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A STAB IN THE BACK

act two ━ chapter eighteen

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━ HOGSMEADE VILLAGE ━
december 1993

          "I AM NOT YOUR GOSSIP."

          "But you are my best friend."

          "They are not synonymous, Morgan!"

          It had been over two weeks since Morgan was tasked with a gossip column for the Hogwarts newspaper and so far, it was a big fat flop. She was too scared to write and publish anything for numerous reasons: she was worried people already knew it all, she was worried she would offend someone, she was worried people would wonder who is this irrelevant bitch and why is she talking about us? 

          But if she wanted to be remembered as Hogwarts' best journalist (which she planned to do), she better get writing. Plus, she was on a deadline.

          December had arrived with a flurry of snow and the arrival of the Christmas trees. She had spent the first days of the month decorating her bedroom and the Quidditch changing rooms (because Oliver had told her that "no one ever did that) and she was finally excited for something. 

          Morgan's breakup had severely fucked up her plans to have a great year but now that snow was settling and Hogwarts felt like the perfect winter haven once more, she was looking up.

          This newspaper column was kicking her but though. And when she asked her very best friend very nicely if she could use his sex life as content for the column, he said no. This was massively inconvenient because Casper's love life was the only bit of gossip that Morgan knew in great detail.

          The students of the library weren't best pleased that, instead of studying, Morgan and Casper were sitting a their desks chatting but both of them had bigger things to think about: Morgan was struggling for content for her column and Casper was busy making sure his sex life wasn't the content of the column.

          "If you're happy shoving your dick in anything that moves, then why can't I write about it?" Morgan asked. These were words not to be used in a silent library surrounded by stressed students.

          "Did you just slut shame me?" Casper asked incredulously.

          Morgan slapped her quill down on her books and slouched back in her chair. "Yeah, I guess I did."

          Casper was fed up with this. He was growing more and more concerned that Morgan might put his love life on blast to the whole school when he didn't want the one girl that he was in love with to know about the intricate details of his sexual conquests.

          As a last-ditch effort he turned to Kira who was sitting at the end of their table, three chairs over. "Kira, you love attention," he said.

          Anybody else should find this offensive but Kira and Casper had been friends for far too long for a question like this to get under Kira's skin. She didn't lift her eyes when she replied, "Your point?"

          "Stage some drama for Morgan's column?"

          Kira wasn't getting much work done with the two chatterboxes next to her, so she took off her reading glasses and leaned back in her chair. "Like what?"

          Casper's arms hovered around his body. "Have a heart attack," he came up with after a moment's hesitation.

          Morgan narrowed her eyes in his direction. "I really don't think people care about the health of other students," she said, before turning to the Hufflepuff. "It's nothing personal, Kira."

          "No offence taken."

          When it became clear Casper didn't really have any ideas, Kira went back to her work. Casper then returned to his mission of trying to find something else for Morgan to write about so it didn't end up being him.

          "You just need an in," he said.

          Morgan quirked a brow. "An in?"

          "Yeah," he shrugged, "like with the popular lot."

          Outside of their friendship group, Morgan would think Casper was pretty popular. He was cool, funny, hot, and the Quidditch thing was a bonus. He was the stereotypical popular kid and yet he chose to hang out with Morgan and her friends. If anyone knew who was shagging who, it was Casper Romero.

          But if he was suggesting someone else, Morgan wanted to know. "Like who?" She asked.

          "Like Cedric Diggory," Kira chimed in.

          Casper snapped his fingers in the Fleet girl's direction. "Like Cedric Diggory," he repeated victoriously.

          "I'm friends with Cedric," Morgan shrugged.

          Casper blinked back at her like he had missed quite a few chapters. "What?"

          Morgan was quite offended that Casper thought it couldn't possibly be true that she was friends with someone so popular. But it was obvious he had forgotten quite an obvious fact: "I dated his friend for three years."

          "Oh."

          The friends sat with that for a moment. Casper was imagining Morgan having a conversation with the most popular guy in school and Kira was wondering why she had never asked Morgan to set her and Cedric up.

          Casper then shook himself out of his confused daze. "What were we talking about? Oh, right, yeah, Cedric. I bet Cedric knows everything about everyone."

          Morgan arched another brow. "So?"

          "So, ask him to spill the school's secrets to you," Casper said this like this task was simple. "That way, you have something to write about."

          "We're not that close," Morgan told him. "I don't even think I've ever had a one-on-one conversation with him."

          "Well, now is your chance."

          "Fine," she huffed. "But you're helping me word the letter." There was no way Morgan was going to go up to Cedric and ask him to rat all of his friends out, so a cautionary letter should do the trick.

          "Fine," Casper parroted her. "But, for now, read me what gossip you have so far."

          Because neither Morgan nor Casper was in the library for educational purposes, the entire they had been sitting at their chosen desk, they had been brainstorming gossip Morgan could use for the column that was due at the end of the week.

           On a scrawled piece of parchment, Morgan had written: "Binns is using the same exam questions as last year for the end-of-year History exam. Ravenclaw are leading the competition for the House Cup. And someone in the seventh year is pregnant."

