| Details for Under the Boat-walk |
| Summary: | Medusa and Douglas think they're alone when they discuss various things, including their relationship. They might be wrong… |
| Date: | 26 October 1938 |
| Location: | Boathouse, Hogwarts |
| Related: | — |
| Characters |
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Much like any other boathouse, this is a simple wooden structure with a walkway around the outside serving double-duty as a dock, and storage racks above to hold boats. The difference is, this is much larger than an individual's boathouse, this boathouse is big enough to fit an entire first-year class in boats big enough to hold four firsties each.
Having had breakfast with the floppy haired one this morning Medusa made sure to make it clear Douglas was welcome to come meet her before lunch in one of their many meeting places. This time she opted for the boathouse. She sits in one of the boats, resting atop a blanket so thoughtfully left behind, and toying idly with her golden Eye of Truth as it rests against her soft woolen jumper.
"You know, during the day, people come in here," Douglas informs her as he slips inside the boathouse, a dubious, sticky black stain of some sort down his jumper. "I mean other people. Not just us." He draws his arm back, lobbing an apple towards her. "Catch."
Lifting her hands she catches the apple. "And they will leave." Medusa smiles sweetly then looks at the apple. "You know how much you like being under me…" she begins.
Douglas slides down into the boat beside her, pulling out a bit of blanket to sit on. "Mmm?" he queries, eyeing her suspiciously. "What have you done now?"
Medusa opens up her woolen coat so he can see her gold plaited Magijugend pendant. "Well now you are officially under me, as opposed to all those dreams where you just imagine being under me." She takes a bite of the apple he gave her, heaven help her if he ever decides to poison her she'd probably die trusting him.
"What, did they make you a prefect or something?" Douglas queries, reaching out to finger the pendant. "Nice." A pause. "I thought you liked silver better, though? Gold is totally a Gryffindor colour. I should have that one."
"Overseer Malfoy." Medusa waggles her brows and takes another bite of the crisp apple. "I get to keep all you rabble in line. He's going to select someone else to be the second overseer, which means he's waiting for someone else to join. I'm curious who it is. Not Alphard, he's already in. Or Ria Sykes, who's daddy worships at the feet of the great Grindelwald." Medusa holds out the apple, offering it to Douglas.
"Flint," Douglas suggests, leaning forward to bite the apple even as she's holding it. He chews, speaking through a mouthful of the fruit. "The sixth year one. Not the prof." He eyes her thoughtfully, resting his arm comfortably around her shoulders. "So does that mean I'm supposed to do what you say, or you'll break my wand?"
"I think Calista is already a member, but it's possible." Medusa flicks his ear. "Don't talk with food in your mouth." She then turns the apple and takes another bite herself, but chews and swallows before asking, "Has Gus said anything to you?"
"Haven't spoken to him today," Douglas replies, leaning away and rolling his eyes as she flicks him. "Missed him at breakfast. Why? Don't tell me he's proposed to Lillian or something. The man's got no common sense when it comes to ladies."
"I don't think he has, he say she loves her though." Medusa shifts so that her head is resting on Douglas' lap. She looks up at him and asks, "Do you think you could ever use magic to hurt someone? I mean really hurt them or maybe kill them?" Which is quite a leap from Augustin and Lillian.
Douglas shakes his head. "Not a chance," he tells her flatly, absently running a hand through her hair. "I mean, I couldn't. Not just that I couldn't, but… I couldn't. Well, unless you mean by accident," he admits, wrinkling his nose. "I was a bit worried you'd fall off your broom the other day."
"Me either," says Medusa quietly, looking a bit troubled. She looks at the apple in her hand and then up at him. "I was bit worried I'd fall, but I know you didn't mean to hurt me. That's why I wasn't angry." Unable to stop thinking about her earlier conversation with Lucian she asks, "What do you think of all of this Grindelwald stuff? I mean, really think? What do your parents think?"
Douglas runs a thumb along her lip, finding the mole there. "I… well, I don't really know. I hadn't really thought about it. It's just some politician, isn't it? We don't really talk politics much at home. Well, mum does, and dad hides behind the paper or goes out to the barn. What's he actually trying to do, then? Kill people?"
