Dusk was settling over Hogwarts when the figure of a slender, fourth year boy emerged from the shadows of the castle and stalked swiftly across the snow-patched grounds. Freddy Shrike had not altered the rapid pace of his footsteps from the moment he had turned his back on his brother, Theo, and abandoned him in the library. No matter how far or how fast he ran, however, Freddy could not shake the echo of Theo’s words: “I know about you and that Mudblood, Grahame… Your sick little fantasies… He doesn’t know, does he? What you want to do to him… sick little fantasies… He has no idea… He’d be disgusted by you… your sick little fantasies… sick little fantasies… sick… sick… sick… He’d be disgusted if he knew… if he knew… if he knew… There was no ‘if.’ Kevin was going to know, because Theo was going to tell him. That was what their whole conversation had been about. Freddy’s first instinct had been to throw up, or to cry, but he refused to give his brother that much satisfaction, and had simply run away. Now, free of the castle, he fell against a familiar, glass-paned door and came to a stop at his destination. In his fear and fury, he hadn’t known at first where to go, but his feet were wiser than his head, and knew where he needed to be. Herbology doesn’t count, he had told Irene Lupin, all the way back in first year – but it was still his best subject, and one of the two dearest loves in his life, and since he was about to lose his other love forever, he had to admit that Greenhouse Number 3 was the best place he could hope to be right now.
Pausing to catch his breath, he drank down a few gulps of the icy, January air, and caught himself shivering as he reached for the door. The warm, damp, clinging atmosphere of the greenhouse enfolded him as he slipped inside, and the familiar aromas of soil and mulch and dozens of exotic plants went a long way toward calming him. He banged the door shut more loudly than necessary, to flush out any other students who might have been lurking among the work tables. The place was silent, though, except for a few, soft, drip-drips of falling condensation, and Freddy made his way back to the most remote corner. There was nothing here but a few broken pots and cast-off trays, a box with a few extra pairs of earmuffs for working with the Mandrakes, and a small workbench. Freddy sat down on the bench and put his head in his hands. How in the world had he ever managed to get himself into such a mess?
Looking back from this distance, it seemed to him that it must have all begun on their very first day of classes together. He could still recall, with vivid clarity, Kevin Grahame’s first attempt at Lumos, and how they’d all jumped at the strength of the light he’d produced. And the flying class, where right off the bat, without even trying, Kevin had flown higher and faster than anyone, including that Bludger-headed show-off, Ludo Bagman. What had really made an impression, though, was the fact that, for all his raw magical power, Kevin had not a speck of arrogance about him. He was frank, and open, and possessed of a fearless curiosity. Freddy had wondered, after the fact, how he would have felt, himself, if he’d been dragged out of his familiar, Wizarding world and chucked into a Muggle school – he probably would have made himself as small as possible and tried not to attract too much notice. Certainly, he never would have had the nerve to open himself to the ridicule of his strange, Muggle classmates by asking all the questions and striking up all the conversations Kevin had, during their first days at Hogwarts. Wilfred Shrike, who had spent his first eleven years being studiously unimpressed with everyone around him, who had never bothered with making any real friends and was convinced he was happier that way, had suddenly found himself craving the friendship and approval of Kevin Grahame, the stocky little boy with the big glasses and the boring Muggle parents, who possessed a magic about him unlike that of anyone Freddy had ever known.
Contemplating this now, his thoughts went back to the end of that fateful day, when they had come in from their very first flying lesson. The students had gone up to their dorms to wash and change before dinner. Freddy got cleaned up quickly and slipped out of the bathroom without having much conversation with anyone. As if being held back in the B group wasn’t bad enough, he was the only one of the Ravenclaws who had been demoted, after Madam Hooch separated them again, to the C group. He hated flying, he hated heights, he would never get used to the white-knuckled anxiety of being miles up in the air with nothing but a flimsy wooden stick between himself and the hard, bone-breaking, neck-snapping earth. Whose stupid idea had all this broom-flying been in the first place? He was sitting on the trunk at the foot of his bed, putting on his shoes, when the rest of the boys came out. Kevin and Aubrey were talking Quidditch together, and Aubrey was going on about how he had played Keeper in the Liverpool Wee Wizard League.
“What’s the Keeper do?” Kevin was asking from under a towel, still rubbing the water out of his short, brown hair.
“He guards the goal hoops against the Chasers,” Aubrey was explaining. “The Chasers try to throw the Quaffle through the hoops, and the Keeper has to stop it before it goes in.”
“Oh, like a football goalie, you mean?” Kevin nodded, wadding up the towel and tossing it on the floor in front of his dresser. The boys’ dorm was laid out much like the girls’, except that, with five beds, they were three on one side, two on the other. Kevin’s bed was closest to the door on the left as you walked in. Jonah and Milo were between him and the window, Aubrey nearest the window on the right side, and Freddy on the right nearer the door. They were staggered so that Freddy, sitting at the end of his own bed, was looking straight at Kevin’s dresser and Jonah’s desk as they stood between the beds across from him. “So,” Kevin was going on, “Quidditch is sort of like football on brooms, is that it?”
