dark star â—¦ billie

She what?

Billie’s eyebrows came together in a harsh frown. It didn’t make sense. Didn’t make sense that he didn’t know. Wini had said that he hadn’t told her anything, implied that that’s why she was confronting her, but Billie had tried not to think about it all too much, because it twisted her up in such an awful way. She didn’t have the capacity to approach it from every angle, to try to see things through Wini’s eyes, but then also through Phillip’s — and then somehow merge the two into truth. The equation never worked out in a way that made sense.

But… he hadn’t told her. He hadn’t told anyone. She’d gathered that much.

“She asked —“ he cut her off. Phillip hadn’t moved, though he looked like he might be about to, and Billie hadn’t moved either. Her body was still facing the fireplace, though her eyes were trained on him now. He clarified quickly, and she wanted to fold up into herself. “Oh,” Billie said, her chest tight. She felt like she was falling again, fumbling for handholds and just missing each time. She wasn’t crying again yet, but she felt like she might soon.

The first day he’d ever kissed her, Phillip had told her not to apologise for crying. To never apologise for it, specifically. He’d said it so tenderly, too, and she’d felt unbelievably safe and privileged to share that space with him. She didn’t feel so safe now. The anxiety had settled into her bones, and her muscles. She felt ready to run, but was frozen still, eyes still on him.

She was quiet for a moment, still frowning, still so clearly upset. He was upset, too. Angry, agitated, but hurt, too. It all felt so incredibly off to Billie.

“But you didn’t tell her,” Billie said finally, quietly, feeling a little more vulnerable, but still just as heated. It wasn’t a question. “You didn’t tell anyone.”

"No, I didn't," Phillip answered anyway. He wasn't sure why he was giving her this peace of mind, in the light of all the things she had revealed to him tonight, but it was the truth. He'd thought about telling people who she was, about Sybil Sinnoway and her Death Eater parents, but ultimately he hadn't. He didn't even tell Winifred, the single close friend he had left now, now that Billie was in a different category. Not that she hadn't asked him for more information in various and creative ways. Phillip wanted to talk to someone about it, about how he felt, but he did what he always did and buried it instead.

Phillip tried to ignore what Billie had told him about Wini's accusation so that he could focus on being mad at his ex and not at the only friend he had left, but it was confusing to separate the two. He was mad at everyone and everything these days. Wini shouldn't have meddled, Marin shouldn't have gotten in the middle of it, and Billie shouldn't have lied in the first place. Phillip felt like, at the very least, he was in fourth place when it came to making the Worst Decisions.

Still sitting forward, Phillip managed to place his elbows on his knees again, calloused hands hanging. He was up and down, back and forth, still and agitated; it was exhausting. Phillip glanced back at Billie, still sitting much the same as she had been since they started, and found even that irritating. He was all over the place, and she was still.

Little by little, more dark paranoias seeped into his mind, and Phillip was incapable of fighting them back. Had Billie been trying to alienate him from the few friends he still had? Or hoping that he hadn't known what Winifred had accused her of so that she could drop it on him now, it seemed too calculating and cruel, but nothing made sense anymore.

No, I didn’t.

It wasn’t a revelation; so many things about their situation were unclear to her, but she knew this part. Still, her lower lip wobbled slightly and she had to look away to regain her composure. Why, she wanted to ask. A part of her felt like she knew, but she wanted him to say it. The rest of her thought that part was ridiculous, and she would demand no such thing from him.

She had thought she wouldn’t let him surprise her anymore, but she’d messed it all up somehow and surprised herself instead. She was never so blunt. Never so demanding. It didn’t sit right on her, and she didn’t like it, but she couldn’t seem to stop. There was something wildly liberating — awfully uncomfortable, but liberating — about being so tired and so emotional that she couldn’t quite keep herself together. Couldn’t contain herself. Her hands clasped each other tightly in her lap; she could feel her fingernails digging into her skin. More regrets for tomorrow, she thought.

