Back in Town || Terry & Melanie

mellie-c:

She squeezed him tighter when he felt his arms come up around her. Frankly she was surprised he had responded at all. At the start he had seemed so cold and distant, as if he were afraid to show any emotion at all. Which was just silly. She knew first hand how badly that would turn out, bottling everything up inside.

“I know,” she mumbled. And while she didn’t exactly know what it was like losing a best friend she knew a feeling that came close. Yes, losing a pet and a person is not the same thing on the outside but the feeling of loneliness and pain came close. She rubbed at his back and held on until his grip loosened a little, not wanting to abandon him in a way in his time of need. What kind of friend would do that?

Brushing away his tears with the pads of her thumbs she said with a small smile, more for her own benefit, “You’re going to get fat from the stuff I’ll bake for you. You won’t ever go hungry, okay? And if you ever want someone to talk to or…just sit with you can always come to me, okay? I’ll never be too busy for any of my friends so don’t ever worry about that. And I could bring Sophia and you could meet her. You’d love her. She’s the sweetest girl on the planet, has a smile for everyone.” Chuckling a little she added, “Yeah, she has my hair, just not this bright.”

She squeezed him again and stepped back, holding him at arm’s length and looked him over. “Do you need a place to stay? Better yet, can I do anything to help at all? Even the smallest of things. Hmm, changing the subject’s probably not helping but I don’t know if you want to talk or not. Why don’t we sit, just in case your legs give out.”

Terry felt Mel’s arms tighten and he realized that being alone, keeping to himself, having no one to talk to, was all getting old. He hadn’t had a hug in so long, and maybe that’s why he accepted it so quickly. Or maybe it was because after being by himself for those long months away, he hadn’t realized how much he needed a friend like Mel. He mumbled a “Sorry,” as Mel began wiping away his tears. Frankly, he was a grown man and having a girl brush away his tears for him while they both stood in the middle of a restaurant seemed rather embarrassing, so he nodded and they sat back down. 

“Thanks, Mel,” he said, with another little smile. “Sophia sounds wonderful, by the way.” He had no idea how she was being so hospitable to him, but he wasn’t going to complain. “Did I mention that I missed you?” he asked with a sigh before returning to his previous activity of pushing his salad around on his plate.

Back in Town || Terry & Melanie

mellie-c:

“A lot of people say I have mad baking skills, maybe do that? By the time I retire, whenever that is, that’d probably come in handy. Everyone loves desserts,” Melanie responded with a slight shrug. And she did enjoy it. Now, however, it was usually only when a special occasion came up or when she felt as if something sweet would cheer someone else up. “Oh that’s okay, not many of us had. I just ask to be sure I wouldn’t be hanging her over to a complete newbie, you know?” She shook her head at his apology. “No, no, don’t apologize. I appreciate the gesture. Any time you want to see her let me know and we can arrange something.”

She chuckled while bringing her glass to her lips, making a small fog appear on the glass before disappearing in the next second. She took a sip of her tangy drink and then carefully set it back down on the table. “If you were getting someone to…I don’t know, redo your lawn, would you go with someone who just got certified or with someone who’s been in the business for a while?” She asked with lifted eyebrows and then she shrugged. “It makes sense and, as I said, this way my schedule is pretty open.” She smiled. “Good, now just graffiti that all over the place and I’ll be in business.”

Melanie had reached for her glass again when Terry brought up Zella. She nodded. How could one forget her. They didn’t talk a lot but Melanie saw her as a friend. They had a similar sense of humor and Zella was always good fun to be around. “I remember,” she said. “She had…dragonpox I think? Or was it Spattergroit?” She waved her hand. It wasn’t as if it mattered. She nodded slowly as she listened, bringing the glass closer to her lips but froze at his next words, her eyes widening in shock.

“Passed away?” She repeated, her voice barely above a whisper. She had nothing else to say so repeating what he said was the first to come to mind. Her body suddenly turned cold, her stomach turning. With a shaky hand she slowly put her glass down and closed her eyes, trying to even out her breathing. She couldn’t imagine one of her best friends passing. But she had others around her, he had to suffer alone.