“I don’t know,” Aubrey admitted, “I don’t know much about football. Quidditch is – well, you have the Chasers and the Keeper, then you have the Beaters, they have to keep the Bludgers away from their players--”
“Oh, that’s what Bagman plays, he was talking about that,” Kevin nodded.
Freddy did a very poor job of suppressing the snort that popped out at the mention of Ludo Bagman.
“What?” Kevin glanced at him, curious.
They were standing right in front of him, but Freddy had not expected them to hear his editorial comment. “Nothing.”
“You know what you ought to do,” Aubrey suggested to Kevin, picking up where they’d left off, “is go down to the library, look up some books on Quidditch. I’m going out for the team. You should try out, too. You’ve got the flying down, eh?”
Aubrey gave Kevin’s shoulder a slap and a shove and Kevin turned pink with pleasure at the attention. “Now all I have to do is figure out how to get a broom,” he said. “There’s no way my parents will buy me one; I’ll have to save up my pocket money and, gosh, I bet that’ll take forever!”
“I’ll give you my next issue of ‘Magical Sports Monthly,’” Aubrey offered. “Lots of adverts in the back; lots of places sell used brooms. Everytime Cleansweep or Comet comes out with a new model, everyone with a pocket full of galleons rushes out and buys one, so you’ve always got old models for sale out there. Comet 180’s still a pretty good broom, and they’re easy to come by.”
Milo and Jonah had been getting dressed while this conversation was going on, and now came back through the dorm toward the door.
“Better hurry up,” said Milo, and Jonah said, “You’ll be late for dinner.”
Thus warned, Kevin and Aubrey retreated to their own corners to finish dressing. Tying off his last shoelace, Freddy got up and ventured toward Kevin’s side of the room.
“So,” he smiled, folding his arms and leaning against the bedpost, “where’d you learn to fly like that?”
“No idea,” Kevin grinned at him. The smile faded a bit, and he looked apologetic when he said, “I’m sorry you didn’t get to come over with us. It was fun. Except for Lovecraft trying to knock us off,” he made a face. “Gosh, is he a prat and a half, or what?”
“Of course he is, he’s a Slytherin,” said Freddy. “Most of them are insufferable prats; my brother’s one of the worst.”
“What was that snort you gave about Bagman?” Kevin asked. “I mean, I know what you said about him last night, but he seems all right. Friendly enough, at least.”
“Oh, nothing, really,” Freddy brushed it off. “He’s all right, I suppose, aside from being a sneak, and an idiot. I just get sick of all these hot-shot Quidditch stars showing off. Theo’s like that; all he’s talked about for the past year is what a big deal it is that he’s playing Seeker for Slytherin, and now he’s all worked up thinking he’s going to be Captain next year. There’s more to life than flying around on a stupid broom trying to catch a stupid ball, you know.” Freddy glowered as he said this.
Kevin looked thoughtful as he finished sorting out his newly-donned robes and picked up his comb. “Well, I don’t know that I’ll bother going out. I mean, I’d probably never make it anyway. And you’re right, it’s just a game, it’s no big deal. Come on.” Putting down the comb, he walked over and laid a friendly hand on Freddy’s shoulder. “Want to go down to dinner? I’m hungry.”
At the dinner table, Kevin and Freddy sat next to each other, chatting about things other than Quidditch and flying. Kevin took his pet rat, Wilkins (who had spent Flying Class snoozing safely in his nest on Kevin’s desk) down to dinner, and he and Freddy took turns feeding bits of bread and vegetables to the rat while they ate and talked. At last, while Wilkins was nibbling cake out of Kevin’s palm, Freddy asked, “What was that book you were talking about at breakfast this morning? The ‘greatest book ever.’”
“Oh,” Kevin turned pink and smiled sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to shout at you about that, really.”
“It’s all right,” Freddy assured him. “What did you call it?”
“David Copperfield. It’s a novel, by Charles Dickens. He’s a really famous Muggle writer. Was, I mean; he’s dead.”
“What’s it about?”“Well, it’s about this boy named David Copperfield. His father’s dead, and he lives with his mother, and Peggotty, she’s the one who really takes care of him, and she’s got this whole family that lives in a boat, by the sea. Then his mother marries this really horrible man, and he has to go off to this awful school, but that’s where he meets Steerforth – if I’d gotten a cat, I was going to name him Steerforth, he’s David’s friend, and, well, he’s sort of a cad, I guess you’d call him, but I like him anyway – then he has to go to work in London – that’s where he meets Mr. Micawber, you know, that Wilkins is named for, and he ends up running away to his Aunt Betsey – she’s great; if I ever have an owl, I’m going to name her Aunt Betsey. And – well, all sorts of things happen to him, it’s a really long book.”
Freddy digested this with a mouthful of cake, then said, “I don’t suppose you have a copy on you?”
Kevin looked surprised at the question. “I brought it with me, yeah.”
