Closing The Circle
Prompt(s): Sunburn, Sandcastles, Sprinkler, Strawberries, Speedo, "It'll take time, I know it but in a while you're gonna be mine, I know it" from Sunshine Superman by Donovan, "Our love is the faith that keeps on burning" from Rain In The Summer Time by The Alarm, "She's evil most definitely" from Doin' Time by Sublime, "A plan? Do I LOOK like someone with a plan?" from The Dark Knight, "My life is a mess! // At least you're pretty // Yeah, well, pretty don't pay the rent!" from Scrubs, Food!sex (Bonus prompt)
Title: Closing The Circle
Author: Dorothy Gale
Beta: Toto. Any remaining mistakes are my own.
Length: 1939 words
Rating: R for suggestion and language.
Summary: There is a fine line between sanity and insanity, and Albus and Scorpius are walking on thin ice dangerously near to the edge when the burst of craziness gets to them.
Warnings: Angst. Mind play. *Character death*
Notes: Crossposted like whoa! Written for ass_carnival's weekly prompts.
Special Author's Note: This is a follow-up to The Muggle Way, and the last installment to this series. This is not a happy story, so please read at your own discretion. Again, the bonus prompt is suggested several times throughout this fic, so I leave to the mods' and readers' judgment to say if I managed to convey the idea of food!sex here.
I remember when you first rejected me. I was about thirteen and I bet you didn't even know how much you were hurting me. You told the whole world that you were in love with someone of your own sex. How much depravity can be held behind that statement? How many lies? How much insanity behind those words? I was sure you were trying to tell me something, to urge me to wait for you until you were done with your flings. You wanted to try out new things. Fine, I let you. I knew in the end, you would come to me, as it was written in the stars.
Then you announced you were in love with my own brother. That was just something I could not accept. It was immoral. It was against nature. It was not right. I remember locking myself in the bathroom of the third floor, with that stupid Moaning Myrtle Dad always warned us about.
"My life is a mess!" I screamed out of frustration.
"At least you're pretty," said Myrtle with that soft voice of hers.
"Well, pretty doesn't pay the rent!" I exclaimed, tearing at my hair.
Then she did something unexpected.
She floated beside me and took me in her lap. She soothed my pain and helped me find out the way to get back to your heart. From that day on, we were the perfect team, an Unbreakable Vow between us. An unspoken agreement between two girls dejected and scorned.
I survived thanks to the Daydream Potion Uncle Fred and Uncle George developed before Uncle Fred was killed in that war Dad never wants to talk about. Well, Dad doesn't talk about anything unless he has his Firewhiskey in hand. I dreamt of you and me sharing strawberries and champagne under the stars, in the balcony at the Astronomy Tower, before you lay me down and started spreading the strawberries all over my body and eating them off me. Before stripping my very soul and owning me, flesh, blood, bone and spirit.
Instead, I am standing here, in the middle of the parking lot of a strange service area, waiting for you to decided which one of the Albuses you are seeing is the real one - which is the one you made sandcastles with when you were both eleven.
"What is going on here?" Scorpius repeated, dumbfounded, his ears ringing loud.
"Ask her," the Albus next to the car said, pointing at the Albus who was nearer to Scorpius. "She is the one who knows."
"She?" Scorpius couldn't hide his confusion. "I don't think I'm catching on to anything here."
The Albus next to him smirked. "She is such a generic accusation. Who are you? And why are you accusing me of… being someone else?"
"Because you are! Because you hit me and left me to rot at Hogwarts while you kept this farce of being me to… to… to get a hold of my boyfriend!"
"Wait, what?" Scorpius looked startled. "Are you implying that… what are you implying?"
The Albus that had appeared the last shook his head. "She is my sister, Lily. She attacked me in the bathroom back at Hogwarts, and has been impersonating me all this time! She's evil, most definitely, I tell you!"
Scorpius couldn't believe what his ears were telling him because his eyes were sending different stimulus to his brain. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I can't believe this is even happening."
