FicWad

The Harry Potter universe is the creation of J.K. Rowling. This is fanfiction. The standard disclaimers apply.

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Chapter 2: Prologue, Part 2


Sunday, August 27th, 1989. Somewhere in London.


Dave Simons did not know the name of the girl asleep in his bed. He assumed he had met her at a bar with his friends last night, but not which one. He remembered the first two they went to, and he was sure he hadn't picked her up there.

Her clothes were in various places on the floor, suggesting they hadn't been taken off all at once, or at least had not been tossed all in the same direction. Everything was accounted for, though, so by process of elimination nothing was left on her. She was pretty. Maybe he would still look good to her in the morning, too? Or maybe she would scream, wondering how she wound up in a strange apartment. He hoped he had a good time while he was too drunk to remember it. Wait, did that make any sense? He wasn't sure.

Ouch. Headache. Water was good for hangovers, right? A minute later, he shuffled back from the kitchen with a half finished glass of water. He would have gotten one for the girl, but was afraid she'd just knock it over when she woke up screaming. Maybe later.

Right, name. Her skirt did not have pockets. The pockets in her jacket were empty. He couldn't find a purse anywhere else in the apartment, either. His roommate wasn't home—probably off to the library to study, or out jogging, or something equally terrifying. In any case, so much for his plan to cheat and get her name off of her ID. That had worked for his friend Sam once. Maybe it was the sort of thing that only worked in stories, or in the lives of people with more exciting lives than his.

Wait, no, that wasn't really fair, was it? There was a naked girl in his bed. Something had to have gone right.

Okay. In stories you were supposed to make breakfast or something in this situation. An inspection of his shelf in the fridge turned up a bottle of mustard and several containers of leftovers that might have been curry, lo mein, and, well, something furry. That last went in the trash. The cabinet contained a box of Weetabix that had been open since last spring. He didn't dare touch his roommate's neatly organized food. It was . . . well, it would be more embarrassing if he weren't so hung over. Drink more water, right.

He really didn't spend much time here, did he? His grades should probably be better than they were, for all the time he spent on campus.

The girl seemed to be sleeping pretty soundly; she hadn't moved at all in response to all his rustling around. He had no intention of being right next to her when she woke up (because of the screaming, and maybe the throwing things), and anyway she looked so peaceful.

He gathered up her things and put them neatly on top of all the other things currently on his chair. Then he got a bit of notebook paper from his bag and left her a note, in case she woke up while he was in the shower:

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Dear girl who is in my bed:

Hi, my name is Dave. I'm in the shower. Please don't freak out if you are hungover and don't remember anything. In case you run away screaming and then change your mind, my number is ___. None of the food in the kitchen is mine, but we could go out if you want, and maybe you should get yourself some water. Oh god this is long.

Dave

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Fifteen minutes later he had showered and shaved, and was back in his room staring at the still-sleeping girl. He carefully hid his now-embarrassing note, but tucked a shorter one with his name and number into her jacket pocket, just in case. It seemed like the sort of clever thing other people would have done.

At this point he was standing, naked, in his bedroom, with a naked girl asleep in his bed, and had absolutely no idea what to do next. Maybe he was supposed to get back in bed, wake her with a kiss, and they would have wild, passionate sex for the rest of the day? That . . . could go wrong in too many ways. He got dressed, picked up his bag, and went to the living room, telling himself he'd get a head start on his homework, or at least, start it the day before it was due instead of the night before.

After staring at a list of French prepositions for five minutes, he gave up and decided to see what was on the telly. This, too, belonged to his roommate, and he didn't use it often, but he had never had trouble getting the remote to work before. Maybe its batteries were dead? He got up and tried to turn it on from the set; nothing. It was plugged into the outlet. All the other wires were plugged in somewhere, and so were presumably not the problem. He tried banging it softly on the side. Still nothing. Well, it wasn't his fault! He hadn't done anything, or at least, not that he remembered.

He wound up staring out the window for most of the next twenty minutes, going through possible conversations with the girl in his room, once she woke up.