“I said no,” she said, feeling a sudden need to get those words from her lips, like something too-hot on the tip of her tongue. It felt dangerous, though, like territory she shouldn’t step into, or step into again. She was usually so committed to shying from danger. Her eyes were still ahead, away from him.

It felt so obvious to her that that was how she would have answered. So obvious that it was Phillip at the center of everything, that there didn’t feel like a place far enough away from him to be outside of his gravitational pull. No other boy had made her feel anything like he did, even months after their last actual conversation. And… She didn’t want to feel like that about anyone else. If Phillip ever wanted her again, in any way, she felt like she would acquiesce without a second thought.

But, in case it didn’t seem as obvious to him: “To Horus,” she clarified. Her voice was emotional and tight but her gaze crystal clear as she glanced back at him. She meant more than she was saying, and she hoped he understood that. “I said no.”

Even if he had been sleeping properly for the past month, Phillip wouldn't have been able to shake the exhaustion that lingered over him like a dark cloud. His mind worked on overdrive, thinking about all of the what-ifs, and playing through a hundred different scenarios. Part of him desperate for some version of this story that fixed everything, but he never found one. He was beyond tired; Phillip was anxious all the time from wondering if he would see Billie in the halls, and more importantly, what to do if he did. Every day it got a little easier to look away, but sometimes all he wanted to do was talk to her, even though he knew he shouldn't.

"I said no." Billie admitted, and Phillip looked over at her. She had been staring away from him for so long that he was almost surprised when she turned toward him. It was too intense, and Phillip quickly looked at the fireplace. "Cool." He said, the word having about as much enthusiasm as one might expect. The wizard clenched his jaw, doing his best not to explain precisely how much he did not want to talk about her dating prospects. Not Horus, or Killian, or anyone else who might have crawled out of the Hogwarts stonework.

Still suspicious of why she had brought it up in the first place, Phillip huffed, his cynical mind turning faster and faster. "Figured you would be dating Killian by now." He mumbled. It was a cruel thing to say, and while he had not meant to say it out loud, the teenager wasn't going to apologize either. Phillip had considered the possibility more times than he'd care to admit. And enough to have come up with an entirely fictional chain of events leading to it. And while he had never thought she cheated on him, he had always been jealous of her friendship with the Gryffindor boy. Billie might not have seen it, but Phillip had. It seemed like every one of their loud group of friends had noticed the way Killian acted around her, too.

She didn't know why she'd brought it up in the first place (or did she? Didn't she want a reaction?), but it felt extremely important that he know that she'd said no.

He looked away from her and it felt like another rejection. Billie felt a swell of incomprehensible emotions. Sadness, certainly, but that was always to be expected these days. What was the rest? She felt hurt, stupidly so. Cool, he said, sounding distant and casual. Billie studied his face, unabashed, while his gaze lingered on the fireplace. She felt like quite intense and acute emotions were being plucked in her chest, but she couldn’t name them all. Why was he still here? She wondered if he knew how much every little thing he said or did affected her, wondered if he knew how much space in her mind he took up on a daily basis.

Billie felt trapped by her own body, unable or unwilling to do anything about the anxiety urging her to go. She couldn’t move. “Did you?” she asked quietly, her chest feeling tight. "Really?" She wondered if he actually felt that, if he genuinely thought that she and Killian would be together by the end of February (laughable), or… She felt a twist of something awful in her stomach. If he was trying to hurt her, it was only because she deserved it. And really, she should just take it on the chin; it was her fault, after all.

Was there any point in denying? Explaining? She felt like she’d told him enough times that she didn’t have feelings for her Gryffindor friend. “Well, no," she breathed, unable to help herself. After a beat: "I think, he and Mavis…?” She trailed off, wet her lower lip with the tip of her tongue. Phillip didn’t know who Mavis was.

There was a time when Phillip trusted Billie's word as it were empirical fact. As far as he knew, she had never lied to him, and that kept him from being swallowed by his dark paranoia. Billie promised that there was nothing untoward going on between her and Killian. And even though he hated how much time the Prefects spent together, Phillip had believed her.

