WHO: Nona Pepper and Ollie Comstock!
WHAT: TISSUES PLEASE
WHERE: THE BOOK CLUB HOUSE
WHEN: MAY! two weeks ago
Perhaps he should be seriously considering moving to Somerset. Ollie couldn’t help but think so as he glanced out at the rolling hills before him, happy to enjoy the scene whilst returning from an entertaining round of pick-up quidditch. It was a beautiful view, not to mention expansive, and full of sweet air, all luxuries he had been living without for a couple years now. Scotland had all those things too, he supposed, just a bit more mountainous, but having barely to naught spend time there aside from tedious flat searching, it felt difficult to imagine such serenity in Portree.
It would be unsportsmanlike to live outside the city of a new team. Returning from abroad, the fans of Pride needed to know he was dedicated to the team, proud to don the gold star, and that was accomplished by living homestead. He also, really, needed to move out of his dusted bedroom at Melania's that was so cramped with belongings from over the years it proved a challenge to simply open and close the door without magic.
A hand waving in front of his face stopped his thoughts from wandering anymore with the breeze, and with a quick shake Ollie laughed at his own inattentiveness. He let out an acknowledging hum, slinging his broom over his shoulder more comfortably to look around. They had arrived back at the house. “Sorry,” he said, head shaking slightly. “Lazing off again.”
His mouth cracked into a smile, and he laughed at his own nature as he followed Howell, and his dog, inside. They were met by Howell’s girlfriend, and upon their embrace, Ollie first redirected his gaze, and then decided to shuffle forward into the next room without them. Howell had mentioned having other housemates, perhaps they were a bit less preoccupied at the moment.
The cure for the virus and the Soviet birthday jaunt (and subsequent international murder mystery solving) had left Nona considerably cheered about her current lot in life for… not long enough, at all. There were perks to being where she supposed would most be considered "home," but there was a lot she missed about working abroad.
She supposed she had come full circle—running away and eventually running right back.
After coming home, the house was only moderately full—Penelope would be late at Aesalon, but she regaled Saoirse with some particularly hysterical (at least, to them) antics of St Mungo's that day, and thoroughly abused the sport of Quidditch and the fact that it would be robbing Nona of her best friend for many long, tedious months. As was their established off-season evening ritual.
While she fetched a glass of water, Saoirse left her to go greet her insufferably responsible boyfriend. Nona was dreaded speaking with him, as she was certain he was going to yell at her for the brewing catastrophe in the living room. Howell lacked the fine, discerning mind of a true potioneer to appreciate and embrace accidents (she preferred to call them 'deviations') the way she did, so he merely saw the ruined upholstery and not the scientific discoveries accompanying it.
Deciding the best course of action was offensive, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and fixed her expression to be solemn, before turning around to ask Howell something positively horrifying.
She dropped the glass without so much as breathing.
The smashing of glass called about the attention of quick feet behind him, but Oliver Comstock gave them no heed. No, no mind at all, for he was completely transfixed by the witch before him. This witch, this girl Nona
Pepper, that, a little under four years ago, he had spent weeks looking for, months pining over, years erasing the thought of, was now she was here,
here like nothing of it. After all this time, in the most unlikely of places,
Somerset, England, he had finally stumbled upon her? Or she, him, he couldn’t exactly... think clearly enough at the moment to discern that. It was difficult to manage anything past the simple shock of being in the same room as her when she had so expertly disappeared from his life all that time ago.
He felt a light brush against his shoulder, and with rocking heels but an unwavering gaze, Ollie leaned back to let whoever wished through into the room. If he had been paying any mind, to anything outside of Nona, really, he would have watched the shards of glass collect together from the ground to shoot back up into Saoirse’s open hand as one again, or at least definitely noticed her muted lingering stare. The blonde said nothing, or perhaps she did, for she was a miniscule occurrence that was not important enough to note while he combed over very visual detail of Nona he could. A tiny part of him hoped, maybe, that doing so would reveal even the smallest of hints as to why she had vanished without explanation, but true to what he knew of her (
had known of her), it was a fruitless act.
Now feeling weighty, Ollie’s brow contorted and his jaw set hard at the faint thought of addressing her. Why,
why, that was all he wished to know. What had happened, what had he done to evoke such a lasting--- his hand finally slipped from his shoulder, and with a cracking thud his broom fell to the floor. That was all he wanted to know.