She presses a kiss to his thumb more out of a need to seek and give affection than because it ties in with their conversation. "Some of his followers have killed people." Medusa looks a little embarrassed to admit, "I never paid much attention to politics before. I guess I should start. Flint clearly is a follower and has this idea that as a Malfoy I buy into it all. I don't even know what I'm buying into."
"All I know is that Grindelwald wants to stop mudbloods from taking our jobs and everything," Douglas muses. "I mean, it makes sense. Real wizards should have the jobs where we actually have to do magic. If they love muggles so much, then the mudbloods should just go and live with them and do muggle things. I'm not saying you can't appreciate a muggle for their efforts and everything, but… well, they're not us, are they? Can you imagine taking one home? You'd be disowned."
Medusa takes a bite of the slightly browner apple and nods her head against his leg as she chest. "I don't even have friends that are mudbloods. What would we have in common? They know nothing. I found even the tiniest bit of Denholm's life boring when he was going on about his muggle side." She is quiet for a moment and then asks, "What do you think the real purpose of the Magijugend is? Just to show Grindelwald that he has supporters amongst the youth? Not everyone in it is pure-blood or even from families like ours."
"You're in charge, shouldn't you know?" Douglas challenges, hand going to her neck to play with the pendant once more. "I think it's a sort of numbers game. And a status thing," he decides. "I mean, it gives Flint authority, doesn't it? We're his boys. And that makes Flint look good for Grindelwald, sure. And it helps us, too, knowing that everyone else has got our back if we need it. Not to mention it's going to help with job applications for most people, isn't it? Shows, y'know, discipline and stuff. And that you're not about to whine about muggles."
"He just assumed I knew. I told him that I think magic is best reserved for the purest amongst us and those who are not pure should be thankful to serve us." Medusa thinks about it and asks, "When you signed the parchment did it do anything? He was funny, not funny haha but funny queer. He said with me it was just a formality. Even the thing on my wand isn't that tight." She's tried to 'accidentally' wriggle it.
Douglas raises a brow. "It kind of hissed a bit and glowed. You know. Binding spell, probably."
"Mine sort of fizzled like those sweets that fizzle on your tongue and it was blue." She twists her mouth as Medusa tries to figure out what it means. "It's clearly a binding spell or some kind of oath magic. Do you think it is an unbreakable oath?" Those are serious business, but Medusa wouldn't put it past Flint. "He said he's going to write a letter to my parents telling them how well I am doing this year and said I was an asset to my family name."
"Well, that can only be a good thing, right?" Douglas points out, tugging to loosen Medusa's tie. "Maybe they'll decide you're the best of your family after all, and you'll get your allowance back. And then maybe you can stop sponging off me for fags."
"Maybe." She turns her head and nuzzles his stomach, closing her eyes as she breathes in deeply. Her head falls back and Medusa looks up at Douglas. "It's only a few weeks until the eleventh."
"Mmm," Douglas agrees noncommittally, unbuttoning her top button and slipping his fingers inside her collar to rub at the back of her neck. "And then you'll be rich. How rich, exactly?"
Medusa crooks a finger, urging him to lean closer so she can whisper the amount into his ear, it also enable her to nibble on his ear a little too.
Douglas leans down, eyes closing as she moves in against his ear. "Huh," he muses, sliding his hand down inside her shirt. "How set are you on earning it?"
She grins against his ear and flicks her tongue against it so that her breath is even hotter against his now damp skin when Medusa murmurs, "I like the idea of the game, of playing them all false. But I'm open to new suggestions."
Douglas swallows, taking a moment to gather his thoughts. "I don't want to have to avoid you, just for the sake of a few galleons," he admits, frowning at the admission. "But, well… you know me and ex-girlfriends. I don't think we're going to be able to pull off 'just friends' without looking suspicious."
Medusa turns her head and trails kisses along the side of his neck, punctuating her words with them. "Then." Kiss. "Let's." Kiss. "Not." Kiss. "Do it." She nuzzles him and says, "It is money for Plan C, however." Or is it another plan. They've got so many on the go she could be confused by the alphabet.
Douglas lifts his chin, a tiny nick on the underside visible. "But the gaaaame," he whines, sliding down to lie beside her in the boat, the blanket rumpling as he shifts. "I hate losing!"