He didn't believe anything Billie said anymore.

Two months ago, everything broke. That night Phillip felt like the world had been ripped out from underneath him. He was swallowed whole by every dark thought he'd ever pushed away. Every worry and paranoia were snaking their way back to the front of his mind. If Billie lied about who she was, what else had she lied about? She had ruined everything and nothing made sense.

Phillip had always been a cynical person, jaded and untrusting, and now he was forced to go back through every conversation he had ever had with Billie and wonder how much of it was true. It was more painful than he thought he could bear. The last two months had been hell, and now, sitting in front of her was a new kind of torture. Like holding your hand over a flame just to feel something different.

"Well, no," Phillip let go of a held breath, the quietest of sighs escaping his lips as he nodded. He was desperate to believe it, but what good would that do? "Oh, okay," He managed when she mentioned another of her friends, but Phillip didn't ask which one was Mavis; he didn't care.

She could feel her heart beating rapidly in her chest, just looking at him as she was. She wanted nothing more than to go to him —  put her hands on his shoulders, thumbs stroking tender lines on the sides of his neck. She wanted to kiss his forehead, touch her nose to his, coax his defensiveness away by teasing, being sweet, doing things to make him smile.

But she couldn’t do any of it.

She didn’t look away, but after a beat she had to remind herself to breathe and to try to relax; she was on the verge of tears again, and really didn’t want to be. Then again, if she hadn’t been crying, would he have stopped? Maybe she should cry more, she thought dejectedly — and what a stupid thing to think, was the follow-up thought. Manipulative again, just like he’d accused her of being, directly or otherwise. Idiot.

He didn’t sound convinced, and she didn’t think she had the energy to do any convincing. What good would it do? If she thought it would help, she’d plead and beg and justify anything he wanted. She’d lay the way she felt about Killian out piece by piece for him to inspect. She’d drink a vial of veritaserum, answer anything. But it didn't seem like he wanted anything from her at all, and that was far worse.

Phillip didn’t say anything more, and she didn’t either; the last, dying crackle of the fire was the only sound in the room. It was quiet as anything, but the small, muffled sounds filled the space well enough. It felt like she was the last thing he wanted to see right now, but she couldn't quite bring herself to look anywhere but his face.

As awful as it was, Phillip knew it didn't matter if she was telling the truth or not. Believing what she was saying now wouldn't change anything that had happened. It wouldn't make the last two months go away. Sometimes, late at night when all he wanted to do was fall asleep but couldn't, Phillip would think about what things might be like if he had never figured out the truth. When he was too exhausted to keep the longing at bay, he could picture what New Year's Eve might have been like.

They'd have kissed when the fireworks went off, Phillip imagined. The teenager was sure she would have jumped at the booming fireworks, and he would have found that cute. He could remember how it felt when her arms snaked up around his neck when she lifted onto her tippy toes to reach him, and he held her close. Just like Billie had, eventually, even these late-night fantasies would betray him, and Phillip would be left with nothing. 

Billie was staring at him, and he remembered a time when he would have loved that, but now it made him uncomfortable. Saying something to fill the silence was not something Phillip would do, so instead, he looked away. It was easier than noticing how red her eyes were. The fire was nearly out now, the embers glowing faintly, but Phillip didn't need the subtle reminder from the magical hearth to tell him how late it was.

She watched him for a while. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t leave, so she didn’t make a move to do so either. Why was he still here? It was clear to Billie that he didn’t want to see her, didn’t want to look at her. She’d done her best to stay out of his way to give him a reprieve from such awfulness as bumping into her in the hallways. Kept her eyes down, hadn’t looked for him at meals, hadn’t looked at him at all, until now. Well, she’d tried not to, anyway. She felt a pang of longing in her chest, imagined the comfort of steadying his hands on her waist. Felt like a creep for imagining it.

Regardless, she didn’t know why he stayed.