But, when he went to speak, his mouth flubbed, and his voice became lost. Instead, all his thoughts formed around how she looked different, more beautiful than he remembered, and how if he had simply know she had been here all along... steadily, despite his heavy beating heart, Ollie he curled his palms out to her slightly in a placating manner.
Nona felt as if her entire being was shaking, practically convulsing, but in actuality, she was wholly frozen. Her expression belied nothing beyond a small "oh" of surprise, and her hand grasped the air as if expecting to be holding a glass.
Was this, she wondered vaguely, an aneurysm of some kind? A delayed nervous breakdown from being admittedly overworked? Surely there had to be some reasonable explanation for why she was currently being haunted by the spirit of Oliver Comstock.
But Nona vaguely heard words being spoken, words in a masculine tone where the words sounded like buzzing in her ears, and she realised it must be Howell, that insufferable Howell, talking to
Oliver Comstock. Not an apparition haunting her house, but the living, breathing boy—
wizard—she'd last laid eyes on four years ago.
Her magnificent brain failed her completely in that moment. This was not a face she was ever supposed to see again. She'd left school—fled it, really, fled the entire
continent—with the intent of never seeing this particular face again. She'd left behind him, and all his complications, and their b—
She blinked large eyes, made larger by the shock, and pressed her lips together in a thin line. Nona was not convinced that this was not an hallucination or particularly horrid dream, but she certainly had no intention of drudging up a past she had not purposefully thought of in years. She had no intention of remaining here, in his suffocating presence.
Her eyes darted over to Saoirse and the glass, only because she was in her direct path of motion, and then wordlessly turned on her heel and left. Fleeing was a familiar feeling, as she strode from the kitchen with single-minded purpose toward the staircase.
“Wait--” he rasped, the ability to speak returning in time to produce a painful yelp at her retreating form. Not needing to think, for long ago his mind had been made up concerning how to act if this meeting ever came to pass, Ollie brought his stiff knees forward to follow after her. He moved slowly, at first, until a frenzied energy filled him and his pace quickened exponentially with the single hope of getting to stop her.
With the exit of Nona and now Ollie from the room, Saoirse then let her stony face drop to show perplexion over the events unfolding in front of her. Despite her best efforts of observation, she still had little idea about
what was transpiring here, just that something was. She looked to Howell for an answer, but he was at similar loss as her, which made her frown. Still clutching the glass tightly, Saoirse then decided to follow Nona as much as she could, though wasn’t very far as she respected Nona too much to intrude much beyond the kitchen doorway. She peered silently, pressed close to the door frame, only catching fragments happening at the foot of the stairs.
“Nona,” she heard Ollie croak, and with a steady gaze watched as he hesitantly moved to catch Nona’s wrist from behind. But he pulled back his hand quickly before making contact, like thinking better of the act, and instead jumped out of view to follow Nona up the stairs.
His discomfort over following her through a foreign house had not yet stuck him, so Ollie trailed Nona with little thought outside of the consuming resolution to get her to stop. He supposed it wasn’t really his place, but the thought of letting her escape him again, without any explanation... he must make her stop.
Reaching forward again, Ollie did not retreat his hand but this time let it clinch around as many fingers of her opposite hand as it could manage. He was unsure what kind of reaction it would elicit from her, but, he resounded grimly, at least one would.
She had nearly made it to the top of the stairs before he had caught her hand. Dear god, he was
touching her, which meant the likelihood of this being a dream, since such a jarring action failed to wake her, was rapidly diminishing, which meant…
Which meant Oliver was in actuality standing behind her, clutching her hand, pleading with her, here, in her house.
Though she was a step above him, Nona didn't even begin to tower over him. Beyond the first few shocked seconds, she had refused to look at him, but in that short time… she knew the years had been good to him. Where his skin touched hers, there was a volley of sparks, and suddenly she was
furious.
The rising panic in her had unleashed a torrent of other feelings she had never in her life cared for—fear, humiliation, helplessness, utter loneliness, all underscored by the undeniable fact that she had brought those feelings on herself. Anger quickly overtook her as all the memories and emotions and poorly-healed scars she'd locked away, never to suffer through again, sprung open.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded, her voice thick as she tried in vain to stem the flood of tears threatening her eyes. Nona didn't tear her hand from his grasp, but unable to help herself, jerked her head over her shoulder and glared at him, eyes shining despite the fierce slant of her brows. "How did—how did you find me?"