Silently she placed her napkin on the table and pushed her chair away from the wooden piece of furniture. Getting to shaky legs she rounded the table and bent over slightly to wrap her arms around his shoulders in a hug. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. It wasn’t as if she had anything to do with it but she felt that was the only thing she could say at the moment.

“Baking? Well, I haven’t had decent baked goods in a while and my flat is lacking good food, so maybe you could throw some stuff together for me?” He joked, but followed up with a wave of his hand to let her know he wasn’t actually serious. “Well I’m not completely new to that kind of thing, but I’d definitely need some pointers.” He pushed his food around his plate with a fork. “What’s she like? I bet she’ll grow up to be ambitious and brilliant like her mother,” he said with a bit of a bigger smile this time. “Does she have your hair?” 

Terry finally took his first bite before replying with “Spattergroit,” to Mel’s question. After swallowing, though, he found he had less of an appetite than he initially thought, so he pushed the plate away from him. As Mel repeated what he told her in her quietly shocked voice all he could do was nod. What was he supposed to say? He clenched his jaw tight trying not to show any hint of being broken. He was Terry Boot. He used to be the head of the Quidditch team. He was a fully grown man by now. He was an official Hogwarts graduate. He wasn’t supposed to cry. That meant weakness, didn’t it?

Yet despite his best efforts, the minute Mel wrapped her arms around him, he lost it. After a moment of figuring out what was happening, he stood up and wrapped his arms around her in return. “I miss her so much,” he whispered into her hair as the first tear began rolling down his cheek. So much for not showing weakness.

Back in Town || Terry & Melanie

mellie-c:

“Yeah, yeah,” she said with a small smile and a wave of her hand. “You always were my number one fan in that sense. But you can’t blame me from worrying, though. I don’t know what I’d do if I worked so hard and then ended up having it slip through my fingers right at the end. That’d…that’d just kill me,” she said a little bit over the top. “Honestly, though, I don’t really have anything else to fall back on and…the idea of being a stay-at-home mom just doesn’t work with me. I have to do something. So I’m glad this worked. Maybe later I’ll do something else.”

Melanie smiled at the offer but her lips didn’t reach up the full way as doubt settled into her mind. And it wasn’t because of him, it was putting Sophia around someone new in general. While it did seem that she loved just about everyone she met Melanie wasn’t so sure how the would react with someone else caring for her. “I appreciate the offer and I’ll keep it in mind,” she said with a slow nod. “I have to ask, though, do you have much experience with children? I don’t want to toss you into the deep end, so-to-speak, if the need every arises. She can be a handful when she’s in one of her moods.”

When the topic moved back to Magizoology she pushed her fork through her bowl a couple of times, not bothering to spear the lettuce. “It’s…slow,” she finally admitted with a sigh. “On one hand it’s great so I don’t have to work all day, I can go around anyone’s schedule if they need me and I basically set my own hours depending on the type of job someone needs me to do. On the other hand I feel as if I’m not getting a lot because of my age. I can’t see that many taking someone so young seriously but I do my best with what I have so…” She let her words trail off and she shrugged. “It’s better than nothing.”

Her eyebrows came together at his words. Lost people? She leaned back in her chair and tried to think of what it was that he meant. A literal sense? A metaphorical sense? She couldn’t imagine a lot of people waiting around for him to come back. Hell, she was surprised she hadn’t given up on him but that wouldn’t be in her character at all. She was the type to hold on until the very last minute. “Lost how, if you don’t mind my asking?” She finally uttered. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I just…hope you’re alright. Or doing better. Or something.”

“Something else? Like what?” He couldn’t see Mel doing anything other than the work she did now. It had always been her main focus. “And children, well… I’ve had a little bit of experience. But no, not much.” He let out a few raggedy breaths that almost sounded like a laugh. “There’s only one way to learn, though. Right?” He paused a moment for a comical effect. “I’m joking, Mel. Sorry, I was just offering to help in any way I can. You haven’t had it easy.” He came close to making a comment about having dealt with Mel’s moods, making Sophia’s seem like a breeze, but he kept his mouth shut on that one.

She had a point. People generally looked for people who were older, because most people believe that experience comes with age. “But that’s ridiculous. Anyone who met you would know that you’re ten times better than some older bloke who probably had to take his test three times to pass.” He sighed, “Well if anyone asks, I’ll tell them that Melanie Crowe is the person to see. There you go, free advertising.” 

