The afternoon is illuminated by summer sunshine, with amethyst crocuses and pearl white lilies blooming in the gardens. As Jacob guides you through the grassy knolls surrounding your manor, still carrying on about how he'd "let you win" your last Quidditch match, you feel a sudden, searing pain on your wrist that tears you from your reverie.
Jacob turns, zeroing in on the arm you cradle against your chest, "Did you fall?" he says, his lips twisted into a displeased pucker, "Mother will kill me if you have. You know how she feels about you play—"
"-I didn't." you say quickly, if not a little defensively, "I don't know what's wrong with it," Jacob sighs, moving your arm away from you gingerly, careful not to jar it in any way, before freezing.
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How could any self-respecting wizard not be able to tell a member of one of the most prestigious Pureblood families in England?" She huffed when you'd presented her the mark, "and that penmanship! I've seen house elves with better handwriting.").
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(You hear your words every day for months on end. When being accosted by reporters, when shopping with your mother, when walking through Diagon Alley. Such a commonplace, innocuous sentence. And yet, every time it's said, there's a little jolt, a tension of recognition, of joy and anxiety, and you can't but hope you've found the one.)
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("Isn't Jacob your brother?" asks the girl in front of you.
She's short and brown and lithe, shiny black hair falling down girlish shoulders, thick-rimmed glasses hiding away dark eyes, full brown lips, their pretty upper curve interrupted by an old, puckered scar.
It happens so often, means so little, and yet, like every damn time before, you can't help the thought flashing through your mind: Is she the one…?
"Yeah?" you answer, voice too high, breaking mortifyingly in the middle. You clear your throat and give her your
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Eventually, a Patron with an awful fashionable beard and griffin perched on his shoulder does approach you "Isn't Jac-" he manages to say before thankfully balking under the weight of your watery glare and backing away.
Twenty minutes past the third hour, a handsome boy in cheap robes and wavy orange hair walks in. He's draped in red and yellow and chattering happily to anyone who will listen. You shrink back in your seat, attempting to blend into the synthetically cozy background, praying not to be noticed. You really aren't in the mood for conversation, especially not with a Gryffindor.
The boy orders a butterbeer and says something to Madame Rosmerta that makes her cheeks turn pink as she ducks into the kitchens. Then, somehow still sweaty in the dead of winter, he makes his way over and sits at the table exactly in front of