“Do you think I could borrow it?” Freddy asked. “I – don’t shout at me for this,” he smiled, “but I’ve never read a Muggle book before.”
“I don’t know that you want to start with this one,” Kevin shook his head. “I mean it, it’s that thick,” he demonstrated with his fingers.
“I’ve got all year to read it,” Freddy countered. “I’ll lend you some Wizard books, if you’d like. I’ve got some Ambrose Armstrongs.”
“What’s that?” Kevin asked, curious as usual.
“He’s an auror – he fights dark Wizards and things, they’re really exciting. I’ve got Ambrose Armstrong and the Band of the Runespoor, that’s a good one to start with. You can borrow it, if you’re interested.”
“Wow, yes!” said Kevin. “I’ve never read a Wizard book.”
Upstairs after dinner, they dug out their books, and Freddy gave Kevin his copy of Ambrose Armstrong and the Band of the Runespoor, by E. J. MacCorkindale. The cover of the Ambrose Armstrong book had a lurid, moving illustration of a brawny, ruggedly handsome Wizard in scarlet robes, using his wand to hold off a huge, three-headed, orange and black snake. “Wow!” observed Kevin at this.
“I’ve got Mystery of Mochram Moor here, too,” offered Freddy, “if you want that one later.”
“Thanks! Here,” Kevin, in turn, handed over his Oxford Illustrated Dickens edition of David Copperfield, and smiled. “I warned you, it’s really long. You don’t have to finish it if you don’t want to.”That was it! Freddy realized, reflecting on this now, in the greenhouse. Blasted David Copperfield, it was all his fault. He had spent hours, weeks, months of his first year, curled in a chair in the Common Room, absorbed in David Copperfield. Kevin was right, it was long, and he didn’t always understand all of it, but he liked a lot of it, especially the parts with Steerforth, David’s handsome, charming schoolmate. Freddy had been rather angry, the first time, that this Dickens chap had made Steerforth out to be such a rotter, he had liked him so much when he came into the story.
“There was an ease in his manner – a gay and light manner it was, but not swaggering – which I still believe to have borne a kind of enchantment with it. I still believe him, in virtue of this carriage, his animal spirits, his delightful voice, his handsome face and figure, and, for aught I know, some inborn power of attraction besides (which I think a few people possess), to have carried a spell with him to which it was a natural weakness to yield, and which not many persons could withstand.” A natural weakness to yield… He had not been ready to comprehend it then, but he knew now that Kevin was his own Steerforth, a purer, better Steerforth, and it had become his own dearest dream to fill the role of Kevin’s ‘Daisy,’ as Steerforth had dubbed David in the book. Mr. Dickens’ words reflected his feelings only too clearly, and he still didn’t know how some Muggle writer who had died a hundred years ago could know so well what it felt like…
Kevin knew none of this, of course. Freddy never would have dared to tell him, even as his own understanding of it grew. He admired Kevin, admired him tremendously, for his talents, and his warm, frank nature, and the many other charms of his character. But, it was Kevin’s joining of the Quidditch team this year that had made Freddy, more than ever, acutely aware of the physical attraction he felt toward the other boy. Well, how was he supposed to feel, watching Grahame the Beater soaring about, no-handed, whacking away at those Bludgers? He’d found far too many excuses to roam out to the pitch and watch the Ravenclaws practice; since Kevin was only a reserve this year, he had not played in a real match yet, but practice was good enough for Freddy. That would all be over, now, though, he reminded himself. It was all going to be over. As soon as Theo cornered Kevin and told him about the journal…
Freddy hadn’t known until today that, at home, over the Christmas holidays, his brother had stumbled upon the notebook of Truly Awful Poetry he’d been scribbling about Kevin. What Theo had been doing poking around where he wasn’t wanted was beside the point; Freddy should have known by now that he couldn’t trust him. Even then, Theo might not have worked out the identity of the anonymous subject of Freddy’s clumsy sonnets, if not for the picture. Among the pages of his secret, private journal, Freddy kept a treasured possession: the black and white Muggle snapshot that Jane Tweedy’s father had taken of him with Kevin, back at the end of first year. When he looked at it, at the two of them smiling, pressed up side-by-side with their arms around each other, it was easy to pretend for a moment that Kevin felt the same way he did. But, the reality was, he didn’t; they were just friends – “And we’ll see if he still wants to be friends,” Theo had gloated, “once he knows about your sloppy love sonnets; how you’ve gazed into his smouldering eyes and dreamed of shoving your little--”
Freddy clapped his hands over his ears and tried to block out the rest of Theo’s words. Why did he have to make it sound so awful, so coarse? It wasn’t like that, not really, he hadn’t really thought of it in those terms, yet – not that he hadn’t looked at the other boy that way. Kevin had turned 15 a few weeks before Christmas, and his good looks were only improving with age. He was still no taller than Freddy, and still of a stocky, sturdy build, but the mix of maturity and Beater practice was replacing his pudgy baby fat with muscle, and sometimes, when they were getting dressed in the mornings, it was a real struggle not to stare at him and think how good it would feel to be close to him, to rub his broad shoulders, or curl up in his strong arms… This was terrible! Freddy jumped to his feet and paced in the tight quarters. He couldn’t sit down here forever, he was missing dinner, not that he could have eaten anything, anyway.