But his jokes stopped when he saw her eyebrows furrow. “No, no. You deserve to know… It’s just… not easy to explain. Lost in many senses of the word.” He swallowed hard and continued, “The reason I initially had to leave Hogwarts was - well, you remember Zella, don’t you? Zella Lillith? My best friend for seven years, co-captain of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, really loud and energetic, was sent to St. Mungos… that girl. You probably do, you two talked a few times I think. Well her condition got worse, so my parents took me out of school to go see her at the hospital. I was only supposed to be out for a week tops, and it was really sudden so I didn’t have a chance to tell anyone what was going on. But… well anyways, she uh.. she, er, passed away about an hour before I got there. So that turned into a huge ordeal and my parents wouldn’t let me come back for another couple months.”

Back in Town || Terry & Melanie

mellie-c:

“Graduation was nice,” Melanie replied, taking a moment to remember the day. “There wasn’t some lavish ceremony. I don’t think Hogwarts usually had an actual ceremony before, come to think of it. But being that it was the year after everything…it just made sense to have a time to look back and remember everything, y’know?” She stayed quiet for a moment as her mind whisked her back to the very day.Like the others she had been excited to leave but a part of her was longing to stay as well. Hogwarts became her second favorite place in the entire world despite the ups and downs. Sometimes she still woke up forgetting that she wasn’t going back. “But yeah there were a few speakers, a song by the Frog choir, and we all went back across the Lake in the boats that took us in. Well, you all in. You know what I mean.”

She waved her hand in a sort of dismissive way. “I assume you had a good reason not to be there and it’s not as if we’re all going to hunt you down with pitchforks and torches because your absence absolutely ruined it,” she said with a bit of her old dramatics added onto her words. Chuckling a little she brushed her hair back behind her ears and shifted on the seat so she could get comfortable again. She felt as if she could breathe a bit easier now that he was talking a little bit more. She could see little bits of the Old Terry coming back which, in turn, made her tense muscles slowly relax and her posture become less rigid as well.

“Yeah, for that,” she said with a nod of her head. She tried to keep the smile off of her face from just thinking about the first time she held the official piece of parchment in her hands but it was almost as if a hook had been shoved into either side of her mouth and was being pulled up on their own accord. “I wanted to owl you about it but I didn’t have your address. And thanks. The test was harder than I thought it would be and I messed up quite a bit but, obviously, I worked it out in the end and, well, now that’s the result!”

Her cheeks were beginning to ache as her smile got bigger, this time because he finally smiled again. It wasn’t as big as usual but it was there and it was the first smile on his face since they ran into each other so it was a start. She’d accept it.

Once again her smile dropped a bit when they got back onto the topic of her daughter but she did her best to keep her emotions off of the surface. She shifted in her chair again and cleared her throat, messing with a loose thread on the hem of her shirt. She twisted her finger around the thread and watched as the tip of her finger slowly turned an angry red and then a light purple. She released the thread and watched as her skin slowly reverted back to the normal pale color and let out a breath.

“It was just a name that we both liked,” Melanie explained, finally lifting her eyes to him again. She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes briefly to keep the tears at bay. She’s cried enough last night. So much so that she woke up with red, stinging eyes that morning which were hard to look through for the first hour she was up. And even then it took a few more hours for her eyes to stop stinging. But that pain didn’t even compare to the constant twisting and turning in her stomach at the idea of her being a failure to her own child. “Noah suggested it first and I ended up loving it so Sophia it was.”

She had flung her arms into the air at the statement for emphasis and let them fall onto her jean-covered legs with a light smack. She rubbed her slick palms against the thick material a few times, curling her fingers into the fabric. “Thanks Shoe,” she said quietly at his compliment and heaved a sigh.The familiar prickling in the corners of her eyes started up again. “It was. Is. It’s still hard, I’m not going to lie. Making that decision was the hardest one I ever had to make but Noah and I agree it’s what’s best for her until we can provide stability.” She twisted her mouth to the side and gave a little shrug. “I don’t know, to be honest. One day we just stopped working and started fighting and we haven’t stopped.” Clearing her throat she waved her hand as if swatting at a fly. “Yeah. Like I said it’s below my flat. I’m basically my own boss so the hours are good.” She chuckled. “Hey, no, it’s alright. I don’t mind the questions, really. Ask away. We are catching up aren’t we?”