Medusa laughs and rolls over so she can snuggle up against his side. "Then what do you want to do? Either we go through with it and make a profit or we see if we can get our money back and nobody is the wiser."
"You don't have some ingenious plan?" Douglas asks hopefully, pulling her by the hands to sit on top of him. "Or do we just not avoid each other, and spend every day throwing insults out, and every night here?"
She shifts to sit comfortably, pushing herself up so that she can look down at him. "Of course I have a plan. You could say I have two plans." Medusa holds up a finger, "One: we could rope in a sympathetic third party that we trust to be the reason behind it all only for us to come to our senses and realise we're unable to be apart." Another finger is extended. "Or two: we could use the bollocks people have been throwing at us for weeks and say it has all culminated in a heated fight after we came to our senses. Only for us to dismiss all of it afterwards."
"And fight long enough to collect the winnings?" Douglas points out, reaching up to grab her by the tie and pull her down to him for a kiss. "Trust me. I can always find a good reason to break up with a girl. I'll claim I caught you with Proudmore or something. Or Cornfoot. Or some Hufflepuff or other, and I'll go start a fight."
Medusa braces her elbows on either side of his head and grins at Douglas. "Gerald won't work, everyone confuses the two of you anyway." She drops a kiss on his lips and then says, "I could catch you with some nameless faceless girl." Medusa scrunches up her nose, "No, that wouldn't work. Everyone would be looking for a body afterwards."
Douglas stretches upwards to press a kiss to her chin. "Well, we'll just have to have a blazing row in the middle of breakfast, then. I'll claim you stole my homework or something."
"I really want to win," says Medusa with a broad grin. "I love the idea of getting one over on them all." She tucks her hair behind her ear. "And think of how great our make-up snogging will be."
"We've already beat the odds," Douglas points out, sliding his hands down her sides. "You know the shortest odds gave us two days. Two days! And they thought we'd probably kill each other."
"They clearly underestimated how attracted you'd be to my sassy bitchiness." Medusa drops another kiss onto his mouth and grins, "And how drawn to your charms I would be."
"I do love your sassy bitchiness," Douglas confesses, grinning against her lips and looping his arms around her neck to hold her there. "And I can't deny how charming I am. What are you wearing to the dance, by the way? I mean, I've got a suit, but are we supposed to go in costume?"
She laughs, "Of course you do," and kisses him again. "Well I was going to go as the last Veela queen of France but I'm not sure how to work you into that idea," admits. "You could be her poor unsuspecting wizarding king who she allegedly killed off with poison." Sounds terribly romantic.
"Or I just put on a suit and a glare and say I've come as the minister for something or other," Douglas suggests, running a hand through her hair and watching her. "Did you really teach Proudmore to dance?"
Medusa laughs at that. "Minister of Smooth Talking." The mention of Lucian makes her blink, it being an unexpected shift in the conversation. "Yes. Formal dancing. Do you know how to dance?"
Douglas raises a brow, then rolls his eyes. "I'm a Macmillan," he reminds her. "Of course I can dance. The ladies love it!"
"Oh yes, I had forgotten." Medusa smirks and lightly pokes him in the side, resting her the weight on him briefly. "What's your favourite colour?"
Douglas squirms beneath her as she pokes him, sticking out his tongue. "My favourite colour? Uh… I don't know, really. You mean what colour should you wear? I don't know. Red? Purple?"
Medusa rolls her eyes, "No, not what colour should I wear. Just, you know, what you like. Alright, easier question: what's your favourite thing to eat?"
Douglas half grins at her. "Why, are you going to cook? Should I cower in fear and hide anything transfigurable?" He pauses. "No, you're safe. We don't have a cat."
That earns him another poke. "Haha funny." Medusa narrows her eyes, glaring at him. "I was trying to learn more about you. I even had a list of questions and I made Gus tell me the answers to them."
Douglas just laughs, squirming again. "Didn't want to waste your questions on me, eh?" he suggests. "Well, all right. My favourite food is probably stovies. Annnnd… pygmy owls are my favourite animal. No transfiguring them," he warns, waving a finger. "I've never been outside of Scotland, except to London. And I didn't much like London. Um… I hate blackcurrant, and I think opera should be banned for the sake of humanity."
