of the crowd when he blocks an impossible goal, pushing his team forward, forward, forward. He's bright and unapologetic and fierce, demanding respect and commanding victory. It's in his drive and determination, forcing those around him to rise to the challenge or get left in the dark.

It happens so quickly nobody knows what to think. One moment the Chasers are beating down the scoreboard, and Gryffindor had just lost possession of the quaffle to Slytherin, the next both Seekers pitched into a spiralling dive.

The scoreboard lights up.

Harry banks hard and swerves, just avoiding crashing into the ground, the Snitch closed in his raised fist.

Gryffindor erupts in a volcanic wave of red and gold victory and the ear-splitting roar of the crowd is loud enough to wake something beneath the ground. Immediately, the Gryffindors rushed the field. Without ceremony, Quinn towed Sawyer down to the pitch where she threw herself into Jeremy, who could only manage a weak smile in exhaustion. Sawyer saw Marcus shaking his head, but knew it wouldn't matter to him. He was good enough to play for a number of professional teams. That would be enough.

All the Gryffindors were lifting their team over their heads, and Sawyer spotted Violet slamming into Harry, practically lifting him off his feet in a crushing hug. Sawyer found Oliver half-sobbing, half-laughing in his teammates' arms and she couldn't tell which he was doing first. When the Quidditch cup was brought out, Oliver hoisted it over his head. There was something unbridled in his smile. Wild heroic. A blazing fire slashing through the air. Nothing could take that from him. Harry jumped into Oliver's arms, and so did Wyatt, and, one-by-one, their group of friends followed, until Oliver was on the ground, buried under his friends and everyone who ever believed in him.

In a flash, Sawyer's there. She's cut away from her friends, a boat severed from its anchor tossed up in the tide, the crowd parting as Oliver beelines towards her, and then they're meeting in the middle, his hand reaching for her and she can see everything shining in his eyes, the pride, the relief, the disbelief, the unconfined joy spilling over with his tears. When she pulls him into her, he crashes into her without reserve, like a wave to the shore, hooking his hands under her thighs and lifting her into a koala hug. She clings to him, pressing her forehead against his. His eyes went to her lips and then flicked back up to her with a question, and she let herself grin. Stay, stay, stay. And he kissed her with the fervour of a forest fire sweeping through the earth, and she let it consume her. Let it snuff out every doubt in her body, let it melt into her bones. When they pulled away, a group of students started cheering. Sawyer ignored them.

"Happy?"

"Yeah," he breathed, letting out an airy laugh, and for a moment, Oliver was beaming at her unreservedly and the rest of the world seemed to fall away, the noise of the crowd dimming and it was just the two of them. "Yeah, I am. You have no idea."

* * *

THE LAST DAY OF EXAMS just happened to fall on the Friday before Sawyer and Wyatt's birthday.

Afterwards, Quinn, Jeremy, Marcus, Sawyer and Oliver met in the Slytherin common room to celebrate, where the graduating seventh year Slytherins had kicked the other years out for an exclusive party. Oliver had been more at ease than ever, which was surprising considering he was standing in rival territory. Though, now that he'd won the Quidditch cup, there was no more reason to be abrasive. Sawyer had even found Oliver helping Marcus with the butter beer keg whilst the latter took a knee and chugged to the cheers and count of the slightly drunken crowd intoxicated on their newfound freedom. At one point, Oliver pulled Sawyer into a darker corner where they stayed, wrapped up in each other and their own heat for a long while before Marcus broke out his secret stash of firewhiskey, and passed shots around. Through bruised lips and glazed eyes and unkempt clothes and mussed hair, Oliver and Sawyer were dragged back into the crowd.