"Hi, I'm Sybill."

He jumped, spinning around. "Ack! I'm sorry! I mean, for jumping like that."

She was still naked. She looked amused, and maybe a little nervous, but was definitely not screaming or running.

"That's alright. I can move very quietly. Did we, er, I mean, last night, er."

"Uhh. You were in my bed when I woke up? That is, I hope so? Oh god, I'm sorry!" he said, realizing his gaze had drifted downwards while he was talking.

She was smiling. That was good? Then she looked uncomfortable, inducing a brief panic in him.

"Um, where's your bathroom?"

"Down the hall, on the left. I can find you a towel, if you'd like to use the shower!" He called after her.

"That would be nice." she said, and closed the door.

Dave was incredibly relieved to find a clean towel in the bottom drawer of his dresser; embarrassment averted. He listened for the toilet to flush, and then waited a minute for water to run, thinking he'd offer the towel at that point. He waited another minute. Then the bathroom door opened and she stuck her head out. "Dave, how does your shower work?"

It was a very simple shower. He had no idea what might be confusing about it, or how to articulate how it worked. It was like every bad porn scenario ever—he'd have to go in there, and . . . No. Don't overthink it.

"It should be really simple, but it's hard to describe. At least, when I'm hung over it is. Can I just show you?"

"Okay." She gave him the same smile from earlier, which he was finding hard to interpret.

His bathroom wasn't very big, and she was just standing in the middle of it, so he didn't know what else to do but brush past her. He was still critiquing the porn movie, but she was really pretty, and breasts. Damn it. His face was beet red.

"Here," he said, demonstrating with the single knob, "this starts out cold, and if you turn it all the way in the other direction it's really hot. You might have to readjust it a bunch of times—sorry about that. To get the shower you pull up on this thingy." He let the shower splash briefly, and then turned the knob off again, letting the toggle fall back down. "Uh," he started, pointing, "there's soap, and you can use my shampoo if you want—sorry I don't have any conditioner. I left the towel on the rack on the door . . . and that was all way more complicated than you needed. Sorry."

"No, you were helpful." She gave him that smile again, kissed him on the cheek, stepped into the tub (legs! damn it), and pulled the curtain closed behind her.

Okay, if this were a porn movie, she would have contrived to get him in the shower with her. So that's okay. Damn it, he thought, imagining her under the water, running the soap along . . . argh! And he was just standing there stupidly, he should let her be, this was creepy.

"So where do you think we met?" she asked, raising her voice above the running water. Okay, if it's a porn movie, it's now a really weird one.

"Uh, probably a bar? I mean, I was bar-hopping with some of my mates, and I remember the first two bars." He hadn't meant to be that honest, but whatever.

She laughed. "I think I went into a few different bars, too. I'm from out of town, so at first I was just following people around who looked like they knew where they were going."

"So are you here on vacation? Were you staying somewhere else?"

"No, I work up in Scotland and took the train down for the day to see a friend. I didn't feel like going back quite yet, so I went for a walk. No one will miss me if I'm gone for the weekend."

What did that mean? No boyfriend back at home?

"What work do you do?" It came out awkwardly, and he felt like a dirty American for asking that question to someone he just met, but he couldn't think of anything else to say.

"I teach at a private school. You've probably never heard of it. 11-17-year olds, but I usually don't teach any younger than 13. Very old school, thinks highly of itself, eccentric faculty. Kind of stuffy, really. The countryside is nice, but I don't get out much."

"Oh! What do you teach? What school is it?"

Laughter. "That's all I'm going to tell you! I was wandering around London because I wanted to avoid thinking about that part of my life." She paused, splashing around as if she was doing her hair. "I appear to have succeeded."

"Oh. Uh, good! I'm glad."

"I slept really well last night. No nightmares. Getting drunk and going home with a boy I just met was a good plan."

"Wait, you planned that ahead of time?" That sounded kind of worrisome.