She felt on the verge of tears for a while, but after a few minutes, that feeling went away. Physiologically, anyway. She looked back at what was left of the fire, her eyelids heavy from crying. Or maybe they were heavy because it was quite late? She hadn’t checked the time when she’d woken up, she’d just steadied herself and slowly made her way down to the common room to cry — she did so quietly. Contained. It was quite dark now, and she couldn’t help but imagine him a little closer. As if she could will it into being just from the power of her longing…

There wasn’t anything her tired mind could conjure up to say, but she hadn’t said anything for entire minutes now, and he was still there. What should she do, she wondered? Leave…? Stay…? She closed her eyes, succumbing in a small way to the weight she felt with her entire being.

He should have gotten up to leave a long time ago, but something kept him here, stuck in this seat and avoiding her eye. As much as Phillip didn't want to be around her, something pulled him toward Billie. When he had heard her crying, it would have been understandable for him to have kept walking. He didn't owe Billie anything, not anymore, but even though he tried to leave, Phillip had turned around and come back to Billie.

It wasn't healthy, and it wasn't sane; it just was. And now, when it was quiet for way too long, and Billie looked like she might fall asleep right there on the floor if she had something to lean up against, Phillip still couldn't force himself to move.

Lifting his head to look up at the ceiling, Phillip's green eyes traced the lines of the constellations magically etched into the plaster. He had never been inside the other common rooms, but he imagined Ravenclaw was the only one with the night sky charmed on the ceilings. Like everything else in this tower, in the whole damned castle, the painted stars reminded him of Billie. He sighed quietly, resting the back of his head against the chair, tired eyes blinking lazily as the constellations sailed over them.

It was chillier now that the fire was so low, but Billie felt warm enough. Her anxiety was dimmer, too, now that they weren’t speaking and that she didn’t have to look at him or acknowledge he was there. She still felt like it’d spike again if he left, but he hadn’t done that yet, so she kept her eyes closed and let her thoughts drift sideways from where they were…

It was so easy to linger in the past. The past couple of weeks actually hadn’t been so bad, compared to the other month before that, but between Horus and her nightmare, and the ongoing sort of general academic pressure, she’d just sort of… slipped a little. It was easier to go further back, and think about the start of winter break, or further back, to last summer. She wondered if the coming warmer months would make her feel nostalgic for June last year, thinking that she couldn’t imagine a world where they didn’t.

She wondered how he would feel.

She stayed still, eyes closed for a while, her mind spinning places for her thoughts to settle and drift through. After who knew how long, Billie fell asleep, her chin bobbing before she caught herself with a jolt. She gasped quietly, eyes snapping open before blinking rapidly. Where was she? Common room. She looked at Phillip again, feeling confused as it all rushed back in. She averted her gaze again, feeling embarrassed and a little ashamed for earlier. Drained of the feelings that made her act irrationally, even in the face of guilt, she couldn't bring herself to speak.

Above him, the swan of Cygnus sailed past on the dark ceiling panels. Deneb and Albireo shining brightly, and Phillip felt taunted by the magical representations of the constellation. This time of year, Cygnus should have been on the outskirts of the room, but the tower was smug that way, and instead, showed them front and center, right above him. Phillip was sure it was doing it on purpose. The first time he had met Billie’s awful owl, he had assumed she named him Deneb because she liked the constellation, but now he understood more. With more information, all of the little cracks in what he knew were filling in, and Phillip imaged her father, Cygnus Sinnoway, had given her the owl. Another thing she could have told him. Another fact about herself she had conveniently hidden away.

Billie was quiet, the fire was all but out, but Phillip’s head was as loud as ever. Errant thoughts were reminding him that he shouldn’t still be here but keeping him from leaving. Questions piled on top of each other in the corners of his mind, an endless Jenga tower threatening to tip over at the slightest movement. Phillip blinked, exhausted and empty, with dark circles under his eyes. Minutes passed without much of anything, Cygnus continued its flight, chased across the enchanted ceiling by Lacerta, and Phillip fought back a yawn.