At those words her eyes studied his face again, taking in  the weariness that settled in his eyes and the way his body sat as if he were being dragged down by eights. “So…speaking along those lines…where have you been?” She asked slowly. At the next moment she jumped again when the waiter reappeared and set her plate full of assorted lettuce and glass of lemonade on the table in front of her. She nodded her thanks to him and looked over at Terry again, lifting her eyebrows as she waited for an explanation. She was angry at his sudden departure like the others probably were but her worry and curiosity were currently overshadowing it.

Terry nodded at her description of graduation and halfheartedly wished he’d been there. Maybe it wasn’t so much about graduation, but more of going back to Hogwarts, before he left, before he changed. “Of course it worked out in the end,” he said, referring to her new magizoology license, “I always told you it would, didn’t I?” And he had. Time and time again he reassured her that she had talent and that there was no need to worry so much about whether that talent would be recognized. Of course it would. How could it not be? A girl like Mel with such determination and ability was bound to go where she meant to.

He looked up into her eyes, only to see them pricked with forming tears and a blank stare at the wood grains in the table that he’d already memorized by now. So he simply repeated “Sophia…” to himself quietly. Partly to remember it, and partly to get used to the idea. “Well hey, if anything changes, or if something happens, or even if you want me to take care of Sophia for a bit, I’ll be around, alright?” What had gotten into him? His plan was to stay out of people’s lives. Find his own way. But seeing Mel like this, hearing about the situation, he couldn’t help but turning back to his old ways of offering to help. Maybe he hadn’t changed as much as he thought. Or maybe he did. He wasn’t sure yet.

He wanted to ask more, but he knew it wasn’t something Mel wanted to talk about for the time being, so he turned to something new. “How much business have you been getting? I’m sure your customers love you. The best magizoologist around.” And with that he tried to offer another slight smile, but it still wasn’t coming naturally. 

Their food arrived as he let out a breath trying to figure out how to answer her question. “I’ve been… around. Kind of. I’ve been lots of places. Spending time with family. I would have come back months ago, but certain… circumstances,” he said slowly, “got in the way.” He shrugged. He didn’t want to give Melanie a big sob story or draw any sort of pity out of her. “Lets just say, I lost a couple people. Both here and there.”

Back in Town || Terry & Melanie

mellie-c:

Melanie nodded slowly as she listened intently, taking in every word. It was strange how he talked now, almost as if everything he said was calculated or practiced before he spoke. A little more detached than his normal warm tone. It even made her shiver slightly. Or was it the draft coming in through the cracks in the stony foundation? Either way it made her bring her arms up and cross them over her chest loosely.

“I hope everything is fine now,” she said and then cleared her throat. Her facial expression softened at his last words. She almost didn’t catch them with how quietly he was speaking and it made her briefly wonder if he were speaking to himself or to her. She let out a slow breath and looked to the ceiling before looking at him again. “Of course if someone one is used to seeing all of the time suddenly leaves we’d all be concerned. We’re you’re friends, it’s not as if we didn’t notice. We care, we worry. That’s just what we do. Get used to it.”

She offered up a smile to try and get him to crack one in response. His face looked a little…what was the right word? Eerie, yes, he looked a bit eerie without a smile on his face, so stoic. He was acting like those who had gotten stuck with the fate of a Dementor’s Kiss. Her eyes widened slightly. That couldn’t be it, could it? He had his soul sucked out? She hoped not but how he was acting was a bit similar to the victims…

Shaking her head to rid her mind of the terrible thoughts she stopped when he spoke up again and brushed her hair out of her face. “You’re staying?” She repeating, not being able to stop the excitement in her voice. “Oh, that’s good news! Now we can see each other all the time!” Shrugging she continued, “Oh, that’s nothing new. A lot of us still don’t know what we want to do. And the good news is that we have all the time in the world to find out, right?”