          "What?!"

          Kira was once again involved in the conversation and she and Casper now stared disbelievingly at Morgan.

          "Yeah," Morgan drawled, "some kid got his older brother's old exam papers so he even has the mark scheme and every─"

          Casper grunted, interrupting her: "We are obviously not shocked that Binns is bad at his job."

          It took a second for Morgan to realise that Casper and Kira were gawking at her for the final point on her very short gossip list. "Oh, the pregnancy thing isn't real," she told them finally. "I was hoping to build up some anticipation in time for someone to potentially get pregnant."

          "So your entire career as a journalist relies on someone getting unexpectantly pregnant at seventeen?" Kira asked dubiously.

          "Yes," Morgan replied sheepishly. She then winced and looked at Casper. "I'm fucked, right?"

          Casper sighed. He was thinking Morgan should just quit the paper, but instead, he took a fresh piece of parchment, flattened it out, and poised his quill. "Let's hope Diggory is as nice as everyone says he is."

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          MORGAN WOULDN'T CALL IT "WRITER'S BLOCK", PER SE, BUT SHE WAS struggling to come up with any other explanation as to why she was incapable of writing one article when she had been writing for this newspaper since she was twelve. So writer's block will do.

          Morgan had sent a very polite owl to Cedric Diggory about her request to be friends. Casper had written the whole thing and she was currently too scared to leave her common room because at least Cedric could not reach her there. It was also in the common room where she was able to complain about her new role at the newspaper to her boss (Bianca).

          "It's not as though nothing is happening at Hogwarts right now," Bianca told her in the Gryffindor common room later that day.

          Morgan's arms flailed around. She didn't care if she was interrupting Bianca and her friends' games night because her issues were considerably more important than a game of snap. "If there is, I don't know about it!" She said.

          Bianca sighed. "You're a journalist, Em," she said, her neck craning up to look up at the girl leaning against the sofa Bianca was on. "Find out about stuff. Research."

          "To avoid sounding self-deprecating," Morgan said, "I don't have that many friends."

           "Are you forgetting something?" Bianca asked with a playful shrug.

          Morgan couldn't think of anything off the top of her head. She had never been the most popular student in the school (a far cry from that, actually), and most people just knew of her as Jason's Samuels' little sister. She was also wondering why Bianca couldn't write the gossip column herself since she was a year older and probably knew more.

          Then she looked around the group, all huddled onto the sofas by the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room ─ the Weasley twins grinned back at her, Alicia (still with her arm in a cast) was biting her lip, and even Oliver looked as though he had caught on.

          "You're a Quidditch player now, Samuels," Adrian Pucey told her with a smirk. "Anyone will tell you anything."

❋❋❋

          "JUST . . . GET SOME FRESH AIR."

         This is what Bea had said to Morgan the day before her deadline for the newspaper. All that had happened since her and Casper's brainstorming session was that Hufflepuff overtook Ravenclaw in the House Cup and the Weasley twins got caught spiking the Slytherin Quidditch team with Puking Pastilles. The newspaper had already released its first edition of December and Morgan had nothing to show for it. Not even her Quidditch victory on the front page was enough to lift her spirits.

          But Beatrice was right ─ some fresh air would do her some good. With cancelled practices due to the weather, her cramming for exams, and the newspaper, Morgan had been spending so much time indoors that she hadn't even been to Hogsmeade since it started snowing and there was no place more magical than Hogsmeade at Christmas.

          Morgan decided to go alone. A solo date. She'd go shopping, browse Honeydukes, and, of course, grab a butterbeer. Wrapped up tight, Morgan hopped on a carriage to the little village, just as the snow was starting to stop.

          The cobblestones were blanketed in a layer of snow, and the ceilings looked like they had a sprinkling of icing running along the tiles. The sky was a solid grey, heavy with the promise of more snow. The streets were filled with smiling children and flying snowballs. You could pick out the locals from the students through the vibrant house scarves. Morgan hugged her gold and red scarf tighter around her neck as she trudged through the thin layer of snow towards the sweet shop.

          She already felt better when she heard the familiar bell ring above her head and the vibrant colours of Honeydukes assaulted her eyes. But it was who she bumped into when she beelined for the fudge selection that really warmed her heart.

          "Oh, hello, Morgan," Oliver's familiar Scottish lilt rang through the busy shop. He looked down at her and then behind towards the door she had just passed through, as if expecting her to be followed by her pose of friends. He was pleasantly surprised to see her on her own.

          Morgan, too, was surprised to see Oliver on his own. "What are you doing here?" She asked him. She hadn't seen him by the carriages or in the congregation outside the castle, where the usual Hogsmeade visitors would wait. While it may have been obvious what he was doing in a sweet shop with his hands full, in complete honesty, Morgan expected Oliver Wood to spend every moment of his free time out on the pitch.

          "Letting off some steam," he told her. "Fred and George almost got suspended from the next match because of the Puking Pastilles debacle."

          "Oh dear God."

          "I know."

          Oliver wasn't aware that Morgan wasn't being sympathetic ─ she was genuinely terrified that this meant she would have to play another match.