"But it is," the Albus beside him murmured. "It is, and you cannot hide from it, Scorp. It's either that person or me, and I think it's pretty obvious who lies here, love."
"I would never, not in a million years, use terms of endearments with you," the other Albus stated. "Does she always drink from a bottle you cannot get hold of? Does she even remember things from our past, like how bad you get sunburn when you stay a couple of hours under the sun, or how much you like those horrible lime-colored Speedos you always pack when going to the beach? Does she even remember how she, supposedly the true Albus, declared her love to you?"
The Albus next to him made a gasping noise and Scorpius had to open his eyes. At his left, that Albus was slowly but painfully twisting and contorting. "The effects of the Polyjuice Potion are vanishing," the other Albus pointed out. "It shouldn't be long until she reveals the truth; she must have forgotten to drink this hour…"
Scorpius watched in awe as the dark head he had had lying on his shoulder just an hour ago started showing red locks, as the snub nose became more pointed and plagued with freckles, as the smooth chest turned to be curvy and full.
"Lily," he breathed when the thin witch appeared fully in front of them.
"I do know how you declared your love to one another," she said, profiting of the silence that followed the revealing of the truth. "You critique the sappiness of endearments, but saying Our love is the faith that keeps on burning is quite corny, isn't it?"
"How could you?" Albus spat, as Scorpius walked toward him with uncertain steps. "Was this part of your twisted plan, to kick me out of the way no matter what so you could get in his pants? A part of your plan until he was moaning your name with his mouth full of cream and strawberries?"
"How did you know about the… the…?" Lily whispered. "The strawberries?"
"You talk in your sleep! And you daydream quite a lot!" Albus accused her. "But that isn't the point! I can accept you lusting after my boyfriend, but you need help, Lily, because plotting a plan to hurt your own brother, who loves you more than could be even possible, in order to get to Scorpius?"
"A plan? Do I look like someone with a plan?" Lily screeched.
"You fucking do!" Albus exploded, not caring that Scorpius was feeling dizzy and sat down near the grass, using the sprinklers watering the lawn to refresh himself. He heard Lily muttering something, but couldn't work out the words. His head seemed wrapped in cotton. "You fucking planned out this with Myrtle, even though Dad told us not to befriend her because she was a crazy ghost!"
The water seemed eerily warm between Scorpius fingers, but he blamed the heat of the day and the disconcertment of having faced two Albuses at the same time, as though he had been trapped in an endless Time-Turner merry-go-round.
"She is saner than Dad will ever be!" Lily counterattacked, showing her short temper. "At least she listened and shared my opinion that this thing you have between us is wrong, it is not natural, and it shouldn't b allowed!"
"Stop this right now, Lily!"
"Leave me alone!" she yelled for the last time, turning around and entering the service area, probably in search of the bathroom.
"Scorpius?" Albus asked softly, approaching the blond who was playing absent-mindedly with the sprinklers. "Scorp, are you alright?"
"I don't think I understand half of what happened, Albus," he admitted without looking at his boyfriend in the eye, his heart lifting when the other boy took a seat next to him. "All I know is that your sister was you during a week and I didn't even notice, and that you were… where were you?"
"I woke up on the floor, with a bump on my head and a broken brow. It took me some time to adjust to reality, and when I realized what had happened I ran to my parents. They agree with me that Lily needs help. Then I cast a Placing Spell and located your car, and came here. I didn't want Dad to find her before I did. He was so angry…"
"No need to," Scorpius said, his words sounding strange even to his own ears. "Lily is just confused. She's a child tempted and manipulated by Myrtle, a ghost far too gone to be even part of this world. Maybe you should try to talk to her before she does some foolish thing."
"She may have gone to the bathroom," Albus mused. "Are you sure you're okay, Scorpius?"