He started, and froze, at the click of the greenhouse door being opened. Smoothing his fine, blond hair with both hands, he glanced around for something to pretend he was working on. Then he heard the voice.
“Freddy? Are you in here?” The familiar, sturdy figure came into his sight line, at the far end of the long, narrow aisle between the work tables. “There you are!” Kevin exclaimed, spotting him. “Gosh, I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”
In a panic, Freddy raised his hands defensively, and blurted, “Kevin, before you say anything, you’ve got to let me explain; I know Theo’s made this sound as awful as he can, but it’s not like that, you’ve got to listen to me…”
With a surprised look, Kevin exclaimed, “Whoa! Slow down!” He rushed toward him in just a few steps, asking, “What’s the matter? Why weren’t you at dinner?”
Freddy stared at him, breathing heavily, and murmured, “Theo didn’t tell you…”
“Tell me what? Freddy, what’s going on?” He asked this with a look of alarm, and a tone of concern and compassion. When Freddy couldn’t answer him, Kevin reached out and laid a steadying hand on his friend’s shoulder. The warmth of the gesture gave Freddy’s insides a good wrench, and he staggered back to sit on the bench again, dropping his head in his hands and mussing his own hair as he had before. Kevin squeezed onto the bench beside him and coaxed, “Come on, tell me. I’m your friend, that’s what I’m here for.”
That was what they always said to each other, when one of them was worried over something. Freddy was going to miss the reassurance of those words. Drawing a deep, racking breath, he said, in a tight voice, “Theo’s looking for you.”
Kevin made a disgusted face. “What’s he want?”
“He doesn’t like us being friends.”
“I know.” This was old news. The Shrikes were a socially respectable Wizarding family, Kevin’s parents were Muggles, and Theo was a snob who thought the two sides shouldn’t mingle. “But, you don’t let Theo choose your friends for you. Do you?” He tried to look into the downcast eyes as he asked this.
“No!” declared Freddy, in a sudden show of anger, that faded as quickly as it had arisen. “But – he’s going to tell you something that will make you hate me.”
Kevin smiled – actually smiled at this. “Can’t happen.” This time, he bent his face down and around until Freddy was forced to look at him, and he said, “Nothing could ever make me hate you, don’t you know that?”
Kevin’s words touched him sharply, as he raised his head, and sank into those warm, melting, brown eyes. They showed him nothing but trust, and encouragement, and the reflection of his own anguish, and he was seized with a fit of dry, hiccuping sobs. He pitched forward, doubling over with the effort to stop his burning eyes from welling up, but two strong hands reached out and caught him. They pulled him close, and Freddy buried his face against the sturdy shoulder that welcomed him as Kevin folded him in his arms, rubbing his back and calming him with a murmured mantra of, “It’s all right… it’s all right…”
It was so strange, thought Freddy, in the midst of such agony, to feel such a rush of joy, but there was no other word for the feeling that shot through him as he felt himself drawn into those protecting arms. It was everything he had dreamed of, and no matter how they ended, at least he would have this to remember. He concentrated on soaking up every sensation and committing it to memory, nestling into the embrace, slipping his own arms around Kevin and taking the measure of his back and shoulders, relishing how perfectly the curves of flesh and muscle fit into the palms of his hands. Kevin made no move to push him off, or shrink from him, but only went on hushing him, and gently rubbing his back. At length, he stirred a bit, and Freddy sadly prepared for the descent back to earth, but the arm supporting him stayed where it was, and it turned out that Kevin was only trying to get his glasses off. Freddy felt him fumbling for a safe place to cast them aside, then Kevin’s fingers were laced through his hair, and his warm breath was on Freddy’s neck as he went on murmuring, “Shhh, it’s all right…”
At last, Kevin nudged Freddy into raising his head. He did not break the embrace, however, as he asked, “Now will you tell me? What’s this thing I’m supposed to hate you for?” When Freddy still hesitated, he pointed out, “Look, whatever it is, Theo can’t hold it over you if you tell me, yourself.”
Freddy thought, and studied Kevin’s face, Kevin’s eyes, felt Kevin’s hand still on his back, ran his own hand over Kevin’s shoulder and let it trail down to the crook of his arm, wondering if all Beaters ended up with muscles like that… What to tell him? Only three words, that’s all it would take, all he had to do was squeeze out the three words repeating inside him with every beat of his heart… Why did it have to be so difficult…?
“You didn’t kill someone, did you?” Kevin was smiling when he asked this, and Freddy smiled back slightly when he answered.
“No, nothing like that.”
“Let’s see, did you, um, put a hex on my broom?”
“No.”
“Turn Wilkins into a shoe brush?”
“No,” Freddy was laughing now.
Kevin looked him in the eye. They still sat close together, arms folded around each other, and neither one of them had made any attempt to alter this position. “Is this something you’d hate me for, if I said it to you?”