"I planned it little by little. I planned each drink after the previous one, and I assume I planned to seduce you when I met you . . . I probably shouldn't have said that, right?" She made that sound like a sincere question, but went on, perhaps to cover for herself. "I don't remember much of it, but it must have happened that way."

He had no incentive to contradict any of that, so he didn't.

"Do you frequently go to bars to meet people?" He could kick himself, that sounded awful.

"Hah! No, but maybe I should? I think that's all that I want to say about myself. Since you don't know anything about me, I can be whoever I want right now, right? I'm enjoying being who I am right now. Also I can't get the shower to turn off."

"Just turn the knob all the way to the cold side."

The water abruptly ceased, and she pulled back the curtain and stepped out in front of him. There was that smile again, and god she's gorgeous.

"Here's your towel" he said, grabbing it off the rack behind him and handing it to her.

"Thank you. Do you frequently have conversations with women while they are taking showers?"


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Several hours later, they were sitting together on a park bench, a few blocks from Dave's apartment.

"You know, you're a lot less nervous around me than you were before," Sybill teased, poking him. Then, with a straight face, "it's because I'm wearing clothes now, isn't it?"

"No, although that's sad. It's kind of hard not to be nervous when you're talking to a gorgeous, naked girl with whom you might or might not have had sex the night before."

Sybill blushed. "Next time I get that drunk I'll have to remember to take notes."

"Well, you said you were in a better mood than you had been in years—that's got to be evidence we did something, right?"

"Or evidence we did something right," she replied, sticking out her tongue. What was she, sixteen? She had never really gotten the chance to interact with boys this way before.

"All I really know is that I have excellent taste in girls when I'm drunk. I wish I could go back in time and thank drunk me."

"Oh, you wouldn't remember because you were drunk so you wouldn't go insane from talking to yourself... no, the later you would be sober, so either both of you would have had to get drunk, and I would have taken advantage of you both, or else you would have just left a note."

"Wait... I'm not sure how I'd feel about that. Clearly I need to take you with me if I ever get access to a time machine, though, to avoid screwing something up."

"Oh, everyone says avoiding paradox is just a matter of common sense. You just want me along for the taking-advantage-of bit." She paused. "I never get to say things like that, ever. You don't really understand your life until you get to step back from it and do something else. I don't want to go back to that school, now, and pretend to be lots of things I'm not . . . I ought to, soon, though. I should start heading back to the train station shortly."

"Couldn't you find another place to work?"

Sybill looked pained. "It's complicated. I can't talk about it."

"That sounds really bad. Like, that alone sounds like a good reason to get out."

"I have my reasons. Merlin, I hate sounding mysterious like that. I really need to go."

"Merlin? What does that mean? Can I call you? Why was asking about that scary? I'm sorry! I didn't mean . . ."

"Oh, it's just a swear word I taught myself to avoid saying worse things in front of the children."

"I think that's not true, but I have no idea why it would matter." Dave frowned. "Seriously, though, I'd like to talk to you again. Even if you don't, you know, wind up in my bed again."

"Maybe I will come look for you the next time I'm in London, but I can't make any promises." She stood up. "I'll walk you back to your apartment, and then I insist on going."

"Okay. My number's in your pocket, if you want it."

"That's sweet of you, but you shouldn't count on me calling."

"Did I do something wrong?"

"What? No, you did everything right." She gave a small smile. "That's the problem. You made me very happy for a day, and now I have to go back to my life."

"Oh."

They walked in silence, holding hands, the rest of the way to his door.

She turned to face him. "I'm not going to come up. I really need to get going. Today was really nice. I know maybe going straight out to breakfast wasn't what you wanted to have happen . . . under other circumstances . . . I mean, when we were drunk, I don't feel sore, but I don't know why I woke up so happy. Um. I don't think I'm very good at this." She stepped up to him and, a bit awkwardly, leaned in to kiss him.

After a minute or so, she was crushing his lips against his teeth and squeezing him so tightly it hurt. And then she was trembling, and he felt her tears on his face. She let him go, looked into his eyes for a second, then turned and walked away as quickly as she could.