Melanie stomach grumbled again. Sighing she looked down and lightly patted the bulge underneath her shirt, “Stop yelling at me!” She ordered it in a warning tone. She looked around the partially-filled bar and waved over one of the waiters who appeared at her side with a small pop, making her jump at the sudden proximity. “Erm, are you sure about that?” She asked him. “I just wanted a salad,” she addressed Terry and the waiter at the same time. “Oh, a lemonade too.”

At his question her shoulders dropped and her mouth turned down. He had successfully managed to get her to forget about the turbulent past couple of days she had but now it all came rushing back to her. Her eyes went back down to her still misshapen stomach and she swallowed thickly to keep the lump down her throat. If it rose any higher she knew it would cause her to burst into tears.

“Well,” she started slowly. She let her eyes drift around the room, follow the spider-web like cracks in the walls, focus on a older couple in a corner, and then finally turned back to him. “You really missed a lot,” she said softly. “Well…we all graduated. Obviously. I got my license so that was good. Umm…I got pregnant if you can believe that.” She paused and pushed a breath out of her nose. “Noah and I had a little girl named Sophia. That’s why I’m this big.” She held her arms out to demonstrate to her size. “I gained forty pounds but I’m getting it off. Anyway, things were alright for a while and then it just went to shit, pardon my language. Noah and I aren’t together now and we had to give Sophia over to his aunt to get her away from the hostility.”

She clicked her tongue and began tapping a finger on the edge of the table. “So now I’m just working out and going to work when I need to. Oh, I own my own veterinary clinic thing. It’s underneath my flat. So…yeah. Things are okay…they could be better of course but…hey, I’m alive and that’s what matters, right?” To keep a weird silence from falling over the table she added, “Did I mention I’m glad you’re back? It’s good to have someone else to talk to.”

Terry shrugged off her comment. They probably did care, at least Mel probably did, but he didn’t want to think about that. That would mean getting attached to people again and that never ended well. Not recently, at least. But perhaps part of him was hopeful that it wouldn’t always end badly. Maybe it was that part of him that brought Terry back home. 

“A salad is fine,” he answered with a wave of his hand. He wasn’t going to eat much of it anyways. As the waiter left and the former Ravenclaw looked back to his red headed friend, he noticed that she looked just as reluctant to talk about what happened during the months of his absence as he was. And in the moments before she spoke, he found himself worrying about her like he used to when she used to lock herself in her room or only talk to animals down at Hagrid’s or avoid being seen in the stone corridors of Hogwarts. 

The worry he had before she spoke, though, was only worsened after she spoke. Pregnant? Had he really been gone that long? He blinked, unsure of what to say. After the shock about the fact that Mel was now a mom, came the realization of what giving up her child - and losing Noah - must have done to her. “Mel…” he finally breathed. He still had no idea what to say, but he had the urge to hug her. However, the Mel he remembered wasn’t fond of such things, so he stayed in his seat.

Swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat, he decided to start from the beginning of her answer and move on from there. “I’m sorry for missing graduation… how was it?” Luckily, many years of nothing but studying gave him an advantage in academics and after his parents wrote to professor McGonagall, she still allowed him to graduate even though he missed the actual ceremony. “And by your license I assume you mean your zoology license? That’s fantastic, Melanie. I’m really proud of you,” and without realizing it, a small smile actually formed on his face for what felt like the first time in months.

That smile, however, quickly faded when he got around to the topic of Sophia. “Just out of curiosity, was there any specific reason you named her Sophia? And you’re still beautiful, by the way,” he added, because she really was, “But that must have been… wow. That must have been difficult. What happened to you and Noah? and a veterinary clinic? of your own? That’s amazing, Mel. I’m sorry about all the questions.” 

What happened? Terry had come prepared to be cold and collected and convince her that he was only out of town on minor errands and that there was nothing to worry about. But now it was if he was a schoolboy again who worried about his friends - such as Melanie - and wanted to find out the details, wanted to know what was wrong, wanted to fix whatever happened, and wanted to stop her from hurting. All of a sudden he was a bit more talkative and now he was the one firing the questions. 

Maybe he underestimated what being back in the company of friends would do to him. And even though he didn’t say it, for a moment he was glad that he was back, too.