She shifts so that she can lay her head on is shoulder. "After breakfast yesterday I realised you were right and we don't know things about each other and part of me felt bad," confesses Medusa, "because I realised I've known you for all these years and it means I was ignoring you."
"To be fair," Douglas tells her, chin resting against her, "I wasn't there for as much of the last six years as I could possibly get away with. And it's not like you're in the athletics club. So what did Gus tell you? All my deep, dark secrets?"
"True," agrees Medusa. Exercise is not her forte. "He said you liked those stovies things, tried to explain what they were and then told me I was being daft because you two don't discuss stuff like this. He also is a rubbish best friend because he couldn't remember what day you birthday was. He vaguely thinks it is early May." She rubs her cheek against his shoulder. "I didn't ask him anything secretive. But he wanted to know about what I was doing after graduation and when I started to tell him I realised you hadn't told him your idea about a business, so he might ask you."
Douglas grins, watching her. "I couldn't tell you when his is, either. February or March, I think. And no, I never told him about that, because I never really thought I could pull it off. I don't like sharing grand plans if they're not going to work."
"But you told me." Medusa tilts her head back and looks up at him, clearly curious as to why he told her if he didn't feel comfortable telling his best friend.
"I told you it was a stupid idea," Douglas points out, half smiling. "And it was never going to happen. The difference is that you actually thought about it and how we can make it work. Gus would have just told me it was a waste of time."
"That's because Gus doesn't lo - look at things the way I do." Medusa suddenly becomes concerned about where she set that apple and starts to search for it, running her hand along the bottom of the boat.
Douglas sits up a little, glancing to the side. "What have you lost?"
"Nothing, just - ah there it is." Medusa holds up the very brown apple and then sets it aside so she can take it to dispose of later. "I forgot all about it."
"Distracted by my many charms, eh?" Douglas suggests, tugging on the front of her shirt. "One hundred points from Slytherin, for not being a complete bitch."
"Something like that." Medusa looks down at his hand then up at his face. "You wrinkle all my tops." Even so she lays back down again, resting her head against his shoulder once more. "Speaking of ex-girlfriends. Who was your first serious girlfriend?"
"You don't have an endless supply?" Douglas asks, smoothing his hand through her hair. "Like handkerchiefs?" He grins, shaking his head. "Elspeth Isbister. When we were twelve or so. We had Magical Creatures together, and always ended up partners. It was pure, unshakable love. For about a week before we got bored."
"I now have one of Gus' handkerchiefs," confesses Medusa. "I'm branching out." She tries to remember who Elspeth Isbister is. "Wasn't Elspeth Isbister that girl with the lisp, the one who left after we finished our OWLs? Douglas," she laughs, "you clearly have moved up in the world."
"I was twelve!" Douglas defends himself, holding up a hand. "Wait… what, why do you have Gus's hanky?"
"I got ink on my forehead, he lent it to me to get it off and I used spit so I am having it laundered." Simple. Medusa doesn't let Elspeth go just yet. "Lucian was my first boyfriend and he's so much better than Elspeth." She cackles. "Poor girl couldn't even say her own name."
"And you really think I went out with her for her elocution?" Douglas points out, flicking a quiet grin. "She was the first girl in class to start needing a bra, remember. These things are very important for impressionable young men like me. Much better than floppy haired bastards."
Medusa rolls her eyes. "Of course. I should have thought of that. You're obsessed with breasts." She snorts a laugh when Douglas mentions the hair. "Hey, now. If things go sour with you I might sneakily take Lucian back. Think of the amazing hair our offspring would have."
Unbeknownst to Douglas and Medusa, Elise has been here the /whole time/. She had been sleeping in the bottom of another boat, thoughtfully covered with a coarse blanket by whomever she'd come here with, and then thoughtlessly left on her own in the shadowy little building. It was their voices which woke her, and it was their conversation which kept her quiet. And there she's been, very quietly evesdropping, hidden out of sight, until a persistent tickle in her throat could not be denied any longer and she gave a very quiet little cough.
"All hair and no br—" Douglas trails off, turning at the sound. He gestures Medusa off him, peering over in the direction he heard the cough as he pulls himself to sit upright in the boat. "Oi!"