“No,” Freddy assured him, with an earnest look.
“Would it help if I said it first?” asked Kevin. His voice was soft, and his brown eyes were shy, but didn’t break their gaze.
“Probably,” Freddy swallowed, hoping he was guessing right as to what was coming.
He could feel Kevin breathing more heavily, and shaking just a bit, as he said, “If I said I liked you, would I be getting close?”
Freddy nodded, holding his breath.
“I mean – really like you,” Kevin ventured, starting to turn a bit red.
Freddy looked deep into his eyes, his own eyes begging him to go on.
“Would you hate me,” Kevin smiled – that bashful smile was so appealing on him – “if I told you I’ve had a crush on you since practically forever?”
Freddy had hoped for the crush, but practically forever was a surprise, a wonderful, thrilling surprise. “Me too!” he burst out. “From our first day! I don’t know that I knew what to call it then, but, yes!” Throwing himself on Kevin’s shoulder again, he felt the strong arms tighten around him, and at last he let the truth come gushing out: “Oh, Pudgie, I love you…”
Kevin pulled back and his eyes were dancing with laughter when he said, “Did you just call me Pudgie?”
“Oh, sorry,” Freddy turned bright pink. He’d picked up the nickname from Kevin’s doting Gran, when she’d come to visit at the end of first year, and he’d been whispering it to his pillow every night for so long now that it was a wonder he hadn’t blurted it out sooner. “I didn’t mean to, I just…”
“No, I like it,” said Kevin, beaming with delight. “I like it from you.” His face fell as he admitted, “I don’t have a nickname for you.”
“That’s all right,” said Freddy.
“I love you, too, though,” Kevin declared. “That is what this is all about, right?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And you thought I would hate you for that?” Kevin marvelled.
“Well, how was I to know?”
“Gosh, I thought I was so obvious,” Kevin laughed. “I mean, Irene knows, she figured it out ages ago.”
“Irene?” Freddy exclaimed, alarmed at this.
“Don’t worry, she’s a good sport, she hasn’t told anyone. She’s known since the end of first year, she hasn’t said a word.”
“She really is the Divination Expert, isn’t she?” he remarked, impressed.
“Look, I want a secret nickname for you,” Kevin backed up to this point. “What can I call you?”
“I don’t know,” Freddy considered, then the inspiration smacked him in the head and he blurted, “Daisy!”
With a laugh, Kevin asked, “Where’d that come from?”
“David Copperfield, remember?” said Freddy, surprised that he didn’t pick up on this.
“I know,” he said; he had picked up on it, “but, why--?”
It was going to sound stupid, but no more stupid than anything else he’d said so far, and Freddy took the plunge. “That’s how I’ve been thinking of us: Daisy and Steerforth. The first time I read the book – I’m not certain I even really understood it then, but the way David was about Steerforth, all that about how handsome and brilliant and charming he was--” Freddy smiled shyly and ducked his head a bit when he confessed, “that’s how I see you.”
Kevin’s brown eyes stared at him in amazement. “You’re joking! Me?! Gosh, I’m not any of that; you’re the handsome, brilliant, charming one, I’ve always thought that you were Steerforth and I was ‘Daisy’--”
“You can’t be Daisy, you’re Pudgie,” Freddy teased, giving him a squeeze.
“Well, all right then,” he conceded the point, “you can be Daisy, if you want. But I still think you’ve got it backwards,” he shook his head, smiling.
“Look, you,” Freddy took the liberty of ruffling Kevin’s hair, “don’t tell me you’re not handsome.” His hand slipped down to rub the broad shoulder again, and he asked, with what he hoped was a flirtatious look, “Are all Beaters built like you?”
“I don’t know,” Kevin grinned impishly. “We could ask Jane Tweedy.”
Freddy made a face. “No, thank you, I don’t care to hear about Bludger-head Bagman. Come to think of it, I don’t really care about anyone else at all.” And, inspired, he made a sudden dart at Kevin and planted his lips for an instant against his cheek.
“Daisy!” Kevin exclaimed, grinning and turning red.
“I like that,” Freddy nodded. “I like it already.”
“What, the nickname, or the kissing?”
“The nickname. I haven’t had time to decide about the kissing yet.” He said this in a soft, teasing voice, and waited to see what Kevin would do. There was a delicious flutter of anticipation, like wings beating inside him, as Kevin reached out, shyly, gently, to brush back his silky, blond hair, caress his neck, stroke the smooth, slightly flushed cheek with his thumb. This was a big step – an enormous step – and they were both anxious as they drew close to each other. They took their time, cautiously touching noses, nuzzling cheeks, laughing, muffled, shy, nervous laughter, until at last Kevin made the move to duck under Freddy’s nose and touch lips with him. The kiss lasted only a moment, but they hovered, less than an inch apart, and touched lips again, once more, once more, each time holding the contact a bit longer. They poured out their awkward longing in a whole succession of kisses, experimenting a little clumsily, but savoring the strange, soft heat of mouth on mouth. At last, they paused, and Kevin, resting his forehead against Freddy’s temple, asked, “How long have you known?”