Back in Town || Terry & Melanie

mellie-c:

Melanie leaned back in her seat and lightly rested her arms on the table as she waited for him to say something, her green eyes scanning over his face. He looked almost the same. If it weren’t for the weariness in his eyes she would have thought that he was plucked right out of a photograph and set down right in front of her. But who was she kidding? Time changed everyone, whether it was small or large.

Thinking that he would remain the same was ridiculous. Ludicrous even. He certainly wasn’t as energetic as he was before, she noted when he finally did speak up. A bit more reserved, a little shier than normal but otherwise, at a quick glance, no one would notice a difference. But it just made her eyebrows lower in concern. What had he been up to while he was gone? What was strong enough to make him retreat back into himself so this was the result?

She let her smile get a little bit bigger as she waved her hand. “Melanie’s fine. I don’t mind it so much anymore,” she admitted with a small shrug of her shoulders. She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t even know where to begin with talking to you,” she said with a little laugh. “Which is funny because I never had a problem with it before. I should ask how you’re doing, that’s always polite. Asking the other first. So, yeah. How are you? Where’d you go? Are you back for good now or are you just blowing through?”

She didn’t mean for the questions to come out one right after another but it was just so good to see him again she wanted to know everything. Wanted the little bit of awkwardness to go away so they could talk like they used to. It wasn’t until now that she realized she really missed how they could just talk about anything and everything, no matter how strange.

Melanie couldn’t help but wonder how things would have been had he stayed and not just disappeared in the middle of the night. Of course they had to go on with their lives but every now and then she wondered about him, if he was okay and all of that. And it was a big sigh of relief for her to know that he was perfectly fine.

Well, maybe not perfectly.

Melanie blushed as she looked down at her grumbling stomach. “Sorry about that. I haven’t really…eaten all day,” she said with a bit of a sheepish smile. “I’m going to order something, if that’s alright with you. I could get you something too. Honestly it kinda makes me feel weird eating when someone else isn’t. Do you like their soup? And I realize I’m rambling so I’m going to stop now so you can say something so I won’t feel like that much of an idiot.”

“Melanie…” he repeated after her. It was a word he hadn’t said in a long while and it almost felt foreign, but he nodded. Terry listened to her for a moment before letting his gaze fall back to the wooden surface of their table. He knew this was coming. And as predicted, questions began shooting out of her mouth.

In all fairness, she had every right to be curious. For all she knew, he could have ran off and had the best experience of his life. How was she to know that is was quite the opposite? Terry had to remind himself that Melanie was her friend, and that chances were she was asking because she cared. At least he hoped so.

But regardless of that thought he tried to force through his thick skull, he still wasn’t up to going into much detail. Not now at least. “I was just out of town for a bit. Something came up - an emergency - and I had to leave. Family related things,” he said, which wasn’t entirely true but he didn’t see the point in correcting himself, “I didn’t mean to worry anyone…” he added quietly under his breath, more to himself than anyone else.

“But no, I’m not just blowing through,” finally returning his gaze to her green eyes, he cleared his throat, “I should be staying. For a while, at least. I don’t really have anything planned out quite yet.” The sound of Mel’s growling stomach interrupted him, and he was glad for the change of topic, no matter how brief. Nodding, he agreed to order something even though he wasn’t very hungry. 

“I’ll just have whatever you’re having,” he answered with a shrug. “And it’s okay, Melanie. You should know by now that I don’t mind your rambling. But while you’re talkative, how are things going with you? What have you been up to?”

Back in Town || Terry & Melanie

mellie-c:

It took a while for Melanie to wrestle her shoe away from her dog, so much so that she was a little bit frazzled by the time she got them both on and left her flat to go and meet Terry at the Leaky Cauldron. It had been so long since anyone had heard from him she was a bit surprised to see that hear the news of his return. She almost didn’t believe if for a second either but, then it is hard to not believe them when seeing said person eye to eye for the first time in a while.

A frown slowly spread on her face while pushing open the door of the complex and stepped out onto the slightly crowded sidewalk. A few wizards brushed by her, pulling their cloaks tighter around their necks but they had bright smiles on their faces as they moved in their leisurely pace. With the Dark Lord gone even a simple walk seemed to inflate others with joy. It made the frown on the red-head’s face disappear for a second but then it came back again as her thoughts turned to the former Ravenclaw that she was about to meet.