Medusa's eyes widen when she realises they're not alone. All the things they have been discussing. Private things. Her expression murderous she reaches into her coat pocket for her wand. "Whoever you are you had better come out now or you will make it a lot worse for yourself." She stands slowly, wand in her hand.
Thinking quickly, Elise just… pretends to have still been asleep. "Five more minutes," she mumbles sleepily, her voice thick. "It's not a school… day…" Her eyes are closed, still. Medusa's intimidation has washed right over her, leaving her wholely unaffected. When they look in Elise's boat they'll see what appears to be a sleeping 2nd-year, is all.
Douglas gives Medusa a Look. "I told you people come in here during the day." He shakes his head, straightening his clothes and rises to his feet to clamber over to the other boat. "All right, wakey wakey, sleeping beauty," he encourages, giving Elise a nudge with his toe.
"Nobody was obviously here when I got here," hisses Medusa. If Elise had been awake and had heard everything she'd know Medusa wouldn't have used the wand on her anyway. Tucking it away again she is meaner than Douglas is and moves over to pull on Elise's hair. "Wake up Harper." It's not too painful, but just painful enough.
"No," Elise protests grumpily, even as her eyes squint open and she sits up. Her hair looks like a regular haystack and gives Medusa an easy handhold. "OUCH!" she shrieks. Tears well up in her eyes. "What was that for?" she demands, holding onto her scalp and glaring at the older girl. Then she blinks and looks around. "Where are Caitlin and Mary?" she asks, naming two other second-year Ravenclaws.
"You could be a bit nicer to the small ones," Douglas chides Medusa faintly, offering Elise a hand up. "It's almost lunchtime. Your pals have probably fled already for something to eat. What are you doing here?"
Elise takes Douglas' hand and climbs out of the boat. Once on her feet again she smoothes out her hair and her robes raher self-consciously. There's a little basket in the boat, too, half-hidden by the blanket. Elise gestures to it. "Breakfast picnic," she explains. "/Lunchtime/, you say?" she asks, her eyes wide. She darts a look around the boathouse. "Don't — don't leave me alone," she pleads. "I can't believe they left me /alone/!"
Medusa narrows her eyes at Elise, "You had better really have been sleeping Harper. If I find out you weren't and a word of what you might have overheard to day so much as makes it past your cursed lips you will wish you had choked on a walnut." She is basing all of her suspicion on her own sneaky behaviour of course, having little real knowledge of Elise herself. "And no little Irish cyclops will save you from my wrath," says Medusa, making it as plain as possible before she looks at Douglas.
Douglas runs a hand through his hair, noting apologetically to the younger girl, "Yeah, she probably means it, too. Sorry. And your pals are going to have lost you a ton of points for your house, too. If that was a breakfast picnic, you've managed to skip four classes. You might want to start thinking of alibis. Like… you were dead or something."
"What?" Elise asks Medusa, looking up at the girl with a bewildered expression. She gives Douglas a sideways look. His joke about her being dead doesn't seem to go well with her, especially following Medusa's walknut quip. "It — it's Saturday," she tells him. "And unless you actually know what it's like to have family members REALLY DIE, then please STOP IT!" She clenches her fists for a second, red-faced, upset, close to tears. "/IT'S NOT FUNNY!/" She starts to storm toward the door.
While Medusa won't use magic on a person she will use it on inanimate objects, like doors. She pulls her wand out and flicks it, securing the door. "Hold up Harper. I want an oath from you that anything you might have heard will never be spoken by you. Or written. Pantomimed or even referenced to by pointing out letters in a book. No collages of paintings or games of charades."
Douglas ticks off on his fingers, "Or clay sculpture, interpretive dance, ballet, speaking in tongues, the usual, you know," he helpfully adds, then rolls his eyes. "Look, you don't have to be a bitch, Malfoy. Harper, is it? You need to calm down some. And… uh… yeah. Don't go spreading gossip."
"I didn't hear anything," Elise says irritably. "I was asleep, remember? You're the ones who woke me up. And it was such a /good/ dream, too." She crosses her arms and kicks the door. "Let me out!" she yells. "I can't be in this STUPID bloody boathouse with STUPID BLOODY sixth years who make jokes about my STUPID BLOODLY FAMILY CURSE!"