And then Billie gasped, and he shot forward. It was a quiet sound, but in contrast to the near silence of the common room, it startled Phillip. “Are you…” He began, but he recognized that sleepy look on her face and his heart sank. “Did you fall asleep?” Phillip asked quietly, and the thought brought about another yawn. He covered his mouth with the back of his hand and then rubbed at his eyes.

Billie felt very disoriented, even though it was quite obvious where she was. She was sure she’d only nodded off for a fraction of a second, but it felt like she’d woken up underwater. The blonde glanced to her side, the one away from Phillip, as if there might be something lurking there, just out of sight. She thought of black material floating eerily in the shadows. She thought of long fingers, curled and ugly. She shuddered, then snapped her attention back to her ex boyfriend sitting in the armchair on her other side as he spoke. If she'd woken up alone she didn't know what she'd have done.

Billie blinked a couple of times, her eyelids heavy and reluctant to function properly. “Um,” she said, reaching up to rub an eye with the knuckle of one hand. The motion was quite clumsy, almost childlike. “Just for... a moment.” She wasn’t completely sure it had only been a moment, but that was what she was hoping for. She wasn't good at staying awake. Some people could stay up all night without any trouble at all, but then there were people like her (and her best friend Barbara!) who were strictly early morning people. If Billie managed to stay awake past her bedtime, like she'd often done while writing notes back and forth with Phillip, she still woke up early, and then she just didn't get any sleep. Talk about a nightmare!

"Did you?" she asked sleepily. It seemed unlikely, but she was very, very tired, not thinking so much about her words before she was speaking.

There was a time when Phillip would have found sleepy Billie endlessly adorable. Billie was more mature than any witch in her year, except for when it came to bedtime. Now, though, it was just another reminder of things they would no longer have. No more writing notes late into the night until Phillip was sure she’d fallen asleep given the lack of punctuation or complete sentences on her last note. No more deciding to stay up all night during the holidays, they remained at the castle, Phillip still up at sunrise, waking Billie gently. All the little moments, they were gone.

He’d asked if she fell asleep but supposed the answer didn’t matter. He could see it in her eyes. Billie rubbed at her eyes, and Phillip moved toward the end of the cushion. Somehow feeling more irritable that she was keeping herself awake when she should have been sleeping and that he was still sitting here when he should have been anywhere else. It was a mess. ” Did you?” she asked, and Phillip shook his head slowly. He never fell asleep before she did, but he had felt his mind drifting away, and he was annoyed by that too. As if letting his guard down and finding some twisted sense of nostalgic peace from sitting close to her was like betraying himself.

“You should probably go to bed.” He said quickly, his voice was low, but his words weren’t entirely soft. What Phillip meant was ‘I should probably go’, but every word came out wrong.

“Yes,” Billie said in a soft voice, blinking slowly in the dark. “You’re right.” She still felt like she’d woken up underwater; everything felt a touch strange. She looked at Phillip again, then glanced away, embarrassment reddening her cheeks a little. She felt more tired — and just as emotional — as she had earlier, but her feelings were no longer tending towards being demanding, or combative, or petulant. None of those things suited her; she felt ashamed to have felt them.

Especially towards him.

Billie nodded, tucked some hair behind one ear and then got unsteadily to her feet. She’d been sitting in the same position for too long, and her foot was a little numb. He didn’t need to know, though. Clearly he wanted her to leave. Billie adjusted the hem of her shorts self-consciously, then clasped her hands together so that she wouldn’t fidget.

“Goodnight, Phillip” she breathed, making herself meet his eye. Her heartbeat was still a little fast from waking up unexpectedly, but she could feel it so distinctly when her eyes were on him. She didn’t linger too long, feeling that she’d been dismissed and not wanting to overstay. Even if she had been there first.

Billie didn’t walk any closer to him than the half a step needed to go around the other couch, then she headed up towards her dorm.



/end