“What, that I liked you?” Freddy was perplexed; he thought he’d answered that already.
“No, not me especially, just – boys.”
“I didn’t know,” the fair-haired boy considered. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this way about anyone but you.”
“You never had a crush on anyone, in primary school? You know, thought they were wonderful, wanted them to notice you, like you?”
“Daisy and Steerforth?” Freddy recognized this, and smiled. “No, I never had anyone like that.”
“Really?” Kevin sounded surprised.
“You have to remember,” Freddy explained, “the only other boys in my class at Eggleston’s were Smyrl and Bagman. Frankly,” he smiled, caressing Kevin’s cheek with an affectionate touch, “I’d like to think my tastes are a bit more refined than that.”
Kevin glowed at the compliment, and confessed, “Gosh, I can’t even count all of mine now. Ever since my first day of school, I was always noticing which boys were good-looking, and clever, and popular, and wanting them to pay attention to me. Not like this,” he laughed a bit, nuzzling Freddy’s ear. “I wasn’t thinking about kissing them, yet. But, I knew what I liked. I couldn’t tell a cute girl from a plain girl, but I knew which boys I liked.”
Freddy couldn’t resist asking, “So, did you like me right away?”
“Mmmm…” Kevin mused thoughtfully, with a teasing smile, “well… I know by the end of the first day, when we were swapping books, I was starting to think I sort of liked you…”
“Sort of!” he feigned offense.
“Ha,” said Kevin, “you don’t want to know who I thought was cute at first.”
The other boy gave him a look of dreadful amusement and warned, “If you say ‘Bagman’…”
“NO!” the stocky boy exclaimed, with a loud laugh. “Gosh, no! He’s not my type at all! He’s way too thick for me, I mean brains and brawn. No,” he grimaced a bit as he confessed, “it was Lovecraft.”
“Cary Lovecraft?” Freddy winced. “That smarmy git?”
“Well, I didn’t know he was a smarmy git,” Kevin defended himself. “I just thought he was nice-looking. That’s how I ended up sitting with him on the train. Of course, then he found out I was Muggle-born, and he made me eat those stupid beans, and Olivia was sitting with us – gosh, she’d be enough to put anyone off girls--”
Freddy laughed out loud at this.
“Well, by the time we got here, I’d decided he was a smarmy git, and wrote him off.”
“But, I can’t believe you thought he was good-looking. Pasty-faced, conniving little prawn.”
“Oh, I’ve always gone for the slender, pale, intellectual type,” Kevin smiled at him and kissed the tip of his nose. “And I’m certain I would have wanted to sit with you, Daisy, if I’d seen you first.”
“Dashed right,” said Freddy, kissing him back. One thing led to another, and they concentrated on the pleasant melding of lips again for a while. Freddy had wondered about this, had fantasized about it, but the reality was so much more than he had imagined. It wasn’t just the contact, or the way their mouths conformed, one to the other, it was the tenderness of feeling behind the touch, it was the thrill of discovery, and the comforting sense of trust. Kevin’s lips were warm and ripe, and reflected that same, wondrous mix of strength and gentleness that Freddy had already noted in his touch, and his embrace. This time, when they paused, it was Freddy who asked a question that had been troubling him. “Does your family know?”
“Oh, yeah,” Kevin groaned. “Not about you,” he explained, “but… they know how I am. My mother hates it; between that and my being a Wizard, I’ve pretty well ruined her life.” He forced his mouth into the dry hint of a mirthless smile that Freddy had already noticed on him whenever he spoke of his mother. “My dad’s always told her it’s a phase; I think he really expected me to switch to girls when I got older. I haven’t told them anything about liking anyone since I’ve been here, but they’ve got to know I haven’t changed. Do you know what my mother did once?” he blurted. “It would be funny now, if it weren’t so pathetic.”
“What?” Freddy encouraged him to tell.
“Back in primary school – I don’t know if you do this, but where I’m from, we have photos taken of our whole class together, every year. When I was seven, my mother wrote on the back of my class photo the names of all the other kids, and under the name of this one girl, she wrote ‘girlfriend’ – gosh, I hardly even knew her name, I think it was Sandra, or Sheila, maybe, but I guess Mum must have said something to me like, ‘oh, she’s a cute girl, do you think she’s nice?’ and I must have said something like, ‘yeah, she’s all right, I guess,’ and bang, I had a girlfriend. I don’t remember anything about her, I probably never said two words to her. But I could tell you all sorts of things about Stuart Fox, and Keith Clark, and Derek Shelden, I remember them all right,” he chuckled. “And don’t even get me started on Jeffrey Sterling, oh, gosh, I was stuck on him for ages, he was a year ahead of me, so he wasn’t in my class, probably didn’t even know my name, but I’d go out of my way just to walk past him in the hall – oh, gosh, that was awful,” Kevin was chuckling at the memory. “He was my original Steerforth; the first time I read David Copperfield, I was hopeless over Jeffrey Sterling, and the whole ‘J. Steerforth’ thing – it was spooky, it was so exactly how I felt, I started thinking of him as Jeffrey Steerforth… Gosh, I was an awful case.”