"In this instance I do," says Medusa as she walks towards Elise, going full Gorgon on the second year. "Firstly you foolish twit, we are seventh years. And secondly the minute you swear an oath I will let you go." Medusa crosses her arms over her chest and looks down at Elise. "What's it going to be Harper? You going to swear on your wand that you won't repeat anything we spoke about, whether you heard it or not, or are you going to become intimately acquainted with just how mean I can be?"
Douglas draws a long breath in between his teeth. "I'd… yeah, I'd just swear the oath if I were you. I mean, remember what happened to Jane King in second year? Well… no you don't remember, but I bet you heard the stories."
"I'm not going to swear anything on my wand," Elise says stiffly. "Father told me never to do that. And Mother backed him up." She crosses her arms. "Fine. Go ahead, be mean. Do you think I'm really afraid of you? What will you do, hm? Hurt me. GO AHEAD! It's not like anything you can do will hurt as much as knowing that MY ENTIRE FAMILY is going to DIE for something that's not even their fault. Will you kill me? No, I don't think so. There's no way you could get away with it, is there? Because they only way I'm going to die is the curse, and you're not it." She shakes her head. "Let's just sit here and wait, why don't we? Someone is bound to come through sooner or later." She sits on the edge of the boat. "Since you're convinced I heard something, why don't you just tell me all about it? Plotting to turn Dumbledore into stone?" she asks. Ignore the fact that her knuckles are white and her knees are shaking.
Medusa points a finger at Elise, glaring at her. "Don't move." She stalks over to Douglas and lowers her voice, whispering to him, clearly still angry over the situation.
"Well, I'm glad she's not going to die," Douglas points out reasonably, tucking his thumbs into his belt, "but I wish she'd shut up. But I'm not doing that, Malfoy. Not even for you. Murphy hasn't done anything wrong, after all." He shakes his head, adding towards Elise. "Go on. Go find your cyclops. But you weren't here, and you didn't hear anything. Square?"
Elise just rolls her eyes. "Square," she intones sarcastically. She hops down and puts her hand on the door and looks at Medusa expectantly.
Looking as if Douglas had struck her Medusa steps back from him. "I wasn't going to - I can't believe you thought I would actually harm her." Shaking her head she turns away from him. "Just go," she tells Elise quietly, flicking her wand so the door will open.
"And he's not a cyclops," Elise says just before disappearing through the door and running away.
Douglas flops back against the wall of the boathouse. "Malfoy, you play the worst bad cop ever," he complains. "You're supposed to put the shits up her, then I'm the nice one, and then everyone's happy. She's not going to tell anyone."
"You mean you really didn't think I would hurt her?" Medusa seems confused. "I just planned to blackmail her." Typical Medusa then. "Submit a Magijugend application on her behalf and leave it accidentally on purpose on Viridian's desk, maybe let it find its way to Crocker's hands."
"If I thought you were going to hurt her, you'd be lying down with a broken nose right about now," Douglas apologises, rubbing at the back of his head. "I mean, I know you're not supposed to hit women, but there's a limit."
Medusa stares at the open doorway and says, "If she tells I'm screwed. Everyone will know. Everyone." She slips her wand back into her coat pocket. "I bloody hate this place. You're the only good thing about it."
"They'll know what?" Douglas soothes, heading over and offering his hand. "That I like stovies, and your first boyfriend was Lucian Proudmore? What of it?"
She places her hand in his and leans into Douglas, touching her forehead to his shoulder. Medusa looks down at their hands and swallows thickly. "Let's get out of here. Somewhere. Anywhere else."
Douglas lifts her hand to his lips. "Out of here out of here, or just out of here?"
"I'd love to say out of here out of here, but I don't want to give Flint amunition against you. Just somewhere out of here. Some where…up a tree or in a space in the cliff face. I don't care," says Medusa tiredly, "Just not here."
"Find Thad and see if he'll run interference for us," Douglas suggests, "and I'll show you a spot I found down by the lake. We might get wet getting there is all."
She is reluctant to move away from him but nods. "He'll be having lunch with Weasley," says Medusa.
"Meet you by the cliffs in ten minutes, then," Douglas decides, reaching to pull her in once more for an enthusiastic, if swift kiss.
Medusa sinks into Douglas, letting her eyes close briefly, then nods and steps back, walking out of the boathouse.