It was a good night. One to remember. Someone had taken pictures, and Sawyer was only a little disappointed Rio was missing all of this. He hadn't been able to take his exams, but he was given the opportunity to come back next year. Rio had refused. He wasn't an academic anyway. He'd told them all in a letter addressed to "My Chaos Bitches", that he'd been building a portfolio. He wanted to do something with his art, and was looking at tattoo artist apprenticeships in Diagon Alley. Attached to that letter was a magnetic sketch of the five of them. Jeremy and his sunny grin with his arms around around his friends, Marcus smirking down at Rio, who was leant against Sawyer's shoulder like an armrest, and Sawyer had her arms crossed over her chest—he'd even managed to capture her hauntingly flat expression—and Quinn and her wild hair, clutching Jeremy's hand, beaming shyly. Apparently Marcus was the only one who knew about Rio's artistic inclination. He'd known for a long while, and had been sworn to secrecy.

Rio wrote them weekly from the rehabilitation centre, but it wasn't the same without him here. Sawyer found Marcus clutching Rio's last letter in one hand and the neck of a bottle of Dragon Barrel Brandy in the other, looking a little lonely, a little sad by himself.

They'd spent all of Saturday morning hungover and cranky. Except for Sawyer, who attributed her lack of a mind-killing migraine to her Asian genetics.

At midnight on the weekend, Oliver met Sawyer on the pitch, keys dangling from his hands. She was lying flat on her back, soaking it all in. Now that the pitch was empty for the rest of the semester, they'd claimed it as theirs. Maybe it'd always been their own little kingdom. From the morning runs to the midnight practices, they were always the first and last ones on and off it. In a way, Sawyer would miss it. She wasn't one for sentiment or getting attached to things, but it was the freedom of having her own little space to be irresponsible. After graduation came the real world. Hogwarts had been so sequestered from everything else, and graduating from here was a huge transitional step out into the open.

Through her fingers, the night was black construction paper, and the stars above them were a vast smudge on a hastily-wiped chalkboard.

A shadow lapsed over hers.

"Forget how to stand?" Oliver mused, nudging her shoulder with his shoe. Wordlessly, he tossed the Quidditch equipment to the ground in a clatter of broomsticks and dropped the quaffle into her hands. When she smacked it away, watching as it rolled a few feet away, Oliver settled down on the grass beside her. Around them, the air was starting to warm up to the summer.

"You think you'll pass this year?" Sawyer wondered, not taking her eyes off the stars. One thing Oliver liked more than Quidditch was the night sky. But he was looking at her now, tracing the planes of her face with his eyes.

"Yeah," Oliver said. "We've all worked so hard, I think it'll pay off."

Sawyer hummed. Exam results came out in a week.

For a second, they're silent, and the night screams back at them, filling the air with cicada song and the rustle of trees from the forbidden forest, and if they listened carefully, if they peeled their ears wide open enough, they could hear the giant squid gliding along the lake, the water rocking the castle to sleep.

"Happy birthday," Oliver said, pulling a square of fabric from the pocket of his sweatshirt.

Sawyer lifted a brow. In all the years here, nobody in her group of friends celebrated their birthdays. Rio always said that his funeral was more cause for celebration than his birthday, Jeremy didn't like making a fuss of things, Quinn was the same, claiming it was inaccurate, anyway, Marcus refused to tell any of them when he was born, and Sawyer just thought birthday celebrations were stupid.

"Birthday girl deserves a present," Oliver said, mocking the exact words she'd said to him on his birthday. "May twenty-eighth, 1976, the world's greatest beater was born."

Sawyer snorted, but accepted her present.

When she unfurled the fabric, which was clearly a shirt, something solid and rectangular dropped onto her lap. She picked it up and inspected it in the half light. A mixtape. When she looked down at the shirt and the faded Nirvana logo printed on the front, she sent Oliver a flat look.

Oliver's grin was impish. "You told me you wanted this shirt off my back last year."

"I hate you."

"Tell me to go, then," Oliver challenged.

Sawyer scowled, pulling her own shirt off, not caring that she was changing in front of Oliver (it was nothing he hadn't seen before), and replacing it with the Nirvana shirt. It smelled like him, and a small thrill surged through her veins. Oliver's eyes darkened.

Sawyer caught his face between her hands. "Never."

AUTHOR'S NOTE.
1

YOU GUYS IM LITERALLY SHAKINGGGG WE ARE SOOOOOO CLOSE!!!!!!!!!!

NEXT CHAPTER UP IS PROM!!!!!!! VERY EXCITED!!!