Freddy had been listening to this with his hands folded on Kevin’s shoulder, and his chin on his hands, and now he said, thoughtfully, “You know, Pudgie, I think I may have had one, after all. It probably doesn’t count, though.”
“Why, who was it?”
“Ambrose Armstrong.”
“From the books?”
“Mm-hmm. It wasn’t romantic or anything, I was only nine-ish or so, but once I started reading the books, I was obsessed with him. He was so Brave and Strong and Heroic,” Freddy laughed a little as he used these superlatives. “I used to make up these ridiculous stories, where I would be in some terrible danger, and Ambrose Armstrong would come to the rescue and save me! Then he would tell me that he Desperately Needed My Help because I could talk to dragons, then I’d use my powers to summon a dragon, and we’d fly off together and Save the World!” He delivered this narrative with appropriate melodramatics, then shook his head and grinned at his own foolishness. “Sounds silly now, I know, but…”
“No it doesn’t,” Kevin assured him, grinning, as well. “It’s not half as silly as the stories I made up.”
“Such as?” Freddy prompted eagerly.
“Well,” he chuckled with embarrassment, “I put poor Jeffrey Sterling through the most awful disasters. I was always digging him out of avalanches, dragging him out of burning buildings. I even saved him from drowning, and I can’t swim!”
“Oh, Pudgie, you’re so heroic,” Freddy laughed fondly at this image.
“I guess I was always saving his life because I could never think of any other reason he would pay attention to me. He was always really, really grateful afterwards,” Kevin grinned.
“You know, Pudgie, I’m starting to feel a bit jealous of this Sterling chap,” Freddy hinted, blue eyes teasing him.
“Oh, you’re worth a dozen J. Sterlings, Daisy,” Kevin pulled him close. Freddy’s heart began fluttering wildly again as he offered up his lips, and Kevin took them. Oh, yes, he’d had time now to decide about the kissing, and he liked it, he loved it, he thought it must be the most wonderful thing in the world… Until Kevin’s mouth strayed from his and began wandering over his cheek, along his jaw, just below his ear, laying a trail of soft lip-prints over his tingling skin, burrowing at last under his collar to kiss him on the neck. Oh, no, this was the most wonderful, the most incredible thing… Freddy sighed. The touch of those warm, curious lips exploring the corner where neck turned to shoulder made Freddy squirm in the other boy’s embrace, and a hot rush of pleasure shot through him and scared him enough to make him pull away. Kevin drew back, as well, at the gesture, and murmured, “Sorry…”
“Don’t be…”
“Look, I’m new at this; if I do something you don’t like--”
“Oh, I liked it, all right,” Freddy breathed, still trembling a bit. “A little too much, if you take my meaning.”
“Oh.” Kevin ducked to hide his red cheeks, but he was grinning.
“It’s only…” Freddy tried to explain, gently rubbing his back.
“We’d better not start something we can’t finish, huh?” Kevin understood. They were quiet for a moment, as Freddy kissed his cheek and settled his head to rest again on Kevin’s shoulder. Lightly drawing his fingers through Freddy’s silky hair, Kevin asked, “Do your parents know about you?”
“I don’t know,” Freddy murmured. “I don’t think so, or they would have said something. I haven’t said anything to them. Yet,” he sighed. “I’d like to think they’ll take it all right, but… It’s hard to say. My mother’s always so calm about everything. She’s very logical; because she’s a physician, I suppose. She’ll probably come up with some rational explanation for it. I don’t think she’ll be that upset, though. My dad,” he laughed a bit. “I can imagine how awkward he’d be having to talk with me about a girl, never mind this. He likes you, though.”
“Really?” Kevin was surprised. “He hardly knows me.”
“Oh, I’ve talked about you a lot – just as a friend, of course. He thinks you’re a ‘good kid.’ He’s glad you’ve ‘brought me out of my shell.’”
Kevin had to laugh at this. “He won’t be once he knows what shell I’ve brought you out of.” They both shared a good chuckle over this, and Kevin asked, “How’d we get so lucky? I mean, both of us liking each other, what are the odds of that?”
“I don’t know, I’m just glad to have it all out. You don’t know how many times I’ve wanted to just throw my arms around you and kiss you.”
“Me, too. I can’t believe you never caught me looking at you. You know,” Kevin smiled, “getting dressed and things.”
“I can’t believe you looked,” Freddy shook his head. “I’m not all that much to look at.”
“Oh, yes, you are,” Kevin squeezed him. “You’re just exactly what I like.” Freddy felt himself glowing pink under the warmth of Kevin’s adoring gaze, and those fluttering wings fanned his heart again when Kevin smiled and, leaning in to nuzzle his cheek, murmured, “My golden Daisy…” There was no other way to answer this but with another kiss, or two, or... When there was enough space between them to allow speech, Kevin murmured, “You know, that’s the one thing I didn’t like about David Copperfield.”