"Yes, yes, I am. Just… confused. Maybe… maybe if you kissed me…" he smiled slyly, receiving his prize seconds later in the form of the lips of his boyfriend, warm and chapped and rough and sweet against his own, as warm and chapped and rough as sweet.
Oddly enough, the spark that used to catch fire in his soul didn't even light a small part of his soul.
"I'll go talk to her and convince her to come back to England. That means our road trip may need to be postponed, but we can make it next year, right?"
"We can even cancel it," Scorpius suggested. "Your sister will need both of us. I don't think I could go on with a plan like this knowing she is locked somewhere dark for what she tried to do."
"Okay," Albus sighed. "Whatever you want. I'm going to find her, you stay here. Don't go, huh? I'll need you once I come back."
Scorpius nodded and watched Albus' back as the dark haired wizard walked to the service area and asked in his flawed French for the toilets.
All that I know is that this is not the end. Not in the slightest way. Can't you see? I am still here, though now the plan is a bit different. Thank Merlin for long-effect Love potions Auntie Luna helped discover, not as powerful as the original, but slower and more gradual, starting by showing more and more affection within the days until it blossoms into a flowering love - and the implement that helps witches to drop one or two pearls of potion inside anything with just a simple wandless spell.
You didn't even notice I was muttering at your back while touching that sprinkler in the floor. And now you don't have any way out. You can't back out.
I am not afraid of what is to come, because now I have all the time in the world to win your heart, one way or another.
It'll take time, I know it, but in a while you're going to be mine. I know it. And then I'm not going to let you walk away from me. This time, I have made sure of everything.
This time, I've checked all the loose ends - this time, the body lying in the dusty floor of a solitary bathroom in a French service area is indeed cold. The injury to that head and the blood out of that skull prove that I have overcome the last obstacle in my otherwise flawless plan. Who would have guessed I'd become so skilled in Muggle martial arts? Albus didn't stand a chance against me once I took away his wand with a well-placed kick.
I will tell you Albus decided to come back to England on his own after realizing that our love, yours and mine, is more powerful than the sham you two were putting up. You will fall for it, because you are already falling for me. And even if you don't, I will find a way for you to believe it.
Now, don't misunderstand me. I do love you, Scorpius Malfoy, but if you so try to reject me again, I will have no compassion for you.
Now I will have what was mine in my own right. Future, here I come!
<< The Muggle Way
Title: Closing The Circle
Author: Dorothy Gale
Beta: Toto. Any remaining mistakes are my own.
Length: 1939 words
Rating: R for suggestion and language.
Summary: There is a fine line between sanity and insanity, and Albus and Scorpius are walking on thin ice dangerously near to the edge when the burst of craziness gets to them.
Warnings: Angst. Mind play. *Character death*
Notes: Crossposted like whoa! Written for ass_carnival's weekly prompts.
Special Author's Note: This is a follow-up to The Muggle Way, and the last installment to this series. This is not a happy story, so please read at your own discretion. Again, the bonus prompt is suggested several times throughout this fic, so I leave to the mods' and readers' judgment to say if I managed to convey the idea of food!sex here.
I remember when you first rejected me. I was about thirteen and I bet you didn't even know how much you were hurting me. You told the whole world that you were in love with someone of your own sex. How much depravity can be held behind that statement? How many lies? How much insanity behind those words? I was sure you were trying to tell me something, to urge me to wait for you until you were done with your flings. You wanted to try out new things. Fine, I let you. I knew in the end, you would come to me, as it was written in the stars.
Then you announced you were in love with my own brother. That was just something I could not accept. It was immoral. It was against nature. It was not right. I remember locking myself in the bathroom of the third floor, with that stupid Moaning Myrtle Dad always warned us about.
"My life is a mess!" I screamed out of frustration.
"At least you're pretty," said Myrtle with that soft voice of hers.
"Well, pretty doesn't pay the rent!" I exclaimed, tearing at my hair.
Then she did something unexpected.