His grip on her loosened as her glare sunk in, and a frown settled on his face because of it. He hadn’t thought... he wasn’t sure what, exactly, to think, but with how closely he had taken to watching her, it was hard to miss the shine in her eyes. His hand slipped further, one finger slowly after another until Ollie’s charged hold on her was no more.
“I didn’t know," Ollie spoke quietly, leaning back a bit on his heels. Such a large part of him had so desperately wanted to speak with Nona, just once, but now that it was happening, it felt... completely intrusive, entirely demanding of him. There had been a reason behind her disappearance, and while unknown to him, he continued to struggle with whether he had the right to know why. He had believed so, for a long time, but now his desire to shake an answer out of her while simultaneously apologizing for disregarding her desire to stay away tore at him in the most uncomfortable of ways. His frown deepened.
“I didn’t know you lived here,” he murmured, feeling lost in thought. Guilt for so hungrily continuing to stare washed over him, and in an attempt to subdue it, Ollie tore his lingering gaze away from her face and down toward the ground. He spoke in a soft, calm tone, as was usual, despite the obvious mounting tension. “It was an accident.” His forehead contorted a bit as he thought further, brow pulling together complexly.
“Howell invited me. I’ve just returned from being away; he and I roomed together in Istanbul...” Why he felt such a need to explain to her his presence, he wasn’t sure. But it felt important, at least, to help subdue her harsh look, which felt fiercely piercing. His gaze, despite his best intent, picked up to look back at her.
At the mention of her best friend's boyfriend, Nona's eyes narrowed hatefully in the direction of the kitchen, surely eviscerating Howell where he stood, despite the barrier of two walls and a staircase. She tolerated his presence because he generally made Saoirse happy, but
this, this was grounds for banishment.
Even as her heart beat madly in her chest and she could feel sweat beading along her spine and her vision began to gray—all signs that, were she able to think at all, she would surely associate with dying—she felt herself wanting to step down toward Ollie. Even as she was mustering the strength to snap at him to leave, Nona could feel the forever inexplicable desire to go to him beginning to reawaken.
It stunned her that, even after all these years, after all that happened, she could feel such a strong connection to him. Nona wondered, too, if Oliver felt it, and pressed a hand queasily to her stomach. This was the precise reason she had fled without so much as a word to him, and it was the reason that he had to —
"You have to go," she said suddenly, shaking her head. She backed away unsteadily, up the remaining stairs. "You have to go, you can't be here."
And despite her words, it was Nona who turned and moved as fast as her shaking legs would take her towards her bedroom.
He did not follow Nona as she backed away, but also didn’t exactly fulfill her parting words, much or at all. Instead, Ollie stood silently still on the stairs, eyes once again longingly locking on her retreating form. It was still unclear to him what had happened, what
was happening, or why she was acting this way, and for that, he felt a deep sadness fill him. Would this be the last time they saw each other, again, for another four years? Or more? After this whole time...
With the closing of the door, his gaze dropped back down to the ground. She would disappear again. He was not going to find out what had happened between them, what had made her feel so unable to be in his presence, and... he was not going to see her again. Once he left this house she would move away, vanish along with this pleasant life she’d created for herself that he’d only gotten a glimpse of, and he would have to start the process of forgetting Nona all over again. This realization heavied his heart, turning it, and his feet, into things as heavy as thick bludgers.
Ollie struggled in picking up his knees to withdraw back down the stairs, even turning his back to begin the process seemed difficult. Nona did not want to be near him, which he could respect, but it was an entirely different thing to decide to walk away when she was so knowingly close. What was a wall? Pieces of wood slapped together, and yet she could be on the other side of the earth with the distance they created. His brow furrowed as he thought and thought about what to do.
After some amount of time, it could have been minutes or hours for all he knew, Ollie felt a gentle brush against his forearm and a presence beside him. Turning his head, he looked down at his old friend with vacant curiosity. Penelope...? What was Penelope Fawcett doing here? He heard her murmur some idle words, which he wished he paid more mind to than he actually did, because after responding faintly he felt his knees begin to move and bring his body to descending down the stairs. A displeased whisper filled his throat, but not wanting to upset the situation more, Ollie simply glanced back at the door over his shoulder once before ducking his head down low.