“What’s that?” Freddy breathed.
“That David and Steerforth both ended up with girls. Instead of each other. I was so disappointed the first time.”
He laughed softly. “So was I. I like this ending better,” he kissed Kevin again.
“Mmm, me, too…”
He was stroking Freddy’s back, with a light, caressing touch, as they continued to nuzzle and kiss, and against all his better judgment, Freddy murmured, “Pudgie… do that thing to my neck again.”
“Are you certain?” Kevin looked at him dubiously.
“I don’t know when we’ll have another chance at this,” he ran his hand longingly over Kevin’s chest. “And it was nice. I’ll stop you when I have to.”
“All right,” he smiled. Carefully drawing back Freddy’s collar, Kevin bent his head once more to the spot where the slender neck angled into the shoulder, and let his lips brush the delicate skin. This time, when Freddy began to squirm, the strong arms held him tighter, and he didn’t push them off. Freddy let the thrill ripple up through his body and flood his senses, until it came pouring from his throat in a long, soft moan of pleasure… Kevin released the grip of his arms at this, and drew back.
“You didn’t have to stop,” Freddy whispered, eyes still half closed.
“Oh, yes I did,” Kevin’s voice was shaky. “Gosh, Daisy, don’t do that…”
“Do what?”
“Moan like that,” he shivered slightly just saying the word. “You’re putting some really awful thoughts in my head…”
Freddy, already thinking some awful thoughts of his own, got to his feet, leaving them both some breathing room to regain themselves, and said, “I suppose we ought to go back.”
“In a minute,” Kevin murmured, still tense, then he appealed to him, with a look that seemed to apologize for putting him off. “Daisy, rub my shoulders, would you? It’ll calm me down. I think.”
“You think?” Freddy hesitated, battling his own desires.
“Well, I don’t know, it might just make things worse, but I really want you to do it…”
Kevin turned so that his back was angled toward him, and Freddy re-settled himself, with one foot on the ground and his other knee on the bench, so he could get at the broad, strong shoulders and dig both hands into them. “You know,” Freddy admitted, “this is what I’ve really wanted to do to you, for ages. I’ve got this – thing about your shoulders.” He could feel the muscles relaxing as he massaged them, and wished all those robes hadn’t been in the way, but he knew that it would only be asking for trouble at this point if either of them were to shed so much as a stitch. Freddy hated to admit it, but Theo was right, he was thinking of Kevin in the most terrible way…
As his breathing slowed, and the tension eased out of him, Kevin took Freddy’s hands and drew his arms down around his neck. “Thanks. You’re good at that.”
Freddy drew him back to rest against his chest, and said, “We really can’t sit down here all night. Someone might come looking for us.”
“I know; we’d better quit while we’re ahead.”
Freddy held onto him for a moment, though, and said, with an anxious frown, “If Theo does try to talk to you, don’t tell him about this, he’ll never leave us alone.”
“I won’t,” Kevin promised. “In fact, um…” he twisted his head around to look up at him, and his eyes were anxious and uncertain. “I’m not planning on telling anyone. Not that I don’t love you, I really do, and this is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me, but once you start telling people, they get all funny about it, and…”
“I know,” Freddy ran his hand reassuringly over Kevin’s back. “I’d rather keep this just between us, too.”
“Except--” Kevin reconsidered, “well, I wouldn’t mind telling Irene. She already knows how I am about you, and she really has been a good sport about putting up with me. And I know she won’t tell anyone else.”
“Why not?” Freddy conceded. “She’s bound to figure it out, anyway.”
“As for Theo,” Kevin puffed himself up bravely, “if he says anything to me about you, I’ll just tell him I don’t believe him, and to mind his own business. I’m not afraid of Theo!”
Freddy hugged him. “That’s what I really love about you, you know that.”
“Want me to put a hex on him for you?” Kevin offered gallantly.
“No,” Freddy laughed, leaning around to kiss his cheek.
“I’m still trying to get Alfred to let me play in the match against Slytherin,” Kevin insisted, as the two of them got on their feet. “I could bash a few Bludgers in Theo’s direction. Give him a good whack in the head.”
Freddy was still laughing as he said, “My Hero!” and they shared one more, tender kiss as they brushed off their robes.
“Where’d my glasses go?” Kevin felt around for them.
“Here,” Freddy picked them up and put them back on his face. He couldn’t suppress a smile as he said, “You really are adorable, Pudgie, you know that.”
“So are you, Daisy. You know…” Kevin got that sweet, bashful smile again, “for all the crushes I’ve had, well, I’ve never had a real boyfriend before.”
“Ah,” Freddy smiled back, twining his arms around Kevin’s neck, “are we officially ‘boyfriends,’ then, Pudgie?”
“I’ll be yours if you’ll be mine,” the brown haired boy offered.
Freddy sealed the proposal with a kiss and said, “Done.” He slipped his hand into Kevin’s, fingers lacing through his, and they walked hand in hand, as far as the greenhouse door.
THE END
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