She floated beside me and took me in her lap. She soothed my pain and helped me find out the way to get back to your heart. From that day on, we were the perfect team, an Unbreakable Vow between us. An unspoken agreement between two girls dejected and scorned.
I survived thanks to the Daydream Potion Uncle Fred and Uncle George developed before Uncle Fred was killed in that war Dad never wants to talk about. Well, Dad doesn't talk about anything unless he has his Firewhiskey in hand. I dreamt of you and me sharing strawberries and champagne under the stars, in the balcony at the Astronomy Tower, before you lay me down and started spreading the strawberries all over my body and eating them off me. Before stripping my very soul and owning me, flesh, blood, bone and spirit.
Instead, I am standing here, in the middle of the parking lot of a strange service area, waiting for you to decided which one of the Albuses you are seeing is the real one - which is the one you made sandcastles with when you were both eleven.
"What is going on here?" Scorpius repeated, dumbfounded, his ears ringing loud.
"Ask her," the Albus next to the car said, pointing at the Albus who was nearer to Scorpius. "She is the one who knows."
"She?" Scorpius couldn't hide his confusion. "I don't think I'm catching on to anything here."
The Albus next to him smirked. "She is such a generic accusation. Who are you? And why are you accusing me of… being someone else?"
"Because you are! Because you hit me and left me to rot at Hogwarts while you kept this farce of being me to… to… to get a hold of my boyfriend!"
"Wait, what?" Scorpius looked startled. "Are you implying that… what are you implying?"
The Albus that had appeared the last shook his head. "She is my sister, Lily. She attacked me in the bathroom back at Hogwarts, and has been impersonating me all this time! She's evil, most definitely, I tell you!"
Scorpius couldn't believe what his ears were telling him because his eyes were sending different stimulus to his brain. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I can't believe this is even happening."
"But it is," the Albus beside him murmured. "It is, and you cannot hide from it, Scorp. It's either that person or me, and I think it's pretty obvious who lies here, love."
"I would never, not in a million years, use terms of endearments with you," the other Albus stated. "Does she always drink from a bottle you cannot get hold of? Does she even remember things from our past, like how bad you get sunburn when you stay a couple of hours under the sun, or how much you like those horrible lime-colored Speedos you always pack when going to the beach? Does she even remember how she, supposedly the true Albus, declared her love to you?"
The Albus next to him made a gasping noise and Scorpius had to open his eyes. At his left, that Albus was slowly but painfully twisting and contorting. "The effects of the Polyjuice Potion are vanishing," the other Albus pointed out. "It shouldn't be long until she reveals the truth; she must have forgotten to drink this hour…"
Scorpius watched in awe as the dark head he had had lying on his shoulder just an hour ago started showing red locks, as the snub nose became more pointed and plagued with freckles, as the smooth chest turned to be curvy and full.
"Lily," he breathed when the thin witch appeared fully in front of them.
"I do know how you declared your love to one another," she said, profiting of the silence that followed the revealing of the truth. "You critique the sappiness of endearments, but saying Our love is the faith that keeps on burning is quite corny, isn't it?"
"How could you?" Albus spat, as Scorpius walked toward him with uncertain steps. "Was this part of your twisted plan, to kick me out of the way no matter what so you could get in his pants? A part of your plan until he was moaning your name with his mouth full of cream and strawberries?"
"How did you know about the… the…?" Lily whispered. "The strawberries?"
"You talk in your sleep! And you daydream quite a lot!" Albus accused her. "But that isn't the point! I can accept you lusting after my boyfriend, but you need help, Lily, because plotting a plan to hurt your own brother, who loves you more than could be even possible, in order to get to Scorpius?"
"A plan? Do I look like someone with a plan?" Lily screeched.
"You fucking do!" Albus exploded, not caring that Scorpius was feeling dizzy and sat down near the grass, using the sprinklers watering the lawn to refresh himself. He heard Lily muttering something, but couldn't work out the words. His head seemed wrapped in cotton. "You fucking planned out this with Myrtle, even though Dad told us not to befriend her because she was a crazy ghost!"