Seeing her best friend again should have been a happy moment but she could immediately tell that something was off. In his eyes or energy or something…she couldn’t exactly pinpoint it but it made the atmosphere a bit odd. Which was not supposed to happen. He was supposed to be happy to be back! But now she was going to get to the bottom of it. Patience permitting, of course.

Digging her hands into her pockets she quickened her pace to reach the Leaky Cauldron, just in case he got there first she didn’t want him waiting too long. A string of words were already piling up on her tongue and she had to get there before she just blurted everything out. Finally reaching the bar she yanked open the door so hard she was almost flung back with it and entered. She did a quick scan and spotted his familiar head at a table and rushed over.

“I hope I didn’t leave you waiting long,” she said with a slight pant as she dropped down at the table. “I had to wrestle my shoe away from my dog, see?” She lifted her foot to show him the tattered laces and the hole in the toe of the sneaker before putting her foot back down and brushed her hair out of her face. “I’ve tried to get him to stop but he’s a strong one. He doesn’t exactly know what ‘no’ means. Anyway.” She let out a breath and then smiled at him. “It really is good to see you again, Shoe. I was beginning to think you died or something.”

Terry wasn’t in the same condition as he was when he had disappeared numerous months ago. He was worn down, both physically and mentally. It’s amazing how severe of an effect only a select few people had on him. This was why he had always kept his head in his books and not in social affairs. But perhaps it was unavoidable. 

Regardless of how much he’d wanted to stay away from the familiarity that places like the Leaky Cauldron held for him, he knew that he had to come back. He had to get his life in order, work on his future, figure out what life had planned for him. And he was only at the beginning of what looked like a very long process. But he was taking it one step at a time.

Before leaving his new flat he tried washing his face, fixing his hair, dressing in more socially acceptable attire, but still he didn’t look like the ambitious boy he used to be. When he smiled, it didn’t reach his eyes which had lost a little bit of their warmth. His face often displayed a fixed jawline rather than the wide grin many people had come to recognize him by. He had even lost a little bit of weight, but that wasn’t very noticeable. It was difficult to explain, but knowing Mel and how observant she could be, Terry knew she’d realize something was different. 

It was partly for that reason that the former Ravenclaw had wanted to stay away from everyone. His friends - if they still considered themselves as such - weren’t dimwitted in the least. They’d know something had changed, or at least suspect so, and that would lead to questions. Questions he didn’t want to answer. Questions he didn’t want to hear. But Mel had heard he was back, and now that people knew he’d returned, ignoring them all would only provoke them further. The least he could do was try to convince them that they shouldn’t be concerned.

He was staring at the wood grains embedded in the table when he heard the voice of the miss Melanie Crowe. He lifted his head, and once he met her eyes his heart actually skipped a beat. A midst all his reluctance to come home, he had failed to consider how lonely he’d been; how much he missed the ones he still had left.

He stared at her for a moment before remembering that he should probably respond. “I, uh, no. I wasn’t waiting for long.” He glanced briefly at the shoe she showed him before returning his gaze to the girl across the table. He didn’t think it’d be so refreshing to see a familiar face. “It’s really good to see you, too, Mel.”

Maybe this was a bad idea. It could ruin everything.

mellie-c:

Okay to stop us from going in a circle how about the Leaky Cauldron then?

The Leaky Cauldron it is. I’ll see you there tonight.

(Source: terryb00t)

mellie-c:

-smiles slightly- I worry about everyone, remember? Tonight that’s fine with me. Did you have a specific place in mind you wanted to go? There’s The Leaky Cauldron and then there’s this cafe by my place I go to a lot that has good cheesecake.

Whatever you prefer is perfectly acceptable to me. Both options sound nice.

(Source: terryb00t)

mellie-c:

Yyyeah. I like the sound of that and I’m free whenever you’d like to go. Is…is everything alright? You’re a bit more…subdued than I remember.

I’m sorry? Er, yeah. Yeah, everything is fine. No need to worry. Well how about later this evening? Is that okay with you?
Or we could do it tomorrow.

(Source: terryb00t)