           "But it's fine," he assured her. "I managed to convince Snape and McGonagall that a week's worth of detention was much better suited for that kind of misbehaviour."

          Morgan thought it was totally adorable how proud Oliver seemed of himself. Like not only had he done Fred and George a service, but the whole damn world.

          "Thank Merlin for you," she said, dusting off imaginary dirt from his shoulder.

          "What about you?" Oliver then asked her as they rounded the corner. He picked up a lolly and fished some coins from his jeans pocket. "What are you up to?"

          Morgan told him about the new column and he told her he had heard all about it from Bianca. Oliver thought it was very sweet that, amongst the Quidditch stress and the fast approaching end-of-term exams, this was what Morgan Samuels was most worried about: Gossip.

          The two left the shop, Oliver with his lolly and Morgan with her fudge, their cheeks going hot with the nipping bite of the wind and the frosty air that engulfed them.

          "I wouldn't worry, Morgan," he told her. "Just get good at eavesdropping, that's what I do."

          They came to a stop outside the shop, Oliver towering over her. Her hair was tucked into her scarf and her hood, and he desperately wanted to reach across the gap between them and untuck it. He resisted.

          Morgan arched a teasing brow. "Is Oliver Wood an undercover gossip?"

          Oliver blushed and his eyes hit the floor. "Maybe," he mumbled.

           Morgan was only momentarily surprised before she realised that the changing rooms before a match were probably the opportune time to chat a load of shit.

          "But, on a serious note," Oliver said, rubbing his gloved hand over her shoulder, "don't take yourself too seriously. You strike me as the kind of girl to succeed at anything she puts her mind to. And not just because you learned how to win a Quidditch match in a month."

          Morgan bit down on her growing smile. "I had a pretty good teacher, to be fair."

          "You must put me in touch with him."

          There was an air of departure surrounding them as they wrapped up their conversation. But as Oliver went to wave and Morgan did the same, they quickly realised that they were heading in exactly the same direction.

          It was playful at first, comedic almost ─ the feeling of saying goodbye too prematurely. But when they walked side by side, three meters apart, further and further down the wistful street, Morgan and Oliver discovered it would just be better if they addressed their matching destination. And while they had both established that the reason they were in Hogsmeade this wintery day was because they needed to decompress after a stressful couple of days on their own, neither of them minded sharing a booth with a butterbeer in hand.

          Oliver waited until they were both right outside of the Three Broomsticks before he confirmed that that was where she was going as well. He held the door open for her, and she smiled appreciatively as she passed under his nose into the tavern.

          "I should have known you'd follow me," he teased, positioning his mouth right by her ear.

           Morgan shrugged off her coat, and Oliver took it into his hands, hanging it up on the hooks by the door before doing the same to his own coat.

            She turned back around, almost bumping into his chest from the very little room she had in the packed pub. Shedding her hat, scarf, and gloves, Morgan tilted her head back to look up at the boy. "I couldn't help myself," she joked.

          Oliver impishly rolled his eyes. "I suppose I can find it in me to share a table with you," he said.

          Morgan held a mock hand to her chest. "That is just so nice of you, Oliver," she said sarcastically. 

          "Maybe I could even share some of that gossip I have with you," he said.

         "Helping me out with my sporting and journalistic pursuits?" Morgan gasped dramatically. "You are just such a gentleman."

          "I'll even throw in a free butterbeer, I'm that nice."

          The pair laughed, but it quickly died down. In fact, the silence that fell between them was instant. Like someone flicked a switch, and the happiness in the air dissipated immediately.

          Because when they turned around to assess where a free seat might be available in the busy pub, both of their gazes landed on one booth in particular.

          Side by side, staring longingly into each other's eyes, were Herbert Fleet and Katie Bell.

          Morgan felt what can only be compared to a knife being plunged into one's heart. Her blood ran cold, and her limbs seized up. 

          But she couldn't look away.

           Herbert's hands rested on top of Katie's. They sipped at their butterbeers, but their eyes never left each other. There was a singular bowl of soup on their table with two spoons beside it. Under the table, their knees knocked. She was wearing his jumper. He was smiling, and so was she.

          It didn't make sense. Morgan and Herbert had only been broken up for four months. Surely it was perfectly normal for her not to have even thought about dating someone else yet. She and Herbert were together for three years. He was her first love, her first kiss, her first everything. Did that mean nothing to him?

          And Katie. She had only been single for─

          Oliver. The other person that this awful sight was also very painful for was standing right behind her.

          Morgan heard Oliver's breath catch. He was stock still behind her. That was until his hand reached forward and clutched hers. Morgan squeezed his fingers back and reassured him that she was there. She was right there.

          Then Morgan turned to look at Oliver. And their eyes locked. The colour had drained from his face. She imagined she had a similar paleness about her. Understanding passed between them. Their pain was shared. And even with the awful knowledge that your ex had moved on before you had, it made them both feel a tiny bit better that they weren't the only one feeling like the most pathetic person on earth.

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐞'𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐫!

it's september. you know what that means:
connie's back in her hp phase!!!

happy autumn y'all