The water seemed eerily warm between Scorpius fingers, but he blamed the heat of the day and the disconcertment of having faced two Albuses at the same time, as though he had been trapped in an endless Time-Turner merry-go-round.
"She is saner than Dad will ever be!" Lily counterattacked, showing her short temper. "At least she listened and shared my opinion that this thing you have between us is wrong, it is not natural, and it shouldn't b allowed!"
"Stop this right now, Lily!"
"Leave me alone!" she yelled for the last time, turning around and entering the service area, probably in search of the bathroom.
"Scorpius?" Albus asked softly, approaching the blond who was playing absent-mindedly with the sprinklers. "Scorp, are you alright?"
"I don't think I understand half of what happened, Albus," he admitted without looking at his boyfriend in the eye, his heart lifting when the other boy took a seat next to him. "All I know is that your sister was you during a week and I didn't even notice, and that you were… where were you?"
"I woke up on the floor, with a bump on my head and a broken brow. It took me some time to adjust to reality, and when I realized what had happened I ran to my parents. They agree with me that Lily needs help. Then I cast a Placing Spell and located your car, and came here. I didn't want Dad to find her before I did. He was so angry…"
"No need to," Scorpius said, his words sounding strange even to his own ears. "Lily is just confused. She's a child tempted and manipulated by Myrtle, a ghost far too gone to be even part of this world. Maybe you should try to talk to her before she does some foolish thing."
"She may have gone to the bathroom," Albus mused. "Are you sure you're okay, Scorpius?"
"Yes, yes, I am. Just… confused. Maybe… maybe if you kissed me…" he smiled slyly, receiving his prize seconds later in the form of the lips of his boyfriend, warm and chapped and rough and sweet against his own, as warm and chapped and rough as sweet.
Oddly enough, the spark that used to catch fire in his soul didn't even light a small part of his soul.
"I'll go talk to her and convince her to come back to England. That means our road trip may need to be postponed, but we can make it next year, right?"
"We can even cancel it," Scorpius suggested. "Your sister will need both of us. I don't think I could go on with a plan like this knowing she is locked somewhere dark for what she tried to do."
"Okay," Albus sighed. "Whatever you want. I'm going to find her, you stay here. Don't go, huh? I'll need you once I come back."
Scorpius nodded and watched Albus' back as the dark haired wizard walked to the service area and asked in his flawed French for the toilets.
All that I know is that this is not the end. Not in the slightest way. Can't you see? I am still here, though now the plan is a bit different. Thank Merlin for long-effect Love potions Auntie Luna helped discover, not as powerful as the original, but slower and more gradual, starting by showing more and more affection within the days until it blossoms into a flowering love - and the implement that helps witches to drop one or two pearls of potion inside anything with just a simple wandless spell.
You didn't even notice I was muttering at your back while touching that sprinkler in the floor. And now you don't have any way out. You can't back out.
I am not afraid of what is to come, because now I have all the time in the world to win your heart, one way or another.
It'll take time, I know it, but in a while you're going to be mine. I know it. And then I'm not going to let you walk away from me. This time, I have made sure of everything.
This time, I've checked all the loose ends - this time, the body lying in the dusty floor of a solitary bathroom in a French service area is indeed cold. The injury to that head and the blood out of that skull prove that I have overcome the last obstacle in my otherwise flawless plan. Who would have guessed I'd become so skilled in Muggle martial arts? Albus didn't stand a chance against me once I took away his wand with a well-placed kick.
I will tell you Albus decided to come back to England on his own after realizing that our love, yours and mine, is more powerful than the sham you two were putting up. You will fall for it, because you are already falling for me. And even if you don't, I will find a way for you to believe it.
Now, don't misunderstand me. I do love you, Scorpius Malfoy, but if you so try to reject me again, I will have no compassion for you.
Now I will have what was mine in my own right. Future, here I come!
<< The Muggle Way